by Miles Gibson
‘Do you have friends in Bolozo Noire?’ he inquired as he swerved to avoid a passing truck.
‘No,’ said Gilbert.
The truck roared past with its horn blaring and wrapped them in clouds of oily smoke.
‘No one? Where will you stay? Do you have a hotel?’ asked Al Bear. He looked baffled. He couldn’t understand them.
‘We don’t want a hotel,’ explained Frank, rubbing his chin. The skin felt sore and he needed a shave.
Al Bear shook his head. ‘I have a sister,’ he said cheerfully. ‘She will look after you.’
‘Another sister?’ said Veronica.
‘Yes.’
‘It’s a big family.’
‘Oh, yes!’ said Al Bear. He laughed and shook his head. ‘And you will like this hotel. Nice food. Clean beds. Good price. Air conditioned. Music and dancing every night. Do you like to dance? Don’t worry. I can arrange it.’
‘We’re not staying in Bolozo Noire,’ shouted Gilbert impatiently. ‘When we get there we want to find another truck leaving for Bolozo Rouge. We’re trying to get to the Grand Safari Lodge at Nkongfanto.’
Al Bear fell silent. He frowned and sighed and sucked his teeth. The truck rattled over a bridge. Beneath them a river of brown water oozed between banks of scrub. A car was parked in the river. A group of men were gathered about it, soaping and scrubbing the paintwork.
‘Can you help?’ said Frank.
‘I think I have a brother,’ said Al Bear slowly and gave them another golden grin.
‘We were depending on it,’ said Veronica.
‘If we can find him he will take you to Nkongfanto.’
‘When?’
Al Bear shrugged. ‘The roads are dangerous and it’s far away.’ They reached Bolozo Noire in the afternoon. It was a small, neat city concealed in the folds of the hairy hills. Al Bear guided his truck through busy, tree-lined streets, grinning and punching the horn with his fist. They passed a hospital and a cinema, bars, hotels and bone-white concrete office blocks. They drove through the centre of the city and turned into a dusty square full of wagons and trucks.
‘Stay here,’ said Al Bear. ‘I must find my brother.’ He jumped from the cab and disappeared into the crowd. When he returned he was followed by a tall man in a green vest and a polished trilby hat.
‘Mr Gill Bear, this is my brother,’ announced Al Bear proudly. ‘His name is Renoir. He is a very good driver.’
‘Does he speak English?’ asked Gilbert. He looked doubtfully at Renoir. The man had a wet cigar butt stuck to his mouth, a fat nose and a blind eye.
‘Not often,’ admitted Al Bear.
‘French?’
‘Not often.’
‘He sounds perfect,’ sighed Gilbert.
‘He is a very good driver. Very fast. Very brave. You will like him,’ Al Bear said enthusiastically.
Renoir stood in silence and shuffled his feet in the dust.
‘Nkongfanto,’ said Frank.
Renoir grunted. The cigar butt stuck to his lip like a scab.
‘Does he know where we’re going?’
‘I have explained everything,’ said Al Bear.
‘Grand Safari Lodge,’ said Veronica.
Renoir turned and tried to stare through her dress. His bad eye shone like a peeled boiled egg.
‘Is he all right?’ frowned Frank.
‘Oh, yes. He thinks slow but he drives fast. Very fast. Dangerous. I know you will like him.’
While Frank and Veronica tried to persuade him to carry their luggage Gilbert and Al Bear sat down in the shadow of the truck and discussed the problem of money. At first Al Bear demanded thirty thousand francs for the journey from Batuta but after some elaborate calculations, made entirely on his fingers, declared he would settle for eighty dollars. Gilbert, once it had been established that Alice was included in the price, offered fifty and Al Bear promptly accepted. Gilbert was taken by surprise and had a suspicion he might have been robbed. But it was too late to argue. He paid the price, shook hands and followed Frank and Veronica to Renoir’s truck.
‘I have a brother in Bolozo Rouge,’ Al Bear shouted after them. ‘He works at the Maison du Tourisme…’ But Gilbert had already climbed aboard and Renoir was driving away.
