Please Do Not Disturb

by Robert Glancy

  When it got dark we lit candles around the pool. Most of the food had been stolen in the riot but the buffalo biltong was still left. So for dinner we drank warm Fanta with melted ice cream and chewed on jerky. It was the best dinner ever.

  Mum said, ‘Well, I’ll book the tickets to the uk, shall I?’

  When Dad didn’t reply, Mr Horst said, ‘I take it that was your way of resigning?’

  ‘Sorry, Eugene, but we’re done,’ Mum said.

  Mr Horst nodded as he spoke. ‘So much for the Big Day putting my hotel on the map? Looks like I’ll be hosting nothing but cockroaches for the next few years. No tourism here for a long time.’

  There was an odd silence, as if everyone was waiting to speak, like tipping on the pool edge about to topple in, until finally Mr Horst said, ‘Probably time I shut her down. I’ll sell her to the next Big Man, Boma. I’m getting old, time for me to retire and focus on my hunting, go after the big six. Listen, Stu, Fiona, let me buy your tickets back? My treat.’

  Mum actually hugged Mr Horst. I’d never seen anyone hug Mr Horst, he wasn’t very huggable. Even stranger still, Mr Horst hugged her back, arms tight around her like he never wanted to let go. Mum kept furiously rubbing his back then there was a funny popping sound and the electricity returned, the dark hotel burst into light and the radio on the bar shouted loudly.

  It was tuned to the BBC and there we were again, twice in one week, on the BBC. The BBC said there had been a failed assassination; that Tafumo was in a critical condition. They said local reporters were suggesting a white supremacist had tried to kill the King. When I asked what a white supremacist was, Sean said it was someone who likes wearing sheets on their head.

  But then when Dad flicked over to Bwalo FM, DJ Cheeseandtoast told us there was a new king, a king called Boma. It was all pretty confusing stuff. Clearly the BBC hadn’t spoken to Bwalo Radio about what was going on.

  Everyone was quiet for so long it felt like no one would ever talk again, so I said, ‘Hey, Dad, does this mean I don’t have to go to school? Until we go to the uk?’

  ‘Well no, you may have to go back for a time until we have everything sorted out. But at least you finally have something exciting to write about in your school project.’

  ‘Really,’ I said. ‘Can I really write about all of this cool stuff that’s happened?’

  Dad ruffled my hair. ‘No, probably not, son, probably not.’

  Looking around the pool at everyone, I felt sad about leaving Bwalo, leaving all my friends, Aaron, Solomon, Ed, Innocence, Beauty, Alias, and leaving the Mirage. I felt scared about going to this place called the UK with all its bad weather and punks. And the thought of the King in his palace injured made my sadness turn to tears and Mum sat by me and gave me a hug, saying, ‘It’s fine, Charlie, it’s been a big day but everything will work out, we’re safe now.’

  I wiped my tears and muttered, ‘Why would anyone want to hurt the King?’

  Dad looked as if he was going to say it was complicated but Mum spoke first. ‘It’s fine to cry, Charlie, because as bright as you are, sweetheart, there’ll always be things in life that just don’t make any sense.’

  Hope

  The palace had been turned inside out. Boma’s soldiers had gone through every room. Official papers seized, paintings taken, even silver cutlery, the whole place gutted. Soldiers even ransacked servants’ quarters, taking the money that most of us kept under our beds. Many palace staff ran, some straight from the stadium, in their best shoes all the way back to their villages.

  I went to the kitchen to say goodbye to Chef. I knew Essop wouldn’t be there; I’d glimpsed him running from meeting to meeting, sticking close to Boma. I sat down with Chef who poured warm beer into a plastic cup. ‘The crystal glasses are stolen so we are using plastic, and the beer is warm too, but this is how things are for now.’

  We touched cups, took a sip, and I asked, ‘What now, Chef?’

  ‘Boma has a belly like Tafumo. I’ll keep cooking.’

  The kitchen door swung open and both Chef and I jumped to our feet. Essop was at the door raising his hand and saying, ‘It’s just me, don’t worry, don’t worry.’

  Chef still looked anxious as he poured Essop some beer. Essop took a drink and was shaking slightly as he said, ‘Pandemonium! These soldiers are like animals. I am sorry to both of you for the state of the palace. Have you lost many possessions?’

