by PJ Skinner
‘Yes, that’s true. Well the latest container of supplies is being held for ransom by the customs agents in Mondongo and Black hates to pay a bribe. Anyway, Ewen’s okay really. He doesn’t say much unless he's drunk and then he mumbles and his Scots accent gets worse. He’s a big hit with the ladies.’
‘Just my luck,'
‘Also you'll have to move into a room in my house because Jorge’s wife is arriving in Kardo to stay. They’re going to move her into your house.’
‘What?’
‘Again, I’m sorry. The truth is that Jorge isn't entitled to his own house as a mining foreman, but his long service to the company and his indispensable talents have earned him favours with Black that annoy many of the other senior staff, not just you. Jorge’s wife has decided that since Jorge is retiring soon, she wants to make sure that none of the girls get their claws into him at the last minute, robbing her of her pension. I don’t blame her but it means that you'll have to live with Ewen. To make matters worse for you, Black is due to arrive in Kardo shortly after I leave, so you’ll be living with him as well, as his room is always kept ready in my house.’
Sam covered her horror at the change in her living arrangements with the best grace she could muster. She realised that it would only be until Jim came back and it was not his fault.
‘So what’s the good news? It needs to be pretty good after that I can tell you.’
‘I think you’ll approve. There were five thousand carats in the picking cabinet yesterday. It is a new record production for one day’s picking and they haven’t even finished all the concentrate yet.’
‘Wow, so that means one hundred percent bonuses for the Kardo staff. That’s great news.’
‘Not just for them. The accounts department in Mondongo have decided that since you're at Kardo you’ll also receive a pro-rata bonus for the days that you’ve been here this month.’
Sam felt something approaching ecstasy. She could imagine the money stacking up in her bank account in London with great clarity. That was motivation enough for her to stick it out for six months.
‘Thank you, Jim. I’m so happy.’
‘You are welcome. Oh, by the way, that means another diamond export for you on next Saturday.’
‘Okay.’
Sam had no complaints. She was visualizing her money. Lying on the sofa listening to music that evening, she got her first mosquito bite. She usually sprayed herself with repellent from head to foot in the evening because half of the mosquitoes in Kardo carried malaria. She was annoyed at herself for being careless. The prevalence of malaria in the town was evidenced by the number of working days lost to it. No one else at Gemsite took any precautions against malaria at all. They all wore shorts, didn’t take any medicine and slept without mosquito nets.
Sam suspected that having malaria was the only way they could get any time off work, so they did not mind getting it. Almost the first thing that she was told when she got to Mondongo was ‘You will get malaria. Everybody gets malaria.’ The only protection offered by the company was some low grade, useless repellent, issued to them when it was available, and that was all. It was worse than useless against cerebral malaria. Sam had brought some jungle grade repellent containing fifty percent DEET from the UK, and she could almost hear the mosquitos veering away when they smelt it on her. She went to shower and watched the red dust run off her body like blood down the plughole.
On Sunday, Dirk and Sam borrowed a truck and went fishing at Gali. Jim was the most relaxed general manager of the Gemsite mines when it came to free time. On Sundays when a lot of maintenance was going on and the machinery had to be shut down, he often let the staff have a day off. The only choices for entertainment during their free time were drinking, watching the single television, or fishing.
The television was used almost exclusively for watching sports. The most senior person present would choose the football match. This was often Jim, who supported Liverpool. This caused conflict with the South African crew who preferred rugby.
Under Black’s rule, no one was allowed to go fishing because he thought everyone was trying to steal his diamonds from the rivers. But Jim turned a blind eye. Fishing parties always contained members of the internal security personnel, so it was unlikely anyone would try to look for a diamond with that sort of supervision. Also, the chances of finding one were miniscule.
They stopped at one of the river terraces where hippopotamus tracks crossed the dykes. It was a sunny afternoon. The still lagoons at Gali glistened gold and green. Long reeds stood stiff in the damp banks. Massive dragonflies flew through the air and settled on the banks, the reeds and each other, stacking up like aircraft outside Heathrow.
