The Smoke Jumper (34 page)

Julia and Ed hadn’t seen or spoken to Connor’s mother since the previous summer and it was good to hear that gravelly voice again. They talked for a while about Connor and both moaned about how hopeless he was at keeping in touch.

Then Julia suddenly realized that she had no idea whether or not the woman knew about the baby and, more important, about Connor’s role in it.

‘So tell me, honey, how’s it going? You’re what, six months gone now?’

‘Seven, good as. And I’m fine, thank you. Since I stopped throwing up the whole time.’

‘Yeah, that sucks, I remember. I was sick as a coyote with Connor.’

There was a little pause. A pregnant one. Julia wondered what to say.

‘I should’ve called or wrote you,’ Mrs Ford went on. ‘Guess I didn’t know if I was supposed to know.’

She still hadn’t said quite enough to indicate if she had the whole story.

‘Connor told you then?’

‘Sure he did. Tell you the truth, I was against the idea.’

‘Oh.’

‘Yeah. Hell, I’m only just turned fifty. That’s no age to be a grandma. Even a surgate one or whatever the hell it is.’

‘Surrogate.’

‘That’s it. I mean. What’s that going to do for my image?’

Julia laughed with relief.

‘Honey, I’m truly happy for you.’

‘Thank you.’

‘You’re welcome. Now go buy that magazine.’

The bathwater was growing cold now and the baby had finished her workout or maybe just gotten bored. And so had Ed’s hands. They were wandering up toward her breasts, which were now enormous, with nipples the size of small Frisbees. Ed called them Boobs ‘R’ Us and seemed to think their sole purpose was for him to play with. She slapped his hand.

‘Hey,’ she said. ‘Cut it out. I’ll be late for work.’

19

T
he cargo planes came all day and all night, lowering themselves out of the cloud like vast avenging birds and coming in over the lake to the black shore where a million lost souls had made their camp. At night you could see their lights skewering down toward the airstrip and hear the backroar of their engines and sometimes the clouds would part and give a glimpse of the great volcanic cone of Nyaragongo, ten thousand feet above it all, rumbling and glowing in a red miasma, as if gathering itself for judgment day.

The planes brought grain for the living and quicklime for the dead. And for the hundreds of thousands who hovered in between they brought clothes and drugs and blankets and tents and trucks and a whole circus of salvation to hand them out. They brought doctors and nurses and aid workers and a thousand other nameless officials from a hundred different agencies. And then there was the other circus, the three-ringed media horde who had hurried here to hustle and haggle and get in the way and then hurl their words and pictures like spears across the ether at the calloused conscience of a world that watched bemused.

Connor was bemused too. So was almost everyone he had met here in Goma, be they doctor, aid worker or journalist. The million Hutus assembled on this vast plain of sharp black lava were refugees. The name itself prompted pity and most no doubt deserved it. Their wretchedness was etched in their faces as they waited in the food lines or squatted by their paltry, evil-smelling fires, watching their children die from cholera. But among them were those - how many, nobody knew - who deserved no pity, for they had shown none; they were the very same people who had carried out the genocide over the border in Rwanda.

Everyone knew they were here. Connor had photographed the stacks of machetes and nail-studded clubs that had been confiscated at the crossing point and knew it was only a fraction of what had slipped through. Their owners didn’t bother to hide but instead flaunted themselves and their weapons to bully their way to the best of the spoils. And this was why Connor thought there was a chance, just the faintest one, that somewhere among them he might find the
bourgmestre
of Bysenguye.

He had been searching now for the best part of a week. He kept the newspaper picture of Kabugi in the top pocket of his vest, protected in a clear plastic sleeve and he showed it to people everywhere he went. And every time they looked at it and shook their heads and handed it back. Even the name of the town didn’t seem to ring any bells.

