In Which Sarge Parts Briefly With Cody To Descend Alone Into The Jungle...

Cpl.,

Iringa was a disaster, but I learned things. Of Euphrase, he told me terrible things. Of tortures and privations which made me weep openly, the town square behind us dusty with morning and no doubt many eyes watching us, waiting. He gestured with his cup of konyagi to the north and said, "in this direction I have heard of odd occurrences which remind me of The Untouched [Medicine Man], there are those who have wandered from the jungle beset with maladies and wounds grievous to behold. They say one man had the muscles of his upper body removed. He said, they say, he was only shocked at that point, that muscles ripped from the body are blue, not red and smeared with blood. He died soon after, though some have lived. What they have left though, can hardly be called life. The Untouched, some believe, is not human. I think he is all too human. All too much so!" He slammed his konyagi on the glass table and dared me to contradict him, but remembering Sydney, I could not. Around us the yellowed walls collected silence and I felt I must pursue Medicine Man to the Kagera region and perhaps from there find some sense.

I went to Bukoba after a stop in Mwanza, the ferry to Bukoba across part of Lake Victoria would have been pleasant, but I was heavy of heart. Cody was in Mwanza.

I had left him with a friend of an old friend, one you may know. I had called Nwargo and he had called his friend Lwiza, strikingly beautiful, she took an immediate liking to Cody and told me he would enjoy the shores of Victoria as if they were those shores further south I had just told her I was sure he missed.

"Tell Nwargo he is missed," she said. "Tell him he is missed," she paused, staring through my eyes as though she were suddenly somewhere else, "every day."

There is a story there, my friend, but I did not have time to tease it from her. The ferry left soon and there I was, my friend running down the dock to see me off, jumping into the water after me and Lwiza laughing, wading in after him to collect him. Her clothes clung to her curves as she waved me off, the dog letting off a good few barks so that those around him laughed and pointed. I decided it might be a good idea to disappear then, from the shore's sight, and left to the forward deck with a lump in my throat. There I watched the afternoon deepen into the lateness of day.

I am alone now though I have a guide. Abdul is quick and easy to get along with. He told me The Untouched is like a ghost, flitting between the hills just west of Bukoba and the jungles of eastern Rwanda.

So it is Rwanda again, I fear. Though I seem to have known it, it is like I am being guided, teased into the place I fear most to tread on this journey.

I must go now. But I will write soon.

be in touch Cpl., you are missed and the light snoring of my new friend Abdul is no company!

Tell Ranger to write as well.

Sarge

In Which Sarge Thinks on the Value of Discourse While Watching Cody Forge Along a Creek Bed...

Cpl.,

It is time to pray. Discreetly I leave the room as Ali Hassan begins intonations of the Fajr and I wonder if the Supreme One, if It be, prefers welcome and thanks for the day in a particular form. From deep in my youth comes a memory of being woken just before the dawn and I shrug it off and wait for the prayer to end. Ali Hassan is the only man I trust in Tanzania right now.

My thoughts, as he prays, flit to Tallinn. Odd how tripping over one word on the way to another makes a path. Cody pants and undoubtedly, as the Daily News loves to point out, five new stomachs enter Dar es Salaam in some attempt to feed. It is dreadfully hot. Even dawn offers little respite and I think longingly of my little home on the shores of Stockton. I look at Cody and wonder if he remembers chasing the gulls. Odd that we grow more tolerant of our own sentimentalities as we age. Cody barks once. I turn, Ali Hassan has joined me.

"So you are enjoying Dar?" He laughs as if it is understandable I prefer somewhere else, but I answer honestly.
"I am very much enjoying Dar, just last night I heard some amazing music that somehow made me sad for the mountains of my own land."
"Yes, yes," he laughs, "Taarab can have that effect. It makes everyone miss home!" He laughs again and I laugh.
"You are looking for The Untouched One then?"
His question is sudden and direct. The laughter is gone.
"Is this another of his names? Medicine Man?"
"It is the same," he nods slowly.
"I will take you to Iringa. He is not there, but you will learn things. But The Untouched," he pauses, "your...Medicine Man, he prefers jungle. He does not really like Tanzania!"
"I can make it to Iringa on my own..." I start.
"No. No! It is important, for a note from me will not get you the introductions you need. I will come with you, that is the only way the doors will open. You seek death, but there is purpose in it."
"And you?"
"I do not seek death," he laughs and pauses, then says more seriously, "I hope it does not seek me. Yet."
Cody approaches him and Ali Hassan bends down to pet him, looking him in the eyes.

