The Uttermost Parts of the Earth

by Frederic Hunter

  The house by the river delighted Kalima. She and Kwame explored the rooms and fantasized about what they would do in each one. Kalima would have a cocktail for the Badekas in the “grand living,” followed by a sit-down dinner in the dining room and dancing on the verandah. “You will have to teach me how to live in this house,” she said. “I have known of such places only in movies.”

  “Me too,” replied Kwame. “I’ve never lived in a house like this in America.” Kalima looked at him, surprised. A house in Mbandaka could be larger than the ones he occupied even in America? “We will learn to live in it together,” he said.

  Upstairs they found that Berton had locked off most of the second floor. He had left them a small bedroom that overlooked the river. It contained an ancient bed frame on which frayed ropes held the mattress. Kwame lay down on it. Kalima sat beside him. “Police are searching the hotel,” he said. “But we are safe here.”

  She smiled at him, but shook her head. “Safer in Bolobe,” she said.

  Kwame fell asleep. He woke he did not know how much later—maybe an hour, maybe only minutes. Kalima was watching him. She said, “The rebels have taken Kisangani. There is turmoil everywhere.” She added, “There will be many strangers coming into Mban. Some of them will be dangerous.”

  “If the rebels come this way,” Kwame said, “and there is fighting, I may have to leave. Evacuate to Kinshasa. Will you come with me?”

  Kalima looked through the window toward the river.

  “Wherever I am,” he said, “I want you with me.” But, of course, if he left the country, she would not be with him.

  After a long moment she said, “Someday you will leave Zaire. When you do, I am not going to be alone in Kinshasa.”

  “What will you do?”

  “Go back to Bolobe. With a baby I will be welcome there.”

  “And marry the man in Bikoro?”

  She shrugged and did not look at him.

  “Will you be happy with him?”

  “Why don’t we go to Bolobe? My father will like you better now that you have given me a baby.”

  Kwame said nothing. It was not an unreasonable request.

  “You were happy there. I could tell how happy you were.”

  “My whole life has prepared me for something different.”

  “You think my life has prepared me for Kinshasa? Or America?” She laughed, with hurt rather than humor. “Will all American women be like Vandenbroucke’s mother? Like Mme Moulaert? Will they think Kwame Johnson has brought his putain with him from the Equateur?”

  “They will think how lucky Kwame Johnson was to meet a woman like you—a woman with education—in the Equateur.”

  Kalima smiled at this naive idea. “There is no place safer than Bolobe.” She touched his cheek. “How can we be safe in Kinshasa? The rebels and Mobutu’s people will fight for power there.”

  After a moment he said, “If we were married and things got dangerous, my people would take care of you.” He paused, knowing that her interpretation of what “my people” meant would be different from what he intended. “Would you come to America?”

  “For a visit perhaps. Two weeks, a month.”

  “No more than that?”

  She said nothing. To go to America: it was something she had never considered. He saw that, as she considered it now, the prospect of America terrified her. It was an idea too big for her head to grasp.

  “The doctor told me about America,” she said. “It is very comfortable there. But also very hard. For black people, I mean.” They looked at one another. “Was he wrong?”

  “It is better than Nigeria.”

  “Come to Bolobe.”

  “There is nothing for me to do there. I’ve been trained—”

  “Oh, you and your training!”

  “You wear me out,” he said, teasing. “Right now I need to sleep.”

  “You sleep,” Kalima told him, rising from the bed. “I will go look at the kitchen.”

  LATER, WHEN he woke from his nap, Kwame went downstairs. He came upon Kalima sitting in the living room. She was staring sadly, thinking of Odejimi and the way he died.

  “Odejimi brought me here once,” Kwame said, startling her out of her reverie. “I had been in town only a day or two. He had already begun his game with Mme Berton.”

  “The dear doctor,” said Kalima. “So like him to feel that if he sees a woman, he must have her. She herself means nothing. He is testing himself. His charm against her resistance. Showing off for his friends.” She smiled ironically. “Mme Berton cannot have been much of a test. Of course, she was white. The jealous husband made it interesting. White men take things too far. They think shooting settles things.”

