“Relax Mr. Ambassador,” he told Molu, concern on his face and in his voice when they took their seats. “I didn’t mean to scare you, but after the Klingesthousen fiasco in May — you know, I didn’t know what that clown was up to — I wanted to make sure you were in the loop no matter how bad the news.” “What are you talking about, Marcel?” “It won’t be announced for a couple of days, but the new ambassador for Kinshasa was picked at the Assignment Board meeting this morning.” Sakeseba stared at his companion, his lips pursed. “But I thought that decision was at least a month off. What happened?” “That‘s what I thought too, but the word came from the front office to get it out of the way.” “So it’s not the old man’s choice?” Sakeseba said, his voice flat. Marcellus took a sip from his drink to hide a grimace. With his free hand, he reached into his pocket for the ever-present cigarette case. He did not understand why his friend called the autocrat in Kinshasa “old man.” You called your father “old man;” someone you respected you called “old man,” but a corrupt dictator? Another African trait he did not understand. Marcellus was unlike colleagues who made a great show of “knowing” Africa, acknowledging that his understanding of the continent and its people was limited at best. “There is more to Africa than we comprehend,” he would invariably say. From behind a smoke ring, Garinaldi answered that the Dictator’s man had lost out. “God, who is it then?” asked Sakeseba. “Judd Mosley,” Marcellus said, folding his hands on his lap, knowingly, anticipating his friend’s reaction. Molu leaped to his feet, as if an explosive had gone off in his chair. “Mosley? The black man?” he whispered, incredulous, through his teeth, standing over Marcellus. “Well, he doesn’t call himself that. But, yes, that’s the one.” “But why?” Molu asked, sitting back down, when he saw the people at the bar looking at him, his face contorted, almost in tears. “Look Molu, we have discussed this before. Kinshasa is no longer on the A list, where only a white ambassador will do. Why do you think Thug Klingesthousen did what he did over there? He wouldn’t have done that two years or even a year ago. And can you imagine that clown telling a European that he had a dead chromosome? Kinshasa is now on the D or C list, who knows? You have to have African American ambassadors, right? This is America, and it’s the late twentieth century.” “Second class citizens for second-class countries! Is that what you are telling me?” “I wouldn’t put it that way myself,” Marcellus said. But, yes, that’s basically what it is. The State Department sends an African American only every five years or so to a European country — and a small one at that. If you are black, get back. You know. They do it behind your back, and you’re never the wiser. Not that you could do much about it, even if you knew.” “What’s the definition for this shit? Racism?” Molu asked. “No, it’s not like that. It’s something that has no name. They are not all rednecks over there.” “So what’s your explanation?” “Diversity frightens most people, in some form or another,” Marcellus answered. “This is how I explain our assignment system to my department mentorees. From October to December, those in the market for assignments seek support from people they have worked with. A reference from someone influential is especially welcome. Expected as much as resented are visits to offices to drop off resumes, grovel, and make a pitch for a job. The practice, in this arena, having evolved into a norm to flush out the strongest contenders has degenerated into a support type of system. And since complaints are common if muted, only the candidate whose hand an authority has shaken knows for sure he or she is the anointed one for a particular assignment, while his colleagues — in hopeful ignorance — continue to solicit furiously. I don’t want to bore you with more details.” “What’s the social corollary of this? Can you tell me that?” “The social corollary is that perceived abuse leads to anger, which creates a vicious circle. Akin to prison, to wash off the indignities we put up with, we become abusers ourselves. And there is a political aspect to these appointments, too.” “Political, you say?” “Sure! The Black Caucus for one is breathing down the neck of the White House for more equitable appointments. And at election time, politicians can say progress is being made under their administrations. They don’t have to say where they send African Americans. “This is all internal stuff. Who cares? What I want to know is what’s that got to do with Kinshasa?” “Mosley’s appointment