Genre: Screenplay for a low-budget film.
Chapter 1: We are introduced to the main character, David Sullivan, an upper-level manager in a large corporation, in his mid-40s, living in a major metropolitan area (haven't decided; probably Chicago or New York). A mood of gloomy ennui pervades the scenes. We see him commuting to work through a traffic jam in the rain-- in his car, a cross hanging from his rearview mirror is our first intimation of his Catholicism. At the office, he visits an obscure website that covers a Third World civil war. (I'd prefer not to set it in a specific real country: what I have in mind is a combination of the civil war in Sierra Leone and the ideology of the Colombian FARC.) We hear about the latest fighting: government vs. rebels; massacres; villages razed; refugees, etc. Then he is interrupted by a phone call, talks business.
Chapter 2: After work, he goes to a restaurant by the river to meet his girlfriend Dana, a flight attendant who has just returned from traveling. Dana is past her prime, seemingly mid-30s, masking her fading looks with a certain glamor in her clothing, make-up and demeanor. It's a double date: Dana's girlfriend Amy met a guy online and is meeting him for the first time, but he's late. The two women do most of the talking, stories of the road, until the date arrives; then they pepper him with questions. Eventually the four of them leave the restaurant and go to a bar/club, where Amy whisks her date onto the dance floor, where they start making out; clearly, the double date is over, and Sullivan and Dana don't stay long. Outside the bar/club, Sullivan grabs Dana and she submits to a kiss. On the way back to his apartment, Dana gossips incessantly about her colleagues, especially Amy and her serial obsessive online flings and her deceit of some of her lovers. At one point something she says suggests she, too, might have let herself be picked up-- unfaithfulness? Sullivan challenges her on this gently and she gets defensive without denying it-- the drift of her words is: no, she didn't, but what if she had, what rights does he think he has over her? though she doesn't say it that openly. To assuage that, she tells him, "I missed you. It's hard being alone," turns to him, kisses him passionately. Fade to black.
Chapter 3: His apartment, later that night. The camera shows us the next room, connected by an open corridor to the bedroom, of which we see a part, but not the place where the action is going on. But we hear the breathing. When it's over, we hear the beginnings of a conversation; then we are shown their faces. She asks about a picture that stands on his bookshelf: Sullivan himself, much younger, his wife, two small children with them, a boy and a girl; and a chubby black man with a huge smile, standing by a tall black woman with a tiny toddler standing at their feet, also smiling. He tells her the story. The man's name is Ivo Ngaba, who is from (the Third World country) but lived in the United States for a few years, which is when David Sullivan met him. He came to study theology, on a scholarship from some missionary organization, but stayed for a while afterwards and found a job because there were rumors of civil unrest back home. He spoke with an accent, found poor work and worked hard, and was one of the merriest men Sullivan ever knew, greeting every new day with a hearty, joyful exuberance. Ivo taught Sullivan a game called "64" and they often played it, and the two couples became fast friends, though Ivo and Sullivan were especially close. Then Ivo's father died and he went home to go to the funeral. Sullivan warned him it would be hard to get back into the country, given that his visa had expired. Ivo seemed to regard it as a duty to go, and yet he also had a naive faith that somehow he would get back in. Against his better judgment Sullivan accepted this, assuming that somehow Ivo knew something he didn't. Ivo left thinking it was only a short trip, but was shut out. He had to write to Sullivan to liquidate his life in the US: to sell his things, to talk to his landlord and recover a deposit, to inform his employer and his wife's clients (she cleaned houses). But the most important part of the story: before this, David Sullivan stood godfather to Ivo Ngaba's son Isaac. (Probably this chapter should show the scenes of the past, with David's continued narration as a voice-over; the scenes of the past will be soundless.) He took the godparent's oath:
I will love my Godchild and do my best to give a good Christian example to my Godchild by living and sharing my Catholic Faith with my Godchild by prayer, in what I say and in what I do. So help me God.
