by Guy Saville
‘But—’
‘I’ll tell them to throw you in chains if they have to.’ He patted her shoulder: Neliah pulled away. ‘Look after Zuri for me.’
The soldiers were back in their ranks. Penhor straightened the sabre in his hand, took his position at the front again and marched them off. Neliah saw Gonsalves grumbling to the men nearest him. They were all nodding. She watched till they disappeared into the trees, bowed her shoulders. Above her, parrots chattered in the eucaliptos. She was exhausted, her body heavy like it was full of stones. If only she had taken more dynamite …
Neliah ran.
She darted through the camp, past the octógono to the strongroom. She wanted to be sure. There was a guard at the door, a white boy even younger than her.
‘You’re back,’ he said, fumbling with his rifle. ‘Did you blow up the tunnel?’
‘No. I didn’t have enough dynamite. Comandante Penhor sent me to get more.’
‘I’ve got orders. No one is allowed in here except Lieutenant Ligio—’
She pushed past him before he could say another word, down the stairs into the cellar. It smelt of sun-baked straw. The gun racks were empty except for a few old rifles. Boxes and kitbags had been thrown to one side. Neliah rummaged through them, hoping that gnambui was smiling on her.
Gnambui was.
In the corner, hidden under some sacking, she found a wooden crate. Neliah felt a trill in her heart. She couldn’t read the words on it but she understood the symbols. Explosives. She put her face to the box and breathed in. The smell of black powder like pepper and fire. It reminded her of Papai.
Behind her: footsteps.
Neliah quickly replaced the sacking, turned towards the stairs.
It was Zuri, her sister.
She looked beautiful as always, was wearing a simple white dress the way Penhor – ‘Alberto’ – liked her to. Her skin was milky brown. She had inherited it from their father’s side: it was Portuguese skin, not Herero. Her hair fell in a long, smooth plait that swished when she walked. It was her great joy. After they had fled home Zuri continued to keep her hair clean and adorned. Neliah chopped hers off.
‘You’re safe!’ said Zuri standing on her toes to kiss her.
Neliah held her close, buried her face into her sister’s hair. It smelt of the lemon-water Penhor splashed on his face. She pushed her away.
‘Where have you been?’ asked Zuri, looking at the mud on her clothes. ‘I couldn’t sleep last night. Alberto said you’d gone. I thought you’d left me.’
Neliah told her about the tunnel, everything that had happened.
‘Next time you tell me,’ said Zuri, grasping her sister’s hands. ‘We go together.’
‘It was too dangerous,’ replied Neliah. ‘I already lost Ina and Papai. I’m not losing you.’
‘I’m the older, I should be protecting you.’
Neliah withdrew her fingers. ‘Penhor told me not to say. He didn’t want you to go.’
‘He said that?’ She took a step back, her plait swishing. ‘He worries what might happen if the Nazistas catch us.’
‘Not us, you. I don’t know how you let him touch you.’
Zuri folded her arms across her chest. ‘It gives us a roof, keeps our bellies full.’
‘But he’s an old man,’ said Neliah, crinkling her mouth. ‘Has a wife!’
‘In Portugal.’
‘With his children.’
Zuri gave a bitter laugh. ‘You sound like an old missionary.’
Penhor wasn’t the first whose tastes Zuri had played. They were always old, always white. Neliah huffed. ‘What would Papai say?’
‘Si possis recte, si non, modo rem,’ replied Zuri.
Neliah hated it when her sister used the stupid Roman words their father had taught her – mostly because she hadn’t been schooled in them herself. ‘You know I don’t understand.’
‘If possible, be honest.’ A sly grin. ‘If not, do what’s good for you.’
Neliah went to retort, stopped herself. She had bad teeth, preferred to keep her mouth straight, but she forced a smile for her sister. ‘Do you really want to fight?’
‘It was my mother they killed also.’ Zuri’s face hardened. ‘My papai.’
‘I’m going back to the tunnel. Will blow it all the way up to Mukuru this time.’
‘How? I watched the soldiers. They took everything.’
Neliah smiled again. ‘Look,’ she said and went to the corner of the room. Pulled back the sacking.
‘Is it enough?’ asked Zuri. There was a spark in her eye.
