Bubi was the language spoken by those native to the island, a soft singsong of words strung together in a manner distinctly different from the harsher Fang that dominated the mainland and the capital. Munroe had heard it spoken occasionally, but not often enough to converse, and so she opted for Spanish to call out an evening greeting.
The adults responded with smiles and conversation, the children with bashful stares. She played the part of the quintessential traveler, and they answered her questions, chatting about the city and describing the best places for swimming. They invited her to eat, and she offered a few thousand CFA, which they refused and she insisted upon their taking by placing the money in the palm of one of the young children. In addition to the fish, there were plantains cut into strips and deep-fried in palm oil, plus forest snails in an oily tomato paste.
She made small talk with the young men and asked about boats capable of handling a trip to the mainland. They shook their heads and then discussed the question among themselves in their own tongue while she listened intently. Such boats were in Luba occasionally, they said, but not now. They offered to take her to the shore in the morning and introduce her to men who owned boats, and she countered with additional CFA for a spot under one of their roofs. Her bed was the concrete floor with a jacket bundled beneath her head for a pillow. Sleep came easily, everything about the evening having been comfortingly familiar.
The next morning Munroe stood on the shoreline under a half-moon and stars in front of a row of boats resting on the sand, a miniature armada ready for deployment. Their condition was as the young men had described, wooden fishing vessels old with dry rot. The smallest of them were pirogues, some with outboard engines and others without. A few of the boats had sails, and the largest, a wooden boat ten feet long, had a near-new outboard motor. She paced around it and ran her hands along the hull. It had the space to carry enough fuel to travel the distance, but it didn’t have the integrity to make the trip over the open water.
In silence she walked away from the others and stood beyond the edge of the breaking water. She picked up pebbles and threw them out into the waves in rapid succession, attempting to quell a building rage. Trapped on the island, a prisoner, time lost for nothing. It would mean having to risk the return to Malabo after all and, from there, finding a way to the mainland. The airport was out of the question. So was the main port. She stared up at the patterns of light in the black sky and willed a solution into existence.
There was another way. Boniface Akambe had said he could be found near Ureca. She’d wanted to see him, yes, but not under these conditions. But then limited options meant working with what was available. She negotiated a ride to the south of the island on a skiff.
She would travel to Ureca. Best known for the sea turtles that returned to its shore each year to nest, it was an isolated village where conservation groups had made headway against poaching by paying the locals to guard the beaches during nesting season. The village was accessible only by sea or via a thirteen-hour trek through the jungles between the Grand Caldera of Luba and Mount Biao.
Somewhere in that direction she would find Francisco Beyard.
The sun’s first rays had already begun to peek over the mountain by the time the boat’s owner returned from town. He brought with him extra fuel, drinking water, and a piece of cloth that would work as a tarp. Two young boys with him loaded an assortment of supplies that had nothing to do with the trip. They would be bartered and sold in Ureca, providing the entrepreneurial boatman with extra money.
The trip passed in relative silence. They hugged the coastline, following it around the widest part of the island. The occasional small village broke the monotony of green that advanced to the border of unending blue. Under the tarp Munroe dozed fitfully, in turn lulled to sleep by the steady rock of the boat and the cloud-covered sky and awakened by apprehension at meeting Beyard.
Scripts of possible introductions worked through her mind. The promise of money would possibly appeal to him. If not that, then what? Appeal to the memories of a friendship destroyed when she disappeared without so much as a word? If he would not take her off the island, the alternative was a grueling hike back to Luba and a return trip to the capital to face the possibility of a permanent resting place at the infamous Black Beach Prison.
Francisco Beyard was a risk worth taking.
EVIDENCE THAT THEY had arrived at Ureca came from signs of humanity along the shore and the landmark rock that jutted upright out of the empty beach twenty feet into the air like an isolated obelisk. The boatman brought the boat as close to the beach as possible, tilted the engine upward, and together he and Munroe—gritting through the pain in her arm—pushed it thirty feet through shallow waves until it rested solidly on dry land. The sand was soft and deep brown, unlike the stretches of porous boulders and black rock that lined the western shore.
Young boys shirtless and shoeless played nearby and ran to greet them as the boat came to rest. The boatman barked orders to them and passed out trinkets. They took up his bundles and led the two of them inland.
The trail to Ureca climbed steadily upward through a quarter mile of lush greenery still wet with recent rain. The village was a tidy collection of houses, neatly demarcated and separated by narrow dirt pathways that had never been used by a motorized vehicle. Unlike the cinder-block houses in the villages to the north, most of the homes in Ureca were wattle and daub, their roofs covered with thick thatchwork.
The boys brought Munroe to the home of the village elder, chattering as they went inside. They soon came scuttling out, followed by an aged woman. She wore a worn T-shirt, and wrapped around her waist was a colorful cloth, a matching band around her hair. Her weathered face was adorned with cutting scars. She greeted Munroe and motioned her inside.