This will be the only part of the scenes-from-the-past that is heard aloud. Then a few years ago the civil war began, and the government troops committed a massacre in Ongwe. Sullivan sent letters to the address whence he had received the letter from Ivo, to see if he was alive. He never received a response. He is afraid that Ivo is dead. And this is what troubles him. The godparent's oath traditionally signifies undertaking responsibility for one's godchild if the natural parents die. He knows that that's what Ivo would have wanted. But what can you do? she asks. He says: go to the country and find out what's happened, and if Ivo's dead, try to find the child. She is shocked, but she soon discovers he's serious, for it turns out he has been making plans for years, learning the language, and so on. But Ongwe has been rebel-controlled territory. She is impressed by the romance of it, and wants to make love again; he says he's too tired.
Chapter 4: We see Sullivan in a church service on Sunday, briefly, just to mark the passing of time. Another commute: working day. Then he is working late, and as he leaves the office, walking to his car, he seems two men fighting in an alley. In the dark of his car he thinks he hears a noise, turns on the interior light, checks the back seat. He enters his apartment in the dark: again, fear. Then we see Sullivan go to his old priest, Father Joseph, to confess. I haven't seen you in a year, says Father Joseph. As an explanation for why he's come, Sullivan mentions the men fighting, the strange shadows in the darkness; nightmares; and nightmares have invaded his waking hours. It doesn't make much sense, but he begins to cry. Father Joseph tries to set the confession back on track: he asks him about his sins. He mentions Dana-- "I know, I heard about that," says Father. God can forgive you, says Father Joseph, but you must stop seeing her, will you? "I'm afraid of being alone," he says. To change the subject, Sullivan asks if Father Joseph has heard anything of Ivo Ngaba. I worry about his son, he says. No, Father hasn't, but it's creditable that he's still thinking of him. He promises to write to the church in Liber and ask if they know anything about Ivo. Why don't you come back to our church? asks Father. You came here for 35 years, this is your home. Because she-- his estranged wife-- is here. And because everyone knows what he did; perhaps that's the sin that's weighing on his mind. Why did he do it? For so many years she had belittled him without even realizing it, he didn't know how to stand up to her; he bottled up his anger, and one day it burst out. He was horrified at what he had done; it was irrevocable, she would never forgive him. Then Sullivan apologizes for coming and abruptly breaks off the confession.
Chapter 5: Sullivan enters the office of his boss and requests a leave of absence of indefinite duration. The boss does not quite understand him at first; Sullivan explains that it's a religious duty. He explains why he thinks it's a good time: projects concluding, an account closed; a new colleague who would do well on one of his current accounts, etc. The boss says that we'd prefer not to lose you right now. It's important, says Sullivan. The boss offers a monologue on the way they do business: long-winded worldly-wisdom. He can make no promises that there will be room for him when he comes back. He-- the boss-- himself, might have been transferred or promoted, and in that case he won't be in a position to help, and his successor will not know David. I ask for no guarantees, says David, but I'd be grateful if you keep me in mind and consider me when I come back. We certainly will... should we arrange for severance pay, in that case? That's fine, says David. The boss shares reminiscences to dispel the awkwardness of the moment.
Chapter 6: David offers his apartment for rent. A group of four college students come by for it-- a bit rambunctious; they ask about whether the neighbors are "anal" about keeping quiet at night. They agree to a six-month lease; rent to be paid to an agency.
Chapter 7: We see Sullivan visiting religious shops, buying a cross, icons of the Virgin Mary and of saints, popular press religious books and serious theology-- the pope's book, writings of St. Augustine, Karl Rahner, and so on. During the day: he's not working. (A short scene.)
Chapter 8: Sullivan meets with Dana to tell her that he's going to leave for (the Third World country). A man's got to keep his promises. Initially shocked with a touch of admiration, she then gets a bit irritated and tries to talk him out of it, at first in his own interest, then in the interests of the relationship: Do you expect me to wait for you? He won't give a straight answer to that; the issue remains unresolved, but there's no definite break-up.
