The Soccer War

THE OFFENSIVE

The army moved out at dusk. We heard the roar of the motors and then eight big trucks drove through the square. The soldiers stood leaning on the handrails, in helmets, with rifles slung across their backs. It’s not the custom here for the army to sing. They drove in silence through the empty city, through streets depopulated by the rigours of the curfew. There were perhaps 300 of them. The trucks turned on to the road out of town, the roar of the motors could still be heard, and then everything disappeared into silence, into jungle, into the violent twilight.

I wanted badly to go with them. I wanted to see the war; it was the reason we had forced our way into the Congo in the first place. But in the Congo we had found no war, only a brawl, absurd quarrels and heavy-handed imperialistic intrigue. There was nothing for us to do here. There were days when we didn’t set foot outside the hotel because there was nowhere to go. There was no reason to go anywhere. Everything seemed either too inconceivable or too obvious. Even conversations were senseless. The Mobutu backers always considered the Lumumba backers animals, and the Lumumba partisans always regarded the Mobutu supporters as scoundrels. How many times can you listen to the same accusations? The one with the most patience was Fedyashin. Fedyashin was always getting somebody to talk, and then he would come back to us with a revelation: ‘You know, this young fellow says that they have a lot of followers in Kindu.’ I don’t know what was wrong with me, but the fact that they had so many followers in Kindu did not particularly interest me.

That’s why I wanted to go with the army. The army, unlike the banal running off at the mouth over warm beer, was a concrete reality. The army was now beginning an offensive. In the heart of the continent, 300 soldiers were going off to war. But I couldn’t be among them. I had a wolf ticket. You get that ticket when you cross a certain parallel. When you reach a place where you find out that you have white skin. This is a discovery, a sensation, a shock. I had lived for twenty-five years without knowing about that skin. A hundred children play in the courtyard of the townhouse I live in back home, and not one of them has ever given his skin a thought. They only know that if it’s dirty, that’s bad. But if it’s clean and white — that’s good! Well, they’ve got it wrong. It’s bad. Very bad. Because white skin is the wolf ticket.

Books about Africa used to get on my nerves: so much about black and white in them. This colour, that colour, and all the hues in between. When I finally went myself, I understood. Right away you find out what’s assigned to you, which line you’re supposed to stand in. Right away that skin starts itching. It either affronts or it elevates. You can’t jump out of it, and it cramps your style. You can’t exist normally. You will always be above, below, or off to the side. But never in your own place. I was once walking through the black quarter of Accra. I was with a black student, a girl. As we walked, the whole street jeered. They called us the worst names; the cursing and the rage followed her. It was too much to bear. ‘I had five people and twenty blacks with me,’ an Englishman told me. It’s the ones like him that help build the myth. The total, absolute myth of the colour of skin, still alive and powerful.

People ask why the blacks beat the whites in the Congo. Why, indeed. Because the whites used to beat the blacks. It’s a closed circle of revenge. What is there to explain? People give in to the psychosis and it deforms and kills them. In the jungles of the Eastern Province I found a Polish émigré. For a hundred kilometres around he was the only white. He was gravely ill. Sitting hunched over, he repeated mechanically, ‘I can’t take it, I can’t take it.’ He had been raised in the colonial world: a black man would be walking along, and a white gentleman and his lady would be driving back from a party, and if the black didn’t get out of the way, the car stopped, the gentleman would get out and hit the black in the face. If the black was walking too slowly — in the face. If he sat down — in the face. If he mumbled — in the face. If he drank — in the face. The blacks have strong teeth, but they can get tired of having to take it and having to take it, even on a tough jaw. The world has changed: now it is the white émigré who sits and trembles, because his fillings are not very strong.

The strong teeth were on the offensive, and the rotten teeth were hiding in the corners. I too would have gone to the front, but I had a wolf ticket. I thought of going and explaining: I’m from Poland. At the age of sixteen, I joined a youth organization. On the banners of that organization were written slogans about the brotherhood of the races and the common struggle against colonialism. I was an activist. I organized solidarity rallies with the people of Korea, Vietnam and Algeria, with all the peoples of the world. I stayed up all night painting banners more than once. You never even saw our banners — they were great, enormous; they really caught your eye. I have been with you wholeheartedly every moment of my life. I’ve always regarded colonialists as the lowest vermin. I’m with you and I’ll prove it with deeds.

We set out to do just that. To go with the offensive. With relief we left our stuffy hotel rooms and started across the city. It was hot, awfully hot, but nothing could hold us back. The downtown ended and we entered one of the quarters. Beyond was the army camp and headquarters. That was our destination. But we didn’t reach it, because an officer suddenly stopped us. He looked at us threateningly and asked us something. We couldn’t understand the language. The officer was slightly built — we could have taken care of him easily — but a crowd of onlookers appeared at once, surrounding us in a tight circle. This was no joke. The officer swore and pointed his finger at us, and we stood there helpless and mute because our language was incomprehensible in the officer’s ears. He started asking more questions. And we couldn’t do anything. The soldier was becoming furious. This is where we get it, I thought to myself. But what could we do? We stood and waited. A boy on a bicycle rode out of a side street. He stopped and pushed through toward us. He understood French; he could interpret. We told him that we were from Poland and Czechoslovakia. He translated this. The people in the crowd began looking at each other, searching for a sage who would know what those names meant. The officer didn’t know them, which made him angrier than before. There were more shouts, and we stood there as meek as sheep. We wanted to say that we were full of feelings of friendship, that each of us stood in solidarity with the struggle of the people, that our desire to take part in the offensive was proof, but the officer was shouting and we couldn’t get a word in. He must have been insisting that we were Belgians; I don’t know what he was after. Finally Jarda found a way out. Jarda lived in Cairo, so he had a driver’s licence printed in Arabic. He took out the licence, showed it to the officer as the crowd watched attentively, and said: ‘It’s from Nasser.’

The magic of this word serves all over Africa. ‘Aha,’ the boy translated for him: ‘So you’re from Nasser. What a shame, that so many people in this world look like Belgians.’

‘It’s not our fault,’ I said in Polish, ‘not our fault at all.’

The officer shook our hands, turned about-face and walked away. The crowd dispersed and we were left alone. We could have kept going, but somehow everything had lost its sparkle. In fact, we had no reason to feel resentful. In Poland, too, there are a lot of people who don’t know that such countries as Gabon and Bechuanaland exist, even though they really do. I once leafed through a Belgian history book written for Congolese schools. It was written in such a way that you could think Belgium is the only country in the world. The only one.

We were back to sitting around in the hotel. Jarda listened to the radio. Duszan read a book. I practised shadow-boxing.