Chapter Fifteen

 

 

 

Our activism quickly transformed the African Women's Congress from an ambitious startup into a dangerous player. International foundations were the first to sound the alarm; they saw our voluntary repatriation programs as a competitor siphoning off grants.

Clergymen then took up arms. An influential Pentecostal pastor, Reverend Kesey, saw his flock dwindle and declared full-blown war on Vera. He publicly accused her of secretly promoting a voodoo cult—one that was allegedly officially banned in the EU.

But Vera refused to compromise. Instead, she attacked the major geopolitical predators, harshly criticizing China for draining the continent's resources and openly condemning Russia for fueling military conflicts in the Sahel and Mali. We were making far too many enemies.

One day, we decided to take a short break and headed to the famous Dutch Afsluitdijk dam. It was a beautiful Saturday. A steady, iodine-infused wind blew in from the North Sea, and cumulus clouds floated like caravels across the pale blue sky. The landscape practically begged for a canvas, and once again I regretted not becoming an artist.

Leaving Amsterdam through the IJ tunnel, we found ourselves in a touristy, almost fairytale Netherlands. The pavement on the A7 highway was flawless. Familiar windmills, the neat, toy-like houses of local farmers, and green meadows dotted with grazing cows flashed past on either side of the road. We popped into Zaanstad to buy some real Dutch cheese—the famous Catharina Hovea cheese farm is located right next to the town, where tourists can watch the cheesemaking process for free. And then we continued on.

Vera was at the wheel today. She drove our Cadillac with the ease and grace of the famous French racing driver Michèle Mouton, overtaking heavy Volvo, Scania, MAN, and Mercedes-Benz trucks on the curves. I remembered how some hapless race director—probably a misogynist and a fool—saw Michèle in her brand-new Antonelli overalls and declared, "The only helmet a woman should wear is a salon hair dryer."

"Well, yes, of course, you're lying, Lyonya, as always, just to sound clever," my Brain immediately signaled sarcastically. He had no mouth, but he synchronized directly with the AI reality generator through his quantum channels. "Toto Roche blurted out that nonsense back in 1958, addressing Maria Teresa de Filippis. And 'Antonelli' is actually the helmet and gear of a young Italian from modern Formula 1 that you looked up online! But go ahead, keep making things up—Vera likes the mess inside your head..."

But what the hell does it matter? The main thing is that Michèle went on to win four World Rally Championship rounds with the Audi team, finished as runner-up for the 1982 season, and in 1985 won the grueling Pikes Peak Hill Climb, among many other victories...When you love a woman, you see only the best in her and embrace her entirely with your heart—her face, her body, her scent—as absolute perfection.

Knowing that I can't stand it when a woman smells like a perfume hell, Vera used exclusively natural cleansers: strawberry or mint soaps, alongside gels and creams made solely from herbs and royal jelly. They don't emit the foul odor produced in chemical labs at the same factories that synthesize isoprene and sarin. Moreover, all Vera had to do in the morning was wash her face with clean, cold water, and it would immediately become as youthful as that of a fourteen-year-old nymph.

"Oh, here comes the heavy artillery," Brain buzzed in the back of my mind again, sending a sarcastic impulse into the higher realms. "He brought up Nabokov, lumped rubber isoprene and combat-grade sarin into the same bottle with Chanel... Lyonya, sarin doesn't actually have a smell in its pure form; any military man will tell you that! And as for the fourteen-year-old nymphet—be careful on the curves, or Vera might just yank the Cadillac's steering wheel, and your nymphet will turn into your own nurse in the trauma unit!"

Meanwhile, Vera once again deployed her ability to fold and unfold space like a household rug. Instead of taking just over an hour, we spent only thirty minutes on the road to the famous Dutch Afsluitdijk dam.

The car slowed to a smooth halt. We stepped onto the dam's crest and stood transfixed, captivated by the vast freshwater lake Ijsselmeer.

Vera was momentarily speechless upon seeing this grand structure, reclaimed from the stormy, salty bay. She recalled a recent dinner with Lucas van Janson, the captain and innkeeper of an Amsterdam schooner-hotel, and their conversation about the courageous people who had been at war with the ocean for centuries. Having now seen the scale of it with her own eyes, she felt an even deeper respect for the Dutch.

"You know, Vera, around the same time they were building this dam, in my former homeland, the Soviet Union, they were undertaking a massive construction project—the White Sea-Baltic Canal," I said, peering into the bluish distance. "And that two-hundred-twenty-seven-kilometer route was built in just one year and nine months, if the official figures are to be believed..."

“Impressive,” she said, surprised by the pace of the construction.

“Yes, but to be fair, out of the canal’s entire length, only forty-eight kilometers were man-made. The rest consisted of natural lakes and rivers.”

“But still, it’s a monumental project, and the timeframe seems incredible.”

“Especially when you consider that it was built by about a hundred thousand Soviet prisoners,” I added.

“And with practically no heavy machinery, only antediluvian carts.”

“Why prisoners?” Vera frowned.

“Because political prisoners were the cheapest slave labor in the USSR.”

“Lenya, you’re talking about sheer savagery!” she said indignantly.

