TRAVELS IN AFRICA: CONGO, 1964, In Limbo in Léo, Part Two

Fred’s allowed to return to Coq. Is this wisdom? Or folly?

Dinner with Thérèse and a whiny Martine. Thérèse orders her an avocado and a Pepsi and Martine is momentarily happy, smiling, looking about her, her legs dangling from the restaurant chair. When her order comes, she grins and her eyes seem as big as the avocado itself. Contentedly she begins to spread the avocado onto a piece of bread; she sips at her Pepsi with a flirtatious smile. But before we adults have finished, she is wiggly and tired. Half the avocado lies untouched on her plate.

Thérèse has had to speak to her: “Sois sage, ma fille-fille. Viens, ma poulette, sois sage pour Maman.” Twice Martine’s face has crumbled at these encouragements; she’s looked down into her lap and dissolved into tears. Poor little kid. It’s terrible to watch. There’s no frustration, no fight, in her tears. They’re abject, worn-out beyond fighting. It’s worse for her now that her brothers have gone to school. Sometimes she plays with little girls she doesn’t know or goes to the hotel rooms of other refugees from Coq or gets dragged along on errands.

It’s been hard on Thérèse, too. Late one afternoon I passed by to say hello. Martine answered the door. There was no light on inside. Thérèse was sitting beside the tape recorder, listening to music, staring into the darkness. I’d never seen her this way before: depressed, worrying, wondering if Jules is all right, if Coq is safe, wondering what will become of them and of all they’ve tried to do in the Congo. She and the kids were not sleeping well. They’d brought no blankets and after Coq Léo seems chilly at night.

In addition, Thérèse has had headaches. I’ve dropped in several times without realizing about them. She always dissembles so well. That afternoon after I came in, she perked up, turned on the lights, gave me a cup of tea. As we drank the tea, she showed me once more the snapshots of the house and the kids in Namur.

At times my relationship with Thérèse gets a little confused. It’s something we’re both aware of, something both of us control. But still it’s there. Often I’m grateful for Martine’s presence. I know what I was able to do for the Andrés has meant a great, great deal. I just wish Jules could have shared in it. And I wish this other didn’t intrude.

But now, in the restaurant, despite Martine, Thérèse is in good form, pleased I’m going back to Coq. Happy that I’m getting the chance so many of their friends in ‘60 did not get: of proving myself (even if only to myself). I tell her of my concern that I will be in Coq when Tootie thinks me safe in Europe. She smiles and cocks her head. “As Jules’ mother says: ‘It causes me worry, but I’m glad to have sons like that.’” She gives me a letter for Jules asking for his approval, she tells me, of her plan to return to Coq on Friday.

Back at the Cliffords where I’m staying in the basement apartment, Hank follows me downstairs. I’ve just said goodnight and thanked him and Bea for their hospitality to a refugee under the perplexing circumstances of their sixth baby’s arrival and their efforts to pack effects to return to the States. Hank wants to discuss my efficiency rating. He had the task of reviewing Tom’s report and has apparently toned down Tom’s enthusiasm. He’s suggested that the Agency may want to wait another year before giving me what I consider a virtually automatic promotion. Typical Clifford. Always a friendly insertion of the knife. He asks for my comments. I make a couple of hesitant, careful beginnings. He squashes them immediately and I let it go at that.

Absolutely horrible night. Most discouraged by the interview with Hank. What does one have to do to get ahead in this accursed Agency? I’ve just talked my way into risking my life for the damn outfit only to be told I may have to wait a year for promotion. I try to think well of Hank. Not easy. By the time I’ve finished packing, I’m thinking of other things.

Still a horrible night. No water in the apartment’s cold water bathroom. The alarm clock clicks like a metronome in an echo chamber. There’s still a whisper of it after I’ve set it on the stairs leading to the bathroom. The baby who, Hank says, is “already sleeping clear through till morning” cries sporadically through the night. This cruelty to the newborn seems of a piece with telling me I’m not yet fit for promotion. Who the hell has six kids these days? I do pushups to tire my body and bring sleep.

Whereas I didn’t think I could live with the sense of disgrace this morning, now I can’t rest because of fear. What if I get caught in Coq by the rebels? What if I’m held hostage like those five guys in Stanleyville? No word has been heard from them for weeks. The fear is like a heavy weight along my back. I’m concerned that the family should think me in Europe. I want to feel the support of their thoughts. I pray, reciting quotations I’ve known since I was a child. At times it seems like a trance. Repeating quotations, I sink into slumber, then I’m jarred from it by the feeling that I must continue the repetitions. I’m up before the alarm clock, feeling better in the gray, beginning light of dawn. No sweat. I’m looking forward to getting back to Coq. Wonder at what it was inside myself that caused the emotional gymnastics in the dark. Maybe it’s partly Léo. I haven’t slept calmly since I arrived.

[Reading these notes 45 years after the events, I have complex reactions: That, on the one hand, we did leave Coq too early. But that, on the other, risking our necks in a Congo that was just beginning its long slide into chaos would have been extraordinarily foolish. That a guy has to regard machismo as valid because it may mark his reputation. But that it, too, is very foolish. That Tom Madison showed extraordinary grace in not throttling me. (However, one evening over dinner when Sally’d had too much to drink, she grew very ugly in her denunciations of me.) That the young officer portrayed here – me – was both a laudable example of American idealism and an incredible pain in the ass.]

What was Donanne doing at this time? Having returned from a summer with her parents at their Foreign Service posts in Cambodia and Malaysia, Donanne arrived at UCLA to begin a year-long master’s degree course in Library Science.

Next post: Fred manages to return to Coq. But is it too late to do any good?

TRAVELS IN AFRICA: CONGO, Return to Coq, 1964, Part One

Following an evacuation from the USIS post in Coquilhatville in the northwest Congo, Fred Hunter agitated to return. The embassy finally agreed that he could go back. Here’s his account of what happened when he did:

A long low flight to Coq. Besides Maj. Kohlbrand, the Assistant Army Attaché, and his crewman, we are three: an Embassy political officer, the Léo-based manager of Sédec stores, and me. The Sédec man has very kindly agreed to instruct his people that I’m to have a space on a steamboat they’ve got hidden on the river as a means of escape if the airport gets cut off. If that happens, the river will be the only way out.

Arriving at Coq in Bugsmasher [the embassy’s military attaché plane] we are met on the tarmac by Finance Minister Efambe and other provincial officials, decked out in the garb of their officialdom: dark suits and ties. (Highly placed provincial civil servants are the only people in town who wear ties; ministers the only ones who wear coats.) They have come to greet President Engulu [the provincial governor]. When Efambe realizes that Engulu has once more decided to stay in Leopoldville, a sour look of abandonment spreads across his face. He and the officials leave abruptly.

