Текст книги "Jimfish"

Автор книги: Christopher Hope

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CHAPTER 13

Down a long, dimly lit passage and into another part of the palace, the veiled woman led Jimfish, seemingly knowing her way by instinct. She showed him into a room furnished with a fine red sofa and enormous tapestries, woven with hunting scenes of kings and knights pursuing wild boar. Here she told Jimfish to wait. He sat on the red sofa and pondered the tapestry. The hunters on their giant horses, their lances buried in the bleeding bellies of the snarling boars, and in the corner of the scene he saw the emblem of the President himself, a leopard on a chain, lunging at the prey.

Yet despite the carnage in the tapestries, the atmosphere seemed to Jimfish softer and less brazenly opulent than he had found it in the rest of the palace.

After a little while, the door opened and in came his guide, leading by the hand a woman, who held before her face a carnival mask. Jimfish jumped to his feet when she entered. There was something about her that made him sink back again on the sofa, his heart hammering his ribcage. At a sign from her attendant, the lady lowered her mask and there she was: his beloved Lunamiel, as lustrous and luscious as the day he had seen her last in faraway Port Pallid, when, lying on the red picnic rug in her father’s orchard, he and she had become as entangled as the tendrils of the strangler fig.

It was all too much for poor Jimfish, still dizzy and exhausted by the events of the past days, and he fainted. When he came to, he was stretched full length on the sofa, his head in Lunamiel’s lap, struggling to make sense of it all, while she dabbed his lips and temples with a handkerchief dipped in cooling cologne.

‘But they told me you were dead,’ Jimfish whispered. ‘That you were in church one Sunday when a bomb blew you to bits.’

‘But for the grace of God I would have been blown to bits,’ Lunamiel said. ‘Such outrages were common in our country in the mad mid-1980s when everyone was at war. Whites were shooting blacks, blacks were bombing whites and each side was ready to destroy the other. But as it happened, I wasn’t in church that day – thanks to a miracle. My brother, Deon – who you will remember vowed to shoot you if ever he found you – had the luck to meet a rich Zairean businessman who promised him the deal of a lifetime if he would travel to the Congo to meet the Great Leopard, at the time dealing secretly with our government. Deon was offered exclusive mineral rights – cobalt, copper, gold, diamonds or all of them – if he provided strategic advice to the leader of Zaire, who had a problem very common across Africa. The President was immensely rich and his people were starving. The question that plagued Sese Seko Mobutu and dozens of leaders like him was easy to state but hard to solve: how does a Big Man deal with the needs of poor people and still keep everything he has?’

‘Certainly, that is a hard question,’ Jimfish agreed. ‘And I’d say impossible to solve. You can have either one or the other.’

Lunamiel agreed. ‘But that was the test: if my brother came up with the answer he’d be a millionaire.’

Jimfish was pleased: perhaps Deon Arlow had some qualities he’d not heard of back in Port Pallid. ‘And your brother agreed to help?’

‘He did. But it took a considerable struggle with his conscience. He is a real white South African who had been taught, ever since he was very, very small, to distrust and dismiss other black Africans. But when it came to business, Deon was a great adapter and he could turn his coat quicker than anyone I ever knew. Whenever Deon crossed the South African on business he behaved in a manner so refined you might call it almost human. Deon knew his duty was to do business in Zaire, though of course he said nothing to our father, wishing to spare his feelings. And that is why, when the bomb exploded beneath the altar of my church in Port Pallid on that Sunday morning, ripping to shreds any number of worshippers, my brother and I were sipping champagne in first-class seats, high above the Victoria Falls, on a flight to Kinshasa.’

‘It’s a miracle!’ said Jimfish.

‘Someone has to pay for other people’s miracles,’ said Lunamiel. ‘Sadly, my father, believing I was indeed dead, set off to punish those he suspected of planting the bomb, shooting many of them, just as he would have shot you, my dear Jimfish, had you not fled the garden that day we sat together. As it happened, the men he killed were not the perpetrators of the attack. Agents of our own government had planted the bomb in church with what they regarded as the laudable intention of laying the blame at the door of black terrorists.’

‘How sad and ironic,’ said Jimfish.

‘Exactly so,’ said Lunamiel. ‘As you will see when I tell you that the very next Sunday, when my father and mother went to church to pray for me, they were themselves blown to bits by a bomb, placed beneath the altar, by the remaining members of the black liberation movement whom my father had not managed to shoot.’

‘How terrible!’ Jimfish was horrified at the painful symmetry of these violent acts.

