The Mission Song Part 7

"No problems at all, Skipper. Only you did mention democracy at the end of a gun barrel, you see. And I was naturally wondering who exactly was in your sights when you said that. I mean, at the end of the gun barrel. Given there's an election coming up. Why get in ahead of it, if you follow me?"

Have I mentioned that Hannah had pacifistic tendencies, as Mr. Anderson would have called them? That a breakaway group of nuns at her American-financed Pentecostal Mission school had preached Quakerish non-violence at her with heavy emphasis on turning the other cheek?

"We're talking Congo, right?"

Right, Skipper.

"One of the world's worst graveyards. Right?"

Right. No question. Maybe the worst.

"Chaps dying like flies while we speak. Knee-jerk tribal killings, disease, starvation, ten-year-old soldiers and sheer f.u.c.king incompetence from the top down, rape and mayhem galore. Right?"

Right, Skipper.

"Elections won't bring democracy, they'll bring chaos. The winners will scoop the pool and tell the losers to go f.u.c.k themselves. The losers will say the game was fixed and take to the bush. And since everyone's voted on ethnic lines anyway, they'll be back where they started and worse. Unless."

I waited.

"Unless you can put in your own moderate leader ahead of time, educate the electorate to his message, prove to 'em it works, and stop the vicious circle. With me?"

With you, Skipper.

"So that's the Syndicate's game plan, and it's the plan we're peddling today. Elections are a Western jerk-off. Preempt them, get your man in place, give the People a fair slice of the cake for once, and let peace break out. Your average multinational hates poor. Feeding starving millions isn't cost-effective. Privatising the b.u.g.g.e.rs and letting them die is. Well, our little Syndicate doesn't think that way. Neither does the Mw.a.n.gaza. They're thinking infrastructure, sharing, and long term."

My thoughts sped back in pride to Lord Brinkley and his multinational group of fellow backers. Little Syndicate? Never before had I seen so many big people a.s.sembled in one room!

"Pot o' cash for the investors, that's a given, and why not?" Maxie was saying. "Never grudge a chap his pound of flesh for taking a fair risk. But plenty left in the kitty for the home side when the shouting and shooting are over: schools, hospitals, roads, clean water. And light at the end of the tunnel for the next lot of kids coming up. Got a quarrel with that?"

How could I have? How could Hannah? How could Noah and his millions of fellows?

"So if a couple of hundred have to go down in the first couple of days which they will are we the good guys or the bad guys?" He was standing up, energetically rubbing his cyclist's hip. "One more thing while we're on the subject." He gave it another rub. "No fraternising with the natives. You're not here to make enduring relations.h.i.+ps, you're here to do a job. When lunch comes, it's down to the boiler room and a s.h.i.+p's biscuit with Spider. Any more questions?"

Apart from Am I a native? none.

With Philip's folder clutched in my hand, I sit first on the edge of my bed, then on the Shaker rocking chair which rocks forward but not back. One second I am star of the show, the next I am scared witless, a one-man Great Lake with all the rivers of the world pouring into me and my banks overflowing. From my window everything remains deceptively serene. The gardens are awash with the sloping sunlight of Europe's African summer. Who would not wish to take a leisurely stroll in them, away from prying eyes and ears on such a day? Who could resist the tempting cl.u.s.ter of reclining sun-chairs in the gazebo?

I open the folder. White paper, no hallmarks. No security cla.s.sification top or bottom. No addressee, no author. Arm's length. My first page begins halfway down and is numbered seventeen. My first paragraph is number twelve, leading me to conclude that par as one to eleven are unsuitable for the tender gaze of a mere interpreter slogging his heart out for his country above and below the waterline. The heading of para twelve is WARLORDS.

Warlord the First is named Dieudonne, the Given One of G.o.d. Dieudonne is a Munyamulenge, and therefore racially indistinguishable from the Rwandans. I am instantly attracted to him. The Banyamulenge, as they are called in the plural version, were my dear late father's favourites among all the tribes. Ever the romantic, he dubbed them the Jews of Kivu in deference to their reclusion, their battle skills, and their direct communion with G.o.d on a day-to-day basis. Despised by their 'pure' Congolese brethren as Tutsi interlopers and therefore fair game at all times, the Banyamulenge have for the last hundred years and more installed themselves on the inaccessible Mulenge plateau in Kivu's Southern Highlands, where despite perpetual hara.s.sment they contrive to lead the pluralist life, tending their sheep and cattle and ignoring the precious minerals within their boundaries. Of this embattled people Dieudonne appears a prime example: At thirty-two years of age a proven warrior. Part-educated in the bush by Scandinavian Pentecostal missionaries, until old enough to fight. No known interest in self-enrichment. Has brought with him the full empowerment of his elders to pursue the following aims: a) inclusion of Banyamulenge in new provisional government of South Kivu ahead of the elections b) resolution of land disputes on the High Plateau c) right of return for the thousands of Banyamulenge driven out of the Congo, in particular those forced to flee after the 2004 troubles in Bukavu d) integration of Banyamulenge in Congolese civil society and a formal negotiated end to the persecution of the last fifty years Languages: Kinyamulenge and Kinyarwanda, s.h.i.+, Swahili, basic French (very).

