Vinegar Soup

by Miles Gibson

  ‘What’s wrong with the trains?’ asked Frank.

  ‘I don’t know,’ grumbled Gilbert. ‘I couldn’t understand half of it.’ He wiped his hand across his skull, scratched an ear and sighed.

  ‘So we’ll have to stay here,’ said Veronica, picking at another cake.

  ‘No. We can reach Bolozo by road. I was talking to someone at the front desk and his brother drives a truck and he can give us a ride into Bolozo this morning. It takes longer by road but it’s cheap and his brother speaks English. It won’t be so bad.’

  ‘When do we leave?’ said Frank.

  ‘Nine o’clock,’ said Gilbert. ‘The truck will be at the hotel gates.’

  So they locked their luggage and surrendered their keys and said goodbye to the Hotel Napoleon. It was a hot and brilliant morning. The sky stung their eyes. The ground burned their feet. But when they reached the road they found no one waiting for them. No driver. No truck. Nothing but sunlight and heat and silence.

  They sat on their suitcases and tried to shelter in the shadow of the gate posts. After a while a man floated past on a bicycle. He wore a black suit, leather sandals and gloves. He shouted to them in French. Gilbert laughed and waved his hand.

  ‘What did he say?’ asked Veronica.

  ‘No idea,’ said Gilbert, settling back to watch the road. A lizard perched on the gate post and stared suspiciously down on him. A flock of grey birds squabbled in some thorn bushes.

  ‘It’s past nine,’ said Frank, digging in the dust with the heel of his shoe. His shirt was wet. His eyebrows glistened with sweat.

  ‘Patience,’ said Gilbert.

  ‘You can fly to Bolozo in forty minutes,’ muttered Frank.

  ‘We won’t see anything of the country if we fly there,’ said Gilbert. ‘That’s why we wanted to take the train.’

  Frank scowled at Veronica but she only smiled and hitched up her skirt to let the sun admire her legs. She had abandoned her army greatcoat in favour of one of her new cotton frocks, a brief blue article printed with poppies. Her legs looked very lean and white.

  And then they heard a growl of thunder that rattled the gravel under their feet; the birds took fright, the lizard fell from its perch and a truck appeared on the road. It was an empty beer truck. An old German beer truck with scoured paintwork and a buckled hood. It shuddered to a halt at the gates and stood trembling, belching smoke. A little man climbed down from the cab, walked over and grinned at them.

  ‘Mr Gill Bear?’ he asked Gilbert. Gilbert nodded.

  ‘You’re welcome,’ said the driver. ‘My name is Al Bear.’ He took Gill Bear’s hand and shook it vigorously.

  ‘Bolozo Noire?’ said Frank.

  Al Bear turned and shook Frank’s hand too. Then he smiled shyly at Veronica, picked up her suitcase and threw it in the cab.

  The cab was hardly large enough for all of them but they squirmed and wriggled and somehow managed to close the door. Veronica sat on Frank, Gilbert sat with his feet on a suitcase and Al Bear sat with his elbow stuck through a window.

  ‘Are you comfortable?’ he shouted above the noise of the engine. The ceiling rattled, the floor smoked and the beer truck rolled away. A rubber Virgin Mary, hanging by a thread from the driving mirror, began a mournful little dance as they drove through the outskirts of town.

  ‘Are the roads good?’ asked Gilbert as the truck lurched and swerved through the streets.

  ‘Yes. The roads today are good,’ said Al Bear cheerfully. He had a neat polished face and his smile showed the tips of his small, gold teeth. ‘But, you know, the rains wash them away. In a few weeks they will be rivers of mud!’ He shook his head and laughed helplessly. ‘Rivers of mud!’

  ‘How do you manage to drive in the mud?’ inquired Frank.

  ‘You must not ask me horrible questions,’ said Al Bear, wiping his eyes.

  The streets were full of cars, buses, trucks and bicycles, forced between buildings, bleak as barrack blocks, with rusting corrugated roofs. Here and there Frank saw figures standing in the gloom of workshops, surrounded by bottles, crates and tyres. Dust. A woman shuffled past with an empty oil drum on her head. Pot hole. Dust. Bar Dancing. A donkey cart loaded with bricks. Coiffeur. Cactus hedge. A yellow dog. Beaufort Biere. Six men, sitting on a wall, staring at their feet. Dust. Heat. Noise. Dust.

  ‘Are you American?’ asked Al Bear as they left the town.

