SS Glasgow Castle 43 Chapter Forty Three

I was feeling considerably better, having slept comfortably on the bus. My traveling environment mainly consisted of a large number of fat women burdened with many baskets, plastic buckets, and straw bowls of vegetables, fruit, and other produce. There were several bunches of chicken suffering quietly, tied two and three apiece by the ankles and hung upside down. I also heard at least one intermittently bleating goat.

I felt right at home and slept like a baby, and was woken up by the driver after everyone else had decamped. I was completely ghosted out - he kept shaking my arm and I kept shaking my head just so I could get it to work. I stumbled out of the bus still s.p.a.ced out. I saw everything as if I were watching a movie with an extraterrestrial hangover. But the fact was that I was standing at the edge of the Total gas station in Boundoukou.

I could also see the Trocadero across the road. I went there, and had two cold c.o.kes in quick succession. I really would have preferred to drink a couple of beers, but I was afraid they would make me pa.s.s out.

I also had food: a local take on a shishkebab, big black cubes of meat of unknown origin sprinkled with a yellow powdered spice, and served with a chopped purple onion. I bought three cans of c.o.ke to go, plus a half-bottle of brandy. I also bought a plastic bag of raisin buns from a pa.s.sing vendor as I waited for a cab, and stuffed my face with them all the way to the hospital compound. As I paid the cab driver I noticed that my franc reserves were getting low, but I didn't let it bother me.

The watchman sitting on his mat at the entrance to the compound must have recognized me, because he smiled and raised a hand in greeting as I went past. I was glad that he did; he had a whacking big cutla.s.s lying next to him. I had no trouble at all finding the right graveled path, and walked to Mireille's bungalow with a spring in my step. I was tw.a.n.ging with caffeine and sugar - with food. It felt wonderful.

She wasn't home. I tapped on the gla.s.s panels of the veranda doors for quite a while before I gave up. Her absence wasn't surprising - it was around noon, she would be at work at the hospital - but it still felt very disappointing. I sat down on the veranda steps and refreshed myself with a c.o.ke. Then, after a moment's thought, I pulled out the brandy. It had been a real bargain and I convinced myself that I had to check whether the contents weren't counterfeit.

The first taste established that it was excellent firewater. The second convinced me I was drinking the genuine article. I had a third to make sure, and put the bottle away and leaned against the top step. I could see a slice of the football field between the quiet bungalows, between the hibiscus bushes. Everything was so peaceful and so well-watered, green and beautiful. It was f.u.c.king paradise.

Mireille woke me up when she got back from work in the late afternoon. She told me later she'd received reports of an unidentified white male camping on her front steps, but fancied it might be an amorous, alcoholic Swedish obstetrician that had been pursuing her recently.

She kept saying Oscar Oscar Oscar like a stuck record and I remember wishing she'd go away and let me sleep. My eyelids were gummed together and I distinctly felt the slime stretching when I forced them open. I began to rub my eyes and Mireille slapped my hand. She said:

"Stop that. There's dirt and blood all over your face. What happened? Why are you here? Where's Kross?"

I'd been rehearsing the answers to those questions for most of the past twenty hours. I said:

"Well, we had a little accident. Truck broke down in the bush. He's getting it fixed. Told me to wait here."

She didn't look pleased. I added:

"I had to walk twenty kilometers before I got to the road and caught a ride into town. I'm f.u.c.king exhausted. Sorry."

"You smell of brandy."

"I had some to celebrate my happy arrival. You would have had a drink too, after all that walking."

"Maybe I would," she said, and smiled. That emboldened me, and I said:

"You were saying there's a vacant bungalow a couple of days ago."

She pondered that for a little while. Then she said:

"You need a wash. Come."

She went up the stairs and I followed her, waiting silently while she unlocked the door. She went in first and immediately went into the kitchen. I stepped in and closed the door and hesitated. There would be more questions, more lies. I wasn't sure my lies would be good enough to convince Mireille. She had a good head on her shoulders.

I heard water running in the kitchen. Then the shout:

"Oscar? Come here."

She'd been busy in the meantime. She had the kettle going and a chair and bowl of water ready: she was shaking drops of yellow liquid into it from a bottle when I came in. I was told to sit down and she started to clean my face with a cloth. Almost instantly she frowned, told me to wait, and returned with a pair of tweezers. She pinched my cheek between thumb and finger and worked the tweezers and said:

"You've got gla.s.s in your face. It's mirror gla.s.s. Did you say you had an accident? Or that the truck broke down?"

"Both," I said. "The accident came first. We sort of sc.r.a.ped against a tree and the side view mirror broke."

