Johnny Mad Dog

by Emmanuel Dongala

  I knew that from here it wasn’t very far to the Kandahar district. Rumor had it that the area was controlled by forces opposed to the ones that had been harassing us thus far, and that those other militias were well armed and would protect us. Why would they protect us? I couldn’t say, for in my limited experience all militias behaved in the same fashion. But when your country is torn by civil war, you tend to put credence in rumors, since they help you to devise a strategy for survival—and at the moment, this meant heading toward Kandahar. But once we got there, what next?

  An aunt of mine lived in the district and owned a large house, with ample room to accommodate us. Yet even though our situation was desperate, we would never have considered asking her for shelter. I don’t think she would have chased us away—on the contrary, she would have been only too happy to gloat over our misfortunes. Solely to humiliate us, she would have been eager to offer us hospitality the way a lord scornfully tosses crumbs to the hungry servants kneeling before him. No, thanks—anything but that!

  When families have a falling-out, the rift often begins with quarrels among the women, and often over quite trivial matters. In the days when Mama was dealing in waxes and superwaxes, those brightly colored pagnes of waxed cloth that were made in Holland and shipped in from Lomé or Cotonou, this aunt had bought a pagne on credit and promised to pay at the end of the month. After three months had gone by without payment, my mother sent me to my aunt’s house to collect on the debt. My aunt was so offended by this that she descended on us one day around noon, when we were eating lunch, and began to call Mama names, saying idiotic things like, “Squandering my brother’s money isn’t enough for you? You have to insult me by sending your daughter to pester me for the sake of a mere pagne?” Papa had tried to calm her down, to reason with her, but she had no respect at all for her older brother—though in Africa it’s customary to show respect to your elders—and had berated him as well, shouting, “You’ve always let her lead you around by the nose! She’s the one who wears the pants in this house! Because of her, you’ve forgotten your own family! She’s gobbling up all your money—she’s taking advantage of you, but you don’t see a thing!”

  Papa had gotten angry in turn, and had shouted, “Whether that’s true or not, you’ve no right to come into my home and insult my wife!”

  “You see?” she shot back. “You don’t notice what’s right in front of you, because she’s got you wrapped around her little finger! You’ve become weak and soft-headed from those fetishes the women of her region use!” She spat all this out with such hostility that it seemed to me she was using the incident as an excuse to release a lot of pent-up hatred and resentment. What made her even more furious was that in the face of her scorching rage, Mama responded with cold irony: “If I don’t gobble up my husband’s money, I know someone who will. Go squander the money of your own husband—if you can find one!” And: “A person who can’t afford a superwax has to make do with local wares. If you can’t even afford those, then you can just shop at the secondhand stalls where the stuff is spread out on mats on the ground. Maybe you’ll find an old dress that’ll suit you!”

  Their voices rose, and for a moment I thought the two women would fling themselves at each other. Fortunately, Papa’s voice prevailed. Mama fell silent but continued to look at my aunt contemptuously, while the latter never ceased her flow of invective. My father told her to be quiet or get out. She retorted that she was leaving and that she’d never set foot in our house again. And that she didn’t want to see Papa at her funeral—as if she’d even know who would be there, once she was dead. Turning to leave, she bent over, aimed her rear end in Papa’s direction, lifted her pagne, and gave us a good view of her naked behind. This meant she was placing a curse on us. So much for sisterly love. What a fine thing family is!

  “Do you think we could go to Tamila’s?”

  Mama’s voice tore me away from my thoughts and flung me back onto that street crowded with hurrying refugees. I was walking mechanically behind a man who was doing his best to push a bike over pavement that was as pocked with craters as the moon’s surface seen through a telescope. A woman was perched rather precariously on the hike. Surprised by the unexpected intrusion, and not sure if I understood what I’d heard, I stammered:

  “Wh-what did you say?”

