Blood Before Dawn

CHAPTER 2 WINSTON-2

It was one of the rare clear days in the West African rainy season. I eased the throttle into full power. The old bird accelerated quickly. As soon as I felt the rudder become aerodynamically effective, I pushed the yoke forward, lifting the tail until the runway appeared over the nose. In a few moments she was ready to fly, so I eased back on the yoke just enough to let her lift off the ground. She was in her element.

The ground fell away as though released from the clutches of my landing gear. The gauges were still functioning normally—all pointers in the green arcs. The engine had not missed a beat. Then all the old familiar sights began to appear—the sprawl of Monrovia, the ocean and the white line of the coast. The distinctive red-orange dirt roadways, so colored by high concentration of iron and aluminum, known as laterite, meandered out from the city until they disappeared into the bush.

At five hundred feet I turned ninety degrees to the left and climbed another five hundred feet before turning downwind. I leveled the airplane out and let it accelerate to cruise speed, then reduced the power to hold that speed while trimming the pitch forward to maintain level flight and speed.

At cruise speed she felt a little out of rig, so I had to hold slight aileron pressure to keep the wings level. Other than that, she performed beautifully. Opposite the end of the runway, I throttled back, trimmed to relieve pressure from the yoke, and did a shallow descending 180 degree turn on to final approach, went to full flaps and retrimmed for approach speed. At slower speed the tendency of the airplane to roll slightly diminished to where it was barely noticeable. I was over the end of the runway and after a short, floating glide I raised the flaps to let the airplane settle onto the runway as smoothly as a goose.

“Vell?” Mr. Van Dijk asked through a cloud of fresh cigarette smoke.

“$2,000,” I said, trying to edge my voice with determination.

Mr. Van Dijk shook his head.

“Okay,” I said. “Give me my deposit back and I’ll go.”

He pointed to a white envelope on his desk. I picked it up and checked to see if the money was there. It was. Then I walked out and had almost reached the car door when I heard his voice behind me.

“Alla right! Alla right!” he shouted. “Yo can hab de damn ting vor two towsand. But ya can’t keep it here.”

I happily agreed and took the keys and logbook outside to meet Winston and Sam.

“Jump in, Sam! I want to taxi this baby over to Monrovia Airlines. Winston, you meet us there with the car.”

Monrovia Airlines, my former employer, was under new ownership and management; I knew that. As I taxied onto the dirt ramp and shut the engine down, A familiar figure came toward me from the hangar.

Paterson extended both arms, and with a broad smile, wrapped them around me. He was just as I remembered him, dressed in a white, longsleeved shirt, pressed khaki trousers, and polished shoes. He had visibly aged, like everyone else I met from the old days.

“Mista Ken, so good to see ya afta so long a time.”

“And you too, Paterson. Have you been well?”

“Yes, Mista Ken. All is well, all is well.”

“How is it with the airlines?”

“Mista André left some time ago. I hear he went to Cote d’Ivoire. I don’t know for sure, but I hear he was killed. De airline now owned by an Israel company and, of course, de Honorable Williams.”

Paterson spoke Honorable Williams’s name with the kind of reverence shown to high members of the clergy. He was, after all, an Americo-Liberian, one of the “Congo” people, who owned virtually all of Liberia. He was, as all Americos were, referred to as “Honorable.”

“All dese Israel pilots be very young like yourself when you was here befo’.”

“Is Honorable Williams in good health, Paterson?”

“Ya. He in de best of health. Only like de rest of us, he gettin’ ol’.”

“I need to talk to the new boss. Is he there?” I asked, pointing to the operations office.

“Ya, he dhere. He always dhere.”

I thanked Paterson and walked across the orange, muddy road to the operations office. Sam came with me, waving to Winston that we wouldn’t be long.

The office had been considerably improved in the last ten years—new windows, paint, newish furniture, and a cleaner smell. I tapped on the door of André’s former office.

“Come in,” a masculine voice called.

The man was writing something as I entered. He looked up. He was a rather handsome man in his early forties. He had a thin mustache, searching, intelligent eyes, and no indication of thinning hair.

“Yes, can I help you?” he said in a nearly perfect American accent. I told him that I expected to be in Liberia for about a month and wanted to keep my airplane tied down here. He glanced out of the window at the 170A, then nodded and said that it would cost twenty-five US for four weeks.

I didn’t mention my past with Monrovia Airlines. He would find out from Paterson anyway, and in Liberia, it was always best not to talk about the past. I paid him the twenty-five.

“Want a receipt?” he said without looking up.

“That won’t be necessary,” I said.

He nodded and waved his free hand dismissively. Winston drove us back into Monrovia so that I could file the change of title and struggle through the red tape of Liberian bureaucracy to establish ownership of the Cessna, which also meant handing out ‘dash’ to everyone in the process.