We are alone now on the tarmac. In the shade of the airport terrace, however, about one hundred yards away, a group of dejected Belgian men, former colons, watches us. They know of our arrival through the Sédec radio net. Examining the group I see that the entire Lions Club seems to be there – except my great friend Jules André. The men speak hardly at all among themselves. The commercial confidence of their earlier reactions to the rebel advance (“Rebels have to eat and buy just like everyone else, don’t they?”) has disappeared. Now their faces are worried, understandably since the rebels keep advancing on Coq and many of their fellow Belgians have already fled. We leave the plane and start toward them. They do not move. They scrutinize us. They stand alone or in pairs, watching us as – it seems to me now – they have watched all American activity since I arrived in Coq not quite a year ago. With neither affection nor open hostility.

Now a figure breaks and moves quickly toward us. Monsieur DeWalsch, conseiller technique to the Provincial President. I have never known him well, but have always liked him. His red hair and ruddy Flemish face shine in the sun as he approaches, his squat frame carried along on an activist’s stride, clad as usual in white: shirt, shorts, knee-socks. A smile bursts through his concern as he greets us with an outstretched hand.

He gives us the news. Rebels now hold the riverbank across from Boende [a long day’s drive to the east]. The ANC has retreated into the town itself. It offered no resistance along the dike road leading through the swamps to the Boende ferry landing. The town is besieged. There’s no will to defend it. By now it has probably fallen.

The Ruki ferry crossing at Ingende lies only seven hours drive from Boende. Once across the Ruki, the rebels can reach Coq in three hours, Coq which is growing ever riper for change. The road is good. The ANC checkpoint at Kalamba will mean nothing.

The place to mount a defense of Coq is at the ferry crossing at Ingende. The gendarmerie has been assigned this position. Can it hold there? Does it have proper arms? Fortunately, a Belgian will have command, the technical adviser Marcus, who with his wife has often swum laps beside me in the pool at dusk. His top assistant will be the only Congolese who seemed tough and unafraid among the frightened men at Efambe’s war council.

If the rebels cross the Ruki at Ingende and head north, they will control the only land escape from Coq. So the important questions are these: Will Coq’s ANC garrison try to hold the road? Will it make a stand at the Wangata Army Camp just outside town? Once in town the rebels can quickly cut off escape by Otraco, the Congo River shipping line. And by air. They’ll place barricades across the long spur of road leading to the airport and oil drums on the strip. That leaves the alternative of staying in Coq or escaping in small boats on the river.

Thus the worried men on the airport terrace.

Next post: Is the local ANC commander competent? Is he loyal?

Respected readers:
You’ll notice something new at the top of the website; a place to subscribe to TIA. About time, you may think. We’ve only been at this almost a year. Happy to welcome you on the travels!

TRAVELS IN AFRICA: CONGO, Return to Coq, 1964, Part Two

Following a precipitate evacuation from the USIS post in Coquilhatville in the northwest Congo, Fred Hunter agitated to return. The embassy finally agreed that he could go back. Here’s his further account of what happened when he did:

Now that the US embassy plane has landed, ANC Major Kwima, commander of the local garrison, comes out to the tarmac to join our talk of Boende. As usual his clothes are so much too big for him that his slight frame seems to float inside them. His face is unlined except from petulance and tattoos. He looks no more than sixteen. There is something about him, more dangerous than simple incompetence, that has grown ever more wild and violent as the rebels have advanced. This quality – what is it? – has made Tom and me tag him “the juvenile delinquent.”

Major Kohlbrand, now finished sizing-up Kwima, looks amused, as if he does not quite believe his eyes. Nonetheless, he agrees to include him on the reconnaissance flight over Boende that he and DeWalsch have just arranged. How will Kwima act, I wonder, under attack? He who has talked so easily of “jusqu’à la mort” – until death. Can Coq rely on him? President Engulu, for one, does not think so. He has tried to issue arms to Europeans. To a man they have refused to accept them. Even for a stand at the airport.

Kohlbrand, DeWalsch and Kwima take off for Boende.

Clustered near the Sureté counter inside the airport building the men of the Lions Club – minus Jules – crowd around us, full of questions. Why such inaction from Léo? Does it know what’s happening in the Equateur? Does the Embassy know? Does Bomboko? Will mercenaries come? Where is Engulu? What will the Embassy do about evacuating Belgians?

Five days ago when Jules informed these same men that a C-130 would be available, the answer was always the same: “There is no question, M. André, of my leaving Coq.” The threat to Boende has worked its change.

The Lions turn their attention to the man from the Sédec grocery chain, seeking one of their own nationality. Nearby Maître Herman wanders a bit, hands in pockets. He advances and attaches himself to me, of whom he was so distrustful when I first arrived (although, of course, he was happy to take rent from the Americans). As Jules has noted in a letter to Thérèse, part of which she read to me, Herman clings like a liana vine. He supports himself by holding onto something strong just as the liana attaches itself to jungle trees. A lawyer by profession, Herman has always struck me as too intelligent to cope with today’s Congo. He is not coping now. He stands fidgeting, the budding belly straining over his belt. His chubby gray face is full of concern. I do not like playing the tree to his vine, but pity proves stronger than irritation. The poor guy’s afraid. He has nothing to do. His wife and children have gone. He cannot practice law in a region rushing headlong into chaos. He wants desperately to leave. But he could not live with the disgrace of being the first Lion to go.

He fidgets next to me as I stand beside the typewriter, the cashbox and my suitcase. I feel terribly silly carrying them into this group of worried men and smile now to Herman to explain their presence. “I have come back to stay,” I tell him.

He is incredulous. “Mais comment?” he asks. “The rebels are at Boende.”

“Then I will stay as long as I can.”

Only a few of us are left at the airport when the Sédec man leaves, siphoning off the majority of the Belgians. Herman offers me a ride into town in the car of his colleague Maître Cabiaux. They take me to the house and park before the gates next to Jules’ office. Even before getting out I can hear banging and Jules’ voice, life going on as usual behind the gates. Cabiaux honks. When the gate opens, Jules looks up from supervising a couple of his men. Great to see him again. He gives me a smile and comes forward, hand outstretched. “Allo, Fret,” he says in English. “Ow or you?”

During the troubles in 1960, as he has told me several times, Jules removed himself from the community, working by day in the courtyard, staying close to home at night. This, he says, is why he suffered so few annoyances and was able to stay on. I realize that he has begun to live the same way again when, after greeting me, I see him look distrustfully at Cabiaux and Herman. “At a time like this,” he says to them, “there are two good things: to have work and to have gates to work behind.” His tone is challenging, which is his way of answering criticisms. Having gotten his family to safety, he wants only to be left alone to hang on.

