by Al Venter
One of the soldiers would carry the tray to our cell and dish by dish, everything would be placed on the bed before us. André would haul out his own plate and take half of everything, scooping it off the plates with his fork. With a dismissive gesture, he’d signal that Gilles and I should get on with the rest and we’d split the balance. That routine never wavered, except once, when we opted for prison food…
The entire rigmarole was done with a panache that was deceptive. André always made us feel that he was being gracious by allowing us anything at all, and that with food for which we’d paid, which was why Gilles and I liked to suggest to him that it might be better – and easier – to eat in town. At least there we were allowed to get on with our meal without having to share it; André would have his own choices from the menu.
It was those rare occasions that gave us our best hope, a desperate anticipation that we would be seen and perhaps recognized. By now, we believed, the word must have got out that we were missing.
The snag was that nobody in Lubumbashi (as far as we could tell) knew where we were being held, and by which security body. More to the point, in a country where the tyrant Mobutu ruled, it was not the sort of thing you asked questions about.
Having seen us move about town, locals were obviously aware that we’d been arrested. In fact, they admitted afterwards that they’d seen us being taken between the barracks and the CND headquarters under armed guard. We were also spotted those few times when André felt like grandstanding and we were hauled off somewhere ‘upmarket’ for a meal. For him it was all about ‘big eats’: for us, not being allowed to talk to a soul, it was a misery from hell.
Looking back, it was clear that our situation was unusual, paradoxical almost. We were prisoners of the regime, yet we were taken out for the occasional meal. Also, we really weren’t in total isolation.
André and his bosses must have known that we’d be observed by others. What obviously helped was that Citoyen Yambo, Zaki and the rest of the gang weren’t yet altogether sure about us, in part because I’d spent time with an FNLA combat unit. I was sure by then that my story had checked out.
Whether I’d been an actual combatant was irrelevant. The bottom line was that the FNLA was composed of a group of guerrillas that enjoyed the patronage of Mobutu. Somebody told me afterwards that it was not impossible that my presence in Shaba might have been construed as a test: Mobutu often devised his own devious, incredibly convoluted little experiments, if only to establish loyalty among those not under his immediate control. As for Gilles, he was a French journalist, plain as day.
The trouble was, we couldn’t actually inform anybody of our plight. Even if there was someone around who might have been able to pass on a message, they wouldn’t give us a second glance because they didn’t want to be taken by the secret police.
We had one opportunity when it might have been possible to get a message out. We’d been taken to the Central Hotel one morning for breakfast. Again we were isolated, but for once our guardian thug was in a communicative mood, probably because we’d bought him beer for breakfast. I asked if I might go to the toilet and he let me go on my own. It was a God-given moment because I knew that the Central Hotel had a callbox. Instead of taking the door to the john I went through the one next to it leading to the lobby. The telephone was on the desk in front of me.
Novelists often hinge their plots on a single crucial event. This was mine. All I needed was a ten makuta coin to talk to the British Consul in Lubumbashi. Ten makutas – about a dime.
I had loose change in my pocket but not a single 10 makuta piece. I handed a 50 makuta coin to the receptionist and asked him for change, but he either had none or didn’t want to get involved. A black man staying in the hotel strolled through and he took out a pocket full of money after an agonizing scratch and scrape. Still nothing!
It was unbelievable: my luck failing like that. A single call could have been our salvation. A minute later l’Assassin came looking for me. He saw the telephone on the counter and snapped a question at the receptionist.
The negative reply hardly mattered. He was furious. I had betrayed a trust. His trust!
By now Gilles and I were desperate. Long hours of interrogation along with vile living conditions were starting to take effect. Our nerves were shot and we’d started snapping at one another, something that hadn’t been missed by our guardians. Citoyen Yambo even asked me one morning if there wasn’t something that I’d like to ‘disclose’ about my colleague. It was all nudge-nudge, wink-wink, but I knew what he was after. We were relatively OK as long as Ché Guevara’s books remained hidden in the mattress.
Gilles’ foreskin was still an issue within our confines and the daily ritual infuriated me. Also, we were plagued by insects. It was only a matter of time before one of us would go down with malaria. André had confiscated all our medication and tablets in the first search, not that there was much, though I always carried a course of antibiotics for general infections and more specifically, the runs.
By now we were also a bit concerned about money. We were spending a lot on small favours, including our daily meal. It was the only food we got and we knew that the alternative was too horrible to contemplate: we’d seen the slop pails being hauled through to the general cells, much of it sadza, a maize gruel.
L’Assassin never lost an opportunity to eat with us and as became his daily custom, he devoured half of the food. Gilles and I had to be content with what he deigned to leave behind, pig that he was. However, right then we were worried that we might run out of cash, especially if this nightmare went on long enough. No one enters ‘Darkest Africa’ with great wads of notes; it just wasn’t done anymore.
Then a new complication emerged. Gilles awoke one morning to find that someone had been in the cell during the night. I’d heard movement, which was not unusual because somebody was always banging doors and checking, I’d sort of got used to the guards moving about. There had also been a storm. After he’d dressed he found that all his money had been stolen. He was left with $10 US, which he’d kept in his shoe for an emergency.
