Free Stringer by Anjan Sundaram

pandering questions but soon Satwant ignored the script and started on a monologue. He had traveled from India to Uganda and Tanzania before coming to Congo. “This country is Africa’s biggest hope. As a businessman I have never seen an economy with such potential. Only two problems: corruption and bad hygiene. Please write this in your stories. I have factories to make medicines but no one wants to buy. It’s the NGOs. Only American medicines, they say. They don’t want to give Africans jobs. I’m telling you, I used to work at Novartis.”
    It was mentioned that I had recently arrived in the country. Satwant was surprised, then effusive. “You came to find your potential. That’s like me.” He promised to organize a dinner for the three of us; and then he stood. I gathered my things. But Mossi had planned the meeting’s conclusion. “The camera,” he said, gesturing like a surgeon.
    Under Mossi’s direction we moved to the study room. It was floored with green linoleum and decorated with some shelves of books. The industrialist was made to sit behind the glass-topped desk. Mossi adjusted Satwant’s hands on the table. Behind him he positioned the Congolese flag.
    â€œThree, two, one,” Mossi said.
    Satwant smiled at the camera and raised his chin. Through the viewfinder, his body looked stiff and tiny, but his head seemed large. I clicked.
    Mossi raised his hands to his head. I sensed disappointment even from Satwant, who looked around senselessly while keeping his arms flat on the table. “Do it again,” Mossi said. “Open your flash .”
    Satwant shook the ruffles from his sleeves. The camera popped like a fused bulb, like a magician’s trick; I took three rapid shots; Satwant kept a stupid grin. He looked dizzy, dazed from the rapid bursts of light in his face. Mossi clapped his hands. “What a picture. What a great picture!”
    And the industrialist smiled, looking pleased.
    I polished off a Coca-Cola while waiting for Corinthian outside Satwant’s office. Mossi said he had to leave—to chase other stories. I watched him turn the corner. This used to be an industrial part of the city—few industries now functioned. The roads were wide, the buildings low and large. Some workers walked by, carrying muddy shovels on their shoulders. A child stooped under the weight of a cement bag. The world—with its drab people and trucks—seemed static in contrast to the charge of the last few hours. I waited inside the gated compound, between the silent office and the menacing city.
    A taxibus swerved onto the road. From a window waved Corinthian’s hand.
    I sat out the afternoon glumly on my bed. As much as I had been motivated in the morning, now, waiting for the heat to pass and for Nana’s meal of the day, I felt captive to inaction. I listened to sounds, scrutinized the room. Everything seemed remote, new; I felt suspicious of my surroundings. Any familiarity I had felt was gone. And I was taken by an urge to clean.
    The room, whose clutter I had learned to ignore, suddenlyseemed a mess. The books on the shelf became especially intolerable. I pulled them down. The books were old, of literature and for self-training in computer languages. There were faded magazines of the intellectual variety: Jeune Afrique, Le Monde Diplomatique . I restacked them by size. I moved to the curtains, shaking them of dust. With my hands I picked the carpet clean. And as I uncovered the sheets and stacks of cloth left by Nana (my room was used for storage) I discovered odd items: a large black box I hadn’t known was a speaker, a set of French vinyl albums, a Flemish Bible, and some wigs, sparsely haired. Soon I stood in a cloud of dust and my skin, normally dark, had turned a luminous gray. Nana appeared at the door. “Someone’s here for you.”
    My first thought was that the police had come with good news.
    But Nana