The Catastrophist: A Novel

by Ronan Bennett

  We get through the first roadblock without too much trouble. But at the next the soldiers are in an angry mood and order us out of the car. It turns out they have heard about the shooting at the embassy and the death of the colonel, apparently a well-known and popular officer. We stand by the side of the dark, lonely road at the end of a line of frightened blacks who are waiting to be questioned by an officer with a swagger stick. The Citroën has pulled up a little way before the roadblock. Two soldiers go to investigate. Roger and I watch as the car’s occupants—two black men—identify themselves.

  “Why would the Sûreté be following us?” I ask Roger.

  “I suppose they’re suspicious of any whites these days,” he replies.

  An aggressive-looking NCO approaches us.

  “Better not to tell them how you got your foot,” Roger whispers. “Just in case. You never know how they might take it.”

  I make up a story to do with a falling gas cylinder. The NCO shouts at us for several minutes. He says that we are paratroopers, that we are spies. We are not Belgians, I assure him, we are not Flemish.

  “Tu miens,” the NCO shouts into my face.

  “No,” Roger replies calmly. “We are British—British.”

  The NCO jabs his rifle into Roger’s chest.

  “Steady on,” Roger says.

  Further up, the officer pulls a man out of the line and starts screaming at him. The soldiers start to gather round, like lions round the beast they have chosen for their kill. The officer strikes the man across the face with his swagger stick. The man mumbles something. A soldier rams a rifle butt into his back and he stumbles forward only to be met by more blows. The officer kicks at his shins; another soldier gives him a savage blow to the back of the head.

  “I think we should say something, don’t you?” Roger whispers.

  “This really isn’t on.”

  We both know we won’t.

  The beating continues. The man is on his knees. The blows rain down on him.

  The NCO looks at us and grins. “MNC,” he says, jerking his head to their victim. “Lumumba man.” He runs a finger melodramatically across his throat. “All Lumumba man get this.”

  “We are not Lumumba men,” I insist.

  “Not by any means,” Roger adds, rather shocked by the idea that anyone could mistake him for such.

  The NCO asks for money, and after a little bargaining we surrender a few francs. Once he’s pocketed them, he pats us on the back and chats amiably—we’re the best of friends now, no hard feelings—as he escorts us to the car. Lumumba man are all going to die, he tells us cheerfully. The communists will be killed. Then the Congo will be free. We drive off and leave the Lumumba man on his back surrounded by the officer and the soldiers, weakly, vainly, trying to fend off their attack.

  Roger drops me at the gate of my house and asks if I can manage. I assure him I’m fine. He reminds me about the antibiotics and tells me to pop in to see him tomorrow to have the bandage changed. I thank him for the lift and he pulls away.

  As I go inside I check the street. There is no sign now of the Citroën. Either Roger and I were jumping to conclusions or the Sûreté men got bored and called it a night.

  c h a p t e r t h r e e

  She has come back to me. It is after midnight by the time she arrives; she is very late. I open the gate in the garden wall and she is there, small and trembling. She falls into my arms and I don’t care that it’s the malaria. I am made strong again, though I would prefer her need to be of another order. I put an arm around her and help her to the house, drinking in every moment of our physical contact. She has not washed her hair. It has the smells of the things I imagine and fear belong to a new and different life: rain and earth and wood smoke and palm oil and spices. They are ordinary but seem somehow alien to me, so far from what I am and how I live and the way the things around me are. She has been defying the fever but is now at the end of her resistance. Her voice is small and far away. She tells me she had trouble getting through the roadblocks and this is the worst possible time for her to be sick. Things are about to happen. She has a part to play and she is afraid she will not be able to play it, and now I must help her.

  “Let’s get you inside,” I say.

  “Please,” she pleads, “I know this will be hard for you, but you must help.”

  The lover who leaves patronizes the lover left, retains enforceable claims, the most significant and hurtful of them sexual. Inès knows that all she has to do is ask. What can I refuse her? How? I tell her I will help and I sweep her up and take her inside, to my bedroom.

