Leslie sidled over to it cautiously and stared down for a moment.
“Shit.” She looked at Maureen. “Can you do that every time?” She looked down. “Shit.”
“No, I can’t.” Maureen’s face was a portrait of grief. “Sometimes they don’t even die. They used to go up like firecrackers. When I was eight, there wasn’t a fly within a mile of our house. I went out back, said ‘bang’ and it would sound like the Fourth of July. I didn’t need to see them; I didn’t even have to know they were there, but now—this.” She pointed at the ash.
“You killed that fly. Do you know how incredible that is? You’re a phenomenon. People will want to study you. We can make lots of money. We’ll be more famous than rock stars.” Leslie whirled gleefully.
“No! Why do you think you’re the first to know? Sit down for a second and figure this out. Do you think I want to be a freak? No way! It’s a secret. Only you and I can know.” They moved to the window seat. The bottom panes were frosted to prevent people from looking into the second story bathroom, but the upper panes provided a good view of the commons area. “Besides, at this rate in a few months I won’t be able to do it at all.”
“So what’s the problem? Most people I know can’t kill flies that way and they’re happy. Black Flag works fine for them.”
“Very funny.”
“I wasn’t trying to be funny. You have a strange skill and it’s going away. People live all over who can’t point their fingers at things and make them die. I don’t see the big fuss.”
“The fuss is that I used to be able to do it. It made me different. Some girls can sing. You can play the piano; some are good at English or Math; some are great dancers. This is what made me unique. It gave me power that no one else had.” She put her head down again. “And now it’s going away. I’ll just be a stupid twelve-year-old at this stupid finishing school.”
Another fly, blissfully unaware, buzzed like an airborn rollercoaster in front of them.
“Bang.” It stuttered in the air and fell stunned, on its back, to the floor. Seconds later it started spiraling its legs. Maureen pointed and concentrated mightily.
“Bang.”
This time it puffed into a tiny cloud making a discernable pop, like someone snapping a bubble of chewing gum.
“I don’t suppose you could teach me to do that?”
Leslie gazed at Maureen, who stared back blankly.
“I suppose not. Oh well. Let’s take a walk. Maybe something will occur to us. If you want, we can go down to Dairy Queen, and I’ll buy us chocolate malts.”
They cracked open the bathroom door, checked both ways to make sure it was clear, particularly of Mr. Haverson, who constantly wandered the hallways, and dashed for the front doors. Ten minutes later the two young ladies were seated with malts in front of them. A group of boys from the junior high were in a back booth joking about football practice. The rest of the store was empty so they had chosen a table on the other side of them.
“What are you going to do if you can’t kill them any more?”
“That’s why I wanted to talk to you. Like Mrs. Fennimore says ‘You must put things in perspective.’ But its just not that, Leslie. Everything is changing. Can’t you feel it?” Maureen shrugged her shoulders together as if in the grip of a sudden chill. “I mean you and me, and all the girls in the school. We’re going apart. We’re coming apart. I don’t know what it is but I don’t feel good any more. Losing this thing…” She held up her pointed finger like it wasn’t really a part of her—like it was an alien artifact whose function she didn’t understand. “… is only a side of it. What is happening?”
She sucked up an inch of malt. “I need perspective. Does this mean I’m dying? Will my health go next?”
Leslie looked at Maureen’s drink. “Your appetite seems good.” Leslie laughed, inviting Maureen to join her.
For a moment she held it in, but then she laughed too. “Do you have a temperature?”
“No.” She wiped her face with her sleeve.
“Have you had any hallucinations? Imagined you were Joan of Arc or Queen Victoria?”
“No, of course not.”
“Have you felt an urge to steal dresses off the racks or wear your underwear outside your clothes?”
“Ugh.”
“All right then. You’re not physically sick, and mentally you seem fine. What you need to do then is count up what you’ve got going for you.”
“Like?”
“You’re rich, right?”
“Not really. Dad owns a couple of Mercedes dealerships.”
“Come on.”
“Okay. I’m rich.”
“You’re going to graduate from this dump at the end of this year, right?”
