White. Deni Ellis Bechard

as he smiled. An older white woman sat to his right, engrossed in Le Monde, and I was looking forward to hours of his undivided attention.

      “So how was the conference?” I asked in French.

      “The usual,” he said and laughed with pleasure, as if the usual were remarkable. “Everyone was making bigger and bigger promises and declaring all we would accomplish together, so that by the time it was over, we left feeling that we had made peace in Africa and saved its forests and animals.”

      “Sounds like a conference,” I said.

      “Yes. The food was delicious. And the young women environmentalists are so in love with Africans that it was hard to say no.”

      “But of course you did.” I elbowed him and he laughed again.

      “Do you know that this was my first time in America? It was better than I expected, though stressful. For years, I have read the news online, and every day a Jean-Pierre Bemba is shooting up malls, cinemas, and schools. But I survived!”

      He wore a pastel blue shirt with large mother-of-pearl buttons, and he touched one at his throat, tracing a fingertip over its surface.

      “I also went to Chicago to raise money for a new church, since my congregation is growing. While I was there, a pastor took me to see the door of the Church of Satan. No such thing could exist in the Congo. The people would rise up. We would burn it. We wouldn’t accept that evil exist so openly.”

      He was looking at me expectantly, and I said, “I think most Americans don’t really believe in that stuff, so we just ignore it.”

      “But some Americans believe in it enough to build satanic churches.”

      “I suppose, but they aren’t common.”

      “You sound like a man who hasn’t experienced the spirit of God speaking through him, so maybe you simply cannot see the invisible power of evil as I can.”

      I was tempted to say something about visible evil—the corrupt elite who ran Kinshasa, who let their countrymen starve while liquidating the Congo’s minerals to Europe, China, and America. I wanted to ask why people didn’t rise up and destroy them. But he was tight with that crowd and besides, religion had always distracted people from real evil. Though I needed to steer the conversation back to the conference, I feared appearing opportunistic. So I told him about the girl and the white demon, considering that his insights might nourish what I wrote about her.

      He listened intently and said, “Yes, this is a problem in the Congo. There are many street children. It used to be that the only witches were old people. You knew they were sorcerers from their ancient faces and stayed far enough away that their demons couldn’t jump into you. But when the demons got the idea of hiding in children, many people were infected, since children are hard to avoid.”

      “But aren’t they just children that nobody wants?”

      His look became wary in a way I knew from my years overseas: he was deciding whether to explain a belief that I was certain to discount.

      “Yes,” he said, “most of them aren’t demons. They’re from poor families, and a stepmother or stepfather accuses them so that there will be one fewer mouth to feed. But sometimes there are children inhabited by demons. I’m a pastor. I’ve done this work. The demon will speak through the child to name the people it has killed.”

      “Isn’t it likely that the children have come to believe in superstition?”

      “Absolutely not. It is real. You will see. I will take you to see.”

      “But maybe the child is sick in some way or mentally ill …”

      “I have seen them cough up human flesh. I have seen the demon rise out of them when they are cured. You mundele like your science. You explain how disease works, its mechanisms, and of course it’s all true, but you cannot explain why.”

      “Why someone gets sick?”

      “Why that person gets sick in that moment. This is the work of a spirit. Yes, we all know about bacteria and viruses. But the spirit is what causes them to affect one person and not the other. It is the reason that we watch. A demon enters a family and money is lost. A demon goes into a business or military unit, and people turn against each other.”

      “I would call such things misfortune or just natural conflict.”

      “What would be the point of God creating a world where chance rules? Do you not pray?”

      “Personally, no, but—”

      “Have you never looked to the sky and asked why, or closed your eyes and demanded that the world be different—begged for it to be different?”

      The woman to Oméga’s right ruffled the pages of her newspaper, conveying disapproval at the rising tenor of our discussion, and I lowered my voice.

      “I guess there are moments in my life when I’ve involuntarily done that.”

      “So there,” he said and laughed.

      My fatigue was palpable, my legs leaden, and my ears rang with the reverb of strained nerves. My mind seemed to withdraw far behind my skull. The man across the aisle slumped forward, a magazine in his lap and his bald crown against the seatback in front of him.

      “I was actually hoping to talk about Richmond Hew,” I told Oméga.

      His posture became alert. “What business do you have with him?” he asked in a tense, quiet voice.

      “I’m working on an exposé. I’ve heard that you’re not a fan.”

      I instantly realized my mistake. This knowledge revealed that I’d known far more about Oméga than I’d let on at the conference—that someone else had fed me information about both him and Hew.

      Without turning, he looked at me with an oblique movement of his eyes.

      “All changes need to be made gently,” he said, his tone now more measured.

      I’d taken his gregariousness to be a sign of trust and future complicity—a mistake I’d previously made in the Congo. By speaking so soon about what I wanted, I might actually have revealed my lack of judgment and discipline. Such missteps were generally forgiven in foreigners, though they caused unease.

      “From the perspective of many American donors, Hew”—he pronounced his name Eww in French—“is a hero, even if they almost never speak of him in public.”

      I cleared my throat and sipped from the water bottle I’d tucked into the seatback pouch. I took stock of what I could say without further betraying to Oméga how well I’d researched him—that I knew of his likely ministerial appointment.

      “Hew has a colonial attitude,” I said. “He’s in the tradition of Leopold and Stanley. Sure, he’s made national parks and protected endangered species, but he’s done it for himself, so he can rule the rainforest like a king.”

      Oméga still faced ahead, still watched me askance, his brow hiked with skepticism above the round eye he’d charged with evaluating me. I felt that I’d largely recovered my fumble, and though my references to colonial figures were heavy-handed, there was a tradition in the Congo of leveling such comparisons.

      “I will consider this,” he said. “I haven’t been in politics recently. President Kabila is like his father in some ways, in others not. I have nostalgia for the early days of the war when all seemed possible. But they have passed, and God has called me. If He tells me to return to politics, or even to war, I will do it. I am his servant.”

      

3

      LITERATURE CONNECTS US TO THE EARTH

      When