  ‘It’s not your fault, Essop,’ I said. ‘We knew this was coming.’ Essop wiped his hand over his bald head; sweat was streaming down his face. I said, ‘The worst of it is over now.’

  Essop shook his head as if that were not true. ‘I . . . it is a violent day, more violent than I expected.’

  ‘Breathe, Essop, breathe, please,’ I said. He took a few breaths as his mobile beeped in his pocket but he didn’t pick it up and I said, ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘Boma speaks as many languages as I do, so my time is up. I’m going to try and stop the soldiers running riot, help Boma build a government then I’ll disappear. I’m too small for such big events. Too old a dog for new tricks. What will you do, Hope? Boma’s health isn’t good . . .’

  ‘I’m done caring for Big Men,’ I said and handed Essop a piece of paper. He glanced at the address, his forehead bunched into furrows. ‘It’s a small place near the lake,’ I explained. ‘I bought it long ago and I’m going to live there.’

  Essop’s phone rang again and a soldier came to the door and shouted, ‘Boma wants you now.’ Essop looked flustered and nodded at the soldier, then said to me with a sad voice, ‘Well, Hope, I pray that you are happy there. You deserve happiness.’

  ‘But I was thinking,’ I said. ‘Maybe you could come and see me sometime.’

  His forehead smoothed. ‘I’d like that, Hope. Yes. Very much. Yes, I would like it, yes. I would. I will come, yes. I will.’

  ‘Well then I would like it too.’

  The soldier made a grunting noise. Essop folded the paper, placed it carefully in his pocket and said, ‘See you soon, Hope.’

  Then he put his hand over mine and when he took it off I felt the warmth linger long after he left the room.

  Chef smiled and handed me a paper bag. ‘They didn’t steal everything, those bastards. Your favourite, Hope: guava.’

  I took it, shook hands with Chef and left.

  I walked out the gate and down the road into the maize field and up to my tree. When I got there I touched the scarred bark, reached into the hole, deep up to my shoulder, pulling out all the bags, taking from each my rings, pearls, jewellery and earrings. It was enough for an old woman; I would sell it when the dust settled. Months back, when I had sensed that trouble was coming, I’d started my nest egg, my little bank in the mango tree. I knew if we had a coup that magpie-soldiers would ransack our rooms for anything shiny. And also that all the money I had in the bank would, in the collapse that follows a coup, become valueless, inflated to worthlessness, people carrying sacks of cash just to buy bread in another African nation of starving millionaires. My hand felt something else in the hole. A folder, manila, and sellotaped to it was an ochre-red bus. I opened the file and the first photograph made me cry. Levi. The handwriting scribbled wildly over every space was Josef’s: a confession, explanation, the history of deceit that led to where we were now. I’d long suspected that Tafumo and Josef were bound by unbreakable twine but I never dreamed they were friends, that they were two barefooted boys who sculpted a legend from village clay. The more I read the heavier my heart grew. If you carved away all of Josef’s lies there would be no man left behind. I put the folder into my bag and made my way down the hill into the deserted town. Only the occasional policeman or soldier was there and one said to me, ‘Go home, mama. It’s not safe.’

  I walked to the hotel, its brass letters looping like syrup: Hotel Mirage. When I pushed the bell, the door opened and a child poked his head out. ‘Welcome to . . .’ A man appeared behind him, shouting, ‘Charlie, get back from
the door,’ but when the man saw me, he said, ‘Quickly, quickly, in you come.’

  Charlie

  Welcome to the Mirage, and can I just say what an honour it is to have you stay with us.’ The lady politely waited for Dad to finish and because it was the first time anyone had let him finish in a long time, he looked pleased, saying, ‘I’m Stuart, hotel manager, and this is my son, Charlie, he’s the hotel mascot.’

  She smiled down at me.

  Dad got out the registration book but then said, ‘Actually, let’s not bother with all of this palaver, it’s on the house. Let’s put you in the splendid Tafumo Suite.’ Then he whispered, ‘Though I’m not sure how much longer it will be called that. I’ll leave you in the capable hands of Charlie.’

  I lifted the lady’s bag, which was small but really heavy.

  ‘I think we can manage together,’ she said. ‘And I wonder if you could post this for me.’ She handed Dad a folder. He flicked it open and it was like a spell: he froze – like he had so many questions boiling in his head that he didn’t know where to start – then he snapped it shut and said, ‘Yes, I can take care of this for you.’