“Yes.”
“You’re probably going to a really nice private junior high like Kingshill, right?”
“Actually, no. Chivingsworth.” Maureen looked much better now, her composure restored as she got caught in her friend’s natural good humor.
“Ooh. I’m impressed.” Leslie took a swallow from her own drink. The boys brayed explosively at some obsenity and she cast a disgusted glance in their direction. “That’s plenty nice enough. So your future is set, right?”
“Right.”
“Besides, has it occurred to you that this one power may be going away so that a better one can come along? Say, an ability to fly, or be invisible, or something really awesome?”
Maureen turned the idea over in her mind momentarily. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
Leslie leaned over the table, locked eyes with her friend and said, “There’s power, and then there’s power. Not all changes have to be bad. Maybe you ought to just wait and see what pops up.”
Maureen contemplated this concept for a bit as they finished off their malts.
Just as they were standing, two of the boys sauntered away from their group and positioned themselves at the end of the girl’s table. One was quite a bit shorter than the other, and both were wearing blue T-shirts with “Knights Football Team” in white on them.
“Excuse me. You’re from the finishing school aren’t you?” said the taller one as he pushed a lock of dark hair from his forehead.
Leslie looked him over coolly. “Yes. Who would like to know?”
The shorter one glanced up at the taller one with an ‘I told you so’ kind of expression.
“Oh, I’m sorry. My name’s Jeff and this is Mark.”
Jeff rushed through his next words. His buddies were all staring at them from their booth across the way, snickering. “Um, we’re on the football team. At the junior high, you know, and we’re sponsoring a dance to raise money—for helmets—and like, we were wondering if you two would like to go.” Leslie and Maureen looked at them expectantly. “To the dance I mean, with us. It’s Saturday in the gymnasium.”
Neither young woman said a word. They sat primly, backs straight, expressions severe, judgmental, as if they were dealing with a lower life form.
“You don’t have to if you don’t want to, and this is probably a surprise since you don’t know us or anything.”
Maureen said, “Thank you. We’ll talk about it.”
The boys looked disappointed for a second, then the short one said, “If you want to go, Jeff and I will be in here tomorrow after school and you can meet us for a coke or fries or something.”
“Perhaps.”
Leslie added, “We might, and then we might not. We’ll have to think about it for a while.”
“Fine. We’ll see you tomorrow then maybe.” They backed up a step each, turned, and marched deliberately to their friends. When they sat down they all began to talk in a low buzz.
“God, do you believe that, Maureen?” Leslie’s eyes were glittering.
“No way am I going to a dance with those guys.”
“The tall one was kind of cute.”
“You really think so, Leslie? He was so sweaty.”
Maureen screwed up her face like
she had swallowed something distasteful.
“I think I like sweat.”
“Gross!” Maureen squealed. “Well, what do you want to do?” she said. The boys got up then and walked out. As they went by, Jeff and Mark said goodbye politely, but the rest poked each other in the ribs, saying things like “Nice legs,” and “Oooh baby.” The door finally wheezed shut behind them.
“Of course boys can be pests too,” said Leslie.
“Just like flies.”
They watched the group walk down the sidewalk, then turned to each other and Leslie said, “Obviously, those two are desperate for a date, or they wouldn’t have asked us, a pair of strangers, to the dance. We could go with them and make their day,” she paused, “or we could say no and break their hearts. There’s power and then there’s power. It’s something to think about.”
Maureen considered her reflection in the window superimposed on the retreating boys. “You’re right. Not all changes have to be bad.” There was a moment of silent meditation as that concept sunk in, as they thought about not just these boys, but without realizing it, on a perfect subconscious level, all the boys in their futures.
Then they whispered it together, knowingly:
“Bang.”
THE SAINT FROM ABDIJAN
They say the port of Abidjan is beautiful with new buildings—a bustling, modern city—but when the tugs pulled the cacao freighter in I saw nothing but a long, filthy gray steel deck an inch from my eye. I couldn’t raise my head. I missed the horror in the interior. If I’d looked closely, would I have seen Seydou’s hand on my elbow? Could I have stopped myself from being the tool?
