Karla kept one eye on the two men talking and another on Mirthe so that she wouldn’t come close. The men were taking quite some time. Why hadn’t Paulo come back and danced a bit around the bonfire, leaving behind the awful vibe that had taken root in the restaurant and followed them to the tiny city where they’d parked the bus?
She decided to dance a little more, while the sparks from the fire filled the starless sky with light.
The music was the domain of the bus driver, who was also recovering from that night’s events—though this wasn’t the first time he’d been through something like that. The louder the music and the more it was suited to dancing, the better. He considered the possibility that the police might show up again and ask him to leave, but he decided to relax. He wasn’t about to live in fear because a group of people who considered themselves the ultimate authority, and, as a result, authorities over others, had tried to ruin a day in his life. It was all right, it was just one day, but one day was the most precious good he had on this earth. Just one day—his mother had begged on her deathbed. Just one day was worth more than all the kingdoms in the world.
26
Michael—this was the driver’s name—had done something unthinkable three years earlier; after earning his medical degree, he’d received a used Volkswagen from his parents and, instead of parading it in front of the girls or flashing it before his friends in Edinburgh, he set off one week later on a trip to South Africa. He had saved enough to spend two or three years traveling—working in private clinics as a paid internist. His dream was to see the world, because he had become all too familiar with the human body; he had seen its fragility.
After countless days—spent crossing several former French and English colonies, treating the sick and consoling the afflicted—he got used to the idea that death was always near and promised himself that never, at any moment, would he allow the poor to suffer or the forgotten to live in discomfort. He discovered that charity had an effect that was both redemptive and sheltering—never, not even for an instant, had he faced adversity or gone hungry. The Volkswagen, which was already twelve years old, hadn’t been built for this; but it held up, apart from a blown tire as he crossed one of those many countries in a constant state of war. Without his realizing it, the good that Michael did now preceded him wherever he went, and in each village, he was hailed as a man who saved lives.
By mere chance, he found a Red Cross outpost in a beautiful village near a lake in the Congo. There, his fame also preceded him—they supplied him with vaccines for yellow fever, bandages, this or that for performing surgeries, and they gave strict orders that he not get involved in the conflict but merely care for the wounded from both sides. “This is our goal,” explained a young man from the Red Cross. “Not to interfere, merely to heal.”
The trip Michael had intended to last two months stretched to nearly a year. Traveling miles, he was almost never alone and often transported women who could no longer walk after so many days on the road seeking refuge from the violence and tribal wars on every side. As he crossed through the countless checkpoints, he felt that a mysterious force was helping him. Soon after asking for his passport, they let him continue, perhaps for having healed a brother, a son, a friend of a friend.
That had impressed him a great deal. He’d made a vow to God—he asked to live each day as a servant, one day, a single day, in the image of Christ, to whom he was entirely devoted. He thought about becoming a priest as soon as he got to the other end of the African continent.
When he arrived in Cape Town, he decided to rest before seeking out a religious order and putting himself forward as an apprentice. His idol was Saint Ignatius of Loyola, who had followed a course much like his own, traveling part of the world and founding the Jesuit order after going to study in Paris.
Michael found a simple, cheap hotel and decided to rest for a week, to allow all the adrenaline to leave his body and peace to overtake him once again. He tried not to think about what he had seen—revisiting the past is no use, it serves only to place figurative shackles on our feet and remove any sign of hope in humanity.
He turned his attention to the future, thought about how to sell his Volkswagen, and spent morning to night admiring the view of the sea from his window. He watched as the colors of the sun and water changed according to the hour, and below, the white men wearing explorers’ hats strolled along the beach, smoking pipes, their wives dressed as though they were at the royal court in London. Not a single black person, only whites there below, on the sidewalk that ran along the shore. This filled him with more sadness than you can imagine; racial segregation was the law in the country but at the moment he could do nothing, only pray.
He prayed morning to night, asking for inspiration, preparing himself to undertake Saint Ignatius’s spiritual exercises for the tenth time. He wanted to be ready when the moment arrived.
On his third morning there, as he ate breakfast, two men in light suits approached his table.
“So, you’re the man who has brought such honor to the name of the British Empire,” one of them said to him.
The British Empire had ceased to exist, it had been replaced by the Commonwealth, but he had been caught off guard by the man’s words.
“I’ve honored only one day at a time,” he responded, knowing they wouldn’t understand.
And, in fact, they didn’t understand, because their conversation took the most dangerous direction he could have imagined.
“You’re well liked and respected wherever you go. The British government needs people like you.”
Had the man not mentioned the “British government,” Michael would have thought he was being invited to work in the mines, plantations, mineral-processing plants, as a foreman or even as a doctor. But “British government” meant something else. Michael was a good man, but he wasn’t naïve.
“No, thank you. I have other plans.”
“Such as?”
“Becoming a priest. Serving God.”
“And don’t you think you would be serving God by serving your country?”
Michael understood he could no longer stay in the place he’d struggled so long to reach. He ought to return to Scotland on the next flight—he had the money.
He got up from his table without allowing the man a chance to continue the conversation. He knew what they were so kindly “inviting” him to do: become a spy.
He had good relations with the local tribal armies, he’d met many people, and the last—the very last—thing he was going to do was betray the confidence of those who trusted him.
He grabbed his things, spoke with the manager about selling his car, and gave the address of a friend to whom the money could be sent. He went to the airport and, eleven hours later, stepped off a plane in London. Reading the board of classified ads as he waited on the train that would take him into the city, he found one in particular among the postings for cleaning ladies, roommates, waitresses, and girls interested in working the cabaret bars. “Wanted: Drivers Willing to Go to Asia.” Before heading into the city, he tore the announcement from the wall and went directly to the address listed, a tiny office with a sign on the door: BUDGET BUS.
“The position has been filled,” he was told by a young man with long hair, who opened the window to allow the smell of hashish to filter out. “But I heard they’re looking for qualified candidates in Amsterdam. Do you have experience?”
“Quite a bit.”
“So go there. Tell them Theo sent you. They know me.”