  ‘English,’ said Gilbert.

  ‘London,’ said Al Bear. ‘Ox Four Street. Totton Core Row.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Frank.

  ‘I had a brother once who worked in London,’ said Al Bear. He laughed again and shook his head.

  Frank watched the road. After a few kilometres they passed the wreck of a large white Peugeot abandoned in the bushes. It had been torn completely in half, the doors missing and the front wheels gone.

  ‘Nasty business,’ murmured Gilbert as the truck rumbled past squirting smoke.

  ‘There are many accidents on the road,’ smiled Al Bear.

  ‘Why don’t they clear them away?’ asked Frank when they came upon the skeleton of an overturned truck.

  ‘Nobody wants them. Who wants to drive a wreck?’

  ‘But it’s dangerous,’ argued Frank.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ laughed Al Bear, flashing his teeth. ‘It’s very dangerous on the road.’

  ‘I’m thirsty,’ complained Veronica. They had been riding for nearly an hour. Gilbert unbuttoned one of his useful pockets and pulled out a small and slightly withered orange.

  ‘We shall stop here,’ declared Al Bear, swinging the truck from the road towards a collection of sheds. As he switched off the engine a man appeared through a hole in a wall and waved at them. Al Bear clambered from the cab and disappeared. He was gone for a long time.

  ‘Where are we?’ moaned Veronica. The temperature inside the cab began to soar. The seats gave out a peculiar smell. She leaned across Frank and hung her head from the window.

  ‘Nowhere in particular,’ shrugged Gilbert, staring across at the sheds.

  ‘We’ll never get anywhere,’ said Frank impatiently, as Veronica stabbed him with her elbow.

  ‘He’s in no hurry,’ confessed Gilbert, nodding at Al Bear who had ambled from one of the sheds and was now sitting in the sun with a bottle of beer.

  And it was true. Every few kilometres Al Bear found an excuse to interrupt their journey. First he stopped to inspect the engine, walking slowly around the truck and pausing to urinate over a tyre. Next he stopped to eat a slice of smoked fish he unwrapped from a newspaper parcel. Once he stopped to secure the tail-board. Another time he stopped to buy some fruit.

  In the afternoon they drove through a palm plantation and then the forest closed around them. The road became a corridor between dark and silent trees. The sunlight splintered. The sky turned to steam. Gilbert unbuttoned another pocket and pulled out a small Instamatic. He held the camera against his eye and began to take pictures through the dusty windscreen. Snap. Trees. Snap. Trees. Snap. Trees.

  ‘Take my picture!’ shouted Al Bear and grinned. ‘Take a picture of the driver!’

  Gilbert turned and took a picture of Al Bear’s gold teeth. Snap. Al Bear obscured by the Virgin Mary. Snap. Al Bear driving the truck through a ditch. Snap.

  ‘Thank you!’ laughed Al Bear, fighting to keep control of the wheel.

  ‘You’re welcome,’ said Gilbert.

  A few minutes later they passed a man by the side of the road. He stood, motionless, holding a wooden pole in his fist. A pair of dead monkeys were tied to the pole.

  ‘We shall stop here,’ said Al Bear. He jumped from the cab and walked back to the man. After a brief exchange, during which several tattered bank notes were unfolded and counted, he took possession of the little carcasses and brought them back to the truck. He threw them down on the floor where Gilbert tried to take pictures. They looked like grotesquely shrivelled babies. The eyes were open and the lips pulled back to expose the fangs. A large, blue fl
y emerged from one of the monkey’s ears and settled on Gilbert’s shoe.

  ‘When do we get there?’ demanded Veronica as the truck lurched away. She stared in disgust at the dead monkeys. The sun had already disappeared and it was growing dark inside the cab.

  Tomorrow,’ said Al Bear, leaving the road and steering the truck down a rough dirt track.

  ‘What?’ roared Frank.

  ‘We’ve been driving all day,’ protested Gilbert. ‘How far is it?’

  ‘Far away. Far away,’ smiled Al Bear. ‘Tonight we’ll stay with my sister. Nice food. Clean beds. Good price. And then, tomorrow, Bolozo Noire.’

  They were too tired to argue with him. Hungry, bruised and bleached by dust, they clung grimly to the seat as the truck bounced into the shadows. The track went black. It began to rain. Al Bear drove in silence, his mouth open and his eyes fierce with concentration.

