As I lay in bed alone in the empty house, listening to the frightening scream of a hyrax in the trees, I caught myself wondering whether Adam kept a gun in the house. We had never discussed it, even though I knew he had one at the camp. The danger of wild animals in the bush was understandable. But what about hopeless men in the city? I wondered what Adam’s reaction would have been to my ranting at the dinner table. Would he have found me naive, as Peter had? I was surprised to find I had no idea.
But more than anything, I wondered, would I have engaged in such an argument at all had he been with me? I realized that I tended to be much quieter when he was around. I always feared that my views might sound ingenuous.
There were still these mysterious gaps between us created by our different upbringings. Sometimes the mystery triggered the attraction, sometimes it only made me feel different and a bit of an outcast.
The wind rattled the window, the wooden floor creaked, and I was covered with sweat. It was fear. And fear in Africa always comes with a black face.
Would it help if I told my murderers about my views on our disparity of wealth? Would they appreciate the way I had contradicted the Argentinian polo champion? Would they stop the panga in midair, pat me on the shoulder with a smile of recognition and call me a comrade? No, of course not. I would be butchered just the same. I was on the wrong side of the barricade because of the colour of my skin. I had what they couldn’t have because I was white, and that was the end of the story.
One should just forget about fear; otherwise there is no point in living in Africa.
The morning after the dinner party I rang Nicole.
“Am I imagining it, or do whites in this country tend to become trigger-happy?” I blurted into the phone without even saying hello.
“…Esmé, what time is it?” she answered in a husky voice. “Don’t you have a hangover, for God’s sake?”
“Yes, but it keeps me awake, for some strange reason. Did I make a fool of myself last night?”
“Oh…that awful Argentinian. He’s so gun-crazy, I don’t know why Nena keeps inviting him. Of course you weren’t making a fool of yourself. He’s a total nightmare.”
So why was I always the only one to speak my views? Why was it that others never came to my aid, but pretended to be bored by such talk? I was confused.
Life went on as usual, and we all kept paying high monthly fees to private police who were constantly on patrol at night, hiring askaris who walked up and down the compound with bow and arrows, and breeding Rottweilers and Dobermans trained to kill.
———
In the meantime American troops and their high-tech combat gear had turned Somalia into a rerun of Apocalypse Now.
“Doin’ the Mog” T-shirts, Cobra helicopter stickers on the back of Land Rovers, started to appear. The international press showed pictures of Somali warriors in flip-flops and kikoys waving AK47s from their technicals, while sunburned Marines with crew cuts and Raybans looked out ahead through the heat shimmers with worried expressions on their faces. The war in Somalia was a romantic war, fought by a bunch of proud and fierce desert clansmen who were not going to let the West interfere. Somalis were not afraid to die; they would point their rusty machine guns up to the sky, determined to shoot down a Cobra rather than look for shelter. Young hacks flew in and out of Somalia aboard the UN planes from Nairobi, and war tales were now topping bush tales around town. Suddenly the Carnivore was bustling with young reporters, photographers and cameramen on break between assignments, holding court at the bar with thrilling stories about escaping bombshells in downtown Mogadishu. They wore green fatigues, mirrored shades, and had taken to chewing miraa, the speedy bitter leaves Somalis get high on every day. They stuffed their pockets with small bundles of twigs wrapped in newspaper, chewed the fresh shoots nonstop till they had a ball inside their cheek and their jaws ached, and drank cold beer after beer. They had a haunted look from too many sleepless nights and too much adrenaline pumping through their blood.
The war in Somalia had brought a distinct buzz to Nairobi.
Nicole was a big fan of the hacks. She chewed miraa with them and talked politics. The first time I met Miles it had been at her place, together with Bernard, a young French photojournalist, and a wild character called Ruben, a WTN American cameraman. They were good-looking, jittery and vibrant. All of them barely in their mid-twenties. Some had been briefly to Bosnia, some to Eritrea, but most of them had had very little experience of a war situation so far. Certainly none was prepared for what was yet to come.
