FILM NOIR AND THE SPACES OF MODERNITY

Some (but not all) authorities agree with novelist John Le Carre, author of THE MISSION SONG, that Lake Kivu is the highest lake in all of Africa --- 4,788 feet -- and not just the highest in East Central Africa where it lies. Certainly, the land of Kivu enjoys a very attractive climate, is a tourist destination and has huge, largely untapped mineral deposits waiting to be extracted all about the lake. The eastern Kivu region of the Democratic Republic of Congo (its chief cities being Goma and Bukavu) is the beating heart of THE MISSION SONG. Kivu nestles close to Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, and Lake Tanganyika. Fortunately, an insert in my copy of the book maps this all out. I had to refer to the maps frequently while reading this thought-provoking novel. *** An evil Western commercial group, "The Syndicate" wants to get richer by invading Kivu and installing a puppet ruler who will allow them to extract and market minerals and sell them directly to big international consumers. Currently, companies in neighboring Rwanda are skimming off all the profits. Kivu patriots hate this outside commerical control and would gladly throw their rascally African neighbors out. Problem is: the three main Kivu groups hate and fear one another more than they do the Rwandans. But the busy Syndicate, by promising elaborate bribes to leaders of the three Kivu factions, is now poised to get their signatures on a deal. Secret mercenary groups from the Syndicate will seize airports and key junctions within Kivu and leaders of the three warring Kivu groups will pop up to support them. A septuagenarian mystic religious leader, the Mwangaza ("Enlightment") preaches a peaceable, conciliatory doctrine of "the Middle Path." The Syndicate will install the Mwangaza as the figurehead leader of Kivu within the constitutional framework of Congo. The novel is built around one final, secret face-to-face meeting prior to scheduled but dreaded Congolese elections on an island in northern Europe among the three Kivu leaders (aka "the Alliance"), the Syndicate and the Mwangaza. *** The story is narrated by the conference's super interpreter Bruno Salvador aka Salvo. Half-Irish, half-Congolese, he is a master of all local African and many European languages. He is seconded (albeit deniably) to the Syndicate by a secret group within Her Majesty's Government (HMG) for a couple of days to help the Syndicate clinch its deal well before impending elections, elections which would leave Kivu in its traditional mess. *** Naive, feckless Salvo declares his unloving marriage with a British Journalist over. Instead, he lives to marry Kivu nurse Hannah, an ardent disciple of the Mwangaza. On the ground, however, during the ultra-secret conference where the parties affix their signatures to an unholy coup document, Salvo finds that he cannot stomach the lies, cynicism and even torture (imposed on one of the three Kivu representatives). He resolves therefore to torpedo the coup. And the rest of the novel is about whether and to what extent he succeeds. *** Given the current (2010) bloody war in Kivu, THE MISSION SONG, although fictional, makes timely reading. It is also hugely multicultural, with perspectives from Britain, France, the Congo, Rwanda, Lebanon and elsewhere. THE MISSION SONG has no flawless hero. Salvo is a coward. Even the Mwangaza is on the make. All motives are mixed. A psychological masterpiece. -OOO-