Beyond the city the forest closed around them. Veronica fell asleep on Gilbert’s shoulder. Frank stared from the window. There were moments when he fancied they were riding through an English wood in the heat of a summer’s afternoon. He saw familiar treetops, broad grass ditches and the twist of birds in a brilliant sky. But sometimes the forest grew darker, crowding in upon the road and touching the walls of the truck. Then they drove through a humid twilight. On every side the trees, raised up on monstrous claws, spread canopies to shut out the sun. The silence pressed down on them. The heat became a suffocating stink. When the forest broke open they found themselves riding through a monotony of cocoa and palm plantations.
On the outskirts of Bolozo Rouge they followed in the smoke of six lumber trucks crawling towards the plywood factories. The trucks contained carcasses of massive trees, cut down, shorn and held in chains.
‘Look at that!’ shouted Gilbert. ‘We’ve only just arrived and they’re already taking the scenery down!’
Three children squatting in sawdust throwing stones at a sleeping dog. Two French priests on a bicycle. An empty wheelchair on a pile of oil drums. The forest swallowed them again.
At Koto they paused while Renoir went off on some mysterious errand.
‘Goodbye and thanks for the truck!’ shouted Gilbert as they watched him wander away. Renoir grunted and rolled his bad eye. Half an hour later he returned with beer on his breath and his trilby forced down over his ears.
It was dusk when they left the town. Fifty miles south lay the jungles of the Congo. Renoir turned east on a red dirt track and carried them into the night. Huge moths danced in the glare of the headlamps, their wings casting long and morbid shadows. Baffled by light they hit the windscreen in huge puffs of brown velvet and fell back into the undergrowth. The track skirted boulders and dropped into gullies, twisted, turned and disappeared. The forest swept them into a tunnel, sucked them down into its darkness. And then, when it seemed impossible to continue, as the trees all around became a cage and the wheels slithered and lost their grip, the track returned and led them safely into the moonlight.
They were on the crest of a hill. Before them, set in a patch of rough lawn, stood a small hotel with a red iron roof. A naked lightbulb hung like a jewel from the rotting veranda. Nothing stirred. No one came to meet them. Renoir switched off the engine and climbed from the cab. He stood on the grass and beckoned them toward the house.
When they stepped through the door they found themselves at an empty counter. The smell of old carpets. A faded noticeboard. A guestbook with curling pages. Behind the counter, shoulders propped against the wall, a moth-eaten gorilla stared at the ceiling with a pair of blue glass eyes.
‘I think we’ve arrived,’ whispered Gilbert.
12
On the fourth day Frank woke up in a sweat. His head fell to the floor and lay there for a long time, too weak to raise himself again. He stared at the cracks in the ceiling. The air was thick and stale. A cluster of flies were nailed to the lightbulb.
‘Are you awake?’ asked Gilbert brightly.
Frank groaned and crawled to his knees. They were in a small, square room. The walls of the room had been washed with a lime-green paint. There was a piece of lino on the floor. The room contained a metal wardrobe, four beds, a table with a telephone and lamp.
Gilbert was sitting on one of the beds with a banana in his hand. ‘You were moaning and groaning in your sleep,’ he complained as Frank emerged. Sitting there, naked to the waist, belly rolling and nipples swelling like raspberries, there was something pagan and wild about him. His face and neck were red with dust. His beard sparkled. His skin had the shine of wet clay.
Veronica was sitting in the next bed. She was s
till wearing her frock, the front stained with dirt and sweat. Her hair was a tangle of ginger spikes.
‘Jesus, you look like you’ve been pulled from a river,’ said Frank.
‘I know. I think I drowned in my sleep,’ she said miserably, fanning herself with a magazine. ‘These sheets are soaking.’
‘There’s an air conditioner over there but we can’t get it working,’ grumbled Gilbert, waving his banana at something that looked like an old truck engine hanging from the wall above the window.
But Frank wasn’t listening. There were knives cutting under his ribcage, twisting his stomach, hacking his entrails. The pain caught his breath and paralysed his face. ‘My stomach!’ he wheezed. He jerked forward and wrapped himself in his arms.
‘Diarrhoea,’ said Gilbert. ‘It’s the heat. You’ll get used to it.’
‘I bet it’s snowing in London,’ sighed Veronica.
Frank staggered along the wall, found the bathroom and locked himself inside.
