by Kyle Mills
Josh took one last look at the path to the breakfast area and then walked over to the Land Cruiser and climbed in. What the hell. Africa would still be here tomorrow, and it would still be a disaster.
Flannary gave him an approving slap on the leg and began backing up, almost clipping Luganda, who had burst from the trees behind them.
"Where you going?" he said, poking his impossibly round face in Josh's window and gripping the sill as he jogged alongside the vehicle.
"Just a little field trip," Flannary said, slowing but not stopping. "Nothing to be concerned about."
"Where? Let me send people with you. It's not safe."
"We'll be fine -- back in time for happy hour."
He accelerated again, and Luganda was forced to release the sill. He stared at them through the billowing dust as Flannary sped toward the gate.
"Maybe we should take him up on his offer, JB. You never know what we could run into. On the way here I saw --"
"Quit being such an old lady and fix me a drink."
"Pothole!"
Josh held his cup out the window, letting the tomato juice and vodka slosh over his hand and drip into the road.
"Sorry," Flannary shouted over the sound of the wind and the clanking of the empty beer bottles rolling around on the floorboard.
The countryside they were bouncing across seemed lost in time. The dirt road clung to precipices that descended into distant emerald valleys, and villages were few and far between, consisting of small, round houses with conical roofs perched neatly on what little flat terrain could be found. Cattle wandered about looking for choice grass, and women in colorful garb sauntered along the sides of the road carrying impossibly large loads on their heads. In some ways it could almost be mistaken for idyllic.
"Watch the kid!" Josh yelled, grabbing the dashboard as Flannary eased to within inches of the cliff they were skirting to avoid a small boy holding up a dead rat that must have weighed almost as much as he did.
"Cricetomys gambianus," Flannary said. "The giant pouch rat."
"Jesus, JB," Josh said, his heart still pounding desperately in his chest. "You shouldn't be driving."
"Why?5, It was obviously meant as an honest question. Driving drunk, one of America's great sins and an act that had contributed in no small way to the destruction of Josh's life, was such a trivial infraction here that it was beneath notice. Like worrying about a hall pass during a school shooting.
"Never mind."
"He'll still be there on the way back," Flannary said, pulling a long black cigarette holder from a duffel stuffed between the seats. "We'll see if we can get a deal. Those things are pretty good with the right marinade. More tender than you'd think."
"What are you doing?"
Flannary put a cigarette in the holder and struggled to light it in the damp wind coming through his open window. "I'm considering going through a Hunter S. Thompson phase." Smoke billowed from his mouth as he spoke. "It was between that and a Jim Morrison phase."
"The leather pants would be hot."
He slammed his hand emphatically against the steering wheel. "My thought exactly."
Flannary swung the wheel hard to the left, and they climbed a hill steep enough that Josh had to put a hand over his drink to keep it from spilling down the front of his shirt. The engine protested loudly, but they finally crested a low plateau and entered a village similar to all the others except for a whitewashed church that looked as if it had been stolen from the set of Little House on the Prairie.
Flannary skidded to a stop and jumped out, stumbling and nearly falling as his alcohol-soaked brain relearned standing after three hours in the car. "We're here."
Josh was more cautious, holding on to the door for support as he exited. The foliage had turned dense over the past hour and seemed to be looking for spots where the village's defenses were weak enough for it to take over. The one exception was to the east where meticulously cleared farmland was filled with women fawning over a crop he couldn't identify. Children in different states of nakedness played with whatever was at hand but, unlike the city kids, didn't seem all that interested in their arrival.
"Where are we?" Josh said, unaware that their trip had a destination. He'd assumed it was more of a moving bar.
Flannary didn't respond but motioned for him to follow. When they cleared the line of huts to their right, Flannary stopped and pointed with a dramatic flourish to a tall, blond woman working a hand-operated water pump.
"Who the hell is that?" Josh said, immediately struck by the way she threw her entire body into working the rusted handle.
"Annika Gritdal. Kind of a hard--ass, and I think she may hear voices, but a fairly good egg."
She was too intent on her battle with the pump to notice them, which gave Josh an opportunity to stare. She was thin in a way that suggested endless physical labor, with deeply tanned skin that set off the gleaming hair stuck to her sweat-soaked shoulders.
"She's done amazing things here," Flan-nary said. "Two years ago this piece of land couldn't have supported a cockroach."
"You sound almost like you admire her. I thought you said all this was bullshit."
"Oh, don't get me wrong. I think she's wasting time, but at least she's doing it with style and a refreshing lack of hypocrisy."
She glanced up and spotted them, abandoning the pump to wave.
"Annika! Good to see you, my sweet," Flannary said, staggering slightly as he approached and gave her a hug that left the front of his shirt even wetter than it had been before. "Let me introduce Josh Hagarty. He's Dan's replacement."
She gave him a sad smile and shook his hand, saying something about how sorry she was about the fate of his predecessor, but he wasn't really paying attention. He'd met a few Scandinavian girls in school, but they hadn't been all that remarkable. Annika looked like a descendant of the Vikings should -- a powerful figure, standing unfazed by her hostile surroundings. Was he romanticizing? Sure. But it was hard not to.
