Cause Celeb (55 page)

There had been a time when Malcolm was known as Malcolm the Invincible Man: an ironic title, as was never more obvious than that morning. Bossed and bullied by the harridan I became, he drafted the message, dictated by me, as I loomed threateningly over his shoulder. He muttered and whined as we went along. This was what we ended up with:

SUSTAIN EL DAMAN—LONDON.
URGENT FOR IMMEDIATE ATTENTION.

ROSIE RICHARDSON REPORTS 440 ARRIVALS AT SAFILA FROM KEFTI IN ADVANCED STATE OF MALNUTRITION WITH 24 CHOLERA CASES AND 19 DEATHS
.
THEIR REPORTS OF
LOCUST INFESTATION
(
BOTH HATCHING AND SWARMING
)
IN HIGHLANDS
,
COMBINED WITH POCKETS OF CHOLERA SUGGEST LARGE SCALE REFUGEE INFLUX MAY BE IMMI
-
NENT IF SITUATION WORSENS
.
REPORTS APPEAR TO CON
-
FIRM RUMORS CIRCULATING STRONGLY AMONGST RESOK OFFICIALS FOR LAST 2 WEEKS
.

HOWEVER
[this was Malcolm's bit],
EARLY WARNING SURVEYS SHOW NO DEVIATION FROM NORMAL PATTERN
.
YOU WILL UNDERSTAND REPORTS ARE IMPOSSIBLE TO CON
-
FIRM AS SUSTAIN PERSONNEL FORBIDDEN TO ENTER KEFTI
.

SHIPMENT FOR EAST NAMBULA OVERDUE AS YOU ARE AWARE
.
ENTIRE REGION ON SHORT RATIONS
.
SAFILA CAMP HAS FULL RATION FOR ONLY WEEKS
.
MEDICAL SUPPLIES ALSO LOW
,
IN PARTICULAR REHYDRATION SALTS
,
IV FLUIDS
,
ANTIBIOTICS
,
AND MEASLES VACCINE
.

ROSIE REQUESTS LONDON APPROACH UNHCR AND EEC RE SUPPLIES
.
REQUEST THAT DR
.
BETTY COLLINGWOOD BE RETAINED IN ADDITION TO DR
.
ROBERT O
'
ROURKE UNTIL THREAT IS RESOLVED
.

PLEASE RESPOND
,
URGENT TODAY
.

Malcolm was an old coward. He insisted the whole message came from me, not him. Then, later in the morning, when I saw what had finally been sent, he had added this paragraph.

I WOULD LIKE IT TO BE UNDERSTOOD THAT THIS TELEX IS BEING SENT AT ROSIE RICHARDSON
'
S INSISTENCE
.
I PER
-
SONALLY HAVE HAD NO OPPORTUNITY TO MAKE FIRST
-
HAND ASSESSMENT AND AM RESERVING JUDGMENT
.

In other words he was refusing to endorse my position. The more I tried to argue my case the more Malcolm told me I was overreacting. He reminded me of all the scares we had had in the past. He pointed out the diplomatic drawbacks to crying wolf. He told me to go back and do some more research.

It was Friday, the holy day, and everything was closed. I phoned round the UN, the other aid agencies, COR, the EEC. No one was in. My one stroke of luck was that there was a party that night at the home of the British consul, Gareth Patterson. Most of the people I needed to talk to would be there.

I hung around the office all day, writing letters, making phone calls, which were unanswered, watching the telex. I drove to the UN stores at the airport, but the guard wouldn't let me in. There was no reply from London. I was furious with Malcolm. This was his fault. He had turned it into a back-of-the-in-tray telex. And time was ticking away.