Sam sat on a stone and did some painting. Dirk thrashed around in the undergrowth along the riverbank, casting with vigour and resembling the tiger fish he was trying to catch. After missing two or three bites, he caught a small tiger fish that Sam used as a model for a painting.
‘Wow, that's very beautiful,’ said Sam. ‘It has a mouth like a piranha. They could bite through fishing line.’
‘You don’t know the half of it,’ said Dirk. ‘They can grow up to two metres long.’
She placed the fish on a cooler and copied it on a piece of paper. She painted the sea-green/bluish sheen of its scales and its pearl white belly. She concentrated on getting the brown fins shading to strong yellow and then bright scarlet at the tips. She made the ragged ends of the fins look like those on Siamese fighting fish.
Dirk went further along the bank, and Sam did more painting. When she put down her brush, she focused on her surroundings. She was sitting on a mud beach at the river’s edge. There were crocodile prints in the mud underneath her seat, ranging from tiny cute ones to very big not-at-all-cute ones. What if a big crocodile had crept up on her as she sat absorbed in her paintings and taken her into the water? Shit. She walked over to the pickup truck.
When Dirk came back carrying a small catfish, which hissed and spluttered in fury, she was leaning on the bonnet smoking one of his cigarettes, ready to leap into the pickup at the slightest noise.
‘You okay?’ he asked.
‘Yes, I just noticed that I was sitting on a bank with some massive crocodile prints on it. Gave me a hell of a fright.’
‘They do say that no one sees the crocodile that gets them.’
‘That’s not really very reassuring.’
‘Ha! I know, I was just kidding.’
‘Not funny.’
He grabbed her and gave her a squeeze. Sam planned to consummate her platonic relationship with Dirk. It would be less difficult to sleep if she had a man in her bed. It would be nice to have regular sex, even with someone she suspected would make love like a jack rabbit. She stifled a giggle as she thought about it. At least someone liked her; no need to put him off, too.
Being with Dirk would also chase away the isolation she felt in the office, where she had almost nothing to do. Black had dropped her right in it by not giving her an official role at Kardo. She had no set duties and no status in the group, giving her colleagues ample opportunity to snub her attempts to get involved in production work.
As they got back into the pickup, two little boys appeared out of the reeds at the side of the road. They were thin and dirty with dusty hair. She called out to the boys, who stood frozen in panic on the red dirt track. ‘Bom dia.’
They both chorused it back, flashing big, scared smiles. But they looked like they were ready to run away at any moment. The smaller boy tugged at the larger boy’s arm in agitation. Sam now recognised them as the boys who often stood outside the canteen and begged for food. She had developed a habit of dropping food ‘by mistake’ as she left after lunch. She knew they recognised her, too, but they showed no inclination to approach.
‘What’s wrong with them?' she asked Dirk.
‘Nothing. Just scared.'
‘Why?'
‘They can get beaten for being on the concession area.'
‘So what are they doing here?'
‘Adults use them for mining the vertical tunnels or shafts into the bottom gravel where the diamonds are. The shafts bell out at the bottom to take the maximum gravel possible out of the same shaft. Being small makes it easier to excavate the gravel out to the sides of the vertical shaft and under the barren gravels.'
‘Jesus. Isn’t that incredibly dangerous?’
‘The tunnels collapse all the time. Sometimes the kids manage to scramble out and sometimes they're buried alive.’
‘Poor little buggers. That’s dreadful. They look so thin. Give me the fish.’
‘Black doesn’t like us to feed them. We could get in trouble.’
‘I’ll take the blame. Remember, I'm an ignorant newcomer and have no idea we can’t give food to the locals.’
Dirk took the fish out of his bag and handed them to Sam. They had lost their colour and did not look very appetising. The small catfish was still alive. It squirmed and hissed and almost wriggled out of her grasp. She proffered the fish to the boys. They looked suspiciously at them and took a couple of steps forward.
