Free Love in the Driest Season by Neely Tucker Page B

military squads. They tried to march, with exaggerated goose steps and set faces, while a man in front screamed directions.
    We told the driver to stay in the car, roll up the windows, and not open the door for anyone but us. “If you see us come running,” I said, “be ready to go.” We stepped out with our interpreter, who went by the name of Jean-Peter. I clicked my watch over to its stopwatch mode so that we would stay no longer than the fifteen minutes we’d decided on. We headed for a group of men who were flying banners and chanting “
Vive
Kabila!” then, in Lingala, “Death to the Tutsis!” We stepped over a large pipe, the crowd around us growing thicker as we approached the chanting men. The noise was deafening. A tall man was walking alongside me, shouting in French. I shouted back, tapping on my chest, that I was American. He stood between Ann and me and shouted, “The Banyamulenge [the word for Tutsis born in Congo] are animals! They are savages who must be exterminated! They want to come in, stay forever, and colonize us! They must go home to Rwanda!’’ He gave his name as Steve Mukena, an electrician, and as I wrote I glanced at my watch. Seven minutes. Someone yanked on my hair. Jean-Peter was trying to hold several men back, leaning up against them with his shoulder. An alarmed look came over his face in response to what he was hearing. He looked at Ann, then me, and shouted, “Leave this place!” He then turned and yelled back at the men who were shouting at him. It was impossible to hear anything. I grabbed his arm, Ann locked her arm in his other one, and we began to try to move backward through the crowd. The men saw this for what it was, an awkward retreat, and responded with jeers and whistles. Someone shoved me in the back. Someone kicked at my leg. We moved faster, Ann letting go of my arm to step over the pipe, and I felt a sharp whack across my shoulders. It felt like a stiff rubber hose or a slender stick, but I didn’t turn to look. A man spat in my face. Rocks began flying. A hand was in my back, steadily shoving.
Jean-Peter,
I thought,
give me a break. I’m going.
The man with the hose or stick skittered alongside of me, lashing my back, then the back of my knee, causing it to swing out in front of me. From the other side, a man began kicking me in the ass with his foot. I acknowledged none of this, just concentrated on moving forward and not falling down. I turned to tell Ann something, and Ann was not there.
    My stomach fell into a pit. I turned to yell at Jean-Peter that we had to find her, but the man shoving me in the back wasn’t Jean-Peter. It was a young man, his mouth turned into a snarl, his shirt ripped, his eyes glazed. I turned to look for the car and it wasn’t there. I was, in fact, standing amid rows and rows of cars that I didn’t remember from when we had parked. I turned, looking for our car, but my nerves were rattled and the shouting was intense and I suddenly couldn’t remember what color or make it was. I had just seen the thing for a second when we got in that morning. I cursed myself now for not having paid closer attention. Dust was kicking up from all the feet. Sweat was pouring down my back. The man who had been kicking me reached out and kicked me again, aiming at the side of my knee. I blocked him with my arm, still scanning the crowd, starting to move again, and then I saw the top of Ann’s head, moving above the others, perhaps fifty yards away. I loved her just then for being so tall. I made my way as quickly as I could, ignoring the lashings, and caught up with her and Jean-Peter as we reached the car. We got in. “Get moving!” Ann snapped at the driver, but he pointed over the hood of the car. I turned, and there was a soldier at the front bumper, an AK-47 pointed at us. He glared, swung it to the left, and stepped aside. The driver edged forward, then hit the gas.
             
    A T TEN IN the morning the following day in