We asked l’Assassin about it as soon as he came on duty and he denied any knowledge of the theft, even though he was the only man with a key. The next day I lost $160 while in the shower.
It was time to consider our options. We might shout for help at a restaurant; or one of us might try to slip away while going to the toilet. However, we knew that, having raised the alarm, we’d never be allowed out again. After the botched phone call attempt, l’Assassin or somebody else in the party always accompanied us.
There might be another option, we believed. One of the Europeans living in Lubumbashi might ultimately come to our assistance if we asked them. It was a chance, but we had to take it. However, first we had to work out how we were to make that contact.
We didn’t know it then, but those Europeans living in Lubumbashi were finding life increasingly hard. Even in our brief meetings in the town we could sense that they couldn’t be expected to stand up to somebody in authority like André. They knew the CND, what it stood for, as well as its menacing role within Zairean society. Consequently, they kept their distance.
Also, André was always armed: he was clearly no small fish because you needed rank to carry a pistol in Zaire. He’d been flaunting it around as a symbol of authority since we first met.
We were only to discover afterwards that every one of the whites living in Lubumbashi at the time had observed what had happened to friends and neighbours arrested by the CND. A handful had died in detention, too many, they felt. Years later, when I met a man who’d been in Lubumbashi when we were there, he told me that he would probably have turned his back on us, even if I’d come running. ‘We were all in the hot box. Your condition was worse than ours, only by degree’, was his comment.
Then Gilles had an idea. We would smuggle out a note to someone. The concept was to write an appeal for help on a single sheet of toilet paper, French on one side, English on th
e other. It was not difficult on a Zairean bog roll since two rolls were never the same. Some were like sandpaper and quite thick.
It was a simple message, starting with the fact that we were journalists. We had entered the country legally to cross over into Angola, been arrested and were being held incommunicado in the military barracks on the west side of Lubumbashi in Shaba Province. Please inform the British and the French consulates in Lubumbashi or our embassies in Kinshasa. We marked it ‘Most Urgent’ in both languages.
In small print, Gilles also included our full names, passport numbers (I could remember mine because I’d used it often enough) together with the addresses of our respective newspapers. Now all we needed was an opportunity to hand it over. I kept the paper folded under the clasp of my belt, for we were often searched. That complete, we waited for that magic moment when we would encounter another European.
So far we had been held in isolation from them all but, after a few days, l’Assassin became a little lax.
Conditions eased a little after about a week. We could now use the CND latrine without André’s officious presence. We were even allowed to sit in the sun with other prisoners in the yard at the back of the barracks on some afternoons.
It was while we were taking it easy one day that we had our first real break. We’d kept to ourselves mostly because some of the black prisoners were aggressive and we were sometimes threatened. One or two would make the universal throat-cutting sign as we passed. Others spat in our direction, we could only speculate what would have happened had they shoved us in one of the general cells with that hoi polloi. Not all the scars on the Portuguese prisoners were acquired in the torture block.
That afternoon a dignified old fellow seated himself in the yard within talking distance of where we were. Not at all like the other prisoners, he was neatly dressed, with a friendly smile and Gilles and he soon started to chat. He said, he’d come to see his son, one of the warders. He was taking a break before going home again.
‘Home?’ asked Gilles, curious now.
Yes, he said, he worked in Lubumbashi. He was cook to one of the managers of Geocomin, the old Belgian mining company. Monsieur Henri someone or another. Gilles turned to me and explained, his eyes sparkling. Then he asked, ‘You got that piece of paper?’
Gilles turned towards the old guy again.
‘Henri! mon ami belge!’ he cried. He was, of course, chancing it, though it wasn’t unreasonable to assume that this so-called ‘Henri’ was Belgian. The Congo had been under the control of Brussels for as long as this huge African country had contact with the outside world.
‘Please give Henri my best regards,’ said Gilles effusively. The old man was clearly flattered at this attention from these two nondescript whites.
‘Does he still eat so much?’ asked Gilles. It was a reasonable question: most bigwigs heading large industrial enterprises in Third World countries – Africa especially – are overweight. It’s their only real pleasure – that and black girls. ‘And the wine?’ Gilles suggested, trying the familiar touch.
‘I’d very much like to see him again,’ he told the old factotum.
‘Then why don’t you come with me now?’ replied the cook.
No, Gilles quickly replied, we couldn’t leave just then. Perhaps the next time he came to the headquarters. We had something to do before dark, we told him, but said it would be nice if he would give Henri our greetings. The cook got up to go and said he’d be happy to. Before that, I’d gone indoors and retrieved the slip of paper from where I had temporarily hidden it and handed it to the old man.
If the cook had been able to read, he’d probably have showed our note to his son. As it was, without another glance, he put it in his pocket.
We could only surmise that the genial old fellow did not know we were prisoners. There were so many expatriates in Shaba Province that it probably never occurred to him. Anyway, we wore our own clothes, not the drab prison garb issued to Africans and even then, there were white men in the Zairean Army, the civil service and the prison services, so he probably regarded us as legit.