  She did not speak for a moment. Then she said, “I did not know there was so much blood in a body.”

  “Do you miss Odejimi?” Kwame asked. The question meant: “Did you love him?” And that, of course, meant: “Were you in love with him as an American woman might have been?” An impossible question. Kalima could not love as an American woman loved. A Nigerian doctor would not have wanted that. What Kwame really wanted—he was mostly aware of this himself—was an assurance that Odejimi had never been important in her life.

  Her answer was a shrug. Which might mean: “I live in present time and he is no longer here.”

  “I fell in with him when I thought Vandenbroucke might still come back.” She smiled self-mockingly. “I thought this was what education did to men. It made them pass around village girls like me.” After a moment she added, “We loved him as a friend, but he was not serious.” Kwame nodded. Kalima went on, “Odejimi’s wives in Nigeria had lives separate from him. They had money and their own businesses. He resented this. Wives are an encumbrance when one wants to wander the earth.”

  “When he passed you to me,” Kwame asked, “should I have resisted?”

  “No. From the beginning I meant to have you.” She gazed at the river without turning toward him. “If you are forced into that role, you want to play it well.” She smiled at him. “Did you think I would allow you to resist me? Why do you think I gave you the laptop and the charms?” He grinned, relieved. “Why do you think I let you win at mankala? I never let him win. He was not going to take that from me!”

  A FEW days later the Mongo Restaurant closed its doors. Tata Anatole explained to Kwame that the chef, the owner, was a Mubinza who came from the hinterland behind the town of Bumba. It lay at the northernmost point of the great river’s curve. Things were uncertain now. During the disintegration of the country some people thought it unwise to get caught in the territory of a tribe not one’s own. The restauranteur consulted a féticheur three times, twice before the fall of Kisangani and once since. Each time the féticheur had counseled him to return home. Finally he had taken the advice.

  KWAME BROUGHT the CD player from the center and set up speakers throughout the house. He and Kalima had music whenever they wanted it, often American jazz, sometimes music for cocktails: ballads by Gershwin and Rodgers and Hart. Kalima loved these. She would dance. Kwame would join her for the secret pleasure of watching her move. They would sing to one another: “Embrace me,” Kwame would implore to strains of Gershwin, hugging her, “my sweet embraceable you.” And Kalima would sing back, mimicking phonetically the lyrics: “Seeto mbarazolo-oo.” Kwame had either to hold her close or dance away, hiding his laughter from her, for if she knew he was laughing, she refused to dance. And sometimes she would sing one of her songs and he would reply in a Lonkundo that made her cry with laughter.

  So they moved into their new house in song and laughter.

  FIFTEEN

  Two weeks after Kisangani fell to the Kabilistes, Kwame received a letter. It contained parts of a secret cable the American ambassador had sent to Washington. Even though now “virgin,” edited for transmission through the public mails, the letter contained a message scrawled at the top of the text: “Destroy after reading.” At the bottom a note was scrawled: “Kabiliste
s/Rwandan Tutsis hold Kisangani and Bukavu. Headed toward Copper Belt. If they push toward Mbandaka, your work for USEmb will be crucial.” Another hand had written: “Rwandan civil war now being fought in Congo jungles. Tutsi soldiers hunt Hutu refugees. Thousands and thousands massacred. ‘The horror!’” Again at the bottom: “Destroy after reading.”

  For the first time Kwame understood what he was really doing in Zaire. The embassy did not care about the effectiveness of its cultural program in Mbandaka. It merely wanted a presence in the town, a pair of eyes on the ground, and in case of trouble in the Equateur a building to use as a command post. If it needed that command post, USEmb would expect him to welcome its operatives, CIA types like Gianni and Pedersen; they would execute policy. If he showed “heroism and courage,” if he helped advance American objectives in the new Kabila-era Zaire, a commendation might be inserted into his personnel folder. If not, he would find the ranks of advancement closed to him. He destroyed the document as instructed.

