AK Page 15

Paul nodded confidently and looked Major Dasu straight in the eyes. Major Dasu looked back at him, like an equal.

  “All right,” he said, “you can keep your gun for that. Keep it hidden. Keep it out of the way. You’re not to use it against the Deathsingers. You’re not the only fellow with a gun. We’ve got a few left over from the amnesty and so I guess have the others, but as soon as any of us starts shooting the army will give the Deathsingers all they want and we’ll have to get ourselves more guns to fight back and after that it’ll be mortars and rockets and the army will join in and all you’ll have left is rubble and dead bodies. Even the Soccer Boys know this. Even the Deathsingers. Got it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Right. I’ve a job for you. Deathsingers will be coming back tonight—they’ve seen their dead, and their leaders won’t be able to hold them. They’ll have a drink or two first, because that’s their way, so I want you down at the liquor stalls …”

  “Liquor stalls won’t open if there’s going to be trouble.”

  “Deathsingers will make them open. Soon as they’re drunk enough they’ll move in on the coppersmiths, but they’ll find the Oni-oni and the Jackals waiting for them. Then, when they’re good and stuck into that my people will come in and take them from the rear. Your job is to bring the word when the Deathsingers start moving up from the liquor stalls. Come with me.”

  “Jilli’d best come too.”

  ‘‘Jilli?”

  At the sound of her name she uncoiled from where she’d been dozing among the baskets and stood up, bashful with sleep, in her new green shirt. Major Dasu’s eyebrows rose. Though Paul knew from Kashka how the Baroba men regarded women he felt angry. Without Jilli he’d be dead by now, and Kashka too. She was part of what he had done and endured.

  “I tell you, she is a Warrior, same as me,” he said.

  “All right,” said Major Dasu, indifferent.

  He led them a short way into the shanties and stopped by a beer bar.

  “Okay,” he said. “See that Coke poster? There’ll be a couple of lads there playing flick-bone. You say to the one in the yellow shirt that his brother’s house is on fire. That’s all. After that you just keep out of trouble. Okay?”

  “Okay,” said Paul. “Let the black lion roar.”

  “He will.”

  Major Dasu slouched off to his truck and drove away.

  As they made their way down through the market the hot noon air seemed heavier and stiller than usual. The music still blared away, but the other noises were different—few of the traders were sleeping, and many sat in groups, smoking and talking in low voices. Paul himself felt listless and uncertain, longing for the clean air and clear purposes of the bush. The basket weighed on his head. The gun was no use here, on this mission, but he couldn’t have risked leaving it among Efoni’s inflammable stock.

  A drowsy woman sold them lemonade and they settled in a place from which they could see several liquor stalls, where they dozed in turn. Nothing happened for a good two hours, then Jilli nudged Paul’s side and woke him.

  “Men coming,” she muttered.

  Two traders appeared with a bottle-stacked barrow, and a third man strolling arrogantly beside them. He watched while the traders opened a stall and stacked the bottles onto their trestle. Before they’d finished a similar team had arrived, and then two more, and by now there were customers drifting in in twos and threes, buying drinks and settling into groups. Hours before normal the liquor stalls were busy. The customers sat on the ground, a dozen men together, and talked among themselves with anger in their gestures. In one group a man jumped to his feet and performed the sort of boast-chant Fodo sometimes used to do before action, with a foot-stamping dance to the rhythm of his friends’ handclaps.

  Paul was wondering whether it was worth the risk of wandering along the stalls and counting the drinkers when a tall, thin man in a fawn suit strolled up and squatted down with a group. They stopped their talk to listen to him while he drew shapes in the dust, the way Michael would do to explain a plan of attack. He answered a few questions, gesturing directions with his hands, and moved on to the next group.

  For the first time in several days Paul felt a stir of excitement. The man’s face was in shadow under the brim of his straw hat, but his movements had the same spider-limbed jerkiness as those of the watcher at the bar on Curzon Street. The suit was the same. So the struggle for power in the market might have something to do with Michael, after all.

