Rogue's March (38 page)

They waited in the armchairs while the major went back through the arbor and disappeared up the steps to N'Sika's office. Guns surrounded them in the shadows. Soldiers patrolled the villa perimeter; others stood just beyond the wash of electric light, silently facing the terrace. Overhead the dry palm trees rattled in the throat of the night wind.

Bondurant sat back woodenly, hands folded. Lowenthal's head was set, chin propped against his closed fists, staring at the red carpet. Reddish looked up through the palm trees, searching for stars.

“A little like Baghdad after the revolution,” he recalled.

Someone coughed in the darkness behind him and he turned. Beyond a small wall screened with potted plants was a second terrace where members of the new government were waiting to be received.

“Like a dentist's waiting room,” Reddish suggested, sitting forward and searching for a cigarette. “I hope to hell this is the head of the queue.”

“A little macabre, isn't it?” Bondurant asked in distaste.

“Think about Kissinger,” Reddish proposed.

Bondurant was intrigued. “In what sense?”

“The statesman as hero,” Reddish said.

Bondurant laughed. Lowenthal smiled.

“He gets a good press, doesn't he?” Bondurant mused. “Much better than the Secretary.”

“Why not? His answers are better-educated than the reporters' questions,” Reddish said. “He's trickier with words.”

The major reappeared. They followed him back through the arbor and up the steps between two red-bereted bodyguards with M-16 rifles. The high-ceilinged room they entered was empty except for a small group of plush armchairs surrounding a low coffee table in the far corner. The room was lit by fluorescent tubes along the wall and ceiling. An old carpet with its nap worn to fiber led to the group of chairs. At the head of the low table was a larger red plush chair with a yellowing antimacassar over its back.

Colonel N'Sika took the chair after he entered a moment later, motioning to them to sit down. Bondurant sat to N'Sika's right, Lowenthal and Reddish next to him. N'Sika was accompanied by Major Fumbe and Major Lutete. He wore a Colt .38 in an open holster on his right hip and was dressed in wrinkled khakis, dark with sweat at his neck and under his arms. The two majors also wore side arms. The three men looked tired and smelled of their fatigue, of sweat, gunpowder, lack of sleep, and missed meals. N'Sika and Fumbe both carried portable radio receivers opened to a security channel. Both put them at their feet as they sat down.

N'Sika sat for a few minutes without speaking at all, head thrust forward, reading without enthusiasm a few handwritten notes prepared for him. He was in his late thirties, his skin jet black and unmarked, heavy in the jowls and neck. His face was wooden. No animation showed in the thickly lidded eyes, only a weariness that bordered on sullenness, but he dominated the room. His two majors were smaller, their eyes livelier, but it was fear that moved their muscles, and it was N'Sika they feared. He rarely looked at them; their eyes seldom left his face.

The palm trees outside clattered in the wind as they waited. The static from the radio stirred from beneath the table. Finally he folded the notes away in his shirt pocket, took out a crushed package of cigarettes, and put them on the table.

Then he began to speak, slowly and laboriously, telling Bondurant why he'd decided to abolish the old regime and nationalize the economy. He spoke French, not Lingala, and he spoke it clumsily, his monologue broken only by an occasional pause for a forgotten word, which Major Fumbe supplied in a whispered voice. As he spoke, he didn't once look at Bondurant, Lowenthal, or Reddish. His eyes brooded instead across the table in front of him, traveling across the watermarks, the peeling varnish, and the cigarette burns, which he occasionally covered with his long fingers, the nails as strong and smooth as soapstones. He smoked continually.

He might have been talking to himself. Nothing in his voice or face conceded any recognition to his three visitors. The battered old table was more real to him, its scars familiar, its history known. It was as if he'd decided that these three white men could never understand what he had done or experienced, his world as closed to them as theirs to him. To Reddish, it was obvious that this long, tiresome monologue he was dutifully performing as chief of state was as dead to him as the three men to his right were dead to him.

A bodyguard brought Coca-Cola and Fanta, the bottles uniced, like the glasses. A second bodyguard fetched N'Sika a fresh package of cigarettes and emptied his ashtray.