From the time we’d hit the deep sea swell out of Melbourne I’d been sick, and by the trip’s end I was reduced to dragging the thin mattress the Liberan first mate had begrudged me from one slip of shade to the next. The air smelled African hot, but it was cooler than in the hold. No relief, though, now the trip was almost done: the ship’s queasy pitching had been exchanged for uneven pulls from the two tugs.
It made me think of Ireland’s St. Brendan who fifteen hundred years ago wrote a book called Navigation describing his search for the Isle of the Blessed. Some people claimed Brendan discovered the Americas, but he never wrote about sea sickness, so I think he made it up.
I clamped my teeth tight on lunch from three days earlier, and concentrated on remembering I was going to Seguela’s diamond fields to save lives. We’d heard rumor of children toiling in the pits, digging with pikes and shovels for starvation wages. So I told my friends goodbye at Greenpeace Australia where I’d been interning and caught an empty freighter bound for Cote d’Ivorie and the port of Abidjan. You’re too young, they said, too inexperienced. Real activism, I told them, is an individual affair. They shook their heads, thinking my idealism hung on my sleeve. Among the fanatics, I stood out, but I’d always been that way. In first grade I collected crushed aluminum for the poor. My favorite magazine in middle school was the Red Cross’s in-house newsletter. The knowledge someone somewhere is suffering keeps me awake at night. Nothing is distant for me. It’s next door. It’s not religion. I’m not religious, but all my heros are saints.
He’ll mellow when he turns thirty, one said. But somebody has to record abuses. My cameras were buried deep in my duffle, along with a tape recorder and notebooks.
Immigration gave me a bother about my passport—too many stamps in six months. The introductory letter from Human Rights International didn’t carry any weight; neither did the pledge of cooperation from the Seguelan authorities, so I convinced them with smiles that a terrorist or drug runner would not go from America to Greenland to Brazil to Australia and then to Africa. A little cash under the table could have saved me twelve hours, but I preferred not to contribute to civil corruption. They interrogated me in an air-conditioned office high above the street. Everyone behaved civilly, very proper. Gray three-piece suits over white shirts. Red ties. “Stay out of Treichville and Adjame after dark. There are muggers,” the cinder-black custom’s official told me in French much better than mine as he handed back my visa. “What do you hope to do in Seguela?”
“Photojournalism.”
“Watch for the old people.” He grinned politely, white teeth flickering, as he okayed my papers.
I must have looked puzzled.
“Old people. The traditionals. We are near upon Dipri, the new year celebration. It’s a time for magical powers. There will be panther men.”
A dozen skyscrapers blocked the noon light in the window behind him. Even through soundproofed glass, the afternoon traffic rumbled. This was modern Africa, the former Ivory Coast, among the most progressive nations on the continent. Poverty I expected, crime too, but not superstition. I nodded my head and thanked him, almost falling when I stood up. Funny, now I walked on land, the Earth still moved.
A train took me from Abdijan inward to Yamousoukro, about a three hour trip, which I thought would be a pleasant change from the freighter, but brightly dressed Ivorians overcrowded the car, the women in bold printed blouses; the men’s shirts unbuttoned to mid-chest. The windows were down, blowing in swampy air, hot as a sauna, like a steaming washcloth across the face. I breathed through my mouth, pressed between two huge women on a bench seat built for two. The one on my left languidly dipped her hand into a paper bag between her legs to dig out what looked like a dollop of peanut butter and smelled like rancid banana, then smeared it on her gums. She sucked at it for a while before going back to the bag. The one on my right lolled off to sleep as the train pulled from the station and fell against me. For charity’s sake, I supported her. She’d have flopped right to the floor if I moved.
From Yamousoukro, I took a two-hour bus ride to Bouaflé, where a representative from Seguela was supposed to meet me, but he didn’t show up. I decided to wait. The saints were patient. Many worked for years without success. Like St. Francis de Sales, they persevered. In 1600 he decided to convert 60,000 Swedish Calvinists. He brought 40,000 back to the church. I made my duffle into a pillow and rested. By then, late in the evening, there was no transport north until morning. I slept on the depot’s floor between a wall and a bamboo baggage cart. Something in a suitcase a foot from my head kept slithering. I drifted off anyway.