‘For you,’ said Sam in Portuguese.
The larger of the boys darted forward and grabbed the fish. They ran off a short distance and then stopped and looked backwards. She beamed at them and waved.
‘Obrigado,’ yelled the older boy, and they scampered off, their bare feet splashing in the wet road, sending streams of red mud up their skinny legs.
***
In Mondongo, General Fuego had been summoned for a drink at the President’s house. They sat in the President’s study, which overlooked the city. The two men were in leather armchairs, which had been designed for bigger bodies. It was very relaxing, and they sighed in appreciation, even as they both struggled to reach their glasses of whisky, perched on the glass coffee table between the chairs.
General Fuego was the first to break the convivial silence. ‘How can I help you, Mr President?’
‘I still need those diamond production numbers. I want you to get me information about Gemsite from that woman. I’m sure she knows what the numbers are by now. She’s a geologist, isn’t she?’
‘Yes, I believe so. I'm having a lunch party next weekend at my beach house. I believe that production is very good and that there is another export on Friday. Perhaps I can invite Sam to stay at the beach?’
‘That’s more like it. How could she possibly object to staying at a nice house with charming people and eating delicious food?’
‘It will be a lot better than the muck they eat at Kardo, that’s for sure. I know she likes lobster. I will make sure to buy some.’
‘And pour drink down her throat, Fuego. Flatter her, seduce her; I don’t care how you do it. I want to know what those bastards are hiding. There is nothing honest about our Mr Black, and I want to know what’s going on.’
‘If Sam comes on Friday, I will get Eduardo to pick her up from the bank when she deposits the diamonds.’
‘Excellent. How about another whisky? My wife has made some excellent cod stew for us, too.’
***
On Friday night, there was a production party at the prefabs where the workers lived, to celebrate the one hundred percent bonus earned for the August diamond production. Grey’s Security had run over a large crocodile, about four metres long, which crossed the road in front of them at Tunde the night before. They had to shoot it due to its injuries, so there were croc steak sandwiches in the bar that night.
When faced with the choice between a tender, if ripe, filet steak and fried onion butty and a tough overcooked piece of ancient crocodile, Sam's hunger got the better of her curiosity. But there were plenty of takers for the crocodile. Some people were still chewing when they went to bed.
The girls organised silly games, including one in which they snatched carrots tied around the men’s waists in a rude version of musical chairs. Everyone got very drunk. Dirk got jealous and grumpy when some of the drunker members of the management team forgot that they had to all intents and purposes sent Sam to Coventry and started flirting and trying to get her to dance with them.
Sam called Dirk over and whispered in his ear. She felt horny and decided that they had procrastinated long enough. Dirk cheered up, and a smug expression appeared on his face. He tried to kiss her but Sam moved out of the way. Public displays of affection were definitely taboo.
Suddenly, she felt great. Dutch courage was having its effect.
Jorge had been watching her from one of the tables and came over in a determined manner.
‘Sam, I need to talk to you. Now.’
‘For God’s sake, Jorge, now is not a good time. Let’s do this tomorrow, okay?’ She was not in the mood for a lecture and muttered ‘tomorrow’ in Portuguese a couple of times.
Jorge would not be put off. He pulled Sam away from the party and sat her down on the steps to the porch of one of the nearby houses.
‘Sam,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry to drag you away from the party but I have to tell you something right now.’
‘Can’t it wait?’
‘No, I’m afraid it can’t. I wanted to tell you sooner, but I wasn’t sure how far it had gone.’
‘How far what had gone? What are you talking about?’
‘It’s Dirk. Have you slept with him?’
‘No, but I was about to when you called me over.’
‘You mustn’t. It would be a mistake.’
Sam was not sober and she totally misinterpreted Jorge’s motives.
‘I like Dirk, and I don’t like you. Not that way anyway. You can’t stop me. I’m a grown-up.’ She tried to flounce off.