I turn to Warlord the Second. He is Franco, named after the great African singer whose work is well known to me from Pere Andre's cracked gramophone record in the Mission house. Franco is an old-style Bembe warrior from the Uvira region, aged around sixty-five. He has zero education but considerable cunning and is an impa.s.sioned Congolese patriot. But Philip should have put up a health warning before he went on: Under Mobutu, served as an unofficial police thug in the Walungu hills. Imprisoned when war broke out in '96, escaped and fled to the bush and joined the Mau Mau as a means of escaping persecution for his former allegiance. Currently believed to hold the rank of colonel or above. Partially disabled by wound in left leg. One of his wives is daughter of Mau Mau General so-and-so. Has substantial land holdings and six wealthy brothers. Part literate. Speaks his native Bembe, Swahili, poor French, and somewhat surprisingly Kinyarwanda which he acquired in prison, as well as its close cousin Kinyamulenge.

It is hard to describe at this distance what grotesque images these few words conjured up in my secret child's mind. If the Mau Mau were not the dread Simba of my father's day, they ran a close second to them in the barbarity stakes. And n.o.body should be fooled by 'colonel'. We're not talking cleaned-and-pressed uniforms, salute-your-officers, red flashes, medal ribbons and the like. We're talking feathered head-dresses, baseball caps, monkey-skin waistcoats, football shorts, track suits and eye make-up. Preferred footwear, sawn-off Wellington boots. For magical powers, an ability to change bullets into water, which the Mau Mau, like the Simba before them, can do any time they feel like it provided they've observed the necessary rituals. These variously include not allowing rain to enter your mouth, not eating from a plate with colour on it, and not touching any object that hasn't been sprinkled with magic potions, such powers being derived directly from the pure soil of the Congo which the Mau Mau are sworn to defend with their blood, et cetera. We are also talking random, f.e.c.kless murder, rape galore, and a full range of atrocities under the influence of everything from leading-edge witchcraft to a gallon or two of Primus beer laced with palm wine.

How on earth these two groups the Mau Mau and the Banyamulenge are ever to become reconciled partners in a sovereign and inclusive Kivu under one enlightened leaders.h.i.+p is therefore in my opinion somewhat of a major mystery. True, from time to time the Mau Mau have formed tactical alliances with the Banyamulenge, but this has not prevented them from sacking their villages, burning their crops, and stealing their cattle and women.

What does Franco hope to get out of today's conference?

a) regards Middle Path as potential fast route to money, power and guns for his militias b) antic.i.p.ates substantial Mau Mau representation in any new Kivu government: i.e. control of frontier crossings (revenue from bribes and customs) and mining concessions (Mau Mau sell mineral ore to Rwandans irrespective of their anti-Rwandan sentiments) c) counts on Mau Mau influence in Kivu to raise its stock with federal government in Kinshasa d) remains determined to cleanse all Congo of Rwandan influence provided Mau Mau can sell their mineral ore to other buyers e) regards upcoming elections as threat to Mau Mau's existence and aims to preempt them Warlord the Third is not a warlord at all, but the wealthy, French-educated heir to an East Congolese trading fortune. His full name is Honore Amour-Joyeuse and he is known universally by its acronym of Haj. Ethnically he is a s.h.i.+ like the Mw.a.n.gaza, and therefore 'pure' Congolese. He recently returned to Congo from Paris, having attended business school at the Sorbonne where he pa.s.sed with flying colours. The source of his power, according to Philip, lies neither in the Banyamulenge's Southern Highlands nor in the Mau Mau's redoubts to north and south, but among the rising young entrepreneurs of Bukavu. I gaze out of the window. If my childhood has a paradise, it is the former colonial town of Bukavu, set at the southern tip of Lake Kivu amid rolling valleys and misted mountains.