Chapter 9: Sullivan exits his apartment. Everything is packed up, and he turns the keys over to his college-student tenants, who are obviously in a party mood already: the contrast of youthful hedonism and the morose, pensive dillusionment of middle age, which youthful hedonism cannot understand. The move symbolizes mortality. One of the college students thinks it's really cool that he's going to _____. That's in Africa, right? He's always wanted to go to Africa, to see lions and elephants in the wild. Sullivan walks away with only two large suitcases. He gets a taxi to the airport, looking back at his apartment as it rolls away. (If there's time: in the airport, a federal officer who sees his destination warns him that there's a State Department warning against traveling there. Asks to see his visa and return ticket. Calls a manager. Very important business, insists Sullivan. You must report at the US Embassy in Liber, says the officer.)
Chapter 10: Sullivan arrives in the airport, gets his passport stamped, changes money, and checks into a hotel-- across the street from the city's only five-star hotel, much inferior to it. Along the streets he is mobbed by beggars and children selling him things. He examines his room suspiciously and sleeps in a bednet. Sleeps in the next day. Pays a visit to the national bank, which seems luxurious next to its surroundings: he gets a deposit box for a large stash of cash and some valuables. He visits the market-- huge, crowded, packed. Cars muscle their way slowly through the crowds. People without shoes. Roasted corn, and "chips," are sold along the street. He finds a place where the taxi cabs gather, and asks, in the local language-- we see a translation with subtitles-- for a ride to Ongwe. This attracts stares, both because he is a white man speaking the local language, and because of the destination. "Ongwe -- rebel town," says one of the drivers in English. "Dangerous." Then another driver, in the local language-- we see broken-English subtitles to give us a sense of Sullivan's imperfect understanding-- "No speak... Ongwe... angry police... spies..."
Chapter 11: Sullivan visits the main Catholic church in Liber. The priest is enthusiastic about the foreign visitor and tries to answer his questions. His attempts to speak the local language are rebuffed; they summon the one priest who knows good English. They know nothing of Ivo Ngaba, but they tell him about the massacres in Ongwe, of which they've heard eyewitness accounts. (They are a bit partisan for the government.) They also tell him of the rebels' hatred of religion: they burn churches, they kill priests. Ngaba would come here if he could. Sullivan does not tell them that Isaac Ngaba is his godchild. The priest is amazed that Sullivan thinks he can find this single person in the midst of the civil war. At the end of the interview, the priest asks Sullivan if he can ask his congregation in America to help the church. Refugee families come to us, and we have nothing to give them. I am ashamed that we have to turn them away; this is the house of Christ, this is one place they should be able to turn. Sullivan asks him some questions about where they store the money, is it secure-- and gives him $500. He also buys a Bible and a prayer book in the local language, and a bit of religious art.
Chapter 12: Without a way to get to Ongwe, Sullivan stays in Liber. I'm not sure the best way to portray this cinematically, but there's a complete change in the pace of his life. Everything is slow. He has no responsibilities. He is irrelevant to everything, detached, and this makes him feel, not lonely, but free. Because he does, after all, have a purpose-- to find his godchild, Isaac Ngaba, and try to fulfill his godfatherly duties towards him-- and he is not shirking it, but has a legitimate vacation. He continues to ask about possible rides to Ongwe, though he is now careful not to do so as openly as at first. He studies the language. He sits in cafes, until he knows the waitresses and they smile at him; he knows the boys who settle tomatoes or bananas in the squares; he helps beggars and this rumor spreads, so he is swarmed with them.
Chapter 13: There is a boy who sells him tomatoes and one day he helps him by telling him what the Englishman who often eats in the cafe across the streets likes-- cherry tomatoes. He likes them, and will gladly pay you twice what you sold them for last time. The boy makes two sales, then gratefully comes back to Sullivan, who says that his mother asked the boy to invite him home to their cottage for dinner in gratitude to him for his fruitful business advice. He agrees. They wander through a slum in the midst of cornfields, a whole shantytown that not even visible from the road because the huts are hidden by tall cornstalks. He attracts all eyes. His mother is amazed to find her son has brought a white man. "He didn't tell me..." The meal is a simple one, only boiled corn-- kwacha. Sullivan brings oil with him and gives it to the mother. He speaks to her in the local language; her eyes shine. I have never heard a white man speak it before, she says. She tells her own story: her husband got sick and died years ago, then four years ago, she came here with her brother, but then he joined the army and she has heard nothing of him. They earn only what her son-- I might as well call him Stevie-- earns by selling things. He's a clever boy. One day, perhaps he'll be a great businessman like you.
