Ghost Dancer aka Dance of Death

EPILOGUE

Burke sat at a table outside the Giraffe Cafe, sipping strong, hot coffee. He was girding himself for a long day at the ministry, getting the necessary permissions for a convoy carrying food and medical supplies to southern Sudan. Dealing with the bureaucracy was like taking apart a set of matryoshka dolls. You had to keep going until you reached the innermost bureaucrat, whose magic stamp would provide passage through the checkpoints.

Ordinarily, he spent most of his time in remote villages or refugee camps, so he was enjoying the bustle of the city, the chance to pick up his mail, make phone calls, and read the papers.

He’d talked with Tommy the night before. “Business is grand,” the old man reported. “Maybe too good. Any chance of you coming back?”

Burke laughed.

“So when d’you come for a visit?”

Burke said he wasn’t sure.

“Just like Katie. She’d never say.” Another pause, and then: “Jay-sus, I almost forgot! Here’s a bit o’ news’ll make you laugh. I got this off Billy Earnshaw – who’s a mate of that Garda fella.”

“Doherty?” Burke asked.

“The very man!”

“So, what’s up?”

“Remember that shite, Kovalenko? You won’t believe it, but they’re givin’ the bleedin’ eejit a medal! For meritorious service!”

“You’re kiddin’ me.”

“I couldn’t make it up, Michael. That’s a great country you’ve got!”

Most of his mail consisted of bills and junk, but he did have one real letter – in a lavender envelope. It was from Irina.

After the “event,” Burke had stayed on in Nevada for a few days, more or less holding her hand, while keeping Kovalenko at bay.

He’d driven her to Fallon and introduced her to Mandy. The two of them got along like a house on fire, and Mandy took her under her wing. They organized a memorial service for Wilson, which was well attended by high school and college friends, a couple of teachers, and a tribal rep from Pyramid Lake. Eli Salzberg and Jill Apple made the trip from their respective coasts.

It was Mandy who got Irina a lawyer. The government was making noises about seizing Wilson’s assets as “ill-gotten gains.” But Wilson had been clever in covering his tracks, at least in so far as the money was concerned, and with the lawyer’s help, his widow got to keep it all. She wrote:

Six members of my family, are joining me at the ranch. And we have plans! Uncle Viktor takes me to visit the tribal council in Pyramid Lake. We learn that 1847 treaty grants land of B-Lazy-B to tribe, then later, government takes land back, and sells it to religious people. Now, we find way to return this land to tribe. Then I think we open Internet gambling site with B-Lazy-B as home base! First one in U.S., I think. Very excitement! Money for tribe, money for us. And here is other thing – big big news – I am having baby! Soon. Little girl! Please to tell me you will be godfather!

I am thanking you always for your help to me.

Much kisses, Irina.

After he left the cafe, Burke spent the rest of the day at the ministry, shuffling from official to official to get the proper permits. Although traveling with the convoy was by far the most dangerous part of his work – you never knew when a kid at a checkpoint would go nova – it was the days at the ministry that he disliked the most. Each bureaucrat required an investment of time, a kind of toll: three hours for this stamp, two hours for that, eight hours for a laissez-passer.

Once on the road, if you happened to pick a route that passed through ground temporarily held by rebel forces, these hard-won documents were not just worthless but incriminating.

Burke shifted in his chair, stretched his legs. He’d noticed that the time of the wait tended to increase with the rank of the bureaucrat, a measure of sorts. It was hard to be patient when you knew the situation: that people were suffering and dying while they waited for the supplies to arrive. But Burke had learned the hard way that protest or complaint only increased the time of the wait.

Finally, at eight in the evening, he had all the papers in order. He dined with three of his fellow aid workers. When dinner was done and the others adjourned to the bar, Burke went up to his room. Like many of the rooms he stayed in, the air in this one seemed to be filled with dust. But that was all right. He associated the gritty taste with Africa.

And he was happy to be back. He stripped off his clothes, brushed his teeth with some water tipped onto his brush from a bottle, then settled himself on the bed, pulling the mosquito netting around him. The ceiling fan ticking in its slow rotation might have irritated some, but for Burke it was a kind of lullaby.

Every night, whether he was sleeping on a cot, in a bed, or in the back of one of the convoy’s trucks, he sank into sleep with gratitude.

Months earlier, he’d complained to Tommy that Kate never came to him, as she had come to her father. But as soon as Burke returned to Africa, she was there, each night, in his dreams. It was pure solace. She was alive and well, funny and smart and full of insights about the work that he was doing. At times, she spoke seriously about what was and might have been. “We only live for a moment, Michael – the moment we call the present. But it lasts forever, and so will the love we had.”

Sometimes, she stayed all night, unless he tried to keep her there – in which case, she dissolved in the night. Eventually, he realized that the only way to keep her was to let her go.

And so he did.