Chris Abani - The Secret History of Las Vegas

Do you think you are Arjuna, Sunil asked.

My friend, a tracker who taught me how to love this land, a Zulu, told me that there are two kinds of people in the world, farmers and warriors. You are clearly a farmer. Listen, I don’t think the blacks are savages like my friends over there by the fire. I think that they are honorable people, but in the hierarchy of food, they are wildebeests and we are lions. The lion doesn’t hate the wildebeest; he just knows he is the better. I’m not a racist, ja ? Just a pragmatist.

Sunil said nothing.

Let’s get on with it! Eugene yelled at the men. Pack up the food first.

The sun was beginning to dip behind the hilltop to their west, by the river, as the men began to pack up for the night. The food was wrapped carefully, attentively even, and placed into coolers. Then more wood was gathered and the fire in the pit fed until it raged, more bonfire than barbecue. The earlier grill had been removed and from the grass a larger one had been picked up and erected over the fire.

Did you know, Eugene said, that Dante describes hell as a funnel-shaped cone that bores into the center of the Earth? Like a wormhole, no pun intended. I like that image, the idea of descending concentric rings of hell, each ring a different level of sin, each ring its own kind of torture populated by its own depraved souls, and, at the very center, Satan himself. Now that’s an interesting being, an angel with a sense of purpose. He doesn’t whine like Christ in the garden of Gethsemane when the hard thing has to be done. He just gets on with it. He knows that he is Jesus’s dark soul, his unconscious, and his id, that there is no meaning to any of this, no God, without him. Now, that’s a sense of purpose.

So you are both Arjuna and Satan, Sunil asked.

Yes, you could say that. They are both balanced between their human ideal and their animal baseness. Nature worships harmony. I told you, this land is my purpose. It has taught me everything; Dante and the Gita just provided the language. My father worked as a ranger in Kruger trying to protect wildlife from poachers. He taught me that the only people who really respect and understand this world are the Bushmen; they know everything must live in balance, in harmony with everything else. Have you seen a lion stalk a wildebeest? It does so with respect. It takes its time and tries to make its kills as elegant and efficient as possible. When it kills it doesn’t do so for sport or because its feelings have been hurt, it kills for hunger and protection, nothing more. And in this way it brings honor to its victims. And what it doesn’t eat of its kill, the land takes back, using scavengers from the four-legged kind down to the microscopic kind. Nature uses everything in a cycle of honor, each thing in its right place. I told you that I am different from these men. When I kill a man, or a woman, it is with regret and honor. I never dispose of their bodies; I return them to the honor of nature’s use. I feed their bodies to the scavengers; I grind their bones up and fertilize the flowers in the compound. I pray when I do this, not in a Christian way, but in the way of Bushmen, I say to the souls of the dead, You can leave this place now and return in another form because you have been honored. I am an elegant and efficient killer, and a warrior with the highest ideals; I take no joy in my work, except when it is done with honor. This in the end is the truth of this land.

Sunil swallowed. And these men, he asked. I can’t imagine what they would do that could be worse.

Watch, Eugene said.

The men had gathered axes and machetes and they were systematically chopping the hooded man into pieces, which they threw onto the grill.

They are not—

Going to eat him? No, they are disposing of him. They don’t care that he be returned; they care only that he not be identifiable. It will take about six hours to finish burning his body; highly inefficient, and what is worse is that there is no honor in this.

And yet you let it happen.

All great generals know that they must allow their men sport. All work and no play is bad for morale. This is their sport.

Sunil watched the policemen drinking as the hooded man burned, white and black together, united in this terror.

Do you know why that man died, Eugene asked.

I cannot imagine, Sunil said.

He wouldn’t give up information about the location of ANC terrorists that he was known to associate with. That’s why you are here. I want you to find ways with psychology and drugs to improve the interrogations. I don’t want to waste bodies. I want you to turn prisoners into informants. Only those who must die will die. I don’t enjoy the slaughter; I am a warrior, not a killer.

I traveled from Pretoria with that man, Sunil said. He begged for his life the entire journey.

He wasn’t a man to them, Sunil. It’s like this: every creation story needs a devil. For the Boer, the blacks are the demons.

The man never confessed, Sunil asked, the fire dancing off his eyes and skin, reflecting in Eugene’s glasses.

Never, Eugene breathed, something like respect in his voice.

Then I am just like that man, Sunil said.

How so?

Can I tell you a story?

Sure, Eugene said. I like stories. They help us bond.

Bertolt Brecht told of a European peasant caught by the Nazi invasion. An SS officer commandeers the man’s house and tells him, From now on, I will live here and you will serve me and attend to my every need, and if you do not, I will kill you. Do you submit to me? The peasant doesn’t answer but spends the next two years serving the SS officer in every way. Then the Russians come and liberate the town. They gather all the Nazis in the square, and just before they are shot, the peasant comes up to the officer and answers the question that he greeted with silence two years before. No, he spits at the officer, I will not submit to you. This is the end that awaits apartheid.

Perhaps, Eugene said, and if I am that officer in your story, I will go happy knowing that all I did was in service of a higher ideal and has already been transformed into God’s work. But for now, we need to end some of this killing. Will you help me?

No, but I will help men and women like him, Sunil said, pointing to the burning man. I don’t expect it to be transformed into God’s work, but only hope that mercy may find me before the end of my life.

Welcome aboard, Eugene said.

Together they stood in silence, for the next six hours, watching the burning man.

Dawn almost never brings clarity with it, and this morning was no different. It was close to four a.m. when Salazar dropped Sunil off.

One of your guests is still waiting, the doorman said as he let him in.

Guests? There’s more than one?

Yes, Dr. Singh, your girlfriend and another woman. An older one.

My girlfriend?

The young lady who is always here. Asia, I think her name is.

Ah, and the older one?

She signed in as Dr. Jackson. She had the same work ID as you. I thought you might be working late, but she left very soon after she arrived.

Huh, thank you, Sunil said. He was unsettled by the idea that Sheila and Asia had met. He didn’t understand why Sheila had come, but he didn’t like that she knew about Asia.

Oh, also the police were here. Several units were broken into and trashed. We were unable to reach you, so please let us know when you get in if your unit was affected too. I will come up and take pictures and file a report with the police for you. At the moment we think it wasn’t a robbery but the work of vandals.

How did vandals get into a secure building, Sunil asked.

The doorman looked down at his shoes. The police and management are investigating, he said.