Lorna in Kinshasa

This last time in the hospital...a week or so...I actually wrote several pages for a new project. All in red ball-point pen on the reverse of old menu sheets. I really need a lap-top!
By the way...for any friends who are not on Blogspot, if you want to comment anyway, you can always drop me an e-mail at JonZ314@aol.com. Would love to hear from you.

The red ball-point pen story is a long way from finished, but here's an offering from several months ago.



Lorna in Kinshasa

M’Kubu B’Lama moves the gearshift lever into Park and he does so very methodically, feeling the clicks as it goes. He is very careful. He has never driven a car with an automatic shift before this one. He moves his foot to depress the parking brake, but before he can, the Pastor, Mr. Biggers, has already opened the rear door and is hauling his bulk onto the shoulder of the road. M’Kubu is mildly distressed at this, believing that to be properly parked, the brake must be depressed. He is a responsible man.

“Carter,” says Mrs. Pastor Biggers, “you be careful. Don’t you get swindled. And remember, Kleenex, not that other stuff you got before.”

Mr. Pastor Biggers nods and is sweating already. “Lorna, this is not K-Mart. I’ll get what I can.” He turns and walks from the car, across a packed dirt easement and through a small crowd of men to a small mud brick building. They nod. One stands as he passes. He says, “Bless you,” and sounds tired and breathless.

Lorna shouts from the car, “Kleenex!” Without looking back he nods.

“Mikey,” says Mrs. Pastor Biggers, “why, in a country this size, can one simply not find a simple Kleenex?”

M’Kubu considers as much of economics as he knows and says, “The people here, for them it is Zaire brand. It is the kind we have.” He is quite sure his words and his sentence are correct. He has been told that his English is good. Not as good as his French, but acceptable. That, and the fact that he had, in the past, driven an automobile, and the fact that he was a Christian, had been qualifications enough for this job.

But M’Kubu B’Lama seeks to improve himself and now, in the evenings, he studies more English. He reads a book the Pastors have given him. He has found the word “gingerly” and is unclear about it. He knows ginger. It is a spice he has never tasted. But gingerly? Somehow when the very young girl in the story picks up a small animal, she does so gingerly. This could mean in a spicy way? Maybe she picks it up roughly, but no, there is a picture and she hugs this animal; so, not roughly. He worries about being too bold but clears his throat and says, “Mrs. Pastor? I study my English. From the book...”

“That’s very nice Mikey. Is the air conditioner on at all?”

“Yes, ma’am, it is on at all. See? The lever is all to the blue side.”

He takes another breath. “In the book there is a word.” Lorna is staring out the window.

Whirls of dust move unimpeded across the road. “And the word, it is ‘gingerly.’ May I ask, what is this word?”

“Hmm...?” says Lorna, thinking to herself that a box of Tide would go a long way in making these people much happier. “Gingerly? It means, ah, right away. No, wait, gingerly? It means slowly. Yes. Now you know.” She continues to stare out the window. M’Kubu remembers her lesson. He will use this word out loud some time. He compares it to similar words in French and Swahili. He smiles at his new word.

Pastor Mr. Biggers returns to the car with a flat red box. His suit jacket flaps open as he gets into the Fiat’s back seat and through the rearview mirror M’Kubu sees a great wetness under the Pastor’s arm. There is a stain the size of a melon. He should, thinks M’Kubu, perhaps not wear this coat in Zaire at midday in August.

Mrs. Pastor Biggers is angry. The flat red box is not Kleenex. “It’s all they had,” says the Pastor.

“I should have gone myself,” says Mrs. Pastor. But she would not have gone. She is larger than her husband.

“Whether you went or I went, this is all they have.”

“I’m sure,” she says, ripping open the box and blotting her face. The tissue comes apart. She makes a disgusted sound. M’Kubu thinks that maybe only a very large towel would help.
Then she says, “Did they cheat you?”

“No,” he says.

“They did. I know it. It’s genetic. A nation of cheats.”

“Lorna,” he says, glancing towards M’Kubu in the front seat.

