by Giles Foden
She smiled at Juma, the local security guard on duty. His job was to receive visitors and to register cars as they came in and out. As usual, he was looking at the CCTV camera that was permanently trained on his booth and the vehicle boom next to it. Juma was known for gazing at the gizmo’s little black eye with alarming frequency: as if he were the audience rather than the subject. The Gunnery Sergeant’s men – Corporal Rossetti and the other members of the MSG – monitored these outer booths through such cameras. From time to time they had had to gently remind poor Juma that he was there to screen visitors to the complex, not to imagine himself on screen in some sort of action adventure. It struck her Nick was a bit like that – all that nonsense about living dangerously.
Miranda suspected that Juma’s habit came from a fascination with the videos that were sometimes shown by the embassy’s film society. Though it sounded grand and art-housey, in reality stuff like Die Hard and Lethal Weapon was the staple fare. But occasionally more old-fashioned thrillers made it onto the schedule – Chinatown, The Thirty-Nine Steps, that kind of thing. Every Christmas, too, there was apparently a tradition that the whole chancery staff, both US and Foreign Service nationals, gathered together for a showing of a It’s a Wonderful Life or The Wizard of Oz. These film nights were meant to break down barriers, but she wasn’t sure they were such a good idea. They just encouraged the impression – common among uneducated Tanzanians – that every American had, somehow or other, something to do with Hollywood. It was as if the US existed only iconically, on a screen, and that Miranda, Ray, Corporal Rossetti, all Americans in fact, were nothing but cinematic characters made flesh. This was partly, Miranda reckoned, because the wealth gap was so big. For the average African, to own what an American owned did, after all, amount to dreaming an impossible fantasy. She was terribly conscious of how even little things, such as the texture of their clothes, gave Westerners an extraordinary aura. At Mto Wa Mbu, children had run and felt her skirt between finger and thumb.
Juma would have to be careful, in any case. The Regional Security Officer had been over from Nairobi lately. He had made a point of insisting that the local guards be more vigilant. And, furthermore, that their vigilance was itself better scrutinised. ‘Quis custodiet?’, as Ray said cheerfully on hearing this, and Miranda had to ask him what he meant. ‘Who will guard the guards?’ he’d replied, adding that he himself was prepared to take personal charge of Corporal Rossetti.
The new instructions were part of a general review of security. Every week now, the embassy held alarm drills to identify contingent dangers. But since Dar was rated a low-threat embassy, really this was just a case of occasionally letting out a short burst on the Selectone blooper.
As it happened, the blooper had gone off just before Miranda came down. Corporal Rossetti had announced over the loudspeaker system through the embassy that they would be hearing alarms for a fire, for a bomb or a terrorist attack, and then the conclusion was the all-clear signal. Everyone had patiently waited to listen to these four different sirens going on as part of a normal drill, then had got on with their work.
She walked a little way alongside the outside of the wall, until she came to the big faucet that connected to the water tank. The tanker truck hadn’t arrived. She wondered whether to go back upstairs and call the firm. But in the event she decided instead to take a few minutes in the sun. She went across the road to a little news stall and bought a copy of the Tanzanian Daily News from the boy behind the counter.
‘CLINTON’S GIRL TAKES THE STAND,’ read the front-page splash. It detailed the latest advance in Kenneth Starr’s sex-and-perjury investigation of the President, in which Monica Lewinsky had begun testifying before a grand jury. Miranda turned the page. The Tanzanian media weren’t going to tell her anything she didn’t already know about that from other sources.
Overleaf another headline declared: ‘GOAT LURES MEN TO DOOM, CHICKEN FOLLOWS.’ In the mountains near Iringa, three men had died trying to retrieve a goat that had fallen down a mineshaft. Each one had been lowered into the shaft on a rope. When the first didn’t come back up, another followed to rescue him, and then the next. Only when the villagers tied the rope round the neck of a chicken and lowered that down – and brought it back up, dead – did they realise ‘this hole must be evil’, as the newspaper queerly styled it. They wrote like that. Police later established there was poisonous gas in the shaft.
