Jimfish

by Christopher Hope

  ‘When I asked, very gently, why I had not been consulted before he signed the deal, Deon explained my great good fortune to me.

  ‘“Not many people get the chance to change the world. And the world I’m talking about is the one that condemns white South Africans as incorrigible racists who despise black people. You will prove them wrong, my dear sister, by showing how eager we are to engage constructively with our African compatriots. In doing so, you will also improve our own balance of payments.”’

  Lunamiels’s eyes flashed, as they did when she was angry.

  ‘I must admit I was rather impatient and demanded to know how a girl from Port Pallid would improve anyone’s balance of payments.

  ‘“Perfectly simple,” said Deon. “The Congo of the Great Leopard has lots of cobalt, copper, cadmium, petroleum, diamonds, gold, bauxite and tin, just to mention some of its riches. For a percentage, I’ve arranged for you to engage with the Minister of Mines most constructively, day and night, and the idea excites him hugely.”

  ‘My brother had no sooner introduced me to the Minister of Mines than I understood the nature of this excitement, because he flung me down on a nearby bed, saying that he had always wanted a white South African woman. All this I suffered in the cause of constructive engagement and to show my white compatriots in a better light.’

  Jimfish again hugged her close, feeling within him the very first stirrings of anger.

  ‘My darling Lunamiel, a prisoner of this man’s lust! How long has this been going on?’

  But she reassured him sweetly. ‘Not long at all. Luckily for me, a few days later, the Minister of Mines died suddenly during a diamond dealers’ conference held here in the palace at Gbadolite.’

  ‘He had some sort of accident?’ asked Jimfish.

  Lunamiel sighed at the memory. ‘He was shot to death with poisoned arrows by a squadron of pygmies, which the Zairean army keeps for the purpose. But my relief did not last long. I soon discovered that I had been designated the bedfellow of the Minister of Education, who had arranged for his colleague’s accident in a very Zairean cabinet reshuffle.’

  ‘A godsend!’ Jimfish clapped his hands in relief. ‘Because education elevates the mind, as my dear teacher Soviet Malala used to say.’

  Lunamiel shook her head. ‘In Zaire, the Minister of Education is there to make sure nothing of the sort ever happens and he was constantly crushing student riots and closing the national university.’

  ‘How appalling!’ cried Jimfish.

  ‘Not entirely,’ Lunamiel explained gently. ‘This work took up a good deal of his day, as well as a considerable proportion of his nights, and I was spared his constant demands. But I had caught the eye of another high official, the secret American Advisor to the President. The Great Leopard has enjoyed American backing ever since he came to power, after eliminating Patrice Lumumba, the first elected leader of the Congo. Successive US presidents call him their very special African friend and vital ally against their enemies abroad, and give him bushels of money, as well as tons of guns.’

  Jimfish still felt rather relieved. ‘If the Americans are so fond of the Great Leopard, then you must have found a powerful protector in the secret agent.’

  Lunamiel sighed. ‘If only that were so. Instead, I was now the object of desire of the Minister of Education as well as the American and they could never agree on a timetable. My minister insisted that I was his sole property, under the terms of the contract made by my brother with the late Minister of Mines. But my American, who came from the Deep South, swore that the Bible forbids a white girl to cohabit with a black man and I owed it to God to sleep only with a white Christian.

  ‘Each rival vied with the other by mounting manly displays of strength and daring, hoping to impress me. My minister would take me to Lubumbashi University and make me watch as he dealt with rebellious students, whom he might shoot or blind or bury in pits, depending on his mood. Only to have my American admirer riposte with a display of the latest US chemical defoliants, to prove how easily he could devastate the forest for miles around. Or he’d call up a bombing raid on a village in the jungle. My minister would then up the ante by arranging a front-row seat for me at the public hanging of several high officials; an event preceded by marching bands and much revelry, and concluded, while the bodies were being taken down from the gallows, with caviar and pink champagne, as is the custom in the court of the Great Leopard. My American condemned this behaviour as cruel and barbaric, and countered by offering to take me home to his country, marry me in his evangelical church and give me a ringside seat at all executions by electric chair in his home state, which, apparently, boasted the world record.