He waited until the two men left the room before he resumed. He didn't like the Belgians, he began again, but the interruption had broken his train of thought. “The dwarf of Europe,” he summarized. “A white pygmy in our forests. They are nothing—ticks on an elephant. Leeches. Like that.
Rien plus.
”

He asked for continued American support; he expected more from the Americans than the others. The United States had never been a colonizer. Its hands weren't stained by the blood of the past. He hoped the United States wouldn't join with the Belgians in forcing harsh terms as compensation for the nationalizations. The Belgians weren't to be trusted. Belgian guns had been identified among those seized in Malunga. Now the Belgian Embassy was spreading lies about that too, saying that only Soviet guns had been found. The dossier was there, with Major Lutete, who would discuss it with them. The fact was that the provocateurs in the workers party had been in touch with many imperialist agents, not only African—like the Angolan turncoat in the MPLA—but European as well.

It was then that N'Sika's disability betrayed itself. He'd been talking for forty minutes without interruption, and he faltered over a word—a momentary block that crippled his palate and jaw for an instant before it released them. He had a stutter.

“The dossier is there,” he concluded finally, waving toward Lutete and sitting back in his chair, as if the subject didn't interest him.

Major Lutete sat forward, lifting a thick dossier to the coffee table, his hot eyes on Bondurant. “It is all here, Mr. Ambassador, as the President says. The complete file, which will be turned over to the Revolutionary Court. It includes the serial numbers of the guns, a letter from the Angolan turncoat the chairman mentioned, dos Santos, to Masakita, promising to supply the party with weapons, as well as the import licenses from the European firm, Societé Générale d'Afrique—”

“I'm sure it's complete,” Bondurant interrupted, “and I appreciate your willingness to discuss it, but it's a matter for your courts, not for me.”

Reddish had stirred forward at the mention of dos Santos, only to sit back in disappointment.

Major Lutete was confused: “Excuse me?”

“This is an internal matter. It's not one that concerns my government.”

No one spoke. Bondurant waited patiently, turned again toward N'Sika, who muttered something in Lingala to Lutete. The major sat back in relief, returning the dossier to his briefcase. N'Sika sat in silence, head forward, studying the table. Finally he lifted his eyes, examining Lowenthal and Reddish.

“Why did you bring these two men?” he asked Bondurant.

“They're my counselors,” Bondurant replied, surprised.

“Which one is Reddish?”

“There, at the end.”

N'Sika looked closely at Lowenthal: “
Olobaka monoko nini ndako na yo
?”

Lowenthal flushed. “Sorry—”

“I regret he doesn't speak Lingala,” Bondurant explained.

N'Sika studied Reddish coldly. Abruptly he launched into a long tirade in Lingala, his anger sometimes carrying him to the edge of his chair and back again as he complained bitterly of the crime and corruption of the old regime, crimes which the Americans had allowed to go unnoticed, unpunished. He sometimes jabbed his finger in Reddish's direction, as if he held Reddish personally responsible. He held one hand out, fingers apart, and with the other counted off the names of those who'd cheated, embezzled, and thieved from their ministries. Was the embassy blind? Was Washington blind? How could it be blind? Its agents were everywhere. Of course it knew what was going on, just as Reddish had known that Sunday morning when he'd come to talk to de Vaux about the workers party guns. Yet all Reddish was protecting was his own people, his embassy, his ambassador. Didn't the embassy or Washington care about the people who were suffering? All the people, everywhere! In his village in the north, all one saw was sickness, hunger, death! Why? Was the United States a pygmy, like the Belgians? Why hadn't the Americans done something?…

N'Sika's two majors sat sweating in terror. Bondurant, watching N'Sika's angry face, was frightened himself.

At last N'Sika sat back. Bondurant asked Reddish to give him the gist of N'Sika's words, but N'Sika interrupted him. He could talk to Reddish later. Weary of the meeting, he asked Bondurant if he had anything to say. Bondurant raised the points supplied by his instructions as N'Sika listened sullenly, without comment. Only when Bondurant asked that the executions cease did N'Sika's face come alive again. He hunched forward eagerly, interrupting Bondurant.

Did the ambassador want to talk about the executions? Very well, he would talk about that. He waved to Major Lutete and told him to translate from Lingala into French. He was tired of French. For three minutes he harangued Bondurant in Lingala and then sat back.