  Her stomach is boiling, her eyes are yellow-clouded and her blood dreams. Since the delirium took hold, her words have been without destination or purpose, but once, in the early hours, she cried out for her father, and I was there: a father to her now, watcher, nurse—a kind of lover once more. I do not know what she saw or heard when I whispered her name. “Mi fanno male le ossa,” she told her dead father. “Yes,” I responded, “yes, I know, darling.” Perhaps it was the sound of a language she had not expected to hear, but her gaze sharpened momentarily and she regarded me for a limpid instant with the frank and abstracted curiosity of a child. “I am sore in my bones,” she said in English. It was a small moment of lucidity. It seemed as though she were looking inside her head for a memory, a connection—a reference with which to reconcile where she was now with what she was and what she knew and who she was with. The effort exhausted her and her eyes closed. I kissed her brow, the way a father might, and stroked her damp hair while under the sheet my hand found her breast. She made a little noise, I think of gratification, before she was borne away again to the furnaces where she is—for a time at least—lost to her causes and found to me.

  Auguste waits for her. There is a plan, she said. Two nights from now an Egyptian plane will land at Njili; Nasser is a friend of the Congo. Lumumba will escape from the Primature, and he and the wanted MNC people still in Leo will make their way to the airport and be taken to Stanleyville where Mobutu’s writ does not run and Gizenga is still in control. Auguste will go with them, but now he needs help. He is hiding with Smail’s friend, Harry, the Indian diamond smuggler, but Stipe and Mobutu’s men are looking for him everywhere and the net is closing. I must go to Auguste and tell him that Smail has been arrested. The prisoner will be tortured and when he talks the soldiers will go to Harry’s shack. Auguste must be moved to a safe place until the plane arrives. To my house.

  “This house isn’t safe either,” I told her. “They know about me and you, and they know about you and Auguste. They will make the connections, Inès, they will guess.”

  “They will not suspect you,” she insisted. “You are known as the friend of Stipe and Stipe is the friend of Mobutu. Bring Auguste here. They will never think to look for him here. Keep him just one night, then take him in your car, they will not stop you. Only as far as the airport, only as far as Njili. It was my role, I was going to hide him, but now I cannot, and Auguste is waiting for me, and I cannot help him.”

  I countered. I told her about the roadblock and the Citroën.

  The fever was taking her, inch by inch, surrounding her, consuming her. She found it harder to concentrate, harder to be rational. Please help Auguste was all she could say.

  With sudden desperation I said, “Inès, things are out of control now, there’s nothing you can do here. They’ve won. Mobutu and the Americans have won. Come back with me to London. Leave this place. We’ll build a life together again. It’ll be a happy life, a good one. Please come back with me.”

  She gave my hand a little squeeze and said in a whisper, “They want to kill Auguste because he believes in the freedom of his country. Stipe wants to kill him because he does not accept to be the puppet of the Americans. I cannot leave.”

  What were my wishes when compared with hers but selfish and petty? I spoke of happiness and of building a life; she spoke of struggle and of saving someone from death. As always there is a high
er justification for what she wants. Perhaps I should have conceded the virtue of her reprimand. But I didn’t. Instead I felt angry with her for getting involved in the unnecessary melodrama of all this. Let these people get on with their bloody feuds. Both sides are as bad as each other. What’s it got to do with us?

  “Are you going to Stanleyville as well?” I asked with bitter petulance.

  “I don’t know,” she struggled to say. “I don’t know what to do. I’m so tired.”

  “Why are you trusting me with this?” I spat the question at her. “How can you trust me after all you’ve accused me of?”

  She said softly, almost inaudibly, “Because you are a good man.”

  “If I’m so good come back with me.”

  I felt a delicate finger move lightly in the palm of my hand. Her yellow eyes flickered. She was sinking in the bed, going down with fever’s fires raging around her. I could hardly hear when she said, “I trust you because I am still loving you.” Then she slipped away into malaria’s moiling confusions.

