A Time to Die - Smith Wilbur - Страница 43

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As he drove, he spoke in a tightly controlled voice. "Before we commence this guided tour of the Mozambican paradise of the proletariat, this shining gem of African socialism, will you bear with me while I give you a few facts and figures." Nobody protested, so he went on. "Until 1975 Mozambique was a Portuguese colony. For almost five hundred years it had been under Portuguese control and had been a reasonably happy and prosperous community of some fifteen million souls. The Portuguese, unlike the British or German colonists, had a relaxed attitude toward miscegenation and the result was a large mulatto population and an official policy of assimilado under which any person of color, if he attained certain civilized standards, was considered to be white and enjoyed Portuguese nationality. It all worked very well, as indeed did most colonial administrations, especially those of the British."

"Bullshit," said Claudia demurely. "That's Limey propaganda. 91

"Limey?" Sean smiled thinly. "Careful, your prejudice is showing. Nonetheless, your average Indian or African living today in a former British colony is a damned sight worse off now than he was then.

Certainly that goes one hundred times more for your average black man living in Mozambique."

"At least they're free," Claudia cut in.

Sean laughed. "This is freedom? An economy managed under the well-known socialist principles of chaos and ruination which has resulted in a negative growth rate of up to ten percent per annum for every year since the Portuguese withdrawal, a foreign debt amounting to double the gross national product, a total breakdown in the educational system, only five percent of children regularly attending a recognized school, one doctor per forty-five thousand persons, only one person in ten with access to purified drinking water, infant mortality at three hundred forty per thousand births? The only worse countries in the world are Afghanistan and Angola, but as you say, at least they are free. In America, where everybody eats three huge meals a day, freedom may be a big deal, but in Africa a full belly counts for a hell of a lot more."

"It can't be as bad as that," she protested.

"No," he agreed, "it's a lot worse. I haven't mentioned two other factors, the civil war and AIDS. When the Portuguese were pushed out, they handed over to a dictator named Samara Machel and his Frelimo party. Machel was an avowed Marxist. He didn't believe in the nonsense of elections, and his rule was directly responsible for the present condition of the country and for the emergence of the National Mozambican Resistance or, as it is known to its friends and admirers, Renamo. Nobody know s much about it, what its objectives are, who its leaders are. All we know is that it controls most of the country, especially the north, and that it is made up of a pretty ruthless bunch of characters."

"Renamo is a South African front organization directed, supplied, and controlled from Pretoria," Claudia helped him out.

"Committed to the overthrow of sovereign government and the destabilization of the southern continent."

"Well done, ducky." Sean nodded approval. "You've been studying the wisdom and erudition of the Organization of African Unity and the nonaligned nations. You have even mastered their jargon. If only South Africa had the military and technological capability to commit half the skulduggery it is accused of, it would not be simply the most powerful country in Africa, it would be running the entire world."

"I keep forgetting you're one of them, which is silly of me. You don't attempt to conceal your bigotry. The simple fact is that your government and apartheid are the scourge and curse of Africa."

"Of course, we are responsible for everything-the AIDS epidemic, the famines of Ethiopia and Angola and Mozambique, the breakdown of government in Uganda and Zambia, the corruption in Nigeria and Zaire, it's all a dirty South African plot. We even killed Samara Machel, we fed vodka to the Russian crew of his Tupelov jet, and, with our incredibly sophisticated technology, lured them over the border. Machel hit one of our racist mountains with such force that his brains and major organs were instantly expelled from his body. Nevertheless, our apartheid doctors kept him alive long enough to torture state secrets out of him. That is the truth as determined by the UN and

OAU."

"Shut up," said Riccardo Monterro. "I've had enough. Shut up, both of you."

"Sorry." Sean grinned at him. "I get carried away. I just wanted to let you know what to expect when we cross the border. We can just hope that we aren't going to meet any of the lads from either Frelimo or Renamo. there is not a lot to choose between them.

They both shoot the same bullets."

The thought made the back of his own neck prickle, and he felt his mood lighten. He was going into mortal danger again, and the thrill of it began. having the girl with him no longer irked but rather heightened that anticipation, and he felt his resentment of her begin to fade. He was glad she was here rather than jetting back to Alaska. Sean drove on in a silence that gripped them all, even the men standing braced against the roll bar in the back of the Toyota. The closer they came to the border, the deeper the silence became.

At last Sean turned and looked over his shoulder, and Job nodded in agreement.

"This is it, ladies and gentlemen," Sean said quietly. "All change!" He let the Toyota trundle to a halt where the track crossed a stony ridge.

"Where are we?" Riccardo asked.

"As close as we can safely get to the border, about three miles.

From here, it's shanks" pony."

Riccardo swung one leg out of the truck, but Sean said sharply, "Hold it, Capo, step onto that slab of rock. Leave no tracks."

One at a time, each carrying his or her own pack, they alighted from the truck, at Sean's instruction stepping precisely in the footsteps of the person in front. Matatu was the last off, and he went backward, brushing over the signs with a switch of dried grass, wiping out every trace of their departure from the truck.

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