Family interests include coffee and vegetable plantations, hotels, a brewery complete with fleet of trucks, a minerals comptoir trading in diamonds, gold, ca.s.siterite and colt an and two newly-acquired discotheques which are Haj's pride. Most of these enterprises are dependent on trade with Rwandans from across the border.

So a warlord who is not a warlord, then, and is dependent on his enemies for his livelihood.

Haj is a skilled organiser who commands the respect of his workforce. Given the right motivation, he could instantly raise a militia of five hundred strong through his links with local headmen in the Kaziba and Burhinyi districts around Bukavu. Haj's father Luc, founder of the family empire, runs an equally impressive operation in the northern port of Goma.

I allow myself a quick smile. If Bukavu is my childhood paradise, Goma is Hannah's.

Luc is a veteran of the Great Revolution and long-standing comrade of the Mw.a.n.gaza. He has the ear of other influential Goma traders who, like himself, are incensed by Rwanda's stranglehold on Kivu's commerce. It was Luc's intention to attend today's conference in person, but he is currently receiving specialised care at a heart hospital in Cape Town. Haj is therefore standing in for him.

So what precisely do they offer, this father-and-son duo of urban barons?

Given the moment and the man, Luc and his circle in North Kivu are ready to spark a popular uprising in Goma's streets and provide underhand military and political support to the Mw.a.n.gaza. In return, they will demand power and influence in the new provincial government.

And Haj?

In Bukavu, Haj is in a position to persuade fellow intellectuals and traders to embrace the Middle Path as a means of venting their anger against Rwanda.

But perhaps there is a more prosaic reason for Haj's presence among us here today: As a token of his willingness to commit to the Middle Path, Luc has agreed to accept an advance commission of [deleted] for which he has signed a formal receipt.

Haj speaks s.h.i.+, poor Swahili, and for trading purposes appears to have taught himself Kinyarwanda. By preference he speaks 'highly sophisticated' French.

So there we have it, I told Hannah, as I rose to answer the banging on my door: one Munyamulenge farmer-soldier, one crippled Mau Mau warhorse and one French-educated city slicker deputising for his father. What possible chance had a septuagenarian professor, however idealistic, of knocking this unlikely trio into a peace-loving alliance for democracy, whether or not it was at the end of a gun barrel?

"Skipper says here's the rest of your homework," Anton advised me, shoving an office folder into my hand. "And I'll take that item of obscene literature off you, while I'm about it. Don't want it lying around where the kids can get at it, do we?"

Or in plain language: here is a photocopy of Jasper's no-name contract in exchange for Philip's no-name briefing paper.

Restored to the Shaker rocking chair for my preparatory reading, I was amused to observe that the French accents had been added despairingly in ink. A preamble defined the unnamed parties to the agreement.

Party the First is a philanthropic offsh.o.r.e venture capital organisation providing low-cost agricultural equipment and services on a self-help basis to struggling or failed Central African states.

In other words, the anonymous Syndicate.

Party the Second, hereinafter called the Agriculturalist, is an academic in high standing, committed to the radical reorganisation of outdated methodologies to the greater advancement of all sections of the indigenous population.

Or in plain French, the Mw.a.n.gaza.

Party the Third, hereinafter called the Alliance, is an honourable a.s.sociation of community leaders pledged to work together under the guidance of the Agriculturalist see above .. .

Their common aim will be to advance by all means at their disposal such reforms as are essential to the creation of a unified social structure embracing all Kivu, including a common fiscal policy and the repossession of Kivu's natural resources for the greater enrichment of all its people .. .

In consideration of Syndicate's financial and technological a.s.sistance in the lead-up to these reforms, hereinafter called the Event, the Agriculturalist in consultation with his partners in the Alliance pledges to grant favoured status to Syndicate and such corporations or ent.i.ties as Syndicate at its sole discretion sees fit from time to time to nominate .. .

Syndicate for its part undertakes to provide specialised services, personnel and equipment to the value of fifty million Swiss francs by way of a one-time payment as per attached Annexe .. .

Syndicate undertakes to provide out of its own purse all necessary experts, technicians, instructors and cadre personnel as may be necessary to the training of the local workforce in the use of such equipment, and to remain on site up to and including the formal consummation of the Event, and in all circ.u.mstances for a period of not less than six months from the date of commencement.. .

For such an imprecise doc.u.ment, its Annexe is remarkably detailed. Basic items to be provided include shovels, trowels, pickaxes, scythes, heavy and light wheelbarrows. For use where, please? In the rain forests, what's left of them? I close my eyes and open them. We are bringing modernisation to Kivu with the aid of scythes and pickaxes and wheelbarrows?