She had hardly finished the article when the tanker truck drew up. It began reversing into the gateway. Folding the newspaper under her arm, she strode over to it.
‘You’re late,’ she said, trying to sound stern.
‘I’m sorry, madam,’ replied the driver, looking down from his cab. ‘I could not get diesel.’
‘Right. Well, come on then. I’ve been waiting.’
He got down from the truck. She could see his skin through torn blue overalls.
‘How long will it take?’
‘Quick, madam, quick.’
He slapped the side of the tank, making it resound deeply.
‘This very fast pump. And I have rushed fast here also.’
He shook his head sadly. ‘Diesel is a big problem in Africa.’
She suspected that the driver had, in truth, come directly from his village. One side of the cab was piled high with bright green maize cobs. He was clearly bound for the market after he had emptied the tank.
She watched the driver begin uncoiling the hose. The steel nozzle was in his hand. There were oil stains on his ragged overalls. She walked over to the pipe, which was in the wall, and he followed – walking backwards, pulling the heavy hose behind him, like a player in a tug of war. With slow, heavy steps, he fought the resistance of the drum on which the hose was wound.
She watched him unscrew the cap from the projection from the wall, attach the nozzle to it, then walk back to the truck to turn on the flow. The hose grew fat as the water began to run.
‘Well,’ she said. ‘I’ll leave you to it. Don’t forget to put the cap back on.’
She began to walk away, and then remembered the contract. ‘Oh, and you can give this to your boss.’
He folded it and stuffed it into the long trouser pocket of his overalls.
It’ll get oily, she thought, wondering whether she should say anything. She paused for a second, then abandoned the idea. As she turned away, another truck pulled up behind the water tanker, which was now blocking the gateway. The driver had a slight moustache and pale-brown skin. He looked at her through the window. The truck had a canvas cover over its trailer. The driver seemed familiar. He also seemed a little agitated, mumbling to himself. One of his hands was on the wheel, the other out of the window, hanging down, tapping the outside of the door. He would just have to wait, she thought.
She walked back up the wood-chip path towards the chancery. She could hear a jackhammer from over the other side of the building. Construction workers in the compound. There was to be a swimming pool. That was why the driver of the other truck seemed familiar. He’d been bringing the tiles for the swimming pool.
She passed a gardener digging a flower bed. Working his trowel quickly, he was throwing up earth in a way that reminded her of the snake on Lyly. Thinking about Nick tossing the reptile into the bushes so fearlessly, she went back into the chancery building and began climbing the stairs. Maybe she had, after all, been a bit too undemonstrative in the email she’d sent thanking him for the holiday. Perhaps she should have given herself more of a chance to let things happen if she changed her mind in the future.
Feeling a little downhearted, she let her eyes drop to the dull grey concrete of the steps. George the cleaner’s mop and bucket were still there. She frowned. Old George liked chibuku, the local beer, more than was good for him. It wasn’t worth making a fuss about. He was only a cleaner, after all.
The entrance to each section of the chancery had little plastic signs – Shipping, Community Liaison, Visas. Her own department was Administration, which sounded
boring, but was in fact the heartland of the chancery. Not that it seemed it as she walked in. A man from the Political and Economic section was holding a discussion about Clinton with two or three other staff at the entrance. Hung on the wall nearby, a portrait of the President looked down at them, smiling broadly. At the other end of the room, Ray had his golf club out. He was putting down the carpet between the rows of desks. As she got closer, he managed to get the ball into the polystyrene cup into which he was aiming. He gave a loud cheer.
Miranda bent down to pick up Ray’s cup and ball. The room went white. A flash, like a sheet of lightning, came in through the windows above her. She heard a deep rumble. Next, a thud. The windows exploded inwards. The wall to the side of her bulged horribly, bellying, breaking up into chunks of masonry. Glass blew over her head. She saw it pass in slow motion, even though it took only a split second – passing over everyone and landing on them, not small shards but lumps linked to mylar ripped in thread-lines through the air – like strips of sticky tape, only long and ragged and in ribbons.