  At five it is barely light and the bats are returning to roost. I hear them scratching the wooden planks of the ceiling above us. The river drones and gushes. In the garden the first of the birds hazard their calls. I lower myself to her, forehead to forehead. Where do you go in your scalding dreams, Inès? Do you come to me, to where I wait for you? I say her name over and over so she will know where to find me, but other voices, hot, demented, compete with mine, dousing my pleas and promises. I force the chloroquine into her mouth and go to the kitchen, limping slightly on my throbbing foot.

  I take my coffee out to the white-walled garden at the back of the house where I sit at the table between the mango tree and a giant white flame of the forest. I can smell the faint morning perfume of the frangipani, and the hibiscus and bougainvillea are in bloom. The house is large and winningly ramshackle, with a covered patio and spacious rooms with high ceilings. I have never known such luxury. For a moment I see myself with Inès in a place like this, happy and contented, secure and comfortable. Then I laugh to myself. How she would hate it. Secure and comfortable—she never wanted that. But maybe some other kind of life together is possible. I tell myself it’s not such a hopeless dream. Only a few hours ago I was sure we would never speak again. Now she tells me she is loving me still. Now she lies in my bed. She came to me, after all. Of all the people she must know in Léopoldville she chose me to help her. The more I think about it, the more I see the way her mind is working: she wants out of what she has got into. She wants to come back to me. It’s the only explanation. I could snatch her up now, drive to the airport, get her on a plane and we could be in London tomorrow.

  And then my sense of realism returns. There is nothing in this for me. She doesn’t want me, only what I can do for her cause, and for her lover. Resentment seeps into me. I sip the coffee. It has gone cold. I will not snatch her up and take her away. Instead I will go to Auguste, to where he hides. He will be suspicious. I will be the last person he expects to see, the lover of his lover, the friend of his former friend, the man who now wants him dead. But he is desperate and I am all there is. I will tell him that Inès has asked me to do this, that she trusts me. But I worry that I don’t trust myself. What will I say, what will I do when I find him? Will I look at his mouth and see the marks of her kisses? Will I look in his eyes and see what he has seen as Inès waited for him in their bed? What things did he do to her? And she to him? I hear the catch in her voice, the way she sounds when she comes. I hear it so clearly, so vividly. I turn suddenly because I hear them together behind me. I knock the table. The coffee spills in the saucer. There’s nothing of course, only my bitter, inward imagination. I do not trust myself. Not at all.

  I look around at my garden and my house as though for the last time. I watch a line of ants file through the coarse grass to and from their nest in the soft black sandy soil. The bulbuls are squabbling in the trees and singing their pleasant, piping song. I know that soon I will give up these peaceful surroundings and all my unmerited comforts. This thing has run its course, the interlude is over. My novel is finished, the manuscript is with Alan in London. I shall hear from him any day now. Regardless of his verdict it will be time to return to my real life. I shall leave Léopoldville and the Congo. I shall say goodbye to Stipe and to Roger and to Madeleine. Helping Auguste will be my last act here. There is no life to be had with Inès. I can delude myself no longer. It is time to go.

  Charles, the houseboy, opens the gate and wheels his bicycle into the drive. He hails me solemnly with his habitual nókó, which I have long since given up trying to discourage. Who was I kidding anyway? I am his nókó and Charles is comfortable with boundaries that are known. So am I.

  “Káwa, nókó?”

  “Yes, more coffee, please, Charles,” I reply.

  He claims to speak almost no French. I have been forced to improve my Lingala.

  He props his bicycle against the wall and goes inside. Ten minutes later he reappears with a tray. His hair is steel gray and receding. His face is unlined, his arms rangy and thick-veined. I once asked him his age but he treated the query as too personal even to acknowledge. He is a private and unsmiling man who has a habit of not hearing my questions, or not understanding them. I think he may be illiterate. The notes I leave for him go disregarded. He could be sixty, he could be forty. He never looks me in the eye and I never escape the feeling he doesn’t like me.

  “I have to go out today,” I explain as he sets the tray down for me. “I don’t know what time I’ll be back. Late, I expect. There is a friend of mine staying here. She’s not well.”