She worked on in a silence that told me she thought that I was lying. I could feel her breath on my face. I had the insane impulse to kiss her, so I went all civilized on her. Civilized is so safe. When she'd finished, I said:

"Thank you very much. I'm sorry to put you to all this trouble. I - " She silenced me with a look that told me she thought I was a liar.

"No trouble," she said, and went to the sink and emptied the bowl into it. She washed out the bowl and put it on the counter and turned around to face me. She said:

"It's me who... I have to apologize. You gave me a shock. I was expecting - " And that's when she told me about the Swedish obstetrician. Apparently he'd camped on the veranda steps a couple of times in an alcoholic stupor. Seeing me instead wasn't a nice change: I looked a mess, and smelled of alcohol. She shook her head there. Then she said:

"You need a shower. You can use the towel you did when you were here - it's on top of the hamper in the corner on your left as you go in. And I'll go and talk to Jean-Pierre, the administrator, about that spare bungalow. He was just going into the canteen when I left. If I catch him right after he's eaten, he'll be very agreeable. But you should still buy him a carton of Flag. You can buy it at the canteen, too. Better price than in town."

"You know everything," I said. She smiled when she heard that. She looked right into my eyes and said:

"Well, I might know a little more than you do about certain things. When do you expect Mark to show up?"

Hearing Kross being brought into the conversation gave me an unpleasant jolt.

"Twenty four hours," I said. "His own words."

"Good. In the meantime you can tell me all about your little adventure in the bush, and what Mark is up to."

I wasn't sure I could, or wanted to talk about what had happened in the bush. So I said:

"I can. But I'd much rather talk about you."

"You don't want to talk about Kross? I'm not sure you know him as well as I do."

"Sure," I said bitterly. "We can talk about Kross."

"Ah. Don't worry. We'll talk about me, too. Go and wash."

I went to the shower wondering what she could tell me about Kross that I didn't know. It seemed to me that over the past two days I'd learned a lot about him. Maybe Mireille's remark meant a different kind of knowledge. Maybe they had been - ugh! - maybe they had been lovers.

When Mireille knocked on the bathroom door, I was knee-deep in self-pity.

"Yes?" I shouted manfully.

She opened the door a crack. She said:
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"I need your pa.s.sport to show to Jean-Pierre. I'll bring it back."

"It's in my bag," I said. "In an inside zippered pocket. You can't miss it."

She left and I quickly completed showering and shaved. It didn't help much. My face was covered in small nicks and cuts; my nose was red, and it was starting to peel. I definitely wasn't looking the way I'd have liked to look for Mireille. It saddened me and then I remembered I still had brandy in my bag and went to have some.

When I opened my bag, the first thing I noticed was the military costume I'd worn with Kross. I was sure it hadn't been that way when I was getting the toiletry kit on the way to the shower. It was hidden so well that I'd completely forgotten about it. Did Mireille search my bag? Of course she did, when I told her to get my pa.s.sport.

The bag's inside pocket was unzipped, and the pa.s.sport was gone. I had some brandy while trying out various lies about the military clothing in my bag. Thankfully, the sock containing the diamonds had accompanied me to the bathroom. If she had found that, I would have been sunk.

I took out the two cans of c.o.ke from the bag and found they'd gotten warm. I put them in Mireille's fridge, taking a cold bottle of Fanta in exchange. I went to drink it on the veranda, scaring away a pair of black birds with orange throats that had been gabbing on the top step.

As I sipped the Fanta, I wondered about Kross. He'd told me to wait for twenty four hours, and continue to Abidjan if he hadn't shown up. If he showed up, it was crucial that we agreed on a story for Mireille before she got a chance to question him. In the meantime, I'd just have to do my best and deflect questions and change the subject the best I could. Most people like to talk about themselves, but Mireille wasn't like most people. I antic.i.p.ated a difficult time.

She was a long time coming back. When she appeared from behind a bungalow a hundred yards away I knew something was wrong right away. In the meantime, she'd changed her blue hospital clothes for the familiar grey canvas dress. Her arms were bare, and they seemed to shimmer with tension. She was looking at the ground as she walked. She didn't look up at me until she'd stopped in front of me on the veranda.

She said:

"You f.u.c.king son of a b.i.t.c.h. I heard it all on the canteen radio. Three people killed. And I saw your uniform when I was getting the pa.s.sport. You son of a b.i.t.c.h. Get the f.u.c.k out of my house before I change my mind and report you. Get out now."

She slapped my face with my pa.s.sport and dropped it, walked over to the veranda steps and stopped and said:

"I'm coming back in ten minutes. You'd better not be here."

She ran down the steps, and walked away.

I picked up my pa.s.sport, and forced myself to finish the Fanta. Then I got busy.