SINCE JOSEPH’S DEATH, Sayed has been staying close to me. He wants to talk, I can feel it. He asked me if I’d heard the rumours. No, but I do know that here rumours are like the wind.
You know what that means. You know how the wind blows. You can’t grasp it or take it into your hands and capture it, but it’s all around, it envelops you and sometimes it slows you down. It rustles the leaves of quiet trees, changes the rhythm of a man who is walking, and who bends his back to push through the invisible force. In Africa, rumour is like the worst kind of wind, like a sandstorm. The wind goes where it wants to. No one knows the origin of the wind of rumour, but it blows and chokes people, it makes them blind and mad. Sometimes, often, it kills and starts bloody conflicts. When Sayed told me about the rumours, he described ten versions that had the inhabitants fearful, and that set off new alliances, meetings, and negotiations. No one knew where the rumour came from, but it had taken over the city. I wasn’t just a rumour anymore, I was a fact that no one understood, which made more rumours about me spring to life. I was responsible for Kabanga being freed, I had come to kill Kabanga, I had come to work with him because I’d lost my job at the Court, I was crazy for Black women, I was a pervert, I wanted to take over the town’s economy. The importance I’d acquired did not make me happy. In every rumour lies a danger, and I was worried.
In the sandstorm that swept down the avenue de la Libération, in the three restaurants, the little bars in private houses, people started talking about a new armed group. Supposedly it was made up of kids, and the chief was named Josué. Supposedly it had made an alliance with the Lendu to seek revenge against Kabanga.
The winds of rumour said they’d formed a camp near Bogoro. They were out to steal the gold, and traffic in diamonds, and reach Lake Albert that was running with oil. To tax the goods exported into Uganda, you had to control that little town where three roads meet, all leading to untold riches.
“My father used to say that you can’t take the hatred out of hearts a century old. Here, every heart, even the child’s, is a century old. They are fed on stories and fables and old wounds, and you can write a name on every scar. Sometimes it’s the name of someone’s family, but most of the time it’s the name of a group, an ethnicity. You have to understand the importance of the tribe. It’s what you call social security. The tribe is family and there’s no such thing as justice. To make a long story short, Kabanga is getting ready to conquer what he’d lost, the Lendu are preparing their defense, and the children have formed an armed group that wants to kill Kabanga. Everyone knows you come from The Hague. We knew that before you got here. That’s the way Africa is. You should leave. There’s nothing good for you here. Please forgive me for speaking openly, but I consider you a friend and you seem so alone.”