  “Maláli?”

  “Malaria. I am going to arrange for the English doctor to come and see her, but I would like you to stay with her until I return. Will you do that?”

  “Iyo, nókó.”

  By the time I have finished my fresh coffee I decide the hour is reasonable enough to phone Roger. He says he will come over before midday.

  “Roger,” I say hesitantly, “if you should be talking to Stipe, I wonder if you wouldn’t mind keeping this to yourself.”

  There is a pause at the other end of the line. I hate putting him in this position. A decent man like Roger doesn’t deserve to be caught up in the troubles of others.

  “I rarely see Stipe,” he says at last.

  I finish dressing. I sit on the bed and look at Inès. The fever will break soon. She will wake, weak and wracked. Roger will take care of her.

  Charles goes to open the gates. I look over the grass and ask him to cut it before the rain comes this afternoon. He nods automatically; his expression is blank, as always, his eyes turned away. I hesitate before getting into the car. I have never talked about the political situation with Charles and I have no idea where his sympathies lie. He is Bakongo and probably a supporter of Kasavubu. The former president has been in exile since Mobutu’s coup, but relations between the two men are said to be good and there are rumors that Kasavubu will be returning soon to join Mobutu’s regime. Would Charles know who Inès is? Would he know she is a confidante of Lumumba’s? If he is a supporter of Kasavubu is it safe to leave him with her?

  “Did you hear about the shooting at the Ghanaian embassy last night?” I ask, thinking to draw him out. “Mobutu wanted the ambassador out of the country because he was a friend of Lumumba’s.”

  Charles shakes his head. “Té, nókó.”

  He hasn’t, so he claims. This is unlikely. Word would have spread all over the city by now.

  “Yes,” I continue, “the Ghanaian guards killed an ANC colonel.”

  He affects no interest whatsoever.

  “Perhaps things will be more settled now that Mobutu’s in charge,” I say in a final gambit.

  “Mbele.”

  Yes, perhaps. I give up. He will not say anything on this.

  “My friend is too ill to see anyone,” I say. “Don’t let anybody into the house apart from the English doctor. I’ll be home as soon as I can.”
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  “Iyo, patron.”

  I search his face for hints of secret calculations, for the possibility of betrayal. Am I doing the right thing? The sky is low and whitish gray. The sun will not appear today and there will be a thunderstorm later. I get into my car, a Mercedes no less. I picked it up at the public docks the night de Scheut and his children fled. A hysterical engineer who had driven five hundred miles from Coquilhatville, stopping only for fuel, arrived with his wife and four daughters, sleepless and hungry and in a state of high distraction, expecting at any moment to be set upon and torn limb from limb. The engineer, wild-eyed and trembling, insisted on selling me his car after discovering there was no room on the ferry. I did not want his car and even if I had sold everything I owned in the Congo I had nothing like what it was worth. The man pleaded. He had left everything behind, he needed all the money he could lay his hands on. He needed it at once. Bemused porters looked on. One of the market women offered a basketful of capitaines and catfish. The engineer cursed her and she went away chortling. He would accept whatever I could give him on the spot, for the last thing he wanted was for these black bastards and rapists to have his precious Mercedes. Roger and I emptied our pockets and came up with 3,200 francs.

  I start the engine and drive out to the street. There is no sign of the Citroën, no sign of anyone taking an undue interest in me or my comings and goings. I wave at Charles as I go. As usual he pretends not to see me. It’s easier that way, I suppose. It saves embarrassment for both of us.

  I drive past the Primature. Both sets of troops have settled into the rhythm of their standoff. They look forward to another boring day. How will Lumumba escape? Are his supporters planning an assault? They might take on the ANC soldiers, but would they fire on the U.N. troops? I think of the fiasco at the embassy, of the dead colonel and the whimpering of the wounded soldier. Is there to be more blood? A little further on I pass a small throng of people gathered at the roadside. They are inspecting a new corpse. What am I getting into?