In the office, where Jules takes me after Herman and Cabiaux leave, he tells me that he will be returning to the river house shortly after noon. With typical generosity he assumes automatically that I will take my meals with him. Thus he does not bother to invite me. He gives me the keys to the house and my car, the latter of which I have already noticed parked as I left it in the courtyard. He gives me a little news of the Center. “Your boys took down the sign,” he says.

“Yes,” I nod. “Thérèse told me. She said I should be tough with them.”

Inside the house nothing has been touched. Returning is like stepping back into a stopped moment of time. A chair cushion is overturned. A book lies open on the lamptable. Someone’s ashes sit cold in the glass tray. The jars that Thérèse left for drinking glasses when I first moved in cluster on the dining table where they were when I told Joseph not to pack them. Some are still wrapped in newspaper. Strange to look into this mirror with its retained image of Thursday’s rush and disorganization.

“After you left,” Jules explains, seeing but misreading my reaction, “Thérèse was so tired from helping Sally that she did not clean up.” He shrugs. So no one has gone over the house with Joseph as I had hoped they would. I wonder if he has helped himself to any of the things the Andrés lent me. Jules confirms that he has found the radio about which he wrote Thérèse in Léo, then leaves saying he will see me at lunch. The two books I have marked for return to the Catholic Mission’s Library (Hoelstaert’s collection of Mongo folk sayings and the pamphlet “La Philosophie Bantoue”) still sit on the sideboard. I cannot, however, find Epitaphe pour un Ennemi about which Thérèse had so often raved that I was finally persuaded to borrow it.

In the kitchen Joseph has cleared out the refrigerator. That was expected. Looking at its empty shelves I remember wolfing down the crêpes he prepared the last day (he was proud of – and I complimented him on – his initiative). He’s made off with the water filter. That’s a surprise. On the shelf remains Thérèse’s brown teapot out of which I had my morning Kivu tea (instant coffee being hard to find and therefore saved for guests). Beside it lies the tiny passe-thé to strain out the tea leaves. I’m relieved to see these André possessions, especially after noticing Thérèse in Léo serving tea boiled in a sauce pan and passing it through a spaghetti strainer. Two of the lamps I balked at letting Sally Madison pack still stand in the living room. A year’s supply of toilet paper sits on the alcove bed. It never got packed.

At the UN HQ World Health doctors called in from the bush are playing ping-pong in the lounge. Rishi and Samy are in the little PX (this is the first time I’ve ever seen it), leaning on its counters for all the world like a couple of Indian merchants. They seem the same as always, unconcerned by The Situation, even by the threat to Boende. Rishi does wonder how he’s going to evacuate the last of the UN trucks with rumors floating around that Otraco may no longer accept cargo. As for himself and Samy and the doctors? He’s waiting for radio instructions from Léo. It’s reassuring – almost amusingly so – to see this calm.

At the Center “taken down the sign” seems hardly an adequate description of what has happened, judging from the wall above the facade. It’s a mess. With a little patience and control the boys could have unscrewed the individual letters. Instead they yanked them out. Chunks of plaster were torn from the wall. It looks bullet-spattered. The paint is gashed and scarred. Before going in I take a long look and assume a consciously disgusted expression, although my real reaction is resignation. This is undoubtedly a negative approach, criticizing the locals even before seeing them, but I’m most unhappy with what I see.

Even when it’s in full operation, this little Center is largely a symbol. Without officer supervision, that’s all it is: a symbol of America, of America’s link with Africa, of American encouragement of and involvement in Congolese striving for stability, development, nationhood and broadened contacts with the world. Maybe if we had simply closed the Center and left, it would still symbolize those things.

But not now. Our precipitate withdrawal and this fear-driven denuding of the facade says all the wrong things. To Congolese it says (1) “The Americans are afraid;” and (2) “The rebels must be strong if the Americans are so afraid;” and (3) “The Americans have deserted you; that proves they were never really interested in you.” What else will a Congolese think when he looks at this wall?

I psych myself up to go inside, wondering what my reception will be.

Next post: A change of sentiment in Coq. The town now seems pro-rebel.

TRAVELS IN AFRICA: CONGO, Return to Coq, 1964, Part Three

Following an evacuation from the USIS post in Coquilhatville in the northwest Congo, Fred Hunter agitated to return. The embassy finally agreed that he could go back. Here’s his further account of what happened when he did:

When I arrive at the Center, I see that the boys yanked the letters of our sign out, tore chunks of plaster from the wall. Before going in, I assume a disgusted expression. My real reaction, though, is resignation. I psych myself up to enter, wondering what my reception will be.

Inside I greet the boys. Even before I appeared outside they knew I was in town; Africans seem always to know such things. N’Djoku, Edouard and several library clients watch me enter. Ahenga sits tensely in studied idleness at the check-out desk. We shake hands all around, but without friendship. After my performance before the facade, the greetings are sullen. I go into my routine of displeasure, asking, “Where are the letters?” The others watch as Edouard shows them to me stacked in a heap in that junkhouse storeroom across from the radio shack. Obviously nothing can be done with them now. One is broken. Screws writhe at the ends of them. The plastic dowlings that held them from the wall have been lost.

“Je n’aime pas ca,” I say returning.

“What did you want us to do?”

Looking at Ahenga, I hardly recognize the face of this man whom I first refused a job because his obsequiousness made my flesh creep. He tells me with his look that I am his enemy. His face contorts with hatred. “The day after you left,” he cries excitedly, “we were threatened. They said, ‘When the rebels come, you will be the first to be killed.’”

The others corroborate this, all talking at once. I believe them. We’ve known all along that dissident elements were operating in Coq. The day after we evacuated, Radio Stan congratulated Coq for “ridding itself of the Americans.” That means organized rebels with communications equipment.

There’s no point in pursuing this with them. Was there any point, I wonder, in showing my displeasure? I do, after all, sympathize with their reaction. Still there seems some obligation, as long as one’s working with these people, to insist on disciplined reactions. So that someday they will unscrew the letters instead of simply ripping them off.

But none of that seems to matter now with the rebels in Boende.

I tell Edouard to watch the library and invite the others into the office. There I try to calm their fears. I remind them that we have never asked them to endanger themselves by staying at the Center. If the danger required removing the letters, then that was more danger than we wanted them to be in. They have no loyalty to the United States beyond that of their jobs; that does not include physical danger. I suggest they answer threats by saying: “I work for the Americans because they pay me. If you pay me, I’ll work for you.” They’re mollified by the prospect of my being around to make decisions for them and become the focus of anti-American feeling.

