On the riverside of promise (14 page)

“To me?”

“Why does it have to be about you all the
time?”

“Well, you’re asking me.”

“I can’t understand how a man like yourself
is after Andy.”

“I can’t understand how someone as daft as
you works for the CIA.”

“So I’m a fool, just because I believe people
have the right to live decent lives? The fishermen down the river
are fools for trying as well? For not giving up?”

“No, they’re fishermen. Smart trade; they
cast a net and fill it with fish. No need to herd or milk or sheer
anything. No need to sow, till and water. No, they just reap what
the river has to offer. Smart folk, fishermen.”

“These are the last few people who are brave
enough to keep living in a war zone.”

“And go where exactly? Wait for the Red Cross
to feed them? The UN to free them? From who? You don’t understand,
I guess you yanks never did. The river is all that matters to these
people. Without it, there’s no life. Like they care who’s running
this charade. You should get out more, take a walk. Get down from
that high horse of yours.”

“You’re making things sound so fucking simple
while in fact you don’t have the slightest clue about what’s at
stake here. What’s at stake in Vietnam, the six day war, Angola.
It’s fucking everywhere and you’re acting like it’s pointless.”

“It all depends on your point of view, that’s
all. To them it is. To you maybe it isn’t.”

“And what about you? Do you care about all
this, or do you just pull a trigger when you’re told to?”

“Don’t you?”

“When I have to. Not when I’m told to.”

“What if you’re told you have to?”

“Faith. I trust in faith.”

“You know, I really can’t tell when you’re
trying to bullshit me, or just yourself. You people have some real
issues. At least I know what’s wrong with me, you just live in a
hazy world between reality and fantasy where everything’s possible,
including saving the world by bombing it to hell. I didn’t think
I’d be grateful for all the nightmares.”

“So you do have a conscience in the end?”

“Only I’m not proud about it. It doesn’t
really help, you know. I consider it a luxury.”

“You should. Because you’re one cynical
bastard if I ever saw one.”

“I can’t wait to have this kind of
conversation over Christmas dinner.”

“I bet you’re adopted.”

“I’d wish.”

She braked abruptly and pulled over in front
of a small three-story building with faux gypsum columns outside,
cast in some vaguely Greco-Roman rhythm. Bullets had found their
way through the gypsum and into the concrete, while flecks of
chipped paint riddled the wide doors.

“We’re here,” said Nicole and turned the
engine off.

Ethan replied with a yawn:

“I hope there’s a real bed.”

“I hope they have two rooms.”

“I wouldn’t worry about the vacancies.”

A man that appeared to be the hotel manager
stepped through the doorway, dressed in a white linen shirt, smart
black trousers and matching shoes. He looked around his forties,
tall, thin, almost gaunt. He smiled rather widely, a few
nickel-cases showing. He bowed slightly and said:

“Welcome to Olowo Hotel. Luggage?”

Ethan smiled and nodded towards Nicole,
saying:

“Certainly, her.”

The hotel manager looked puzzled for a
moment, then let out a polite little laugh and ushered them
inside.

“Coffee, or tea?” he asked and extended a
hand pointing to a couple of tables and a small bar.

“No, thank you,” said Nicole and Ethan shook
his head. He told him then:

“We need two rooms.”

The manager was already shuffling through the
guestbook when he asked somewhat confused:

“You mean a double?”

Nicole sniggered behind Ethan, while he spoke
slowly and surely, as if to a child, stressing each word:

“Two separate rooms with a single bed.”

The manager looked apprehensively at both of
them for a moment, and then smiled assuredly.

“Certainly, sir, madam. Cash up front,
please. Hotel policy. Five hundred,” he said, nodding to both of
them. Ethan raised a brow but nevertheless pulled five one-hundred
bills and paid. “Thank you. We’re happy to have you staying.
Please, follow me,” the manager said and led them to the first
floor, to their rooms. Each one was a miniscule affair with a water
basin and remarkably, a proper bed. There was a common toilet at
the end of the hallway. The manager then said with almost unbridled
pride:

“There are separate facilities for the
ladies!”

“Fantastic. I wouldn’t want to bump into
her,” Ethan said smiling ironically while Nicole seemed to ignore
him.

The manager looked at them both once more
fleetingly, opened his mouth to ask something but thought better of
it and said nothing. He then straightened himself and said in a
business-like tone:

“Well, there is more press staying here. I
hope you’ll enjoy your stay, even under the circumstances.”

“You mean the war?”

“The war will end some day, sir. But the
mosquitoes, they never go out of fashion! The river, you see.”

Ethan grinned and nodded, shook his head and
looked at Nicole who simply shrugged.

“Thank you very much,” Ethan said, while
Nicole stared outside the hallway window onto the street below. The
manager bowed again before adding:

“Ring the bell if you need me. I’ll be
downstairs!”

Nicole asked Ethan without turning her gaze
away from the street:

“You think everyone else down there thinks
the same?”

“Does it matter?”

“I forgot, nothing really does.”

“I need to sleep.”

She nodded and shut the door behind her.
Soon, she could hear Ethan snoring from across the hallway.

* * *

He woke up with a mild headache. There was
still light pouring in from the small window. He felt his body ache
from all the exertion of the night before. He checked his
wristwatch; it was almost four in the afternoon.