She pointed to the pump and yelled something at a group of men drinking on the porch of a particularly dilapidated hut. One of them gave a brief response and then went back to his jug. An argument ensued that was fascinating to watch. The native language, which sounded surreal in any setting, was almost otherworldly when flowing from a European mouth. No one he'd met yet could do much more than approximate "Another beer, please."
She finally got frustrated and said something that clearly meant "Just flicking forget it" and turned back to them.
"That was amazing," Josh said.
"Being ignored?"
"Not so much that as the fact that they seem to understand you."
She shrugged. "It's the curse of being from Norway. No one's going to speak your language, so you have to get used to speaking theirs."
"What's with the pump?" Flannary said. "New fitness craze?"
She let out a frustrated breath and pointed to a mechanical pump sitting idle in the dirt. "That one cracked about a month ago, but I haven't had any luck getting it fixed."
Josh looked at the damage. "Doesn't look all that serious."
"Are you a water-pump expert?"
"Not specifically, but I do have a degree in mechanical engineering."
She rolled her eyes. "You all have such impressive-sounding degrees, but I've never seen any of you do anything useful with all that expensive education."
There was a playfulness to her tone, but Josh still felt like he'd been chopped down to about half his normal size.
Flannary laughed. "I told you she's kind of a hard-ass. All nuns are that way as near as I can tell."
"You're a nun?" Josh said, immediately regretting the wide-eyed shock and disappointment in his delivery.
"In fact, I am not a nun. I was a novice for two years but never took my vows."
"The Catholics are scumbags," Flannary pointed out.
"The Catholics aren't scumbags, JB. You just --"
"Oh, come on. You ran out of that convent like your
ass was on fire."
"I'll admit that they're a bit misguided on how to prevent the spread of AIDS here and gave too many orders for me. And then there's the sex . . ."
"Excuse me?" Josh said, again regretting opening his mouth.
"Sex. The idea of never marrying, never having children." Her expression turned thoughtful. "I felt as though I was closing doors at a time in my life when I should have been opening them." A beautiful smile preceded a sudden change of subject.
"Come with me, Josh. As an engineer you'll appreciate this. My church took up a collection and sent me a brand-new, very good welder." She paused for a moment. "Do you go to church?"
"Not really."
"Why not?"
"I guess I haven't quite reconciled the whole God thing in my mind yet."
"That's okay because He --"
"Believes in me," Josh said, finishing her sentence. "I know."
"Actually, I was going to say that He can get back at you by sending you to the fiery depths of hell for all eternity." Another one of those camera-flash smiles. "Anyway, like an idiot I asked for the welder instead of a new pump. I said, `Annika, you should learn to fix things.' You want to see it?"
"The welder? Uh, sure."
He was having a hard time concentrating and sounded increasingly stupid, even to himself. Flannary had obviously noticed and was enjoying himself immensely.
She pointed to a tarp lying next to a pile of junk, and Josh pulled it off to examine what looked like a car alternator with cables sticking out of it.
Flannary shook his head in disgust.
"Sometime after it entered the country, someone stole the one my church sent and replaced it with whatever that thing is," Annika said. "But do you know what really makes me mad? I know in my heart that right now my welder is being used to fix one of Mtiti's Rolls Royces."
Josh grinned and poked at one of the cables with his foot.
"What? You think this is funny?"
"Kind of."
"I wonder how you'd feel if you had to stand there by that pump all day in the sun?"
"Tell you what," Josh said. "Why don't you and JB go have a drink? In about an hour, come back and just try to resist asking me to marry you."
Josh finally understood the phrase "Africa hot." He was sitting in the full sun wearing one of Annika's old sweatshirts, gloves, and a welding helmet, basking in the glow of the molten metal in front of him. And to make matters worse, the Land Cruiser was idling only inches behind him.
"I feel so stupid!" Annika said as Josh continued to fuse the cracked pump.
The thing under the tarp actually had been a welder -- but one designed to be powered by a car motor as opposed to being plugged into an outlet.
"How would you know?" Josh yelled through his helmet. "Sometimes you just need a redneck. Nothing else will do."
" 'Redneck'?" she said.
He laughed. "JB, maybe you could come up with a good definition."
"I don't think she'd have a context. Most of the American NGO people she's met are more Ivy League types. Like Dan."
"Were you friends?" Josh heard her say. "Never met him."
"I liked him," Annika offered.
"Does anyone know what happened?" Josh said.
There was no immediate response, but finally Flannary spoke. "He got killed. It's Africa, kid. No reason to look deeper."
Even over the crackle of the welder, his tone suggested there was every reason to look deeper. Josh flipped up his helmet and looked back at Flannary, who was sipping from an expensive-looking martini glass.
"Africa can be a dangerous place," Annika said. "A beautiful place filled with wonderful people, but still . . ."
"I'm hoping to avoid getting killed," Josh said. "That's definitely not what I came here for."
"That brings up an interesting question," Flannary said. "Why did you come here?"
Annika sat down on the Land Cruiser's bumper and searched his face in a way that suggested she thought something was hidden there.
He flipped the helmet down and went back to work. "To help out my fellow man?" "Really?" Flannary said.