  “Do you think we could go to Tamila’s house? It isn’t very big, but there’s a shed on the property. She could clear a bit of space to put us up. And who knows? Maybe Fofo had the same idea and is already there!”

  Tamila was a good friend of Mama’s. Their relationship had begun long before I was born, so they’d been close as far back as I could remember. Throughout their lives, they’d worked hard together. When buying merchandise for their stalls at the market, they often got up at dawn to wait for the trucks bringing fruits and vegetables from the villages inland. Since that usually wasn’t enough to make ends meet, they would visit the rough-and-tumble warehouses down at the docks to buy things they could resell, such as secondhand clothing from Europe and the United States. Sometimes they’d even risk their lives driving old rattletraps over storm-rutted country roads, filling their sacks with groundnuts and cassava they gleaned in the fields.

  A friendship forged under such conditions can make people closer than kin. Our affectionate name for Mama’s friend was Auntie Tamila. She had a crazy, impulsive streak, and I loved her for it. The day Mama had the terrific argument with my father’s sister, Tamila came by our house in the afternoon, and when she heard what had happened she immediately offered to go box the ears of that shrew, without even bothering to find out whether her friend was in any way responsible for the rift. She was a “Shoot first and ask questions later” kind of person. And she’d helped us more than anyone else when Papa had been killed and Mama crippled during the first wave of looting. For nearly a month she’d sold Mama’s goods at her own stall and had come to our house every evening to give us the day’s receipts. And when the wounds in Mama’s legs had healed, Tamila would come by every morning to pick her up and give her a ride to the marketplace. So we still had food on the table, and Fofo and I could keep going to school. When I needed to earn some pocket money in the heat of the summer, I’d use her freezer to store little plastic bags filled with water, which I’d sell when the water was ice-cold or frozen. In short, Tamila was a second mother to us.

  Yet life had granted her a smaller share of happiness than her friend’s. After several years of marriage, her husband had spitefully repudiated her and unjustly taken another wife, under the pretext that Tamila had failed to give him children. I’d learned later that her sterility was the result of a clandestine abortion she’d had when she was young, even younger than I was now. She spent her entire life paying for a mistake she’d made as a girl. But as the saying goes, every cloud has a silver lining. Since she lived as a single woman, without the burden of children or husband, the small business she ran with Mama enabled her to build a fairly large house that had running water and a kitchen, to acquire a television with its own dish antenna, and to buy a secondhand car that she also used as a taxi (unfortunately, the car had been stolen during the first wave of looting). Not bad for a small businesswoman—she did as well as the bureaucrats who depended on the government for their wages. While I went to watch TV at Mélanie’s house, Fofo would spend weekends at Tamila’s so he could watch the soccer matches. And he’d come home filled with dreams of becoming a star like Roger Milla. Thanks to his visits with Auntie Tamila, I knew that there were three teams of lions in Africa—the Indomitable Lions of Cameroon, the Senegal Lions, and the Atlas Lions of Morocco—as well as the Nigerian Eagles and the Malian Eagles, not to mention the Ivory Coast Elephants. But do you know what Congo had? Devils, of course!

  We came to a decision. When we reached Kandahar, I would ask the man who was transporting Mama to leave us at Tamila’s house.

  I began to resent the weight of the suitcase on my head. Worse, I could feel a sticky wetness between my
legs and knew that my period had arrived. Why hadn’t I remembered to put on one of Tanisha’s sanitary pads before leaving the camp? But even if I’d thought of it, I doubt that, with the crowds of people all around, I could ever have found the privacy to put the pad on. I felt soiled and uncomfortable, but we had to keep walking. Fortunately, I wasn’t feeling the usual pain—the two pills I’d swallowed were still working.

  Just as we came to Kandahar we heard loud gunfire. It didn’t last long, but it nevertheless caused a fresh outbreak of panic among the already desperate refugees and forced us to hurry even faster, because we had to keep up with those who were less heavily laden than us.