Chapter 14: One of the drivers from the market approaches Sullivan after a month or so and says he has found a driver who will go to Ongwe. A rendezvous is arranged in the basement of one of the city's seediest bars. Prostitutes try to get Sullivan's attention. Eventually the driver comes along. He describes his experience: the soldiers know him, and anyway, it's not so hard to get through. People overestimate the danger. All you need is to pay a bribe, and to know how to talk to them. (His casualness is not reassuring.) Let me arrange it in three days, he says: I have to attend my cousin's funeral the day after tomorrow. The price-- $500. Plus $100 for the bribe; but it should be in small bills. Sometimes if you give them too much it's dangerous because they'll shoot you to take more. I'll tell you how much to give. I know them. I'll know by the way they act how much is safest to give them. The driver then asks for $200 and promises to take him back afterwards, too.
Chapter 15: As they leave the city the roads rapidly deteriorate: narrower, then potholes, then they cease to be paved at all. Cars become few, people many; they pass a few villages, and a lot of cornfields. Children, babies, pregnant women everywhere; and the population is very young. Then they pass more desolate country: empty fields. One burned village. They encounter a checkpoint with rebel soldiers: there is a sometimes angry conversation of which Sullivan only understands snatches, and much pointing of guns. Eventually they let them through. Beyond the checkpoint the countryside seems about the same, only they attract more puzzled stares, and the drivers salutes whenever he passes armed guards. The rebels seem to have a more robust presence on their side than the government does on its side.
Chapter 16: They arrive in a village; Sullivan pays the driver, who departs. The city is less diverse than the capital because there are no foreigners or trappings of modernity, it is more a uniform squalor, no one has any shoes, and everyone stares at the white man. He asks whether there is a place he can spend the night, and is directed to a landlady who offers him the upstairs room. There is a door to the side: don't go in there, she warns, her daughter is hiding there; the soldiers "took" her and now she is ashamed to be seen and afraid of everything. He asks about Ivo and Isaac Ngaba. But they do not know.
Chapter 17: He stays in Ongwe for some time, asking whether anyone knows Isaac Ngaba. It seems madness: a bartender tells him that he will die. His dollars buy him enough to eat; he leaves food for the raped girl. There is no security: we see gangs roaming the streets. His dollars will be stolen, someone tells him, and then he will be worse than the blacks. He ducks into doorways whenever rebels pass. Once they pull him out and harass him, one threatens to kill him. They ask him if he brought money, and he says no: he paid the driver to bring him, and the driver will come back for him. He was to meet a friend in this city. When they hear the name of the driver, the leader says that he knows the man: he is a great trickster, he will certainly defraud you! But the rebels find it so amusing that a white man is trapped in Ongwe that after throwing him on the ground they walk on.
Chapter 18: The bartender, in return for a fee, has found Sullivan's information, but he demands to be paid for it first, for he fears that Sullivan will not pay after he hears it. Isaac Ngaba is one of the rebels, he is in a rebel-held town called [?]. You will go back to Liber, no? he asks. But he is not surprised when the "crazy white man" says he will go to Dog Rock: he expects anything from Sullivan. He tells him to go along the road to the south of the city, keep following it, and the first inhabited town is Crocodile Rock. Ask for "Commander Ngaba." Don't blame me, God, I didn't make the white man crazy!