  ‘Eventually, the two rivals agreed on a roster: they would enjoy me alternately, on a timeshare basis. So it was that I became my minister’s bedmate and nocturnal amusement over the weekends, from Friday to Sunday, when he rested from eradicating students and accompanied the Great Leopard to Sunday Mass, a ritual he never missed. But from Monday to Thursday it was agreed I would belong to my American.

  ‘But soon enough the rivals fell out. My minister insisted I remain his bedfellow right through Sunday night until Monday morning, whereas my God-fearing American, who punctiliously observed the Sabbath day of rest, demanded that I come to his bed on the stroke of Sunday midnight, as soon as the constraints of the Sabbath fell away. This argument has gone on for months and I have had the pleasure of escaping both rivals, while they quarrel over which of them has more favoured rights to my person.

  ‘Then, tonight, I saw on the television the arrival of the Great Leopard in his French needle-nosed supersonic jet, and who should step out of the aircraft but my own dear, darling Jimfish, with his tawny hair and his strange complexion, not white nor brown nor black but golden, whom I had last seen in the orchard, when we lay together on the red rug and my father beat you and would have shot you dead had he not tripped over his own feet. And so I sent my attendant to bring you to my apartments.’

  ‘And I am here and we are together again!’ Jimfish put his arms around his beloved Lunamiel.

  The kindly attendant, who had been Jimfish’s guide, slipped away, leaving the lovers to their happiness. Lunamiel drew Jimfish down beside her on the red sofa, their breathing quickened, their clothing loosened and they were soon as entangled as ever they had been in Sergeant Arlow’s orchard, when into the room there strode the Minister of Education, rampant with desire, for it was already late on Sunday night and he was keen to assert his right to Lunamiel’s delectable body before midnight struck and his timeshare ran out.

  CHAPTER 15

  ‘You two-faced, scheming, white South African bitch!’ yelled the Minister of Education. ‘Isn’t it enough that you screw that damn American five nights a week? Must I also share you with this human shrimp, this pale pastiche of a man?’

  And he hurled himself at Jimfish, beating him savagely, and would have killed him, as was his way when dealing with students who troubled him. Lunamiel let out a terrific wail, but Jimfish acted with a decisiveness that astonished them both: he pulled out the pearl-handled pistol from its python-skin holster – a gift of the Great Leopard – and calmly shot the minister, who fell dead on the sofa, bleeding everywhere.

  Jimfish apologized for the mess, but Lunamiel, ever practical, told him not to give it a second thought. The sofa was red, so was the minister’s blood, and the stains would hardly be noticed.

  ‘But what does worry me a bit is that the President’s gendarmes will arrive and find a close ally of the Great Leopard dead in my apartment. Then we’re done for.’

  Jimfish longed to know what Soviet Malala might have advised. When the Minister of Education had begun beating him, Jimfish thought he felt again, as he had done when Lunamiel was relating how she had been contracted to the lecherous Minister of Mines, a rising warmth, which he prayed might be a sign of the rage that is the rocket fuel of the lumpenproletariat. But his old teacher lay dead in faraway Ukraine, so he asked th
e kindly attendant, who had brought him to Lunamiel’s apartment, if she had an idea what they should do now?

  Just as she agreed to share her ideas with them, the clock struck midnight and into the room burst the American advisor, as rampant with desire for the luscious body of Lunamiel as had been his late rival, the Minister of Education. This American, hardened though he was by demonstrations of the damage defoliants do to fertile soils or cluster bombs to enemy farmers in the fields, was shocked to see the co-proprietor of his timeshare agreement to Lunamiel’s body stretched lifeless on the red sofa.

  Jimfish knew he had to act fast. The American was capable of pulling out a machine gun or calling in a bombing raid. Whispering to himself, ‘in for a penny, in for a pound,’ he shot the raging American between the eyes and saw him topple on to the sofa, where his blood mingled with that of his rival.

  Jimfish felt strangely relaxed, and he asked himself once again – as he had done when he saw the fawning henchmen of Nicolae Ceauşescu transformed into liberators of their country by the adroit application of a firing squad – whether it was not perhaps adaptability rather than anger, pragmatism and not principles, firepower and not fury that was the real rocket fuel of the lumpenproletariat? Or, for that matter, of just about anyone in possession of overwhelming force who proved fastest on the draw? In other words: was it not the case of murder first – and morality later?

