* * *
“London Times?” asked the young lieutenant at the checkpoint. He was squinting under the bright morning sun, a pair of sunglasses tucked away neatly in his shirt pocket. Ethan replied nonchalantly:
“It’s a newspaper. Press?” he said, and showed off a battered, smudged, laminated press pass with his photo on it. The young lieutenant stared back for barely a moment before nodding to Nicole. He asked them:
“Red Cross nurse? All alone out here?”
“I’m doing a story arc. Ms. Heurgot here is the centerpiece, you see,” Ethan said and looked at her with a thin smile. She barely glanced back at the lieutenant with an uncertain grin, pretending to feel awkward. He shook his head and without a word, waved at the guard to raise a shoddy, rust-ridden metal bar. Ethan gave a mock salute and thanked him, while Nicole started the engine and drove off slowly towards the bridge.
After a few yards Ethan looked back through the mirror and saw the lieutenant still shaking his head; he noticed a smile and then a few laughs from the guards. He was joking; that was good. That meant they thought they were probably crazy; which wasn’t that far off from reality. Nicole asked him then:
“They’re lax. It’s like they think it’s just another job.”
Ethan laid back in his seat and lit a smoke. He told her then as they crossed the bridge, the rover bucking slightly at each segment, his head lolling freely:
“Well, isn’t it?”
She spared a frowned a look lazily before replying and shifting gear:
“I like to think it’s a lot more. I’m a bit surprised you seem so…” She paused mid-sentence, her mouth half-open.
As the Rover reached the other side, a guard motioned them to stop. A soldier sitting inside a small shack that offered some relatively comfortable shadow was noting down their plates, cross-checking it against some sort of list. Nicole found the word she’d been searching for and said:
“Jaded.”
Ethan replied after a heavy draught:
“I thought you’d say cynical.”
“I would, if you were.”
“But I am.”
“No, you’re not. You care.”
“How do you know?”
“So do you?”
He smiled thinly and tapped away the ash from his cigarette over the open window. He shook his head and said with half a smile:
“Well played, I’ll give you that.”
“You think this is a game then?”
“Oh, do drive on.”
She smiled wearily and once the guard waved them on their way, she sped towards the center of the city through the main road. They both peered through open windows at the strange mix of people, land and buildings that seemed so impossibly jarring to the eye. Red brick walls looked inherently unable to hold even the smallest tin roof, while the people around them went about their morning business dressed in all sorts of colours from the drab gray shirt to the colourful rainbow woolen tunics.
Goats were being herded in pairs by the equivalent of a milkman and quite a small crowd of mostly women and children seemed to be waiting in line expectantly. Groups of soldiers seemed to be dispersed along the road, idly but warily overlooking the passers-by.
They were driving alongside the river, the east bank on their left. Little by little the rural outskirts gave way to more and more concrete, more and more colour. The town seemed relatively intact from the fighting, but the unmistakable signs were there: bullet-ridden blue and red walls, makeshift barricades and gun posts mingled with food stalls and workshops. The people seemed to take things in their stride. Despite it all, they still lived there.
They drove past the harbor and the piers where the military presence was more than evident: stores of supplies seemed to be piling up, while barges slowly waded through the Niger, loaded to the brim. Nearby, fishermen were preparing their nets as they did every day. Nicole broke the silence first:
“Isn’t it amazing?”
“What, exactly?”
“This town has been exchanging hands ever since the war started and there are still people living here. Not only that, they’re going about their business like nothing’s changed.”
Ethan snorted almost derisively and with his gaze fixed on the golden reflections of the sun on the river, he replied:
“Well, what would you know. A spy with a conscience.”
She looked at him with a knowing smile, while they drove past a small square that had been reduced to patches of brush and wild grass. She retorted:
“Does it surprise you?”
“It surprises me you can afford one.”
“It would have no meaning if I wasn’t doing this for a reason.”
“It doesn’t really have much of a meaning. Though there’s millions of reasons, try as you might, there’s no meaning.”
“So, everything is meaningless, so we should just do nothing about anything? Maybe jump off a cliff as well.”
“No, I’m not saying that we shouldn’t do anything. I’m only saying it doesn’t really mean anything. It only means what anyone wants it to mean.”
“There’s only as much value in the war as we want it to have?”
“Not just this one here. Every war.”
“What about the people who were driven out of their homes, those who were shot because they were thought to be sympathizers? What about the orphans and the starving children? What value do these people have?”
“To me?”
“Why does it have to be about you all the time?”
“Well, you’re asking me.”
“I can’t understand how a man like yourself is after Andy.”
“I can’t understand how someone as daft as you works for the CIA.”