Chapter 19: Sullivan sets out, on foot this time, for his godson's village, with a pack full of the things he brought for Isaac Ngaba. The dirt road runs through marshes, in some places with tall dead trees rising from them. At one point the road is going above a marsh, and he hears the sound of trucks. He leaps off the road and hides at the bottom of the slope as the truck rumbles by with whoops of soldiers. He waits for a while after they are gone. And then he looks around him. There in the mud around him is a troop of dead child soldiers, their bodies full of holes, the blood filtering into the water so that it has already seeped into his ragged clothes. A scene more horrible because of the pristine nature all around: as if this were the most appropriate thing in the world, like the carcasses of animals lying on the ground... Sullivan begins to pray fervently, but falters...
Chapter 20: Sullivan stumbles desolately into the village. He immediately encounters soldiers, who shout at him and force him to lie on the ground. He asks to see Isaac Ngaba. They take him into a room with a stone floor and a barred window letting in some light. And there is Isaac Ngaba, still only a boy but with a sort of arrogance in his demeanor: his lieutenants stand up and stand guard at the entrance of the prisoner. Talking in the local language: "Where did you find the prisoner?... " Sullivan interrupts and says "I can explain, in the local language. That startles them all (they haven't heard a white man speak the language before). I knew you as a child, Sullivan begins. LIar, says Isaac, but Sullivan produces the photograph. I was a friend of your father's. (A bit about him.) I was your godfather. (What a godfather is: I promised to instruct you in the faith.) I'm sorry that I did not come sooner. I am afraid it may too late and that already I have failed my friend, your father. But I knew that I must try. Out of curiosity Isaac asks him to go on. Sullivan begins to testify, despite his terror. First, there is a God. He is all-powerful, He can do anything He wants. He is omnipresent: He is everywhere at the same time. He is in the room with us right now, though we can't see Him. He knows all: everything you have ever done, even your innermost thoughts. He is always watching you. He created this world: the sky and the sea, the sun and the moon and stars, the night and the day, all the birds and beasts and fish, the trees and plants, and us, people, you and me. People were supposed to govern creation wisely, in love, and to obey God's will, but instead we rebelled, and that brought all bad things into the world. That is why we have become enemies of most of the animals, that is why snakes and spiders bite us and poison us. That is why women suffer terrible pain when they bring children into the world, and why women are subject to men who are cruel to them. That is why man has to labor all his life in order to get enough food to eat. That is why there is disease and hunger and death. That is why we must wear clothes, why we are ashamed to walk naked. It is the reason for all the pride and hatred in the world. People are different from the animals because they have reason and language, but also because they know the moral law, they know right and wrong. Everyone knows that it is good to return a favor, for example. We know that it is wrong to lie, or to do violence to the innocent. Jesus taught us that we should love each other, and do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Just as we wish that others would be kind to us and tell us the truth, so we should be kind and truthful to them. And if we would love each other, life on this earth would be... [Anyway, it's a summary of the Christian gospel: this would have to be good].
At the end of it, Issac Ngaba looks at him for a long time, the same icy toughness on his face. Then he laughs. He recites a version of the Marxist line on religion: yes, we've heard those fairy tales; religion is a drug to keep the oppressed weak, to keep them from realizing their own strength; but we are no longer your slaves, we are no longer your fools, we are no longer children listening to children's stories; we look the world in the face, we see it as it is. We will never be fooled again by the lies of priests. Get out of here! And the rebels throw him out into the street.
As he walks away, one boy, about 12 or 13, follows him and watches him along the road. The godfather, crestfallen and confused, yet feeling a burden lifted, begins to pray for forgiveness for failing, for coming too late, but thanks God that he was able to arrive at this hour...
Chapter 21: Rumor quickly reaches the main commander in the village that a white man came to visit Lieutenant Ngaba and was allowed to go away freely. He believes the godfather is a spy from Mossad or the CIA, and that he must be killed. He sends three of his soldiers to find the man, figure out who he's working for, and then kill him. One of the three is the boy who followed the godfather along the road.