‘And sad and ironic,’ Lunamiel agreed with a wan smile. ‘Both sides in our homegrown war now felt it was quits, at least for a while. But how did you come to be here, my dear Jimfish? I want to know everything that has happened since you fled Port Pallid for Zimbabwe and the outside world.’

So Jimfish hugged her tightly and told her of his travels in Matabeleland, his work as a bio-robot on the roof of Reactor Number 4 at Chernobyl, of the treacherous murder of the good Jagdish and the death of Soviet Malala, his unforgettable teacher. And, hearing his adventures, Lunamiel was moved to tears more than once.

‘Do you think it’s the fate of South Africans to end badly?’ he asked Lunamiel.

She sighed. ‘Since arriving in this country I’ve heard it said over and over that the only good South African is a dead South African. And when I tell you what has happened to me, you may ask yourself whether death is not a desirable option.’

And with Jimfish hanging on her every word, side by side on the red sofa, she told him her story.

CHAPTER 14

‘My brother Deon is not only flexible in his principles and pragmatic in his business practices, he is positively elastic in family matters. We had not been in Zaire more than a few days when he enlightened me as to my role in his business.

‘“You are not merely my dear sister,” he explained. “You are going to play a vital role in the deal I’ve signed with a Big Man in the court of the Great Leopard. No less a personage than his Minister of Mines.”

‘When I asked, very gently, why I had not been consulted before he signed the deal, Deon explained my great good fortune to me.

‘“Not many people get the chance to change the world. And the world I’m talking about is the one that condemns white South Africans as incorrigible racists who despise black people. You will prove them wrong, my dear sister, by showing how eager we are to engage constructively with our African compatriots. In doing so, you will also improve our own balance of payments.”’

Lunamiels’s eyes flashed, as they did when she was angry.

‘I must admit I was rather impatient and demanded to know how a girl from Port Pallid would improve anyone’s balance of payments.

‘“Perfectly simple,” said Deon. “The Congo of the Great Leopard has lots of cobalt, copper, cadmium, petroleum, diamonds, gold, bauxite and tin, just to mention some of its riches. For a percentage, I’ve arranged for you to engage with the Minister of Mines most constructively, day and night, and the idea excites him hugely.”

‘My brother had no sooner introduced me to the Minister of Mines than I understood the nature of this excitement, because he flung me down on a nearby bed, saying that he had always wanted a white South African woman. All this I suffered in the cause of constructive engagement and to show my white compatriots in a better light.’

Jimfish again hugged her close, feeling within him the very first stirrings of anger.

‘My darling Lunamiel, a prisoner of this man’s lust! How long has this been going on?’

But she reassured him sweetly. ‘Not long at all. Luckily for me, a few days later, the Minister of Mines died suddenly during a diamond dealers’ conference held here in the palace at Gbadolite.’

‘He had some sort of accident?’ asked Jimfish.

Lunamiel sighed at the memory. ‘He was shot to death with poisoned arrows by a squadron of pygmies, which the Zairean army keeps for the purpose. But my relief did not last long. I soon discovered that I had been designated the bedfellow of the Minister of Education, who had arranged for his colleague’s accident in a very Zairean cabinet reshuffle.’

‘A godsend!’ Jimfish clapped his hands in relief. ‘Because education elevates the mind, as my dear teacher Soviet Malala used to say.’

Lunamiel shook her head. ‘In Zaire, the Minister of Education is there to make sure nothing of the sort ever happens and he was constantly crushing student riots and closing the national university.’

‘How appalling!’ cried Jimfish.

‘Not entirely,’ Lunamiel explained gently. ‘This work took up a good deal of his day, as well as a considerable proportion of his nights, and I was spared his constant demands. But I had caught the eye of another high official, the secret American Advisor to the President. The Great Leopard has enjoyed American backing ever since he came to power, after eliminating Patrice Lumumba, the first elected leader of the Congo. Successive US presidents call him their very special African friend and vital ally against their enemies abroad, and give him bushels of money, as well as tons of guns.’

Jimfish still felt rather relieved. ‘If the Americans are so fond of the Great Leopard, then you must have found a powerful protector in the secret agent.’

Lunamiel sighed. ‘If only that were so. Instead, I was now the object of desire of the Minister of Education as well as the American and they could never agree on a timetable. My minister insisted that I was his sole property, under the terms of the contract made by my brother with the late Minister of Mines. But my American, who came from the Deep South, swore that the Bible forbids a white girl to cohabit with a black man and I owed it to God to sleep only with a white Christian.