Having spent such a long time only in Adam’s company, I realised I was starved for male friends. I got used to sitting with them next to the fireplace at Nicole’s, chewing the bitter leaves until we got a buzz, and jabbering our way through the night. Whenever I made an attempt to go home they would pull me back down on the cushions.
“You can’t leave,” Miles would say. “It’s not even light yet.”
I loved the feeling of being their captive. Nicole and I fed off their wild energy: we were seduced by the unsettling behaviour of men who feared for their lives. They looked like they had been on acid for days.
Hunter Reed’s name came up several times during those miraa nights. He was one of their best hack mates. I don’t know why, but right away, any time his name was mentioned I paid extra attention to the conversation. It struck a chord, a sort of premonition, as if I already knew that our paths were bound to cross and leave a mark.
“His mother married one of the BC leaders,” said Ruben in an explanatory way. “You know, Steve Biko’s party.”
“Oh,” I said. “I thought Hunter was a mzungu.”
“He is. That’s exactly the point.” Ruben smiled, amused by my comment. “He’s whiter than white, English in fact; but he grew up in South Africa among African activists. His mother was a reporter for the BBC radio in East Africa, then when they moved her to Johannesburg in the late sixties she left Hunter’s father for this Biko man. They’re still together now.”
“I met her only once,” Miles added. “She’s a very cool woman. Very, very radical.”
“Sounds like it,” I said.
“That explains his love-hate relationship with Africa,” Miles went on. “When we met back in England a few years ago he swore he was never coming back out here again. He said he had had it, that he wanted a normal life. But it’s an addiction, he can’t stay away from it, you see. And he knows Africa too bloody well for his paper not to beg him to come back, and to push loads of money on him.”
So Hunter Reed seemed to be the rock star of journalism in East Africa. Like all rock stars he sounded elusive and unapproachable. I figured one wouldn’t just run into him on the street, and the idea of meeting him one day made me unaccountably nervous.
My moment of truth with Hunter Reed finally came via Iris, of all people.
She had been busy working on her book, and once back in Nairobi I had hardly ever seen her, except for a couple of outings at the Carnivore with “the boys” where we had all gotten completely thrashed.
I can’t really say why, but I had a feeling that it was up to me to seek her out and to show her I wanted to be her friend. I felt I should make an effort to see more of her in a sober state, so one morning I pulled into her driveway on my way back from shopping at the Karen dukas holding a bunch of tuberoses and a bag of freshly ground coffee. From the outside her cottage looked like a doll’s house: wood-shingled roof, pretty flowers all around, pots hanging on the verandah. I pushed open the door: inside it was incredibly untidy: clothes scattered everywhere, magazines, photographic paper, car tools, paint spray cans, piles of prints and sheets of transparencies. It looked like the hideout of a messy teenager.
I heard a man’s voice coming from the kitchen. I walked in to find Iris in a pair of striped man’s pyjamas, drinking her morning tea all by herself at a small table.
“G for generosity,” a voice politely enunciated from a tape recorder in a thick Indian accent. “The o
nly way money will come back to you is by giving it away as lavishly as you can…”
“Oh Esmé, I can’t believe it’s you, this is too much!” she said. “Just the person I needed to see!”
“Oh, good. What are you listening to?”
“…all your thoughts and your impulses are made of atoms, and every single action will carry its particular energy into space,”the voice continued.
“It’s this great tape made by an Indian guru, my cousin sent it to me from Europe. You have to listen to it every day and repeat what he says. Basically what it does is teach you how to direct your positive energy so that it all comes back to you.”
“Sounds excellent. And what happens once it comes back?”
“Well…” She hesitated. “I know it sounds crazy, but…”
She pressed the rewind button and started the tape again.
“…basically you listen to what he says, you repeat it out loud, and money comes your way.”