My contact found me in the morning. “Mr. Andrew Baily, of the bleeding heart liberal press, I presume,” he said pleasantly in English with a French accent. I saw his clay-coated boots first. He crouched before me, soiled blue jeans tucked into the boots, flannel shirt without sleeves straining to hold in his gut, sun-leathered face, maybe forty, sunglasses, a Cleveland Indians baseball cap. Brown teeth. “I am Marcel Devoe, of the blood sucking, imperialist European diamond cartel. Assistant to the assistant crew chief for Seguela mining. Can I get you some breakfast?”
He treated me to kedjenou, a chicken and vegetable jumble sealed and cooked in banana leaves. We ate in the depot’s café, sitting in bright orange, molded plastic chairs.
Devoe said, “This is not a good time for you to come. The celebration days are here, and the Mandés and the Wè tribesmen get lazy. They’re from Ghana, you know. No work there. They dig slower the closer we get to La Fête de Diamants.”
I raised my eyebrows.
He struggled for an English word, “A holiday… a vacation day… I do not know the word. On the new year’s day, the employees can keep one diamond they find. It’s a tradition from the DeBeer time.”
“That’s generous,” I said through a kedjenou mouthful. “A diamond for each.”
He smiled. His teeth were discolored.
“No, no, no. One diamond for all, the best one, except the Seguela mines have given nothing but industrial grade stones for years. Still, they hope for another Light of Peace.” He dismissed the hope for a worthwhile diamond with a derisive snort.
“I don’t know that one.”
“The last big stone, 434 carats in the rough, found in Sierra Leone thirty years ago. Nothing like the Cullinan, 3,106 carats, or the Excel
sior at 995 carats. You’d think that must be huge. It’s not! The Cullinan was no bigger than a woman’s fist, a little glass potato. But who dreams of those? Diamond mining is ditch digging. So many hundred ore buckets produce so many tiny, flawed stones, only good for saw blades and polishing dust. No, the real money is in production, and the workers give up a good day to hunt for a grand gem to retire on. Listen to them; they already know what color BMW they will park in garages they don’t have. Every hut with a TV and microwave. Stupid workers. If they found such a stone, what makes them think the company would let them keep it?”
“Wouldn’t they?”
He shook his head, as if his mind already lingered on different things. Perhaps he mourned the lost work day.
His car, a rusty little coupé with a Korean name I didn’t recognize, rattled at even low speeds and had no shocks, so every pebble jarred us as we drove north. The de la Maraoué National Forest passed to our west, an impenetrable leafy wall exuding green smells and piercing monkey shrieks. To the east, though, stretched flooded coffee fields punctuated with occasional tin-roofed sheds as far as I could see. Devoe rolled a joint with one hand and held it out to me. I shook my head. He said, “I’m supposed to offer you a bribe, too, so you will write pleasing articles. It’s standard procedure. Money? Drugs? Women? No? Well, I thought not.” He didn’t look surprised or upset.
He waved toward the jungle. “There’s a fortune in timber in there. If you bleeding hearts would leave us alone, we’d be rich men. The entire country used to look like that, impassable with trees. Gold mines with bark.” He pointed his chin at the fields as we passed five children sitting by the road, their black skin splotchy with mud. “Money when they knocked the trees down, and crop money every year since.”
I bit my tongue. My friends were involved in efforts to save the rainforest.
Soon the road climbed as we left behind both the fields and jungle, although vegetation choked every little valley and ravine. Savanna grass covered the hills. Dispirited telephone poles drooped with power lines for many miles, but they vanished behind as the car clattered on. We passed through villages, houses no more than plywood leaning on beat-up frames beneath ubiquitous metal roofs. But I also saw long expensive fences, and winding driveways, leading to beautiful ranch houses, their windows glittering in the mid-morning sun.
Flying in the Heart of the Lafayette Escadrille Page 27