  Sean

  Like the buffalo trying to outrun its agony, I wanted to be far from my shrieking nerves. My pain was intricate. Not the monotonous throb of a crushed thumb or slammed toe. Mercifully, Dr Todd wasn’t stingy with the morphine and in a matter of seconds I was seriously considering a full-time career as a junkie. The smack was sublime. Complications unfolded and resolved as everything that once was impossible now seemed effortless. My wound, an excruciating laceration, was reduced to little more than an academic consideration. Some distant, uninteresting detail. For there was no longer pain, fear or neurosis, just joy racing around me like excited children. In the fresh opium blush, I decided I was capable of writing another book. All I needed was the spark of an idea and of course enough opium to last the years it would take to complete it. On second thought, the smack might get in the way of my drinking. The opium made me realise that – even though my life was a mess – I couldn’t care less. I was released from caring. Then, rather splendidly, reality reflected my inner bliss when Bel offered me an escape from Bwalo, hitching the most glamorous ride of my life on a Learjet no less. After thanking her a million times, I sat back and watched my final Bwalo sunset. It should have made me sad but it didn’t. Possibly due to the opium but also because I’d exhausted myself of this place and it was exhausted of me. The sun released a last pink scream and splayed on the lounger, in a warm morphine hug, I drowned in gallons of warm colour. Planes passed overhead, their contrails unzipping the sky. The world was leaving and I wouldn’t be far behind. I closed my eyes and listened to rusty crickets grind down the sun as the ancient machinery of another day juddered to a stop. Jesus, this was good stuff.

  Stu’s face floated by, sunset fizzing through his beard. I was distracted by details. Weaved into the blackness of his beard were puffs of dandelion-white and stalks of saffron-red. I was saying something about this when I realised he was handing me a folder and whispering, ‘Sean, hide it, get it through customs, should be fine in all the chaos and you on a private jet, then write that book you’ve been pissing around with all these years.’

  Smiling like a gom, nodding at everything, it wasn’t until I saw what he’d given me that I sat up. The faces of men and women, all of whom had stood up to Tafumo, stared out at me. Alongside each were descriptions of where their bones lay, names of killers, and the name that authorised all the killings, scrawled in oddly familiar writing. Shock cleared the opium fug, as I heard myself say, ‘Jesus Christ.’

  Even from a brief glance, I knew the author was Josef. That this was Josef’s life I was reading. How had this found its way to me? I was sure Josef would be displeased at this strange turn of events but I had a sense that he was no longer with us, that these wild scribblings were not the sort of thing a man like him would do unless he knew his time was up, that this was a final testament.

  ‘Hide it,’ Stu hissed.

  I slid it below my bloody sling and whispered, ‘Jesus, this is incredible.’

  I checked the file was secreted. Below the bandage the manila folder, faint as a mustard stain, was just visible but it would soon be hidden by the slow spread of my blood.

  ‘If that doesn’t unblock you nothing will,’ said Stu and I replied, ‘Nothing like a small coup to unblock a useless bugger like me.’

  I reached over and patted Stu’s arm. ‘Look, Stu, yes, I know I’m high as a kite . . .’ Stu joked, ‘Makes a change from being drunk as a skunk,’ but I talked over him. ‘Let me speak, man! I know you’re a stoic Scot who’ll wither under the praise but there aren’t many men like you, Stu, who’ve helped people, some who might have vanished if it weren’t for your secret room. You’re a dying breed, Stu. A beautiful human who does more for others than you do for yourself. So thank you. Thank you for taking care of me all these years.’

  He looked down and muttered, ‘That morphine must be good shit.’

  I was glad I’d said it. I somehow knew that Stu and I wouldn’t sit like this again. Maybe, if we were lucky, we’d meet once or twice more, in some cold pub in England for a reunion where we would reminisce about old times. But I knew our friendship was so closely woven into this dysfunctional and beautiful country that this was the last time we’d ever be this close. Stu was nodding slightly; he knew this was the end of something. We both sat silently watching the sunset. From where I lay the sun seemed to drop into the pool and I half expected the water to boil as the sun sank into the deep end.

  When I said, ‘I’ll miss that Bwalo sun,’ Stu replied, ‘It’s all the same sun, Sean,’ and I snapped, ‘Only a fool thinks that.’

  He laughed then said, ‘Can you believe Willem was a mercenary?’

