Frowning, Modogo stared the officer down, hoping thereby to bring a curse upon him mentally. Marie Liboma kept abusing the rubbery sweet in her mouth.
“Colonel!”
“What is it?”
One of the two police escorts spoke to him as if he were trying not to be overheard. “Colonel, they have a Chinese advisor.”
“What are you talking about?”
Screwing up his eyes, the law officer carefully surveyed the distance, looking for something in the area of Pavilion 4. “I think I saw a Chinese man, Colonel.”
“What do you have to say?” the Pygmy asked.
“Huh? Yes, I read it. But really, aren’t your demands a bit exaggerated?”
“Not at all; these demands are totally legitimate and normal.”
“Legitimate, legitimate. That remains to be seen.” And the officer scanned the pseudo-document once again. “All right. Suppose they are. In any case, it’s not up to me to decide on a reception center and funeral expenses. Where the ransom is concerned … you wrecked everything and on top of that you now want to be paid, too? As for any professional training and amnesty, I might be able to do something. I could grant each one of you amnesty and then cart you off to the police station to be trained for the National Police. How does that sound?”
“I gather you don’t understand us.”
“You’re the one who doesn’t understand anything, you little hoodlum!” The colonel was losing patience. “You will release those men immediately and give back the weapons you have, or else—” He stopped in mid-sentence, for a 4 × 4 with impressive grillwork had just parked next to the trucks transporting the troops.
“You, wait for me here!” the officer said, pointing a threatening finger at the Pygmy. He went over to the vehicles.
Isookanga didn’t wait: he gave a sign to his companions; all three turned their backs on the authorities and headed toward their own group. Flashes crackled and cameras immortalized their notorious lack of respect forever.
“If that guy thought he was going to make me surrender to some aggressive takeover bid, he’s sorely mistaken,” Isookanga thought. “We’re going to exact the highest possible price for the hostages; we’ll force that condescending character to make us a really good offer.”
As soon as the emissaries reached the entrance to the pavilion, cries rose up and words like “There you go!” and “Old Isoo, the great shégué,” and “Little Modogo, Marie Liboma, the shégué elite!” They resembled those who might have the courage to defy a boa constrictor by entering its mouth and coming out without a scratch, without a bite, without even feeling strangled, nothing.
“What did he say?”
“Nothing much; he thought he could just make fun of us.”
“Yo mothas ining in heïl!”11 Modogo interjected with a fearsome look.
“So, Colonel, what’s going on here?”
“The hostages are still in the hands of the terrorists, Governor.”
“What exactly do they want?”
The officer handed him the piece of cardboard.
“Who’s their representative?”
“Some short little man who …”
Colonel Mosisa turned around only to notice the absence from this no-man’s land of Isookanga, Modogo, along with Marie Liboma, who had also gone back, still doggedly chewing her poor piece of gum.
“All right, I see.”
He glanced absentmindedly at the demands scribbled on the bit of cardboard but maintained a sententious, serene look on his face to impress the horde of journalists, who were growing restless:
“Are you going to satisfy the kidnappers’ demands, Governor?”
“For how long have the twenty thousand shégués in Kinshasa been a problem, and what measures are you planning to take now that the situation has gotten out of hand?”
“One shégué has been killed; do you plan to diligently carry out an investigation to identify the offender or offenders?”
“Governor, aren’t you afraid that certain Islamist affiliations may have been able to infiltrate these youth networks as we’ve seen in other African countries like Somalia, Kenya, Niger, or Mali? In their new strategies we’re noticing similar ways of operating. Do you believe there’s an escalation in power in these small shégué groups, Governor?”
“Does the shégué problem originate from the government’s Department of Security or social action? Can you answer me, Governor? And what about the kuluna?12 Can one draw a parallel between them and the shégués?”
“I won’t answer any questions for now. We must avoid unnecessarily risking the lives of the hostages by talking a lot of nonsense.”