  He bought a twist of mu nuts, which they nibbled slowly. Time passed. Then an army truck backed in by the liquor stalls and two soldiers unloaded wrapped packages, some soft and shapeless and others hard and narrow—blue T-shirts and bundles of truncheons, Paul guessed. They shared them out among the groups of drinkers who rose to their feet and started to move off up separate alleys.

  “I’ll go and find those fellows by the Coke sign, shall I?” said Jilli. “That way you can stay and see what they do.”

  “Okay,” said Paul. “Wish we’d had you with us in the bush, Jilli.”

  She laughed and strolled dreamily away, spitting the mu shells over her shoulder as if going nowhere special. Any commando would have been glad of her, he thought—she’d known without telling that this was why Warriors worked in pairs, one to keep watch while the other reported. Oh for the day when Michael could meet her! Perhaps he’d make her his daughter. That would be great …

  The Deathsingers were easy to follow. The market sounds changed as they went by, laughter and argument dying into silence and rising back to mutters of alarm once they’d passed. The group Paul had chosen elbowed their way through a crowd of young men who’d gathered around a music stall (the word seemed to get around in minutes whenever a trader had a fresh consignment of tapes, and fans flocked in from all over Dangoum). One of the shoppers must have protested at being pushed. There was an explosion of violence, too quick to follow, but ending with the Deathsingers swaggering on while the music lovers crowded around two of their friends who lay on the ground, writhing and moaning.

  The group Paul was following stopped among the leather sellers. Two of them looked at their watches. Others picked over a pile of goat-hides, obviously not intending to buy anything but commenting contemptuously to the trader on the quality of his stock. Every move they made, every pose they struck, the angles of their necks, their gestures, their voices—raucous enough to penetrate the battering music from the palms close by—all were charged with an aggressive anger that seemed to flash between them like noiseless flickers of lightning among massed clouds before a storm breaks at the beginning of the rains.

  Paul squatted down a few yards off and pretended to reroll one of the lengths of cotton that hid the AK. He had no plan, but he was a Warrior, his job to keep in touch with the enemy. As he waited the man in the fawn suit came gangling in from the left, spoke briefly to two of the men, and moved on. At once Paul’s task became clear. When he picked the gun basket up it seemed lighter than before, as if the AK, too, understood its purpose. The man in the fawn suit was Michael’s enemy, a single, simple target.

  Paul trailed him between the stalls to the next group of Deathsingers, who were already sharing out the T-shirts. The group beyond were dressed, swinging their truncheons and quietly humming the Deathsong. Around them the stalls were silent. The man picked out three of this group and slouched with them over to the palms, watched by the stall holders. This was the tourist area of the market, the prime sites where the stalls sold carved spirit figures and chiefs’ stools and grass-and-bead dance masks and zebra-hair fly switches and things of that sort. The stall holders were rich and greedy, greatly disliked by the ordinary traders. Paul could feel their fear.

  The man looked at his watch and nodded. One of the Deathsingers turned to the deaf, old legless man who played the tapes and gave him a violent shove which toppled him off his stool. Another swept his pile of tapes from t
he upturned crate he used as a table. The man in the fawn suit studied the tape deck, pressed a switch, and ejected the tape it was playing. The whole market fell still. Some hens cackled, as though they, too, recognized the alarm, the moment before the storm broke.

  The man in the fawn suit took a tape out of his pocket and pressed it in. Into the hush rose the Deathsong, a ghost wail louder than human, throbbing from the big loudspeakers. Faint through its sound Paul heard the coppersmiths’ gong beginning to beat in answer. Then everything was drowned by the clamour of simulated gunfire.

  Paul looked at the stall holder beside him, a Naga woman, her face grey-yellow with fear. She was piling grass masks in under the main trestle of her stall.

  “Want me to guard your goods, missus?” he said.

  “Clear out. What use are you?”

  He lifted the basket down and eased the muzzle of the AK into view. She stared at it, then at him.

  “How much?” she said.

