THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC of the Congo is a tax bureau that follows the public-private partnership model. The private sector is the government, which is also public. The underclasses traffic in cigarettes and chewing gum, toothpaste and Kleenex. The policeman taxes the poor guy he picks out of a traffic jam and who isn’t wearing his seatbelt. The mining official never lets anyone consult a geological survey without demanding a week’s worth of food if he’s honest, and a house if he’s moved from poverty to proactive corruption. The pawn in the elevator whispers that he can take care of certain introductions. The bureau chief ’s secretary would love to have dinner with you, and her boss demands part of your enterprise. But here is the dilemma: I am going to set up shop in Bunia, but don’t know if I’ll go into gold, diamonds, the restaurant business, or simply fritter away my savings. I know one thing for sure, which I cannot say to them: I want to observe Kabanga and study the consequences of his liberation for the city and the region. Joseph has already alluded to the mysterious disappearance of witnesses and victims. I am a kind of spy for my own justice system, and I know that a spy needs a good cover. The Minister of Justice, with whom I conversed on the phone and by e-mail when I was at The Hague, and who was responsible for Kabanga being arrested, will help me settle in Bunia. Afterward, he says, if I strike it rich in diamonds or gold or something else, we’ll talk. He smiles, satisfied with himself, knowing that I have seen the sword of Damocles he has just hung over my head. He is waiting for me, and I won’t escape. He wrote a note for the Minister of the Interior. I will receive a residence permit for one year and the police and local administration in Bunia will be instructed to leave me alone. To do things right, unlike my earlier mission to the Ivory Coast, I invited him and his wife to have dinner at the Memling. He looked at his schedule and, surprise, he was free this evening, something that rarely occurs.
The dinner was ceremonial to a fault, not poolside as I had reserved, but in the dining room. Since when do you drink champagne with snails and lamb shanks? I don’t know, but the Minister and his wife shovelled it in. A bottle of old Armagnac topped it off. Myriam dozed to the sound of Madame’s comments about fabric and clothing, mostly Dior. She wears traditional African styles for official soirées such as tonight, but otherwise her threads come from Paris. “My clothes come from my house,” Myriam said, but no one heard.