Chapter 22: The godfather arrives in the town [I've been calling it Ongwe] and returns to the house where they had put him up. As he's packing his stuff, he hears the door open and loud words downstairs. He moves to the door to listen, then suddenly the door is knocked open. The three men come in, shouting. They beat him up, then tie him with ropes, then begin to ask him who he's working for-- Mossad, or the CIA? Neither, he says-- they beat him more. They begin to shout at him that he believes he is so great, but that he's not, he's nothing but dirt, worthless. They threaten to kill him and boast about it. They keep beating him until he has lost a tooth and his mouth and eyes are swollen, and there's blood pouring from his mouth and on the side of his face, and he sits there whimpering and screaming... Finally, saying they are thirsty from their hard work, the two larger thugs take some of the money they found in his room and go out to get a beer. They tell the youngest-- the boy who watched him on the road-- to guard him. With the men gone, the godfather closes his other eye-- one is swollen shut anyway-- and begins to pray. He begs that, "if it be Thy will," God give him another chance. He begins to confess his sins and ask forgiveness, he praises God for humbling him to this point, but he says that he is not ready, and pleads that he may have a chance once again to be in His house, to partake of His gifts, to receive absolution for his sins. Finally he is started by the word, "Sir, we must hurry..." He opens his eyes and the boy is leaning over him to untie his bonds. When he is done, he leads him out of the house, and gives him instructions on where he can find a truck that will take him back to the capital. "Hurry, before they find you are gone," the boy says, and they part quickly.
Chapter 22: As he walks to the truck, as he talks to the driver who agrees to take him, with all eyes fixed in amazement on the battered bloodied white man, as he climbs in and hides underneath, as the truck begins to move, choking them with dust, his heart is filled with prayers of joy and peace. He no longer sees the squalor of the place; the sounds of children crying, the gunshots, the infernal cackling of the rebels, now seem less important than the glory of the slanting sun, the clouds, the sky over the head; even the dust shines with a heavenly radiance. At the checkpoint there are shouts of soldiers; this time he does not pray for himself, but for the mother who is terrified that her infant will begin to cry. In the capital, he goes to the national bank and collects his belongings, and boards the plane home.
Chapter 23: When the two thugs return to the house, they find the boy there, the prisoner gone. The boy tells him that he released him because he is a man of God. One of the thugs calls him a traitor and threatens to kill him, but the other says no: they must bring him back to tell the same story to the commander, otherwise they will be killed. They return to the village outpost and bring the boy before their commander. They tell him that the boy released the prisoner. The commander asks if it is true. The boy says yes: he did it because he was a man of God; that his words were like the voice of an angel; and that he has always been afraid of the commander from the first moment he saw him, but that since hearing the words of the man of God he fears nothing, for I know... The commander pulls out a gun and shoots the boy through the forehead to shut him up, and he collapses on the floor with very little blood. The rebel soldiers stand there staring in stunned silence. "What are you looking at? He is nothing. I have only swatted a fly. What are you looking at? Get out of here. Go back to your duties." Everyone departs and they leave the boy's body on the floor of the room.
Chapter 24: The godfather arrives in America. He calls his boss and meets him for lunch. The boss plays hard to get, but hints that there are some accounts that they could use him on and then bring him back full-time the next time a major account comes up. The godfather thanks him but says he wants to take his life in a different direction. He meets with his girlfriend. She asks about Africa and he tells her a bit, but then cuts to the chase: What they've been doing is wrong, and he can't see her anymore; he's sorry if he's hurt her in any way. She doesn't take this well, assuming that it means he thinks he can find better, and she starts insulting him, telling him that he was lucky to get her and that he'll regret this, that she won't come back to him if he changes his mind. He advertises his apartment (rather larger than he needs) for sale. And then we see him in church. The Scripture for the day is the parable of the 99 sheep. The priest begins with the homily he planned but then breaks to say: there is someone in the congregation today who has gone astray, who has been lost, who has had many troubles and trials. I knew him for many years but in the past two years he has only once set foot in this church. I have prayed for him many times, have begged the Lord to comfort him, to guide him, to forgive him. Had he never left, had he never strayed, I would perhaps never have realized how much I loved him. When I look into his face today I see something different there; I see a change; I see the work of the Holy Spirit. And I thank God that He did not forget my friend in his hour of despair. In some of our lives the break with the Holy Spirit takes subtler forms...
