Brazzaville Beach

by William Boyd

  On the third day the northerners attacked again. It had rained in the night, as Mallabar had predicted, and the forest was wet and visibly steaming in the sunlight, the paths mushy beneath our feet. We wore lightweight oilskins and Wellington boots. Occasionally we could hear the distant noise of thunder but Mallabar still wasn’t sure, he said, if this was the true start of the rainy season.

  João had located our southerners in a grove of lupus trees. The fall of rain had brought out their pale yellow, sticky flowers overnight, and all the chimps were sitting in the branches grazing on them. Rita-Mae lay on a low branch, on her back, one leg dangling, with Lester squatting on her stomach. She seemed to have eaten her fill; from time to time she would reach out, pluck a lupus flower and give it to Lester to eat.

  The forest was still dripping from the drenching it had received. Everywhere was the sound of water falling on leaf as the movements of the chimps shook droplets free. And in the background there was still the noise of thunder, as the night’s cloud systems moved south toward the coast, heavy furniture being shifted in the room above. We sat and watched the chimps in the sultry, moist heat. The atmosphere was soporific. Mallabar yawned again and again. It was infectious; we both yawned simultaneously.

  He turned and smiled at me, and seemed about to say something, when he was interrupted by a crash of vegetation. Pulul or Americo—it was too sudden for me to tell—hurled himself out of the nearby bushes and leapt up and grabbed Rita-Mae’s hanging leg. With a scream she and Lester fell the ten feet to the ground. To the left, Sebastian and Darius were up another tree after Conrad, who brachiated recklessly from his position into an adjacent tree, missed his grip and half-fell, half-tumbled through the branches to the ground.

  Meanwhile, Gaspar had grabbed baby Lester by one leg and was whirling him round and round in midair. Observing this, Darius jumped down and seized the baby from Gaspar, who readily surrendered him.

  Darius held Lester by both legs and thrashed him violently against the knobbled length of an exposed root. I saw Lester’s skull literally explode under the force of the blow and bits of brain and bone were scattered widely. Then Darius thwacked the limp body against a trunk two or three times before flinging it carelessly away.

  Conrad and Clovis made their escape, shrieking and calling. Rita-Lu adopted her half-crouched, presenting position and watched as Pulul and Americo and a couple of unidentified adolescents pummeled and stamped on the supine body of Rita-Mae, who had been badly stunned by her fall in the first charge. Then, as if on some invisible signal, they stopped and gathered round Rita-Lu. Darius drummed on a tree and they were off again, like the time before, running and whooping, Rita-Lu in their midst.

  Rita-Mae was not dead. When they had gone, she stood up, shivering, and immediately fell over. She made a feeble hooting noise as if calling for Lester. She rolled over, managed to regain her feet once more, cast around a couple of times as if making a cursory search for Lester and then loped off with some awkwardness into the undergrowth after Clovis and Conrad.

  The fight had lasted only a few minutes. I felt myself begin to unfreeze. I looked round at Mallabar. His face was sallow, bloodless; his beard looked suddenly black and coarse. He was biting his bottom lip, staring in front of him as if he were in terrible shock. I touched his shoulder; I could feel it shuddering beneath my fingers.

  “Jesus,” he said. “Jesus Christ.” He kept on repeating this.

  I thought it best to leave him alone for a moment or two and went to look for Lester’s body. I found it hanging in a thorn bush. The head was a loose bag of pulped tissue and bone, the small limbs bizarrely mishapen and broken in many places. Carefully, I lifted him out and placed him on the ground. I turned; Mallabar was walking toward me.

  He stared, clearly horrified, at Lester’s body.

  “Did you see,” he said, in a small voice, “that alpha male, what he did? Did you see?”

  I felt enormously sorry for the man. “I know,” I said. “It’s very shocking. Nothing prepares you for the violence. Even me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “This is the third fight I’ve seen.”

  “Third?”

  “Yes.” I spread my hands apologetically. “Eugene, this is what I’ve been trying to tell you. This is what’s been happening here.”

  “Been happening?” he said distractedly, as if lost in other thoughts.

  “I’ve been trying to tell you. But you—”

  He raised his fist to shoulder level, arm bent and took a step toward me.