The cost of any second tranche of equipment, should it be required, will not be borne by Syndicate but 'set against gross revenue generated by the Event prior to all deductions'. Syndicate's philanthropy, in other words, stops at fifty million Swiss francs.

A page of figures, terms and pay-out rates addresses a division of spoils in the wake of the Event. For the first six months, Syndicate requires solus rights on all extracted crops of whatever nature within the Designated Geographical Areas, defined by longitude and lat.i.tude. Without such solus rights, the deal is void. However, as a token of its goodwill, and subject always to the good faith of the Alliance, Syndicate will make a monthly ex-gratia payment to the Alliance of ten per cent of gross receipts.

In addition to its six-month free ride less ten per cent, Syndicate must be guaranteed 'exemption in perpetuity from all local levies, taxes and tariffs in the Designated Areas'. It must also be guaranteed a 'secure environment for the preparation, harvesting and transportation of all crops'. As 'sole backer and risk-taker', it would receive 'sixty-seven per cent of first dollar of gross receipts before deduction of overheads and administrative costs, but only with effect from commencement of the seventh month following the Event Yet just as I was beginning to feel that Syndicate was having things too much its own way, a final pa.s.sage triumphantly restored my hopes to the level they had achieved after my discourse with Maxie: All remaining proceeds accruing after the termination of the six-month period will be pa.s.sed in their entirety to the Alliance to be distributed equally and fairly to all sections of the community according to accepted international principles of social advancement in the areas of health, education and welfare, with the sole aim of establis.h.i.+ng harmony, unity and mutual tolerance under one flag.

Should factional divisiveness render a fair distribution unworkable, the Mw.a.n.gaza would on his own responsibility appoint a panel of trusted representatives charged with allocating what was henceforth described as 'the People's Portion'. Hallelujah! Here at last was the source of money for schools, roads, hospitals, and the next lot of kids coming on, just as Maxie had promised. Hannah could rest easy. So could I. Settling to the antiquated electric typewriter on the mirrored dressing table, I went briskly to work on my Swahili rendering. My task completed, I stretched out on the bed with the intention of talking myself into a less excitable frame of mind. Half past eleven by Aunt Imelda's watch. Hannah is back from night s.h.i.+ft but she can't sleep. She's lying on her bed, still in uniform, staring at the dusty ceiling, the one we stared at together while we traded our hopes and dreams. She's thinking: where is he, why hasn't he rung, will I ever see him again, or is he a liar like the others? She is thinking of her son Noah, and of one day taking him back to Goma.

A small plane flew low over the gazebo. I sprang to the window to catch its markings but was too late. By the time the trusty Anton once more appeared at my door to collect my offering and command me downstairs, I had vowed to give the performance of my lifetime.

8.

Breathlessly following Anton back into the gaming room where I had encountered Jasper earlier in the day, I was quick to observe that it had undergone a subtle scene-change. A lecturer's white board and easel stood centre stage. The eight chairs round the table had become ten. A post-office clock had been installed above the brick fireplace, next to a No Smoking sign in French. Jasper, freshly shaved and brushed, and closely attended by Benny, lurked next to the door leading to the interior of the house.

I scanned the table. How do you put out name cards for a no-name conference? The Mw.a.n.gaza was mzee and had been placed at the centre on the inland side, the seat of honour. Flanking him were his faithful acolyte m. le secreta ire and his less faithful m. le conseiller, alias Tabby, whom Maxie wouldn't trust to tell him the time of day. Across the table from them, their backs to the French windows, sat the Gang of Three, identified by monsieur and initials only: d for dieu donne f for franco and h for honore amour-joyeuse, the Mr. Big of Bukavu, better known as Haj. Franco, as eldest, had centre position opposite the Mw.a.n.gaza.

With the sides of the oval table thus occupied, it was left to the home team to divide itself between the two ends: at one, monsieur le colonel, whom I a.s.sumed to be Maxie, with monsieur Philippe next to him, and at the other Jasper and myself. And I could not help noticing that, whereas Jasper was awarded full honours as monsieur l'avocat, I was dismissed as interprete.

And in front of Philip's chair, a bra.s.s bell. It rings in my memory now. It had a black wooden handle and was a replica in miniature of the bell that had tyrannised the daily life out of us inmates of the Sanctuary. It had dragged us from our beds, told us when to pray, eat, go to the toilet, the gym, the cla.s.sroom and the football field, pray again and go back to bed and wrestle with our demons. And as Anton was at pains to explain, it would shortly be sending me scurrying up and down to the boiler room like a human yo-yo: "He'll ring it when he's calling a recess, and he'll ring it again when he wants you back at table because he's lonely. But some of us won't be recessing, will we, governor?" he added with a wink. "We'll be down the apples-and-pears in the we-know-where having a quiet listen on the Spider's web."

