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Download the Book (Pdf) “NIGHT OF THE FIREFLIES” by MICHAEL RAEBURN 2 The author wishes to thank the following people for their help during the writing of this book: Ian Fenton, Heidi Draper, Jeanne Hromnik, Rina Minervini, Mike Hutchinson, Dr Jerome Premmereur, Anna Raeburn, Terrence Blacker, Fiona Eberts, Caroline Chomienne, Dr Clive Wake, Adam Munthe, Dr Karen Badt, Peter Marinker, Sheelagh Killeen, Francesco Cavalli-Sforza and Rupert Sheldrake. In memory of James Baldwin whose influence was inspirational. 3 4 “Oh! If we only had other organs which could work other miracles in our favour, what a number of fresh things we might discover around us!” GUY DE MAUPASSANT – “THE HORLA” And it so happened that I was chosen to bear testimony ... 5 DAY ONE – WEDNESDAY 19TH DECEMBER 1984 ENCOUNTER WITH MY PROSPECTIVE HOST “Sim, escuto.” These were the first words Rainer Kruger spoke to me – a man so hard of hearing, so full of his own words, and the first thing he says to me is that he is listening, he is waiting to hear me. His energy was “On” from the moment he answered my phone call, and he spoke loudly – a man who was unafraid in a country where fear haunted every shadow. I was to discover that such loudness was part of his pattern of behaviour: at one moment to plunge into the silence of the dead and at the next to burst forth provocatively with hazardous noise. As far as listening was concerned, my encounter with Rainer Kruger was mostly a one-way street: Sim, escuto should have been my line. In the sedate lobby of the only hotel in town, I was grateful to be out of the sun, even though the lateness of the afternoon brought no reprieve from the hammering heat. Oxygen was particularly short within the narrow confines of the phone booth. Through the sweating glass, two Germanic-looking men came looming towards me. Judging by their terrible suits they were probably from the German Democratic Republic, dispatched to Africa to inject more science into the Mozambican brand of scientific socialism. They mistook my vigorous waving at the swarm of mosquitoes for a gesture of dismissal. With my hand cupped round the mouthpiece, in one difficult breath I whispered my name and how I had obtained the Krugers’ number. Rainer Kruger had never heard of the journalist who had given it to me. “He must have interviewed my father about his yeast business,” he said. “But I doubt if he will remember. He chooses only to remember things from os boms velhos tempos – the good old days, before the revolution. I am Mr Kruger Junior. What can I do for you?” His English was fluent but stilted, his Mozambican Portuguese accent tinged with the flat vowels of Southern African whites. He must have lived for a while or been educated in neighbouring South Africa. Within seconds he displayed that special gift of putting one on edge that I was to become familiar with. I had said, “Sorry to ring you out of the blue” and he responded with a shout of laughter, repeating “out of the blue” twice, so much did it appeal to his brand of humour. When he had finished, he said loudly, “Do you wish to stay with us during your visit to our capital city, since you cannot afford that hotel?” I shot a nervous glance into the lobby. Was he standing right there somewhere, watching me? “How do you know where I am?” I asked guardedly. “You see ... Michael, you say? … Miguel, we say. You see, Miguel, everyone who comes to Mozambique who is – how to say – who is freelance in life, starts off at the Polana Hotel. It is like the promised land where only those who are not paying themselves can afford to dwell.” A bellowing laugh shuddered through the earpiece. All of a rush I replied, “There are no rooms available at the Polana. As you know, there are no other hotels left open anywhere in the city. I’ve got friends here, but I can’t find them. I should have phoned before flying in, but I couldn’t get through. You know what the lines are like. If you can put me up just for one night that would be great.” 