debts to pay." I am aware of how childishly defensive I sound.
"We all have debts to pay!" Beno卯t raises his voice for the first time, gestures at the open doorway. "All of us here."
"Mine happen to be financial as well as moral."
"I didn't know you were this selfish."
"I'm an addict! It comes with the fucking territory. I'm sorry I'm not as perfect as your fucking wife. And I hope for your sake she's as fucking perfect as you remember. That she doesn't have an animal of her own. Five years is a long time, Beno卯t. How do you know she even wants you back?"
"I have a message from her."
"And I have a whole outbox full of messages promising untold riches. How do you know you're not just another moegoe, pinning everything on a dream that's patently impossible?"
"I don't. I just have to go and see how it is, see how to make it work."
"Fine. Whatever. Go live your life. Why do you care about these idiots giving away their money?"
He sits down next to me, the couch creaking mournfully. "It's because I knew a boy like Felipe once. The one who gets shot in the back in your Eloria letter?"
"I didn't know. How could I have known? It wasn't on purpose, Beno卯t. It wasn't to hurt you."
"Like your letters are not to hurt people? You don't care about anyone else, Zinzi."
"Of course I care, why the fuck do you think I took this missing persons job? And so far it's turning out more dodgy than all the scams I've ever been involved in. I did it so I could get out of this. Aren't you taking this a little personally?"
"I shot Felipe."
"What?"
"We used to sleep in a church, all the children and us older kids looking after them. I was nineteen. It was meant to be safe. They took us anyway. Arm茅e de r茅sistance du Seigneur. Lord's Resistance Army. Even before these troubles now, they used to make incursions across the border from Uganda. Or maybe it was a splinter group. They broke the windows. Used their rifle-butts to smash in the heads of the little ones too small to walk. Anyone who resisted. In the forest, they did things to drive us mad. Muti. Drugs. Rape. Killing games. His name wasn't Felipe. But he was my friend. And I shot him because that was the choice they gave me."
"God."
He smiles wanly. "Nzambe aza na zamba te. God is not in the forest. Maybe He is too busy looking after sports teams or worrying about teenagers having sex before marriage. I think they take up a lot of His time."
"I didn't know."
"Your policy. No questions. It's all right, Zinzi, I wouldn't have told you anyway. I didn't tell my wife when we married. There are camps for child soldiers, where they try to teach you to be human again." His mouth twitches, more pity than smile.
"Was that when you got the Mongoose?"
"It was 1995. Before mashavi. But he was waiting for me. He waited eleven years for me. We were on our way to Celvie's father's funeral. We knew it was dangerous, but it was her father. We should have left the kids behind. The FLDR attacked us. I fought back. Killed two of them. That's why they burned me."
"The FLDR?" I say, reeling. As if unravelling the acronyms could make sense of this.
"The Forces d茅mocratiques de lib茅ration du Rwanda. I thought I'd left the fighting behind. It was like a different life for me, Zinzi, for many years. I met Celvie. We had children. I went to university. But the war in the Congo is like an animal. You can't get away from it." He runs his palm down the scars on his throat.
"What happens now?"
"Now I must hope that I can avoid the war. And this time, I will tell my wife. But you understand why I don't want your money."
In my chest, the poison flower bursts open, an explosion of burning seeds. I imagine Mr and Mrs Barber experienced something similar whenever they finally realised that the bearer bonds were forged.
It is the death of hope.
PART TWO.
26.
Yellow light slicing across my pillow like a knife would be the appropriate simile, but it feels more like a mole digging its way into my skull through my right eyeball. There is a boy in my bed, or at least I think it's a boy. It's hard to judge gender by the back of someone's head. But I have my