I winked back, grateful for his comrades.h.i.+p. A jeep was pulling up in the courtyard. Quick as an elf he darted through the French windows and was gone, I guessed to take command of his surveillance team. A second plane buzzed overhead and again I missed it. More minutes pa.s.sed during which my gaze, seemingly of its own volition, abandoned the gaming room and sought respite in the stately grounds beyond the French windows. Which was how I came to observe an immaculate white gentleman in a Panama hat, fawn trousers, pink s.h.i.+rt, red tie and a tailored navy-blue blazer of the type known to Guards officers as a boating jacket, picking his way along the skyline of the gra.s.sy mound before coming to rest at the gazebo, where he posed himself between two pillars in the manner of a British Egyptologist of bygone times, smiling back in the direction from which he had just arrived. And I will say here and now, with that first glimpse of the man, I was conscious of a new presence in my life, which was why I never doubted that I was taking my first covert reading of our freelance Africa consultant and Maxie's words again boss of the op, Philip or Philippe, fluent in French, Lingala, but not Swahili, architect of our conference, befriender of the Mw.a.n.gaza and our delegates.

Next, a slender, dignified black African man appeared on the skyline. He was bearded and clad in a sober Western suit, and so contemplative in his gait that he put me in mind of Brother Michael processing across the Sanctuary quad in Lent. It required accordingly no great insight on my part to appoint him our Pentecostal pasturalist, the warlord Dieudonne, empowered delegate of the despised Banyamulenge, so beloved of my dear late father.

He was followed by a second African who could have been designed as his deliberate opposite: a hairless giant in a glittery brown suit of which the jacket was scarcely able to encompa.s.s him as he limped along, dragging his left leg after him in ferocious heaves of his torso. Who else could this be then but Franco, our lame warhorse, former Mobutu thug and currently colonel-or-above of the Mau Mau, avowed adversary and occasional ally of the man who had just preceded him?

And finally, as a kind of lackadaisical concession to the rest of them, enter our third delegate, Haj, the egregious Sorbonne-educated, uncrowned merchant prince of Bukavu: but with such disdain, such foppery, and such determined distance from his fellows, that I was tempted to wonder whether he was having second thoughts about standing in for his father. He was neither skeletal like Dieudonne nor s.h.i.+ny-bald like Franco. He was an urban dandy. His head, close-shaven at the sides, had wavy lines engraved in the stubble. A lacquered forelock protruded from his brow. As to his clothes: well, Hannah's high mindedness might have dulled my appet.i.te for such vanities but, given the tat Mr. Anderson had inflicted on me, his choice of suiting brought it rus.h.i.+ng to the surface. What I was looking at here was the absolute latest thing in the Zegna summer collection: a three-piece, mushroom-coloured mohair for the man who has everything or wants it, set off by a pair of pointed slime-green Italian crocodile shoes which I would price, if real, at a good two hundred pounds a foot.

And I know now, if I didn't fully know it at the time, that what I was witnessing on the gra.s.sy mound was the closing moments of a guided tour in which Philip was showing off to his wards the facilities of the house, including the bugged suite where they could let their hair down between sessions, and the bugged grounds where they were free to enjoy that extra bit of privacy so essential to your full and frank exchange of views.

At Philip's behest the three delegates peer obediently out to sea, then at the cemetery. And as Haj turns with them, his Zegna suit jacket swings open to reveal a mustard silk lining and a flash of steel caught by the sunlight. What can it be? I wonder. A knife blade? A cellphone, and if so, should I warn Maxie? unless, of course, I could borrow it and, in a surrept.i.tious moment, call Hannah. And somebody, I suspect Philip again, must have made a joke at this point, perhaps a bawdy one, because they all four break out in laughter that rolls down the lawn and through the French windows of the gaming room, which are wide open on account of the heat. But this does not impress me as much as it should, life having taught me from an early age that Congolese people, who are sticklers for courtesy, don't always laugh at things for the right reasons, especially if they're Mau Mau or equivalent.

When the party has recovered from its mirth, it proceeds to the top of the ornamental stone staircase where, under Philip's lavish coaxing, Franco the lame giant slings an arm around the neck of the frail Dieudonne and, avowed adversaries though they may be, adopts him as his walking stick, but with such amiable spontaneity that my heart fills with optimism for the successful outcome of our venture. And it is in this manner that they commence their laborious descent, Philip tripping ahead of the bonded couple, and Haj trailing after them. And I remember how the northern sky above them was ice-blue, and how the en laced Mau Mau warlord and his skinny prop were chaperoned down the hill by a cloud of small birds who high-jumped as they flew along. And how as Haj entered shadow, the mystery of his inside jacket pocket was resolved. He was the proud owner of a fleet of Parker pens.