Liwa éé, liwa éé, mama abota ngai po na liwa.13
“Colonel.”
Standing right behind Colonel Mosisa, the same escort as before unobtrusively and halfheartedly uttered, “Colonel, they’re singing a war song, Colonel.”
Beneath the awning, a chorus of voices started to sing a battle song in homage to the former soldier Mushizi Omari Double-Blade, who’d fallen far from his native Kivu. The young ones were galvanized to confront the dramatic context that had so brutally ensued.
Liwa éé, liwa éé, mama abota ngai po na liwa
Liwa éé, liwa éé, mama abota ngai po na liwa
Elumbe, elumbe. Elumbe, elumbe
Ebembe, ya moto, ngoya éé, ngoya éé, Ebembe, ya moto, ngoya o.14
The children gestured and danced with jumbled movements, waving their arms and legs in every direction, their faces belligerent or else hilarious, mouths wide-open, to put the spotlight on this world’s disparagement. In accompaniment they beat on tables and on every other surface that could make noise, at a muted, persistent cadence like the war drums of today.
Isookanga, Zhang Xia, Shasha la Jactance, Marie Liboma, Little Modogo, Gianni Versace, Armored Mukulutu, Jacula la Safrane, the other shégués—including Trésor—were gathering around to decide on a response to the governor. They were racking their brains, but it was Zhang Xia who spoke up first, because he was the only one thoroughly familiar with the principles of revolutionary combat. Looking them in the eye one by one, he said, “The shégué army does not wage war for the sake of war, but only to disseminate propaganda among the masses, to organize them, arm them, help them create the revolutionary power. Without those objectives war wouldn’t make sense anymore, the shégué army, like our struggle, would have no reason to exist any longer, and we’d be doomed to submission. Let’s not be conned by them, armed as they may be. Reactionaries are paper tigers. On the face of it they’re terrible, but in reality they’re not all that powerful. Just look at how lamentably our prisoners have lost face. Comrade Isookanga, you go back there and state our demands with the utmost resolve. We must get the maximum. This is the way to go, for what’s contradictory is useful, and it’s from struggle that the most beautiful harmony is born; everything is achieved through discord, and we won’t let the enemy catch its breath.”
“Fine. I’m off. Modogo, Marie Liboma, to tambola!”15
On the front line facing them, the governor, one hand on his back and in control of the situation, was walking up and down broodingly, as he had seen in images of Napoleon and François Mitterrand.
“Colonel, come look.”
The same escort was holding a camera with a lens as long as an arm pointed at the urban terrorists. The soldier handed the camera to the officer.
“Look, over there, at the central pillar.”
“I don’t see anything.”
“Wait.”
Indeed, Colonel Mosisa finally detected a Chinese hidden by the pillar that supported the roof of the pavilion. He’d appear, he’d disappear; all you could see was his shadow.
“Shit!” the colonel thought, “he looks like Deng Xiao Ping, but younger and thinner.” He handed the camera back to the escort, who returned it to its owner, a young curly-haired man, a correspondent for the Herald Tribune in Brazza, who also worked for Libération and Fox News.
“Governor, we have a problem. My men have just discovered a Chinese advisor among the insurgents, probably an instructor.”
For a moment the governor lost his composure. “A Chinese, you say?”
The authority was rattled, brooding. A Chinese agent with that vermin obviously meant they shouldn’t get them too upset under any circumstances. The governor was a man with very single-minded ideas, and to him the sign was clear. A Chinese advisor, here, present at the riots with hostages taken, signified the direct intervention of the Exterior Security Department of the Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs. They wanted to do a Tiananmen Square on him. Very bad for his public image. As far as what he knew of the regime in place over there, his position as governor provided him with no protection at all. One couldn’t fight that. There were still plenty of avenues to redo in Kinshasa, tons of asphalt to spread, miles of gutters to cement, and how could that be done without China? And the press was milling about. All of it had to be played down, and as quickly as possible.
