Lost Worlds (6 page)

Life on the boat, at least on our section of the main boat, settled into a series of lazy reveries. Occasionally Paul and I would meet and chat and introduce ourselves to other passengers. But for long periods I just sat and watched the slow brown-silver river, sometimes broad and vast as a desert, sometimes broken in a filigree of channels between mud-shore islands. Except for the occasional fisherman and his family living in straw huts shaded by palms, bamboo, and papyrus fronds, the islands were devoid of visible life. Torrents of sounds came from their jungled depths, particularly in the evening, but I rarely saw any of the sound makers. Like so much in this vast country, they were invisible—their presence indicated more by suggestion than perception.

The journey eased on, days slipping into nights and slowly into days again. The heat was still merciless, but I’d found ways to alleviate its impact—sleeping, moving around to find choice, shady places fanned by river breezes, dousing myself regularly in water and letting it evaporate slowly, or, when really necessary, uplifting my mood with a glass of almost lethal “Whiskey-Zairois,” whose moonshine contents I can only guess at. Sex had been offered me in a multitude of variations but not accepted. How could any sane individual consider hearty couplings in this torpor? A slow, gentle Thai-style massage maybe, after a cold shower—but no one thought to offer that.

I should have known all this calm and languor was too good to be true.

The unpleasantness began innocently enough one afternoon as we passed a series of small fishing villages beyond Mbandaka. We were cruising calmly up the western side of the river quite close to the bank. Drums echoed occasionally in the forest—an ancient system for indicating the progress of the boat
to piroguistes
farther upstream. I was doodling rather ineffective sketches on a pad stained with beer and sweat.

A thin, weasely-faced man, perhaps in his mid-forties, with a skin the color of cold cappuccino, edged up the long, open veranda near my cabin. There was something officious about him, tinged with an undoubted penchant for forelock pulling in the presence of appointed superiors. His dress was innocuous enough. He wore a rather grubby white shirt, pink tie, creased gray trousers stained at the cuffs, and plastic, imitation-leather shoes. His smile, when I looked up and nodded a good afternoon, was exactly what I thought it would be—tight and false. In fact, downright unpleasant. The very epitome of Uriah Heepishness.

“
Parlez-vous Français, monsieur?
”

“A little, yes—but I prefer English.”

“Ah—I am not so good by my English.”

“Ah.”

I was hoping that might be the end of our little chat. Rarely do I take such an instant dislike to newly met individuals, but this particular one exuded mistrust and guile.

“
J’pense que—
I am sorry—I will try the English…. I see that you are artist.”

“I’m sketching—yes.”

“Ah—yes, artisting.”

I smiled. His new word had an amusing ring to it. Unfortunately, he took my smile for encouragement and crept closer (I mean really crept, as if he sensed that at any second I might take a swing at him with my pencil).

Then he was peering over my shoulder.

“Ah,
les villages—
the villages. Yes.”

He began a flurry of noddings. Either that or he had a very bad attack of the tics.

“You are very good,
monsieur
. Your artisting
—c’est trés bonne!
”

“Thank you.”

“You have many like this?”

“Quite a few, yes.” Looking back, I should have shut the sketchbook and shut myself up too. But instead I flicked through a few of my other quick doodles, including a few I’d done when we were invaded at that little town with all the pirogues.

“Ah, yes. You have many. Very good.”

He stood—or rather stooped—for a while and was silent. When he started up again I could have sworn he almost reached up to pull his forelock.

“I am sorry to interrupt you.”

“No, no—that’s fine.”

“Excuse me,
monsieur
, but do you have a beer?”

“No, sorry—I’ve just finished the last one.”

“Ah, yes.”

More silence. I was getting a little irritated now. I don’t like sketching when people are watching and he gave no indication of moving on.

“Ah—I see you smoke cigars.”

“Yes. Yes, I enjoy the occasional cigar.”

“Excuse me,
monsieur—
but do you have one cigar for me?”

“I’m sorry. I’m out. My cigars are all back in the cabin.” I wished I’d had one. He may have left me alone.

“Of course.”

The throb of the boat’s engine ran through my body like a vibrator bed. A pleasant sensation, made even more relaxing by the river breezes which Uriah Heep was now effectively blocking.

“I wonder,
monsieur
. I am needing of buying something. Is it possible that you have a little—excuse me—a few zaires for me
—un petit cadeau
.”

Okay, I’d had it. My patience had gone now and I wanted my breeze back—and my solitude.

I turned and gave him my stern look.

“I am sorry, I don’t have a beer, I don’t have a cigar, and I don’t have any zaires on me at the moment. Now, if you don’t mind…”

And he did it! He actually reached up and touched his forelock. Didn’t exactly pull it, but near enough to confirm all my expectations.

“Ah. Eh,
bien
. I will leave you now.
Adieu, monsieur
.”

Five minutes later I’d forgotten about him. But the following morning as we docked in Lisala it was obvious he had not forgotten me.

We slid slowly through more floating mats of hyacinths and made a dainty landing at the old, battered docks below a steep bluff. I was told we had a three-hour stopover so I decided to disembark and go exploring.

The long stairway up to the top of the bluff was shaded by trees. On the top, breezes blew away my almost constantly pumping sweat. From glimpses of the other small river towns with their decaying, vine-shrouded European mansions and crumbling civic buildings, I didn’t expect too much of Lisala—but surprise, I discovered cool gardens, a large mission and church, and a broad plaza full of music and beer-chugging locals. I was looking forward to joining them, but suddenly found myself in the company of two soldiers carrying automatic rifles. And some way behind them, who should be there but that hunched little weasel, Uriah Heep. The glint in his shaded eyes was sheer maliciousness; his smile was as tight and false as yesterday, but there was some other expression in his face—vengeance! Not a pleasant sight.