When Malcolm and I drew up at the British consul's residence at six-thirty the party was already in full swing. The house would have looked well as part of an African-village-style luxury hotel on the Kenyan coast. Patterson had designed it himself, plumping for open thatched rooms with cane chairs, squashy cushions, tumbling tropical plants, a parrot in a large wooden cage and a heavy emphasis on batik in the soft furnishings. The establishment was all on one level except for an exotic upstairs bedroom. Where the soft white sand and lapping blue waves of the Indian Ocean should have been, there were the sluggish brown waters and mudflats of the river.

There was a rather particular view on this section of the river. Some years ago Nambula had purchased a secondhand jet from Afghanistan Airlines. On its maiden voyage the pilot had brought it in over El Daman, spotted the lights of the runway and made a perfect landing. Only it wasn't the runway, it was the river. No one was hurt, the landing was graceful, if unexpectedly amphibious. The passengers waded ashore. Opposite the spot which Patterson had selected for his home was a little island where the plane had eventually come to rest at a jaunty angle. It was still there, giving him a permanent cue for an anecdote.

There were lights in the trees that Friday night. There were umbrellas in the drinks, which were masquerading as fruit punches—Patterson had managed to get hold of a crate of rum—and a steel band was playing on the terrace. It was clear that Patterson was overdue for some leave and had been browsing through too many
long-haul travel brochures. For a moment, when we arrived, Malcolm and I stood at the end of the drive, watching the party across the lawn. You could spot the field-workers because they had all had the runs so often that their clothes were too big for them. I saw June Patterson lurch from one little group towards another, carrying a tray of umbrella-filled glasses which seemed not to be long for this world. Her blond curly hair cascaded down like a pile of doughnuts. She was dressed in a tight pale-blue nylon pajama outfit and sparkling slingback stilettos. Everyone was pretending she wasn't there. I saw Patterson spot her, leave his conversation, hurry to her and tenderly take away the tray. Then he bent and spoke to her, looking like a primary school headmaster with a naughty five-year-old. As I watched, he drew her to him protectively, held her for a second, and kissed her on the forehead. A dipsomaniac wife was not the best asset for a British consul in a Muslim country—particularly a country which grew more fundamentalist with every week that went by—but Patterson loved his wife. I think he loved her more than his job, more than his reputation, more than he cared about what I, Malcolm, the French ambassador, the UN representative or any other bugger thought. It was the best thing about Patterson by some way.

I watched him as he disappeared with the newly rescued tray. With his blue safari suit, sideburns and daft good looks, there was something rather seventies about him. He reminded me of a game-show host, or one half of the kind of boy-girl singing duo who would perform dressed in flared catsuits on matching bar stools. Then I felt a tap on my right shoulder and turned round to look. There was no one there.

“Haha! Got you with that one, didn't I?” Patterson was standing on my left. He loved this kind of practical joke. “Hey, what are you guys doing without a drink? You are looking one gorgeous liddle laydeee tonight. Come and join the pardee.”

“Hi.” Caspar Wannamaker, from U.S. Arms Around the World: tall, blond, terminally boring Texan. “How goes it down on the farm?”

I told him, testing the water.

“Hell,” he said. “You don't wanna get in a stew about it. Sure you wanna get it checked out in Abouti, alert your office, but come on,
there are a hundred camps like Safila in the country. You can't start an international emergency every time a handful of refugees turn up in one of them with a problem.”

“Four hundred isn't a handful.”

“Oh, come on. It's happening all the time. Anyway. That ship's gonna be here within days. No problem.”

Then he gave me a little lecture about getting too close to the refugees. “You've gotta stand back, you know, take an objective view. You can't let yourself be manipulated. You can't be one of them, salving your little liberal conscience.”

I smiled politely and moved away. The workers from the European NGOs, the smaller nongovernment organizations like SUSTAIN, had all gravitated together. I approached a little group of French medical workers. They were the high priests and priestesses of relief chic: they wore fine cotton khaki, loose silk tops with interestingly cut necklines.

“It is ridiculous, perfectly typical,” said Francine, a pediatrician, with a toss of her head, and an irritated little puff on a menthol cigarette. She had a clipped, nasal voice and looked like Charlotte Rampling.

