The Soccer War Read Online Free PDF

and reacting to every word. When Nkrumah finishes with the cry ‘Long live the unity and independence of Africa!’ a jazz orchestra in a corner of the square erupts in resonant boogie-woogie. Those closest to the orchestra begin dancing. The boogie-woogie carries across the square, setting people’s hips rocking reflexively. But then the orchestra plays more softly: Joe-Fio Myers, the trade union general secretary, has begun reading a declaration of loyalty and support that the working people have delivered into the hands of Kwame Nkrumah.
    We pushed towards the exit. On the street, far from the square, we met Kodzo. Kodzo is a post-office worker and boxing fan. He is my friend.
    ‘Why didn’t you go?’ I ask. ‘It was interesting.’
    ‘What did Kwame say about wages?’
    ‘He didn’t say anything,’ I admit.
    ‘You see? Why should I have gone?’

P LAN FOR A B OOK THAT C OULD H AVE S TARTED R IGHT H ERE
1
    I have come home from Africa: a jump from a tropical roasting-spit into a snowbank.
    ‘You’re so tanned. Have you been in Zakopane?’
    Will the Polish imagination never stretch further than Plock, Siemiatycze, Rzeszów and Zakopane? I’m working on
Polityka
. My current editor-in-chief, Mieczyslaw F. Rakowski, sends me into the provinces—yes, I’m to go on living in the bush, but in our own, native Polish bush. Somewhere, perhaps in Olecko or Ornet, I read that a great, almost global, conflict has broken out in the Congo. It is the beginning of July 1960. The Congo—the most closed, unknown and inaccessible country of Africa—has gained its independence, and at once the army revolts, the settlers flee, the Belgian paratroopers arrive, the anarchy, the hysteria, the slaughter—it has all begun; the whole indescribable
mélange
is on the front pages of the papers. I buy a train ticket and return to Warsaw.
2
    I ask Rakowski to send me to the Congo. I’m already caught up in it. I’ve already got the fever.
3
    The trip turns out to be impossible. Everyone from the socialist countries is being thrown out of the Congo. On aPolish passport there would be no way of getting there. As a consolation, the travel committee allots me some hard currency and a ticket for a trip to Nigeria. But what’s Nigeria to me? Nothing’s going on there (at the moment).
4
    I walk around depressed and heart-broken. Suddenly a glimmer of hope—somebody claims that in Cairo there’s a Czech journalist who wants to force his way into the Congo by the jungle route. Officially, I leave for Nigeria, but secretly have the airline ticket rewritten for Cairo and fly out of Warsaw. Only a few colleagues are in on my plan.
5
    In Cairo I find the Czech, who is named Jarda Boucek. We sit in his apartment, which reminds me of a minor museum of Arabic art. Beyond the window roars the gigantic hot city, a stone oasis cut in half by the navy-blue Nile. Jarda wants to get to the Congo by way of Sudan, which means by air to Khartoum, and then by air to Juba, and in Juba we will have to buy a car, and everything that will happen after that is a big question mark. The goal of the expedition is Stanleyville, the capital of the eastern province of the Congo, in which the Lumumba government has taken refuge (Lumumba himself has already been arrested and his friend Antoine Gizenga is leading the government). I watch as Jarda’s index finger journeys up the Nile, stops briefly for a little tourism (here there is nothing but crocodiles; here the jungle begins), turns to the south-west, and arrives on the banks of the Congo river where the name ‘Stanleyville’ appears beside a little circle with a dot in it. I tell Jarda that I want to take part in this expedition andthat I even have official instructions to go to Stanleyville (which is a lie). He agrees, but warns me that I might pay for this journey with my life (which later turns out to be close to the truth). He shows me a copy of his will, which he has deposited with his embassy. I am to