Munroe was offered a seat opposite a man who was certainly much younger than he looked. He sat regally on a wooden chair, his hand atop a polished stick. Munroe was treated graciously, and when she had accepted coffee and they had begun to drink, he asked why she had come and he requested the documents that permitted her to travel to the village.
She handed him her residency card and explained that although she did not have a paper from the Ministry of the Interior, she was part of a diplomatic mission with several requirements, not the least of which was to visit Ureca. Because of its uniqueness, she explained, it was one of the most important villages on the island, and as the village elder he was one of the most important men. He nodded in agreement and asked no more about the papers. As indirectly as possible, she asked questions that would lead her to Beyard’s location.
The elder was thoughtful and slow to speak. He provided information judiciously, and his reticence gave Munroe reassurance that Beyard’s reach had extended into the elder’s pocket.
He was not far away.
Full of dignified humility, she apologized for coming without a gift for such an important representative and explained that part of her responsibility on this mission was to meet with a man who would provide transport. Because she had traveled in haste, she had come empty-handed, but this man would aid her in bringing back a gift.
The elder was silent for a moment, and Munroe refrained from speaking, knowing that he weighed potential reward against the potential loss of reward should he displease his paymaster. Finally he spoke.
“I cannot say for sure what is or what isn’t,” he said. “My eyes and ears are not as young as they once were. But there are whispers that at Point Delores young men occasionally find work.”
“It is obvious,” she said, “that you are a very wise man and that your people are fortunate to be blessed with a leader such as yourself.” He nodded again, and with his permission she took her leave.
She found the boatman with his wares spread about him, surrounded by the women of the village. Voices were raised and spoke in rapid succession as they bartered. Munroe understood traces of the conversations, words coming to her in flashes of illumination. Another few days an
d she would be conversing, another week and she’d be fluent.
When the racket settled and the crowd thinned, she called to the boatman. Just one more small trip and his end of the bargain would be complete. Point Delores, she had learned, was a nesting area a few miles farther along the coast.
They beached the boat as they had earlier in the day, and from the sands Munroe searched for signs of humanity. A small pirogue sat above the waterline and, not far from it, a path recognizable only by an occasional footprint and foliage that had been disturbed. She knelt and touched the earth. It was wet, heavy with water. The footprints had been recently formed. The path led inland for less than half a mile and ended at a small clearing that encircled three buildings.
The largest of the buildings was a block house similar in style to those on the north of the island; the others were wattle and daub. On the roof, together with the corrugated metal, were several solar panels, and electrical wires leading from one of the smaller structures intimated at a generator. A screened-in porch fronted the central building, and to the side of the porch two young men sat dozing in the shade.
They did not move when she approached. She knelt beside them and in their own tongue said softly, “Excuse me.”
Her aim had been to avoid startling them, but from the looks of fright they bore, she had failed miserably. In Spanish she said, “I came to find the Merchant.” And when in their faces she found affirmation of the property’s owner, she added, “Is he at home?”
The shorter of the two shook his head and then said, “He returns in the evening.”
“Good.” She smiled. “I will wait for him inside.”
Munroe paid the boatman the last of her money and instructed him with words to repeat if questioned about her purpose for visiting this part of the island.
In the silence she turned toward the house and opened the screen door. She let herself in through the front door, and the young men watched with obvious indifference. Memories played like time-lapse photography.
Another life.
She entered directly into the living room, an open space that belied the small size of the house. It was sparse and empty, the walls plastered and painted white, the furniture consisting of a rough-hewn sofa and two chairs. The floor was concrete painted over with brown floor paint, and it was all spotlessly clean, somehow suggesting the sterile environment of a well-kept clinic. The shutters were closed and the air hot and stale. She tried the fan. There was no electricity.
From the living room there were doors off a small hallway, and she could see through the open door to the kitchen. She lay down on the sofa, ignoring the temptation to look around. She had invaded his house, but some things were still sacred. In the stillness and quiet, her eyes grew heavy, and she was pulled downward into sleep.
IN THE FOGGY distance of consciousness, Munroe heard shouting. Aware that time had passed but not how much, she struggled to wake and pull herself out of the sticky haze of sleep. A web of heat and exhaustion enveloped her and dragged her back down.
The deep roar of a generator split the silence and drowned out the human voices. The lights in the room blinked on and off and then put out a steady wattage. A breeze cut through the stale air in the room as the fans began to oscillate. The temperature had changed, dusk had come. The mosquitoes would be out in force, held at bay by the netting that covered the windows.
Footsteps on the porch were followed by another barrage of shouting. The voice was familiar. She was awake now, and uncomfortable. She shifted on the sofa. The front door slammed open and shut. He stormed into the room and then, making eye contact, stopped in midstep, almost tripping over himself.
chapter 11
Beyard righted himself, then stared at her for a moment. “Hello, Essa,” he said finally, the words rolling off his tongue in a rich, thick mixture of accents. The initial shock that had registered on his face faded, and all that replaced it was nonchalance.
