‘A godsend!’ Jimfish clapped his hands in relief. ‘Because education elevates the mind, as my dear teacher Soviet Malala used to say.’

Lunamiel shook her head. ‘In Zaire, the Minister of Education is there to make sure nothing of the sort ever happens and he was constantly crushing student riots and closing the national university.’

‘How appalling!’ cried Jimfish.

‘Not entirely,’ Lunamiel explained gently. ‘This work took up a good deal of his day, as well as a considerable proportion of his nights, and I was spared his constant demands. But I had caught the eye of another high official, the secret American Advisor to the President. The Great Leopard has enjoyed American backing ever since he came to power, after eliminating Patrice Lumumba, the first elected leader of the Congo. Successive US presidents call him their very special African friend and vital ally against their enemies abroad, and give him bushels of money, as well as tons of guns.’

Jimfish still felt rather relieved. ‘If the Americans are so fond of the Great Leopard, then you must have found a powerful protector in the secret agent.’

Lunamiel sighed. ‘If only that were so. Instead, I was now the object of desire of the Minister of Education as well as the American and they could never agree on a timetable. My minister insisted that I was his sole property, under the terms of the contract made by my brother with the late Minister of Mines. But my American, who came from the Deep South, swore that the Bible forbids a white girl to cohabit with a black man and I owed it to God to sleep only with a white Christian.

‘Each rival vied with the other by mounting manly displays of strength and daring, hoping to impress me. My minister would take me to Lubumbashi University and make me watch as he dealt with rebellious students, whom he might shoot or blind or bury in pits, depending on his mood. Only to have my American admirer riposte with a display of the latest US chemical defoliants, to prove how easily he could devastate the forest for miles around. Or he’d call up a bombing raid on a village in the jungle. My minister would then up the ante by arranging a front-row seat for me at the public hanging of several high officials; an event preceded by marching bands and much revelry, and concluded, while the bodies were being taken down from the gallows, with caviar and pink champagne, as is the custom in the court of the Great Leopard. My American condemned this behaviour as cruel and barbaric, and countered by offering to take me home to his country, marry me in his evangelical church and give me a ringside seat at all executions by electric chair in his home state, which, apparently, boasted the world record.

‘Eventually, the two rivals agreed on a roster: they would enjoy me alternately, on a timeshare basis. So it was that I became my minister’s bedmate and nocturnal amusement over the weekends, from Friday to Sunday, when he rested from eradicating students and accompanied the Great Leopard to Sunday Mass, a ritual he never missed. But from Monday to Thursday it was agreed I would belong to my American.

‘But soon enough the rivals fell out. My minister insisted I remain his bedfellow right through Sunday night until Monday morning, whereas my God-fearing American, who punctiliously observed the Sabbath day of rest, demanded that I come to his bed on the stroke of Sunday midnight, as soon as the constraints of the Sabbath fell away. This argument has gone on for months and I have had the pleasure of escaping both rivals, while they quarrel over which of them has more favoured rights to my person.

‘Then, tonight, I saw on the television the arrival of the Great Leopard in his French needle-nosed supersonic jet, and who should step out of the aircraft but my own dear, darling Jimfish, with his tawny hair and his strange complexion, not white nor brown nor black but golden, whom I had last seen in the orchard, when we lay together on the red rug and my father beat you and would have shot you dead had he not tripped over his own feet. And so I sent my attendant to bring you to my apartments.’

‘And I am here and we are together again!’ Jimfish put his arms around his beloved Lunamiel.

The kindly attendant, who had been Jimfish’s guide, slipped away, leaving the lovers to their happiness. Lunamiel drew Jimfish down beside her on the red sofa, their breathing quickened, their clothing loosened and they were soon as entangled as ever they had been in Sergeant Arlow’s orchard, when into the room there strode the Minister of Education, rampant with desire, for it was already late on Sunday night and he was keen to assert his right to Lunamiel’s delectable body before midnight struck and his timeshare ran out.

CHAPTER 15

‘You two-faced, scheming, white South African bitch!’ yelled the Minister of Education. ‘Isn’t it enough that you screw that damn American five nights a week? Must I also share you with this human shrimp, this pale pastiche of a man?’

And he hurled himself at Jimfish, beating him savagely, and would have killed him, as was his way when dealing with students who troubled him. Lunamiel let out a terrific wail, but Jimfish acted with a decisiveness that astonished them both: he pulled out the pearl-handled pistol from its python-skin holster — a gift of the Great Leopard — and calmly shot the minister, who fell dead on the sofa, bleeding everywhere.

Jimfish apologized for the mess, but Lunamiel, ever practical, told him not to give it a second thought. The sofa was red, so was the minister’s blood, and the stains would hardly be noticed.

‘But what does worry me a bit is that the President’s gendarmes will arrive and find a close ally of the Great Leopard dead in my apartment. Then we’re done for.’

Jimfish longed to know what Soviet Malala might have advised. When the Minister of Education had begun beating him, Jimfish thought he felt again, as he had done when Lunamiel was relating how she had been contracted to the lecherous Minister of Mines, a rising warmth, which he prayed might be a sign of the rage that is the rocket fuel of the lumpenproletariat. But his old teacher lay dead in faraway Ukraine, so he asked the kindly attendant, who had brought him to Lunamiel’s apartment, if she had an idea what they should do now?

Just as she agreed to share her ideas with them, the clock struck midnight and into the room burst the American advisor, as rampant with desire for the luscious body of Lunamiel as had been his late rival, the Minister of Education. This American, hardened though he was by demonstrations of the damage defoliants do to fertile soils or cluster bombs to enemy farmers in the fields, was shocked to see the co-proprietor of his timeshare agreement to Lunamiel’s body stretched lifeless on the red sofa.

Jimfish knew he had to act fast. The American was capable of pulling out a machine gun or calling in a bombing raid. Whispering to himself, ‘in for a penny, in for a pound,’ he shot the raging American between the eyes and saw him topple on to the sofa, where his blood mingled with that of his rival.

Jimfish felt strangely relaxed, and he asked himself once again — as he had done when he saw the fawning henchmen of Nicolae Ceauşescu transformed into liberators of their country by the adroit application of a firing squad — whether it was not perhaps adaptability rather than anger, pragmatism and not principles, firepower and not fury that was the real rocket fuel of the lumpenproletariat? Or, for that matter, of just about anyone in possession of overwhelming force who proved fastest on the draw? In other words: was it not the case of murder first — and morality later?

Lunamiel was frozen between terror and admiration. ‘I’d never have believed you could be so wild and angry. You’ve just shot two men dead without thinking twice.’