After our little meeting I look around to see what other changes have been made. The air-conditioner is operating at high, and I’m about to freeze. Ahenga has taken the Director’s chair and N’Djoku mine. While I go over property inventory, Ahenga sits at his desk and busily reads the brochure on American aid to the Congo. I regard him with amusement and affection; at least he is trying. I realize that this is what it must have been like in 1960. Congolese found themselves sitting in the Belgians’ chairs – without the slightest idea of what to do. There has been an increase in outward symbols of authority: a confusion of ill-lettered and unnecessary announcements now block the windows in the door. N’Djoku has resumed morning film showings and has transferred the projector to the theater itself. In view of the 3:00 pm curfew, the boys have in a happy wedding of convenience and wisdom begun closing the Center at 2:30. Edouard has moved his family from the boyerie to the communes. So it goes.

I return from the Cultural Center to the André house and take my suitcase upstairs. Last Thursday’s mess lies untouched in my bedroom. Again this feeling of stepping back into an historical still life. Armoire doors hang open. A fistful of spare keys lies spread out across the dressing table. The cabinet seems quite empty without Notre Dame de la Toilette, the Memling madonna who has watched with dignity over the tiny toilet cell and the one in my apartment in Brussels. I miss her now, but she could not have been left behind.

I pull the sheets from my suitcase and make the bed. The armoire’s state of nakedness tempts me to settle in: its empty shelves, unused hangers, abandoned plastic bags. But is there any real reason to unpack?

From the bedroom window I look down at the town. How can one guess what’s going to happen here? Coq never gives hints of its mood. Its face never changes. On the surface it’s always only what it seems: a swamp town, a tiny toe-hold of man-things in the jungle, broiling in the sun. At its center, along the river, lies an unfocused scattering of corrugated roofs and white-washed walls: the European houses. Behind them stretch palm-thatch roofs and mud-and-wattle walls: the close-packed cité huts. Below me, across the unrealized concept of a central square, drifts a woman wrapped in swirls of cloth. She carries a carton of bread loaves on her head. She wanders soundlessly across the emptiness, hardly moving at all. Motion does not seem part of life here.

Man seems insignificant in the unchanging landscape: the water, the jungle and the sky. So does noise. The tangle of vegetation absorbs all sound. All morning I’ve been trying to gauge the feeling of the town, but I cannot. This eternal inactivity, this insignificance of man, and the tenuousness of his hold here: these make it impossible to believe that danger is coming. Yet in the week I’ve been gone something has changed. Something has happened. A week ago Congolese sentiment was confused, unformed; it was looking for signals, seeking a direction. I feel now – without being able to say why – that it’s found its alignment. It has moved to the side of the rebels.

What part did our evacuation play in this? It was undoubtedly one of the hand-lines used to read the future.

Nothing has changed on the surface, but this change of sentiment has created a new atmosphere. Rebel sympathizers can surface now. They can threaten our employees at the Center and other Congolese with reprisals. They can bribe or threaten or undermine what’s left of the shaky will of the Army. They can organize, enlist and train cadres. It’s an atmosphere in which that local combustion which we have so long talked about and feared, which has so long been a question mark in our planning, might actually take place. If it did, it would bring danger – possibly death – to non-rebel sympathizers. And if it turned racist or anti-American, to me as well.

I decide not to unpack my bag.

Next post: My lunch with André.

Addenda:

#1: A recent post referred a Coq government official Finance Minister Efambe. TIA received this comment from Paul Efambe y’Olenga:
“Dear Sir, very interesting story! i am his son and i was 1 month away from being born after my parents fled coq!
“Strange!
“p”
Mr. Efambe: Mbote! What a thrill to learn that you read TIA!

#2: Michael Hoyt, the American officer trapped in Stanleyville while I was stationed in Coq, reads these posts. He’s asked that I be more specific about dates. So let me explain what you’re reading and when it was written.

TIA’s pre-evacuation accounts all come from a letter written over several days. It was started in Coq on Wednesday, September 2, 1964, and runs for five pages single spaced. Then it breaks off at the bottom of page five, mid-sentence. The next page is dated Leo, Sunday, 6 September. It suggests that we evacuated Coq Thursday, September 3, 1964. The letter continues: “”Well, now it’s Monday evening and I’m really pretty sick of thinking about all this.”

The posts about the return to Coq come from a document – undated, alas! – titled “MORE NOTES ON THE SECOND EVACUATION FROM COQ.” It runs about 17 single-spaced pages and includes remembered dialogue. I returned to Coq Tuesday 9/8/64 or Wednesday 9/9/64.

These evacuations were a Big Deal for me. That’s why the enormous effort to get down all the details. Happily, TIA gives me a chance to share them. I assume I wrote the notes while in Leo before going to Europe. The next letter in the notebook is dated Brussels, Friday, 18 Sep 64, and I seem already to have spent most of a week in Paris.

Michael has written a fascinating account of his experiences in Stanleyville: Michael P. E. Hoyt, Captive in the Congo, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, MD, 2000.

TRAVELS IN AFRICA: CONGO, Return to Coq, 1964, Part Four

Following an evacuation from the USIS post in Coquilhatville in the northwest Congo, Fred Hunter agitated to return. The embassy finally agreed that he could go back. Here’s his further account of what happened when he did:

Having put in a good morning’s work, Jules is pleased at lunch. With himself. With the presence of company. With having shown Cabiaux and Herman that he was working while they were worrying. “What’s Fret going to drink?” he asks as I come in. “Un petit whiskey?”

“Un petit gin-tonic Michejda,” I answer. It’s my usual request, a code phrase devised by the now-departed Polish Dr. Michejda who was uncomfortable having someone ask for a soft drink in his house.

Jules pours “un petit whiskey” and sets it before me. Then he brings my usual Pepsi-Cola and with a playful smile takes the little whiskey for himself and raises it to me. “A votre santé, Fret.”

“A la vôtre.”

Jules, who loves his tranquility, settles into his chair. Ah! He has been savoring the life he can now permit himself to lead. Thérèse and the children are safe. They have been away so short a time that their absence is still a vacation. A bachelor now, Jules is more talkative than usual. He thanks me again for the color film I gave him just before evacuating. As a surprise for Thérèse, he has spent one long evening photographing her paintings. It was obviously fun for him, the camera challenging his technical side, the task allowing him to be with her even while she was gone. He recounts it now in a rush of words and gestures. He shows me the camera, the settings he used, where he placed the paintings, how he lit them, even how and where he stood to press the shutter.

“When I think of the progress Thérèse has made,” I say, ‘it’s really amazing.”

He mutters his agreement, still the technician absorbed in the mechanism of the camera.

I’m amused because we’re talking about different things. I’m thinking of Thérèse’s progress in technique, progress that extends from those crude Bikoro sketches that Ron Sallade and I shook our heads about to the oil that somehow for me caught the real essence of Coq. For Jules it all seems largely something technical, a record for a record’s sake, like a secretary’s fascination with orderly files. Then he looks up from the camera. “I wanted to have a record of it,” he says and I realize he is preserving something he has seen in a Thérèse I’ll never know.