She sniffs something about K’Kubu’s lack of understanding. “Did they short change you? You’re foreign. White. It doesn’t matter to them that you’re a man of God. They did, right?”

“No, Lorna, I’m sure not.”

“Show me the change.” He hesitates. “Show me.” She is nearly shouting.

From his jacket pocket he takes a one thousand Zee note, a five thousand Zee note and three hard candies.

“I knew it,” she says. “Go back. Go right back in there and get your proper change. They owe you, what? What does that figure to? Three hundred Zee?”
The Pastor is exhausted from the ride in the car and the walk into the shop and the sound of his wife. M’Kubu listens but looks straight out through the windshield. He sees a boy digging in the dirt with a stick, eyeing the car with side long glances. He knows what to say for the Pastor’s defense but he says nothing.
“Lorna, there is no hundred Zee note. A hundred Zee is like a tenth of a penny. They can’t make change like that. They give a few candies. It comes out.”

M’Kubu is pleased. The Pastor knows many things and he’s happy to know that he understands this aspect of monetary exchange.

It is too hot to argue. Mr. Pastor Biggers says, “Drive, Michael.”

“Yes, Mister Pastor. To where?”

“The sweatshop. I want to take some more pictures to show the congregation our success.”

“You don’t owe him an explanation,” says Lorna. Then she doesn’t say any more and the car pulls smoothly away.

The sweatshop is thirty minutes away, also on the edge of Kinshasa but further to the north. Kinshasa is a large city and M’Kubu is justly proud.

Just before arriving at the sweatshop M’Kubu veers suddenly and pulls off the road, the Fiat stopping at an uneven angle, its right front tire in a shallow hole of some size. Mrs. Pastor Biggers grunts. Mr. Pastor Biggers says, “What...?”

Then suddenly, in plumes of dust and flying gravel, two motorcycles pass, then a pickup truck with soldiers in the bed, then a dark blue Chevrolet sedan and finally a black Mercedes limousine. From every vehicle flies the flag of Zaire. From the limousine fly four flags.
M’Kubu averts his eyes. It is President for Life, The Most, Most Honorable, Robert Mugabe. He goes down the road as fast as the motor cycles can lead him. All people on the road, on foot or in cars, stop. They look down. Those still wearing scraps of military uniform salute from attention.

“Twice this week,” says Lorna. “We are so lucky. Twice we are honored by la grande fromage. Well, he’s gone, Mikey. Drive.”

“One moment, please, Mrs. Pastor.”

“Drive!” she says.

“Mrs. Pastor Biggers, please. Many times there are two...ah...parades...lines of cars. One does not have him and then one does. It is to fool the enemy. One moment.”

Lorna draws a breath but says nothing. She knows the soldiers in the motorcade have killed suspicious looking bystanders. “La grande fromage,” she says. There is no second line of cars. The people begin to move. M’Kubu gently pulls out of the hole and drives on.

The sweatshop is a cinderblock building perhaps one hundred feet wide and two hundred feet long. It is whitewashed but dirty. The sign above the overhead doors reads, “Ashley Kemp Fashions,” and then there are some smaller words that they are too far away to see.
“Closed up tight,” says Mrs. Pastor Biggers. “And good riddance. We’ve done well, Carter. One less place like this in the world.”

“You should be proud, Mikey, to be allowed to drive the car of the man who did this.”

“Oh, it is my honor. Truly.”

“Now,” Lorna continues, “the children, at least in this neighborhood can go back to just being children, as God intended. It is a great thing, don’t you agree, Mikey?”

“Yes, Mrs. Pastor. Now they will go back how it was.” And on this M’Kubu says no more and watches as Mr. Pastor Carter Biggers leaves the car and walks to the building with his camera.
Back to how it was, thinks M’Kubu. The sweat shop is one thing they will not be doing.
“It was a bad thing that there was this sweatshop,” says M’Kubu. “God wanted it gone.”
Mister Pastor Carter Biggers stops near the factory. He bends a bit at the waist and puts his hands on his knees. Then he straightens and walks some more, pausing to snap photos. Several children hover around him, but not too close. They are several feet away. They move like flies.
“You have taught me many things,” M’Kubu goes on. “But there is so much I do not know.” Lorna Biggers has taken to looking out the opposite window, not following her husband’s progress. “Why is it,” says M’Kubu, “that God wanted it so?”