“A for affluence. Affluence has to be a spiritual condition before anything else. Wealth will follow…”
“So what,”I said, “you mean all you have to do to get rich is sit here and repeat this stuff every morning? Can I make some fresh coffee?”
“Absolutely, and you don’t even have to think about its meaning. The mere repetition of the words sends the right energy wherever and…oh thanks, how sweet of you”—she took the coffee bag from my hand—“let me put the kettle on. The principle is that the more you learn how to let go, the more it comes back to you. Money, work, love, anything. It’s incredible.”
“…let your positive thoughts flow freely and let the universe handle the details…”
“Wow, I like that bit,” I said.
“It does work, I promise you.”
“Is the universe taking care of all your details?”
“Pretty much.” She laughed. “Like now for instance: I was just sent a fax offering me a job, but I’m too busy with the book, so I was wondering just this minute who could do it in my place and you stepped right in. In fact you are perfect to do it.”
“What is it?”
“It’s French Vogue. They want to do a story on war correspondents and they need somebody here to make all the contacts, set up the interviews, the location et cetera. I think they pay well, and anyway I’ll tell them you’re the ideal person for it. You know, all they need is to shoot all the good-looking hacks wearing designer clothes, so you just have to round up a few of them like Miles, Ruben, Hunter and whatshisname, that cute French photographer…”
“Bernard.”
“Exactly. I’m sure you can handle it perfectly well.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. But hey, thanks a lot, Iris. You’re a star.”
I was thrilled. And I suppose I had to thank the Indian guru for it, too.
This was going to be my first job since I had first arrived in Kenya nearly a year earlier. Once at home I immediately ran to the phone and called the number in Paris. This very excited fashion editor with a thick French accent sounded delighted to hear I was ready to offer my services. Yes, they were going to come with this very famous Italian photographer and a writer. It was very important of course that the subjects have some charme. I guaranteed they would.
“The ones I have in mind are all terribly handsome, don’t worry about that,” I said, with the determination of an agent pushing her clients with a casting director.
I guess when you are too close to things as they happen, you lose perspective, things slide out of focus. At the time it seemed perfectly normal that a fashion magazine would want to run a story on young good-looking war reporters. So, excited by my newly acquired role in the world of international fashion, I picked up the phone and informed Miles, Ruben and Bernard that Vogue was going to run a story on them and they would get to keep the clothes they would be wearing on the shoot. They seemed flattered and were thrilled at the prospect of a free wardrobe. Next I called the German correspondent for ZDF, a handsome man in his early forties who looked rugged and fit, and left a couple of messages on the answering machine of a very good-looking South African photographer.
Then I lit a cigarette and got ready to call Hunter Reed.
“May I speak with Hunter Reed, please?”
“Speaking.”
“Hi, how are you, I’m a friend of Iris Sorensen, we have never met…my name is Esmé—”
“Yes. I know who you are.”
“.….”
“Yes Esmé, I’m listening. Carry on.”
“…Oh, well, I…I’m working for…well, actually I’m giving a hand to…let me explain…French Vogue wants to run a story on war correspon—”
“French what?”
“French Vogue. The fashion magazine.”
“I see.”
“…They would like to interview some of the journalists who are currently covering wars in East Africa, and take their portraits. I’ve already spoken with Miles Sinclair, Bernard Marchand and Ruben Torres, I believe they’re all good friends of yours. They have all agreed to do it. I’m waiting to hear from the ZDF correspondent, and—”
“French Vogue, you said, right?”
“Yes. They are coming out with an Italian photographer and a writer. They’ll run a page for each one of you, and you’ll get to keep the clothes.”
“Which clothes?”
“The clothes you’ll wear on the shoot. They are going to use Armani, Comme Des Garçons and—”
“You mean we have to model?”
“Well, not exactly—but yes, in a way, yeah. They’ll print a full-page portrait of each one of you wearing the clothes they choose. That’s how it always works in fashion magaz—”
“Esmé, how long have you lived here?”
