The Great Agony & Pure Laughter of the Gods

by Jamala Safari

  Dear Papa and Mama,

  I am leaving the country; please don’t look for me.

  I know how this will wrench your hearts, but it is all beyond our control; I am a lifeless soul with broken dreams, dying slowly from the pain of the wounds inside me. You loved me, dear parents, and did everything that you could to give me a better life, a better future; I appreciate it.

  But you couldn’t touch my heart or my soul, where my wounds lie; nobody can help me. I have been damaged to a point that no psychiatrist or medical doctor can heal. I can’t bear it anymore.

  Please do understand, dear parents, I am going to try to find the peace and dignity that I have lost. I know you will wonder why I didn’t talk to you, or tell you I was going. Please understand that the damage done to me in the Kahuzi-Biega National Park is enormous, morally as well as physically. Papa and Mama, these wounds need to be cured, and that is what I am going to look for.

  I am sorry for breaking your hearts.

  My destination is unknown; I pray to God to prepare a place where I will land.

  I will miss you (I miss you already), I will miss your love, I will miss my brother Landu and my sisters, I will miss home. I am going, but one day I will come back. Tell my sisters and my brother that I have left my heart in them.

  Love,

  Your son,

  Risto Mahuno

  He cried like a child as he wrote. He covered his mouth with his hands whenever his voice mounted. The pages before him were wet with tears. He was sad, and his sadness intensified as the day broke. He was leaving that same day; he was leaving behind his home, his family, love and heart. He was going naked; without father or mother, brother or sister, he was going into the unknown.

  . Chapter 12 .

  Risto had 200 American dollars hidden in his underwear. He bought a bus ticket to Uvira, in South Kivu, which lay next to the borders with Tanzania and Burundi. He decided to travel the road that passed through Rwanda, and then come back to the Congo through Kamaniola. The roads in the Kivu were not safe, especially the direct one from Bukavu to Uvira. People lost their lives there on a daily basis in hijackings, lootings, robberies or in crossfire between different militia gangs. He had bought a loaf of bread in a plastic bag, his only luggage. He didn’t want to look like someone who was travelling. He carried only his student card from the CFP. He didn’t want to talk, and decided to act like someone who was sleepy. The bus began to move.

  Sleep smashed him away, and he slept like a rock. He only opened his eyes three times. The first time, it was on the Rwandan border. He was not yet in a deep sleep, and woke with his student card in his hands. His heart pounded; he was afraid that they might find out that he had been a soldier. Although there were soldiers in uniform holding their firearms and roaming up and down, no one knew him there. The driver went to talk to them inside their office. After a few minutes, he came back, they set off, and Risto fell asleep again.

  Later, the woman next to him woke him up; it was their second stop, on the border between Rwanda and Congo. There again he held out his student card. They crossed the Rwandan border back into Congo. Now they were at the border post of Kamaniola, which was controlled by Congolese soldiers from the rebel movement. These soldiers checked all the passengers’ documents.

  Two people were detained: a man in his forties and a young woman. The man was arrested because his picture was not clear on his ID. He explained that his document was too old, that it was out of date; there were no new IDS being printed. His explanation was correct; the IDS that people used dated from the seventies. Even if you applied for an ID, there were none to be had. The printing of IDS stopped in the eighties when the Zairian economy collapsed. To get an ID now required private cooperation with the authorities. Sometimes this type of cooperation meant that a young man turning eighteen would be given a very old ID. Sometimes a man of fifty would get a brand-new ID. The young woman didn’t know the reason for her arrest. She asked several times without getting any response. One soldier finally said she had not shown respect for the commander when he had asked her where she was going. The driver left the car and went into a small house of mud and straw with the commander. When he came back, he asked the man and the young woman to give him $5 each. They did so, and were released.

