Night Of Knives Part 4

Derek too looks a little uncomfortable answering questions. "Almost a year now."

"You were in the service, you said? You've seen action?"

"Yeah. In Bosnia. I was a so-called peacekeeper. Ten years ago now. Private security, since. Iraq a couple years ago, working for Blackwater. Then Thailand before I came here. Beaches and girls. Probably should have stayed."

"What you should have stayed in was university." Jacob turns to the others. "This guy was supposed to do a triple major in politics, philosophy and economics, while I did computer engineering. We were going to found a startup once we graduated. The dot-com boom was just starting. We would have been millionaires. But loser-boy here had to go and change his major to drugs and girls."

Derek smiles and quotes, "Never let your schooling get in the way of your education. So I dropped out."

Jacob clears his throat skeptically.

"No, I did. How many times have I told you this? You can check U of T's records. I officially withdrew a whole day before they would have expelled me."

"And then you joined the army and went to Bosnia? Why?" Veronica asks, trying to ignore her increasing intestinal discomfort.

Derek says, as if it is all the answer the question requires, "I was twenty-one."

A hush falls over the cave. n.o.body seems to have anything else to say. Veronica tries not to think about the slithering uneasiness in her belly, or about how many things could go wrong with their ransoming. She tries to think back to happier times. But those were too long ago to come into focus. She can't tear her mind away from being afraid; every time she tries to distract herself there is a sudden reminder: the tightness of her ankle chain, a groan from Diane, and Veronica gasps weakly as she remembers where she is, and her stomach writhes and twists anew. She feels like she is slowly sliding into a dark whirlpool that will swallow her whole.

"I'm sick," she mutters. There is no longer any denying it. Her guts are lurching and roiling with illness, she can't hold out much longer. She rises weakly to her feet. "s.h.i.+t. f.u.c.k. I'm sick."

"What is it?" Derek asks, concerned.

"Just a stomach bug," she insists. "I've got to... I'm sorry."

She grabs the empty pocho pocho bucket and stumbles as far away as possible; only twenty feet, thanks to the chain. The others look studiously away as she squats over the bucket. Knowing that this could be cholera or dysentery, could actually kill her in a matter of days, somehow doesn't dull the humiliation. At least there doesn't seem to be any bleeding, at least not yet. bucket and stumbles as far away as possible; only twenty feet, thanks to the chain. The others look studiously away as she squats over the bucket. Knowing that this could be cholera or dysentery, could actually kill her in a matter of days, somehow doesn't dull the humiliation. At least there doesn't seem to be any bleeding, at least not yet.

"I don't feel well either," Jacob groans.

"Oh, Jesus," Michael says, panicky. "This is all we need. Tell them we need a doctor. Go tell them!"

Derek stands. He looks grim. "I'll try. But Jacob's right, they're not going to care. Even if they did there's probably nothing they could do."

Chapter 6

Veronica spends the next three days in a haze of sickness, sometimes groaning weakly, sometimes staggering back to the toilet bucket. Between bouts of illness she lies on the ground and waits to die or get better. They seem like equally desirable options. At least she is not alone in her misery, Jacob is afflicted too. The others are unaffected: they are more travelled, or have been in Africa longer, and are thus less vulnerable to exotic stomach bugs.

Veronica soon begins to feel that she has been sick and chained to a rock in this cave for months. It doesn't take long for a routine to develop. They are woken by the s.h.i.+mmering dawn, rise, and try to shake off their stiffness. Derek actually does calisthenics every morning. The two guards outside are changed. An expressionless teenager comes in laden with pineapples and pocho pocho, and takes out the toilet bucket; and then nothing else of note happens until dusk, when the guards are changed again.

Veronica is vaguely aware that the tension and tedium would be excruciating if she were well. She watches blearily on both occasions that Derek ventures outside the waterfall to ask about Gabriel, and is chased back in with more shouts. She listens as the others speculate anxiously and endlessly about what's going to happen. But mostly she just lies there, weak and wretched.

After the first night they don't actually need each other's body heat, but they still sleep huddled up against another. They need each other's closeness. Veronica understands now why solitary confinement can be such an awful punishment. Being alone isn't so bad by itself; but being alone in a prison, facing a dozen grim futures - she would lose her mind. Things are bad enough as is. Veronica is almost grateful for the illness that keeps her mind mercifully fogged. Lucidity is the last thing she wants right now. What she wants is to close her eyes and go into a coma until one way or another this is all finally over.

She is aware, even in her fugue state, that Derek and Susan are now spending almost all their time within touching distance of one another. Veronica wishes he was spending his time with her instead. It isn't jealousy, not really. It's simply that being near Derek lightens her feeling of doom.

