Paul Theroux - The Lower River

“There is no need,” the boy said, holding on.

Now the other boy was clutching Hock’s shirt, his fingers hooked in the strap of Hock’s duffel bag. Although neither boy was as tall or as heavy as Hock, they hung on, dragging him back. The dust, dense and flecked with dirty sunlight, and the loud complaints and whines of the squabbling children in the middle of the field, made it all worse: the children’s protests, the braying of the motorcycles. Hock was weakened, unnerved by the shrieking, the heat, and now unable to speak, grit in his mouth, gagging on the dirty air.

Hock was pushed hard as the boy next to him was thumped aside, and in the same moment a motorcycle roared. The other boy let go of his arm and stumbled away.

“Get on, father,” the rider called out impatiently, then louder, “Get on!”

Hock swung his leg over and took hold of the man, who sped into the crowd. It was a full minute before he saw it was Manyenga, who seemed to laugh, but no, just teeth and lips set in an expression of fury, screaming for the children to back off.

THE MOTORCYCLE PASSED through the low wall of yellowing shrubs and parched trees on a path that was a groove hardly wider than its fat tires, but wide enough. There were no roads here, as the exultant boy had said in the children’s village, yet the stony crusted floor of this sun-heated bush was crisscrossed with tire tracks. And Hock was cooler on the speeding bike, the breeze in his face. He held on as Manyenga’s elbows slapped at the slender tree limbs and grubby leaves. He was grateful to be delivered from the chaos on the field and glad that he was with someone he knew, feeling like an impulsive runaway who’d been rescued from his foolishness by the intervention of an adult: saved. But as he sat on the motorcycle, which was rocking like a hobbyhorse on the straighter stretches and skidding on the sandy turns, this feeling of deliverance ebbed, and as his strength returned he was filled with apprehension: caught again.

His relief at being rescued turned to misery as he acknowledged that he had not been saved but snared, and by the very man he’d tried to escape from. Still, he hung on, and the awfulness of his situation did not hit him fully until they were well away from the children, who now seemed to him so skinny as to be half alive, desperate, improvisational, and reckless, living by their wits.

Manyenga meanwhile appeared to realize that he had traveled a safe enough distance and was not being followed. He slowed down, and seeing a baobab tree ahead, he stopped the bike under it and both men dismounted. Manyenga’s sweat of exertion hit him: he stank like a wet dog.

The bark of the baobab was torn, the white flesh of the wood exposed and splintered.

“Elephants like to eat this tree for its juicy wood. It has water!” Manyenga said, and he laughed. “They can destroy it!”

“There are elephants here?”

“Why not? This is bush, indeed!” Manyenga was friendly, oblique, teasing. Then he said, “What are you doing, playing with those silly children, isn’t it?”

“They gave me food,” Hock said.

“What food? They have nothing to eat, only what the ndege from the Agency brings them.”

“And you steal it from them.”

“We are hungry too.”

“They have cassava and bananas.”

“Rubbish food, famine food. Where are their chickens? They have no gardens. Are they making relish or stew? Not at all!”

“I was here only a few days,” Hock said, not knowing where this conversation was leading. He didn’t want to admit that he’d been trapped by the children.

Manyenga said, “You prefer to live there with those children, isn’t it?”

“I was just passing through.”

“I must inform you that one German mzungu on the river was captured by them and after some few weeks in captivity they sold him for money. They absconded with his money and food. I know these children. They make trouble on the river. That is why…”

Instead of saying more he sighed — whinnied — shook a cigarette from a pack, and lit it. He pursed his lips and directed a plume of smoke into the air. He looked around and laughed, as though at the strangeness of his being there, under the tree with Hock. He had Hock’s full attention now.

“That is why, my friend, the paddle boys and Simon left you at Megaza frontier station. They knew that if you were with them, the bad children would try to overturn their canoe and catch you.”

“How do you know that?”

“The paddlers dropped Simon at Caya on the Zambezi. They came back yesterday. And I was told.”

“So you went looking for me.”

“Not at all! I was with my friends, following the ndege. When it flies, we chase it — for goods! But God sent me to you. I knew you must be with the children, or maybe dead.”

“You know everything,” Hock said, testing him.

Manyenga squirted smoke through the gaps in his teeth, hissing, and said, “You should thank me, father.”

“Thank you,” Hock said.

“Because I saved your life, isn’t it?”

Hock wondered if this was so, and suspected it might be, but he wanted to deny the gloating Manyenga the satisfaction of it. He said, “They were afraid of me.”

Manyenga laughed, wagging his tongue, and then, his laughter faltering and growing harsh, he began to cough and, coughing, fighting for breath, stamped on the ground, raising dust.

In a choked voice he said, “They are afraid of nothing, my friend,” and to emphasize this he flicked his hand sharply, whipping his fingers together, making them snap. “That mzungu they sold, that German, was tough. But where is he now? Those children are devils. Maybe they took your things, too.”

Hock said nothing. Manyenga was studying him, the cigarette in his mouth giving him a look of insolence.

“What things?” Hock said at last.

“Maybe money.”

“Let’s go,” Hock said. “Where’s the road?”

Whenever he saw that he could contradict Hock, Manyenga put on a smug expression and became theatrical, hamming the moment, pausing before he delivered his putdown. Hock was not annoyed; it gave him hope when he saw that Manyenga was predictable.

“This is the country of no roads. No vehicles. Nothing. Only” —he indicated the wheel tracks, flourishing his cigarette—“paths for footing only. Or for motorbikes.”

“How far is the village — Malabo?”

“Too far.” Manyenga tossed the cigarette butt away. He mounted the bike and leaned and kicked the start lever. The engine gagged, gargled in complaint, then began rapping.

“Where are we going?”

Manyenga said, “You will see,” and when Hock hesitated, Manyenga’s face lost all its teasing mirth and became a mask sweating with impatience. “Do you want me to leave you here?”

Hock allowed himself to be scolded. He sulked as he got on the bike, moving slowly out of pride, like a child who’d been reprimanded. He thought: That’s how it is — I’ve been reduced to that, or less than a child, because even the children in the village were stronger than me. And now Manyenga had taken charge of him and was telling him what to do. He had no choice but to obey. He was lost here, disoriented by the river trip and the spell in the village and the hike to the open field. The appearance of the helicopter had been like a hideous dream of mockery. And now the motorcycle ride and the hostile You will see.

He did not know whether this trackless bush was in Malawi or Mozambique, only that if he were abandoned by Manyenga, he’d never find his way out or he’d be caught by the children again. And reflecting on Manyenga’s sudden showing up in the field, he had to admit he was glad. The children had frightened him for being hungry and ruthless and fickle and unreasonable — for being children. They resented Hock, but Manyenga needed him, and that need could work to Hock’s advantage. The children lived sparely, like animals, and they were especially dangerous because they had nothing to lose.