"Why not?"
"Come on, Josh. I'm the world expert on those fresh little faces. You don't have one." "Okay, how about this: It's the best job I could find, and I've got a lot of debt." "Better, but I still don't love it."
"Why not?"
"Didn't you say earlier that you have an engineering degree?" Annika said. "And don't you have an MBA, too?"
He stopped what he was doing. "How would you know that? Is someone passing out my resume in backwater African villages without telling me?"
"You've got to admit, though, it's a pretty impressive resume. One that would get you a job just about anywhere, I would think."
Josh didn't answer.
"Did you rob a bank or something?" Flan-nary prodded.
"What's it to you?" Josh shot back.
"In this part of the world, it makes sense to know who you're dealing with."
"I didn't rob a bank."
Annika had wisely decided to sit this one out, but Flannary wasn't so easily deterred. "Drugs? Stuffed a little too much up your nose? That can --"
"What the fuck's your problem?" Josh said, wrenching off his helmet and jumping to his feet to face Flannary. Annika pushed herself off the Land Cruiser, but instead of preventing a fight between them, she had to grab Josh around the waist as the sudden movement and heat caused the blood to rush from his head.
"So what, then?" Flannary said as Josh's knees collapsed and Annika lowered him to the ground. "You got caught cheating on your finals?"
"JB! That's enough!" Annika scolded. "Josh, are you all right?"
She pulled his sweatshirt off and then snatched Flannary's drink, dabbing the cool gin on his forehead. "Josh? Are you with me?"
By way of an answer, he held out a hand in Flannary's direction and lifted his middle finger.
Chapter 14.
Josh Hagarty found himself in an increasingly familiar position: lying awake in bed, watching the sun spike around the curtains.
It was hard not to turn the previous day over and over in his mind. Annika Gritdal may well have been the most amazing woman he'd ever met. Of course he'd known women in school who were forces of nature in their own right -- ones who would end up earning millions of dollars, dining with senators, and putting the fear of God into the financial markets. But they would also be in actual danger of perishing if the local Starbucks ran out of soy milk.
He closed his eyes and breathed the increasingly thick scent of smoke wafting in from hundreds of cooking fires burning in the refugee camps over the hill. Annika's image hovered in the darkness.
Not that he had a chance in hell with her. He had a not-so-vague feeling that Flannary's interrogation had been planned and that she'd been complicit. Why they would be interested enough to bother escaped him, but how he'd come off didn't: a violent jerk with something to hide. Or more accurately, a violent jerk prone to fainting spells with something to hide. Quite the chick magnet.
Josh coughed and opened his eyes. The smoke had become thick enough to put the other side of his room slightly out of focus. That had never happened before.
He slipped out of bed and was pulling on a pair of jeans when someone started pounding on his door. The muffled shouting was completely unintelligible, but the tone and volume made his breath catch in his chest.
His first reaction was that they were under attack, though he wasn't sure why or by whom. He managed to get his pants buttoned and ran to the door, finding Luganda on the other side, speaking in a jumble of his native language and English.
The column of smoke bisecting the horizon behind him bore no resemblance to the yellow haze that hung over the town. It took a moment for Josh's mind to process its distance and location, but when he did, he took off shirtless and barefoot toward his truck.
By the time Josh skidded the vehicle to a stop, the flames were rising more than twenty feet into the a
ir, moving quickly across the field of corn toward the shed that housed the irrigation controls and tools. He jumped out and ran toward the shed, ignoring the rocks cutting the bottoms of his feet and holding a hand in front of his eyes to protect them from heat. Smoke billowed over him as he tried to work his way closer, but there was no way. The hair on his arms and bare chest was beginning to singe, and the derelict tractor next to the shed was already being engulfed. He was finally forced to retreat, backing away until the air cleared enough for him to see a few workers who had arrived early watching the inferno.
They weren't moving or shouting or even talking among themselves. Instead they just stood there watching the flames with blank expressions. One of the men was standing with his son in front of him, hands reassuringly on his shoulders as everything they had lived and worked for was consumed. The boy was too young to have learned the resignation displayed by his elders, though, and despair was clearly etched in his face.
Josh ducked involuntarily when the gas that hadn't been siphoned from the tractor exploded, causing the flames to waver for a moment before gaining even more strength. He ran behind his Land Cruiser and fell to the ground, pressing his back against the closed door and putting his face in his hands. These people had been out there every day for God knew how long, breaking their backs to try to turn their lives into something. To create something they could give their children. And now it was gone. Now they had nothing.
When he remembered that President Mtiti was scheduled to be there in a week for a photo op, he slammed an elbow into the side of the car in frustration. How the hell had his life turned out this way? Despite what the paperwork might say, he wasn't a bad person. He'd worked hard to make something of himself. And he'd been ready to work hard to help the people here do the same. But he couldn't. Everything he touched turned to shit. God hated him for some reason. And He hated him so much that He was willing to destroy everything and everyone around him.
Josh looked up when he heard the crunch of approaching footsteps and discovered Tfmena looking down at him with what he interpreted as a mix of disappointment and inevitability. The African was probably regretting saving his ass in that alley.