that has been inflicted on her. He is young and strong, he will make it work. Someone will show compassion in this country.
He has been thinking it through and has some answers for his father. ‘We can send her to Panzi hospital.’
‘What?’
‘It’s that place in Bukavu where they stitch up rape victims. They can test her for HIV and if they can stitch her up then we can get married.’
‘Oh, and how much is that going to cost? You haven’t got any money, if you hadn’t noticed!’ The loss has had to be shared by Gabriel’s family who are very angry about it.
Eve’s father senses he is onto something here though. Normally they would have to pay a dowry to marry her off anyway, and they know she is damaged goods, so this might be a way out of the problem.
‘Well, we can give some money,’ he suggests. He looks round at his male relatives. They look unenthusiastic but they don’t disagree.
‘Yes!’ Gabriel is encouraged. ‘We could split it – if they give half then I’ll get the other half.’
‘And how are you going to get that? You haven’t got any stock left.’ His father is always hard on him. But his father is also right, his capital has been wiped out.
However, Gabriel has been thinking of something else radical whilst he’s been lying in his hut recovering.
‘I’ll go to the mines! I’ll make a packet there!’
There’s an intake of breath around the circle.
His father looks at him. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, people die in the mines the whole time! The militia will just steal your money.’
‘Well, it’s dangerous everywhere, isn’t it!’ Gabriel glares back at him and jabs a hand towards his bruised and cut face.
Bertrand grumbles and looks down.
Alex wakes up in the morning after his evening of communing with his ancestors and knows that he will make the decision to call Fang.
As soon as he heard the idea of the mission, a certainty arose in his mind that he shouldn’t do it and yet in exactly the same instant another feeling arose in his heart that he would do it. It was really just a matter of time until his rational side came up with a series of arguments to justify the decision.
Who was he trying to kid that he would be happy living the rest of his life as a provincial gentleman, fossicking around in the rose garden pinning up trellises?
Sure he has all the money he needs now but that hasn’t proved to be the point. His dream of domestic contentment is eluding him like smoke: the more he frantically tries to grasp it, the more it dissipates.
Instead, what he finds is that whenever he sits still his cloud of personal demons settles on him like horseflies, biting and goading him to move on. Is this some curse of the Devereuxs? The restlessness that drove his father to drink?
He remembers a line from Latin lessons at school. In The Aeneid it is said of Achilles: ‘His fame and his doom went hand in hand.’
Is that him? Driven on by an aggressive nature, an illustrious history and a need to compensate for the failings of his father, into ever-greater acts of daring that will eventually undo him?
He lies in bed and thinks, ‘Am I afraid of peace? Why must I always be at war?’
In the end he is just like Black Hal, an aggressive character with a need to offset his internal conflicts by imposing control on external anarchy. Kivu will be a brave new world and his personal salvation all rolled into one.
Alex gets up, goes for his run and thinks about the problem as he slogs up a hill.
What was it that Camus said? ‘All great ideas have absurd beginnings.’ They all sound ridiculous when you first hear them because they are so radically different from what has been before. But after the idea has been implemented it becomes the orthodoxy and no one can think of doing it any other way. Maybe Fang’s vision is the new world order for developing countries.
He could call Yamba or Col and just discuss it? They are his two partners in Team Devereux, the mainstays of his military operations. Both are in their late forties so in their company it is Alex who is the young challenger. Yamba Douala is a tall, severe-looking Angolan who fought for the legendary South African 32 Battalion in the long bush war in his country. He is a thinker, he wanted to be a surgeon when he was a boy and is currently using his money from their last operation to set up a health clinic back in his home province in Angola.
Colin Thwaites is a short, aggressive Northerner, formerly a sergeant major in the Parachute Regiment’s elite Pathfinder unit. He is currently using his money from their last operation to get drunk in a large house he has bought for himself outside Blackburn where he grew up.
As Alex comes back down the hill towards the house, he finally resorts to the lowest common denominator approach to the problem.
‘If the Chinese don’t recruit me they will just get someone else to do it. The project is going to happen, so it might as well be me.’ It is not actually a logical argument but in his suggestible state of mind it works for him.
He showers, has breakfast and sits down at his large desk in his study. He picks up the phone and thinks whom he will call first.
Advice is what we ask for when we know the decision we are going to take but are not yet ready to take it.
Of the two men, Yamba is the more prone to hypothetical discussions. Col’s blunt nature means he needs to make a black and white decision on an issue in a maximum of three seconds and is usually pretty scathing about it when he does.
Alex dials a number in Angola and waits as it rings.
Chapter Nine
‘Hello, hello, welcome to Panzi hospital! My name is Mama Riziki and this is Mama Jeanne and Mama Lumo!’
The head counsellor, Mama Riziki, is cheerfully upbeat, an ample middle-aged woman in a multi-coloured dress and matching headcloth with a fake Louis Vuitton handbag hooked over her shoulder. She points to two similarly smiling women standing next to her. They are both brightly dressed ladies from the town of Bukavu up the road, unlike the four peasant girls that have come in to the hospital from the bush. Mama Riziki has been doing this job for years and knows that she has to cheer up these poor traumatised rape victims. One is only eleven.
‘So, ladies, we are here to make sure that you enjoy your stay at Panzi and you go home healed and well. Some people are here for over a year and we will all become a big happy family.’
Mama Lumo butts in, ‘Yes, and when you go home they won’t recognise you, because we will feed you lots of rice and you will get big and fat like me.’
The induction session is happening on one side of the main hallway of the single-storey hospital building. A woman patient who is leaning against the wall chips in, ‘Yes, look at my hair. My husband won’t recognise me when I get back. Mama Jeanne did it for me.’ She touches her elaborately plaited hair and they both giggle with glee.
Eve is sitting on a bench with three other girls