‘Each rival vied with the other by mounting manly displays of strength and daring, hoping to impress me. My minister would take me to Lubumbashi University and make me watch as he dealt with rebellious students, whom he might shoot or blind or bury in pits, depending on his mood. Only to have my American admirer riposte with a display of the latest US chemical defoliants, to prove how easily he could devastate the forest for miles around. Or he’d call up a bombing raid on a village in the jungle. My minister would then up the ante by arranging a front-row seat for me at the public hanging of several high officials; an event preceded by marching bands and much revelry, and concluded, while the bodies were being taken down from the gallows, with caviar and pink champagne, as is the custom in the court of the Great Leopard. My American condemned this behaviour as cruel and barbaric, and countered by offering to take me home to his country, marry me in his evangelical church and give me a ringside seat at all executions by electric chair in his home state, which, apparently, boasted the world record.

‘Eventually, the two rivals agreed on a roster: they would enjoy me alternately, on a timeshare basis. So it was that I became my minister’s bedmate and nocturnal amusement over the weekends, from Friday to Sunday, when he rested from eradicating students and accompanied the Great Leopard to Sunday Mass, a ritual he never missed. But from Monday to Thursday it was agreed I would belong to my American.

‘But soon enough the rivals fell out. My minister insisted I remain his bedfellow right through Sunday night until Monday morning, whereas my God-fearing American, who punctiliously observed the Sabbath day of rest, demanded that I come to his bed on the stroke of Sunday midnight, as soon as the constraints of the Sabbath fell away. This argument has gone on for months and I have had the pleasure of escaping both rivals, while they quarrel over which of them has more favoured rights to my person.

‘Then, tonight, I saw on the television the arrival of the Great Leopard in his French needle-nosed supersonic jet, and who should step out of the aircraft but my own dear, darling Jimfish, with his tawny hair and his strange complexion, not white nor brown nor black but golden, whom I had last seen in the orchard, when we lay together on the red rug and my father beat you and would have shot you dead had he not tripped over his own feet. And so I sent my attendant to bring you to my apartments.’

‘And I am here and we are together again!’ Jimfish put his arms around his beloved Lunamiel.

The kindly attendant, who had been Jimfish’s guide, slipped away, leaving the lovers to their happiness. Lunamiel drew Jimfish down beside her on the red sofa, their breathing quickened, their clothing loosened and they were soon as entangled as ever they had been in Sergeant Arlow’s orchard, when into the room there strode the Minister of Education, rampant with desire, for it was already late on Sunday night and he was keen to assert his right to Lunamiel’s delectable body before midnight struck and his timeshare ran out.

CHAPTER 15

‘You two-faced, scheming, white South African bitch!’ yelled the Minister of Education. ‘Isn’t it enough that you screw that damn American five nights a week? Must I also share you with this human shrimp, this pale pastiche of a man?’

And he hurled himself at Jimfish, beating him savagely, and would have killed him, as was his way when dealing with students who troubled him. Lunamiel let out a terrific wail, but Jimfish acted with a decisiveness that astonished them both: he pulled out the pearl-handled pistol from its python-skin holster – a gift of the Great Leopard – and calmly shot the minister, who fell dead on the sofa, bleeding everywhere.

Jimfish apologized for the mess, but Lunamiel, ever practical, told him not to give it a second thought. The sofa was red, so was the minister’s blood, and the stains would hardly be noticed.

‘But what does worry me a bit is that the President’s gendarmes will arrive and find a close ally of the Great Leopard dead in my apartment. Then we’re done for.’

Jimfish longed to know what Soviet Malala might have advised. When the Minister of Education had begun beating him, Jimfish thought he felt again, as he had done when Lunamiel was relating how she had been contracted to the lecherous Minister of Mines, a rising warmth, which he prayed might be a sign of the rage that is the rocket fuel of the lumpenproletariat. But his old teacher lay dead in faraway Ukraine, so he asked the kindly attendant, who had brought him to Lunamiel’s apartment, if she had an idea what they should do now?

Just as she agreed to share her ideas with them, the clock struck midnight and into the room burst the American advisor, as rampant with desire for the luscious body of Lunamiel as had been his late rival, the Minister of Education. This American, hardened though he was by demonstrations of the damage defoliants do to fertile soils or cluster bombs to enemy farmers in the fields, was shocked to see the co-proprietor of his timeshare agreement to Lunamiel’s body stretched lifeless on the red sofa.

Jimfish knew he had to act fast. The American was capable of pulling out a machine gun or calling in a bombing raid. Whispering to himself, ‘in for a penny, in for a pound,’ he shot the raging American between the eyes and saw him topple on to the sofa, where his blood mingled with that of his rival.