Loka, the only houseboy now, serves lunch and disappears, leaving dinner on the stove. We go to the table. “Your place has been changed,” Jules notes and I take Thérèse’s usual place facing the windows. We talk of the river. And of the dredge which scoops sand from the river shallows for the bricks that Jules and Pierre Bogaerts manufacture. It is working again. We touch on the news, but veer away from it quickly. Its presence casts a heaviness over the meal. Underneath his surface ebullience – which he tries to maintain – Jules is much concerned. At one point he says: “You know, Fret, if things turn out badly, there is a place for you in the canot.”

“What would I have ever done in the Congo,” I ask, “without you Andrés to get me out of trouble?” We laugh. It is so true!

Later, he mentions again how good it is to have work and gates to work behind. “In 1960,” he tells me once more, “while the others were sitting in bars and running from house to house, I worked and stayed out of sight.”

We fall silent for a time. Jules sits sideways in his chair and follows my eyes out onto the river. It is gray this afternoon under the darkening clouds that gather and drift on now that the rainy season has started. A file of water hyacinth clumps moves by, then a huge mass of them, almost a floating island. We discuss its size and fall silent again.

Finally Jules asks: “Could I send out some of Thérèse’s paintings when the plane that brought you goes back to Leo?”

Of course, I agree. The plane should be returning soon from Boende and will go on almost immediately to Léo. “We can address the package to Madison.”

“Of all the things we have here,” he answers looking around at what there is after a dozen years in the Congo, “those are, I think, what she’d most hate to lose.”

Jules hurries off to choose and wrap the paintings of Thérese he wants sent to Léo on the attache plane. I return to the Center where it is less than 45 minutes before the 2:30 closing hour. The boys and I review the disposition of expensive items of equipment. The stove that arrived for my house remains in the storage garage. Ahenga and N’Djoku have each taken one of the newly-arrived air-conditioners to their homes for “safe-keeping.” (To what extent has our influence made possible this fine example of grass roots democracy?) I tell the boys that the air-conditioners must be back tomorrow. If things grow worse, we will try to send them out via Otraco.

Instruction from Sally Madison: hunt for “an intimate item.” On the way to the airport, I stop by the Madisons’ house to check on things and to undertake the search. (After a year of down-to-earth living in the Congo, “an intimate item” seems a strange name for what Tom explained was a missing brassiere.) As usual Louis greets me, all smiles. He hurries over the gravel on bare feet to unlock the gate, as if my honk had catapulted him out of the kitchen. “Oui, Monsieur,” he grins, “tout va bien.” The house is clean and in good order. But, alas! I cannot find the intimate item. If it was actually forgotten (it would seem to be about the only thing that was), Louis’s woman is now strutting around with it in the market.

Next post: The fall of Boende.

TRAVELS IN AFRICA: CONGO, Return to Coq, 1964, Part Five

Following an evacuation from the USIS post in Coquilhatville in the northwest Congo, Fred Hunter agitated to return. The embassy finally agreed that he could go back. Here’s his further account of what happened when he did:

At the airport the Lions Club members who watched our arrival once again wait for Bugsmasher. But the atmosphere is quite different. While this morning they seemed merely a cluster of individuals and pairs, this afternoon they form a group. Many of them sit on the waist-high walkway that leads from the check-in building to the tower and meteorological station, absorbing the brilliant sunlight. They joke quietly. More than anything, they seem like a group of management people in a suburban factory enjoying the sun and the last minutes of lunch hour. The bell has not yet rung for the afternoon shift. It will not – neither for them nor for me – until something more is known of Boende.

Splendid sun! I, too, give myself to it, feel its warmth on my body. What a relief to escape from Léo: from that atmosphere of parasites, from the confusion of that office, from seeming everyone’s responsibility and no one’s friend. Léo has never been anything for me but a place to change planes.

I gaze out across the runway and see at the beginning of the jungle the tall bokungu tree that gave me my first real impression of Africa. As I look, the assembled Lions chuckle at some joke. Although I am not one of them, I feel right being back in Coq. If I belong anywhere in the Congo, it is here. Where I have a job and perhaps a contribution to make. I’ll take a swim later this afternoon, work my muscles into the pleasure of feeling tired again. Energy has been clogging like sediment inside me ever since I left here.

Fifteen minutes pass. Where is Bugsmasher? Jules arrives with his packet of paintings.

The joking slackens. The men glance ever more frequently at their watches. The plane is now half an hour overdue. It seems less and less likely that the news from Boende will be good.

One of the Lions checks with the control tower. He returns with the report that there has been no pre-landing contact with Bugsmasher. Walking at his side is one of the tower operators, a Congolese. “This fellow,” says the Lion, indicating the Congolese, “says he heard the Boende tower talking to Ikela.”

“To Ikela?” The group crowds around the Congolese. [{Ikela lay halfway between Boende and Stanleyville.]

“What did you hear?”

“The Boende tower said: ‘Ikela, Ikela,’” answers the Congolese, trying to repeat the conversation exactly, “‘there’s an unknown airplane flying over Boende. Can you identify it?’”

“How long ago was that?”

The Congolese consults his watch, “An hour ago.”

“What did Ikela say?”

“Ikela didn’t know anything about the plane. So the two towers talked about it for a while.” The Congolese shrugs. “Then about other things.”

“Boende has fallen,” someone says.

The Embassy political officer and I step aside to huddle together. The civilian authorities in town, he tells me, can talk of nothing but reinforcements of arms and men – even when a shipment of arms arrived only yesterday for the defense of Ingende. He’s concerned about the quality of leadership left in Engulu’s absence. Rumors – which cannot be checked, of course – contend that rebels have had regular contacts with a key minister, one of the two or three who remained loyal to Engulu when the cabinet tried to depose him.

But more than anything else he’s concerned about Major Kwima. He claims Kwima is a member of some influence in the MNC/L, the Lumumbist party which is providing political leadership for the rebellion from Brazzaville. So, besides the question of the major’s competence, there’s now the question of his loyalty. This, I realize, is what Tom and I have suspected without ever previously putting our fingers on it. General Mobutu has been cautioned several times, the political officer tells me, to replace Kwima before the danger grows too great to the province. He has promised to act.

We hear the shrill whirr of the warning siren and as one body the group of us starts out toward the terrace on the runway side of the building. The fire truck starts out toward the tarmac. We scan the sky, see a dot appear in it, watch it grow into a plane and land.

DeWalsch and Kohlbrand dismount in a state of excitement. Kwima seems spent. “We got our tails shot at over Boende,” says Kohlbrand, laughing a little as one does at the end of a roller coaster ride. He crouches to look for bullet holes in the plane’s belly. “Good thing those monkeys don’t know how to shoot.”