Hours later we are in another Cessna, careening over and around the mountains that play hell with the ride. We are as likely to end up slammed against a mountain as we are landing in Iringa, but despite this Ali Hassan's mood has improved considerably. Despite everything, he is going home. I look at the bare landscape beneath us, they say people come from everywhere to birdwatch here, and sometimes one of them is shot by a poacher. Ali Hassan gestures and soon we are landing.

We tried to make our entrance inconspicuous. Iringa is big enough that we shouldn't be noticed, buses and trucks pass here on the way to Dar or Zanzibar all the time, but yet it's not large exactly. Even if this might be a Tanzanian equivalent of say Edmonton, it's not much bigger really, then an average suburb of Toronto. The mountains in the distance rise up reminding me how lost I've become. Suddenly I've had a premonition and I feel a cold sweat, for I feel I must play it all out, but I think I know where I will end up.
"We will avoid taxis from the airstrip, a friend of mine will meet us and we will meet a few others and switch cars at a restaurant. Not much, but we know this town, they will know if we've been followed. Still, we will never be safe. The Untouched knows much more than we do. We are not quite professionals the way you are, I think."
I nod to show I understand, still lost in thought.

I am able, Cpl., to remember lately, the time before I fought addictions and grief, though I still turn from most of these memories, sometimes I forget and am lost in them. I wonder what I mumble in my sleep Cpl., when I cannot turn away?

Ali Hassan's friends are a serious lot, and we discuss much politics and philosophy. It has been a long time, and it seems, even longer when I have been among those of my own kind, or at least those familiar with the routines of our kind, who actually considered why it was they carried the burdens we all must about us. I'm convinced these mindless thugs like those I encountered in Sydney will one day learn this. Medicine Man knows, I know he does, but it is not anything he would know about himself.

"No!" Ali Hassan shouts at his friend Mkwawa makes a point, "you forget that Céline and his generation were the first generation in more than a century forced to reckon with just how cheaply they were regarded by their governments. It was government that ruled without fear of its people! Government that refuted all the revolutions and the myth of revolution. Why would Céline find much to differentiate one government from another? And where survival is not a skill but a lucky positioning of the flesh, what is their to differentiate one individual from another? There is no heroism, there is only thought. It is the only distinction worthy of notice."
"No, he sought a new imposition of hierarchy. He was desperate. Like us. I wonder how we recognize truth where there is no such thing complete of itself." Mkwawa held up a hand as Ali Hassan attempted to rebut this.
"I know your faith Ali, and I respect it. Obviously. But even faith is not truth, it is assertion and its validity as truth extends only as far as the community that agrees to it." Ali, out of respect to Mkwawa, and perhaps me, was silent. A hush fell across our lively table, and then Euphrase, an older, bent man, leaned forward and began to speak to me while everybody listened.
"I think I know why you are here, though Ali has kept his silence. I think there is only one reason one such as yourself would be here."
The lack of breathing as everyone unconsciously squared themselves to what came next told me they knew what Euphrase would say next.
"If you wanted to, I've no illusions, you could kill all of us, but you will not touch him. He is slow the way waves are slow on a quiet day. But try and stop a wave my son. At Zanzibar, where I buried my wife, my child, my life, I pushed at the waves, but my fury was nothing to them. I was young then. Much younger. My sense of outraged justice though, was nothing to a wave. The Untouched is such a wave. I hated the ocean and moved here, but there are waves everywhere. And I buried more of those who I loved. I say this to you, all of this which is my life, because I know and I wish to save one life, at least that. If I do not, well, there are others I would like to have saved more. I will still drink konyagi and eat mandazi."
I nodded to show I appreciated his mark of respect and honesty. He clearly was the leader of this small group which, as Ali had informed me, mostly acted as vigilantes against government corruption. "I have myself killed two policemen," one of the men had informed me, "and I do not ever question what I have done when I think of them. Other things yes." His near peace of mind would be nice, I think, for the nights when I lie there convulsing, begging for the tranquility that sweats from the needle's edge and vainly calling some angel down to whisper forgiveness and assurances that it was the only way, every time.

I could not help but wonder, if Medicine Man had been here, why had he bothered to let them live? They were excellent for amateurs, but they were not pros. Just dangerous enough to accidentally kill you. Why would Medicine Man leave them then?

Perhaps? I tucked away the thought.

The safehouse was comfortable. Cody even enjoyed a brief foray along a nearby creek, mostly mud at the moment. I left him tied to a tree a bit down the way and assured him I would visit before dawn. The night was not to continue so comfortably I felt.