  Kwame could not truly say that he felt used. When they had talked at his apartment that first day in Kinshasa, Judkins had as much as told Kwame the purpose of the branch post in Mbandaka. Now that purpose had been made all but explicit. Reporting must continue, of course. Congressional monitors of USIS activities must still be reassured. So the elaborate game would continue.

  Reporting would enumerate program goals that had no meaning. It would exaggerate post effectiveness. If necessary, in secret closed-door sessions, policy makers might reveal to selected congressional friends that the posts were deemed crucial to the achievement of US policy goals in Zaire at this time of crisis and flux: the maintenance of a unitary national entity; avoidance of war and national dismemberment in Central Africa; American access to Zairean resources; the promise of movement toward a democratic system with free and fair elections—despite the fact that the country was virtually without infrastructure.

  A question, apparently not considered by USEmb, was this: What would happen if the Kabiliste/Tutsi soldiers attacked Kinshasa, totally disregarding Mbandaka? Wouldn’t that throw all Kinshasa, including the embassy, into turmoil and panic? Might the embassy forget the Equateur?

  Kwame now disregarded any guilt he might feel about misrepresentations. He keyed his reporting to policy objectives. He exaggerated the number of books and videos borrowed, the number of visitors to the library, the number of attendees at video showings, the breadth of his contacts with provincial leaders. He reported details of the fictional gala he had held to mark the center’s official inauguration and mentioned the titles of local dignitaries who had attended.

  “The provincial governor is particularly pleased with this new addition to our community,” Kwame reported. Knowing his superiors’ desire that he make influential contacts, he allowed them to believe about him what Berton had believed about Mason’s contacts with the Residence. He enthused: “The governor and I have become friends. We sometimes breakfast together at a small bakery.” In fact, Kwame had several times met the governor, a frustrated, out-offavor Kongo politician rusticated to the region of the Mongos. The governor feared that his investments south of Kinshasa would be stolen from him during his tenure in Mbandaka just as he had plundered investments from a tribal brother sent out of the country as ambassador to Ethiopia. “The governor hopes to make himself useful to Mobutu,” Kwame reported fancifully, “should the rebellion spread throughout the country, should Mobutu choose to make a stand in his home region.” Kwame finished off by noting: “USIS Mbandaka is monitoring preparations for this eventuality.”

  Kwame fabricated accounts of film trips into the bush. He assumed that readers of his reports—if indeed anyone actually read them—would realize that roads in the Equateur were all but impassable. He noted he had employed a second local assistant, K. Vandenbroucke, on a probationary basis and was paying the employee from petty cash. Kwame kept careful accounts of these expenditures and reported them monthly, giving a weekly salary to Kalima so that she would have money of her own.

  Kwame dutifully transmitted these reports on time. He would occasionally get a hurried note from his bosses in the capital. “Keep up the good work!” they would encourage him. “We know the lonely vigil’s tough duty!” They reported that the Kabilistes had turned south and west, heading for Kinshasa. It looked as if the Equateur would be spared any excitement—unless Mobutu decided to make a stand there.

  AS THE days passed, Kwame took extraordinary pleasure in watching the transformation of Kalima. She changed almost daily, virtually before his eyes. Not solely because she was pregnant. That, of course, was a large part of it. The function of her womanhood was being fulfilled. At night as they lay side by side, she would whisper to Kwame, “I am carrying your child.” He would look at her through the darkness. She would seem illuminated by joy. Kwame did not feel the white expatriate’s annoyance that biology had sprung its trap. Instead he experienced a curious, almost African elation: A child was coming! The Bon Dieu had blessed them. Kalima would smile when she saw how pleased he was. “My first child,” she would say. “Thank you for giving your permission.”

  Kwame began to have a different sense of who she was. It transformed her from the mere physical being into a kind of full-bodied womanhood, seen by herself as having value and individual identity.