What happened next was one of those c.o.c.k-ups without which no self-respecting conference is complete. There was to be this greeting line. Anton had explained it to us in advance. Philip would march in with his Gang of Three from the garden side, Maxie would sweep in simultaneously from the house side with the Mw.a.n.gaza's entourage, thus effecting the great historic coming-together of the parties to our conference. The rest of us would line up and either have our hands shaken or not, depending on the whim of our guests at the time.

Whereas what we got was a damp squib. Maybe Maxie and his party were that bit slow completing their own tour of the premises, or Philip and the delegates that bit premature. Maybe old Franco, with Dieudonne's bony frame to help him, was faster-footed than they'd given him credit for. The effect was the same: Philip and party swept in, bringing with them the sweet smells of my African childhood, but the only people on hand to greet them were one top interpreter with his minority languages missing, one French provincial notary, and big Benny with his ponytail except that as soon as Benny spotted what was happening, he was out of the door to find Anton double quick.

At any other conference, I would have taken matters over at this point, because top interpreters must always be prepared to act as diplomats when called upon and I have done so on many an occasion. But this was Philip's op. And Philip's eyes, which were highly compelling inside the crease less cus.h.i.+ons of his fleshy countenance, summed up the situation in a trice. His two forefingers lifted in simultaneous delight, he emitted a cry of ah, parfait, vous voila! and whisked off his Panama hat to me, thereby revealing a head of vigorous white hair, waved and flicked into little horns above each ear.

"Allow me to introduce myself," he declared in finest Parisian French. "I am Philippe, agricultural consultant and indomitable friend of the Congo. And you are, sir?" The perfectly groomed white head tilted towards me as if it had only the one good ear.

"My name is Sinclair, sir," I responded with equal alacrity, also in French. "My languages are French, English and Swahili." Philip's darting eyes inclined towards Jasper, and I was quick to take the hint. "And allow me to present Monsieur Jasper Albin, our specialist lawyer from Besancon," I went on. And for additional effect: "And may I, on behalf of all of us here, extend our very warmest greetings to our distinguished African delegates?"

My spontaneous eloquence had consequences I had not foreseen, and neither, I suspect, had Philip. Old Franco had elbowed aside Dieudonne, his human walking stick, and was grasping both my hands in his. And I suppose that to your average unthinking European he would have been just another enormous African man in a glittery suit grappling with our Western ways. But not to Salvo the secret child. To Salvo he was our Mission's self-appointed and rascally protector, known to the Brethren and servants alike as Beau-Visage, lone marauder, father of numberless children, who would pad into our red-brick Mission house at nightfall with the magic of the forest in his eyes and an archaic Belgian rifle in his hand, and a case of beer and a freshly killed buck sticking out of his game-bag, having trekked twenty miles to warn us of impending danger. And, come the dawn, would be found seated on the threshold, smiling in his sleep with his rifle across his knees. And the same afternoon, down at the town market square, pressing his grisly souvenirs on the luckless safari tourists: an amputated gorilla's paw or the dried and eyeless head of an impala.

"Bwana Sinclair," announced this venerable gentleman, holding up a clenched fist for silence. "I am Franco, a high officer of Mau Mau. My community is an authentic force created by our ancestors to defend our sacred country. When I was a child, Rwandan sc.u.m invaded our village and set fire to our crops and hacked three of our cows to pieces in their hatred. Our mother led us into the forest to hide. When we returned, they had hamstrung my father and two brothers and hacked them to pieces also." He jabbed a curved thumb at Dieudonne behind him. "When my mother was dying, Banyamulenge c.o.c.kroaches refused to let her pa.s.s on her way to hospital. For sixteen hours she lay dying at the roadside before my eyes. Therefore I am not the friend of foreigners and invaders." A huge breath, followed by a huge sigh. "Under the Const.i.tution, the Mau Mau is officially joined to the army of Kinshasa. But this joining is of an artificial nature. Kinshasa gives my general a fine uniform but no pay for his soldiers. They give him high rank, but no weapons. Therefore my general's spirits have counselled him to listen to the words of this Mw.a.n.gaza. And since I respect my general and am guided by the same spirits, and since you have promised us good money and good weapons, I am here to do my general's bidding."