Jorge grabbed her arm. ‘No, you don’t understand,’ he pleaded. ‘I’m trying to stop you from getting hurt.’
‘Hurt? I don’t think it’s any of your business.’
‘Oh, it is. I have a bet on you.’
‘What did you say?’
‘They're running a book on who will sleep with you first and when. Dirk stands to win a lot of money if he sleeps with you. He doesn’t really like you. He just wants to win the bet.’
Sam froze. Jorge waited for her to talk.
She sat down again, hard. She looked up at Jorge. ‘He has a bet on himself?’
‘Yes, and he expects to win it tonight. He’s been telling everyone who will listen.’ Jorge could hardly look Sam in the eye.
Her hard-won confidence evaporated like the water off a boiled egg. She stood up, wobbling with drink.
‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘Nice to know who your friends are. I'm going to give him a Glasgow kiss.’
‘A kiss?'
‘Not that sort of kiss, Jorge. You’ll see.’
Sam stomped back across to the party. She pushed her way into a throng of people near the drinks table. Dirk stood there talking to one of the local girls. He looked up. A lazy smile crossed his face.
He stumbled over to Sam.
‘Are you ready to go now?’
Sam tried to head-butt him but swayed at the crucial moment and hit his shoulder with her forehead.
‘Ow!’ he shouted. ‘What the hell, Sam?’
‘You bastard. I thought you were my friend.’
He looked dazed. ‘But I am.’
‘No, you’re not. You're a pig like all the others. I hate you.’
‘But what have I done?’ Then the expression on his face turned from surprise to remorse, just when Sam was wavering.
‘Bastard,’ she said again and dredged up the dignity to leave the field of battle without another word. Her withdrawal did not cause any comment, as everyone was too drunk to notice what had just happened. She felt so betrayed. She really fell for that old trick? What an idiot.
One thing was for sure now. She did have a friend in Kardo, but it wasn’t Dirk. She would not let them defeat her. Never.
VIII
The next morning, Sam felt like she had been hit by a train. The combination of drink and shame was not ideal, as she had to get up
before dawn to go down to the recovery plant to do the diamond export to Mondongo again. There was not much for her to do in Kardo, so sending her to Mondongo with the diamonds meant that one of the security men, who were in short supply, did not have to go instead. She knew she had to do whatever was necessary to stay in Black’s good books and that everything she did got back to him. She also needed to get out of camp to avoid seeing Dirk.
‘Jim, I’m shattered. Do you think that I could take Saturday off in Mondongo to see the sights and come back on Sunday instead?'
‘Sure,’ Jim laughed. 'But you won’t need a whole day for that. Off with you then, and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.’
Sam thought there was little chance of that, seeing as her only hope for a bit of entertainment, Pedro, was on a short leave and she was not sure when he would be back. However, the prospect of a nice day at the beach with some of the other staff cheered her up.
The SDM representatives arrived on time. They finished the weigh-up and put the diamonds in the small safe for transportation to Mondongo. Then they got into their vehicles in the convoy and shot off to the airport with the usual pandemonium ensuing. As soon as they got there, they were ushered onto the plane and strapped in, and the doors were locked.
The plane taxied up the runway for take-off. Sam felt the anticipation in her stomach and held on to the edges of her seat. Then the engines cut out and the co-pilot came through the small door from the flight deck to tell them that they could not take off yet because there was a problem. The President of Tamazia was at Mondongo airport on his way to South Africa. The airport was always shut to other aircraft when the president was passing through because of the intense security surrounding him.
The aircraft sat on the ground for an hour and a half, a sitting target on the runway at Kardo. There were no security guards at the airport. They had all left after delivering Sam and her companions to the aircraft. The plane was carrying more diamonds than usual because of the record production. Sam hoped that MARFO rebels were not in the vicinity. Her mood was not improved by the fact that she and the other passengers were being broiled in the airless cargo hold and they had nothing to drink.