He kept his distance, shuffling his feet in the soft sandy surface of the avenue, while the soldiers informed me that I was obliged to accompany them to the immigration and customs offices.

My initial alarm gave way to increasing confidence. All my papers were in order. I had my medical and vaccination forms, and my British passport was safely in my bag with its splendid “requirement” written in copperplate type on the inside cover. The ring and rhythm of its language always impressed me and I reproduce it here for all those who’ve never really studied the intricacies of one of Her Majesty’s passports:

Splendid—almost pure colonial rhetoric! “Without let or hindrance.” I love that line.

I started to hum quietly and nonchalantly, but the soldiers seemed unamused. Their fingers tightened on their guns. One of them even grasped my elbow. I shook him free and he didn’t try again, but his look reminded me to exercise caution. Show respect David, I thought. This is Zaire and the Queen of England is a hell of a long way away.

Behind the pleasant river bluff facades of Lisala, the town became increasingly unkept and overgrown: sidewalks buckling and sprouting weeds, broken lampposts, old colonial buildings boarded up, with cracked, mold-flecked walls, decaying shutters, and collapsing roofs.

We entered a particularly decrepit specimen up a flight of lopsided concrete steps.

A few people in ragged clothes lay sprawled on the porch surrounded by children with reddening hair (a sure sign of malnutrition), goats, and the remnants of a meal of manioc and little else.

The soldiers paused at the top of the steps and Uriah Heep darted past, through the torn fly-screened door, his eyes and face hidden behind hunched shoulders. The door slammed shut and we waited. It was hot. Very hot. No breezes here. I cursed my penchant for perspiration. My mother once told me it was a genetic characteristic of her side of the family, but here it might be taken for nervousness or downright panic.

However, I didn’t feel any panic. This would, I thought, be one of those amusing little misunderstandings ideal for dinner table dialogue after a fine meal, during the Stilton and port phase. How would I tell it? “Well, anyway, there I was wandering about this pleasant little plaza in the middle of the Belgian Congo….”

A voice boomed inside the building and the soldiers broke my reveries by rushing me through the door past what was once a magnificent double-curve staircase and into a dark, dirty back room where the servants’ quarters must once have been in the “
soirée
and
dansantes
” days of Belgian hegemony.

A man in a wrinkled uniform sat with his back to a spider-web-laced window at a small desk. His face was silhouetted against the sunlight that struggled in between the dust and decayed webs. Uriah Heep was nowhere to be seen. The soldiers pushed me into a rickety cane chair and stepped back to the doorway.

It was very quiet and very hot. Oh, yes—and here comes the perspiration, I thought, rolling out of my pores, now the size of meteor craters.

“Papers.” The officer extended his long fingers and I gave him my passport and all the other bureaucratic claptrap neatly packaged in a leather case. It all looked very impressive, until he started pulling out its contents with disdain and scattering them over his dusty desk like wastepaper.

The passport seemed to fascinate him. I have an extra large one to accommodate all the visas and stamps of my travels and he started at the beginning and laboriously perused each smudgy symbol and signature, some going back over eight years.

I began to hum to myself again—just a tiny, almost inaudible hum, you understand—but it seemed to annoy him. He looked up, stared at me until I stopped, and then resumed his exacting perusal.

I watched a fly in the window, moving slowly down the screen in the heat. It was making straight for a web in the bottom corner where dried bits of bodies and wings of its compatriots lay in a dusty pile. Surely it could see that they were the remnants of flies like itself; surely it could see the web through its complex multilensed eyes; some of the strands were bright gold in the sunshine. Apparently not. The dumb thing walked straight into the web, struggled pathetically to release itself as the spider emerged from the pile of fly detritus, and watched. After a minute or so of writhing about, the fly had effectively wrapped itself into a neat compact bundle ready for spider lunch. And the spider obliged, casually approaching and tapping the bundle to ensure there was no more fight left in the fly and the settling down to a long, leisurely repast.

A frisson of fear jingled down my neck and spine. Maybe there was a touch of fly in me and my spider was sitting directly across the desk….

He’d dismissed the passport and was now flicking through the other papers.

“Medical—where is?”

“Ah, you speak English. I wonder, sir, if you could please tell—”

“Medical—where is?” he repeated louder.

I pointed to a neatly folded series of vaccination cards, all with U.S. medical stamps and signatures.

In the gloom of the room I could feel, rather than see, his smile. It didn’t feel to be a nice smile. Far too spidery for this increasingly uncomfortable fly.

“No good.”

“Why no good, sir?” I asked as gently as I could.

“No Zaire medical.”

“No. These are from the United States of America.” I said the words slowly and majestically, as if describing some celebratory doctorate of honor.

“No good. No Zaire medical.”

Bullshit! No one had told me I had to have my up-to-date vaccination forms validated in Zaire.

“Zaire doctor. He must sign.”

“I was not aware of that. Your people let me into this country. They saw these documents.”

“New regulation.” I could feel the spider now. Lunch was almost ready.

And Mobutu too. I suddenly noticed a dusty photograph of the president on the wall to the left of the officer, replete in his leopard-skin hat, the “Great-Warrior-Who-Conquers-Everything” staring right at me, eyes wide open and lips smiling, just a little. Under the photograph was a plaque in French:
LISALA. BIRTHPLACE OF OUR PRESIDENT
.

“Do you have a doctor here? Can he sign these papers?”

“No doctor. Away.”

“You have no doctor anywhere in this town?”

“No doctor.”

“So—what do you want me to do?”

That smile again. And Mobutu’s too. I was trapped in their little game. Somewhere nearby, maybe peeping through a keyhole with his mean little eyes, was Uriah Heep. I could sense him. And he’d be smiling that weasel smile. He’d got even with me for my brusqueness of yesterday.