Barbara Kingsolver - The Poisonwood Bible

“Nothing white,” I declared.

“Brown soap, then,” she offered. “Oh! And some nice pink papier hygienique!” she added fervently, and we both laughed at that pipe dream. The last roll of toilet paper we’d seen, in any color, came from Atlanta.

“At least some beans, Elisabet,” I whined. “Fresh green ones. Mangwami, like we used to have in the country.”

Pascal’s best friend, a hearty girl named Elevee, had wandered in and sat down at the table opposite Elisabet, but was uncharacteristically quiet

“What do you think?” Elisabet prodded her with the blunt end of her knife. “Tell Madame Ngemba she needs a new pagne with some color left in it. Tell her she is disgracing her sons with the washing rag she wears to the market.”

Elevee picked at the short sleeve of her school uniform, evidently not desiring to talk about fashion. Her very black skin looked ashy, and she had the tired slump to her shoulders I recognize in my boys when they’re getting hookworm. I carried the boiled diapers outside, washed my hands carefully with our sliver of soap, and interrupted the afternoon’s procession of cookpots to make Elevee a cup of tea.

Suddenly she reported with a blank face that she was leaving school.

“Oh, Elevee, you can’t,” I said. She’s a smart little girl, though this guarantees nothing, of course.

Elisabet simply asked her, “Why?”

“To work at night with Mother,” she said flatly. Meaning, to work as a prostitute.

“How old are you?” I demanded angrily. “Eleven? Ten? This is a crime, Elevee, you’re a child! There are laws to protect you from that kind of work. It’s horrible, you don’t know. You’ll be scared and hurt and could get terribly sick.”

Elisabet looked at me with dismay. “Mondele, don’t frighten her. They have to have the money.”

Of course that’s true. And of course there are no laws to protect children from prostitution. Elisabet’s daughter, Christiane, I’d guess to be seventeen, and I suspect she sometimes does night work in town, though we can’t talk about it.Whenever we hit rock bottom, Elisabet somehow discovers a little cash in her purse. I wish she wouldn’t. I just stared at Elevee, my son’s little friend with skinned knees and her two braids sticking out like handlebars: a prostitute. It dawned on me that her childishness would increase her value, for a while anyway. That made me want to scream. I shoved the manioc pot onto the stove, slopping water all over everywhere.

I survive here on outrage. Naturally I would. I grew up with my teeth clamped on a faith in the big -white man in power-God, the President, I don’t care who he is, he’d serve justice! Whereas no one here has ever had the faintest cause for such delusions. Sometimes I feel like the only person for miles around who hasn’t given up. Other than Anatole, who expresses his outrage in more productive ways.

We sat without speaking awhile, after Elevee’s announcement.The radio informed us the two American boxers would be paid five million American dollars each, from our treasury, for coming here. And it will cost that much again to provide high security and a festival air for the match. “All the world will respect the name of Zaire,” Mobutu declared in a brief taped interview at the end of the broadcast.

“Respect!” I practically spat on the floor, which would have horrified Elisabet more than the ill-considered use of twenty million dollars.

“Do you know what’s under the floor of that stadium?” I asked.

“No,” Elisabet said firmly, though I’m sure she does know. Hundreds of political prisoners, shackled. It’s one of Mobutu’s most notorious dungeons, and we’re all aware Anatole could end up there, any day. For what he teaches, for his belief in genuine independence, for his loyalty to the secret Parti Lumumbist Unifie, he could be brought down by one well-bribed informant.

“The prisoners might make a lot of noise during the boxing match,” Elevee suggested.

“Not improving the general respectability of Zaire,” I said.

“Likambo te” Elisabet shrugged. “Pascal and Patrice will be very excited. Mondele, just think, Muhammad Ali. He is a hero! Little boys in the streets will cheer for him.”

“No doubt,” I said. “People from the world over will come watch this great event, two black men knocking each other senseless for five million dollars apiece. And they’ll go away never knowing that in all of goddamned Zaire not one public employee outside the goddamned army has been paid in two years.”

For a woman to curse in Lingala is fairly abominable. Elisabet puts up with a lot from me. “Stanleyville,” she commanded, to change the subject.

“Kisangani,” I responded without enthusiasm. Elevee ran off to play “with Pascal, rather than be trapped into this drear exercise.

“Pare National Albert?”

“Pare de la Maiko.”

Neither of us knew or cared if I was right.

I’m learning that Elisabet’s sudden conversational turns are always for a good reason-usually someone’s safety, probably mine. I watch her in the marketplace, too, well aware that no schoolroom has ever taught me as much.The Congolese have an extra sense. A social sense, I would call it. It’s a way of knowing people at a glance, adding up the possibilities for exchange, and it’s as necessary as breathing. Survival is a continuous negotiation, as you have to barter covertly for every service the government pretends to provide, but actually doesn’t. How can I begin to describe the complexities of life here in a country whose leadership sets the standard for absolute corruption? You can’t even have a post office box in Kinshasa; the day after you rent it, the postmaster may sell your box to a higher bidder, who’ll throw your mail in the street as he walks out the door. The postmaster would argue, reasonably, he’s got no other way to support his family-his pay envelope arrives empty each week, with an official printed statement about emergency economic measures. The same argument is made by telephone operators, who’ll place a call outside the country for you only after you specify the location in Kinshasa where you’ll leave I’envdoppe containing your bribe. Same goes for the men who handle visas and passports. To an outsider it looks like chaos. It isn’t. It’s negotiation, infinitely ordered and endless.

As a white woman in Kinshasa I present possibilities, but even a black woman with my same purse and leather shoes would be approached on the street. It’s taking me forever to get used to this. Last week a young man walked up and asked me outright for three thousand zaires, and once again my jaw dropped.

“Mondele, he wasn’t asking for three thousand zaires,” Elisabet said quietly when we’d moved on to coveting the pineapples. He was opening the door for a transaction, she explained. He has something to offer, maybe inside information on black-market goods or the name of a telephone operator with unauthorized (therefore cheap) access to long distance. She’s explained this to me a dozen times, but it only sinks in as I come to see for myself what it is, this life. Anybody who needs anything in Kinshasa-a kidney-stone operation or a postage stamp-has to bargain for it, shrewdly. The Congolese are used to it and have developed a thousand shortcuts. They sum up prospects by studying each other’s clothing and disposition, and the bargaining process is well under way before they open their mouths to speak. If you’re deaf to this subtle conversation, it comes as a shock when the opening bid seems to be, “Madame, I request from you three thousand zaires.” I’ve heard foreign visitors complain that the Congolese are greedy, naive, and inefficient. They have no idea. The Congolese are skilled at survival and perceptive beyond belief, or else dead at an early age.Those are the choices.