‘We’re going out to look for breakfast,’ Gilbert shouted through the door.
Frank groaned, sickened by the stench of his own putrefaction. Squirting. Straining. Nothing solid. Filthy. Yellow. Thin as soup. Burns. Try to control it. That’s better. No, it isn’t. What happens if something serious? You die. Shit yourself to death. Buried with your knees tucked under your chin. Here it comes again. Knives chopping under the ribs. The strain turns you inside out. It can’t last for ever. No food. Empty stomach. Nothing left to lose.
When it was finished he stood trembling under the shower, gargled in the tepid water, washed his hair, let the dust drain to mud at his feet. Then he found fresh clothes and went to join Gilbert and Veronica who were sitting at a table on the long veranda.
‘Where is everyone?’ he asked, pulling up a chair.
‘I think we’re it,’ said Gilbert.
‘And him,’ said Veronica, glancing over her shoulder. The head of a lion hung morosely from the wall of the house, cobwebs knitted into its mane, glass eyes watching the edge of the forest.
‘Do you think he died here?’
‘There aren’t any lions in the forest,’ said Gilbert. ‘He must have come down from the north.’
An old waiter in a greasy red jacket came creaking towards them bearing a big tin tray. He left them a jug of muddy coffee, tumblers of fruit juice the flavour of soap, crusty bread rolls with moist grey interiors, white butter, maroon-coloured jam.
‘Do you think we’ll see any animals?’ asked Frank as they set to work on the food.
‘They’ve probably eaten ’em,’ said Veronica. ‘Remember the monkeys?’
‘I used to have a recipe for monkey,’ said Gilbert, breaking open a bread roll. ‘They take a long time to clean but they don’t taste too bad when they’re fresh. You have to be careful with bush-meat. Nothing stays sweet in this heat.’ He pulled the soft, grey pulp from the roll and tucked it neatly into his mouth. He began to talk about rats, bats and the livers of dogs.
‘Who’s that?’ Veronica interrupted. Beyond the veranda a tall figure in a trilby hat was sitting on a pile of logs peacefully picking his nose.
‘I think it’s Renoir,’ said Gilbert, squinting into the sunlight. ‘He’s waiting for me to pay him.’ He drained his cup, wiped his mouth and set off briskly across the lawn.
Veronica yawned and stretched her arms. ‘I stink,’ she said proudly, sniffing the seams of her frock. ‘I’m going to wash.’
Frank sat alone and stared at the forest. The heat made him tired. The coffee bubbled in his stomach. After a while the old waiter returned to clear the table. His dark face was pitted with pox. His hair was a tuft of coarse grey wool.
‘Where are the animals?’ demanded Frank as he watched him stick his thumb in the butter.
The waiter smiled. ‘Crocodile,’ he said.
‘Crocodile?’
‘You see the crocodile?’
‘No,’ said Frank.
The waiter put down the tray and led Frank along the veranda to the back of the hotel. In the corner of a yard, behind a stack of breeze blocks and a pile of rubbish stood a narrow wooden cage. It was a coffin nailed from boxes and crates. Through the bars of this prison a long tail protruded like a cracked leather sausage.
As Frank watched, the waiter picked up a broomstick and thrashed the top of the cage. The crocodile flicked the tip of its tail.
‘Crocodile!’ shouted the waiter. He laughed and performed a little tap dance.
‘Is that it?’ said Frank.
‘Crocodile!’
‘Yes,’ said Frank sadly. He stared at the reptile in the box, the flies swarming, the stinking rubbish and the baked, red earth. He hung his head. A terrible weariness seemed to press down on him. And for the first time he felt afraid. Where were they going? What would become of them?
‘Where are the other animals?’ he asked when the old man had finished his dance.
The waiter frowned and wiped his face. ‘We have a donkey,’ he said anxiously. ‘We have a donkey but he gone died.’