On the third day Veronica manages to rouse herself enough to inspect the others' wounds. They don't look good. The whip wounds on both Jacob and Diane are growing inflamed and filling with pus, clear signs of infection. Veronica doubts their systems will be able to fight off the infections unaided; Jacob is young but sick, Diane is old and weak, their environment is filthy, and neither is getting enough food. It won't be long before blood poisoning and gangrene become real concerns.

On the afternoon of the fourth day, Veronica lies half-conscious, barely aware of a background conversation. It is a sudden transition to silence that rouses her. She looks up. One of their abductors has entered the cave. Veronica recognizes him as the first one she saw, emerging like a shadow from the jungle. Now instead of a rifle he carries a small steaming kettle and something wrapped in a piece of cloth.

The captives watch him tensely, as they might a wild animal, a leopard or a cobra. He makes his way straight for Veronica. Michael and Diane back slowly away. Derek takes a step forward. Veronica watches wide-eyed as the man kneels beside her. She can see the vertical tribal scars on his face. He puts down the kettle and a small cracked cup, then uses his free hand to make wriggling motions in front of his belly, and mimes drinking from the cup. She stares at him, slowly comprehending. He repeats his motions.

"OK," she says slowly. "Yes. Oui. Oui. I understand." I understand."

His smile reveals that he is missing several teeth. He puts down the rag and unwraps it, revealing a pineapple-sized clump of steaming plant matter, various gra.s.ses and barks mixed together and recently steeped in boiling water. He mimes cutting himself, then putting the plants on the cut. Veronica nods and repeats her understanding. Their abductor smiles goodbye, stands, turns, and departs.

"Medicine," she says. "They brought us medicine."

She and Jacob drink as much of the bitter tea as they can stand; then she applies the poultices to his and Diane's infected welts. She wonders if the herbs actually work or if they're just a totem for the placebo effect. Either way it's better than nothing.

She sits with her back against the wall of the cave. Jacob lies on his stomach beside her. They watch the s.h.i.+mmering curtain of the waterfall in companionable silence. After a while Veronica realizes that, placebo or no, she does feel more alert and less sickly. She feels almost like she has woken from three days of sleep.

Jacob echoes her thoughts: "I think I feel a little better."

Veronica looks down at herself. Her skin is caked with dust and mud. She wonders how much weight she has lost in the last few days. Her belly seems to have retreated into her body, leaving taut skin behind. She hasn't been this thin since her modelling days. Jacob's long body, folded into a crosslegged position beside her, has gone from skinny to outright gaunt. His hair and goatee are half mud.

At length she says to him, "You know, one thing you've never explained, why are you here?"

"I got kidnapped."

She gives him a look. "I mean Africa. Derek asked you to come, but why did you say yes?"

"I came for the waters."

She smiles and quotes back: "What waters? We're in the desert!"

"I was misinformed." He considers a moment. "He happened to call me at a weak moment."

"Weak how?"

"I turned thirty."

"Oh. Yeah. That can be weird." Veronica knows that all too well.

"And I had just broken up with my long-term girlfriend. We didn't even like each other any more, we were just staying together by default, you know? Momentum. That and neither of us wanted to have to look for someone new." Jacob shrugs. "We finally broke up and I suddenly realized I'd basically spent the last ten years watching movies and playing video games. Some other guys I graduated with, they moved to California, a couple of them are internet millionaires now. And I'm a lot smarter than them. I used to think that mattered, being smart. But it doesn't. Not if you never do anything with it. I had a good job, but what for, right? I realized had never actually done anything. Then Derek calls and says this is the land of opportunity. A whole continent leapfrogging land lines, new cell networks everywhere. And I figured, even if I miss the bra.s.s ring, at least I'll have gone and lived in Africa, right? At least I'll have done something more with my life than work and play World of Warcraft. So he found me a job at Telecom Uganda, at a mere eighty per cent pay cut. The grand plan was, I'd work there a year, figure the lay of the land, meet some funders, then we'd start a company here, try to build an empire." He shakes his head. "Now I just want to not die. How's that for perspective?"

"Yeah," Veronica agrees.

"I must sound like a jerk, eh? You came here to help starving AIDS orphans and here I am talking business opportunities."

"You don't sound like a jerk," Veronica said truthfully. "And honestly, I didn't really come here for the orphans. I came because my whole life went to s.h.i.+t. Basically this was as far away as I could find."

Jacob visibly decides not to ask for details. She likes him for it.

"I got divorced," she says eventually. "From a guy I should never have married in the first place."

Veronica falls silent. She doesn't want to talk about it. Even now, even here, the hurt is still too fresh, that she devoted seven years of her life to Danton, abandoned her career and let her whole life fall into orbit around his, only to be discarded like used Kleenex when she turned thirty. Now that they're over it's almost like those seven years never really happened, like she somehow jumped from twenty-four to thirty-one overnight. That Rip van Winkle feeling was part of why she came to Africa. To start her life over, leave all her mistakes behind.