“It is savagery, Vera. Especially when you consider that in less than two years, twelve thousand people perished or died of disease during the construction of the White Sea–Baltic Canal,” I said crisply, citing official statistics.  “That’s how cheaply the Bolsheviks paid for their first ‘construction project of the century.’”

“Okay, I’m tired of this talk,” Vera said, her irritation clearly growing.

“After all, we came here to relax, not to debate politics. And you know, I want to take a boat ride on this lake.”

We made the rest of the journey in silence, frustrated with each other. Arriving at the resort town of Makkum, a popular hub for windsurfers, we easily rented a small motor-sailor.

However, before we could even leave the dock, the air shook with a sharp, unnatural bang. Our Yamaha outboard motor instantly turned into a pile of smoking scrap metal. Then, with a loud crack, the rigging snapped, the steering jammed, and the falling mast, tearing the sails to shreds, nearly crushed us.

The boat lost all headway, throwing us hard onto the deck. Instinctively, I managed to grab Vera and shield her with my own body.

 Luckily, we escaped with only bruises and a good scare, but the icy wind blowing from the North Sea brought a chillingly clear understanding: this explosion on the boat was not an accident; it was a warning to us…

However, we didn’t linger on the sinking boat to wait for the police. Vera merely squeezed her eyes shut, once again folding space, and in that same instant, we found ourselves inside the dry cabin of our Cadillac.

“Well, at least in Amsterdam we planted a seed of doubt in the minds of the migrants and refugees from Africa,” I said, coming to my senses.

“Let them think about it, let them decide for themselves where the cheese tastes better: in their homeland or in a Dutch mousetrap.”

Vera silently turned the wheel, smiling softly at the road that our Cadillac was now devouring kilometer after kilometer.

Outside, summer was melting. At the gas stations where we stopped, tourists squeezed past us, having doused themselves with half a bucket of deodorant in the heat. The air around them turned into that very perfume cesspool, capable of suffocating an entire regiment. I gasped for air, quickly retreated to the car, and buried my nose in Vera's shoulder—she smelled of clean grass, morning coolness, and mint. It was pure salvation.

“Well, Lyonya,” Vera adjusted the rearview mirror. “To Brussels?”

“Step on it, Verochka. Great things await us there.”

Arriving at Brussels' Place du Trône, Vera droves straight up to the pedestal of the monument to the bloody king. She got out of the car and stepped onto the lawn, parched by the summer heat but still springy.

Speakers were already standing there, addressing the assembled crowd. Each received their share of applause from a populace determined to tear down and obliterate a monument that shamed not just one nation, but all of Western civilization. The crowd shifted impatiently, clutching picks and crowbars, their fists clenched. They awaited the signal to unleash their energy on the destruction of sculptor Thomas Vincotto’s creation.

The final speaker, a leftist Maoist, was unleashing all his revolutionary fervor upon the bronze head of King Leopold, his hand raised to initiate the righteous vandalism.

At that exact moment, Vera stepped forward swiftly, like the heroine from Eugène Delacroix's painting Liberty Leading the People. Her eyes exuded a soft power; the left strap of her dress slipped down her shoulder, revealing a rounded breast of a rich, dark eggplant hue, while her right hand was raised upward, palm open.

Stopping the crowd in their tracks with a classic gesture, she demanded their attention, her voice calm but firm: "Madmen, what has clouded your minds? Who drove you to this futile act—to destroy a worthless monument to a worthless ruler! It's not just the Congo that demands revenge; all of Africa demands revenge, from Cape Ben Sekka in the north to Cape Agulhas in the south. And this revenge must be expressed not in the destruction of metal idols or symbols of inordinate pride, but in demands for reparations and indemnities for all the years of colonial oppression!"

Her words hit the mark. Realizing the futility of their half-baked vandalism, several men—both young and old—threw down their tools and began to disperse.

Suddenly, a group of weed-addled thugs in torn jeans, leather vests, and heavy chains separated from the crowd and advanced on Vera. One of the leaders, swinging a chain over his head, shouted, "Zionist whore, don't interfere with retribution!"

"Attention, Lenya! Quantum radar is detecting an act of vandalism!" my Brain screamed shrilly. "Leopold was certainly a despot in the Congo, but if they tear down this historical monument, Belgium will lose some of its charm. Save the monument, you misfits!"

I didn't waste a second. Jumping out of the Cadillac with a heavy adjustable wrench at the ready, I launched into a tirade, mixing choice curses, broken French, and Frisian, instantly paralyzing the crowd.

While they were trying to figure out who this madman was and why he was defending their late king in an incomprehensible dialect, Vera got behind the wheel and abruptly turned the Cadillac, causing the tires to squeal deafeningly. The element of surprise worked perfectly: the activists scattered in terror, convinced that a Russian intervention had begun. Leopold remained standing on his pedestal, looking down at us with mild surprise.

Leaving the surprised Leopold behind, our Cadillac rolled onto the Place Royale, where the equestrian monument to Godfrey of Bouillon dominated the square. The legendary leader of the First Crusade sat frozen in bronze; his banner raised high as if still rallying Western Christendom to march on Jerusalem.

