her.
âTell me about that hard little pea making you so uncomfortable,â Martin says, taking out a Rooster. He lights the match with one hand, a little party trick.
I look steadfastly at the text of
The Promise
. The resurrection of the heart, the wisdom that comes only from loss. Ha ha ha.
âThen donât talk.â Martin leans in, blows smoke into my face. âLet me buy you a beer. Drink, look pretty. Thatâs enough for me.â
Intent, I turn a page.
Now he laughs, âAre you still ticked off about the other day? What did you expect me to do? What did you do? Did you save her? Did your crying and feeling oh-so-bad save her? Ha ha ha.â
Itâs impossible to read now. I can smell the beer on his breath, his cigarette smoke smarts my eyes. When I glance up, he yells out, âGladness!
Mbili
!â
She brings over two beers. She is looking at me in a way that I feel might be hostile.
âOkay, princess. I can see you are on the edge of your seat.â Martin drinks, settles in. âItâs really quite interesting, my story, from an objective point of view, if you didnât have to live it. I can see youâre ready, youâre fascinated. Ha ha.
âSo, I was a pilot for the Ukrainian Air Force. Are you impressed? In the early nineties, the Ukraine sold off a lot of its old shit equipment to stupid African governments. Who else would take it? Only a dumb coon dictator so he can repaint it and parade it around. And, hey, the bombs still worked. As long as you could get the plane up, you could drop the bombs out the window and they would explode.
âIn 1991, three mates and me, we get an offer to fly three MiG-3s to the Congo. Oh, excuse me:
Zaire
. Fucking joke. They should just deal with the issue once and for all and call it The Republic of Total Stinking Shit.
âThese MiGs, let me tell you, princess, they were real pieces of crapola. Only one of us has working nav equipment, so we had to follow him, like little ducks in the sky.
âWe plan to stop in Uganda, at Entebbe. An hour, just to refuel. But some busybody from the American Embassy hears about us, and before we know it the planes are embargoed, our money and our passports are confiscated by the authorities. The Ukrainian Government denies all knowledge of the planes and us. And Mobutu? President for all Eternity of the Republic of Total Stinking Shit. Whatâs he going to do? Send us a check?
âSo, first, we sell our watches, then our T-shirts, then our hats. We sleep on bits of cardboard under the planes. We get bitten to hell. We get malaria. We have to eat fucking
posho
. Youâve never eaten
posho
, have you, princess? We come up with stupid plans. How weâre gonna steal the fuel or walk to Nairobi. We plan to hijack an airliner. Itâs all we do, come up with stupid plans. Viktor sells his shoes to a guy selling bananas and I take the money and go into town and make a phone call but I canât get through to Ukraine. I keep trying. I reach my cousin, he promises to send money through Western Union.
âEvery day I go into Kampala to the Western Union, but thereâs never any money. When my shoe fund is finished, Dimitri sells his shoes to the banana guy and we try all over again with his cousin. Fucking Ukrainians are all fucking liars. The money never arrives.
âAnd there we areâyou get the pictureâwe have our flight suits and one pair of shoes, and one night, this Angolan comes out to the planes. He says heâs got jobs for us. The man had these black eyes, so you couldnât see the pupils. Hyena eyes. My
baburya
would have said he had the evil eye. But what do we care after three months of sleeping on fucking cardboard and shitting in the bushes and wiping our assholes with banana leaves. Ha ha ha. Three fucking months of
posho
and we are ready to lick the evil eye if it will get us the fuck out. And so, princess, we begin our lives as
âTell me about that hard little pea making you so uncomfortable,â Martin says, taking out a Rooster. He lights the match with one hand, a little party trick.
I look steadfastly at the text of
The Promise
. The resurrection of the heart, the wisdom that comes only from loss. Ha ha ha.
âThen donât talk.â Martin leans in, blows smoke into my face. âLet me buy you a beer. Drink, look pretty. Thatâs enough for me.â
Intent, I turn a page.
Now he laughs, âAre you still ticked off about the other day? What did you expect me to do? What did you do? Did you save her? Did your crying and feeling oh-so-bad save her? Ha ha ha.â
Itâs impossible to read now. I can smell the beer on his breath, his cigarette smoke smarts my eyes. When I glance up, he yells out, âGladness!
Mbili
!â
She brings over two beers. She is looking at me in a way that I feel might be hostile.
âOkay, princess. I can see you are on the edge of your seat.â Martin drinks, settles in. âItâs really quite interesting, my story, from an objective point of view, if you didnât have to live it. I can see youâre ready, youâre fascinated. Ha ha.
âSo, I was a pilot for the Ukrainian Air Force. Are you impressed? In the early nineties, the Ukraine sold off a lot of its old shit equipment to stupid African governments. Who else would take it? Only a dumb coon dictator so he can repaint it and parade it around. And, hey, the bombs still worked. As long as you could get the plane up, you could drop the bombs out the window and they would explode.
âIn 1991, three mates and me, we get an offer to fly three MiG-3s to the Congo. Oh, excuse me:
Zaire
. Fucking joke. They should just deal with the issue once and for all and call it The Republic of Total Stinking Shit.
âThese MiGs, let me tell you, princess, they were real pieces of crapola. Only one of us has working nav equipment, so we had to follow him, like little ducks in the sky.
âWe plan to stop in Uganda, at Entebbe. An hour, just to refuel. But some busybody from the American Embassy hears about us, and before we know it the planes are embargoed, our money and our passports are confiscated by the authorities. The Ukrainian Government denies all knowledge of the planes and us. And Mobutu? President for all Eternity of the Republic of Total Stinking Shit. Whatâs he going to do? Send us a check?
âSo, first, we sell our watches, then our T-shirts, then our hats. We sleep on bits of cardboard under the planes. We get bitten to hell. We get malaria. We have to eat fucking
posho
. Youâve never eaten
posho
, have you, princess? We come up with stupid plans. How weâre gonna steal the fuel or walk to Nairobi. We plan to hijack an airliner. Itâs all we do, come up with stupid plans. Viktor sells his shoes to a guy selling bananas and I take the money and go into town and make a phone call but I canât get through to Ukraine. I keep trying. I reach my cousin, he promises to send money through Western Union.
âEvery day I go into Kampala to the Western Union, but thereâs never any money. When my shoe fund is finished, Dimitri sells his shoes to the banana guy and we try all over again with his cousin. Fucking Ukrainians are all fucking liars. The money never arrives.
âAnd there we areâyou get the pictureâwe have our flight suits and one pair of shoes, and one night, this Angolan comes out to the planes. He says heâs got jobs for us. The man had these black eyes, so you couldnât see the pupils. Hyena eyes. My
baburya
would have said he had the evil eye. But what do we care after three months of sleeping on fucking cardboard and shitting in the bushes and wiping our assholes with banana leaves. Ha ha ha. Three fucking months of
posho
and we are ready to lick the evil eye if it will get us the fuck out. And so, princess, we begin our lives as
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