  We had just passed the first two or three houses on the outskirts of the district when the man wheeling the bicycle suddenly stopped.

  “Okay, that’s it. I’ve brought you to Kandahar—I’ve kept my part of the bargain. Take your mother off the bike.”

  “But—”

  “Take her off or I’ll throw her off!”

  He couldn’t just leave us there! What would we do? Tamila’s house wasn’t far away—it was down the street, opposite the two palm trees on the right. Not more than three hundred meters. I explained this to him, pointed out the palm trees . . .

  “Don’t you understand that I’m risking my life every second I spend with you?”

  “But I paid you—”

  “To take you to Kandahar, and this is what I’ve done. You heard those shots, right? The militias are coming, and I don’t feel like getting killed. Come on, help me get her off the bike or I’ll throw her off!”

  “Listen!” I pleaded. “Just three hundred meters! It isn’t far—it won’t take more than five minutes! Wait—I’ve got a thousand francs left.”

  I set down the suitcase I was carrying, dug around in the leather bag slung across my front, and pulled out a thousand-franc note. The man looked at the bill, looked down the street, looked at Mama on the bike, and looked at the bill once more.

  “Okay, I’ll take you as far as the palm trees. But no farther!”

  He pocketed the bill and began wheeling the bike again. I have no idea where money gets its vast powers of persuasion. Again, I balanced the suitcase on my head and trotted after him. Mama had observed the scene without uttering a word. What could the poor woman have said?

  We made our way to the two palm trees, which I kept my gaze fixed on the entire time. Actually, you could see only their tops above the wall encircling the property. Papa and I had built that wall. It was enormous, and on the top we had embedded pieces of glass, sharp as razor blades, to discourage thieves from climbing over. Constructing its foundation had particularly impressed me, because for the first time we’d used a cement mixer, and also because we’d had to lay a stepped footing to accommodate the sloping ground. The owner of the property, Mr. Ibara, was so pleased with our work that he’d hired us to build a garage for him after he bought a second all-terrain vehicle. He always enjoyed watching as I pushed wheelbarrows full of cement and built forms for molding concrete. I suppose these weren’t things he would let his own daughters do, since he was rich—very rich. He was a customs inspector, and in the entire history of our country there had never been a customs inspector of modest means. He was famous throughout the region for being the first person to have a Mercedes shipped to him directly from Düsseldorf by special cargo plane. People said he was as rich as the president, who controlled our country’s oil revenues. Whatever the case, the home of this customs official was an opulent mansion that dwarfed Auntie Tamila’s house across the way.

  We reached the palm trees in record time. Immediately I set down the suitcase. The man and I helped Mama off the bike. He tied the suitcase onto the luggage rack and, with a look of relief, mounted the bike and pedaled away at top speed, without even wishing us good luck. He’d had a good day. The money I’d paid him was more than half of what he could earn in an entire month.

  Chapter Twenty

  Johnny, Known as Mad Dog

  As soon as the enemy’s tanks left the HCR compound, the large gateway in the legation’s perimeter wall began to disgorge hundreds of people—wave after wave of them, an indescribable chaos. The gate, which had looked so enormous to me, now seemed very narrow in the face of this massive flood. What surprised me was that most of the people were still carrying personal belongings. I had the feeling that even if we looted them a thousand times, they would always manage to hang on to something.

  My commandos and I watched the scene from our various hiding places—Lovelita and I from the ditch where we were lying on our bellies. If I didn’t immediately order the men to attack, it wasn’t because I was scared. It was because after the assault by the helicopters and tanks that annihilated the unit Giap had sent to back us up in our siege of the HCR compound, I thought the white attackers might have left soldiers behind to protect the refugees and the Chechens hiding among them.

  I must admit I’d never experienced anything like this. We were prepared to fight the Mayi-Dogo militias because we’d been told their tribal leader had cheated in the elections and was organizing a genocide against our ethnic group—reports that were confirmed by intellectuals with imposing degrees and impeccable French. And finally we’d been assured that after we won the war, we’d get a share of the oil money and would be rich. Then I could order Fashion Fair cosmetics directly from America for Lovelita.