"I thought the hardest thing was going to be not being rich," she says. "Funny, isn't it. My ex was rich. Very. I never knew exactly how rich, he wouldn't tell me, but double-digit millions, at least. Inherited, he was an only child. I grew up poor, in Buffalo, my dad was on unemployment half the time and my mom was an artist, and even when I met him, I mean, I was doing OK, I was a nurse, I was even doing a little modelling too, that's how I met him, but it was still San Francisco, I was sleeping in a bunk bed. Then all of a sudden I moved to a mansion, got used to spending, I don't know, probably like a thousand dollars a day. I mean, that was nothing, I wouldn't even think about it. You get used to it. Believe it or not. Seven years of that and then, boom, divorce. I never missed him. Not for a f.u.c.king moment. I thought the hard part was going to be being poor again. Now here I am. Like you say. How's that for perspective."

"You didn't get half, eh?"

She shakes her head. "I signed a pre-nup. I should have known right then, huh? But I thought it was really his mother who was insisting. Then I think he was worried it wouldn't stand up, so he... he did some s.h.i.+tty things when we got divorced. Even before we separated. Private investigators, s.h.i.+t like that. Whatever. Doesn't matter now. So I came here, got a job at this NGO I used to do fundraising for when I was a trophy wife, all full of big plans to reinvent myself, start a school for nurses, do something admirable. But I was about to give up that too. It was a crazy idea anyways, starting a college all by myself. And Africa, it's just too much, I can't live here." She sighs. "Never mind. None of that seems to matter much now, does it."

Jacob nods quietly.

Veronica looks across the cave at Derek, sitting crosslegged next to Susan, and thinks of their first meeting, at a party at the French emba.s.sy. Incredible to think it was only ten days ago.

If she hadn't been at that party she wouldn't be here now, and she hadn't even wanted to go. Her three housemates were all attending, and Veronica been looking forward to having the house to herself for once. It wasn't easy adjusting to having roommates again, not after spending seven years as the reigning lady of a multimillion-dollar estate. But Bernard, the local managing director of HIV Research Africa, the NGO where Veronica worked, had made it clear he expected to see her at the emba.s.sy party, and so she found herself that night sitting with Belinda, Linda and Diane on the verandah of their shared house, a sprawling, musty colonial relic decorated with Persian rugs and mahogany furniture, waiting for their driver to arrive.

The unkempt grounds were surrounded by a high wall topped by broken gla.s.s, and an armed askari askari guard watched the gate around the clock. Kampala was not a particularly dangerous city, but Veronica was always grateful for his presence. He seemed to keep the real Africa outside. The real Africa was filth, beggars, anarchic shantytowns, cratered streets, teeming poverty, fat corrupt bureaucrats; a place where everything was ugly and shabby, and nothing worked. Their rickety house was filled with dust, cobwebs, balky plumbing and uncomfortable furniture, but it still felt like an oasis, a sanctuary in a sea of chaos. guard watched the gate around the clock. Kampala was not a particularly dangerous city, but Veronica was always grateful for his presence. He seemed to keep the real Africa outside. The real Africa was filth, beggars, anarchic shantytowns, cratered streets, teeming poverty, fat corrupt bureaucrats; a place where everything was ugly and shabby, and nothing worked. Their rickety house was filled with dust, cobwebs, balky plumbing and uncomfortable furniture, but it still felt like an oasis, a sanctuary in a sea of chaos.

The car that came for them was a rusting, dented Suzuki with seats made mostly of duct tape. HIV Research Africa was small and poor, hired local drivers because it couldn't afford the customized SUVs and full-time chauffeurs that most African aid organizations boasted, but Veronica couldn't complain. No one else had offered her a job. What she did for them was largely makework. Her reports could easily have been written in France or America rather than Uganda. She was in Africa only because Bernard had known Veronica when she was rich, and took pity on her when she fell from that state of grace.

The Suzuki b.u.mped along Kampala's dark and uneven streets, with Veronica in the back seat pressed between Belinda and Diane, both sizable women. She couldn't help but think wistfully of the private jets, limousines and Ferraris in which she once rode. Arrival at the emba.s.sy was a great relief. The stone-walled complex, adorned with sculptures, paintings, and several tricolour flags, was crowded with well-dressed people sipping champagne. More than half the guests were white, and Asians outnumbered Africans. The servants and guards were of course all black. Beef, chicken, and South African boerevors boerevors sausage were served up from a big propane barbeque, a colourful salad washed with boiled water was mostly ignored, and every guest in sight held a cold bottle of Nile or Bell beer. sausage were served up from a big propane barbeque, a colourful salad washed with boiled water was mostly ignored, and every guest in sight held a cold bottle of Nile or Bell beer.