  “What have you been doing here?” he said in an urgent, trembling voice. “What have you been doing to them?”

  “What’re you talking about?”

  “It’s you. It’s something you’ve done to them.”

  “Come on, Eugene, don’t be stupid!”

  He lowered his fist and hung his head for an instant.

  “I blame myself,” he said. He looked up. “I should have had you supervised.” Then he screamed at me, madly: “What have you done! What have you done?”

  I took a step back. I had felt his spit on my face.

  “I haven’t done a thing, you fool, you bloody idiot!” I shouted at him, angry myself. “I’ve just been watching them.” I pointed at Lester’s broken body. “It’s what they’re doing. They’re killing each other!”

  He had raised his fist again. His eyes were wide.

  “Shut your fucking mouth!” he shouted. “Shut your fucking mouth!”

  “No! The northern apes are wiping out my southerners. One by one. Now you’ve seen it with your own eyes, you stupid bloody fool, and you—”

  He tried to hit me. He hurled a punch, full force, at my open face. If he had connected he would have broken my nose. Squashed it flat. Crushed bones and shattered teeth. But somehow I managed to jerk my head away and down and the punch hit me on the shoulder. I heard, distinctly, the knuckle bones in his fist crunch and break as the force of the blow spun me round and right off my feet. I fell heavily to the ground. My shoulder burned, hot with pain. I felt it had sprung from its socket. I grunted through clenched teeth, flinching, looking round expecting another attack.

  Mallabar was some distance off, scrabbling in the undergrowth looking for something. He was flicking his right hand curiously, fingers spread, as if they were wet and he was trying to shake water from them. He stood up; he had a stick in his left hand. He ran over toward me.

  “Eugene!” I screamed at him, “Stop, for Christ’s sake!”

  I ducked.

  He hit me across the back. The stick broke under the blow, but, because it was left-handed, it hadn’t as much impact as it might have. He grabbed at me, and I pushed wildly at his face, scratching. At the same time, somehow, I caught hold of two of the broken fingers on his right hand and pulled them back with as much savage effort as I could muster.

  He bellowed with pain and let me go. I ran.

  I sprinted off down the path through the dripping forest toward the camp. I thought at first I could hear his running footsteps behind me, but I never looked round. I ran for fifteen minutes and then halted, doubled over, my body aching with effort. I sank to my haunches, hand on a tree trunk for support. I tried to calm down.

  I felt a hot drumbeat throb in my right shoulder. I slipped my jacket off and unbuttoned my shirt. My shoulder was pink, flushed and already slightly swollen. I could see four darker circles in a row, the imprint of his knuckles. Very gently, I eased my shoulder joint. Very sore, but mobile.

  I dressed and headed off again. I crossed the Danube and walked into camp past the feeding area. I could hear the noise of chimps coming from it. I turned left to cut past Mallabar’s bungalow, making for the census hut. On my left were the garages and workshops. I saw a Land-Rover parked there with its bonnet up and Ian Vail leaning inside fiddling with the engine. He stood up, wiped his hands on a rag and closed the bonnet with a vengeful but satisfied bang. It had been Vail’s turn to do the provisioning run this week. By
rights he should have left hours ago.

  “Hi,” he said, as I walked over to him. “Bloody fuel pump.”

  “When’re you off?” I asked.

  “Are you OK, Hope? You look—”

  “When’re you off?” My voice was trembling.

  “Now.”

  “Ten minutes. Five minutes. I’m coming with you.”

  I went back to the census hut and threw a few essentials—passport, wallet, cigarettes, sunglasses—into a canvas holdall. I hadn’t thought at all what to do, but seeing Ian Vail about to leave, I knew suddenly I wanted to be with Usman for a while and talk about beach huts and tiny airplanes. I would let some days pass and either return and face Mallabar, or else send for my things and leave.

  I climbed into the Land-Rover beside Ian. The two boys were already in the back. He looked puzzled and concerned.

  “Listen, Hope are you sure—”

  “I’ll tell you everything. Just give me a little while.”

  He started the engine and we moved off.

  “Stop,” I said. I thought. “Five more minutes.”

