Scribbling the Cat - Alexandra Fuller [76]
I looked away.
“Anything,” said Mapenga, sitting back again. “Man, if there was a war crimes tribunal, every damn one of us—from both sides, the gondies weren’t any better—we’d all be up for murder. We’d all be in jail. War’s shit.” He lit a cigarette and eyed me through the smoke.
Then Mapenga added, “We didn’t choose war. War chose us.” He sat for a long time staring at me as if to ensure that this had sunk in. “No one would choose war deliberately. You follow me? But if it’s the hand you’re dealt, then . . . fuck . . . No one who hasn’t gone through it can understand. It’s the shittiest thing there is, and the most beautiful thing too.” Suddenly his voice relaxed and he looked away. “The only way you can look at it is . . . war’s a gift,” he said. “It’s a shit gift. But it’s a gift. I wouldn’t be what I am—I wouldn’t be living here”—he indicated the cage and beyond that a lawn stretching down to the cliffs that soared into a lip of blue sky above the lake—“if it hadn’t been for the war. It taught me about death, but it also taught me about living every single moment to the fullest. When I die and I go up there and Jesus Christ asks me what I did with my life, I’ll say to him, ‘I hope you have a long time to sit and listen, because do I have a story for you!’ ” The startling laugh came again. “Fuck! I certainly haven’t lived a boring one, hey? No. I’ve lived four lives—Christ, more.” He leaned across to me so that I could see black flecks in his blue eyes, and a small crosshatch of creases in his neck, which joined deeper lines. I could see the pull of sinews in his jaw. “How many fucking bastards in a suit can say that?” he asked.
I looked away and lit a cigarette to distance myself from a sudden sharp ache of longing I had to see my children. I itched for the routine of laundry; the apple-air-conditioned scent of the grocery store; the happy predictability of the days that started with tea and porridge, and children crumpled with sleep, and that ended with bath, books, bed. I longed for that bland quality of domesticity that allowed a creature enough stability to take root. Here, I felt as if I might pick up and blow away from a storm of emotion and intensity.
“You know,” said Mapenga suddenly, “I’m square now, hey. But I didn’t always used to be square. I used to be really mad.” Mapenga looked at K. “We were all mad in that war. Ninety percent of us that got out of that war alive—and I mean the real war, not those bloody pawpaws who spent their time sitting around waiting for a gook to show up, but you and me and the boys who went after the gooks—we were all mad. That’s why we were so fucking good. You’ll find we all did shit in school, but we were great at war. Because we were mad. We’re the leaders. We’re the leaders of the whole fucking world, but we’re mad.
“You know I got treatment, hey? Finally, all those years of hurting people and fucking people up, and three wives, and man . . . I tormented people, but the person I tormented the most was myself. I got in a fight every fucking weekend—it was unavoidable. And my biggest fear was killing someone. I was sure I was going to kill someone and that scared me. I didn’t want to kill someone and spend the rest of my life in jail. One night I nearly killed my own brother and that’s when my family said to me, ‘Look, you either get help, or we won’t have anything to do with you.’ So I got help. I saw a psychiatrist and a psychologist. I drove down to Harare every two weeks for my appointments and I loved it. I finally understood why I was mad.
“They diagnosed me with ADHD—my brain fires too fast—and after experimenting with Prozac and lithium and this drug and that drug they put me on Ritalin and I am lekker now. I am sorted. Hey. And I’ve thought of you often”—Mapenga again glanced over at K—“because I think you’ll find you have the same disease as me. And Saddam Hussein, and George Bush, and Bin Laden—all these guys—they’re fucking brilliant but they’re fucking mad. They all have ADHD. Hitler had it, for sure. You’ll most probably find Jesus Christ