Major Lutete took a deep breath and moved forward in his chair. “
Monsieur l'Ambassadeur
,” he began in a faint, dry voice, “
notre président a dit que … il a dit que nous, nous
—we understand, yes. It is logical and natural, Mr. Ambassador, that you should be concerned about these men—these thieves, rapists, killers, and so on who were sentenced by the Revolutionary Court. Certainly, Mr. Ambassador, we well understand, since this is your responsibility, to preserve order and to improve understanding among nations. That is a diplomat's responsibility. But here on this hilltop, Mr. Ambassador, the President has his own responsibilities, but there is a great difference—”

N'Sika interrupted him angrily, motioning him back in his chair, and pointed to Reddish. “Tell him,” he commanded. “Tell him in English.” He seized the front of his damp shirt with one hand, and with the other lifted the ambassador's helpless, shrinking arm from the chair rest, dangling it aloft by the sleeve.

Reddish translated as N'Sika spoke:

“In this uniform—this shirt, there is a man. Just one man. Now, if you lie or make a false report to your foreign ministry, and someone discovers it is a false report … a lie … they won't take you out and shoot you because you failed, will they?… They won't hang you, will they?… No, of course not!… But if I fail, they will shoot me … They will shoot me or hang me or whatever!… So I must be careful not to fail—and I must be careful to teach my enemies what justice is … not abstract justice or diplomatic justice, the kind you deal with in telling me you are troubled by these executions, but not so troubled that your tears or your grief will kill you tomorrow if someone else dies! But if I can't teach my enemies what abstract or diplomatic justice is, send them to Brussels or Paris or America to the universities to learn as you've learned, I can show them what my justice is.”

N'Sika released his shirt and dropped the ambassador's sleeve, standing now in front of his chair. He took from his pocket the handwritten note he'd studied at the beginning of the meeting, the remarks prepared for him by his advisers.

“And do you know where my justice is? Not in the universities or the foreign ministries! Do you know? Not here in this room with us, in your words or in my words, no! Who sent you these words? The same men who gave me these words?”

He ripped up the paper contemptuously and threw it across the table, then flung his arm out behind him, pointing down the hillside:

“My justice is down there, against the stone wall of that prison on the hillside. Would you like to see it? To visit it for yourself? I'll take you, yes, because I have nothing to hide. I mustn't hide it—never! My justice is against the stone wall of that prison and I want everyone to know what it smells and feels like! It smells and feels like death, because that is what it is—for me, for my council, for all of us! Not paper or parchment. It smells and feels like death, and if you don't know its smell, then it will never find you, but if you do, it will—wherever you're hiding, in whatever commune or village! Because as surely as I'm talking to you this way, if there are those out there in the darkness who have no reason to fear me, to smell and know my justice, then as surely as we sit here this minute, those men will be the ones who one day will put me against the wall and shoot me!

“But you don't understand that, do you? No. How can you. When they shoot you, they'll only shoot the name your father gave you, the idea of your name, whether it is good or bad. When they hang you, they'll only hang the uniform away someplace in a dusty closet that doesn't smell of death, but of ink, parchment, papers, and everything else diplomats worry about. But you will keep your pension, your villa, your children, and your wife. But when they shoot me, it will all be butchered together, everything—collar, sash, medals, bones, and meat, like
mwamba
, and afterward it will all be thrown in a ditch like the carcasses of the dogs the street sweepers find each morning in the capital, and in that ditch I'll smell of death too, not pensions, or ink, or dusty closets where foreign ministries hang the sashes and medals of diplomats who fail. So that is the difference and that is why I shot those men, and if you still don't understand, we will go down to the prison and see for ourselves, just the two of us, you and I, no one else.”

It was N'Sika speaking, not the man fabricated by his policy and protocol advisers, but the man Reddish had heard speak at Martyr's Square, the man behind the coup d'etat and everything that had followed. Bondurant and Lowenthal sat stricken, like Majors Fumbe and Lutete, eyes never leaving N'Sika's face. The darkness pressed in on all sides from beyond the windows; the sounds of cartridge belts and rifles, metal on metal; the low, sibilant voices in the garden; the clatter of the dry raffia palms.