Chapter 25: (Six years later) We see the godfather at the head of a classroom in a school. We know it is Catholic because there is a crucifix hanging above the blackboard. But the student population is almost entirely black (maybe a few Hispanics). He's clearly teaching some kind of an economics/business class. He's explaining the differences between business ownership structures: sole proprietorship, partnership, limited liability, public ownership, etc. There's some discussion: kids will talk about their parents' or relatives' businesses... The bell rings, and one student comes up to him to ask for recommendations. He says he wants recommendations to Harvard, Yale... The godfather asks him to come into his office. He tells him that he has something to say, and he wants him to think about it. The kid apparently has a mother who needs him, and a younger brother who looks up to him but who also shows some bad tendencies. Has he thought about going to school in the city? Yes, says the kid, but he wants to get away. And the godfather tells him that he's been to Harvard and got an MBA, that he's worked for Fortune 500 companies, that he's met millionaires and billionaires, that he's been to the meetings whose conclusions made the front page of the Wall Street Journal, and all those years of his life, when he looks back on them now, seem like so much emptiness and waste of time. And he tells him of the happiest moment of his life, which was just the opposite: he was in a Third World country, in squalid dusty streets that were full of orphans that smelled like urine, my clothes were rags, and soaked in blood, I had been beaten till my mouth and eye were swollen and bleeding and my chest and side and hands ached, I had no money at all, and no idea how I would get home, and I knew that I might be killed at any moment. But I had just prayed with all my heart, and a boy had awakened me with a face like an angel, and at that moment more than any other in my life, I felt the presence of God so strongly, I felt it in the rays of the sun and in the trees and in the faces of the people around me, even in the dust; I felt as if God was holding me in His hands. I remember when I chased after idols, after universities with great names and corporations with great money and power, after all that worldly success, and I bless God that my eyes have been opened, that I am no longer under the spell of that dross and that emptiness... So if you asked my advice, I would say, don't go that way, don't get bound up in all those illusions. Go to a college here in town and stay with your mother and brother. But think that over. If you come back tomorrow and you still want recommendations for Harvard and Yale, I'll write them for you. I've always thought you were a great student and it's a privilege to have had you in my class. (Some of this speech could be accompanied by images from the day he's talking about... or even of the business meetings...)
When he's done talking about this, as the kid is going out, the priest comes in, and says that he received a letter from [his godson's country]; from "Isaac Ngaba." Your godson, no? He begins to read the letter.
Chapter 26: As he reads the letter, we see the scenes from Isaac Ngaba's life that he is describing.
My father died when I was five years old. For the next three years I stayed at an orphanage, a convent with an old Irish nun. I hated her because she wouldn't let me curse like the other boys and I was ashamed. When it seemed the rebels might recapture the city they sent me to stay with my uncle, a rebel sympathizer, and I learned to hate the government and the government forces. My uncle taught me the ideology that I told you when you visited us. One day I shouted insults at the government forces, thinking that they couldn't see me, but they chased me, calling me a rebel, and wanted to kill me. I ran away and kept running until I ended up on the other side of the front lines. Then I fell in with a rebel force. When they found out that I knew how to read and that I knew something about ideology the lieutenant took a liking to me and made me his second in line. I was brave in fighting government troops because I hated them, and when the lieutenant was killed I was named to take his place. We were proud. We thought that we were kings of the world because we had guns. We took drugs, and attacked many villages. They called me Snake Eyes because I liked to shoot people twice, just to be sure they were dead, and my aim was so accurate that sometimes the holes would be right next to each other, like the eyes of a snake. I remember how we captured villages, and we would lock the houses and then burned them so that the people would be burned alive inside. Sometimes we buried rebels alive.