The shégué delegation had just reappeared. The children and Isookanga were looking grim; their approach was calm, the skull on Isookanga’s T-shirt flaunted like a warning. The governor glued a smile onto his face and took a step forward as a conciliatory sign. Isookanga recalled one of Zhang Xia’s maxims: if you want to know what a mango tastes like, you must taste it, and if you want to understand the theory of revolutionary methods, you must participate in the revolution. Isookanga felt quite comfortable with this, very comfortable in fact. While Yvan Amar did everything possible to get a clear sound and not lose a single syllable of what was being said, the journalists were already positioning themselves like a horde of hornets in heat, kilowatts overheating, to get the most dramatic picture of the confrontation that, in no less than a five-hundredth of a second, might bring them a World Press Award or a Pulitzer Prize.
The governor knew how to play his part. For starters, he received Isookanga with a stern look. Flashes went off full-force. The city boss took the folded bit of cardboard from the inside pocket of his jacket and pretended to reread it carefully. Only then did he speak, his gaze lowered to the Pygmy. The reporters made sure that the red On lights of their microphones were lit.
“I understand your pain and I commiserate with the tragic loss of your colleague. However, your demands are way out of proportion. We will, obviously, take care of the funeral; we are aware of the young deceased’s family situation. As for the training and community centers you’re demanding, I can make you the solemn promise, here and now, to do everything within my power to make that sincere wish for reintegration a reality. Colonel Mosisa and I myself will grant you general amnesty on the condition that there be no second offense, or else we’ll be forced to come down on you with the most extreme ruthlessness. As for the various damages, I’ve brought some money; it’s in my car. You’ll sign a receipt and it will be yours.”
“Mr. Governor,” Isookanga countered, “the press is here, they’ve heard you. We only hope that you will keep your promises.”
The official held out his hand to the young man and smiled from ear to ear at the cameras. Once more he reaped a maximum dose of flashes going off. He wanted to add something about working in the field and the sacrifices the government was willing to make to improve the social climate, but he didn’t have a chance, for Isookanga cut him off, calling out to the bouquet of mikes: “Drink Pure Swiss Water! Very clean water from the Swiss mountains!”
Then the members of the press surrounded them. Before Isookanga could go on, a hurricane with a smile and a strand of hair covering one eye appeared before him: Aude Martin, the researcher he’d met when the telecommunications tower was inaugurated and, parenthetically, the previous owner of the computer now in the Pygmy Isookanga’s possession.
After a brief interview with the writer Elizabeth Tchoungui and the journalist Laure Adler, Isookanga and Aude Martin sat down on some beer crates in a bar near the Avenue du Commerce. When his conversation—on the whole quite friendly—with the city’s governor came to an end, Isookanga was entrusted with the money for the funeral and other compensations. The police officers, the press, and everyone else were now gone, although they did leave a few elements of the Rapid Intervention Police force behind, who wandered around with Kalashnikovs slung over their shoulders. The researcher insisted on having a conversation with the young Pygmy. The computer on his mind, this embarrassed him somewhat at first, but he didn’t show it. After all, the only thing he was hanging on to was nothing but an infinitesimal bit of the colonial debt, so he was at peace with himself. With his bottle of beer in front of him, he felt no guilt whatsoever.
The place was tiny and filled with brash young guys and unspeakably shameless girls. The customers were mostly drinking straight from the bottle, gulping down their beverages so they could get drunk faster. With powerful basses and guitars that sounded like piercing claws, with his hip gyrations and lecherous body language, Werrason,16 the King of the Forest, incited them all to plunge deeper into their own depravity. As the young woman watched Isookanga, she was trying to understand what was going on inside her. Without a doubt, something irresistibly powerful drew her to him. He was the shortest one in the room, but she sensed he was the one with the greatest energy. He had such determination, something he had just proven again in his resolute negotiations with the city’s highest authorities.