She was swung off her feet. Desks and chairs were knocked over, a computer sailed through the air. Thousands of sheets of paper swirled. The place was full of dense dust and smoke. Pieces of concrete and glass, streamers of mylar – the protective anti-shatter film that covered the windows – were all around her. There was an intense heat.
Dazed, curled up on the carpet, she felt as if someone had hit her in the chest with a shovel. Tinier fragments of glass, ones that had come free of the mylar and were being carried up in the clouds of dust, began to rain down. She put her hands over her head, shaking uncontrollably. There was glass in her hair. Her mouth was full of dust.
Outside more explosions began going off, every few seconds. She wondered if they were under fire, if it was gunfire she was hearing. Everything seemed disconnected – her torn dress, her hurting ears, a teacup that kept rattling, rattling, rattling.
A sudden quietness came, for a few seconds, then terrible screams. She felt the carpet on her cheek. She opened her eyes. The smoke stung them. She closed them again. There were small cuts all over her hands and arms. She could hear groans and, further away, more hysterical screaming. ‘God give me strength,’ she said, aloud, spitting out dust.
After a few minutes, she opened her eyes again, squinting through the dust cloud. There was a strange, industrial, oily smell, and a gritty texture in the air. Paper floated down. Rubble was everywhere, and shards of glass with strips of mylar attached. She tried to make things out in the stinging smoke. What she saw was Ray. He was flat on his face, legs buried under two large blocks of concrete.
She stood up slowly and hobbled towards him, through the tumbled furniture. Something had hit her leg, she realised. Ignoring the pain, she leant over Ray. His hair and shirt were soaked with blood. It was he, she realised, who had been groaning. Someone else was still screaming, awful and rhythmic. She tried to lift off one of the blocks. It was too heavy. She panicked, not knowing what to do. Breathe, he must be able to breathe. She started clearing away bits of stone and plaster from near his mouth. She tried to move his head a little so that he wasn’t face down. But didn’t they say you shouldn’t do that? She began carefully taking the smaller chunks of concrete off his chest.
‘Please,’ came a familiar, if muffled voice. ‘That hurts.’
‘Oh God, thank God,’ Miranda said. She kissed his blood-wet hair. ‘You’re alive.’
‘There’s something on my legs,’ he said, into the carpet. ‘I can’t move.’
‘You’re trapped. You need help.’
She looked behind her. Figures were moving in the smoke pall. Behind them, as she looked, a portion of wall fell away, revealing blue sky. Between her and the sky was a litter of desks, computers and filing cabinets. One of the computers burst into flames. A woman in the distance was still screaming – screaming and screaming.
None of the people around her were as badly injured as Ray: the mylar had saved them, although some had quite bad gashes. The man from the political econ section shouted down the room. ‘What’s the State Ops Center number? We’ve got to let Washington know.’
Ray gasped. ‘My fucking legs are busted,’ he said, as if he had just realised.
‘What’s the number? Anyone know?’
Blood from Ray’s legs and head was mixing horribly with rubble and masonry dust on the carpet next to her. She held his hand helplessly.
Someone shouted the number up the room.
The man from pol econ spoke down the phone. He said there’s been a huge explosion here, he didn’t know the nature of the explosion but there’s been a huge explosion here.
Corporal Rossetti burst into the room. Miranda could hear the screaming again, from elsewhere in the building. The marine had a large gash down his face. His rifle was in his hand.
‘All those who’re able, proceed to the evacuation point immediately!’
‘Ray’s hurt!’ shouted Miranda. ‘He can’t move.’
The room was filling with fumes from the burning computer. There was another explosion outside, then two more.
Miranda jumped each time. Threads of smoke were coming up through the floor.
‘Gas tanks,’ said Ray, feeling her tense. ‘I know it from Liberia.’