He walked toward the kitchen without another look and said, “Can I get you something to drink?”
“Yes, please,” she called out after him. “Water will be fine.”
Cupboard doors banged. “I must say”—his voice was raised but muted by the distance—“when my boys told me I had a visitor, you were the last person I expected.” He walked back into the living room. “I’m surprised to see you here. Not just here, you know, although yes, it is even more unexpected, but to see you at all …” He paused and motioned around the room. “In the same room with me, or even in this country.” He handed her the glass. “It’s tepid. The idiots who work for me let the generator run out of fuel.”
She raised her glass toward him and took a drink.
They both sat in silence, he facing her, his forearms on his knees, she with her legs stretched over the edge of the chair. He rolled his glass between his palms. She watched him, studied him. He was more muscular, his hair no longer sun-bleached blond, his tan not as deep, but he was still weather-beaten, his chiseled features emphasized by the lines that only extended outdoor exposure could bring. His eyes were still strikingly blue.
He was the first to break the silence. “How did you find me?”
“I was in Kribi a few days ago and spoke with Boniface. He mentioned you’d set up shop in this general direction. I knew what I was looking for.”
He leaned back and with a half smile said, “Atavistic in the end,” and then, after a long pause, “So you asked about me?”
“Yes, I did.” She waited, unsure of which direction to take the conversation, and then said, “How’s business?”
His face still wore the half smile, and as he watched her, she knew that his mind had kicked into analysis mode. “You didn’t travel halfway around the world from wherever it is you came from to ask me about business, just as you didn’t meet with Akambe to find out where I was.”
“No,” she replied, meeting his gaze and then shifting to look around the room. “I’m making small talk. Other business brought me to Boniface, and I asked about you because I wanted to know how you were. I hadn’t intended to drop in at your hideaway.”
“But here you are.”
“Yes,” she said slowly, “here I am. Unfortunately, it’s that same ‘other business’ that has brought me here. I need a ride off the island, and I’m willing to pay you well for it. I’d also like to hire your expertise.”
He said nothing, and his eyes wandered to the grimy piece of cloth still wrapped around her arm. Then he stood. “Have you eaten?” he asked.
She cocked her head to the side to look up at him and remained seated and silent.
“Whatever it is you want,” he said, bending toward her and lowering his voice to almost a whisper, “can be better discussed on a full stomach. Come.”
She followed him into the austere kitchen, and he lit the burner under a pot that sat on the stove. Against one wall was a tiled counter that ended in a metal sink. Handmade cupboards had been built into the far-right wall. The stove and refrigerator sat side by side on the left wall, fitting together only because they were both so small. The stove was divided in two, half of it running off propane and the other half on electricity. A screened window over the counter looked out into the yard. Against the coming darkness, he closed the shutters from the inside, the slanted wooden slats allowing air to continue to circulate.
A small table and two handmade chairs stood against the remaining wall. Like the living room, the kitchen was sparse and clean. He pulled a place setting out of the cupboard. “Don’t ask what it is,” he said as he served her from the simmering pot, “it won’t kill you.”
Forest rat, monkey meat, it made no difference—whatever it was, she’d had worse. He sat across from her and watched as she ate, and when she finished, he took the plate from the table and placed it in the sink. “How long since you’ve eaten?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Dinner sometime yesterday.”
He nodded toward her arm. “What happened?”
“Drugged, beaten, and shot. I would have been dumped into the ocean except I jumped first—I’m supposed to be dead.”
He propped himself against the sink, arms crossed at his chest, legs crossed at the ankles, staring at her in silence with the slightest semblance of a smile. He shook his head almost imperceptibly and then went to the refrigerator and pulled out two bottles of beer. He handed one to her, knelt beside her, and took her left arm in his hands. He lifted the bloodstained material away from the wound and pressed lightly around the edge of it, and she winced. He put his hand to her forehead. “You’re burning,” he said.
“I know.”
“The bullet needs to be removed. I’ve got a bottle of Black Label somewhere in the house. You might want it.” She gave him back the unopened beer.
He returned to the kitchen with the whiskey and pulled a shot glass from the cupboard, then handed both to her. “How long has it been since I saw you last?” he asked. “Ten years?”
“Nine.”
“Nine years. It’s a long time. You look good, by the way.”
“So do you.”
He set a pot of water on the stove and then left the kitchen again, returning a few minutes later with a small metal kit that brought with it another wave of memories. He dropped a few items into the boiling water.
After several minutes he withdrew from the pot a pointed precision blade that looked like a scalpel. “It’s been a long time,” he said, and he laid it on a cloth on the table in front of her, together with several other items. “Do you trust me?”
The Informationist: A Thriller Page 14