  By the time the bus stopped for the third and final time in Uvira, most of the passengers had left. Only two people remained in the bus, Risto and an old lady, who had begged the driver to go past the bus stop and let her off near the marketplace, where her children were waiting to help her. The bus stopped; the woman’s children were outside. Risto didn’t know whether he should get off the bus; the driver kept staring at him and asking where he was getting off. He decided to step off and look around. The land looked strange. It was already late afternoon.

  He wandered near an ice-cream vendor and bought two cones. The vendor looked at him and smiled. ‘Are you coming from Bukavu?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes. Why?’

  ‘I can see that from your clothes. Uvira is always hot; it will take you time to get used to this heat.’

  Uvira was different to Bukavu, with its own style. The traffic was not heavy. There were moto-taxis, but not as many as in Bukavu. There were bicycle-taxis instead, and it seemed as though everyone had a bicycle.

  The ice-cream vendor owned another small stand where he sold soap, toothbrushes, sweets, pens and so on. Fifty metres away there was another vendor with almost the same products. These two men, like a few others Risto saw selling goods, didn’t look like people from the town, but rather from villages. They spoke Swahili quite well, but it sounded different from the version spoken in Bukvau. Their version included more English and pure Swahili words, whereas in Bukavu the Swahili was full of French words and words from other local languages.

  The vendor had gone to visit his neighbour and returned. He found Risto still by his stand. The ice-cream man didn’t speak, but opened his stand, which he had covered with a dozen thick plastic bags. The sun shone over the mountain in the west.

  Risto offered to share his loaf of bread with the vendor.

  ‘I am Risto.’

  ‘I have two names: Jean-Marie is my Christian name and Abula is my family name. You can call me Abu.’

  He took two ice-creams from the cooler-box and gave one to Risto.

  ‘Where are you staying?’ he asked Risto.

  ‘Uhm … you know I am from Bukavu.’

  There was a moment of silence.

  ‘I am from Bukavu, but I am here in Uvira for a while.’

  Abu didn’t seem to hear his last sentence; he was busy with a small child who was buying sweets.

  ‘Have you ever been to Bukavu?’ Risto asked.

  ‘No, but I have family members there. I hear that it is a very nice place.’

  ‘Not really! I love the layout of Uvira. No mountains, no mud, and I see the streets are well designed.’

  Abu didn’t seem to agree, and shook his head. ‘But there is no money here, unlike in Bukavu. People there buy houses for $100 000 cash!’

  ‘Yes … but not everyone. Don’t you see how poor I am?’

  Abu looked at him with disbelieving eyes.

  ‘You are not poor.’ He laughed as he moved to serve a customer.

  ‘If I wasn’t poor, I wouldn’t be in Uvira now.’

  Abu looked at him, then at the giant mountain that was far in the west.

  ‘So you came to look for money in Uvira?’

  ‘You know, we are very hungry back home. Our uncle who lives in Tanzania told me to meet him here. He said he would give me something. That is why I am here; I don’t have a family member or a person that I know here, except you – who I have just met. I don’t even know where to sleep.’

  Abu looked at him pityingly. He remained silent for a moment.

  ‘So where will you sleep then?’

  ‘I don’t know, maybe God will send someone to help me, maybe I will sleep in the streets … I don’t know.’

 
‘Sleep in the streets? At this time? Are you crazy? Do you know how many street kids have disappeared here in Uvira? They are seen much later, far away, in military uniforms. When darkness falls, everyone has to be in their house. If you get caught at night you are gone; you will serve on the front line as a Kadogo Songambele.’

  ‘I don’t want to sleep in the streets, but if I don’t get help …’

  ‘Be careful, my friend. Do you know the Kadogo Songambele? Do you know how many of those children have died? They take them, put them on the front line on the battlefield. They don’t even have the right to look behind, and terrible things are done to them if they try to escape. Do you want to take the risk of being in the street after dark?’

  ‘Could you shelter me, please?’

  ‘If you can fold yourself like a fish in a tin, then you will be fine. Just follow me after closing up.’

  Abu put everything onto his bicycle and they pushed it together. As Abu had said, he didn’t have much place for Risto. He shared a very tiny room with two other vendors. Their room was already full with three bicycles and two mattresses. Abu told him they could share the smaller mattress.

