Brazzaville Beach by William Boyd

Author:William Boyd
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780061865770
Publisher: HarperCollins

The next day, at sunset, I stood at the perimeter fence of the airport and waited for Usman to fly in. The air force officer at the main gate said he was due back from a mission shortly. I thought about returning to the hotel to wait for him there, but decided to stay. It was cooling down nicely and the sky was shading from an ice blue into a washed-out lemon. Unusually, there was no orange or pink in the light. It looked like a sunset better suited to Antarctica or some frozen tundra.

I had stopped my car not far from the military entrance to the airport. As at any site where there was a flow of traffic and the coming and going of people, a small community had established itself. Opposite the gate on the other side of the road were a few stalls selling food, and beyond the ditch some shacks had been erected. In a year or two it would have grown, piecemeal, into a village. In front of one of the shacks an old mammy was cooking something on a brazier, and the smell of the charcoal smoke, seasoned with a peppery spice, was carried to me by the breeze that blew off the ocean. I climbed out of the Land-Rover, assured the stallholders I was not there to buy anything, and sat on the bonnet and smoked a cigarette.

When I saw the three black specks flying in from the east, I jumped off the bonnet, stepped over the ditch and stood by the perimeter fence, my fingers hooked into the diamond-shaped mesh, waiting for my aviator to land.

There were three Migs, two silver, one olive drab. They flew over the airport and then banked round to make their approach. With an uneven, jerky movement their wheels came down and at surprising speed and almost carelessness they landed, one after the other. They taxied to their allotted spaces on the apron. I waved, and then felt a little foolish. These men were not returning from a vacation.

I drove the Land-Rover up to the gate and waited for Usman. After about twenty minutes I saw his car—a beige Peugeot—emerge from behind some quonset huts and drive out of the entrance. I tooted the horn and when he stopped, I left the Land-Rover and walked up the verge to his car. You might at least get out to welcome me, I thought, but he made no move.

“Hello,” he said, looking at me. “My God. My lucky day.”

I did not bend to kiss him. “Just passing by,” I said.

He still had pressure marks on his cheeks from what I assumed was his oxygen mask—symmetrical, ogival scars. He looked tired and his eyes were restless.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

“Yes, I’m fine. But we lost one man today. Dawie. You know, the South African.”

I remembered him vaguely: small and alert, with fine thinning blond hair. “What happened?”

He rotated a hand carelessly. “We were flying back, four of us. We flew into some cloud and only three came out….

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