Fired by such powerful sentiments, I had actually opened my mouth to render them into French when I was stopped dead in my tracks by another meaningful glance from Philip. Did Franco hear my heart beating? Did Dieudonne, standing behind him? Did the popinjay Haj? All three were staring at me expect andy as if encouraging me to render Franco's eloquent speech. But thanks to Philip the truth had dawned on me in the nick of time. Overwhelmed by the solemnity of the occasion, old Franco had lapsed into his native Bembe, a language I did not possess above the waterline.

Yet to believe his face Philip knew nothing of this. He was chuckling merrily, twigging the old man for his mistake. Haj behind him had exploded in hyena-like derision. But Franco himself, nothing daunted, launched upon a laborious repet.i.tion of his speech in Swahili. And he was still doing this, and I was still nodding my appreciation of his oratory, when to my intense relief the door to the interior of the house was banged open by Benny to admit a breathless Maxie and his three guests, with the Mw.a.n.gaza at their centre.

The floor has not swallowed me up, n.o.body has pointed the finger and denounced me. Somehow we are gathered at the gaming table and I am rendering Philip's words of welcome into Swahili. The Swahili is freeing me, which it always does. Somehow I have survived the handshakes and introductions, and everyone is in his appointed place except Jasper who, having been presented to the Mw.a.n.gaza and his advisors, has been escorted from the room by Benny, I presume for the greater safety of his professional conscience. Philip's speech is jocular and brief and his pauses fall where I would wish them.

For my audience I have selected a litre bottle of Perrier water twenty inches in front of me, eye contact in the early minutes of a session being your interpreter's deathtrap. You catch an eye, a spark of complicity flies, and the next thing you know, you're in that person's pocket for the duration. The most I permit myself, therefore, is a few furtive brush strokes of my lowered gaze, in the course of which the Mw.a.n.gaza remains a hypnotic, birdlike shadow perched between his two attendants: to one side of him, the pocked and formidable Tabizi, former s.h.i.+te and now Christian convert, clad head to toe in shades of designer charcoal; and to the other his glossy no-name acolyte and political advisor, whom I secretly christen the Dolphin on account of his hairless ness and the all-weather smile which, like the bootlace-thin pigtail sprouting from the nape of his shaven neck, seems to operate in detachment of its owner. Maxie sports a regimental-type tie. My orders are to render nothing into English for him unless he signals for it.

A word here regarding the psychology of your multi-linguist. People who put on another European language, it is frequently observed, put on another personality with it. An Englishman breaking into German speaks more loudly. His mouth changes shape, his vocal cords open up, he abandons self-irony in favour of dominance. An Englishwoman dropping into French will soften herself and puff out her lips for pertness, while her male counterpart will veer towards the pompous. I expect I do the same. But your African languages do not impart these fine distinctions. They're functional and they're robust, even when the language of choice is colonial French. They're peasant languages made for straight talk and good shouting in argument, which Congolese people do a lot of. Subtleties and evasion are achieved less by verbal gymnastics than by a change of topic or, if you want to play safe, a proverb. Sometimes I'll be aware, as I hop from one language to another, that I have s.h.i.+fted my voice to the back of my throat to achieve the extra breath and husky tone required. Or I have a feeling, for instance when I am speaking Kinyarwanda, that I'm juggling a hot stone between my teeth. But the larger truth is, from the moment I settle into my chair, I become what I render.

Philip has ended his speech of welcome. Seconds later, so have I. He sits down and rewards himself with a sip of water from his gla.s.s. I take a sip from mine, not because I'm thirsty, but because I'm relating to him. I steal another look at the mountainous Franco and his neighbour the emaciated Dieudonne. Franco boasts a single scar running from the top of the forehead to the end of the nose. Are his arms and legs similarly marked as part of the initiation ritual that protects him from flying bullets? Dieudonne's brow is high and smooth as a girl's, and his dreamy gaze seems fixed on the hills he has left behind. The dandy Haj, lounging on Franco's other side, appears wilfully unaware of either of them.

"Good morning, my friends! Are your eyes all turned towards me?"

He is so small, Salvo. Why is it that so many men of small stature have more courage than men of size? Small as Cromwell Our Chief of Men was small, pus.h.i.+ng out double the energy per cubic inch of everyone around him. Light cotton jacket, washable, as becomes your travelling evangelist. Halo of grizzled hair the same length all round: a black Albert Einstein without the moustache. And at the throat where the tie should go, the gold coin that Hannah has told me about, big as a fifty-pence piece: it is his slave collar, Salvo. It tells us he is not for sale. He has been bought already, so bad luck. He belongs to the people of all Kivu, and here is the coin that purchased him. He is a slave to the Middle Path!