My suspicions were correct. I did not hear them enter, but two of Ali's friends had air taken from their throats and bled all over the small kitchen, smearing the teapot we had used a couple hours earlier, the walls marked in a primitive language of violence, the ink flown from outstretched and pleading arms and gashes to the throats. But Medicine Man's thugs were not so careful as they thought, for I was waiting to be surprised. And when I heard sounds under the sounds of night, I knew they sought me and made myself, new words with their blood on the walls of the room I was to sleep in. Then I kept my promise to Cody and went to visit him at the creek and we left, otherwise unaccompanied. I write you from the second floor of some bank, where the dawn can be seen just now arriving again.

Ali is safe and undoubtedly prays his Fajr to another morning. I wonder if I am the first he unwittingly lead to this trap? Perhaps another will visit with him to Medicine Man's first web.

Still, I plan to meet with this Euphrase before I leave. He knows things and there are things that happened here. Not all amateurs are useless. And I enjoyed a pleasant enough day thinking about things I used to think about. I continue to trust Ali and think he will redeem himself, though I doubt I will see him again.

hoping you are well,

I remain,

Sarge

In Which Sarge Sets Out Once Again in the Darkness...

Cpl.,

Night, the smell of the earth reached Cody and I before the shadows rose up to greet us, lost companions that they were, I had come across the water to find them. I am back in Africa.

Cody does well in this new climate, this new world really, and finds much excitement in everything crossing his path.

I do not have time to write now, save to assure you that all goes well. I grow perplexed thinking about my recent adventures, and wonder who this "Medicine Man" was, no contacts so far know of him, only one rumor really, from Tanzania, of gruesome deaths, odd disappearances and a place in the forest where none dared. Why that particular informant saw fit to mention this when I asked him of Medicine Man he would not say, he said he had already said much too much.

If you come to Africa you must let me know. I will meet you as far as Abidjan or Port Louis, but I cannot go to Banjul, it is more than my life is worth to go there.

with best wishes,

Sarge

In Which Sarge is Full of the Sorrow and the Pity...

Cpl.,

The days are numb. Barely measurable. I have been in an opiate haze for weeks now. A trap. Canucks, but I remember killing that bastard dealer with my own hands while around me howled Cody and where is Cody I wondered and then I didn't wonder but I slept and it was the needle that made me sleep and I saw that they wanted to make me slave to it.

After awhile I drooled and nodded my head. Some dead-end hotel in Sydney, yellowed walls and urine stains against the walls near the steps where they would take me out to some sessions with somebody I only knew as "the Medicine Man," he wore white corduroy suits and spoke Spanish to me as if he wanted to hide his English or French accent. I noticed this only at the end, but automatically answered him for weeks. In the room, the television on constantly, Australian talk shows are the worst, the hussies from Townsville or Cairns going on about some bloke who, surprise! turned out to not be fixable. He was hurt and I felt so sorry for him turns mighty quickly into he hurt me, he's selfish. Ah, daytime tv, in the end they did not have to feed me the needle to make me take it. I reached for it and it soothed me and blanketed me in release from this ugly truth of cinderblock and cockroach.

And they tried to make me talk.

I told them everything I knew about Canadian history, I told them over and over again that I didn't care, I still loved the Queen, still thought of her as part of Canada. Sentimental I said, sentimental but proud.

And there was torture. Withdrawal, the television turned to maximum volume, myself strapped down. Other things not so nice as even that but perhaps sometimes easier to endure. And where was Cody? I figured him dead and thought about how we should not become attached to the living who are not like us.

We kill them more surely than the enemy, I thought. I wept as they beat me with knotted rope and as they poured sand into my pried open mouth, but I wept for Cody. And they laughed and did not know they were not the cause of my suffering.

In this way I controlled the meaning of the torture and waited for the next fix and when it came, I knew the Medicine Man was close and I would talk to him in Spanish soon. He would be kind and fatherly, then angry and terrible. He showed me his pen made from bone. "Tanzania," he said by way of explanation. "I know," I answered, but it was just to acknowledge Tanzania. "No, Ghana," he said. "Impossible," I said, and then he had me beaten.

The jungle would unfold for me in their tortures and again I was running in my mind, Nwargo there, constantly telling me this way, that way, the trees there are dangerous! We must hide here until dark!" And then the Medicine Man asking me about Ottawa, about Calrissian. About Ranger. About Smitty. About the others.

About you.

"Where are your comrades now?" He would ask. I would not answer.

"They believe you a helpless addict. They want to kill you. They know you will talk!" And he would laugh and laugh, then stop and slap me.

"Come now, argument like this is useless."