  That was the deal. We had no idea our electoral dispute would turn into an international conflict, with foreign troops and planes coming in to drop bombs on our heads. At least, Giap hadn’t said anything to me about this possibility. Anyway it wasn’t out of fear that I continued to lie facedown in the mud at the bottom of that ditch, since the whole world knew that if you tried to prove you were tougher than me, you were dead. A true leader has to know when to attack. That’s why I was keeping a low profile for the moment, just observing, taking note of small details—for example, a woman who was carrying two children, one tied to her back and the other on her shoulders; another woman sitting sideways on the luggage rack of a bicycle, which was being pushed by a man in the company of a young woman with a suitcase balanced on her head; a child tethered to his mother by a cord tied around his waist, trotting along while clutching a soccer ball to his chest; and, curiously, a man who—perhaps so he could move more quickly—was wearing a wheelbarrow like a helmet, his head disappearing into the hollow of the tray and his fingers grasping the handles. It takes all kinds to make a world, and when you’re waging war you have to be a keen observer, because the detail that escapes you could be the detail that kills you.

  I watched the crowd for more than a quarter of an hour, and then told myself it was time to do something. We couldn’t just sit there with our arms folded while all the Mayi-Dogos and their Chechens slipped through our fingers.

  After the assault by the helicopters and tanks, I’d tried several times to contact Giap on my cell phone to give him a report on the situation, but I hadn’t been able to reach him. I didn’t know whether this was because the enemy had destroyed all the relays or simply because Giap had lost his phone. I punched in his number again, twice, but each time the tones went out over the electronic network and then faded, with no result. I wasn’t sure what to do. For a moment I felt at a loss, but fortunately an intellectual’s brain is working away even when it doesn’t seem to be, and I hit upon a good solution: flush the leopard from its lair. When you can’t go hunt for an enemy, you have to make it come toward you, and that’s what I did. I ordered my commandos to fire into the air—a sustained volley lasting several minutes—without giving away their positions. The enemy, hearing the gunfire, would either think they were being attacked and take to their heels, or leave their positions and come looking for us. Either way, we’d find out if the Western soldiers and the UN troops had left a rear guard to protect the refugees.

  We fired into the air for a good three minutes. The shooting caused extreme panic among the fleeing people, some of whom threw down their cherished
possessions so they could run faster. But for the moment we weren’t interested in them. We were waiting to see if the foreign soldiers would come out and look for us when the volley was over.

  We stayed hidden in our strategically chosen ditches and waited. The compound kept spewing out its contents for a while longer, and then the stream finally dried up. Four people straggled out, then three, then five, then two. That was it. We waited another fifteen minutes to be sure no one else was coming. If there had still been foreign soldiers or UN blue helmets inside, they would have come out with the last of the refugees. Reassured, I decided to go and check. We couldn’t leave anything to chance.

  I crawled out of the ditch and helped Lovelita out, too. I shouted to my commandos, telling them that the danger had passed and they should come out of hiding and join me. Well, I was disgusted to find that most of the men had run off. There were only three members of the unit left—Little Pepper, Piston, and Lovelita. But I wasn’t discouraged. I ordered them to follow me into the HCR compound.

  When you’re on a reconnaissance mission, you have to be very clever. A general always leads his troops from the rear echelons. That’s what I did. I sent the two guys in first, and then I went in with Lovelita. We jumped over a great many bodies piled up at the entrance, and then—darting skillfully here and there, from one section of wall to another, from one bit of cover to another—we made our way into the compound. There wasn’t a sign of movement. The place looked as if it had been mauled by a hurricane. I fired several shots into the air to provoke a response from the enemy, if the enemy was still present. There was no response. The compound was empty—we could relax.