Scribbling the Cat - Alexandra Fuller [83]
“Oh sorry, I forgot.”
K sat on an armchair.
St. Medard made a noise like he was choking, a great intake of breath and then a rattling noise, like plates being shaken on a shelf during an earthquake.
“That could have been me right there,” said K, staring at the ruined man on the sofa opposite us.
“Could have been any of us.”
“Hey?”
“You’re your own accident of biology and geography and time. He’s his. I’m mine. We all might have been one another but for a minor hiccup of fate.”
“This close,” agreed K, showing me his thumb and forefinger pressed together to measure the degree of separation.
I took a swallow of tea. “Closer than that.” I squinted my eyes and squashed my thumb and finger together. “This close.”
St. Medard groaned and slapped his belly.
K shook his head again. “That man will be dead in a year, you watch.”
“I don’t see why,” I said, pressing lumps of powdered milk into my tea. “He’ll probably live forever. It’s everyone else that will be dead in a year.”
Have You Got a Map?
Mapenga and Mambo
MAPENGA CAME TO JOIN US. He sat next to me on the sofa and asked, “Is there tea for me, China?” There was a small swelling on his cheek and a cut above his eye.
I poured a cup for him and he kissed me on the cheek. “Man, it’s nice to see a woman around the place.” He looked at K. “Especially when you look at the fucking competition. Ha! Ha!” Mapenga took a swallow of tea. “Usually it’s just me and the lion. And if I’m lucky I get that bastard for company.” Mapenga nodded at the sleeping, monumental ruin in front of us. “Ha!”
K got up noisily.
“Where are you off to, mad bastard?”
“Shower.”
“Can’t you beat the crap out of my lion first?” asked Mapenga.
“You’re still drunk,” said K.
“What me? No chance. I just haven’t taken my medication yet. Always a bit jumpy until I take my pills.”
K left without saying anything.
I lit a cigarette. Mapenga hummed under his breath and put his arm carelessly over my shoulders. The lion came to the edge of the cage and settled down on his belly to watch us.
“Look at that handsome cat,” muttered Mapenga. “Just like his owner. Ha, ha!” He lit a cigarette and winked at me. “Hey? Hey?”
I got up and poured more hot water in the teapot.
“Fuck, you people are boring,” Mapenga complained, blowing smoke after me. “I’m bored already. What shall we do? What do you want to do today, China?”
I stared at St. Medard, asleep in a fog of hangover, and I thought about the lion.
“Fishing?” he suggested.
“I hate fishing,” I said.
“You can tie my bait.”
“No thanks.”
“Damn,” said Mapenga, “that’s what all the women say. Ha, ha!”
“There is a landmark near here I want to see,” I said.
“That’s more like it. Come on then. Prepare yourself. It’s three feet long. Ha, ha!”
“You know the Train?”
“No one’s ever called it that before.”
“Mapenga!”
Mapenga looked subdued. “Sorry. I’ll be better when I’ve had my pills. Ja, ja. What train? The mountain?”
“Ja.”
“Ja. I know it.”
“Let’s climb it,” I said.
Mapenga crushed out his cigarette. “What?”
“Can we manage in a day?”
“You want to climb the Train? That mountain?” said Mapenga, pointing with his teacup to the east.
I nodded.
“You’re fucking madder than I am.”
“The exercise will do us good,” I said.
“Why the hell do you want to do a thing like that?”
“Just because,” I said.
Because I had come to Mozambique to see where K had spent his war and the Train had been a symbol of that war. And because the Train had served as a landmark for both sides of the conflict—the freedom fighters and the Rhodesian forces. And because the Train had hosted a base camp for the freedom fighters until the RLI came along and took it over for themselves. And because I had heard about the Train for years from soldiers who had come out of Mozambique. It was where the helicopters refueled, where the troopies on patrol were resupplied, where numerous battles had been fought. And because, before I had set out on this journey, I thought that I might find the answer to K and to the war and to the splinters in my own psyche at the Train.