  I jumped out and ran to Mallabar’s bungalow. I entered and called for Ginga. There was no reply. I sat at Mallabar’s desk and wrote him a brief note:

  Eugene,

  You should know that I have written an article on the cases of infanticide, cannibalism and deliberate killing that I have witnessed at Grosso Arvore. I have submitted it to a journal for publication. I am going into town with Ian Vail. I will be in touch in a few days.

  Hope

  I sealed this in an envelope, marked it confidential, propped it on his desk and went to rejoin Ian Vail in the Land-Rover.

  “Good Christ,” Ian said, with a tone of shocked awe in his voice. “Good God Almighty.”

  He looked stunned, sandbagged. I had just finished telling him everything that had happened. We had been driving for over two hours. I had sat silent for the first hour and a half, collecting myself.

  Ian exhaled. “Ooh God,” he said, worriedly. “Ooooh God.”

  He was beginning to irritate me. I supposed this was a good sign.

  “Come on Ian, I haven’t killed him. Get things in perspective.”

  “No. But it’s all too…there’s too much to take in. I keep thinking of other things. Jesus. I mean, quite apart from Eugene, hitting you like that.” He glanced at me. “The chimps. Pretty earth-shattering.”

  “You’re not excusing him!”

  “No, no. He’s obviously gone mad, or something. I mean, I think you’re absolutely right to get away for a while. He’s got to get a grip on himself. Still”—he shook his head—“what those chimps did…”

  “Look, no one was more amazed than me.”

  “Darius, Pulul, Americo, the others?”

  I had forgotten that Ian would think of them as his chimps.

  “Yes,” I said. “All of them.”

  “Bloody hell. You know what this means?”

  “Yes.”

  “Set the cat among the pigeons. No two ways about it.”

  I looked out at the road and felt fatigue flow heavily through me, weighing me down, making me drowsy. My shoulder still ached and throbbed, and there was a hot weal across my back where Mallabar had caught me with the stick. I arched my spine and massaged my shoulder.

  The road in front was straight and gently undulating, cut through a landscape of open scrubby savannah with the occasional acacia here and there. The sun hammered down on the black tarmac, causing the road ahead to vanish in a wobbling liquid horizon. Over to the east, some miles away, a tall thin column of smoke slanted upward—a bush fire perhaps. I peered ahead. Out of the shimmering horizon appeared a few deliquescent black dots—four. Like two colons set side by side. They shivered and joined silkily, making an eleven. As we approached they turned into two soldiers standing by an oil drum with a plank inclined across the road from it. Our first roadblock.

  I pointed it out to Ian, who was still clearly thinking about his chimpanzees, and we began to reduce speed.

  When we were about a hundred yards off I saw one of the men begin to flag us down. Ian changed gears noisily and slowed further. At the side of the road I saw other figures standing.

  “Ian,” I said. “Stop and turn back.”

  “Hope, don’t be stupid.”

  “No, you’ve got time, stop…all right, speed up. Drive through.”

  “Are you crazy? Just a bloody roadblock.”

  We slowed to a crawl and stopped a few yards short of the oil drum and plank. Two very young, tall soldiers with Kalashnikov rifles walked toward us. I felt a draining in me, as if my blood were being sucked to my ankles. One of the soldiers—no more than boys, really—was wearing shorts and heavy boots that made his legs look ridiculously thin. The other wore camouflage trousers. Both had identical gray track-suit tops with hoods on the back.

  “Morning,” Ian said, with a relaxed smile. “Sorry. Afternoon.”

  “Please to get out.”

  I climbed out slowly. After the thrum and noise of the engine, the landscape now seemed eerily quiet. I could hear the tick and ping of the cooling metal and the soft alarmed mutters of Billy and Fernando, the two kitchen staff who had been traveling in the rear. I glanced at them: they knew something was not quite right as well. But Ian was still smiling and at ease. I looked across the road. Under a thorn tree was a lean-to: four poles with a palm-frond roof. The other men stood there, peering at something on the ground.

  One of the boy-soldiers with us turned and beckoned to the group beneath the tree. On the back of his track-suit top I saw printed in red letters the words ATOMIQUE BOUM. I took a few steps to the side and glanced at the other soldier. His had the same message.