As it was when I was last here in the ’60s, bribery, or “dash,” was the way of life. It is what greases the wheels of local government, or any establishment for that matter. At the airport, immigration officials require “dash” to get you beyond their desk. Customs officials need their “dash” or “Saturday” if you want to retain all of your bags and their contents. These are not tips. If you don’t pay the dash, you don’t get the service.

It was late afternoon when all was completed and, while on the way back to the hotel, and for no particular reason, I thought of Heinz and Maria’s Restaurant where I had spent many hours with my German pilot friends when I flew along with them for Monrovia Airlines.

“Winston, can you take us to Heinz and Maria’s Café? Maybe get a quick beer and a schnitzel.”

“Sorry, boss,” Winston said. “Heinz and Maria’s is closed. Heinz, he wen’ back to Germany long time hence, an’ Maria, I tink she close de restaurant soon afta.”

“Heinz went back to Germany? Why?”

“Well, de story is dhat one day President Tubman was havin’ a big party an’ he ran outa champagne wine. So he sen’ someone to Heinz to get mo’ wine. But Heinz, he say no! No, ’cause President Tubman hadn’t paid for de las’ order o’ wine. Or de one befo’ dhat. I mean, dhat take cohones, ya know!”

“What happened?”

Winston laughed. “Ha! De next day, Heinz wa’ on a plane back to Germany!”

“And Maria?”

“She din’ go wid him, but what she did, I don’ know. I really don’ know.”

As long as I was thinking about the ’60s, I thought about Mr. Koning and his arts and hobby store. I asked Winston if he was familiar with it and he nodded that he was. When I asked him to drive us there, he seemed puzzled for a moment but made the proper turns through the city streets. The people in Monrovia looked poorer than I remembered. Cheap and temporary repairs had been done to most of the properties. There were a lot of angry and fatigued faces, and many malnourished children whose clothes hung on them like torn rags. Most seemed to wander through the streets aimlessly.

Mr. Koning’s shop had changed little, except the bright colors that made up the sign advertising his hobby shop were now sun bleached to the point of indecipherability.

Winston found a parking place near the store and said that he would wait. Sam and I walked the half block through a throng of people desperately trying to sell us anything from glass trinkets to fish. We entered the store half hoping to find a rare, air-conditioned interior, but discovered instead a swirling, out-of-balance ceiling fan stirring the humid air. There was a local woman of late middle age sitting in a metal chair next to a row of primitive style paintings. She was impeccably dressed in a colorful, loose-fitting caftan and equally colorful turban. She smiled at us as we walked past.

The young man behind the glass counter introduced himself as Andrew, a nephew of Mr. Koning.

“And where are Mr. and Mrs. Koning now?” I asked after a short exchange of pleasantries.

“It is very sad,” Andrew said, “but Aunt Alide died some years ago. She has been missed by everyone. She was much loved by the arts community here. A couple of years after Aunt Alide’s passing, Uncle Geert decided that it was now safe to return to Holland—no more Nazis, he said. And I haven’t heard from him since. I suppose he is doing well.”

“And you, you don’t want to return to Holland?”

“No, I wouldn’t be returning. Liberia is all I know. It is my home.”

I said that I was looking for an eight-by-eleven sketch pad and a set of graphite drawing pencils. Andrew pointed to shelves and bins against the wall displaying all the art supplies.

“Who is the woman?” I asked.

“She is a local artist. Some of her work has been shown and sold in Europe and America. She comes in when she has a new collection to sell, usually about once a month, sometimes two months.

“What is her name?” Sam asked.

“Her name is Leesai. She is Kpelle but speaks English very well—she went to the Catholic mission school.”

I selected a pad of white sketching paper and a box set of twelve drawing pencils. Sam strolled over to where Leesai was sitting and started carefully looking through her paintings. The artist watched her intently. Sam selected one and held it up to the light coming from the large front window.

“Are all of your paintings of women?” Sam asked.

“Ya, most of my work is about woman. I portray all subjects, but most especially women.”

“Do you ever paint men, children?”

“I do not know men. I cannot portray what I do not know, but as you will see, I do portray children. I unnerstand children—dehr innocence, dehr endless ability to love. I understand dhem until dhey lose childhood. Dhen dhey know evil and dehr child’s love is gone.”

Sam stared at her for a moment as though she was thinking about what the woman had said, then she looked through more of the paintings.

“Your women do not look happy,” Sam said.

“You must see more close. Dhey are happy. Not movie-star happy or like women in America magazines are happy. Dhey are happy de way Liberian women are happy. Dhey can bear dehr burdens, dhey can care for dehr families, dhey can stand agains’ a mighty flood of troubles, and dhey cause no pain. Dhey cause no suffering; dhey struggle to remove dhose tings. Most men do not see dees tings. De women I portray are Madonnas of a diffren’ sort.”