  “Twenty gurai. Ten now and ten when it’s over.”

  “Okay.”

  He helped her stack the rest of her stock away and slid in beneath the trestle between two piles of masks, where he lay watching the scene under the palms. The sounds of fighting were spreading behind him. He heard a yodelling noise, like the sound of Fulu farmers calling the news along the Strip, and guessed it was some kind of Oni-oni battle cry. The man in the fawn suit was probably too close to the speakers to hear it, but now something went up in a crackle and roar of burning and he climbed onto the crate for a better view, then jumped down again to listen to the report of a Deathsinger who’d come running in from the fight. The messenger showed him an Oni-oni hat. The man shrugged. He wasn’t worried. The Oni-oni could muster about thirty or forty fighters, Paul guessed, the Deathsingers six times that. There’d been about eighty of them down by the liquor stalls, but they would not have been the only ones. Others would have mustered at bars along the edge of the shanties, to make a timed attack from all sides. It was a well-planned operation.

  The man in the fawn suit was clearly in charge. Suppose he wasn’t there. Suppose he got taken out.

  Seemingly without his having told it his hand was feeling down through the rolls of cotton and working the AK free. All the uncertainties were gone. Everything had come together for this moment. This was why he had buried the gun all those months ago, instead of letting it be handed in for destruction. This was why the soldiers had come to Tsheba. This was why he had risked the appalling trek south to the railway, to dig the gun up again. This, just now, was why he had suggested to Major Dasu that Jilli should come with him, so that she could take the message back while he stalked his prey. It had all been arranged long ago, and he knew who had arranged it. Her voice whispered in his mind: I love you, my son. Love me. Bring me alive with your beautiful gun.

  An easy, simple target. Three shots rapid, to make sure.

  He slipped the safety down.

  If only Jilli had been here, to share the moment, his fellow Warrior.

  The thought of her checked his hand on the cocking lever, Jilli before she’d become a Warrior, standing in the rocking boat and craning over the reed beds to watch her father’s house explode in fire. A twist of gas-soaked rag at the corner, a match, flames roaring through the sun-bleached stems, the tower of smoke, Jilli’s screams…

  The man was enemy. He was everything Michael and the others had fought against so long. But Paul knew with absolute certainty that if he pulled the trigger to kill him those shots would be the match which set Nagala on fire again. Bring me alive with your beautiful gun. No. Bitch.

  He raised the safety and laid the gun on its side. You’ve been lucky this time, mister, he thought. But if anyone else starts shooting, you’re dead.

  Black ashes of burning floated through the hot, slow-moving air. Beneath the stall something stank and flies whined between the stacked masks, seeking it out. The man in the fawn suit leaned against one of the trees and lit a thin cigar, just like the ones Michael used to smoke. Runners came and went. The Deathsong filled the air, but through it Paul could hear the smiths’ gong still beating, and the shouts and screams, and the roar and crackle as another stall went up in flames. And then the clatter of imitation gunfire would drown everything.

  He waited, ignoring the flies, controlling his tension, taut in him like the spring of a trap. Battles were like this. Watch that flank, Michael would say, be ready to shoot on that fireline, creep forward to those anthills if you get the chance … and then the action was all on the other flank and no one crossed the fireline and no shot was fired as you snaked toward the anthills, but your task was still part of the battle. So, now, the man in the fawn suit was Paul’s task. In intent poised stillness he watched him, like a leopard watching a grazing antelope. The man was still very near his death.

  A couple of market police hurried up to the palms and spoke to him. They were a useless lot—all they did in the market was see they got their cut from the hash sellers. Now they looked anxious, but he laughed at them and patted them patronizingly on the shoulders before turning to a runner who had just arrived. They strolled away. The runner clearly had good news—Paul could see it in his gestures, and the way he laughed as he gave his message, and the way the man in the fawn suit replied, then pointed up at the speakers and patted the tape deck. I’ve an answer to that, mister, thought Paul.

