“Filth, just filth!” exclaimed Marshal Oufiri as he clung tightly to the edge of his desk and tapped the bowl of his clay pipe against the Venetian crystal ashtray.
The stem of the pipe broke in two. Oufiri contemplated the damage with jocular stupefaction. He burst out laughing and spread the palms of his hands like a startled monsignor.
“Colonel, my friend, why must we have a body?”
Oufiri had downed half a bottle of Irish whiskey straight. The spirit had turned his limbs to jelly. He was feeling leaden but sagacious.
“It would be too easy,” said Jumbo, seated in a chair facing the desk. “Without a body, it would be too easy. No body, no carnal desires. No carnal desires, no State, no Law. No limits.”
“That would be lovely,” said the minister dreamily.
“No conscience,” added Jumbo soberly.
“What a turn-on!” cried the marshal.
“Conscience is the act of surpassing constraint,” quoted the colonel.
Oufiri slumped into the armchair with a thud.
“I don’t know how come you’re not in the Opposition.”
Jumbo’s smile exposed his filed-down teeth.
“Later, perhaps.”
“Cock and balls,” said his superior officer crudely. “You turned yourself into a cop and a torturer. You’ll never shake free of the regime now. Your name is reviled.”
His articulation faltered over the last sentence.
Jumbo shrugged. He had intelligence sources in the Opposition. He knew he was not loved, but he also knew he was useful on account of his power over armed forces that on a signal from him would turn their coats.
Oufiri retrieved the intact bowl of his pipe from the ashtray; a last whorl of heavy aromatic smoke arose from it. He tossed the thing into the empty hearth, where it shattered.
“Your thinking is short-term, Colonel. I am not talking to you about a simple change of allegiance. I’m talking about revolution.”
“Same same.”
“You poor fool. I’ve seen it, in the Congo.”
Oufiri had been to the Congo during the events there. He had been caught in the midst of the insurrection alongside UN observers. This had left its mark on him.
“Primitives,” said Jumbo contemptuously.
“They didn’t go to the Sorbonne, that’s for sure,” said Oufiri sarcastically.
“What did you see? Shit, my fine friend, what did you see?”
Jumbo was suddenly beside himself. Men with a political philosophy are often that way: they never fail to be beside themselves from time to time.
“The Simbas,” the marshal answered. “My God, they were magnificently hung. Josyane would have loved that. They killed anything in a uniform. I had to throw my fountain pen away surreptitiously: they had a unit of kids from nine to fourteen with automatic weapons who shot anyone with a Parker fountain pen. They wore typewriter ribbons around their necks. They had occupied a very fancy hotel. Nuns were held captive inside. Supposedly they were poking them non-stop. They shat everywhere in the hotel.”
“Just what I said: stinking primitive Negroes.”
“There was a white man with them. A Belgian. An old guy. Completely mad. He was deaf. He said this was due to jet planes. He would shoot at planes.”
“A madman.”
“That’s what I just told you,” said Oufiri irritably.