He chuckled crazily, then groaned again, flinching as something fell on his face. It was water, dripping down on them from smashed pipes in the ceiling.
‘We need help here!’ called Miranda, her forearms streaming with blood from her little cuts now. ‘Urgently.’ The flow of water was getting heavier; she couldn’t tell what was wetness from the roof, what from the cuts.
Rossetti ran down the room, his big soldier’s boots nimble in the glass and concrete. He knelt down beside them, his hands moving over Ray’s torso. He lifted off the blocks. The bones of Ray’s knees were sticking out, clearly visible amid a mess of blood and cloth and concrete dust. Miranda stared at them, stupefied with horror.
Rossetti spoke into his radio. ‘One down on the third floor. Pretty bad. Send medic.’
‘You go,’ he said to her, producing a dressing from his kit. ‘I’ll stay with him.’
‘I can’t,’ said Miranda, still transfixed by the bones.
‘Out,’ Rossetti barked. ‘Now!’
Cowed by the abrupt military tone, she stood up and made her way unsteadily through the wreckage. There was still a large cloud of dust, mingling with fumes from the computer’s melting plastic. At the end, where the missing wall was, she could see black smoke rising from burning cars below. She edged a little closer, uncertain of her bearings and trembling with shock.
‘Away from the wall!’ called the man from pol econ. He had a wound on his forehead.
‘Come on, quick! The floor could go.’
His voice sounded numbly in her ears; the noise of the explosion had deafened her a bit, she realised, as the pol econ man took her hand. I’m going to fall, she thought, I’m going to tumble down all these storeys. They ran out into the corridor, joining a crowd of fleeing staff. Everybody squeezed through the narrow hallway towards the stairs, which were obstructed with fallen blocks and hanging pieces of wood. There was debris on almost every step, making it difficult not to trip.
It was a hushed procession; everyone was dumb with shock. On the way, Miranda noticed first George’s upturned mop and bucket, then, a few steps further down, the cleaner himself. Half of his skull had been dashed away. A fallen beam lay nearby. Blood and brain matter were pooling into the stairwell.
She felt herself about to throw up, but the pol econ man grasped her hand more tightly and dragged her on, over the pieces of cement that covered the stairs. Eventually they made the exit, spilling out with others equally panicked. Some had facial injuries or deep cuts on their arms. One woman was holding a hand to her eye. John Herlihy, the maintenance manager, was sitting on the ground, his plump cheeks striped with soot. He looked totally bewildered.
The motor pool and chancery gardens were sce
nes of devastation, filled with confused people. Some were screaming, others weeping, others shocked and silent. Miranda felt choked up. She was still bleeding from the little cuts. Many people were bleeding. Nearly everyone was dishevelled, their clothes ripped and covered with dust. Cars and jeeps – all sorts of vehicles – lay thrown on their sides or roofs, blazing fiercely. Those further away, that hadn’t been blown over, still had seared paintwork and stoved-in windows.
Everywhere there were piles of broken wall, splintered pieces of wood, twisted auto parts, glass and concrete – an accumulation of loose materials sometimes four feet deep – and scattered bodies. One, lying in the courtyard where Ray’s bench used to be, was headless. Another was totally blackened, charred like meat. Another was missing a hand. She saw it was Mrs Ghai, and then she did vomit, going down on her knees.
Another corpse, Miranda realised with mounting horror, once she had recovered, was that of the gardener she had passed on her way back from supervising the water tanker. His chest had been crushed under a scorched block of concrete. It had spreadeagled him in the middle of his bed of soil and broken blooms. Several trees nearby had been knocked over; bushes and flowers had been ripped to shreds. The whole lawn was strewn with woodchips from the path, blown up into the air by the explosion. Debris was still fluttering down – pieces of paper and fabric swirling in the vapour of corrosive fires.
She jumped as a tyre exploded with a pneumatic pop.
‘Come on,’ said the pol econ man. ‘We better get out of here. There could be another blast.’ His forehead was oozing thick gouts of blood.