“You’re from around here?” Lars called up to him.
“I was born in Yaoundé. My father was from Cameroon. My mother was Senegalese, but she was born in Paris. I moved to Matadi when I was ten. In that time, there used to be many more Muslims here. Not anymore. My brother moved to Gabon three years ago. He became frustrated with Congo.”
“So you are Cameroonian? Or Congolese?”
“I am African. Most Congolese don’t think of themselves as Africans anymore. They only think about their tribe or their town. Or maybe their parents’ families. But this is a real problem. We must have a global mind. Only when we stick together will we defeat the forces against us.”
“What forces are against you?”
“I fill my moto with dirty petrol, and the tanks are right there. This is a case of bad management. This is a failure of vision. This is a form of warfare on the people,” said Horeb as he drove out of the marina. “Tell me, why do you think Islam has been so successful? Muhammad taught us to believe in universal humanity. It is not about being from Saudi Arabia or from Egypt or Tanzania. It is about being blessed with life. Africa is blessed with life.”
“Africa is blessed with many things — some good, some not so good,” yelled Lars against the sound of the engine. “It’s a big place.”
“Congo is a big place. They call it le serpent à deux têtes—‘the snake with two heads.’ Kinshasa in the west and Kivu in the east. But nothing connects the two. No roads, no trains, only the forest and the river. It’s a big place, but people’s heads are small. They cannot see past their village, so they turn inside, you understand?”
They wove through the darkened streets. They passed a bar, Chez Maman, with blinking Christmas lights overhead. Loud dance music was blaring from within. People watched them as they went by, but Horeb took no notice. He pointed out the buildings.
“That is the old tourist office. They used to have so many tourists here. L’entrée de l’afrique, they called it. And this was where they came. . That is one of the banks, but it is closed now because they ran out of money. . That is a Greek restaurant that used to be very good, but now it is very expensive and very bad. . That is the church. It is the most important place in this town besides the petrol tanks. This is a Christian country now. People must believe in something. When you go to sleep hungry, you must believe in something so that you have a reason to wake up in the morning.”
Horeb stopped in front of a statue of a nearly naked man, a quarry hammer lifted above his head.
“He is the African Worker,” he said, pointing at the statue. “He built the railroad. Notice his hammer. It is always raised, but it will never come down.”
“What do you do when you are not driving us around?” asked Otik.
“I am lifting my hammer,” said Horeb. “But it will not come down.”
A group of men approached Horeb’s motorcycle. They quickly closed around it, placing their hands on the back of the bike and the canopy of the cart. Two of them began to argue with Horeb animatedly, pointing at the three of them sitting in the cart. Horeb shook his head and spat something back. He pushed one of the men away. The man pointed at Radar and then pointed at his own eye. Horeb revved the motor and nosed the bike through their midst. He waved for them to get out of the way. One of the men gripped the cart and started to jog alongside them. Radar thought the man would jump in and possibly kill him, but at the last moment Horeb accelerated and the man yelled and finally let go.
“What was all that about?” asked Lars when they were finally free.
“People don’t understand,” Horeb shouted back at them. “Everyone wants something, but they don’t understand that today is not the last day. There are many last days to come.”
• • •
L’HÔTEL METROPOLE was a three-story triangular stone building, an impressive colonial edifice whose elegance had dimmed over the years into a kind of ersatz melancholy; the place now felt like a theater set of itself.
“How much do we owe you for the ride?” asked Lars as they extricated themselves from the cart.
“What?” said Horeb, looking shocked.
“For the ride, how much?”
“Oh no,” he said. “You have given me the gift. Let me show you inside.”
Otik and Lars shared a look, but then they followed Horeb through the musty lobby into a large, open courtyard circumscribed by three walls. Inside this piazza was another world, completely removed from the dusty, squalid town that surrounded it. Against a backdrop of potted palm fronds, a mustached man in tails was playing ragtime at a piano that had no top. A white poodle sat by his feet. The floor of the piazza was tiled in a checkerboard pattern, and in the middle of the courtyard a little fountain bubbled away. There were a dozen or so candlelit tables draped in linen, each set for a full meal. The tables were all empty except for one cluster of patrons toward the back. Among them Radar saw Captain Daneri and several people he didn’t recognize.
As they approached, Captain Daneri spotted them and leaped to his feet. His face was glowing.
“Ah, welcome, welcome! Have you been exercising?” he said, seeing their outfits.
“We have not,” said Lars sharply.
“Never mind then, never mind. Estaba bromeando.”
“We weren’t sure where you’d gone.”
“Here, of course. The Metropole. It’s my old haunt. Just imagine this place in its heyday,” he said, gesturing. “I don’t like to spend much of my time on land, but if I had to choose one place besides my home, it would be here. I’ve lost many a night in this hotel. But come over, come over.”
The captain eased them past the fountain. “Everyone, allow me to introduce miei passeggeri. They are theater—” He clapped a hand to his mouth. “They are here on official business — the nature of which I cannot disclose.”
Radar, terrified, looked over at Lars. He wondered if Lars knew that it was he who had given away the nature of their mission. But if Lars was perturbed, his face revealed nothing.
The captain gestured at a strange, withered man with incredibly pasty skin, who, despite the time of night, was wearing a sun hat and dark glasses. A folded parasol rested against his chair.
“May I present Brother Ireneo Funes. He is—”
“Professor,” said the man, in a strange, high-pitched voice. “I’m no longer in the order.”
There was something wrong with the man’s skin. It was stretched thin and almost translucent, as if two or three sizes too small. It reminded Radar a bit of Mikey Melange, the cart collector at the Stop & Shop, who had been burned badly in an auto accident as a child and spoke in a husky whisper.
“Of course, apologies,” said Daneri. “Professor Funes is from Uruguay, I am sad to tell you, though he does much to reverse one’s impression of that vulgar country. He’s a collector of rare books.”
“All books,” corrected the professor. “Rare or otherwise.”
“Yes, rare or otherwise,” repeated Daneri. He swiveled his attention. “And this, of course, is the very rare and very lovely Mademoiselle Yvette Michel.”
She was lovely indeed. Her short blond hair was covered in a sparkling blue headband, and a thin, lemon-colored evening frock hung from her shoulders. The headband and the dress belonged to another time, but on her it belonged only to this time.
“Enchantée,” she said, blinking through a tendril of cigarette smoke. In the candlelight, the color of her eyes was somewhere between blue and green, like the color of the sea on a cloudy day. She smiled and then frowned ever so slightly, and such a juxtaposition managed to convey both an innocence and a knowledge that this place, this evening, this hotel, this world, had been constructed as a stage for her and her alone. Radar could not tear his eyes away from her.