We waited. By the next evening, when nothing happened, we assumed that ‘Henri’ had not managed to get in touch with the authorities. By the fourth day we’d given up hope.
That was the worst night of all, punctuated by a tropical storm that arrived with an almost cyclonic intent along with blinding flashes of lightning that would brilliantly illuminate our tiny cell for a second or two. To Gilles, nature had gone berserk.
The Frenchman swore that night if he ever emerged from that prison he, the archetypal agnostic, would become a Christian. I could laugh about it afterwards, but the fact is that incarceration does that to some people. Suddenly, I, too, was frightened.
Next morning, thinking that all was lost, we wrote a new message on another piece of toilet paper, this one a bit more detailed than before.
At that point our daily interrogations ended and we were allowed to spend just about every afternoon in the yard. The rains often drove us indoors, but it was better than the cell with its cockroaches, the washbasin and the bucket.
Gradually we came to be accepted by the others, except by one man, the ‘chief prisoner’, who was in a sense I suppose a ‘trustee’. This tough, obstreperous bastard had enough muscle to back any argument and the first time he set eyes on us, he made it clear we were ‘not fucking welcome’ in his domain.
His name was Ilungi. It was no secret either in the barracks or beyond that he despised whites. He’d killed many, he would boast to his little clique in French and they would roar as they cast disapproving glances in our direction. Gilles translated every word. Later, when we were able to compare notes with the Dutchman, von Muhlen, we learnt that it was Ilungi who had taken all the bribes and had then withheld his food, like a Kapo in a Nazi camp.
Unwittingly Ilungi helped us. It was his privilege as a trustee to be allowed outside from time to time, which in itself was unusual in any CND headquarters, but we didn’t question why he had such freedom. He accompanied l’Assassin into town with us one morning.
Once again we were taken to the Central Hotel and Ilungi was left to guard us while André went to the bank. We needed to cash a traveller’s cheque and he did it for us. As usual he ‘charged’ us his ‘regular’ 20 per cent commission.
We settled Ilungi in the most comfortable chair we could find and ordered him a big cigar and three beers. He was delighted. He was also pleased at our servility. About 20 minutes later I excused myself to go to the toilet.
The man at the desk was surprised to see me again. His hand moved over the telephone. He’d obviously been instructed by l’Assassin that we were never to use it. In Zaire, it was an unwritten law: when the CND talks, you listen. The next moment a white man entered through the main door: the first I had seen at close quarters for what seemed a year. He was young, slim and well-dressed. He smiled a greeting.
I moved forward. ‘Do you speak English?’ I asked, my voice cracking.
‘Yes’, he answered, still smiling. I pressed our bilingual handwritten note into his hand.
‘Take this,’ I urged, quivering. He stepped back in astonishment and the paper fell to the floor. I picked it up and pushed it back into his hand.
‘For Christ’s sake’, I urged, ‘read it!’ Without acknowledgment, he took the note and walked through the hotel reception area into the yard at the back. As we learnt afterwards, he got busy that same morning.
Within 20 minutes our newfound saviour was at his consulate. Pierre Guth, the French Consul in Lubumbashi, was in a conference, but sensing our messenger’s urgency, he read our note immediately. With two of his staff, he set out to find us.
Lubumbashi is not a big place. As we were told later, there were few expatriates who didn’t know about our plight, but not having our predicament spelt out, we could be anybody. We’d been labelled a pair of mercenaries by someone and unfortunately that kind of crap usually sticks. In effect, we’d already been wr
itten off as a lost cause by most of them.
Guth spoke first to Citoyen Yambo, who expressed surprise at the news that two foreign journalists were being held against their will within his jurisdiction. He promised to ‘look into the matter’.
At one point the French Consul even spoke to Zaki, who declared flatly that he’d never heard of any such persons. In fact, he told the diplomat, there were no whites in the prison at all. He obviously didn’t regard his Portuguese prisoners as whites. However, if he even heard a whisper, he assured the Consul, he’d come to his office personally and tell him, he solemnly lied.
We, of course, knew nothing of this except that Zaki was annoyed when he spoke to us a few hours later. He asked whether we’d spoken to anybody while we’d been in town. Of course, we told him, we certainly hadn’t.
A day later an official from the British Embassy in Kinshasa flew into Lubumbashi and demanded to see Citoyen Venter. He was allowed ten minutes in our cell, when he carefully checked my passport, which the prison authorities had given to him. In his mind, I could see it all: a South African accent, a kosher British passport with recent Angolan entry and exit stamps, a Zairean prison, all of it very clearly contradictory. As he told me, he first had to make sure that I wasn’t doing something irregular before he could take the matter further. He was back in Kinshasa that same night.
It was a year before I learnt that M. Henri’s cook, in all innocence, had completely forgotten about our note. He discovered it again while going through a pair of his trousers that he was about to have washed. It had been four days before the message was handed it over to his boss. Henri, whoever he was – bless his heart – immediately informed his superiors in Brussels who, in turn, passed it on to the French and British authorities, but by then they already knew about our plight. My consular visit was a result of that first message… and suddenly it all seemed to come together.