  Lunamiel was frozen between terror and admiration. ‘I’d never have believed you could be so wild and angry. You’ve just shot two men dead without thinking twice.’

  Jimfish enjoyed a tremor of self-esteem, though he replied very modestly. ‘When you’ve worked as a bio-robot on the roof of a crippled nuclear reactor leaking radiation, and seen your friend and mentor executed by a drunken Ukrainian firing squad, you begin to get a little worked up. At least, I hope so.’

  Lunamiel’s kindly attendant now gave her views on their situation. ‘We will all be punished when the gendarmerie arrive. That is their way. We must get out of this appalling country, where the lives of women are hell.’

  ‘What are you saying?’ Jimfish asked. ‘The Great Leopard is the kindest of men. He has created, out of the old Belgian Congo, a free country where the shackles of European slavery have been thrown off, the very names of the old colonialists are forbidden and no one dares to wear a business suit. When he finds out how Lunamiel was bought and sold as the sex slave of a ruthless American agent, as well as a homicidal Minister of Education, not only will he open his heart to her, but also his Vuitton suitcase and shower her with wealth, as I have seen him do to his extended family.’

  ‘You are badly mistaken,’ said the dark lady. ‘Appealing to the Great Leopard will make things very much worse. When you hear my tale you will understand why. Our leader is an obsessive sexual maniac, a constant deflowerer of virgins, a compulsive adulterer and a wife-stealer.’

  ‘Are we are talking of the same man?’ Jimfish was flabbergasted. ‘Do you mean the President of Zaire, whose authentic tribal name of Mobutu Sese Seko Nkuku Ngbendu wa Za Banga actually means “The All-powerful, Earthy, Fiery Warrior Who, through His Endurance and Inflexible Will to Win, Moves from Conquest to Conquest, Trailing Fire in His Wake”?’

  ‘The very same,’ said his informant. ‘But those of us who speak his language translate his name in quite another way. We call him: “The Cockerel Who Screws All the Chicks in the Henhouse”. And I should know. I was once an innocent young girl from faraway Liberia, where my family betrothed me to an important Congolese entrepreneur, who promised them gold and diamonds and pink champagne. As it happened, this gentleman was the very same Minister of Mines you have heard so much about. Very soon after I arrived here, my husband deserted me and I was thrown on to the street. Marshal Mobutu decrees that divorce, desertion or cruelty are what women are destined for and he has made it an offence to protest. He encourages husbands to desert their wives on a whim, neglect their children and marry as often as they like. Our President also believes he has droit de seigneur, so he sleeps in turn with the wives of all his cabinet ministers and I happen to know your cherished Lunamiel is next on his list.’

  ‘Imagine that! Your late husband was the same man to whom my brother Deon offered me on long lease!’ Lunamiel shook her head in disbelief. ‘Luckily, he was shot to death by the squadron of pygmies kept by the Great Leopard for the purpose.’

  ‘It was a blessing for you, perhaps, but my luck ran out long ago,’ said the dark lady, dabbing away a tear with her silver veil. ‘After I was abandoned by my husband, I was targeted by bands of mutinous soldiers who had gone for months unpaid and took out their anger on women like me. I was made the plaything of pimps and used as bait by brothel-keepers. From the lovely young girl I had been when I came to the Congo, I crumbled into a wreck; my looks went, then my pride and my spirit. In the end I had no choice but to work as a servant, and when I saw this young white South African girl given as the other half of a timeshare contract to the late Minister of Education, I decided to save her from the horrors I had faced. After all, she was South African and clearly knew nothing at all about Africa. But then again, white South Africans, being the last of the employing classes, she would know how to treat domestic help with kindness. But her background and yours will be fatal when the marshal’s cruel gendamerie find us.’ The dark lady indicated the two bodies bleeding on the red sofa. ‘To have shot dead a minister in the cabinet of Marshal Mobutu is never a problem; he will be replaced in hours. But to have gunned down an American agent, when it is the Americans who have faithfully bankrolled the Great Leopard throughout his long reign as the King of the Congo, is asking for trouble. Let’s go – and quickly!’

  ‘But where can we go – and how?’ asked Lunamiel.

  ‘Come with me,’ said the dark lady. ‘In the garages of the Great Leopard is a fleet of limousines, keys in the ignition, the petrol tanks full. Each is ready to roll because no one knows which the President may choose or when he may have to leave in a hurry.’