  ‘Here,’ he shouted suddenly. The track had melted away. The truck was trapped in a cobweb of ferns and giant grasses. Al Bear smiled and switched off the engine. ‘We have arrived.’ He jumped from the cab and urged everyone to gather their luggage and follow him up a slippery bank of mud. The moon blinked through a torn cloud. Thousands of frogs were singing.

  Beyond them, lit by the flares of hurricane lamps, stood a cluster of shacks. The smell of wood smoke drifted towards them. An old man squatted over a puddle, washing his arms in the green water. Gilbert sniffed the air, gulping down the smells of wet jungle, cooking meats, rags, rubber and rain. They walked past the shacks, through a hedge of banana palms and reached a crumbling wooden mansion with a peaked iron roof.

  ‘Jesus, what’s that terrible smell?’ said Veronica as she grabbed Frank’s hand.

  ‘It smells like shit,’ said Frank, wrinkling his nose.

  ‘I know it’s shit,’ hissed Veronica. ‘But what have they done to it?’

  ‘Follow me please,’ whispered Al Bear. He led the party on to the veranda and through a metal door.

  They had entered a large, bare room with a wooden counter set against one wall. A collection of torn armchairs had been placed in the centre of the room. They stared around at the circle of chairs, the mildewed carpet and the empty walls. A sudden gust of rain rattled on the roof. The floorboards swayed beneath their feet.

  There was a woman behind the counter. The woman was huge and wearing a long red frock printed with bunches of acid-green flowers. Her hair was wrapped in a turban which she prodded with her fingers as Al Bear approached.

  ‘How now?’ beamed Al Bear. ‘Chop don ready?’

  ‘Smol tarn,’ said the woman. Al Bear gave her the two dead monkeys and she shook him warmly by the hand.

  ‘Her name is my sister Alice,’ Al Bear announced proudly.

  Alice nodded at the strangers, pulled some glasses from a bucket of water and wiped them over with a piece of cloth.

  ‘Guinness,’ called Al Bear as he led them towards the armchairs. And once they were comfortable Alice lumbered forward with the Guinness on a battered tray. She made a little performance of opening the bottles and pouring the beer, snapping off the caps with an opener tied by string to her wrist.

  ‘This is my favourite place,’ explained Al Bear proudly. ‘A lot of visitors like to stay here.’

  The beer was a bitter, mahogany syrup, so strong that their ears began to ring. Gilbert nodded, smiled and tried to smother a yawn. Frank hung his head. Veronica looked dead.

  After a while the curtain rustled behind the counter and Alice appeared again with her tray. She set it down on the table before them. There were spoons, bowls and a dish of hot peppered chicken.

  Gilbert watched her waddle away. By thunder, but she’s a big girl. Royal buttocks. You have to be careful with big women. Dangerous when excited. Strong as elephants. Lose control and they stamp you to death. That’s why you see them with tiny men. Small. Nimble. Fast on their feet.

  ‘Good,’ grinned Al Bear. He laid out the bowls and began to fill them with stew. But it was too late for food. Frank couldn’t find his mouth with the spoon, Veronica began to snore and even Gilbert, who could have sworn he was ready to eat a horse, found the chicken too much for him.

  ‘You like it?’ demanded Al Bear as Gilbert set down his unfinished bowl.

  ‘Very good,’ said Gilbert gravely.

  Al Bear belched and gargled with Guinness. He looked happy and immensely pleased with himself. He sat back and picked at his teeth with a fingernail. Time passed. Rain crackled against the roof. The shell of a spider rolled across the floor on a draught. No one spoke. Frank closed his eyes and settled deeper into his chair. You can fly to Bolozo in forty minutes.

  And then a girl appeared through the curtains. She was no more than twenty years old with a long, narrow face and hair that was tied into tight little knots against her scalp. She wore a translucent blue cocktail dress copied from an old French Vogue and cut from something that might once have been a nylon raincoat. The sleeves and the collar were gone but the buttons and belt remained. Her legs were bare. Her shoes were suede brogues with black rubber heels.

  She shuffled forward, perched on the arm of Gilbert’s chair and grinned at him. Her dress strained its buttons. She smelt profoundly of patchouli oil.

  ‘Dis man he big plenti,’ Al Bear warned her as she toyed with Gilbert’s ears.

  ‘Ousey you kom out?’ she asked Gilbert.

  ‘He don kom out England,’ said Al Bear.

  The girl laughed and moved away. She spoke to Alice who spoke to Al Bear who composed a translation for Gilbert.

