Kinshasa, Matonge
Scene 2
How on earth could he work as a secret agent in a place where it was difficult to move around freely and where, for instance, one could shoot neither photographs nor films? How could one do anything secretly in a land in which a mere 2% of the populace were employed in a regulated job and a good 66 million people had the time to keep a constant and close watch over a person like him? And that wasn't all that made his life difficult in the Congo: the sordid story of the land, its gut-wrenching poverty and omnipresent inequalities also disturbed him deeply. However, he suffered less from a feeling of guilt, which every visitor from the affluent west was bound to feel out here, and more from a feeling of inability to find proper words for his existence in this place: it was as though he had nothing to say, nothing to contribute. Of course, one could line up factors next to one another, comment on historical details, pass verdicts in the name of human rights or other, even greater, official channels – but how could one possibly formulate something out of the deep reality of one's own insecurities? More and more he felt that he definitely did not belong here, as if his stay here was rather perverse, even an absurd mistake – more absurd even than trying to catch goldfish in a fountain in the heart of Paris.