  CHAPTER 16

  After inspecting the fleet of limousines in the presidential garage, they chose – on the advice of Lunamiel’s knowledgeable servant – a Mercedes-Benz S600 Pullman. It was a vast black vehicle with creamy leather seats, walnut dashboard and a bar stocked with pink champagne. Its passenger windows were hung with heavy curtains that gave it the look of a catafalque on wheels.

  The dark lady knew all about these splendid machines and their reputation for reliability amongst self-respecting leaders, who risked their lives to bring peace and stability to their often ungrateful peoples.

  ‘Nicolae Ceauşescu it was who told Marshal Mobutu that if he wished to travel in a style commensurate with his majesty, then only the Mercedes Pullman would do. It is the limo of choice among serious big men around the planet, from Marshal Tito and Mao Zedong, to the Shah of Persia. Colonel Gaddafi, Guide and Leader of Libya, hands them out as gifts, and my own President Samuel Doe, liberator of Liberia, owns half a dozen. I’ve even heard that Erich Honecker of East Germany liked to hunt deer by the strength of its headlights.’

  Jimfish was dumbfounded by the sheer immensity of the limousine. ‘If we’re using it to escape, why not take something a bit less conspicuous?’

  ‘Size isn’t everything,’ the lady agreed. ‘But this Mercedes is also bullet-proof and that’s very important indeed.’

  She turned out to be even wiser than Jimfish had imagined. On their journey through Zaire they were fired upon several times by gangs of soldiers who roamed the countryside, demanding bribes, robbing, raping and pillaging, but their armour-plated automobile shrugged off bullets as a buffalo does flies.

  As they rolled along the potholed roads, in between attacks and ambushes, Lunamiel’s attendant told them her story.

  ‘You wouldn’t think so to look at me, but I am a princess of the Krahn tribe. Our people were local and truly at home in a part of Africa which later came to be called Liberia, when American settlers arrived, unasked, an
d took over. These new arrivals never amounted to more than a fraction of the original people of Liberia, but they ran our country as a one-party state. They saw to it that Americans and only Americans ruled the roost, and treated us as dunces or domestic servants.’

  Jimfish remembered how things were done in Port Pallid, where Sergeant Arlow’s wife Gloriosa – so unfortunately blown to smithereens as she and her husband attended Sunday service – had kept not just a retinue of retainers for everything from cooking to the act of conception, but had even assigned separate servants to each hand when her fingernails needed care. Did he at last feel stirring within him the elements of what he hoped might be the heat that ignites to form the rage that is the rocket fuel of the lumpenproletariat? Certainly a painful longing for home took hold of him.

  ‘I know exactly what you mean! We had the very same in my country. In our case it was whites who ruled the roost, though they amounted to a fraction of the population. They were arrogant, stupid, lazy latecomers to Africa, colonialists, imperialists and slave-drivers, who saw themselves as God’s privileged people.’

  ‘It was something like that,’ said the dark lady. ‘Except that our American invaders were black and not white. They were freed slaves or their descendants, whose relatives had been shipped from Africa to work the cotton fields of the southern states and now came back to the Mother Continent to lord it over real Africans. When we rebelled they punished us and ordered us to enjoy the liberty they had brought to (their name, not ours) “Liberia”.’

  ‘Well, I suppose,’ said the kindly Lunamiel, ‘that by freeing their slaves and transporting them back home the Americans thought they were being kind.’

  ‘I dare say,’ their attendant nodded. ‘But in my experience Americans are never more dangerous than when doing good. Especially when they go to war in order to save those less fortunate than themselves. Naturally, we real Africans didn’t like their attitude. My tribe, the Krahn, had never accepted slavery. When others around us fell to the slavers, the Krahn would kill themselves rather than be sold and shipped to the USA. It was my Krahn people who produced a saviour who threw off decades of Americo-Liberian hegemony. Our very own Master Sergeant Samuel Doe bravely attacked the presidential palace one night some ten years ago and killed President William Tolbert, who led a regime full of those we called “settler-class people”, while they called us “country people”. Some say that, perhaps, Master Sergeant Doe should not have gone on to murder President Tolbert’s ministers – that shooting thirteen of them, soon after the coup, was taking things a bit far. But you must understand we were still feeling our way.’