6 Silence. I called his name. Had we been cut off? Finally he spoke. “It is not usual for people to stay in our house, but you have contacted me ...” “Don’t worry. Tomorrow I’ll be gone. I’m sure that ...” He shot in with: “It must be okay for you to stay. But right now I cannot find the reason.” “The reason!” I exclaimed. “The reason is everyone I know is away. It’s Christmas.” At this he went “Shh!” loudly and at length. “No more Christmas – it’s called Family Day here. But no, that is not the reason. The thing is, you have appeared … and, in particular, you have appeared at this important time of my life.” He was too weird; I was ready to call the whole thing off. Being in the phone booth was like steaming in a Turkish bath with one’s clothes on, and the mosquitoes were increasing the ferocity of their attacks. Before I could say anything, he announced decisively, transferring the Portuguese present tense into English, “I come and get you! I am one of the happy few who is not only the owner of a car but can even get petrol to drive it. This is because I am a running dog of the ancien régime.” Ignoring my attempt to conclude the conversation, he charged on, “We have plenty of room. I live alone with my father, and two servants who do not count, even here in Utopia. It is well known that our ‘chefs’ treat their servants like ghosts in their Zona Libertada Da Humanidade – you must have seen that written all over our airport in big letters? Não é verdade, Miguel?” I was desperate for him to stop. I could not believe that a local, living under increasingly edgy one-party rule in a country ravaged by civil war, could talk in this way on the most bugged instrument in the world. An old hand at Southern African political activism, I knew just how important it was to keep your affiliations quiet if they were serious, and how easy it was to be labelled an enemy through mere hearsay. Indeed, so flustered was I by this man’s crass boldness that he had to ask twice where I had come from, before I answered. He was delighted with the response. “Zimbabwe! Meu Deus! You are one of us – um camarada comunista!” The man was a menace. I was on the point of getting out of his line of fire when he discharged another volley of laughter before saying “Não faz mal! I am on my way!” and hung up so abruptly I was left gawking at the hand piece. The sprung doors of the phone booth flapped and winced as I escaped in a rush, startling the lobby staff. I set off for the lounge bar in a daze, but two receptionists hurried to intercept me: before I could advance any further into the premises my shoulder bag had to be searched, an exercise that involved their slowly removing everything in it … and then letting me put it all back. Having nothing better to do, the cashier and the porter joined in. They were all wearing the same stiffly-starched pre-independence uniforms, faded over a decade from brown to threadbare beige. Earlier, upon my arrival at the hotel, all four men had assembled before me to apply hotel rules that obliged non- residents to check in their suitcases for US$10 and to purchase US$10 of beverage coupons for the privilege of using the phone. 7 Having emerged unscathed from the search I walked into the lounge bar and directly into the line of vision of the two East Germans. They were seated in cushioned lilac armchairs within the genteel embrace of gold-inlaid walls and red velvet curtains. At another table sat four men who looked like expat workers due to their informal attire and their weather-beaten skin. For them, too, I was the object of curiosity. Later I heard them talking of low-cost housing, pronouncing the “ou” in the unique rounded way of Canadians. The room was a bouquet of memories from my student days when I had paid a brief visit to Mozambique to brush up my Portuguese, one of my subjects for a BA. This was before independence and long before civil war, when the Portuguese were imperial lords and the city was called Lourenço Marques. Despite twenty years of extensive cracking, peeling and shredding, the quaint splendour of colonial decor and architecture remained as I remembered it, the buxom crystal chandelier still hanging from the domed and flourishingly embossed ceiling under whose glow I had danced to a jazz band with my first serious girlfriend, Molly, also nicknamed Molly-Pops ... O, the lost ingenuity of youth! The bold stares of the customers brought me sharply back to reality. I was in a top African hotel where intrigue is always on the menu, especially where a national war implicated the giants of communism and capitalism. Who is this stranger? How will he profit from the war?” – the message of calculating eyes. Feigning nonchalance, I loped to the bar and perched on a high stool. While the barman bestowed on me a vodka and tonic in exchange for the beverage coupons, I saw the Canadians squeeze closer and begin to discuss me in whispers.
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