“.….”
“Do you read the papers? Are you aware of what’s going on?”
“Of course I am. Why do you ask me that?”
“Because people are getting shot on the street every day in Mogadishu, that’s why, Esmé. How Armani comes into the picture, I don’t—”
“Listen, I’m just working for them; it’s not my idea. I have nothing to do with it, you understand?”
“I assumed you were calling on their behalf.”
“Oh, listen, you don’t have to do it if you don’t feel like it, I just thought I’d ask you. If you hate the idea, then that’s fine, I understand perfectly well.”
“Yes. That’s exactly the point. I hate the idea. I loathe it.”
“Great, okay, no problem. I’m very sorry if I’ve bothered you with this.”
“Not at all. No problem.”
“Well, then goodbye, Hunter, thanks anyway.”
“Goodbye, Esmé. I hope everything works out for you.”
“You don’t need to be so patronizing, you know.”
“Am I being patronizing?”
“Yes, you are.”
“Sorry about that.”
“Oh, never mind. Just forget about the whole thing, okay?”
“As you wish.”
“Goodbye, Hunter.”
“Goodbye, Esmé.”
I slammed down the receiver. Fuck you, Hunter Reed, I thought. My God, what a prick you are.
About a month later, in the middle of Mogadishu, a group of hacks ran to the site of a building which had just been shelled by Cobras, where they had heard many Somali civilians had been killed. As they arrived, cameras ready to shoot, an angry mob assaulted them. They were stoned to death. The story of their bleeding bodies being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu made headlines around the world.
A gloomy shadow enveloped all of us.
“Why them, of all people?” asked Nicole, her face white as a sheet, tears streaming down her face. “They had nothing to do with it.”
But had that stopped the stones in midair? Had the angry mob realised that these young men were not the enemy, that all they wanted was to report what had just happened? No, they had killed them just the same because, once aga
in, they were on the wrong side of the barricade due to the colour of their skin.
Ruben and Miles came back to Nairobi on the UN plane. They were feverish and haunted, and couldn’t stop talking about it. They cried and got drunk, they sobbed until they made no sense and fell asleep wet with tears and reeking of vodka on Nicole’s cushions by the fire. All of them knew each other, had all been like brothers bonded by the experience of danger and lurking death. It was something which we couldn’t grasp, and this only made us feel more helpless. Hunter Reed’s best friend had been killed. He was coming back the next day on a special UN plane carrying the bodies. There would be a memorial service for the victims in a church in Hurlingham, and a wake. All of Nairobi would be mourning.
I didn’t go to the service; I didn’t want to intrude on their grief. For me there was no face, no body, no memory over which to shed my tears. And somehow I didn’t think I could face seeing Hunter Reed for the first time, as he cried for his best friend who had died on the streets of Mogadishu.
So now you can see that things were beginning to take shape before my eyes; but the result was disheartening. The more I saw what living in Africa implied, the less I understood where one was supposed to stand. Maybe my mistake was standing in the middle: I should commit to one side and stick to it. But would it be the side of Iris and Adam, who loved Africa because of its wilderness and its primordial innocence, or that of the Argentinian polo player who feared Africa’s hunger and its hatred? Would it be the side of trendy European magazines, which chose Africa as the perfect backdrop for fashion shoots, or the side of those grieving young men, gathered to mourn the death of their friends stoned by an angry mob? That side, it seemed, revealed how hopeless and mindlessly cruel Africa could be.
It’s strange how people come into your life, which back routes or shortcuts they choose to take before they join the main road you’re travelling on. Somehow you know they have been on a parallel journey for some time, and any minute you may cross each other at a junction—you can feel them coming your way. Sometimes it takes them forever to show up and you become almost impatient. By the time Hunter Reed and I met, we already knew too much about each other to be surprised.
Rules of the Wild Page 11