  The other men wandered over to inspect us. I saw that they were all young, teenagers, in an odd mixture of military and civilian clothes. They were, apart from one, unusually tall, all over six feet. They were led over by the short man, who, I saw, as they approached, was older as well. Apart from him all the others sported the same track-suit top.

  The short man was wearing pale blue jeans with the cuffs turned up and a camouflage jerkin that was too large for him. He had a beard, a patchy goatee, and much-repaired old-fashioned spectacles, the sort with dark frames at the top that shade into transparency around the lower half of the lens. One of the arms of his spectacles was neatly bound to the hinge on the frame with fuse wire. The other arm appeared homemade, carved from wood.

  He walked around the Land-Rover, inspecting it, and stopped in front of me. I was a good two inches taller than he. He had a pleasant face, made more studious by his spectacles, a broad nose and full, shapely lips. His skin was dark, very black with a hint of purple beneath the surface, it seemed. He had a mottled pink-and-brown patch on his neck and cheek below his left ear. A scar perhaps, or a burn.

  He took hold of my elbow and steered me gently round the Land-Rover to stand beside Ian. Ian was still smiling, but I could sense his unease beginning to uncoil within him. This was not a normal roadblock, he now realized. This politesse, this scrutiny…these tall, silent boys with their track-suit tops.

  “One moment, please,” the bearded man said, and went over to Billy and Fernando. They stooped quickly and touched the ground with one hand. A brief conversation ensued, which I couldn’t hear, then I saw the bearded man clap his hands and make a shooing gesture. He did it again, and slowly Billy and Fernando backed off, their faces alternating expressions of apprehension and incredulous relief. Then they turned and ran. I heard the noise of their bare feet slapping on the hot tarmac for a while. We all watched them go, running back up the road to Grosso Arvore.

  The small man turned to us and extended his hand, which we duly shook, first Ian, then me. It was dry and very calloused, hard like an old lemon.

  “My name is Dr. Amilcar,” he said. “Where are you going?”

  I told him.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said, looking at us both, “but I have to take your La
nd-Rover.” His English was good, his accent educated.

  “You can’t leave us here,” Ian said, boldly, stupidly.

  “No, no, of course not. You will be coming with me.”

  “Who are you?” I said, blurting out my question.

  Dr. Amilcar removed his spectacles and rubbed his eyes, as if considering the wisdom of a response.

  “We are…” He paused. “We are UNAMO.”

  DEATH OF A PROPHET

  A friend of Usman—one of the other pilots (Hope has forgotten his name)—told her a story about the civil war in Nigeria, the Biafran war of 1966-70.

  By 1970, the war had reached a state of near stasis, a conflict of mere attrition. The rebel heartland had shrunk, but further progress was agonizingly slow. The war had developed into a siege. It was a stalemate. But then, suddenly—this man said—it was all over in days, with a speed that no one could ever have predicted.

  After the war the explanation emerged for this collapse of the rebel forces. The Biafran army, outgunned and outnumbered, fought with tenacity and desperation, even for men who know their cause is lost. This zeal and effort was the result of superstition. The majority of the officers were under the sway of spiritualist priests. These priests, or “prophets,” were so integrated into the structure of the army that many of them were officially attached to military units. By 1970 their influence was so powerful that officers refused to order attacks or lead their men in battle unless the prophets deemed it opportune. Officers regularly left their units at the front line to attend prayer meetings organized by the most influential prophets in the rear.

  General Ojukwu, leader of the Biafran regime, realized he was on the verge of losing complete control of his army and tried to curtail the spiritualists’ influence. His first move was to arrest one of the most charismatic and popular prophets, a Mr. Ezenweta, and accuse him of “vicarious murder.” At a military tribunal he was found guilty and swiftly executed.

  The morale of the Biafran army collapsed totally and immediately. Soldiers simply refused to fight and either ran away or stood aside as the bemused Nigerian army advanced unopposed, occupying town after town without firing a shot, rifles slung, singing loudly with relief. The execution of a fetish priest for vicarious murder lost the war for the Biafrans. The death of Mr. Ezenweta foreshadowed the death of his country.