In the afternoon they sat in the shade of the veranda and drank many pots of hot, weak tea. Veronica read through old copies of the Watchtower she had found beneath her bed. When will the Kingdom come? What does God want with me? Frank dozed in his chair. Gilbert kept watch on the forest. It was as if he expected, at any moment, to see Sam Pilchard come stumbling through the undergrowth, shouting, hooting, arms thrown open to greet him. As they came closer to Plenti so Gilbert grew more excited, embraced everything, laughed like a child with each new discovery. The wall of the forest reminded him of his days on the Congo riverboats. The smell of wood smoke from the hotel kitchen put him in mind of lost tribesmen, squatting naked under the stars, roasting meat in the camp fire’s ashes. He was returning to some lost and distant country that Frank could not penetrate. Where Frank found only heat and dust Gilbert could see the gates to a tropical paradise. When will the Kingdom come?
Late the next morning a car came for them. The driver, a lugubrious African wearing a cardigan and elasticated winklepickers, found his way into their room and tried to walk out with their luggage.
‘How do we know he’s from Sam?’ demanded Veronica as they chased him around the room.
‘He must be from Sam,’ reasoned Gilbert. ‘Everything is arranged.’
‘Well, why didn’t he phone?’ complained Veronica. ‘How does he know we’re here? We could have been delayed or anything. We could be anywhere.’
‘We were delayed,’ said Frank. ‘We should have been here days ago.’
‘It’s not my fault,’ shouted Veronica. She ran into the bathroom, collecting up washbags, towels and a precious sliver of perfumed soap. ‘What day is it?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Frank in surprise. ‘I think it’s Friday. What do you think? Is it Friday?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Veronica as they followed their luggage into the sunlight.
When the car was loaded the driver paused, hunted through his cardigan and gave Gilbert a little note.
‘This bastard is Happy,’ Gilbert read aloud. ‘Watch him. He farts. Waiting for you. Boris.’
‘Why didn’t Sam write?’ asked Frank suspiciously as he climbed into the back seat. The car was hot and smelt of human decay.
‘He’s probably too busy,’ said Gilbert, sitting himself next to Happy. ‘He left Boris to make the arrangements. Nothing wrong with that.’
Veronica settled down next to Frank and opened the window. ‘He could have phoned,’ she insisted.
Happy farted and drove them away. They skidded and bounced down a narrow track cut through the silent forest. A tunnel of dust in the green sunlight. They drove for an hour and then had to stop to let Frank empty his bowels in the bushes.
‘How do you feel?’ said Veronica when he staggered back to the car.
‘I don’t feel so good,’ he confessed. He was white and shaking. His neck was shining with sweat.
‘Can’t we rest for a mo
ment?’ she pleaded, turning to Gilbert. ‘Frank looks worn out.’
‘It’s nothing!’ barked Gilbert. ‘He’ll get used to it. Let’s get going before it’s dark.’ He stamped impatiently on the floor and urged Happy to start the engine again.
‘You’ve waited years and years,’ snapped Veronica. ‘What difference are another few hours going to make to anyone?’
‘There’s nothing wrong with him,’ insisted Gilbert. He swung round and glared at Frank. ‘Nothing serious.’
‘How do you know?’
‘It’s the heat. I’ve seen it before. It happens to everyone.’
‘It hasn’t happened to me,’ argued Veronica stubbornly.
‘You’re not human.’
Frank moaned and closed his eyes. Veronica pulled him down against her breasts and suffocated him. ‘He doesn’t look normal,’ she said, staring into his ear. ‘His skin has gone a funny colour.’
‘When we get there he can go to bed. He’s not going to improve sitting out here, in the middle of nowhere, while we shout at each other,’ shouted Gilbert. ‘I can’t work miracles.’
Veronica held Frank’s head and sulked. They were going to drive through this heat for ever. The forest would lead them in circles. For ever and ever. Amen.
Happy farted and the car sprang forward.
‘We’re nearly home,’ said Gilbert, settling back into his seat. He scratched the top of his head and grinned into the driving mirror but Veronica ignored him.
They reached Plenti in the afternoon. At first it was no more than a leak of rubbish along the jungle road. The rusting bulk of a truck, broken bottles, paper, rags. Then the road spread as the forest shrank and they were driving through a small town. On either side of them a confusion of houses and workshops crowded down upon the road which filled, at once, with chickens, dogs and naked children. A few of the buildings were made of timber and stone, others were no more than crude shelters the size and shape of packing crates. Men sat in shadows, talking, scratching, drinking beer. A radio blared. At one end of the town a line of fat and silent women stood patiently at a water pump.