Satisfied with the condition of his plane, he gives the political officer and me a systematic briefing. The rebels have crossed the river. Boende is definitely theirs. He can only guess as to whether there was a battle. He suspects not. He was surprised to see the number of men wearing what appeared to be ANC uniforms. These may have been taken from soldiers captured or killed. Or the men wearing them may be turncoats from Stanleyville. “Or from Boende?” He nods. “Quite possible.”

“What about Kwima?” asks the political officer.

We look over at him talking to some of his officers a little distance from us on the tarmac. He seems sober, spent by the excitement.

“He laughed like a maniac the entire time we were over the town.”

“Why?”

“Fear maybe. Or immaturity. Maybe he just got a kick out of watching from a low-flying plane. He kept laughing and shouting: ‘Look at them run! Look at them run!’”

“Think maybe he was glad to see Boende fall?”

“That had occurred to me, too.”

The plane gets ready to leave. I stick Jules’ package into the tiny luggage compartment and ask the political officer to have it delivered to Tom Madison. Kohlbrand watches me and laughs. “Well, Fred old boy, have a big time here!”

It does seem funny to come back to stay the day Boende falls. I laugh with him. “Don’t get too far away now.”

“Just give us a call when you need us.”

“I’ll send a note down the river in a bottle.”

“That might be the fastest way!” We shake hands all around. No sweat, I tell myself as the plane taxies out to the runway. Still I feel a little uneasy as I watch it fly out of sight.

Next post: Coquins want Fred to call for a rescue plane.

TRAVELS IN AFRICA: CONGO, Return to Coq, 1964, Part Six

Following an evacuation from the USIS post in Coquilhatville in the northwest Congo, Fred Hunter agitated to return. The embassy finally agreed that he could go back. Then rebels take a nearby town Boende. Here’s his further account of what happened:

Later, when I go out to the pool, the old colon Lermusiaux sits alone on a bench watching his two mulatto daughters swim. We wave. He asks me questions about news from Stanleyville that I cannot answer. I swim my usual twenty laps: six sets of breaststroke, backstroke, freestyle plus two rest laps at the end. As always the backstroke is the most pleasant. Then one can watch the magnificent clouds of Africa.

Back home, I am about to throw myself down for a nap when a car stops in front of the house. There’s a loud banging at the door. Peeking through the windows downstairs, I see that it is Herman. The fall of Boende has had its expected result. I know what Herman has come to ask. Cabiaux stands behind him, obscured in the shadows.

“Entrez, entrez, je vous en prie.”

Herman shuffles in. “Bonsoir, M. Oontaire.” The pout he wears in my presence (as if Americans smelled bad) is more than usually pronounced. Cabiaux, his fellow lawyer, follows at a distance. The perfunctory handshakes. Herman looks around the room as if Americans’ homes also emitted foul odors.

“Asseyez-vous, s’il vous plait. I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can offer you to drink.”

They sit down, Herman’s elbows anchored to his knees, his face more drawn with worry than when I saw him this morning. Cabiaux settles into his chair, crosses a calf over the opposite knee and puts his hand over his mouth.

“What news?” I ask.

Herman leans forward as if bracing himself and purses his lips. “Maître Cabiaux and I have talked to a number of Europeans this afternoon.” He looks toward his colleague. If Cabiaux has come to lend his support, he does it only through his presence. He gives Herman nothing else, not even a nod. I recall that Thérèse disapproves of Cabiaux. She claims that when his wife and children evacuated to Belgium in 1960, he took an African mistress.

I look from one man to the other. An interesting relationship. They have never particularly seemed friends before. Is the reluctant colleague Cabiaux simply an unhappy brother’s keeper to Herman? I think not. He seems not quite merely Herman’s chauffeur. Yet, as he makes clear by remaining silent, neither does he wish to be considered the sharer of his opinions. Cabiaux would not, probably could not, I feel, bring himself to ask for the evacuation plane Herman will soon request. Yet he evidently wants it made available. Why else has he come to help Herman do what he could not do alone?

Herman continues. “Everyone feels that things look very bad now that Boende has fallen.”

I nod, but give no more encouragement than that. It is not pleasant to see a man as frightened as Herman. But is it better to be like Cabiaux, too proud to appear concerned in front of other men even in so dangerous a situation as this one? Too proud to ask for a plane, but not too proud to help a frightened man do it?

“All the men agree that the women and children must be taken out.”

Cabiaux stares from his corner, his hand still over his mouth.

I ask, “Is anyone going to defend the ferry crossing at Ingende?”

“The gendarmerie.”

“Can they hold it?”

“They’re Congolese. Have they held anywhere else? You see how well they held the crossing at Boende.”

“Will Marcus be leading them?”

“Yes. But he is only one man.”

“The gendarmerie captain, the Congolese, looks like a good man to me.” I play down my personal concern because I’m wary of the request that’s coming. There’s real danger in asking too soon, in calling for C-130s before people are truly scared and thus actually ready to board them. I doubt that their readiness has matured yet, no matter how many Belgians nodded their heads when Herman visited them and voiced his fears. I wonder how ready Cabiaux is to send out his wife and children.

Herman shifts his weight with frustration. “Nobody can defend Ingende without arms.”

“I thought arms arrived yesterday for its defense.”

“They were delivered to the ANC.”

“And the ANC won’t give them to the gendarmerie?”

Cabiaux speaks for the first time. “The ANC won’t fight at Ingende and it won’t give arms to the people who will.”

We have to grunt a laugh, Cabiaux and I. Herman sits with the pout on his face. “Ça, c’est vraiment le Congo, n’est-ce pas?”

Yes, that’s the Congo all right. If it’s true (which seems highly probable), things are worse than I suspected. Still, I’m wary of crying wolf. If I call for a plane, I will be ordered to leave.

“There’s nothing between Coq and Ingende,” Herman continues. “And the gendarmerie can’t hold the ferry while it remains in Coq.” We are silent for a moment. “The women and children must be gotten out,” he says. Cabiaux and I nod. “Could you ask your embassy for one of the big planes to come and take them out?”

“When? Tomorrow? The day after?” I look at Cabiaux.

“The rebels could be here tomorrow,” grumbles Herman.

“How many are there: women and children?”

“Two hundred.”

Cabiaux nods.

“How many Europeans all together?”

“Maybe five hundred.”

“How many men will want to leave?”

Herman assumes a speculative expression. “Probably most of the Belgian Technical Assistance.” He names several men. Cabiaux questions one of them. “Oui, oui, he told me he intended to go,” Herman replies hastily. Then after a pause: “Me – I don’t know – I will probably go, too.”

“I’ll send a message,” I promise. When I walk them to the door Herman looks relieved and Cabiaux noncommittal. “I’m here without a transmitter,” I say. Poor Herman looks sick at this news. “I’ll go through the UN. We’ve sent messages that way before.”