is a product of this internal stuff, Molu!” “They could have picked a second-class somebody else,” Molu said, anguish in his voice, “it wouldn’t be as bad.” His anger no longer all-consuming, his mind was passing in review all the implications of the Judd Mosley appointment to his country. Like a man on a tightrope, he desperately sought to regain his balance. He was hearing admonitions from his ancestors. “I understand, I understand; but if you want an American ambassador in Kinshasa, it will have to be a black man,” Marcellus said, exasperated. “God!” “What I told you is for your ears only,” Marcellus said. “I brought you a copy of the Task Force Report on State Department Reform. John Leighton was the chairman. You can use it when you talk to the man about the Mosley appointment. All you have to do is read from its findings. Convince him that a dysfunctional organization makes dysfunctional appointments.” “You don’t know the old man, do you?” Molu asked. “What you told me does not change the fact that I failed him. It’s my fault that he is going to lose face big time. This is one indignity he will not suffer. He knows your organization is dysfunctional; he has been dealing with it for thirty years. But he sent me here because he thought I was the one who would protect his interests — and I failed. And he knows how to deal with failures.” “Wait a minute,” Marcellus said, worried. “What are you talking about?” “I am dead,” Molu said. “That’s what I am talking about.” “You did what you could — and more,” Marcellus said solicitously now. “You lobbied and kissed all the right asses. This is not your fault. Come on!” “Tell me this, is there anyway to reverse this decision?” “As long as it’s not announced, I suppose so. The man has friends in Congress; you can try there. But I don’t think it will work this time; it would be too easy to leak to the media that a congressman is standing up for the Dictator of Kinshasa who has got billions in Swiss accounts. And they are saying he is to blame for the Tutsi genocide three years ago. For any Congressman, it would be the kiss of death. Your man is now in the same league as Baby Doc, Abacha and Idi Amin, you know.” “He hasn’t got billions in Swiss accounts,” Molu said. “Most of the funds he uses to pay people off to stay in power — not to maintain corrupt Swiss bankers who robbed people fleeing genocide. I was with him once at a meeting with European journalists. They asked him about his billions. ‘Tell me where they are?’ he asked them. All they could do was point to villas in the south of France, Brussels and Switzerland. ‘At the most, you are talking about a few million dollars,’ he laughed; ‘you said billions.’” “The perception that he is the most corrupt man in the world is not a laughing matter, Molu. And this is what the public responds to.” “You don’t care that he is corrupt,” Molu said, having gotten angry again. “Corrupt has nothing to do with it; he is no different today than he was when you were all kissing his ring for favors.” “That time is gone,” Marcellus said. “But corrupt does have something to do with it. If it were just a question of geopolitics, they would simply discard him like all the others in Africa. But the fact he is perceived as the most corrupt man in the world makes him a burden, an embarrassment to be shunned.” “Where would Kinshasa be without him?” Molu asked rhetorically. “Kinshasa would have been balkanized — Katanga in Soviet hands. And do you think that Savimbi would have lasted as long as he did in Angola against the Cubans and the Soviets? He was corrupt then, wasn’t he?” “He was needed then,” Marcellus said, “that’s also the difference. But this isn’t a seminar on the whorish ways of nations. This is about you. Motutu is a violent man whose cruelty feeds on his vindictiveness. He finds disloyalty even in his own closets. You were lucky the mud from the Thug Klingesthousen farce didn’t splatter on you. I lied to your colleagues at the United Nations that it was because of your efforts they removed Klingesthousen from the Africa account. They told the man who must have bought it — you are still here. You are going to have to use the Leighton report to explain this Mosley appointment. Call him right away to tell him what you have heard, and don’t fly to Kinshasa until you know it’s secure. Give yourself time.” Molu looked at his friend in silence, as though he would not see him again and wanted to remember what he looked like. His mind drifted. He should tell the old man this afternoon about the State Department’s decision. But the worst thing he could do was to use obfuscation.