  And her sense of Kwame expanded. The father of her child was a man to respect: an American, virile, intelligent, educated, one of the world’s grand men. She could not believe he was despised in his own country, as Odejimi insisted. This man accorded her dignity. Had he not balked at sharing her with others? Had he not visited her people? Had he not found a palace for them to live in, better even than the homes he inhabited in his own country? Did he not worry about what would become of her when he had to leave her? Eventually all men left their women, some to disappear, some to take new wives. Did he not give her money every week? Was it not the American way for a man to make certain that his woman had adequate money to meet her expenses? Were there not feelings between them, which she had never felt with any other man? She knew this emotion would not last forever, but had she ever before shared such feelings with a man?

  For Kalima it was not enough merely to bask in the pleasure of Kwame’s feelings, to be an object of his delight. Instead she wanted to prove herself a woman deserving of his respect. She noticed that with the closure of the Mongo Restaurant the only food available in “downtown Mbandaka” was sold by street vendors and food stalls in the market. She decided that “downtown” should offer a place to eat. Using the money Kwame gave her, Kalima had workmen construct in the yard before the center a shelter of palm fronds. She showed them the roomful of usable wooden crates at the rear of Kwame’s building, crates in which his center had received its supplies. She had the workmen build from them rude tables and benches at which her patrons could eat. When the work was completed, Kalima took Kwame to the center—he had not been there for days, spending his time instead at Bomboko Congo school—and showed him what had been accomplished. “You are amazing!” he said, impressed with what she had achieved.

  At first “Chez Kalima” served only snacks: fried plantains, pineapple slices, sweet bananas and papayas, rice and beans garnished with onions. Except for the kitchen, it did not use the center building. Kalima located vendors who could supply her food and badgered them to keep their prices low. She spent long hours training the people, most of them from around Bikoro, who would prepare and serve the fare.

  When le snack proved a success, she began to plan for a place that offered lunch. The enterprise was problematic. Few Zaireans ate more than snacks at midday. But Kalima hoped that there were enough men who wanted to be seen in the act of eating in the fashion of their betters in Kinshasa to make a lunch place viable, especially if music, played on the center’s equipment, invited patrons to her tables. She decided to offer table d’hôte entrees according to what food was available: poulet moambe (chicken in a spicy peanut sauce, the national dish), capitaine if the river cat
ch was good, soso (chicken stew), saka saka (manioc leaf stew), fufu (mashed manioc), or loso (rice). If the lunch place succeeded, then perhaps even dinner would be possible, she told Kwame, especially if it included entertainment: music and videos from the center.

  Kwame was proud of Kalima—and pleased to provide the kind of support that enabled her to blossom. She proved herself to be so much more of a woman than he had realized.

  By now everyone in Mbandaka understood that she was pregnant with Kwame’s child. He himself regularly referred to her as “ma femme,” a French usage that carried an ambiguous double meaning. “My woman” also meant “my wife.” He wondered if they should marry. As far as the town was concerned, they already had.

  AS KALIMA took on a new identity, Kwame changed as well. The influence that Dr. Odejimi had exerted over him—an influence of which he was hardly conscious—dissipated. The Nigerian had so charmingly insisted that sex, drugs, and whiskey were the only routes to survival in Mban that Kwame had accepted his view as truth.

  But it was not truth. Now that the doctor was dead, Kwame found that he had little desire—and no hunger—for hemp and hard liquor. And none for the compulsive and emotionless fucking that Odejimi preferred. Kwame began to see that through his charm the Nigerian had imprisoned both him and Kalima in his vision of how life must be lived in the Equateur. His death set them free of that vision.

  TO PROTECT their household now that a child was coming, Kalima had a Bikoro artist carve them a doorpost. The figure was a watchful, large-breasted woman of childbearing age. She would protect everyone who entered the dwelling, especially if Kwame and Kalima were faithful in pouring a small libation of beer or milk at the bottom of the doorpost every week.