  They walked past the small houses of Uvira and stopped to eat at a cafeteria. Abu refused to let Risto pay a cent. Risto was hungry, but too shy to eat, and he felt guilty about his lies. But that had been the only way he could have gained Abu’s trust so quickly. They had fish and meat with foufou. Abu asked Risto to order more food, but Risto asked only for tea with soya powder, and requested that it be thick, like the typical tea of Bukavu.

  Risto was the only strange face in the restaurant, he realised. Everyone who came in gave him an anxious look. All the rest were traders. Each person who arrived received greetings and was called by their nickname. Abu introduced him to his people. He said Risto was his good friend who had come for a visit. The talk moved from gossip to the politics of Uvira. The woman who owned the restaurant joined in the conversation. They complained about the greedy commander, who was asking for more free things every day. He wanted five cigarettes every day, he wanted ice-creams for his bodyguards, he wanted his bodyguards to get soap for free. The conversation jumped to the Mai-Mai group that had refused to join the rebel movement, and had gone back to the mountains. It was a strong battalion, some said, a big loss for the rebel movement. A trader sitting in the far corner objected: ‘It wasn’t the strongest battalion!’

  A fat man at the door shouted, ‘You don’t know Commander Ramos the Lion very well. That man is a real fighter. His Mai-Mai group has magic! Didn’t you hear how they got bees to attack rebel soldiers in the forest of Fizi, and how four of his men killed a hundred rebels in a two-day fight?’

  ‘Man, that was because of witchcraft,’ replied Abu.

  ‘But that’s what makes a strong man!’ said the fat man.

  The story didn’t end there. There came another one, a rumour that Ramos the Lion and his group planned to attack Uvira the following Tuesday.

  ‘They want to free us from the rebels,’ said the woman who owned the restaurant. The room grew quiet for a while. Abu then interrupted the silence.

  ‘It won’t be their first time … they come, fight for a few hours, then they flee. They never take Uvira for more than two hours!’

  ‘This time around they have a big plan,’ said the woman.

  Risto enjoyed the talking, but he was afraid of the darkness outside. Abu had warned him about the danger of walking around at night, but seemed to have forgotten his earlier words.

  ‘Abu, it seems very dark outside, you told me about the soldiers …’

  ‘The commander knows me; if anyone takes me, I will end up in his hands. I have the full right to move around the whole of Uvira at any time. Don’t worry.’ He forgot about Risto again as he carried on chatting. Risto had finished his food and tea; there was nothing to do anymore, and the stories were those of people who spent their time in the streets. They listened to anyone who passed by, whether they were mad, dull, drunk or normal, and repeated all those stories as worthy of being related. Finally, Abu was ready to leave.

  . Chapter 13 .

  After a few days in Uvira, Risto was getting used to the town, but the sun still felt like a blaze. He drank the town’s warm water almost every two hours. He would slip into a cafeteria for a glass of thick, cold milk and then carry on with his business. He had toured around Uvira on bicycle-taxis and knew the prices of each route. He knew where the black market for exchanging money was; he had been to the port; he knew where to get onto the boats and ferries. He became familiar with the hot and cool corners of the little town.

  He jumped onto a torn bit of mattress laid on the rear seat of a bicycle-taxi. The driver dropped him at the place where money was exchanged on the black market. He quickly bought shilingi with his dollars; then he hopped onto another bicycle going to the port. There were no humps on the road, so the bicycle ran really fast. Risto had heard that travelling by ferry would not be the safest option for him. It was better to travel by boat – these were small, and the crews did not check documents. He had been told he should not trust anyone, and to be especially careful with policemen. The Tanzanian police arrested anyone they found without valid travel documents, and regardless of whether they were refugees or not, everyone spent six months in jail.