A strange approximation of English is squawking out of the KWM-2 receiver when I arrive across the street at the UN. Herman might be disappointed at the message I carry in my hand. It informs the Embassy that a growing number of foreign nationals is getting ready to evacuate, that the military situation seems to be worsening, that C-130s may be needed tomorrow or the next day.

The receiver is squawking in vain. The office is empty. I throw a hip over a desk corner to wait, glad I don’t regularly have to decipher messages through the blur of static and accents.

When he returns, Mr. Rishi and I greet each other in shouts. He gestures against the noise and we laugh, sharing a mutual confusion about radio. His total unconcern about The Situation is reassuring. “If Rishi is so calm,” one keeps asking himself, “why am I so excited? Am I panicky? Or is he misinformed?” He agrees to send the message. I head out to have dinner with Jules.

Next post: My dinner with André.

TRAVELS IN AFRICA: CONGO, Return to Coq, 1964, Part Seven

Following an evacuation from the USIS post in Coquilhatville in the northwest Congo, Fred Hunter agitated to return. The embassy finally agreed that he could go back, which he did. Then rebels took a nearby town Boende and moved toward Coq. Here’s his further account of what happened:

Occasional bursts of excitement punctuate Jules’ mood of terrible depression at dinner. I get only hints of this mood as he walks along the terrace to greet me, Méteore at his heels. As he often does in the evenings, he’s wearing a clean pair of white shorts, white knee socks and a long-sleeved white shirt. The cut of the colon shorts has always seemed odd to me: huge leg openings – for air circulation? – which hang only to the middle of the thigh. To me their effect has always been to emphasize Jules’ slightness. Tonight he seems fragile. The muscle and bone (there isn’t a scrap of fat) do not look husky enough for the times; the white shirt hangs. The legs, topped with the shorts’ excess of white cloth, appear thin and easily breakable. I wonder again how much larger he’d have been if his growth had not come during the war when food was scarce and coal hard to come by in winter.

As we shake hands and go inside, I see the depression in his eyes. Something makes me feel momentarily that our whole friendship will have to start again tonight from scratch. Jules paces and fondles Méteore. “What to drink?” he asks.

I shrug. He moves nervously, unnecessarily about the room.

Nervous I am not. I have no need to be and am a contrast to Jules. He may lose everything; I can lose almost nothing. The United States government stands behind me with special responsibilities toward me, as one of its representatives. It will use considerable of its tremendous resources to keep me from danger. Who stands behind Jules? A tiny nation that has citizens trapped in pockets all over the Congo.

“I have some champagne.” Jules lights up and I watch the first excitement burst from him. “Ca, c’est mon ressort. That stuff really gives me bounce. I have two bottles. We must have them!”

I laugh at this suddenly ebullient Jules. He laughs, too, delighted at this magnificent idea crashing through his gloom. But before getting the bottles, he must tell me, of course, how he happens to have them. A French UN expert, needing a frigo repaired, came naturally to the only electrician in town. Jules promised the repairs. But when one is the only electrician in town and there’s so much work to do, one occasionally forgets a professional promise. (Jules might admit this – as the glint in his eye almost does now – but it would be disastrously impolitic ever to suggest it.) To help his memory, the Frenchman offered him two bottles of champagne, a very good reminder, indeed.

But as things work out, we do not have the champagne. Jules takes a little whiskey and shows me where there is fruit juice in the frigo. It’s been a long time since either of us has cooked for another person. We laugh from time to time at our efforts to prepare what Loka has left. In spite of this, however, the atmosphere returns to what we’ve been feeling all day: uncertainty, discouragement, depression.

While we eat, we talk of the canot and of specific preparations for an escape on the river. How much food could we take? How much gas and oil? After our Sunday caught in the swamp channel in that windy rainstorm, shelter seems important. What could we rig up? If the rebels actually come, what will be the last moment that we could slip away? Will the Congolese living and working on this strip of riverbank reveal the location of boats they know about? How can we avoid getting cut off with rebels between where we work in town and the boat dock on the outskirts of it?

My mind drifts from these practicalities. It shows me a series of images: Pierre Bogaerts and Jules and I slip the canot into the river on an inky black night. We push off, jump aboard and slide into the current. Rebels shoot at us. We duck, maneuver and make good our escape.

(One summer in the backlands of Yosemite – was I thirteen? – I was one of seven who started hiking from Tuolomne Meadows headed for Mirror Lake. The trail that stretched across rock was badly marked. When at last we lost it, we climbed down into the streambed and followed it along until a thirty-foot drop forced us to turn back. We returned to a pool we had passed that was drying up. We fished in it naked, using tee shirts as seines and caught seventy-five trout that could not escape. After dark we arrived back where we’d started, built a fire and slept in the happiness of our fatigue until someone fetched us at midnight. The crowning experience of my boyhood. As an adolescent Jules ran errands for the Belgian underground.)

Are the boys still locked inside the men? As I listen to Jules, in my mind I see us push off into the night. Part of me delights at the prospect of this adventure. But who will fetch us at midnight?

“A trip like that could be rugged,” I say.

“It might be fun, too,” suggests Jules. We laugh and shrug agreement like companions in an adventure film.

But reality intrudes.

“If my government sends in planes, I’m sure they’ll insist I go out on one of them.”

“Have you called for planes?”

“Not yet.” I tell him of the visit of Herman and Cabiaux. And of the message I’ve sent through the UN.

“This begins to seem more and more like 1960.” Jules sinks back into his depression. I can see him recalling events of that year. Patrice Lumumba campaigned for election in Coq’s central square, making real the prospect of elections and frightening the Europeans. On the day of the vote Jules was in Bumba on one of the last trips he made outside Coq. Tribal foes saw it, so Jules has told me, as an occasion to settle old scores. Six or eight men died in Bumba that day.

In the first days after Independence there was nervous waiting all over the country. In the cités of Coq Congolese workers wanted their fair share of the raises given to government workers. They marched into town. The Force Publique shot into the crowd killing several men. According to the Andrés, the new Provincial President, a Congolese, called the marchers, “That pack of dogs.”

Then in Thysville, south of Léo, the Force Publique mutinied. The mutinies spread. The Europeans panicked. Lines of abandoned cars choked the ferry landing in Léo. Belgians report their countrymen being flown out stacked like cordwood. In Coq, according to Dick Taylor of the DCCM mission, “The Belgians went around armed to the teeth. They tried to persuade us to take weapons and we wouldn’t.” Thérèse left with the children, but Jules stayed, glad to have work and glad to have gates to work behind.