Neliah nodded.
‘What about Ligio? The other guards?’
‘They’re boys, they won’t be able to stop us.’
‘When will you go?’
‘Tonight.’
‘Together this time?’ said Zuri.
Neliah held out her hand, it was still covered in mud. Her sister grasped it. ‘Pamue,’ she said in Herero.
Pamue. As one, together.
Stanleystadt, Kongo
16 September, 12:45
‘THE river,’ said Patrick. ‘It’s our only hope now.’
From time immemorial it had been known as the Kongo. Then, in 1949, for the Führer’s sixtieth birthday it was changed to the ‘River Klara’ – to honour his mother. Millennia of history rewritten with the stroke of a bureaucrat’s pen. All except the zealots kept the old name. Along its waters flowed the goods that had made central Africa ‘the warehouse of the Reich’. There were barges laden with cotton, timber, sugar and rice (Germany was now the world’s largest producer of rice, even exported to Asia); tin and copper for the metalworks of the Ruhr; cobalt to make Messerschmitt jet engines. What the Fatherland didn’t need – mostly second-rate materials – was traded with Europe and the United States. A system of exploit-siphon-sell that had helped finance Hitler’s new empire and elevated the influence of Deutsch Kongo among the African colonies.
Burton and Patrick were trudging along the quaysides of Otraco. They had grown weary of discussing all that Rougier told them: it was leadening their spirits. They were no closer to discovering who’d betrayed them, or why Burton had been chosen to lead the mission. Worst, it seemed British intelligence was now their bankroller. All they wanted was a way out of the city. Burton’s ribs ached from his fall on the roof. Every time he breathed in straps of pain squeezed around his chest.
Above them the sky oozed heat.
‘Hey there!’ called Patrick in German as they approached yet another vessel. ‘Is the skipper on board?’
A man in a grubby cap leaned over the side. ‘Who wants to know?’
‘You hiring?’
He scowled. ‘No.’
‘You must have something,’ said Patrick. Burton could hear the desperation in his voice.
‘Nothing. Now fuck off.’
‘We’re hard workers,’ said Burton.
‘So?’
‘And cheap,’ added Patrick.
‘Cheap?’ The captain hawked and spat. ‘How cheap?’
‘Let us on and we can discuss it.’
He mulled it over, then: ‘Gangplank’s over there.’
Burton and Patrick climbed aboard the ship. Since escaping from the cinema they had scoured the docks for a boat heading to Neu Berlin. From there it was two hundred miles to the Atlantic and freedom. The new Salumu port, all regulations and paperwork, was too risky – so they had tried their luck on the Otraco side. Here were the one-man bands and occasional smugglers; owners willing to overlook formalities (documents, taxes) to maximise profits. But everyone they approached had given them the same gruff response: it was dry season, the river low, they had enough crew. Come back next month with the rains.
‘So how cheap?’ asked the captain. Up close he was much shorter than from the quayside, wore his cap at a jaunty angle. His cheeks were a mass of oily beard.
‘Where you headed?’ said Burton.
‘I thought you said you were cheap.’
The captain spat again and addressed his answer to Patrick. ‘Downriver to Neu Berlin, leaving with the morning tide. I got a shipment of ivory. Now, how cheap?’
‘We’ll work for ten marks a day.’
Another gob of phlegm. Burton watched it land and glisten.
‘I can get a Polack cheaper.’
‘Five marks then.’
‘Forget it.’ He turned away. ‘You know where the gangplank is.’
Patrick tugged at his sleeve. ‘Give us a berth and one square meal and we’ll work for free.’
The captain turned back and eyed them suspiciously. ‘The blackshirts were here earlier, looking for spies. Anyone eager to leave the city.’
‘That’s nothing to do with us,’ said Burton, sounding more defensive than he meant to.
‘Working for free seems eager enough.’
‘We are eager,’ said Patrick, ‘eager to get out of Kongo. I’ve had it with the heat and sweat and fucking mosquitoes. Another day here, I swear my nuts are gonna fry.’
The captain laughed. ‘I know that feeling.’
Patrick breathed in. ‘An ocean breeze, that’s what I want.’
