The Constant Gardener

"Tribesmen never tell you how many cattle they've got!" Jamie is standing at his shoulder, yelling in his ear. "The food monitors' job is to find out! Goats and sheep get the center of the pen, cows outside, calves next to them! Dogs go in with the cows! At night they burn the cow dung in their little houses in the perimeter! Wards off the predators, keeps the cows warm and gives them God-awful coughs! Sometimes they put the women and kids in there as well! Girls get good food in Sudan! If they're well fed, they fetch a better marriage price!" She pats her stomach, grinning. "A man can have as many wives as he can afford. There's this incredible dance they do — I mean honestly," she exclaims, and puts her hand over her mouth as she bursts out laughing.

"Are you a food monitor?"

"Assistant."

"How did you get the job?"

"Went to the right nightclub in Nairobi! Want to hear a riddle?"

"Of course."

"We drop grain here, right?"

"Right."

"Because of the north-south war, right?"

"Go on."

"Big part of the grain we drop is grown in North Sudan. That's whatever the U.S. grain farmers don't dump on us from surplus. Work it out. The aid agencies' money buys Khartoum's grain. Khartoum uses the money to buy arms for the war against the south. The planes that bring the grain to Loki use the same airport that Khartoum's bombers use to bomb the South Sudanese villages."

"So what's the riddle?"

"Why is the U.N. financing the bombing of South Sudan and feeding the victims at the same time?"

"Pass."

"You going back to Loki after this?"

Justin shakes his head.

"Pity," she says, and winks.

Jamie returns to her seat among the soya oil boxes. Justin stays at the window, watching the gold sunspot of the plane's reflection flitting over the twinkling marshes. There is no horizon. After a distance, the ground colors merge into mist, tinting the window with deeper and deeper tones of mauve. We could fly for all our lives, he tells her, and we'd never reach the earth's hard edge. With no warning the Buffalo begins its slow descent. The swamp turns brown, hard ground rises above the water level. Single trees appear like green cauliflowers as the plane's sunspot whips across them. Edsard has taken the controls. Captain McKenzie is studying a brochure of camping equipment. He turns and gives Justin a thumbs-up. Justin returns to his seat, buckles up and glances at his watch. They have been flying three hours. Edsard banks the plane steeply. Boxes of toilet paper, fly spray and chocolate shoot down the steel deck and thump against the raised dais of the cockpit close to Justin's feet. A cluster of rush-roofed huts appears at the end of the wingtip. Justin's headset is full of atmospherics like classical music being played at the wrong speed. Out of the cacophony he selects a gruff Germanic voice giving details of the state of the ground. He makes out the words "firm and easy." The plane starts to vibrate wildly. Rising in his harness Justin looks through the cockpit window at a strip of red earth running across a green field. Lines of white sacks serve as markers. More sacks are strewn over one corner of the field. The plane straightens and the sun hits the back of Justin's neck like a douche of scalding water. He sits down sharply. The Germanic voice becomes loud and clear.

"Come on down here, Edsard, man! We made a fine goat stew for lunch today! You got that layabout McKenzie up there?"

Edsard is not so easily wooed. "What are those bags doing out in the corner there, Brandt? Has someone made a drop just recently? Are we sharing space with another plane up here?"

"That's just empty bags, Edsard. You ignore those bags and come on down here, you hear me? You got that hotshot journalist with you?"

McKenzie this time, laconically. "We got him, Brandt."

"Who else you got?"

"Me!" yells Jamie cheerfully above the roar.

"One journalist, one nymphomaniac, six returning delegates," McKenzie intones as calmly as before.

"What's he like, man? The hotshot?"

"You tell me," says McKenzie.

Rich laughter in the cockpit, shared by the faceless foreign voice from the ground.

"Why's he nervous?" Justin asks.

"They're all nervous down there. It's the end of the line. When we touch down, Mr. Atkinson, you stay with me, please. Protocol requires I introduce you to the Commissioner ahead of everybody else."

The airstrip is an elongated clay tennis court, part overgrown. Dogs and villagers are emerging from a clump of forest and heading toward it. The huts are rush-roofed and conical. Edsard makes a low pass while McKenzie scans the bush to either side.

"No bad guys?" Edsard asks.

"No bad guys," McKenzie confirms.