In the eyes of some he asked he saw them pondering what rare kind of fool would set himself such a quest and he had many times wondered the same himself. Why should this man’s murders matter more than the multitude of others? Was it simply that he had a name and a face and that Connor had seen the nameless faces of his victims and photographed his handiwork? What, in any case, would he do if he found him?

He didn’t know. But he had started looking, so he would finish. There were six camps and he had combed all but one. Now he was on his way to the last.

It was late afternoon and a breeze was blowing warm and damp off Lake Kivu, flattening the smoke of the campfires into a gray shroud and for a few welcome moments diluting the fetid crepuscular air. Connor was walking along the trail of black lava dust that wove through the camps. He heard the sound of an engine behind him and stepped aside. It was a white Land Cruiser, one of the many that had been flown in to shuttle the aid workers and medics around the camps. He expected it to go past but it pulled up alongside him and the driver, a blond young man with a beard, offered him a lift. Connor thanked him and climbed in the back.

There was a young woman sitting up front and she turned around in her seat to talk to him. She was Dutch and the man was Norwegian. They were both paramedics working for an agency based in Stockholm. They asked him whom he worked for and where he was going and Connor told them that he worked for himself and that he was looking for refugees from a place called Bysenguye. The name meant nothing to them, nor did the name Kabugi. He showed them the picture but neither of them recognized him.

The woman, whose name was Marijke, was about to hand it back when she frowned and took another look. She pointed at the schoolgirl to whom Kabugi was handing the prize.

‘I saw that girl this morning,’ she said.

‘You’re sure?’

‘Yes. I remember thinking how lovely she was.’

She said they had been giving shots to a crowd of children at one of the other camps - one which Connor had already visited - and the girl was among them. The man asked why Connor was looking for Kabugi and he told them. Marijke said that if he could wait half an hour while they delivered some supplies, she would take him to where she had seen the girl.

He had to wait longer than that, and by the time they had found their way back to the place it was getting dark. They parked by one of the feeding stations and walked over to an improvised tent made of crates covered with plastic sheeting. It was where the refugee leaders for this part of the camp had their headquarters. Connor had been here two days ago and remembered the icy stares of the young men when he had asked about Kabugi. None of them had spoken English and since Connor spoke no French the encounter hadn’t lasted long.

The faces they saw when they went inside now were different and less hostile. Marijke greeted them brightly in French and got a response that was almost friendly. It seemed they recognized her from that morning. Connor couldn’t understand what she was saying but he heard her mention the name of the town. The one who seemed to be their leader waved an arm as he replied. Marijke translated for Connor.

‘He says the people from Bysenguye are camped half a mile from here.’

‘Can he take us there?’

She asked him and the man shrugged and nodded.

They followed him on foot through the labyrinth of smoke-veiled paths, past bodies neatly bundled in rush matting for collection and naked children sifting the filth for food, scenes that Connor had photographed all week and of which the world by now was doubtless growing weary. At last they came to a large tent of pale blue plastic and the man told them that this was where they would find those in charge of the Bysenguye refugees and he left them there. Connor found the flash in his camera bag and fixed it to one of the Nikons that hung around his neck.

Inside, there was nobody to be seen. There was a table made out of crates with a gas light upon it and piles of papers weighted with stones and a bowl that was being used as an ashtray with a half-smoked cigarette burning on its rim. The place was full of crates and bags and boxes, many of which looked unopened. At the back of the tent was a long flap of plastic and from behind it came the sound of laughter and voices and an odd metallic scraping.

Marijke called hello but no one came and so Connor walked to the flap and opened it. And staring right back at him was Emmanuel Kabugi.

He was standing in a narrow, improvised courtyard that was walled with crates and lit by another gas lamp and he looked as if he had just stepped off a golf course. He was wearing neatly pressed slacks and a spotless white sports shirt with a little crocodile logo on it. He was taller and more imposing than he looked in the picture.