She had been in Kampala only three weeks but more than a dozen of the faces she saw were familiar. It was a city of millions, but expats lived in a tiny bubble: their own well-guarded homes and workplaces; a few dozen cafes, bars, hotels and supermarkets where they mingled; and drivers to carry them between the islands of their neo-colonial archipelago. Africa was only a backdrop, they didn't really live in it at all.

Veronica couldn't shake the feeling that not much had changed from the colonial era. Half of the guests were NGO workers ostensibly here to save Africa from its misery, but they were still white people living like kings in an exotic land on the pretext of uplifting the locals. Only the justification had changed, from moral and religious conversion to aid and economic development. But from what Veronica had seen, most African aid benefited aid workers a lot more than the Africans.

She was making polite conversation to a half-drunk Brit named Simon when she heard a South African voice cut through the babble of conversation: "What I wonder is if Africans are even capable of love. I've never seen it, not here. I've seen them spend their lives s.h.a.gging like bon.o.bos, I've seen them leave their babies to die by the side of the road without shedding a tear, but I've never seen love."

Veronica excused herself soon afterwards, found her way to a corner of the yard, looked around, and wondered what she was doing here, at this party, in this city, on this continent.

"Excuse-moi, mademoiselle," a smooth male voice said, and a hand touched her shoulder from behind. "Est-ce que je te connais?"

He was tall, lean and muscular, with deep blue eyes, a sardonic smile, and a Chinese dragon tattooed around his bicep.

"I'm sorry," she said, "I don't je ne parle pas francais je ne parle pas francais."

"No? I thought for sure you were French."

"Not me. Born and raised in Buffalo."

"Surprised to hear that. American women don't usually look like you do." He seemed totally relaxed, a small smile playing on his lips.

She couldn't resist. "What do I look like?"

He took a moment to inspect her. Veronica felt herself starting to blush and commanded herself to stop. This was ridiculous.

"Casually stylish," he said. "At home wherever you may find yourself."

She couldn't help but laugh. "I'm sorry, but that's definitely definitely not me." not me."

He inclined his head. "If you say so. I'm Derek."

"Veronica." After a moment she asked, "What do you do?"

"I'm a security consultant."

"What does that mean exactly?"

"I'm afraid in part it means avoiding specific answers to that question," he said, smiling ruefully. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to be rude."

"No, not at all," she said quickly.

A tall, thin, awkward-looking man with a goatee stepped up to Derek and muttered something in his ear.

"My friend Jacob," Derek said to her, and she and Jacob shook hands. "I'm sorry, we have to take care of something. To be continued?"

Veronica smiled, shrugged. "Sure." Not really expecting it to happen.

But half an hour later, there Derek was again, at her side with a full gla.s.s of champagne to replace her just-emptied one. They spent most of the rest of the night in conversation. She went home giddy. When he called her a few days later to invite her out to a weekend in Bwindi there were b.u.t.terflies in her stomach for the first time since she was a teenager.

But Veronica knew at the same time it was crazy to be thinking about him. She would have to go home soon. The only thing she had really learned from her month in Africa was that she couldn't live here, not even in the expat bubble. She just wasn't tough enough, not any more.

"I always wanted to come here," Veronica says softly, ending the lull.

Jacob blinks, looks back to her.

"Even when I was a kid. I saw The African Queen on TV once and I wanted to be a nun here like Katherine Hepburn. Then I read Out Of Africa. When I graduated I applied to come here as a nurse with Doctors Without Borders, but they turned me down. I mean, of course they did, I had no experience, but I was devastated. I was going to join the Peace Corps, but you can't control where you're a.s.signed. I didn't want to end up in India or Peru. I wanted to come here." She half-laughs. "So I finally made it here. And I hated it."

Jacob doesn't ask why. She supposes the reasons to hate Africa are self-evident.

"I should have come when I was younger. I bet I would have loved it then. When I moved to San Francisco we hitchhiked all the way, me and my friend Rebecca, Buffalo down to Mexico, then back up the coast. We'd sleep outside, go days without showering, get in cars with strange men, we wouldn't care. Then in SF I was a real wild child, drugs, parties, go to bed at three, wake up at six and report to the ER. I was tough, back in the day, I could handle anything. Believe it or not."

"I don't doubt it," Jacob says.

"Yeah. Well. Not any more."

Veronica thinks of the Ugandan guard who bled to death not five feet away from her, the day they were taken. If that had happened seven years ago Veronica would have rushed to his aid immediately, no matter what else was going on, she would have at least tried to save his life. She's a nurse, that's her job, her duty, to help the sick and wounded. Instead she just stood there, stunned and useless, while he bled to death.

"I've been thinking about how long they'll have to keep us here," Jacob says. "a.s.suming everything goes right. Let's just a.s.sume that for the moment."

Veronica swallows. "Yes. Let's."

"I figure at least a few weeks. Probably a more like a month."

"A month? month?"