“So I’m a fool, just because I believe people have the right to live decent lives? The fishermen down the river are fools for trying as well? For not giving up?”
“No, they’re fishermen. Smart trade; they cast a net and fill it with fish. No need to herd or milk or sheer anything. No need to sow, till and water. No, they just reap what the river has to offer. Smart folk, fishermen.”
“These are the last few people who are brave enough to keep living in a war zone.”
“And go where exactly? Wait for the Red Cross to feed them? The UN to free them? From who? You don’t understand, I guess you yanks never did. The river is all that matters to these people. Without it, there’s no life. Like they care who’s running this charade. You should get out more, take a walk. Get down from that high horse of yours.”
“You’re making things sound so fucking simple while in fact you don’t have the slightest clue about what’s at stake here. What’s at stake in Vietnam, the six day war, Angola. It’s fucking everywhere and you’re acting like it’s pointless.”
“It all depends on your point of view, that’s all. To them it is. To you maybe it isn’t.”
“And what about you? Do you care about all this, or do you just pull a trigger when you’re told to?”
“Don’t you?”
“When I have to. Not when I’m told to.”
“What if you’re told you have to?”
“Faith. I trust in faith.”
“You know, I really can’t tell when you’re trying to bullshit me, or just yourself. You people have some real issues. At least I know what’s wrong with me, you just live in a hazy world between reality and fantasy where everything’s possible, including saving the world by bombing it to hell. I didn’t think I’d be grateful for all the nightmares.”
“So you do have a conscience in the end?”
“Only I’m not proud about it. It doesn’t really help, you know. I consider it a luxury.”
“You should. Because you’re one cynical bastard if I ever saw one.”
“I can’t wait to have this kind of conversation over Christmas dinner.”
“I bet you’re adopted.”
“I’d wish.”
She braked abruptly and pulled over in fron
t of a small three-story building with faux gypsum columns outside, cast in some vaguely Greco-Roman rhythm. Bullets had found their way through the gypsum and into the concrete, while flecks of chipped paint riddled the wide doors.
“We’re here,” said Nicole and turned the engine off.
Ethan replied with a yawn:
“I hope there’s a real bed.”
“I hope they have two rooms.”
“I wouldn’t worry about the vacancies.”
A man that appeared to be the hotel manager stepped through the doorway, dressed in a white linen shirt, smart black trousers and matching shoes. He looked around his forties, tall, thin, almost gaunt. He smiled rather widely, a few nickel-cases showing. He bowed slightly and said:
“Welcome to Olowo Hotel. Luggage?”
Ethan smiled and nodded towards Nicole, saying:
“Certainly, her.”
The hotel manager looked puzzled for a moment, then let out a polite little laugh and ushered them inside.
“Coffee, or tea?” he asked and extended a hand pointing to a couple of tables and a small bar.
“No, thank you,” said Nicole and Ethan shook his head. He told him then:
“We need two rooms.”
The manager was already shuffling through the guestbook when he asked somewhat confused:
“You mean a double?”
Nicole sniggered behind Ethan, while he spoke slowly and surely, as if to a child, stressing each word:
“Two separate rooms with a single bed.”
The manager looked apprehensively at both of them for a moment, and then smiled assuredly.
“Certainly, sir, madam. Cash up front, please. Hotel policy. Five hundred,” he said, nodding to both of them. Ethan raised a brow but nevertheless pulled five one-hundred bills and paid. “Thank you. We’re happy to have you staying. Please, follow me,” the manager said and led them to the first floor, to their rooms. Each one was a miniscule affair with a water basin and remarkably, a proper bed. There was a common toilet at the end of the hallway. The manager then said with almost unbridled pride:
“There are separate facilities for the ladies!”
“Fantastic. I wouldn’t want to bump into her,” Ethan said smiling ironically while Nicole seemed to ignore him.
The manager looked at them both once more fleetingly, opened his mouth to ask something but thought better of it and said nothing. He then straightened himself and said in a business-like tone:
“Well, there is more press staying here. I hope you’ll enjoy your stay, even under the circumstances.”
“You mean the war?”
“The war will end some day, sir. But the mosquitoes, they never go out of fashion! The river, you see.”
Ethan grinned and nodded, shook his head and looked at Nicole who simply shrugged.
“Thank you very much,” Ethan said, while Nicole stared outside the hallway window onto the street below. The manager bowed again before adding:
“Ring the bell if you need me. I’ll be downstairs!”
Nicole asked Ethan without turning her gaze away from the street:
“You think everyone else down there thinks the same?”
“Does it matter?”
“I forgot, nothing really does.”
“I need to sleep.”
She nodded and shut the door behind her. Soon, she could hear Ethan snoring from across the hallway.