There were four other men, all younger and more poorly dressed, sitting or standing around him and there were two women, both of them young and pretty. One of the men was sharpening a machete and laughing with one of the women but when he saw Connor he stopped doing both and suddenly there was silence, all of them just staring at him and at his cameras. Kabugi suddenly smiled and said something in French, but as Connor turned to Marijke for a translation he spoke again, this time in English.

‘Can I help you?’

‘Emmanuel Kabugi?’

‘Yes.’

Connor introduced himself and showed him his UN press card. The man with the machete said something in Kinyarwanda and Kabugi turned to him sharply and replied with what was clearly a reprimand. Connor had been wondering whether to ease his way by pretending he wanted to talk about food distribution or conditions in the camp. But he’d never been too good at lying and when Kabugi asked a second time if he could help, he reached into his bag and pulled out the picture of the church massacre that he’d ripped from a magazine. He handed it to Kabugi.

He looked at it and the others looked over his shoulder and when the man with the machete saw what it was he started shouting at Connor. Kabugi told him to be quiet and studied the picture again, sadly shaking his head.

‘Why do you bring me this?’ he said softly.

‘You don’t need reminding?’

‘These were my people, many of them my friends. How could I forget?’

He handed the picture back, but Connor wouldn’t take it.

‘Which of them did you kill? I mean, personally.’

Kabugi frowned. ‘What?’

‘I guess it’s a little hard to tell with them all hacked up like that.’

Connor was aware of Marijke shifting nervously beside him.

‘Come on, man. You were there. You sent them all to the church and then you came with others to murder them.’

‘You are mistaken, sir.’

‘No, I’m not. There are witnesses. I spoke with them. You did a pretty good job but not quite good enough. You missed some. They saw you.’

‘Then they are mistaken. Of course, I heard what happened and it made me very sad and very angry. These people were killed by the RPF to blacken our names and to seduce foreign journalists such as yourself into supporting them. Why would I do this? Why would one kill one’s own people?’

‘I don’t know. Why? You tell me.’

Kabugi stared at him for a long time. Then he scrunched the picture into a ball in his fist and dropped it on the ground. He lifted his chin a little.

‘Do you know who I am?’

‘Sure I do.’

‘I am the
bourgmestre
of Bysenguye. I am an educated man. I have studied literature and art and philosophy at the university of the Sorbonne in Paris. I go to Mass. I pray for my enemies. I have devoted my life to the service of my people. I tell you this, you understand, not to boast, but so that you may know to whom you speak. You understand?’

Connor shrugged.

‘When the army of the cockroaches drove my people from their homes, I helped them and protected them and led them to safety. Many died on the way, children, babies, trampled underfoot in their terror. And now we are here in this lower circle of hell and we have nothing, not even our dignity.’

He spoke quietly and precisely but with a gathering intensity. There was something chilling in his eyes now and Connor had to summon all his strength to hold his stare.

‘And you dare to come before me with your false accusations and your high moral outrage while outside our wives and our children lie dying in the dirt from cholera and starvation? ’

‘All I come with is the truth.’

‘The truth? What do you know of truth? What do you know of my country, of my people? How long have you lived there? A week? A month? If the truth is a loaf of bread and you pick up a crumb, do you have the truth? If not the truth, then it is as worthless as a lie. You are American, I think.’

Connor nodded.

‘Then tell me, what is the “truth” about your country? About your people? About the millions you have murdered, the millions of my people that you stole and turned into slaves? Many of whom are still your slaves. Tell me the truth about them.’

‘You want to make a speech, that’s fine by me. I just came to take your picture.’

Kabugi didn’t seem to hear. His anger was uncoiling and wouldn’t be stopped.

‘The truth is that there is no truth. Only crumbs. You have yours and I have mine. But I have more of them and mine are gathered with knowledge and experience, not under a false banner of piety and prejudice. So I will share them with you. These Tutsi cockroaches and their Belgian paymasters want to turn us, to turn my people, once more into slaves, to reimpose their old feudal domination over us. And in the face of this what are we supposed to do? Tell me. Please tell me.’