  ‘I had my suspicions,’ I replied and Stu joked, ‘But being the modest sort, you kept them to yourself?’

  ‘You’re right,’ I admitted. ‘I really liked the guy. Who’d have thought? OIA.’

  ‘We search in the wrong place for the thing that’ll destroy us.’

  ‘Scots saying?’

  ‘Stu saying.’

  ‘Won’t be when I steal it.’

  ‘Just dedicate the bloody book to me.’

  Hope

  Entering the Mirage lobby was like stepping into a memory. A vandalised memory. Cracked mirrors, broken chairs, the parquet floor peppered with bullet holes, but aside from the damage, it was unchanged from when we had honeymooned here. Strange to realise that as a young woman I’d believed this place, this tatty hotel, to be the very height of sophistication. With older eyes I now see that it’s a rather gaudy hotel, with its zebra-skin carpets and elephant-foot ashtrays, preserving something long dead, a museum more than a hotel, an antiquated Africa as seen through the eyes of sad old men.

  Muttering about stolen computers, the manager, Stuart, took out an ancient register book. If I leafed through it I knew I’d find Josef’s signature, small evidence of a past life. But before I could look, Stuart said, ‘Actually, let’s not bother with all of this palaver,’ and the heavy ledger gave a muffled clap as he heaved it shut. He handed me a key dangling off an elephant. ‘It’s on the house. Let’s put you in the splendid Tafumo Suite. Though I’m not sure how much longer it will be called that.’

  In a fast decision, I dug out the folder, and said, ‘I wonder if you could post this for me?’

  He searched for an address. Then flipped it open and looked like he was going to be sick. Immediately he knew its power. Unable to talk in front of his watchful son, we stared at one another, before he closed it. ‘Yes, I can take care of this for you.’

  He took the folder away and I followed the little boy, who guided me up the stairs and opened the door saying, ‘This is the Tafumo Suite: best room in the house.’

  Just as it had always been: tranquil and spacious with the four-poster bed and a mosquito net quivering in the breeze. Charlie chatted away about the mini-bar, playing
the perfect hotel porter. He knew what he was doing, this little one. He opened a door and with a little embarrassment said, ‘And that’s the bathroom.’ Then he came and stood next to me at the window. The riot was over, broken glass everywhere, here and there fires flickered as smoke-threads sewed the earth to the sky. Heavy fatigue overcame me, so I sat on the bed, saying, ‘It’s still a lovely room.’

  ‘Dad says we need to rename it because of . . . what’s happened.’

  ‘You sound upset.’

  ‘The Ngwazi is great. Who’d hurt the King? Sometimes nothing makes sense.’

  ‘Well, what would you call the room if you had to change the name?’

  ‘We could name it after my dad. The Stuart Room. We’re leaving soon, though, so everyone would ask: Who’s Stuart?’

  He sat next to me, close, as if we were old friends, feet swinging back and forth, forgetting his role as hotel porter. Resisting an impulse to touch him, I said, ‘Why don’t we call it after you? The Charlie Room.’

  ‘Sounds cool. But I’m leaving too, so that’s not right. What about your name?’

  Before I replied, an explosion rattled the windows and we fell to the floor. I placed my arm over Charlie who cradled in to me. The second blast hit with such force that when it rumbled back to nothing it left a vacuum, silence: no birdsong, no crickets. Just a tight suspended hush. Then into the stillness rushed the long-forgotten song of rain. We went to the window and he stood so close his head touched my hip as he whispered, ‘It’s raining.’ And what a storm. It was as if the lake was scooped up and cast back to earth hollowing out potholes, blasting soil, washing away paint, churning mud so it boiled and flowed and turned roads into rivers.

  Acknowledgements

  Special thanks to my generous in-laws, George and Carol, for letting the family live in Opoutere, where I started writing this book in their cool caravan. To my intrepid parents, Jimmy and Eileen, not only for showing me so much of the world, but also for going off to volunteer in Africa and letting us live in their cottage in Brittany, where I finished this book in their garden shed. To my lovely readers who gave me so much advice: my ever-insightful wife, Jemma; the great Steve Kane; the wise Charmaine Guest; and my friends and book soulmates, Jane and Nick Moore. Special thanks to Stan, as always. And to my lovely editor, Helen, and all the smart people at Bloomsbury who helped bring this book to life.