‘One of my crew,’ said the captain, ‘he’s fucking useless. I’m sure he’s a vanilla-boy. You can have his bunk.’
‘We’ll take it,’ said Burton.
The captain turned to Burton and grinned. His teeth were black. ‘Only one bunk.’
‘It’s mine,’ said Patrick. He spat on his hand and offered it to the skipper.
Burton’s voice caught in his throat. ‘What?’
‘I’ll expect you here at dusk,’ replied the captain as they shook on it, ‘ready for loading. Don’t be late. And don’t be drunk.’
‘I’ll be here.’
‘Work hard and there’ll be no grief. It’s five days to NB.’
Patrick nodded and headed down the gangplank.
Burton strode after him, an emptying in his chest. ‘Wait!’
Patrick ignored his cry.
‘Wait! Where are you going?’
‘I told you in the clink, Burton, this louses up: you’re on your own.’
He stalked away.
Suddenly Burton was fourteen again. Opening the door to his mother’s empty room, the curtains limp, bed stripped. He could still see the indent of her head on the pillow. When he placed his hand in the hollow it felt cold. Cold and damp. Everything else was gone – like she had never existed.
‘You can’t do this!’ said Burton, trailing after him. ‘I have to get back to Maddie. I promised her.’
‘And I have to get back to Hannah.’
‘We can make room on the boat, share the bunk. It wouldn’t be the first time.’
‘It’s not about that. How many people saw you at the Schädelplatz? The soldiers, the Leibwache. The Schwarzflügel crew on the flight from Rhodesia.’
‘What are you saying?’
‘They know your face, Burton. Me, I’m nothing. A blank.’
Burton felt the hysteria rising in his chest. He knew Patrick was right, but wanted to disprove him. He dredged his mind. Nothing came, nothing except Patrick’s words in Aquatoriana. No more bullshit. Why did you want this job? I never saw you so sand-happy for anything. Sand-happy, that’s what they called legionnaires who had marched up too many dunes, whose brains had broiled in their skulls.
‘I should have told you the truth, back in prison. Back on that first day in Bel Abbès.’
‘For fuck’s sake, man. Auf Deutsch!’
Without realising it, Burton had slipped into English. ‘We have to do this together.’
‘I said German!’
People on the docks were starting to stare at them.
Burton didn’t care. ‘You can’t leave me.’
‘Alone I got a chance. We stay together – I’m dead. I owe Hannah more than that.’
‘Not for the last ten years.’
‘You think that’s going to make me stay?’ replied Patrick in a warning tone.
‘What about Dunkirk?’ Burton tugged at Patrick’s shirt, briefly exposed the half-moon scar. ‘It would have been the easiest thing to have left you. When you were screaming—’
‘I never screamed.’
‘When the blood wouldn’t stop. But I stayed. I held your hand, remember. Got you out of there.’
Their voices had risen. More curious eyes were turning in their direction. A passing brownshirt scrutinised them. Patrick freed himself from Burton’s grip. ‘I’m not going to die in Africa.’
‘Neither am I,’ said Burton.
They eyeballed each other. The sweat was trickling down Burton’s back; all he wanted was to sit down. He could see Patrick was ashen.
Burton spoke in German. ‘You know the Gospel of St Mark?’
‘Just what I need. A fucking Sunday school lesson.’
‘I spent most of my life trying to forget it. But right now it’s the only thing I can think of.’ He let out a dry laugh. ‘Can even hear my father saying the words. If a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand.’
‘Jesus H. Christ.’ Patrick sighed, rubbed the back of his neck, examined the sweat. People continued to look in their direction. ‘You still hungry?’
‘Famished.’
‘Want a last supper?’
‘Will it be safe?’
Patrick checked the faces staring at them. ‘Safer than staying out here.’
They chose a booth hidden at the back. Ate sausage, sauerkraut and strudel – the only food on the menu. Burton tried to remember what Hochburg used to call them. That was it: ‘the holy trinity of German cuisine’. Afterwards Burton ordered mango juice, Patrick a stein of Primus lager.
‘The Kaiser,’ said Burton lifting his glass. Patrick paused a moment before raising his beer, took a sullen gulp. He wiped the foam from his lips with the back of his hand.
