Yoyo looked at him with her dark eyes. And suddenly, she smiled. So unexpected and untimely a smile that he could do little else but stare back at her, confused.
‘By the way, I wanted to thank you,’ she said.
‘Thank me?’
‘You saved my life.’
Jericho hesitated. The whole time, while he had swum so bravely through the hot water that Yoyo had got herself into, he had contented himself with his own sense of reward. Now he felt taken by surprise.
‘No need,’ he said feebly. ‘It’s just the way things turned out.’
‘Owen—’
‘I didn’t have any choice. If I had known—’
‘No, Owen, don’t.’ She shook her head. ‘Say something nice.’
‘Something nice? After all the trouble that you’ve—’
‘Hey.’ She reached out. Her slender fingers clasped around his hand and squeezed firmly. ‘Say something nice to me. Right now!’
She moved closer to him, and something changed. So far he had only seen Yoyo’s beauty, and the small flaws in it. Now, waves of unsettling intensity washed over him. Unlike Joanna, who controlled and regulated her erotic potential like the volume dial on a radio, Yoyo could do nothing else but burn seductively, relentless, a bright, hot star. And suddenly he realised that he would do everything in his power to make sure that this star never burned out. He wanted to see her laugh.
‘Well.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Any time.’
‘Any time what?’
‘I’d do it again, any time. If you ever need saving, let me know. I’ll be there.’ More throat-clearing. ‘And now—’
‘Thank you, Owen. Thank you.’
‘—let’s carry on with Mayé. When does it get interesting for us?’
She let his hand go and sank back in her seat.
‘Difficult to say. I’d say that in order to understand the relations in the country, we need to go back to independence. With the change to—’
Papa Macías.
In October 1968, the same damp and humid climate reigned in the Gulf of Guinea as on any other day of the year. Sometimes it rained, then the land, islands and sea would brood in sunshine that made the beaches glisten and brought all activity to a standstill. The capital city, located on the island and little more than a collection of mildewed colonial buildings with huts gathered around them, was seeing the advent of the first State President of the independent republic of Equatorial Guinea, chosen by the people in a memorable election campaign. Francisco Macías Nguema of the Fang tribe promises justice and socialism, and forces the remaining Spanish troops to retreat, an action which had already been agreed in any case, although they had imagined a slightly more conciliatory end. But ‘Papa’, as the president named himself out of his love for his people, is accustomed to having a good and hearty breakfast. The defeated colonialists were horrified to discover that he was a cannibal, with a tendency to eat the brains and testicles of his enemies. You couldn’t expect a teary goodbye from someone like that.
And yet that’s exactly what happened.
A sea of tears, a sea of blood.
The young republic was defiled almost as soon as it was born. No one there was prepared for something as exotic as market economy, but at least they had enjoyed a flourishing trade in cocoa and tropical woods. Macías, however, enflamed with glowing admiration for Marxist–Leninist-supported despotism, was interested in other things. The last units of the Guardia Civil had barely cleared their posts before it became clear what was to be expected from testicle-eating Papa and his Partido Unico Nacional. The army reinforced Macías’ claim to god-like absolute dictatorship with clubs, firearms and machetes, prompting the remaining European civilians to flee the country in terror. Numerous posts were taken by members of his Esangui clan, a sub-tribe of the Fang. The fact that the island, the most attractive part of the country, seat of the government and economic centre, was Bubi territory had been a thorn in the side of the numerically superior Fang for a long time. Macías fanned the flames of this hate. At least he had had the decency to annul the constitution before breaking it.
From that point on, the Bubi felt the full force of his paternal care.
More than fifty thousand people were slaughtered, incarcerated, tortured to death, including all members of the opposition. Anyone who was able to fled abroad. And because Papa didn’t trust anyone, not even his own family, even the Fang became a target for the president. Over a third of the population was forced into exile or disappeared in camps, while hundreds of Cuban military advisors were given free rein to prowl around the country; after all, Moscow was a reliable friend. By the mid-seventies, Papa had managed to annihilate the local economy so thoroughly that he needed to bring Nigerian workers into the country. But they too soon take to their heels and flee. Without further ado, the country’s father enforces compulsory work for all, thereby unleashing a further mass exodus. Numerous schools are closed, something that doesn’t stop Papa from calling himself the Grand Master of the People’s Education, Knowledge and Traditional Culture. In his delusion of divinity, he also bolts up and barricades all the churches, proclaims atheism and devotes himself to the reinvigoration of magic rituals. The continent is now experiencing the heyday of dictatorship. Macías is referred to in the same breath as Jean-Bedel Bokassa, who also had himself crowned and was utterly convinced he was Jesus’ thirteenth apostle; he is likened to Idi Amin and the Cambodian Pol Pot.
‘At the end of the day, he was an even bigger criminal than Mayé,’ said Yoyo. ‘But no one cared. Papa didn’t have anything that would have been worth caring about. As a good patriot, he renamed everything that didn’t yet have an African name, and since then the mainland has been called Mbini, the island Bioko and the capital city Malabo. By the way, I also looked into Mayé’s native background. He’s from the Fang tribe.’
‘And what happened to this splendid Papa?’
Yoyo made a snipping motion with her fingers. ‘He was got rid of. A coup.’
‘With support from abroad?’
‘It seems not. Papa’s family values got out of hand; he even started to execute his close relatives. His own wife fled over the border in the dead of night. No one from his clan was safe any more, and in the end it became too much for one of them.’
In 1979, there was singing and dancing in Equatorial Guinea.
A man in a plain uniform stands in the entrance to a vault, where glowing ghosts dart over the walls and ceiling, generated by the crackling fire in the middle of the room. He is inconspicuousness personified. From time to time, he gives instructions under his breath, prompting the guards to give the dancers, who have been hopping around the fire and singing Papa’s praises in grotesque liveliness for hours, a helping hand with red-hot pokers. It smells of decadence and burnt flesh. Mosquitoes buzz around. In the gloomy corners and along the walls, the scene is mirrored in the eyes of rats. Anyone who tips over the brink into exhaustion is dragged up, beaten until they bleed and hauled outside. Almost all of them, apart from the uniformed men, are undernourished and dehydrated, many show signs of mistreatment, and others have yellow fever and malaria written on their gaunt faces.