  ‘My sister Alice has asked me if this woman is your wife?’ he said, pointing an accusing finger at Veronica who was sprawled asleep with her mouth hanging open.

  ‘Yes,’ said Gilbert. ‘She is my wife.’

  Al Bear looked disappointed.

  ‘And this man,’ he said, turning to Frank. ‘Is he your son?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Gilbert. ‘He is my son.’

  When these things were explained to Alice she growled and dismissed the girl. Al Bear shouted something in French, shook his head and laughed.

  ‘Wat you problim?’ snapped Alice.

  ‘Notin!’ said Al Bear, wiping his eyes and trying to hide his smile.

  ‘Jakas!’ barked Alice. She took a swing at his head with her fist but Al Bear was quick and caught her arm, pulling her forward into the chair. She staggered and fell like Babylon. The chair overturned. Al Bear hit the floor and Alice sat on him. ‘Kis ma bak seid!’

  Al Bear cursed and coughed and, in the confusion, worked his hand beneath her frock. Alice grunted and looked confused. Al Bear squeezed. Alice howled. She pulled open the neck of her frock and peered into her underwear. While she tried to fish for the hand Al Bear wriggled loose and scuttled to freedom.

  ‘What was all that about?’ whispered Frank as Alice crawled to a chair and pretended to tidy her turban.

  ‘They’re fighting over us,’ said Gilbert.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You’ll learn,’ yawned Gilbert. He looked at Frank and smiled.

  ‘Are you tired?’ asked Al Bear cheerfully, as he slapped the dust from his clothes. ‘You can go to bed. My sister Alice will show you the room.’

  ‘Good idea,’ said Gilbert.

  ‘Ok, dem go silip,’ Al Bear announced.

  They picked up their luggage, shook Veronica awake and let Alice guide them through the counter curtain. They walked down an unlit corridor and into a room filled by six iron beds. Each bed had a blanket and a pillow. An oil lamp stood on a metal table. Beneath a shuttered window, a water pipe and a big bucket. Alice pointed at the beds, the bucket and the bolt on the door.

  Without further ceremony Veronica lay down and fell asleep in her clothes. Frank turned and smiled politely at Alice. ‘Thank you,’ he said as he set down his suitcase. She stared sadly at him for a moment, wagged her head and lumbered away.

  ‘Where do you think Al Bear will sleep?’ asked Frank as Gilbert tinkered with the lamp.


  ‘I think he sleeps with his sister Alice,’ murmured Gilbert and the floor creaked as he crawled into bed.

  Frank lay down and waited for his own dreams to carry him to safety. The rain had stopped and Gilbert was already snoring. But when he closed his eyes he found himself back in the beer truck, trapped in the smoke and dust and sunlight. It seemed like weeks since the Hercules Cafe. A different life. They were lost. It was gone. He thought again of the man standing on the edge of the forest with the monkeys strung on a pole. The smell of death in the warm afternoon. Did Alice eat them? How did she cook them? Ask Gilbert. He knows. Skin them, clean them, stew them like babies. Something ran across the wall above his head. What’s that! Cockroach? Yes. Probably. Cockroach everywhere. Eating the world. Thousands of them, crawling from the woodwork, running around the room in the dark. Switch on the light and find a living, twitching carpet of beetles. Don’t think. Close your eyes. Pull the blanket over your head.

  At dawn they woke up sweating and thirsty. Alice brought them a breakfast of bread, fruit and thin, boiled coffee and led them to the lavatory. Al Bear was waiting on the veranda. He grinned when he saw them, blew his nose between finger and thumb and wiped his hand on his shirt.

  ‘Did you like it?’ he asked as they walked away from the house.

  ‘We’ll never forget it,’ said Veronica. Her hair bristled. She was wearing a pair of plastic sunglasses.

  Al Bear looked puzzled. ‘A favourite place with visitors,’ he chirruped.

  They walked to the truck and threw their luggage aboard. The sun burned in an empty sky. The undergrowth steamed in the heat. They clambered into the cab and sat and sweated patiently while Al Bear settled down to work. He rolled up his sleeves, cleaned out his ears, growled in his throat and spat, twice, through the window. He scratched his chest, picked his nose, wiped his knees and pinched the Virgin Mary. He poked and preened and finally, at the very moment when Veronica thought she might lunge and pull out his heart with her teeth, he started the engine and steered the truck, very slowly, back along the track towards the forest road.