Jimfish felt strangely relaxed, and he asked himself once again – as he had done when he saw the fawning henchmen of Nicolae Ceauşescu transformed into liberators of their country by the adroit application of a firing squad – whether it was not perhaps adaptability rather than anger, pragmatism and not principles, firepower and not fury that was the real rocket fuel of the lumpenproletariat? Or, for that matter, of just about anyone in possession of overwhelming force who proved fastest on the draw? In other words: was it not the case of murder first – and morality later?

Lunamiel was frozen between terror and admiration. ‘I’d never have believed you could be so wild and angry. You’ve just shot two men dead without thinking twice.’

Jimfish enjoyed a tremor of self-esteem, though he replied very modestly. ‘When you’ve worked as a bio-robot on the roof of a crippled nuclear reactor leaking radiation, and seen your friend and mentor executed by a drunken Ukrainian firing squad, you begin to get a little worked up. At least, I hope so.’

Lunamiel’s kindly attendant now gave her views on their situation. ‘We will all be punished when the gendarmerie arrive. That is their way. We must get out of this appalling country, where the lives of women are hell.’

‘What are you saying?’ Jimfish asked. ‘The Great Leopard is the kindest of men. He has created, out of the old Belgian Congo, a free country where the shackles of European slavery have been thrown off, the very names of the old colonialists are forbidden and no one dares to wear a business suit. When he finds out how Lunamiel was bought and sold as the sex slave of a ruthless American agent, as well as a homicidal Minister of Education, not only will he open his heart to her, but also his Vuitton suitcase and shower her with wealth, as I have seen him do to his extended family.’

‘You are badly mistaken,’ said the dark lady. ‘Appealing to the Great Leopard will make things very much worse. When you hear my tale you will understand why. Our leader is an obsessive sexual maniac, a constant deflowerer of virgins, a compulsive adulterer and a wife-stealer.’

‘Are we are talking of the same man?’ Jimfish was flabbergasted. ‘Do you mean the President of Zaire, whose authentic tribal name of Mobutu Sese Seko Nkuku Ngbendu wa Za Banga actually means “The All-powerful, Earthy, Fiery Warrior Who, through His Endurance and Inflexible Will to Win, Moves from Conquest to Conquest, Trailing Fire in His Wake”?’

‘The very same,’ said his informant. ‘But those of us who speak his language translate his name in quite another way. We call him: “The Cockerel Who Screws All the Chicks in the Henhouse”. And I should know. I was once an innocent young girl from faraway Liberia, where my family betrothed me to an important Congolese entrepreneur, who promised them gold and diamonds and pink champagne. As it happened, this gentleman was the very same Minister of Mines you have heard so much about. Very soon after I arrived here, my husband deserted me and I was thrown on to the street. Marshal Mobutu decrees that divorce, desertion or cruelty are what women are destined for and he has made it an offence to protest. He encourages husbands to desert their wives on a whim, neglect their children and marry as often as they like. Our President also believes he has droit de seigneur, so he sleeps in turn with the wives of all his cabinet ministers and I happen to know your cherished Lunamiel is next on his list.’

‘Imagine that! Your late husband was the same man to whom my brother Deon offered me on long lease!’ Lunamiel shook her head in disbelief. ‘Luckily, he was shot to death by the squadron of pygmies kept by the Great Leopard for the purpose.’

‘It was a blessing for you, perhaps, but my luck ran out long ago,’ said the dark lady, dabbing away a tear with her silver veil. ‘After I was abandoned by my husband, I was targeted by bands of mutinous soldiers who had gone for months unpaid and took out their anger on women like me. I was made the plaything of pimps and used as bait by brothel-keepers. From the lovely young girl I had been when I came to the Congo, I crumbled into a wreck; my looks went, then my pride and my spirit. In the end I had no choice but to work as a servant, and when I saw this young white South African girl given as the other half of a timeshare contract to the late Minister of Education, I decided to save her from the horrors I had faced. After all, she was South African and clearly knew nothing at all about Africa. But then again, white South Africans, being the last of the employing classes, she would know how to treat domestic help with kindness. But her background and yours will be fatal when the marshal’s cruel gendamerie find us.’ The dark lady indicated the two bodies bleeding on the red sofa. ‘To have shot dead a minister in the cabinet of Marshal Mobutu is never a problem; he will be replaced in hours. But to have gunned down an American agent, when it is the Americans who have faithfully bankrolled the Great Leopard throughout his long reign as the King of the Congo, is asking for trouble. Let’s go – and quickly!’

‘But where can we go – and how?’ asked Lunamiel.

‘Come with me,’ said the dark lady. ‘In the garages of the Great Leopard is a fleet of limousines, keys in the ignition, the petrol tanks full. Each is ready to roll because no one knows which the President may choose or when he may have to leave in a hurry.’