  The harbour was empty and as silent as a cemetery; there were no boats or merchandise to be seen. A man sat under an umbrella, staring at Lake Tanganyika, outside a small brick house, newly painted. Risto wanted to stop there, but his bicycle driver shouted that they should carry on, the guy who worked there was a crook. The driver took him straight to the shore of the lake, where a young man drowsing on the rocks greeted Risto with a friendly smile. Risto went to sit on a rock some distance away, looking at the horizon, at what he thought must be Tanzania.

  Silence ruled the harbour like the chilly breeze on the shores of the lake. Finally the man on the rocks introduced himself as Derrick, and asked where Risto was going. Was he waiting for someone? Risto knew it was not wise to share a secret with a stranger. A quick lie would surely satisfy Derrick’s curiosity. So he told him he was waiting for an uncle who would come from Tanzania.

  A few minutes passed, and Derrick smiled and nodded as he ruminated over Risto’s lie. He wanted to know what person had told Risto that there would be a boat coming from Tanzania. His cousin lived in Tanzania, said Risto. Did he own a boat? Since when had he been travelling on the Tanganyika? The man carried on asking questions. He told Risto he had a boat and was leaving for Tanzania at 4pm that afternoon. Risto’s ears opened wide, his mouth couldn’t close, and he had many questions about Tanzania. Derrick was Tanzanian, as his Swahili testified, even if he had picked up a few Congolese slang expressions. He knew Tanzania very well. He told Risto about the refugee camps. They were synonyms for suffering, hunger and misery. He had been trafficking people over Lake Tanganyika for quite a long time.

  As the day passed, boats appeared along the shores and crowds gathered around them. Derrick seemed to be a good person and slowly wore away Risto’s suspicion. They shared fruit for lunch. Risto finally opened up and gave away his secret. He told Derrick he was running away from Congo, and wanted to go to Lugufu refugee camp in Tanzania. He had suffered terribly in the endless wars of Congo, now he wanted a quiet and peaceful place to rest, he said. Derrick promised to help him.

  At 4:30pm, they left the shores of Uvira along with two other boats. People on board the boats waved to their families on shore, some promised to bring gifts, others called out farewells. Risto had no one to wave to, so he waved to his country, while he shed tears. It was then that he realised that he was leaving his beloved country behind: the country for which a charismatic leader like Patrice Lumumba had died; a country that many believed would become one of Africa’s superpowers, a dream all Congolese had been waiting for since the dawn of their independence in 1960.

  The boat moved like a rocking chair, but it didn’t give any pleasure. Risto was afr
aid of the deep, cold lake underneath it. Heri, Derrick’s co-captain, who was also Tanzanian, had the tales of Lake Tanganyika in his bones. He grew up on the lake, he said. He was nurtured by the Tanganyika and got everything that he needed from its blessed waters. He ate food from it and drank its waters and made money from it. In return, the lake had asked him for his most precious thing: his father.

  His father was one of the masters of the lake. One night, he was fishing on the Tanganyika when a wave rose from nowhere. His boat sank and he never returned home. Now everyone believed that the spirit of Heri’s father patrolled the waters, fighting for the fishermen when waves grew high. Heri became sad as he reached the climax of his story, but when he spoke about the spirit of his father being alive, he was proud; he spoke with a strong voice. Even though he could not touch his father, he believed his father was with him, protecting him whenever he crossed the lake. His father’s spirit was in the whispering winds, in the soothing melodies of the water; his was the power that kept boats safe on the lake. Heri recounted more stories of his home country, stories of its lakes and rivers, stories that always ended up with his father as the hero of his people; his father who died for the good of all fishermen and boatmen. To him, his father was like a flag of victory for everyone travelling on Lake Tanganyika.

  The midnight breeze struck the boat and the human bodies on the deck. Some people had set up tents, but Risto had no shelter from the cold breeze, which was turning his body into a solid ice cube. He shivered until a woman took pity on him and gave him one of her cloths. The lake murmured as the cold breeze passed over its surface. It was completely dark. In front of Heri’s boat, another boat rocked its passengers; it was the only light that Risto could see.