Dizzy with hunger himself, Hock sat, easing his grip on the snake. Holding it gave him confidence; he could face the children without flinching; he could ask questions. Yet he feared the recklessness of children, and he knew in spite of the snake that he would be overwhelmed by their numbers.
The boy he had spoken to was now standing in front of the seated children from the village, his back to the field. He seemed to be leading the children in prayer, or at least eliciting responses, the big boy reciting a line, the children repeating it. A prayer, a promise, a war chant, a threat, a lament — it could have been anything.
The children at the far side of the field simply watched, and the ones who had just arrived were settling into postures of waiting. Dressed the same, in old American T-shirts and ragged shorts and trousers — facing the empty field — all the children looked like members of a cargo cult.
Their patience was like indifference, like a form of despair, not anticipation of an event but hopelessness. When the children on Hock’s side of the field were finished chanting they lapsed into silence, blinking at the flies that were settling around their eyes. None of them sat near Hock. Because of the snake, they kept away from him.
Then the snake’s body contracted on his arm, its throat swelling again, and this made Hock more watchful, as though by its flicking tongue it had smelled a rising emotion in the children. Certainly the children were more tense, seeming to contract themselves, resolving themselves into more compact postures of listening. The snake too seemed hyperalert, its muscles pulsing and pinching against Hock’s hot arm.
Nothing was in the sky, and yet a far-off sound, a yak-yak-yak, became audible and grew louder, until, like a giant insect, a helicopter burst from the dusty haze and hovered over the field, high up.
So this was the bird. The helicopter was blue and white, with a logo, a shield in gold on its side, and under it the words L’Agence Anonyme. And it was growing larger. What had seemed a small bulbous chopper, flying in and circling, grew as it descended, became elongated, and the updraft of its whirling rotor blades sucked a dense column of dust from the ground that became a wide brown cloud.
Even before it landed, while it was settling lower, the double doors on its side slid open, revealing its interior. Then two things happened, surprising things. First, music began to play — rock music, very loud, a pounding rhythm, yada-boom, yada-boom, yada-boom. And then, while it played, growing even louder, a group of people appeared at the opening. The two in front, flanked by Africans, were a white man in a cowboy hat and a woman in high boots — a blonde, chalky-faced, in a black skintight suit. Both of them were gesturing to the children, looking jubilant.
Yada-boom, yada-boom—where were the loudspeakers?
The children, most of them, kept their places at the edge of the field, though a handful of excited, much younger ones ran into the thickening dust cloud, staggering, seeming to choke, many of them retreating as the helicopter came to rest, its long skids sinking into the rough grass and loose dirt of the field. The two white people standing in the cabin hatchway waved, still jubilant. Just behind them was an imposing-looking African man in a spotless safari suit, taller than the white man and woman; from his assertive gestures he seemed to be issuing orders.
Before the children sitting and kneeling at the margin of the field stood up, preparing to run to the helicopter, the boy in the black Dynamo cap appeared next to Hock and said, “Tell the Agency to help us.” He held his body away, his arms behind his back, his head to the side, as though he expected the snake to uncoil itself and strike him.
Hock said, “Help me get near — keep the children away,” and he snatched up his bag and headed toward the helicopter, which had become a blur in the rising dust cloud.
Hock saw his chance to save himself, to get close enough to appeal for help. He was sure he was visible from the helicopter — how hard was it to pick out a tall white man in a bush shirt and tattered trousers, a bag in one hand, a fat snake wrapped around his right arm, which he held forward like a weapon?
The boy in the baseball cap pushed ahead of him, elbowing his way through the mass of children. Now that the rotor blades had stopped and the engine was silenced, only the music played — thumping joyous music — and the children who had been hanging back rushed toward the chopper, into the risen dust, making more dust, crowding Hock and nearly knocking him down.
“Over here!” he called to the man and woman in the open doorway. How clean they looked, how outlandish in their dress, the man in the cowboy hat and boots, the blond woman in her skintight suit. “Help me!”
They began tossing boxes and bags to the children who were nearest to them. At first they handed them over, but within seconds the children were fighting over them, and the man in the cowboy hat became frantic, flinging the bags, kicking the boxes out of the helicopter door, as though to distract the frenzied children.
The children, maddened by the sight of the bags, tore at each other.
“Please — help me,” Hock cried out, waving his bag. He relaxed his other arm, and the children near him, reaching for the bags, jostled his arm, bumping the snake. Feeling its coils loosen — the snake was blinded by the dust — Hock let go of its head and allowed it to drop into the dust. The snake’s whipping back and forth on the ground panicked a small knot of children, who kicked at it and stamped on it, crushing its head.
Even pushing as hard as he could, Hock made little progress against the small bodies so tightly packed ahead of him. Some children nearer the helicopter had begun to climb aboard, bracing themselves on the skids and clinging to the struts, attempting to crawl through the legs of the man and woman at the door.
Hock was shouting but could not hear his voice over the loud yada-boom, yada-boom. Tripped by the small battering bodies, he fell to his knees among the struggling children with dust on their sweat-smeared faces. Now kneeling, he was the height of a child himself.
He could see the man and woman clearly: the man’s expensive sunglasses and clean cowboy hat, the woman’s red lips, gleaming makeup, and unusually white teeth. Another man stood beside them with a video camera, shooting them, shooting out the door. Now the man in the cowboy hat was kicking at the children, fending them off with bags of food, and the woman was trying to keep her balance. She was open-mouthed, perhaps shrieking in fear, but all Hock could hear was the yada-boom. She looked clownish, costumed, like the man, dressed as though for a party or a concert, in great contrast to the mass of small children in dirty T-shirts, clawing at one another.
All this time the music played, energetic pumping rhythms that drowned out the children’s shouts and the woman’s shriek and the voices of the men at the helicopter door who seemed to be yelling at each other. No voices were audible, but the open mouths and wild eyes made it a scene of pure panic in the growing dust cloud.
Still trying to make himself heard, Hock got to his feet and fought on, stepping over the children, pushing others aside. His effort had the absurd indignity of a dream, all irrational and unreal, and what made it more dream-like was his slowness, his pathetic helplessness, and that he was ignored, humiliated, unable to call attention to himself.
The man in the cowboy hat met Hock’s eyes and lifted his sunglasses to verify with his own surprised gaze the sight of this frantic white man. He seemed to lean over, as though what he was seeing was not quite believable. He said something to the man behind him. But he had a pale debauched face, and there was no sympathy in the set of his jaw, and when he let his sunglasses slip down over his eyes and turned to throw more bags from the helicopter, at the same time kicking out at the climbing children, Hock flung himself forward.