“What?” she says.

“The factory. The sweatshop. I know...I believe it was a bad thing and that God wanted it gone. But why did He want this?”

“To save the children.” She is agitated. “You are not a stupid man, Mikey. To save the children. You live here. Surely you know what went on in there...twelve hours work days, poor lighting, no ventilation. Some of these children were only eight years old. They barely earned a dollar a day. Now they are free to be home and be normal children.”

And M’Kubu thinks about children being normal without the factory. Before the factory there had been maybe three things a child could do. The easiest and in some ways most fun was begging. The second was picking through the steaming mountain of garbage a few kilometers away for odd bits of saleable trash and almost edible food. And the third, of course, was selling one’s body, an occupation for which the girls had a real advantage. And oh, thinks M’Kubu, of course the fourth option was death. And now with the factory gone, those options remained. M’Kubu is sure that the God of Jesus has a plan. He is very sure. But still he thinks he will check.

Pastor Biggers returns to the car. The children follow at a distance. He wishes he had had more candies to give them.

M’Kubu will approach his question carefully. He says, as they begin driving back to the Pastors’ compound, “I am most pleased to be a Christian now.”

“God will bless you,” says the Pastor. “How old were you when you found Jesus, Michael?”

“Mmm...I think it was three years past now.”

“Oh. Wonderful. Three years with the Lord.”

“Yes,” says M’Kubu, “three years. I learned of the God of Jesus from the Pastor Mister Cadwell from America.”

“And God has blessed you for your faith.”

“Oh yes. The God of Jesus is a fine God. I like Him very much. This Christian God, He is more...ah...hmm...easier to get along with than the other ones.”

“I don’t understand,” says Carter Biggers.

“The other Gods, they are harsh. This Christian God, He knows when he makes mistakes. He is very, very smart that way.”

“Carter,” says Lorna Biggers, “why are you talking to this man? Clearly still half heathen.”

“What do you mean?” Pastor Biggers asks M’Kubu.

“In the old book, God is mean. He kills many people. But later, after Jesus, then He doesn’t kill any more. He has learned.”

There are creases in Pastor Biggers forehead. He is curious as to how this simple man’s mind comprehends theology.

“Oh yes,” says M’Kubu. “I have studied this. In the old days before Jesus, God killed many. The first born of Pharaoh’s kingdom. All dead. All of the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. All dead, too.”

“Michael, they were sinners. They turned their backs on Him. The city of Sodom was evil and had to be destroyed.”

“All died?”

“Every one.”

“I think maybe there were some babies there. You think so?”

Pastor says nothing.

“And women with child? You think? But it’s okay. God learned. After he had a baby, He learned, and then he didn’t go killing people any more.”

Lorna’s face is red. She seems prepared to melt. Or explode. But M’Kubu cannot see her face and thinks they are proud of him for giving so much thought to God. He goes on, “And the God of Jesus, He is the best God because He only cares that He is number one. Now, Ala, oh, he says there is only one God and it is him. But the God of Jesus, he says the other gods are okay as long as nobody puts those other gods before Him. It is a commandment. It says, All other Gods come after me.”

M’Kubu is about to show what he has learned about prayer when Lorna Biggers screams. She screams in sound and in words. Her scream fills the car. M’Kubu has never heard many of these words. Mrs. Pastor Biggers is pounding on the back of M’Kubu’s seat. Then she reaches forward and grabs his ear. If M’Kubu were not a very responsible man, the car would have crashed. But he does stop as quickly as he can because his ear hurts very much. He is surprised to hear himself screaming too.

Pastor Biggers convinces his wife to release M’Kubu’s ear. He tells M’Kubu to leave the car. Pastor Biggers leaves the back seat, rounds the car, gets behind the wheel and drives away, leaving M’Kubu by the side of the road.

Rubbing his ear, he starts walking east. It is a long way to walk and the day is hot. And the Fiat is nearly out of gas. He prays to Ala that he be merciful.