Aude Martin was sensitive to that wild, free spirit. The first time she had come from Belgium, her country, to Congo it was to start her research, but she had stayed for barely a week. Admittedly, she’d spent a few hours in Wafania but had allocated most of her time to expatriate colleagues who were as boring as the theses they were writing. This time around she had lingered; alone and left to her own devices, she was completely free. Discovering Kinshasa and its people had been a shock to her. There was the extreme poverty of which she was aware, but there was something else that only her intuition and senses recognized. Confronted incessantly since her childhood with the mysteries, the violence, the subjugation of the African continent—especially of the former Belgian Congo—she was hoping that by coming here she could share and even, however slightly, relieve the pain of a people that for so long had been the prey of her race, and it didn’t seem there was any end to it.
Aude was moved in Isookanga’s presence. He could ask her for anything he wanted; she was ready to grant him every request he’d make. She was ready to give it all so he could at last have access to a relative peace. With everything this country was going through! Struggling to dance to the music of Wenge Musica Maison Mère, one of the guys took a wrong step and almost fell on both the beer and the young woman. As if triggered by a spring, Isookanga instantly planted himself in front of the giant. The young Pygmy reached only halfway up the torso of the man, but his hard, intransigent glare drove the guy to apologize unreservedly.
“Skizé,17 Old One.”
Without a word Isookanga sat back down, a majestic look on his face. Aude Martin—knowing nothing of the practice of birthright—was aware only of an extraordinary, mysterious authoritarian power that had passed between the two men. And suddenly it seemed as if a ball of fire exploded at the level of her chest, whose white heat then spread through her, descending and intensifying somewhere around that sensitive area between the hips, consuming her to her innermost depths. A kind of elusive ache settled in her throat, leaving her weak, without any resistance, moist between her legs.
“You know,” she said, her eyes damp, “I’d like to have more time with you. My article on your people needs to be more in-depth and only you can help me. Would you like to? Please,” she added gently.
Isookanga took a sip of his beer, taking his time to respond. “I’ll see. I’m thinking. You know, I’m not that interested anymore in what goes on in the forest or with my people. I’m a man of the future who goes along with his time. Me, I’m globalizing.”
Listening to the woman talk, paying very close attention to the tone she was u
sing, a note of alarm had sounded in Isookanga’s unconscious. He didn’t like it. He sensed a trap that he should absolutely avoid. The funeral wake was waiting; he had to bring this to an end. “Let’s make an appointment; we can get together again one of these days. How much longer will you be in Kinshasa?”
“I’m leaving soon. Will you make time for me?”
“Of course. But I really have to go now.”
Isookanga paid for their drinks and they went out into the night that had just fallen. He brought her to a taxi stand.
As they walked along, despite all kinds of threats lurking in the darkness—the ¾-liter bottle of beer Aude Martin had downed contributed a lot to this perception—she felt perfectly safe with the young Pygmy. It had been a long time since she had felt this way, since she’d experienced this sort of bounty. The last time was in her family home in the opulent suburbs of Brussels when she was still just an anxious child, a little helpless in the face of life, when only the presence of her father was able to reassure her. Next to Isookanga the young woman knew that she would be able to express the depths of her soul, that this encounter would let her be herself at last, again become the wild child she’d once been, without fearing society’s unfair reprimands. In his hands she would be protected, as if in a cocoon, shielded from any danger despite the uncontrollable upheavals of her soul.
“Here are the taxis. Take the first one in line. Where do you live?”
“I’m staying near the Academy of Fine Arts.”
“Moto, tika ye na Libération.”18
She wanted to kiss Isookanga as they do in her country, but from a bit of a distance he held out a robust hand—which added to troubling her hormonal system even more, particularly around the soft flesh between her legs.
Isookanga went back to the wake for Omari Mushizi under the roof of Pavilion 4. The crowd had not diminished. The lamentations had subsided, but every now and then a cry from the heart would burst forth to evoke Omari, former child soldier, and the sobbing would start all over again.
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