They were in a dingy tavern near the quayside, the tables bustling with itinerant workers and a few brownshirts – thugs looking for cheap beer and the chance of a brawl. Before the invasion most of these places had been run by Indians, now it was the more racially acceptable Greeks.
Burton reached over for Patrick’s half-finished strudel, began forking it into his mouth. The food had brought a surge of vigour to his aching muscles. He felt momentarily invincible: always a risky delusion. ‘No nation that can make something so good can be all bad,’ he said between mouthfuls.
‘Spoken like Halifax,’ replied Patrick. Every time the door opened his eyes darted to it. ‘But try telling that to the Russians. Or the Negroes or Jews; I hear Madagaskar is a cesspit.’
‘Point taken.’ Burton continued to chew. ‘You know Maddie makes the best apple strudel I ever tasted.’
‘How come she wasn’t shipped off to SS-Madagaskar?’
Burton grimaced. ‘Her husband. He’s some bigwig in the Colonial Office. Once she moved to London he was able to sort it out. It was the only good thing he did.’
‘You didn’t tell me she was married.’
‘Unhappily. It was a mistake – on both their parts. He’s very … overbearing.’
‘This is perfect! You’ll be telling me she’s got kids next.’
‘Alice, six years old. I don’t think she likes me much.’
‘I know the feeling.’
‘It’s worse. Maddie’s pregnant. Can you imagine the scandal if her husband finds out?’
‘So all this is because of her.’ The conciliatory tone of dinner was slipping. ‘I may never see my daughter again. Lapinski, Nares dead. Who knows what with Gorilla Dum and Gorilla Dee … That’s a helluva price to pay for a woman.’
‘She gave me my life back. Saved me from becoming one of those old soldiers you see – no family, no roots; just scars and body counts.’
‘Like me?’
‘I didn’t mean it that way.’
‘It’s still too much.’
Burton swallowed the
last of the strudel. The pastry left a greasy trail on the roof of his mouth, the cinnamon suddenly bitter. They sat there staring at each other.
‘Madeleine’s not why I took the job.’
Patrick frowned, the wrinkles on his forehead deepening. ‘What?’
‘I never told you about it,’ said Burton, ‘when I first arrived at Bel Abbès.’
‘That’s the Legion way. Your past is your past and nobody’s business.’
‘Nobody’s business,’ repeated Burton softly.
Patrick leaned back in his chair, fished in his pocket for his pipe, kept looking around. At the bar a shout of laughter; someone playing an old Zarah Leander number on the accordion.
‘It was after the war, that he came to us,’ said Burton. ‘The Great War. I was eleven, can still remember it like yesterday. See him emerging from the trees in his frock coat and hat, clasping his Bible. Wet and mud-stained, long black hair. Dashing, I suppose you’d call him. He’d been brought up from Lomé by a local guide.’
Patrick lit his pipe. ‘Who? Ackerman?’
Burton gave a mirthless laugh. ‘Not Ackerman. Hochburg.’
‘Hochburg?’
‘It started the first night, at the dinner table.’
Burton recalled it vividly. Father had just said grace; they were making polite conversation, Burton fiddling with the silverware, glancing at their strange new arrival. The first course arrived: a mulligatawny. For some reason that detail was etched on his mind. And then Hochburg began to weep. Tears streaming down his face, splashing into his soup. Burton had never seen a man cry before, certainly not his father. Later he heard Hochburg sobbing into his mother’s breast: There were bits of them everywhere. Limbs, intestines. They cut off their heads. She stroked his hair. I never saw so much blood, Eleanor, never saw so much blood …
Burton looked at Patrick. ‘He’d come to us to re-find his faith. Father told me his family had been killed by tribesmen in the Cameroons. His parents, brother, sister. He’d seen them all butchered.’
‘Hochburg was a missionary too?’
Burton nodded. ‘A true man of the cloth. I remember him saying, How could God let this happen? Sometimes he would cry, inconsolable. Other times there were rages. Rages like you never saw. Screaming to high heaven about “the niggers”, vowing to burn them alive, every last one. When that happened I used to hide in bed. I was brought up to believe we’re all God’s children, no matter what our skin; still hold it true. Only my mother could comfort him.’