Silence.

They broke my nose and broke it again. I never hoped for death. Only to see Cody, and walk him on the ocean's edge where arguments and sentimentalities gain the proper perspective of being nothingness itself. I dreamed of shipwrecks and those dreams saved my life. I thought of the waves and Cody, with the gulls crying their song to the end of the world and the beginning of the water.

"Come now, good Sargeant," he would continue, "you do not have to work for us, but we will not let you go." And he would lean over and peer into my face, so that we were centimetres apart, and I -- tied down -- would think about tearing out an eye with my teeth and he would laugh again.

"But you are a professional," he would finish, reading my thoughts into his argument. "You...are a professional."

The odd assortment of dead things he always had there, and photographs. They showed me Ahmet. They showed me a shattered body in Talinn. "He did not make it," Medicine Man said, "we found him in a closet. He was still alive, his ribs on the left side shattered like clam shells when they break. He could not stop screaming."

Ahmet's death was simpler, and he did not comment on it. But they had blown up the picture and it greeted me at the hotel room they stowed me in. Sometimes I would talk to the dead body in the night. Not out loud of course, biting my lips to know where my tongue was, then I would talk to Ahmet, and tell him how sorry I was.

They claimed they had killed Nwargo. Described his death. Traced it for me. But nothing could convince me of it, as they said they had gotten him in Egypt, but I did not let on and allowed myself to weep for Cody then: the one time I cried.

Medicine Man carved a map on my arm with a knife, of the Ministergarten. He laughed and told me how it was so simple when their man told them everything they needed. How could I hope to fight them, when they knew exactly when we were going to punch. I finally talked, I said,

"Tell that to Aglionby."

He slapped me. It was my turn to laugh.

Then I was silent.

They did not trust me with needles, obviously, and when I dosed myself with the heroin it was always powder, but as I began to dream more often of killing Medicine Man I found I could not make myself and they began to force me to take it. Torture was increased. The truth was more desperately needed by them as the time wiled away, and I was a tougher nut to crack than they had thought.

Medicine Man would say, "The Maple Leaf is crumbling even now. Don't you know how we despise you?" Silence.

The Medicine Man would say, "Guards, saltwater." And I would choke and he would intone over me the whole time, "This is the Maple Leaf that has made you thus. This is the water that spills from the Maple Leaf. And it will rain forever." And this would go on for hours, his voice soothing so that I didn't wonder if the guards hated him too. But they were always silent.

One night I was dreaming. Sweating. The heroin had not been given to me in a day and a half. Medince Man was gone apparently. Sam stood over my bed. He was talking but his words bent and fell, darker clouds in the darkness. He was gesturing and it felt like we were below the ocean. Echoing and crashing.

He shook me.

"For Christsake, boy-o!"

A guard stood crumpled against a dresser, a trail of blood running from his neck. The door was open and outside I saw another lump as my eyes adjusted to the light. I needed to throw up and get more blankets. Sam pulled me up.

"Nwargo's dead," I said in a monotone. I know not why.

"Nwargo's not dead you idiot, but we will be!" He hissed at me. "Come on!"

He helped carry me out as I staggered and threw up on the corpse of the guard right outside the door. He was one of the ones who had been most cruel to me when we were with Medicine Man.

One more brilliant gift I received that night: Cody ran up to me, I fell into a heap, crying, laughing, ecstatic, suddenly not sick. I began to run.

"That's better now!"

Cody ran beside me, and then we were in a van, then a helicopter, flying low over the outskirts of Sydney, where the lights stop. And then a car, driving now, Cody asleep against my leg.

I am at a safehouse now and Sam tells me I must back to Africa quickly. Cody will come with me. I will keep my job at the restaurant, Sam says, for when I need it, for Australia is still hot.

Two mornings later, we raided an orphanage and killed three French bomb makers and one of their propaganda experts. The orphanage had been used for making bomb parts because the children's hands, so nimble and small, could fit certain parts together without as great risk of blowing themselves up. Those missing hands, feet or eyes, were kept for cleaning and record-keeping. It was a terrible sight to see, and sticking the knife into Fourait, the bombmaker, not the sabateur, I had said to him, "please sir, I want some more." And I put the knife in deeper. I felt I had finally returned.

So it is to be Africa again. I know not why. I shall see Nwargo soon though, and that fills me with happiness. He will meet Cody and we will play chess. Never let Nwargo take a bishop if you can help it.

Be careful of yourself. I only wish we could have killed Medicine Man. I wonder often, as I prepare for Africa, who he is.

with best wishes,

Sarge