“The system is completely stupid,” said Jeanne, a tiny nervous creature. “It is worthless even to speak with this UNHCR. This idiot Kurt who is living down there is a complete disaster for an individual. At Wad Denazen they are hearing the same stories about this locusts. They are expecting arrivals too.”

The French worked with the Italians at Wad Denazen. It was fifty miles north of us, also close to the border with Kefti.

“What are you going to do?” I said.

“Well, we are talking to our people in Paris, but you know we are a medical agency. We are not dealing with food. What can we do?”

“Do you have any IV fluids and antibiotics up here you could let us have temporarily?” I said.

“If we have we will send you, of course,” said Francine, “but, you know, we are having the same difficulties as you.”

“Thanks. We'll do the same for you one day.” But I knew they wouldn't have anything to spare.

The man I really needed was Gunter Brand, the head of UNHCR in Nambula: the man with the power in the aid community. He had a backslapping manner, a head as big as a horse's, and a very loud laugh. He had been booming around the party displaying his perfect English and overconfident social style. I found him talking to André.

“So then he said, ‘Because of the vacuum inside their heads.' Waagh. Hahahaha. Ahahahaha. Ahahahaha,” Gunter was saying.

I hadn't met him formally before. He had only been in El Daman for six weeks, but he had a very tough reputation based on a career in Central America.

“Hi!” said André. “Good to
see
you. Gunter, have you met Rosie Richardson, the administrator for Safila camp, with SUSTAIN?”

“Hey, good to meet you. One crazy party, huh? Have you ever seen such a
strange
house in Africa? You English have the most unusual tastes.”

“Yes, I think Patterson had one too many piña coladas at the drawing board.”

Gunter didn't respond.

André was trying to help me out. “I mean have you
seen
his wife's hairrr? What's going on with this woman, OK? I mean, I thought
I
was a dipso but really, my
Gaaaad.
”

Absurdly, I felt my hackles rise because a Canadian and a German were slagging off the English; it was like someone outside your family slagging off your aunt.

“Has André told you about the problems in Safila? We're very worried about it,” I said.

André was standing slightly behind him, shaking his head frantically.

An irritated look flitted across Gunter's face. “Yes, André told me about the situation in Safila,” he said.

“And what is going to happen about it?”

“As I expect André told you, the situation is being investigated.”

“With respect, I don't think we have much time, Gunter.”

He looked at me hard. “This is not the place to discuss this but I will tell you my view. I think you are right, there is a problem with
locusts in Kefti. But it is not a serious problem. There will be swarms, there will be some crop losses. But they will be localized. Possibly you will have one or two hundred more arrivals in Safila and we will ensure that you, and all the camps along the border who are
in the same position,
will be provided for. Everyone is always saying it will be another nineteen eighty-four. Believe me. Watch my lips. It will not be another nineteen eighty-four. It is another scare. However, I will be most interested to read what you have to say, if you would care to drop a report into my office. Now if you will excuse me, it has been delightful to meet you,” and he moved away, well away, to the other side of the party.

“Lead balloon, lead balloon. Dis
as
terr,” said André.

“Thanks.”

“Let me tell you about Gunter, OK? Gunter is right about everything, OK? Gunter does not feel the need to explain himself professionally. Gunter will not respond to confrontations unless it is Gunter who is doing the confronting. Gunter will not talk work at social occasions. OK?”

“So I ballsed up on every count?”

“Every single one,” he said, laughing. “Never mind, have a cigarette.”

“No, thanks.”

“Now, listen, don't worry about Gunter, OK? It's all in hand. I've talked to Wad Denazen about the possibility of them giving over some of their extra rations to Safila. They're pretty well stocked.”

“And what did they say?”

“Not overenchanted with the notion but it'll be fine. OK?”

“But they're talking about getting arrivals too.”

“Stop worrying so much. You're looking at the worst scenario. Have you told your head office?”