"Look at him, Lenya," Vera murmured, slowing down near the cobblestone plaza. "The 'Defender of the Holy Sepulcher.' I wonder what he would say if his bronze ears could hear the modern Arabic and Lingala echoing through the streets of Brussels."

Through the historical rear-view mirror of my mind—the same misty, warped glass where I once glimpsed my parents listening to Pope Urban II — the grand illusion of Western expansion cracked wide open. I remembered the heavy, suffocating dust of the road from that first chapter of our journey, when the grim news of the Holy Roman Emperor’s death finally caught up with us. The Great Barbarossa, the Red-Bearded Emperor, had drowned in a shallow river in Asia Minor, his crusade collapsing under the weight of his own hubris.

I remembered my father turning to me back then, his eyes cold with understanding, and saying: "Never trust any authorities, son, because they know exactly what they are doing."

He was right. They always knew. Godfrey, Urban, Barbarossa—they weren't blind fanatics; they were the architects of a long-term disaster. They knew they were launching a cycle of violence, sowing the wind of perpetual conflict and exciting a defensive jihad that would burn for centuries. They truly believed they could forever control the world by the edge of a white man's sword.

And now, the historical wheel had spun full circle, delivering a quiet, bitter payback. "Attention, Lenya! My database detects a complete lack of strategic foresight in the Crusades!" my Brain chimed in with clinical amusement. "Godfrey thought he was conquering the East. He didn't realize he was just setting up a nine-century delayed-action boomerang. Look around. The siege is over, and the garrison lost without firing a single shot."

The descendants of those whom the knights had slaughtered didn't need heavy armor or siege engines. They didn't need a bloody jihad. They simply bought tickets, packed their bags, boarded budget flights, and come at Europa.

Later, they took over the shops, filled the markets, and reshaped the local politics, transforming the European capital from within while the old world watched in paralyzed, bureaucratic politeness.

Godfrey of Bouillon remained frozen on his horse, staring blankly at the bustling, multicultural crowd below. He had spent his life fighting to capture the Levant, entirely blind to the fact that centuries later, the East would simply sign a lease on his living room, leaving the great knight with nothing to do but hold a useless piece of bronze cloth — flag Crusades.

Как только мы отъехали от памятника главному бельгийскому крестоносцу, Брейн “зашевелил” извилинами.

 “Мне, Леня, кажется, что мы упустили одну деталь, без которой пребывание в Брюсселе чревато нелицеприятной встречей с местной полицией”, прошептал он мне на ухо.

“Не растекайся мыслю по древу, скажи конкретно, что ты имеешь в виду!” — сказал я, выразительно постучав костяшками правой руки по лбу.

“Мы забыли зарегистрировать Кадиллак! — ответил он, назвав меня нелестным именем “провинциал.” — А этого требуют в каждом цивилизованном европейском городе!”

“Вера, а Брейн, кажется, прав!” — сказал я, положив свою левую руку на правую руку Веры, лежавшую на руле.

“Ну, и помощнички у меня!” — ответила она, сверкнув в мою сторону коричнево-янтарной радужкой правого глаза, как это делает на ипподроме беговая лошадь, выказывая презрение к незадачливому жокею.  — “Если бы я надеялась только на тебя, нам давно бы уже выписали штраф...”

Я замолчал, сконфуженный, догадавшись, что Вера уже зарегистрировала наше авто на сайте lez.brussels.

“Не обижайся”, — продолжила она, положив теплую ладонь на мое колено. — Пока я кручу баранку по этому королевскому городу, ты бы, лучше, нашел в интернете приличный бар, где собираются африканцы и парковку для нашего “мустанга”, — пусть он немого передохнет.”

  Первое, что бросилось в глаза, когда мы зашли в ресторан “Au Soleil d’Afrique” на Rue Longue Vie 10 после того, как оставили наш Кадиллак на охраняемой подземной стоянке, было большое панно с изображением африканского континента в центре и изображением солнца верху. За столиками вплотную сидели представители разных рас вперемешку, не обращая внимания, у кого какого цвета кожа и глаза. Слушали легкую приглушенную музыку и завораживающий голос Шаде Аду. Она как всегда пела  о неразделенной любви.

Среди завсегдатаев ресторана было немало тех, кто полтора часа назад стоял на площади Трона в предвкушении сноса бронзового памятника королю Леопольду кровавому и его коню. Веру узнали сразу. чтобы затем, разломав его на части, и поправ их ногами, отправить в виде металлолома на переплавку. Нет ничего слаще, чем вид останков мертвого врага, даже если они из металла!

В этот раз сделать этого не получилось; и виной тому была эта женщина, явившаяся в ресторан. У одних ее появление вызвало негодование, у других – любопытство.

В это время из-за первого стола вышла симпатичная небольшого роста негритянка, которую звали Мери Илунга.

Она пошла навстречу Вере, обняла ее и, взяв за руку, повела к подиуму.

“Друзья,” – сказала она. – “сегодня мне выпала честь представить вам нашу гостью – одного из учредителей неправительственной континентальной организации Конгресс африканских женщин Вирджинию-Веру Мейсон.