Chaga

unshackled the cages from the floor bolts and carried them away on wheeled pallets. The big white floodlights went out. A single pinspot lit the pit. In it stood a smiling black man in a naval uniform. Loud music started. The man in the naval uniform began to dance to it. Yelling, the women leaped to their hoses. In one instant he was drenched, but he was still smiling. Piece by piece, he stripped. Water dripped from his oiled pectorals. Gaby hoped the water was not too cold, amazed at the profligacy. Even the resourceful Mrs Kivebulaya had to ration showers in thirsty Nairobi and pray that the rains would be early.

A tall man in flares, a blue denim safari jacket and a floppy cap came across the crowded bar to the rail.

‘If you will please follow me, the Sheriff will see you now.’

He led Gaby and Faraway through a door marked private in English and Swahili. Gaby clung to her Ethiopic scripture case like it was her own soul. The m’tekni’s platform soles clumped on the steep stairs. Do not laugh at these people, Gaby reminded herself. They dress like a classic episode of Kojak, but they run the corridors of the Pentagon and no one sees them, they play Find the Lady with the European Central Bank. They do not hesitate to kill to protect what is theirs. There is a top-range smartgun slung crosswise for a fast pull under that denim safari jacket.

At the door to the penthouse suite a second posseboy sniffed them with a snooperwand.

‘Please excuse me,’ he said. ‘Everywhere there are government stool-pigeons wearing wires. You are clear.’

What struck Gaby first about Haran’s penthouse was the floor. It was the glass-tile ceiling of the Cascade Club. She could just make out the bright square of the pit surrounded by the dark fringe of the balcony. The big fans that kept the moist air circulating turned slowly beneath her feet. There was no other light source in the big room than what escaped from the club below. It was like walking on a pane of luminous ice beneath which lay trapped, drowned souls.

Haran sat in a massive black Makonde chair behind an ebony desk. One hand rested lightly on the carved chair arm. The other held an antelope-tail fly-whisk, the traditional symbol of authority and wisdom.

‘My cousin Faraway, isn’t it?’ The voice was soft, cultivated. ‘It is a long time since I last saw you. I hope you are well.’

‘Better for seeing you, friend Haran.’

‘Who is this m’zungu with you?’

‘My name is Gaby McAslan,’ the m’zungu answered for herself. ‘I work with Faraway for SkyNet.’

Haran rose from behind his desk. He made Faraway look small. Gaby would have felt dwarfed had he not been so thin. With the paleness of his skin – cosmetic lightening, she reckoned – and the Cuban grandee’s frock coat, cravat and wide-brimmed hat, he looked like an avatar of some long-suppressed Afro-Caribbean animist sect. He had a pencil-line moustache and a permanent collagen pout.

He bent and kissed Gaby’s hand. His nails were French manicured. There was lace at his cuffs.

‘And what do you wish from me, Ms McAslan?’ He indicated chairs for them to sit. Coffee appeared, poured by yet another m’tekni.

‘A favour. In my line of business, information is life. I’m new in your country, I don’t have the contacts, the names, the numbers, and I want to move up quickly. I’m not ashamed to admit I am ambitious: it is not a sin. What you can provide me with can make the difference between me getting what I want, and being average.’

Haran pursed his lips, steepled his fingers.

‘I presume we are talking about a long-term relationship of patronage.’

‘In the news business you never know what you will need to know next, or when you will need to know it.’

‘It is not just in the news business,’ said Haran.

Faraway nudged Gaby’s foot.

‘I believe you are something of a connoisseur, Mr…’

‘My parents named me Haran.’

‘Haran. I wonder if perhaps you could give me your opinion on this? As I said, I am not long in this country, I have little knowledge about what is of true value, but I like to think that beauty is universal.’ She unwrapped the gospel case and placed it on the ebony desk. Her hands were shaking. She willed them to stop. They refused.

Haran studied the box for a long minute.

‘You have good taste, for a m’zungu. If you like, I will check it against my collection. There is so much that is false around these days, even the expert can be deceived. You know how the master learns to detect the forgery? By studying what is genuine. That is the only way to tell the true from the false. If you will excuse me, please.’

He left with the box through a door behind him. Gaby looked at Faraway who tapped his feet, tapped his fingers nervously.

‘Have you got a cigarette?’

‘Haran does not smoke, and does not like people who smoke. Anyway, I thought you only smoked after eating.’

‘And when I get stressed.’

He would be opening the box. He would be lifting out the money, the other half of her month’s wages. He would be counting the notes. There would be a terminal in there. He would be sending his software familiars out through it into the unseen world to find who is this woman who calls herself Gaby McAslan, what is she, can she be trusted?

Gaby McAslan found herself breathing very quickly and shallowly.

Now he would be examining the box. She did not doubt that he had the expertise he claimed. He would be lifting it into the light and scrutinizing the icons and the quality of its carving and engraving. He would be scratching the wood with his long fingernails to see that the colour went all the way through and was not just tourist-curio boot-polish. He would be sniffing it to test if it smelled like nine-hundred year-old wood.

Gaby found she was holding her breath. She released it in a long sigh. Beneath her the fans threw sinister black shadows on the ceiling.

The door at the end of the room opened. Haran returned to his seat. He was empty-handed.

‘It is an exceptionally fine piece, Ms McAslan. You are a very lucky woman to have found such a treasure with your inexperience. If you do not mind, might I keep it for while? I have a friend who shares my love of African art; I know he would very much like to see your piece. I shall be in contact with you regarding our relationship shortly. I think I can say without any doubt that I look forward to a long and mutually profitable professional patronage. Now, if you will excuse me, I have other matters I must attend to. In the meantime, please accept the hospitality of the Cascade Club. I shall instruct the door staff to render you full service any time you require. A pleasant and good night to you both.’

The posseboy who had opened the door closed it behind them. Music and laughter came up the staircase from the club below. You are a bought woman now; you are on the dark side of the street, Gaby McAslan thought. It was no strange thing. She had always been a bought woman. At least Haran’s terms on her soul seemed easy.

9

Gaby was working at the cast-iron table in the cool shade of the garden trees when Mrs Kivebulaya brought the emissary to meet her.

The messenger spoke in shanty-town Swahili. It offended his cool to speak English, though it was the lingua franca of the Net. Perhaps he disdained being at the call of a woman. Especially a m’zungu woman.

‘He has a communication for you from Haran,’ Mrs Kivebulaya translated, her professional, spiritual and social sensitivities disgraced by being expected to entertain rude boys and data-gangsters on sanctified premises. ‘A token of good faith, he says he has been told to tell you. A gift from Haran to mark the start of a new