  Again he picked up the gun, cocked it, lowered the safety, and took aim, then waited. Just as the imitation gunfire burst out once more he pulled the trigger. The lovely familiar jar of power ran through his forearm as he held the barrel steady.

  The man in the fawn suit leapt and stared at his hand, which he’d still been resting on the tape deck, then at the smashed deck itself, then at the speakers above, then around at the stalls. As the brief gun-deafness cleared from Paul’s ears he found he could hear the sounds of fighting, the shouts and screams and crashings, and through them all the coppersmiths’ gong still beating. They wavered to and fro, became louder, and then as they swelled were joined by a sudden crashing yell of onslaught mixed with a yipping bark. The man in the fawn suit jerked himself out of his astonishment and climbed onto the crate, shading his eyes to gaze over the nearer stalls. It was only a minute before the first of the retreating Deathsingers ran by.

  They took the man in the fawn suit by surprise, but he jumped down at once and stood in the path of the next wave, shouting at them, ordering them back into the battle. They argued, gesturing toward the fight, but before anything could happen another lot came pouring through, and by now the stall holders seemed to have grasped that these were defeated men and were darting out between the stalls to yell at them and pummel their shoulders as they ran. Soon if any of the Deathsingers fell he was done for as a mob closed screaming around him, kicking and pounding like boys killing a snake till he lay still.

  Now, thought Paul. Now someone will start shooting. They’ve got nothing to lose. He wriggled his way out to the back of the stall, cradling the gun ready, hoping the rush of people would offer him a clear shot when the moment came. The man in the fawn suit made three separate efforts to bar the rout, but they swept past him without even stopping to argue. He was so furious with them that the traders must have thought he was on their side as he yelled and cuffed their enemies.

  Now he gave up and stood clear of the rush in the slot beside the mask seller’s stall. Paul could have moved two paces and touched him as with quick but unflustered movements he rolled up his hat and stuffed it into the pocket of his jacket, which he then took off and folded over his arm. He turned, edged along the back of the stall behind and waited beside it to cross the next alley where a mob of blue-shirted fugitives were streaming by. His pose was easy, like a sightseer. Quietly Paul slid along between the stalls until he was directly behind him, just out of reach. He raised the gun and cocked it, firmly, making the metallic double click and slither good and loud. The man
froze.

  “Put your hands up,” said Paul. “Turn around.” The man did so. Their eyes met. He looked at the steady muzzle of the gun and smiled.

  “Big toy for a kid,” he said.

  “Man-size bullets in it,” said Paul. “Want to find out? I’ve got the catch down.”

  The man’s eyes flickered as though something was happening behind Paul’s back. Paul tensed his finger on the trigger. It was pretty certainly only a trick, but there was no harm in the man seeing that if anything touched him the gun would fire.

  “Okay,” he said. “Keep your hands how they are and turn around.”

  The man let his hands drop to his side and stayed where he was, still smiling. Paul had guarded prisoners who’d thought they could try this sort of thing with children. He lowered the muzzle a few inches.

  “Give you three,” he said. “Then I’ll shoot your leg off. One, two …”

  The man nodded, raised his hands, and turned.

  “Walk,” said Paul. “Play it safe, mister. Don’t think I’m new to this. Go where that gong’s being hit.”

  The steady triumphant beat was now the loudest noise in the market. The fight wasn’t over, but the sounds had scattered, mainly down toward the lower end of the market but coming from anywhere where the market people or the gangs had a few Deathsingers cornered. A lot of the stalls were wrecked, their goods spilled, their tables toppled, their awnings in tatters. When he reached the area where the Fulu women had traded he found nothing but piles of smouldering ash, and most of the space around was flattened. The coppersmiths’ section was like a junkyard. Bodies, mostly with blue shirts, lay around. Women, many of them bloodied and weeping, wandered to and fro or helped others worse hurt than themselves. It didn’t look like the scene of a victory.

  In the middle of it hung the gong. Two boys still thumped it with alternate strokes. Beyond it a group of adults was gathered, with Major Dasu’s tall figure among them. Paul marched his prisoner over.