Recoil

Fuck praying.

I rode the moped back uphill like a man possessed. I needed to get to the house and throw my stuff together and – fuck – do what, exactly? Were there planes or trains this time of night? To where? How the fuck would I get myself into the middle of the jungle and find that poxy village? I didn’t even know where I wanted to go. All I knew was that I was going to get her out of that shit-hole and find out one way or another if she would marry me. It wasn’t brain surgery.

Maybe Stefan could do something. Maybe he had some way of contacting her I didn’t know about. Maybe he controlled her bank account and credit cards – maybe he could threaten to cut her off if she didn’t turn straight round. I mean, there wasn’t much love lost between them, but even so, he wouldn’t want her risking her life for what he’d see as a bunch of worthless natives. No, why would he do anything now? Everyone else seemed to know but me: she’d always been like this. Maybe he already knew. Fuck it, who cared? I didn’t need anything from him.

I dumped the moped next to a big blacked-out BMW parked right outside the front door and stormed into the house.

I half ran down the hall. Stefan was back in the sitting room with a whisky, but he was no longer alone. Two Chinese guys, both very formal in grey suits and ties, were standing with him by a desk, poring over maps and papers. Cigarettes dangled from their mouths.

He saw me, excused himself and started into the hallway. There was no need. I gave him the middle finger and a cutaway sign before I headed for Silky’s room.

What the fuck did she think she was playing at? This was grown-up stuff. It wasn’t a party. She couldn’t just phone a cab home if she got bored.

As I paced her floor, I stared at the twelve-digit number for so long I could have recited it. I wanted to call, but I resisted. What was the point? Even if the flight got in tomorrow morning, it would take them days to get there. The roads were shit – when there were roads.

What time would they land?

I Googled Kinshasa airport. There was a contact number, and the time difference was only one or two hours from GMT, depending.

I dialled. The line crackled, and there was a distant ring tone. I got a faint voice over background mush. It sounded like the airport was at the bottom of an ocean. I struggled with my French and the guy struggled with his English, but we established between us that the plane from Geneva was arriving at six thirty in the morning. I thanked Jacques Cousteau and hung up.

It would take them ages to get landside. African bureaucracy had to be experienced to be believed. They might not even be granted visas.

They? Was she travelling with other volunteers? I hadn’t asked Etienne. Did they already have visas? Something else I’d forgotten. There was so much I didn’t know.

They might be turned away. They might not even get landside.

That was the first positive thought I’d had. If Silky was denied entry, she’d be put straight back on the plane. If not, there’d be a window of maybe an hour or two, from about ten a.m. local time, when I might get through to her mobile. If she’d taken it with her, and if it was switched on. And assuming there was coverage in the city . . . What the fuck did I know?

I got back on the keyboard. KLM flew there from Milan, about an hour’s drive south, but not every day. And all their flights seemed to go through South Africa. To get to Kinshasa direct on a scheduled airline, you had to fly via Brussels.

Even assuming I got on to a flight, if these guys could have problems getting visas, what chance did I stand? Democratic Republic of the Congo wasn’t exactly a tourist Mecca. How was I going to bluff my way in? I was beginning to feel like a snowball rolling down a hill.

I Googled for DRC consulates or embassies, to try to find out if I could get a visa before I left. Some of the websites wouldn’t open, and those that did had none of the information I needed.

I binned it.

It wasn’t as if I had to get to Kinshasa before the convoy headed out. She was going into the lion’s den, but at least I knew where the lion’s den was.

I looked up Ituri province on the border with Rwanda and tried to find this fucking village, Nuka. I might not be able to get there at the speed of light, but I knew a man who could help me. And if he didn’t, he’d wish he hadn’t been born.

It was scarcely first light when I wandered down to the basement. The chef wasn’t up yet, but Giuseppe was. In fact, he looked like I wasn’t the only one to have sat up all night.

‘Mr Stefan is leaving for China later today. He’s told me to offer you a car and driver to take you to the railway station or the airport as soon as convenient – but in any event by lunchtime.’ He couldn’t quite meet my eye. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Nick.’

‘No problem, Giuseppe. I knew the fun couldn’t last.’

He followed me out to the moped with a small package in his hand. ‘For your journey,’ he said. His breath smelled of whisky.

I rode to the airport with my PVC holdall on my lap. Abandoning the moped outside the terminal was immature, but it gave me some kind of satisfaction. It was bound to be Stefan’s. He owned everything.

Then, as I checked in, with not so much as a second pair of shoes to my name, let alone a pair of wheels, I had a thought. Everything I owned was in my holdall: a bit of washing and shaving kit, a sleeping bag I’d nicked from Silky’s room, two spare T-shirts and lots of underwear.

I didn’t have a home, not even a camper van or a tent. I had nothing in the world except a cheap ring and a beautiful German girl, and maybe I didn’t even have her any more.

Well, that wasn’t completely true. I had the cheese and Branston sarnie Giuseppe had given me. And the small bottle of water he’d emptied and refilled with what looked suspiciously like thirty-year-old malt.

6

Friday, 9 June 2006

The seatbelt light flickered on and the crew collected our empty coffee cups. The pilot came on the intercom and thanked us for flying Darwin Air from Lugano, and reminded us that the time in London was nine fifteen a.m. Not that anyone was listening. They were all too busy powering down their laptops and putting their shoes back on. I was the only one aboard not using one, and the only one wearing jeans and a leather bomber jacket.

The last time I’d flown in a prop-driven aircraft, it had been taking me to war. This smart new Saab was a world away from a cramped, noisy Hercules, but I was feeling every bit as uneasy.

Last night’s Google had come up with some scary reading. There were about 17,000 UN troops in DRC – the world’s biggest peacekeeping mission – but, even so, they were stretched. Eight Guatemalan soldiers had just been killed in a clash with the Lord’s Resistance Army. That didn’t worry me too much, but what did was reading on and discovering why the UN were so crap at their job in the eastern part of the country. It wasn’t only the rebels kicking their arse, it was the terrain. Swamps, savannah, lava plains, all covered with impervious rainforest and high mountain peaks. The rebels had mastered it better than the peacekeepers. That didn’t worry me. It was the thought of trying to navigate over that terrain and get there before anything happened to her.

We descended through cloud. The outskirts of London were worn out and grey, but then we did our approach over the sci-fi film set they called Docklands. There were so many cranes, they looked like wheat in a field.

I didn’t want to power up my mobile again. That blank screen was starting to get to me.

7