He vaguely remembered seeing a strange dream.
The one thing he was certain about was that the dream hadn’t been a
nightmare. Curiously enough he remembered it had something to do
with James. He itched in various places; he scratched reflexively
and noticed the bites: mosquitoes. He washed his face and scrubbed
some of the muck and dirt away, feeling a bit freshened and
somewhat cleaner. He put on his clothes and tied his shoes with the
usual haste of a professional soldier.

He picked up his key and his camera along
with the press card and closed the door behind him. He went over to
Nicole’s room and knocked, but she didn’t reply. He knocked again.
He decided not to shout for her; she might be still sleeping, he
thought, and went down the stairs.

The hotel manager was serving coffee to some
clients that looked quite foreign, blond-haired and red-faced.
Evidently he was the sole proprietor, manager, and waiter. Probably
no-one else worked here anymore. He had simply, like others in the
city, decided to stay, despite the war. Curiously enough, there was
still money to be made even at a time and place such as this one.
The manager took notice of him and waved from the table he was
serving. He told him with a smile:

“Letter for you Mr. Owls, from Ms. Heurgot. A
moment.”

Ethan nodded and smiled thinly, thinking it
strange Nicole had already left without waking him up. He noticed
the foreigners, a man and a woman, looking at him vaguely but they
quickly resumed sipping their coffee silently. The hotel manager
went behind his flimsy-looking counter and unlocked a cabinet. He
then gave Ethan a small envelope. Ethan was about to ask for a
letter opener, when the manager promptly offered a simple kitchen
knife which did the job just as well.

There was a small note inside the envelope;
the note said that Nicole had to get in touch with a certain
valuable contact of hers. She had written down a list of people and
places where he should start asking questions. He immediately felt
shut out, as if running errands on her behalf. Maybe it was less
time consuming that way, or maybe she had other, work-related
priorities. The Agency. What kind of operation where the Yanks
really running down here? He had little idea about how these things
worked. He decided he’d ask her some really hard questions about
all this business when they met later that night at a place called
’Queen Madimba’.

“Is there some place I can make a call in
private?”

The manager rolled his eyes for a moment,
then said with slight apprehension:

“For you, it is probably possible. You’d need
to get over to Victoria Square, talk to whoever’s in charge there.
All landlines go through the military, you see.”

Ethan nodded and smiled, before adding:

“I would like to know my way around. Is there
a map I could use? I wouldn’t want to end up in a minefield or
something now, would I?” he said and smiled, while the manager
found the joke lacking and simply gave Ethan a shoddy, trodden
piece of paper that was a rough drawing of the relative locations
of the hotel, the river, the city center and the harbor.

“Victoria Square is in the city center. Ask
around if you need anything else. And I would like that back when
you’re done,” said the hotel manager before adding:

“I lost my wife to a mine, only last year. It
is no laughing matter.”

“Certainly. I was just… Right, thank you,”
said Ethan and walked out onto the street, which was mostly empty.
Apart from the heat and the nearly debilitating moisture in the
air, there was little to do other than peddle foodstuffs and
alcohol to passing troops and patrols, either on or off duty. Kids
would invariably pop in and out of sight, some playing catch or
football, others trying to sell something they’d fished in the
river.

The town seemed subdued; poor, but still
living. Hurt, but not destroyed. His walk took him through a few
streets he could barely tell apart. Some of those were in his list,
others were in fact nothing more than alleys or dirt paths. He
decided to grab a bite at a stall selling fried fish.

While he ate, he noticed the peculiar
silence. This was a city at war, in the front lines, but nothing
other than the presence of the military reminded him of that. There
was no shelling, no gunfire, no sound of engines revving up and
armor clamoring by. A city under siege, without walls or trenches,
nothing but the river as a moat. It seemed like nothing would ever
force the people to abandon it, except perhaps the river drying
up.

He then made his way straight to Victoria
square where he could see a lot more soldiers, jeeps and trucks. It
looked like every other building around the square had been taken
over and turned into barracks, warehouses or command centers. The
congregation of so many soldiers in one place looked like a staging
area. Perhaps some kind of operation was about to begin.

As he approached a small tent near a guard
post, a soldier shouted at him something in Yoruba, without
bothering to aim him with his rifle. Ethan held both hands high,
one of them holding the press pass. The soldier squinted at it and
called one of his superiors, a sergeant by the looks of his
stripes. The sergeant looked at Ethan with puzzled disbelief:

“Reporter man?”

Ethan nodded and said:

“Richard Owls, London Times. I could gladly
use a phone.”

“A telephone?”

The sergeant said something to the soldier
and they broke down in laughter. Despite the complete lack of
courtesy, the sergeant pointed at the small tent and said:

“Try the Captain,” and resumed what must have
been a keen joke between himself and the guard on duty.

Ethan approached the tent where a rather
small-set man with the insignia of a Captain was studying maps and
a few sheets of reports, sitting down in a fold-up garden chair. On
the small table, his service revolver lay in pieces, ready to be
cleaned. Ethan cleared his throat and announced himself:

“Captain? Richard Owls, London Times. I’m
sorry to bother you, but I do need to phone my office.”

The Captain looked up from his work briefly
and barely registering Richard he pointed to a hand-crank magnetic
phone. He told him then:

“Ask for Operations. Tell them to connect you
to an outside operator and give him the number.”

“Right, thank you. Terribly sorry, really. I
hadn’t expected this kind of lock-down.”

“Makes you wish you hadn’t left the office,
doesn’t it?”

The captain smiled broadly and Ethan replied
with a nod. He asked for the operator and after giving the number,
there was a small pause and then some more silence before the silky
voice of a woman came on the phone: