The man gets on the bike and Gabriel puts his hands on the back of his denim jacket and pushes him down the road. The moped splutters and then coughs into life.
The man brakes and revs the engine. He twists around in the saddle and flashes a warm smile. He’s in his early twenties and has a kind, open face. ‘You want a lift? Where are you going?’
‘Sure. Thanks.’ Gabriel jumps onto the seat behind him. ‘I’m going to Lugushwa, to the gold mines.’ An uncle of his recommended it as the best place to earn good money. Gabriel has never thought much of the man’s opinion but he hasn’t got any better information.
‘No, don’t go there. Come to Mabala, it’s coltan and you get better rates because it’s underground not opencast. My cousin Vernon runs a tunnel and needs guys. Come on.’
That sounds like sense and Gabriel doesn’t need much persuading.
‘OK. I’m Gabriel.’
‘I’m Marcel.’
They shake hands over Marcel’s shoulder and then he revs up and the moped putters away slowly.
‘Why are you going to the mines?’ Gabriel shouts into his ear over the whine of the engine.
‘I’m a teacher but I haven’t been paid in six months.’ He shrugs. ‘You’ve got to eat and what other jobs are there? What about you?’
Gabriel is reluctant to talk about Eve and what happened to her. ‘Oh, I just need the money; like you say, what other jobs are there? Where’s Mabala?’
‘It’s in the mountains above Shabunda. It’s run by the FDLR.’
‘Is that OK?’
‘Yeah, it’s fine. They’re all the same, they all take pretty much the same cut.’
Chapter Twelve
Alex and his men walk up the hill towards their meeting with the politician who will lead their new country.
They cross a small stream at the foot of the hill and nod at an old man with a machete who stands guard outside a hut. He smiles uncertainly back at them.
They follow a muddy track as it curves up a large grassy hill. After winding around it comes out at the top into a farmyard of two large wooden barns and two cowsheds. A few farm workers stare at them, resting on their pitchforks. They cross over the muddy ground in the middle and walk towards the farmstead, a single-storey plank building with a wide veranda and lawn overlooking the valley they drove up. A hammock is slung between two trees on the lawn.
As they near the house Alex suddenly stops and listens. It is completely silent on the hilltop but he can hear the faint sound of a piano from inside; delicate, sparing notes that form a haunting tune.
‘That’s a Chopin nocturne?’ He looks at Arkady quizzically.
‘I don’t know, I’m Russian not Polish.’
Col shrugs. ‘I’ll take yer word for it.’
As they walk on towards the house, the music cuts off abruptly and a group of ten young children, scruffily-clad boys and girls, come scampering out of a door and run away, giggling and shouting ‘Muzungu!’ at them.
The men smile and Col calls back in Swahili, ‘Habari za mchana.’ They all know a little of the East African lingua franca and are used to having ‘Whiteman’ shouted at them in remote locations.
A tall, slim man in his mid-thirties comes out onto the veranda wearing traditional dress – a long white gown and white pointed leather slippers. He is smiling broadly and has a sensitive, fine-boned face.
‘I am sorry about the kids,’ he says in accented English. ‘I was just entertaining them a bit as we were waiting for you to arrive.’
He walks towards Alex with a dazzling white smile and shakes his hand firmly. Alex notes how his sharp facial features contrast with a shaved head and high forehead. He has long, fine fingers and his movements are neat and quick.
He shakes everyone’s hand warmly and says laughing, ‘Welcome to my humble abode. As you can see, I am just a simple farmer. Please come in.’
He shows them into a large low room with plank flooring and an old upright piano in one corner. They settle down around a white plastic garden table with white plastic chairs.
Rukuba sits at the head of the table and looks around at them, beaming. ‘Gentlemen, it is so exciting for me to meet you here today, I am so glad that you have come.’ There is an earnest pleasure in his voice and he sweeps his hand around as if he is speaking on behalf of the whole of Kivu.
‘Let me tell you about myself. Well, in the beginning I am a Kivuan, I am one of the people of Kivu. I am half Tutsi and half Nande, so I feel I represent both the Banyamulenge and the originaires.’ He presses his long-fingered hands to his chest and pauses for a moment.
His hands sweep outwards again and he continues with enthusiasm, ‘Our political organisation is the Kivu People’s Party. Unlike the militias and their political fronts we are deliberately non-ethnically aligned. We are a broad-based political group with a programme of pragmatic community activities, like building bridges or digging village fishponds, and we focus on raising awareness of issues such as sexual violence against women and livestock improvement. In so many ways we struggle to make the lives of the people of Kivu better.
‘But I am not judgemental; I talk to the leaders of all the main militias, I know the commanders of the FDLR very well. They are always giving me shopping tips for the best tailors in Paris – they tell me I should stop wearing these.’ He holds up his traditional robes and smiles at Alex’s surprised look. ‘The top commanders are very wealthy from their mines and they come and go to Europe a lot.
‘So, when I am not talking to them, I publicise our work through my radio broadcasts on UN Radio Okapi and through my music. I am so blessed by God to have a good voice and I love to play for the people in the churches – Catholic, Pentecostal, the bush cults, I don’t mind who. I play to bring the people of Kivu together, to try to heal our wounds and to bring peace at last to this land of such great beauty and yet such great pain.’
Alex finds himself being entranced by the man, his voice rising and falling, his hands sweeping back and forth like a magician’s and his face so sincere and expressive. He glances at the others and they are all staring at him.
He continues, ‘So, you will say, Dieudonné, all this sounds good, but you are not getting very far are you, my friend?’ He flashes his big smile at them. ‘Yes, I say, I regret that you are right. We have supporters throughout the country, I have good contacts with the charcoal traders, we know a lot of what is happening in Kivu, we have moral authority, we have soft power – but we have no real power, no hard power.’
He suddenly switches from a light tone to a fervent one and a vein begins to stand out on his temple. ‘So, as you can see, I live a simple life here in the heart of my country. Yet every day I feel its pain. When I travel around and I see the thugs manning the roadblocks, when I speak to so many women who tell me how they are dragged off and raped every day on the way to their fields, when I see the FDLR and the army brigades continue
