The Villain's Dance by Fiston Mwanza Mujila

Author:Fiston Mwanza Mujila
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Deep Vellum Publishing

The Pierrot affair was one of the first missions Sanza was involved in. Over the course of a conversation, Monsieur Guillaume gave him free rein to plan and carry out the operation from A to Z. The hunt began quite by chance though. They were driving fast down the half-empty streets of Downtown, snatches of rumba sputtering from the radio. The musician, in his crooner’s voice, sang of his forbidden love for one Marie Louise. He’s dying to live with her, but her father is opposed to their union. Heartache is all he has left. Monsieur Guillaume switched stations. The discussion program The Open Debate had only just started. One agitated participant was accusing the country’s authorities of governing Zaire without rhyme or reason and threatening to join the resistance if the situation persisted. Monsieur Guillaume was shaken. He couldn’t stomach people laying into those running state institutions in this manner. Any form of criticism leveled at the Zairian authorities cut him to the quick. He glared at Sanza.

Pierrot worked as head warehouseman in a stationery store. Sanza suggested dismissal. Monsieur Guillaume phoned the storeowner a few hours later:

“Your employee’s talking twaddle on all the radio and TV stations.”

The man tried to cover for Pierrot:

“What our staff get up to outside of working hours is absolutely no concern of ours.”

MONSIEUR GUILLAUME: “I get it. I’m not asking anything extraordinary of you. Just give the bastard the boot and things will very soon go back to normal.”

THE STATIONERY STORE OWNER: “I won’t lay a finger on my staff just because of you. And I don’t give a hoot whether you like it or not.”

MONSIEUR GUILLAUME: “Hang on … ”

THE STATIONERY STORE OWNER: “This is Zaire, you know. You can’t go around pestering people all the time!”

MONSIEUR GUILLAUME (measured yet deliberate): “It’s a funny thing, but while working on this case, it came to our knowledge that you haven’t been paying your taxes promptly. How many months of arrears? Ten … wait, let me check. No, fifteen. And without going into details, we’re in possession of some information we would like to share with you. We know from trustworthy sources that your wife deals in knockoffs and she’s never been hassled for it. Your older brother, the one sentenced to five years in absentia, we know where he’s holed up. Your son, it appears that … Hello? Hello? Anyone there?”

Utter silence at the other end of the line. The guy was knocked for six, incapable of reply in the face of these multiple revelations. In his idle moments, Monsieur Guillaume asserted that any regular Zairian had skeletons in their closet; that you only had to dig a little; that it was up to the intelligence services to fabricate them, and, if need be, use the skeletons of close friends and family members to exert pressure on the individual. Monsieur Guillaume spoke without betraying the slightest emotion:

“It’s up to you to choose between Pierrot and your wife, your brother, your son, and your maternal aunt.

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