Dictator

58

Carver had read a magazine story once about Ike and Tina Turner. Back in the late sixties, they bought a big mansion in LA and did it up in the kind of style Ike felt was appropriate for a legendary soulman and his red-hot wife. A guy from their record company came over one day. Ike told him the decorations had cost seventy thousand dollars, serious money back then. The guy replied, ‘You mean you can actually spend seventy grand in Woolworths?’

The Gushungos’ Hong Kong residence reminded Carver of that story. He was led down a hall floored with polished black marble tiles. They were edged in white and laid in diagonal lines, so that the white edges joined together to form a diamond-shaped pattern that criss-crossed the floor. Some kind of optical illusion made it look as though the white lines were raised from the black tiles, so that he constantly felt like he was just about to trip over them. Two glossy ceramic tigers, as tall as Carver’s waist, sat on either side of the door, each baring its teeth and waving a claw in his direction. The walls were decorated with a paper that featured a swirling metallic silver pattern on a black velveteen background. Maybe it was the other way round. Maybe the black velveteen was the pattern. It was hard to tell, and Carver didn’t bother to look closely enough to find out. He didn’t want to risk getting a headache. He just looked dead ahead and thought about Jesus.

On the right-hand side of the hall, a staircase led upstairs to the bedrooms and bathrooms, and down to the servants’ quarters. The main living room, however, was at the back of the building, looking out across a valley towards a jagged line of steep, thickly wooded hills. The land between Kowloon and Tai Po was mostly set aside as parkland, a rural oasis in the heart of the city-state, and the Gushungos’ villa took full advantage of the stunning views.

The inside of the living room was spectacular too, in its own absurdly gaudy way. The floor tiles were the same as the hall, but the paper switched to a burnished gold colour. Carver looked to his right and saw a life-size double portrait of Henderson and Faith Gushungo, posing in their wedding clothes in front of an impossibly lush landscape of African savannah, teeming with wild animals of every kind – the kind, for example, that no longer existed in the arid wastelands of Malemba. The artist had taken about thirty years off the President’s age and turned his skin the purple-black colour of an aubergine. He was standing with his shoulders squared, staring manfully into the distance, while his beautiful, submissive bride gazed up at him with adoring cow eyes.

Beneath the painting was a sofa strewn with richly patterned silk cushions. Its vivid purple-leather upholstery almost matched the mauve curtains draped on either side of the floor-to-ceiling windows on the far side of the room. The rest of the armchairs in the room were bright scarlet, and the light fittings were all gold-plated, as was the frame of the glass-topped coffee table, littered with copies of Vogue and Architectural Digest, that stood in front of the sofa. The other paintings scattered around the walls made the one of the Gushungos look like a masterpiece of aristocratic portraiture by Gainsborough.

At the far end of the room stood a bar with a white marble top. Beneath it, the side of the bar had been divided into three panels. The outer edge of each panel was black. The inner heart of it was bright pillar-box red. The two colours were divided by a rectangle of white beading. The style was Nazi Nouveau.

‘Do you have a cross?’ Mabeki asked him.

‘Of course.’

Carver reached into his briefcase and took out his crucifix. He regretted now buying one with Jesus hanging on the cross. It made him feel like he was being watched.

‘Put it on here,’ said Mabeki, patting the bar counter. ‘Your colleague, Gibson, uses this as the altar.’

‘Does he really?’ said Carver. Either Gibson was too saintly to notice his physical surroundings, or he was taking the piss.

There was an ashtray sitting on the bar just a few inches from the cross, filled with lipstick-ringed cigarette butts.

‘Could you move that, please?’ Carver asked.

Mabeki gave him a bleak, spidery stare, then clapped his hands and shouted a few words in a language Carver could not understand. One of the bodyguards came in, was treated to a sharp burst of spittle-flecked orders, grabbed the ashtray and disappeared into another room. A few seconds later he was back again, this time with a colleague, to move the coffee table out of the way. More commands were issued. The two men hurried away and reappeared once more carrying two ornate gilt dining chairs, which were placed about six feet from the bar, facing the cross.

‘The President and the First Lady will take communion sitting on these chairs. The President’s health makes it difficult for him to kneel. Other members of the household will kneel in a row behind them.’

‘Will you be joining us, Mr…? I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.’

‘Mabeki. And no, I will not be taking part in this ridiculous charade.’ He came right up to Carver, standing over him. Then he twisted his body so that his face was thrust towards Carver’s, almost daring Carver to look away from the mangled wreckage of his scarred skin, twisted lips and glistening gums. ‘Do I look like I should believe in a just and merciful God?’

It suddenly struck Carver just how all-consuming Mabeki’s hunger for power must be, that he would choose to remain the way he was, with the effect that he caused, rather than have the surgery that could have repaired the worst, at least, of the damage. Mabeki actually wanted to look that deformed, that repellent. To him it was a source of strength.

‘Well,’ Carver replied, hoping that his face conveyed a suitable look of understanding and concern, ‘it is not for us to judge God’s purpose in afflicting us as he sometimes does. But you may be sure that he has one, and that it is filled with love and compassion for you.’

He ended with his face wreathed in a smug, patronizing smile and watched as Mabeki struggled to control the rage that constantly festered within him.

‘Believe that if you like, Reverend. I do not. And if God exists, let him prove me wrong.’

‘God does not have to prove anything, Mr Mabeki.’

Mabeki gave a dismissive grunt then took a pace back, breaking the tension between them. He took one last look at Carver – a man assessing the threat posed by another.

‘Will you be taking communion as well?’ Mabeki asked.

‘Of course. The meal is shared between the celebrant and the congregation.’

‘You will consume the same bread and wine as everyone else?’

Carver had been wondering when these questions would be asked. Mabeki was the kind of man who never, ever stopped seeing potential threats in everything and everyone around him. Would he now want Carver to taste everything to prove it was safe?

‘Naturally,’ Carver replied. ‘There is one chalice of wine, shared by all. The wafers, too, are the same for everyone.’

‘Who is the first to eat and drink?’

‘I am. The celebrant is always the first to receive the sacrament.’

Mabeki thought for a moment.

‘Is there a problem?’ Carver asked, feigning bemusement at this line of questioning. ‘I’m sure I conduct the service in very much the same style as the Reverend Gibson. The text is taken from the Book of Common Worship. The procedure is absolutely standard. Well, I say that, but of course there will be some difference between those who prefer the traditional form of words and the more modern version. Personally, I confess I hanker after the poetry of-’

‘I get the point,’ hissed Mabeki. ‘Now, make your preparations. The President and the First Lady will be with you in five minutes.’

He stalked out of the room, leaving Carver with the two bodyguards watching over him as he busied himself with his briefcase filled with holiness and death.