Now we have made peace with the government. A peace without justice. A few rebels didn't like the peace and went into the jungles to keep fighting. They were the true believers. But the rest of us knew that our cause was a lie. Even when you came to me, when you stood before us in [the village], I said the old words out of fear, because I knew that they might call me a traitor and kill me if I didn't. But I had begun to know it was all false. If the colonialists were so bad, why did we do things worse than the colonialists had ever done? If the colonialists were the cause of our problems, why didn't the problems go away when the colonialists were gone? We could build nothing, we could only destroy. But we kept fighting because we were angry, and we were angry because no one in the world cared about us or even knew that we existed. We wanted to believe that the colonialists exploited us because then we would have mattered. Instead, we were forgotten.
Except you. In my whole life, you were the only one who came to look for me, who cared about me. You came from places without horrors, you were the only one to show us that those places had not forgotten us. You were the only one who knew me from a child and looked at my face as a human face, and not just a gun.
Now I am a commander in a village. Everyone fears me, all the more so because I do not take bribes. They treat me with a respect but it is only fear because I have a gun. Or perhaps I imagine that it is only fear. But how should I know? I know how clever people are, and so many advantages flow from seeming kindness to the man with the gun. There is no one I can trust. Even a man's best friends will kill him. My comrades used to call me Snake Eyes out of respect. Now when I see one of them, they use the term because they want something from me. And I flatter some who have become greater than I, men who have murdered ten times as many as I have. I flatter them to survive, even while I hate them. Some of us have killed each other, for money or for drugs or in anger. There is gang warfare. We were friends even if it was in an evil cause, but no longer. We hate and fear each other now. And we hate ourselves even more than we hate each other.
At night in my dreams their faces haunt me, sometimes standing in long rows, sometimes their bodies are corpses in the fields where they felt only their eyes are open and look at me like the eyes of devils, sometimes they haunt familiar places, sometimes strange ones. The faces of those I killed. Their eyes no longer show fear, for they are already dead and have nothing to fear from me anymore. Instead, I have ventured into their realm, the realm of the dead, the realm of nightmares. Sometimes I see the face of a girl among them. She was from a village by the river. Some of the boys liked to rape the girls in the villages before they killed them. I told them not to because I thought it made us weak. But once I saw her face in a doorway, hiding from us. Our eyes met and I saw her fear, and I felt the animal rising within me. Afterwards I spared her but perhaps she is dead now, for her face haunts me like those I killed. Surely the living cannot haunt the living as ghosts do?
And yet I thank God that my accusers are fewer than they might be, for sometimes I took mercy. It was after your visit. Always I kept with me the picture you gave me, the Mother and Child. I carried it on with me through all those years, sometimes on my breast like a charm, sometimes in my back among my things. I don't know why. Sometimes I hated it and wished to throw it away. Sometimes it seemed that it was the only beautiful thing in the world. I saw in her face the peace that the mind cannot understand, beckoning me, but I could not come. I think that sometimes I prayed to her. And sometimes she comes to me in the midst of the nightmares, or she sends herself, as a light or a bird, and my fear grows less. But how can I pray to her, after all that I have done. The people here say there are evil spirits in the night but they only half believe their own words. I feel them. The night is full of devils, lying in wait for me. And I know that I am theirs. I have a bit of life but I spend a little more of it every day. Soon the darkness will fall.
There was a boy with us who saved you, who freed you when you were a prisoner. Do you remember? His name was James. The commander killed him and left his corpse on the ground as if he were only a fly that had been swatted. But by evening the people gathered around him to look at him, and the commander grew afraid. He drove the people away and ordered that the body be burned, but some women took it away and buried it. Two weeks later the commander was shot by a jealous man whose mistress the commander had seduced. And it seemed as if he was the swatted fly, for no sooner was he dead than people forgot his name. But then they began to remember it, because they remembered James, and when they told his story, they spoke also of the commander. The peasants in those parts are superstitious. Pregnant women call on James to help them and think he eases their pains, and travelers who are lost in the bogs say that he comes to them and guides their feet home. Now there have been three more commanders in that village, and they are all forgotten, but the people remember James to praise him.
I want to see you again. I want you to help me. I am desperate and full of fear. I have forgotten the story you told me but I remember how it made me feel. Can I hear it once more? I want you to teach us. Will you come?