Yes, all our eyes are turned to you, Mw.a.n.gaza. My own eyes also. I no longer need take refuge in my Perrier bottle while I wait for him to speak. Our three delegates, having afforded our Enlightener the African courtesy of not staring at him, are now staring at him for all they're worth. Who is he? Which spirits guide him, what magic does he practise? Will he scold us? Will he frighten us, pardon us, make us laugh, make us rich, make us dance and embrace and tell each other all we feel? Or will he scorn us and make us unhappy and guilty and self-accusing, which is what we Congolese, and we half-Congolese, are threatened with all the time? Congo the laughing stock of Africa, raped, plundered, screwed up, bankrupt, corrupt, murderous, duped and derided, renowned by every country on the continent for its incompetence, corruption and anarchy.

We are waiting for the rhythm of him, the arousal, but he keeps us waiting: waiting for our mouths to go dry and our groins to shrivel up or that at least is what the secret child is waiting for, owing to the fact that our great Redeemer bears an unearthly likeness to our Mission's pulpit orator Pere Andre. Like Andre, he must glower at each member of his congregation in turn, first at Franco, then Dieudonne, then Haj and finally at me, one long glower for each of us, with the difference that I feel not just his eyes on me, but his hands as well, if only in my hyperactive memory.

"Well, gentlemen! Since your eyes are now upon me, don't you think you have made a pretty big mistake coming here today? Maybe Monsieur Philippe's excellent pilot should have dropped you on a different island."

His voice is too big for him, but true to my usual practice I render my French softly, almost as an aside.

"What are you searching for here, I am asking myself?" he thunders across the table at old Franco, causing him to grit his jaw in anger. "You are not searching for me, surely? I am not your fellow at all! I am the Mw.a.n.gaza, the messenger of harmonious coexistence and prosperity for all Kivu. I think with my head, not with my gun, or my pan ga or my p.e.n.i.s. I don't mess with cut-throat Mau Mau warlords like you, oh no!" He transfers his scorn to Dieudonne. "And I don't mess around with second-cla.s.s citizens like the Banyamulenge here either, oh no!" - a defiant lift of the jaw at Haj - 'and I don't mix with rich young dandies from Bukavu, thank you very much' an insider's smile nonetheless for the son of Luc his old comrade-in-arms and fellow s.h.i.+ 'not even if they offer me free beer and a job at a Rwandan-run gold mine oh no! I am the Mw.a.n.gaza, the good heart of the Congo, and honest servant of a strong, united Kivu.

If that is the person you have truly come to see well, just possibly but let me think about it maybe you have landed on the right island after all."

The oversized voice descends to the confiding depths. Mine clambers down after it in French.

"Are you by any chance a Tutsi, sir?" he enquires, peering into the bloodshot eyes of Dieudonne. He asks the same question of each delegate in turn, then of all of them at once. Are they Tutsi? Hutu? Bembe? Rega? Fulero? Nande? Or s.h.i.+, like himself?

"If so, will you please kindly leave the room now. Forthwith. Immediately. No hard feelings." He points histrionically at the open French windows. "Go! Good day to you, gentlemen! Thank you for your visit. And send me a bill, please, for your expenses."

n.o.body moves except the kinetic Haj, who rolls his eyes and peers comically from one to other of his incongruous comrades.

"What's stopping you, my friends? Don't be shy, now! Your pretty aeroplane is still out there. It has two reliable engines. It is waiting to take you back to Denmark at no charge. Away with you, go home, and nothing will be said!"

Suddenly he is smiling a radiant, five-star, all-African smile that splits his Einstein face in two, and our delegates are smiling and chuckling with him in relief, Haj the loudest. Pere Andre knew how to play that trick too: switch off the heat when his congregation is least expecting it, and make you grateful to him, and want to be his friend. Even Maxie is smiling. So are Philip, the Dolphin and Tabizi.

"But if on the other hand you are from Kivu, from the north or the south or the middle' the too-big voice reaches out to us in generous welcome 'if you are a true G.o.d-fearing Kivutian, who loves the Congo and wishes to remain a Congolese patriot under one decent and efficient government in Kinshasa if you wish to drive the Rwandan butchers and exploiters back across their borders one and all then kindly stay exactly where you are. Stay, please, and talk to me. And to one another. And let us, dear brothers, identify our common purpose, and decide together how we can best pursue it. Let us tread the Middle Path of unity and reconciliation and inclusiveness under G.o.d."