“You haven’t seen any real panic yet,” says Jules. “It’ll start when people realize there’s going to be no defense of Ingende.” He adds, “The running from house to house has already started,” referring to the visits from Herman and Cabiaux.

Jules stares. His flesh seems suddenly to sag. The work and the tension of the last four years, the hoping and the disappointment, have carved their lines. “This should be such a lovely corner of the world,” he says. He looks around at the house. “It was so tranquil here. A little paradise where one could work and make something for himself and give something to this country.”

Thérèse and the children have been back only a little more than a year. They returned because, after three years, it looked as if stability was being restored. Everyone thought so. Since New Year’s there’s been a noticeable increase in goods in the stores. Probably half the commercial buildings in town have been repainted.

Jules looks at his hands. The lines seem to grow deeper in his face. It hurts me to see this. And yet I’m glad to see it – in that part of me that cannot mind its own affairs, that has opinions on what’s best for him. Despair is his friend now. He must not let himself get caught as the people did in Stan. Hope is the enemy. It will betray him into staying, into holding on, holding on, holding on.

“Is it more dangerous now, Jules, than it was in ‘60?”

“Oui, oui.” He nods. “There is no question of staying this time.” We have finished dinner and moved from the table. There is some coffee. I sit to pour. Jules paces. “Pierre Bogaerts and I tried to persuade his mother of that this afternoon.”

“She stayed through all of it last time, didn’t she?”

I know which women stayed. They have become almost legendary: Mme Bogaerts, who was not a widow then; Mme Schambourg, the baker’s wife; Mme Devos who left with her husband four or five months ago when they sold their garage.

“And she refuses to leave,” I say.

“Categorically.” He moves back and forth in front of where I’m sitting. “That’s a real kaas-kup, that one. A real cheese-head.”

I laugh, not having heard that expression since I was in Brussels. “I thought that was the Dutch.”

“No, no. There is nothing so stubborn as a flamande when she has made up her mind.” He stops pacing for a moment. “The Walloons are têtes de caillou, stone heads.” He smiles. “I’m one of those.”

“She can’t really intend to stay.”

“I said to her: ‘Madame Bogaerts, you have a responsibility to leave. To your society. If you don’t, you are asking men to risk their lives to save you.” He paces quite nervously now. “That’s the way the soci–’”

Jules stops short. His words choke inside him. He looks at the room, stumbles a bit in turning to see it all. Now he crouches, his hands before him, open as if to grapple an enemy. He flails his arms.

“Everything!” His voice finally bursts through the knot of frustration in his throat. “I’ll burn everything! Everything!” He looks around at it. “A little kerosene.” He stumbles toward the furniture, spreading kerosene in jerky movements from the imagined can in his fist. “Matches!” A swooping gesture as he strikes one, thumb and forefinger fused together. His hand bursts open and the match flies toward fuel-soaked furniture. “Whoosh! Whoosh!” He fires the furniture. “Why let those monkeys have it? Why should I give all my work to them?”

Abruptly he stops. He looks about him and at me. And goes into the kitchen.

I’m left alone in this sudden silence with my coffee.

Again this sense of Jules’ fragility, of strength held under tension too long, of the Congo killing him inside. I’m moved by this idea. Its grandeur. To burn it all! Burn everything! Cauterize the Congo’s wounds, then rest and heal and somewhere find the strength to start again.

Jules is still in the kitchen. I wander outside for a moment and rest a foot on the terrace wall. Here there is only silence. And out beyond the light at the edge of the garden only emptiness, darkness. The Congo. The river. But not the daytime river. Not that familiar phenomenon which Thérèse can reduce to brushstrokes, which my eyes can measure and my mind perceive. Not that well-known gray-brown surface carrying its sewage of plants ever wearily on. No, not the daytime river. Not in this silence. Now it’s something more.

In this blackness its presence swirls around me. Its movement now is instinct; it has independent force like emotion. It reaches out to something inside me. A shiver slides along my back. Africa takes hold of me. I shiver again. I hear the beating of its heart. Africa’s dark blood flows past me full of smooth-gliding crocodiles, of man-eating fish, of the secrets of dawas and magic. The river has a primordial life of its own now. It carries along the bones of cannibals and the soul of the Congo nation. And the reversion to savagery that the rebellion has become. How could I trust my destiny to this river?

The door clatters as Jules comes out into the night.

I shiver again. The strong presence of the river diminishes. The moment of dark union passes.

Jules comes beside me. Together we look at the sky.

“The rebels won’t get here tomorrow,” he says. “Maybe not even the next day.” We stand facing the river. “Tomorrow I start loading the barges. With everything I have: clothes, books, furniture. What I can take of the electrical equipment.” He stops a moment, releases a sigh. “I have enough light bulbs to light up Coq for three years.”

For a moment we say nothing.

“I’ll weld the barges shut so no Congolese can open them. I’ll mark them for Bell Telephone Company in Léo and set them adrift. They’ll be waiting when I get onto the river. I’ll collect them and steer them down with me.”

“How long will that take?”

“Two months. Maybe three.” We listen to the night. “But when I get down there, we won’t have lost everything.”

“And the rest?”

“I’ll burn it.” His look is hard. “Why should I leave it for them?”

We look together at the house.

“It will help me navigate if I leave on the river at night. There’ll be soldiers along the banks shooting at anything. I’ll have to travel out behind the islands. At least as far as Wendji. You could see it burning almost that far.”

We look at the night sky. There are no stars now. Rain will come tonight or tomorrow morning. Just within the thrust of the light at the garden edge a pirogue drifts by. Two fishermen stand in it. One crouches working nets over its edge. The other leans forward, slips his paddle silently into the dark water and pulls against it. Méteore growls in his throat from over near the kitchen.

“Fret…” Jules smiles. “This experience is good for your formation. But me…”

“Deja formé, huh?”

“Already formed. Since several years.”

It is time for the curfew and the mosquitoes have begun to pick us. We walk toward the cars.

“Jules…” We shake hands. “Merci beaucoup.”

“Dormez, bien, Fret.”

“You get some good rest, too.”

He smiles skeptically as if I am pulling his leg. He waves and watches me to the gate.

Ten minutes later I’m in bed, the odor of insecticide fading in the darkness. I listen to the night. Nothing stirs except air carrying the coming rain. All is quiet. I will sleep better here than I have in Léo. In the man-flooded corner of the square that has reverted to marsh, frogs sense the rain. They grunt hoarse lovecalls. All is quiet now except this and my own sense of what that dark river is bringing toward us.

What was Donanne doing at this time? Having returned from a summer with her parents at their Foreign Service posts in Cambodia and Malaysia, Donanne arrived at UCLA to begin a year-long master’s degree course in Library Science.

Next post: Looting starts in Coq. It’s time to get out. Fred calls for a plane. But the ANC commander refuses to let anyone board the C-130 once it arrives.