Tashi & Son Electronics Commercial Avenue, Bamenda Wednesday, September 2, 1999 04:30 AM
The hardest part of being a spy is not the danger. It is the soldering.
I sat in the dark Lab, illuminated only by a single candle. The main lights were off to conserve the dying battery bank, which was now resting at a precarious 10.6 Volts.
My soldering iron was cold. It needed 40 watts to melt the lead-tin alloy properly. The batteries could only give me maybe 15 watts before the voltage sagged.
"Come on," I whispered, holding the tip against the circuit board I had scavenged from a broken toy walkie-talkie. "Melt."
It didn't melt. It pasted. The solder turned into a dull, grey blob instead of a shiny, liquid joint. A "cold joint." In the engineering world, this is a sin. In the scavenging world, it is a compromise.
I was building a Colpitts Oscillator.
It was the simplest FM transmitter known to physics. One Transistor: A BC547 salvaged from an old radio. One Coil: Five turns of copper wire wound around a pencil. One Capacitor: A ceramic disc, value guessed. The Power Source: This was the weak link. I had taped together two "AAA" batteries I found in a remote control. They were old. Their combined voltage was maybe 2.5 Volts.
"Gemini," I thought. "Simulate transmission range."
< Analysis: Low voltage. Poor antenna matching. Estimated Range: 15 to 20 meters. Line of sight. >
Twenty meters. I wouldn't be listening to the President. I would barely be listening to the next room.
But it was a start. I wrapped the tiny circuit in electrical tape, leaving only the microphone (the size of a pea) and the wire antenna exposed. It looked like a piece of trash. A lump of black plastic.
I put it in my pocket. It weighed nothing. But it felt heavier than the Unimog.
I walked through the school gates. I wasn't wearing my overall. I was wearing the blue uniform. I was the Donkey again.
My arm was stiff. The scab was tightening, pulling the skin every time I swung my backpack. I walked with my head down, blending into the stream of blue and white.
Caleb was waiting by the flamboyant tree. The toll gate.
"New boy," Caleb grunted. He was eating the puff-puff he had extorted from a Class Four student. "Weti you bring today?"
I stopped. I looked at his knees. I could break them. The physics were so simple. But I looked at the teachers standing on the veranda of the Staff Room.
I reached into my pocket. Not the one with the Bug. The other one. I pulled out a small packet of biscuits. Parle-G. Cost: 50 francs. Taken from Tashi's breakfast ration.
"Biscuits," I said.
Caleb snatched them. He ripped the packet open with his teeth.
"Small," Caleb judged, munching. "Tomorrow bring Fanta. Or I check your bag."
He waved me through. I walked past him, my heart hammering against my ribs. If he had checked my bag, he would have found the receiver a small, battered AM/FM radio with an earphone.
I made it to the classroom. I sat in my seat. I waited.
At 10:00 AM, the bell rang for break. CLANG-CLANG.
The class emptied. Mr. Ngu picked up his cane and his grade book. He marched out toward the Staff Room.
This was the window. Every Wednesday, the Class Six prefects were assigned "Compound Cleaning." We had to pick up papers and sweep the verandas.
I wasn't a prefect. But I knew how to volunteer.
I grabbed a broom from the corner. I walked out to the veranda. I swept my way down the block. Swish. Swish. The rhythmic sound of obedience.
I swept past Class Five. I swept past the Library. I reached the Staff Room.
It was a long, rectangular building with louvered windows. The teachers were inside. I could hear the murmur of voices, the clinking of tea cups.
I swept the dust near the open window. There was a flower pot there a concrete planter containing a dead, brown fern. A trash can for cigarette butts.
I looked left. The compound was full of screaming children. I looked right. The Headmaster's door was closed.
I reached into my pocket. I pulled out the black lump of tape. I clicked the tiny switch on the side. On.
I dropped it into the flower pot, hiding it under the dead fern leaves.
I kept sweeping. Swish. Swish.
I moved away. Ten meters. Fifteen meters. I reached the latrines a block of concrete stalls that smelled of ammonia and misery. I ducked into the last stall. I locked the door.
I sat on the porcelain squat-toilet (lid down). I pulled out the radio. I plugged in the single earpiece.
I turned the dial. Hiss... Crackle... Pop. The FM band was empty in Bamenda, mostly. Just the faint ghost of CRTV radio from the main station.
I turned the dial slowly. 98.0... 99.0... 100...
SCREEEECH.
Feedback. I was too close. I adjusted the volume. I turned the tuning wheel by a millimeter.
The static cleared. Suddenly, the noise of the schoolyard vanished. In my right ear, I heard the sound of a spoon stirring sugar into a cup. Clink. Clink. Clink.
It was crystal clear. I was inside the room.
"...sugar is finished," a woman's voice said. It sounded tinny, lacking bass. Madame Agbor, Class Four.
"Everything is finished," a deep voice replied. Mr. Ngu. "Even the chalk. I am using the small pieces from last term."
I held my breath. The bug was working. But for how long? The batteries were garbage.
"Did you see the list?" Madame Agbor asked. "The salary arrears."
"I saw it," Ngu said. I heard the sound of a chair scraping. "Yaoundé says 'Next Month'. Just like they said last month. My landlord is asking questions, Mary. He says if I don't pay by Saturday, he puts my things outside."
My heart stopped. Mr. Ngu. The tyrant. The man who caned children for missing a zero. He was being evicted?
"It is the Chairman," a third voice whispered. The Headmaster, Mr. Abang. "He is squeezing the treasury. They say he is holding the municipal budget hostage until the Governor approves his new road contract."
"The man is a devil," Ngu muttered. "He owns the kerosene. He owns the market. Now he owns the payroll?"
"Quiet, Thomas," Abang warned. " walls have ears. His nephew is in your class."
"Junior?" Ngu scoffed. "The boy is a statue. He sits. He stares. He knows nothing."
"He knows who his uncle is," Abang said. "Be careful. And be careful with that other one. The Tashi boy."
I pressed the earpiece deeper into my ear.
"The Mechanic?" Ngu asked. "He is arrogant. He thinks because his father sold a truck to buy a uniform, he is a scholar. He tries to do math in his head. No discipline."
"His father is desperate," Abang said. "Tashi came to me. He begged. He looked like a man who hasn't eaten in two days."
"We are all hungry, Headmaster," Ngu said. His voice was cold, tired. "But we don't break the rules. If I let the Tashi boy show off, the other children will think they can skip the steps. And if they skip the steps, they will fail the exam. And if they fail the exam... they become wheelbarrow pushers."
There was a silence. Then the sound of a match being struck. The smell of cigarette smoke didn't reach me, but the sound was sharp.
"I beat him to save him," Ngu said softly. "Better he cries now than starves later."
Crackle... Pop... Hiss.
The signal wavered. The voice turned into a robot. "...better... bzzzt... starve... shhhh..."
The static rushed back in like a tide. The cheap batteries had died. Or the transistor had overheated.
I tapped the radio. Nothing. Just the white noise of the universe.
I took the earpiece out. I sat in the smelling latrine, staring at the graffiti on the door.
I had wanted secrets. I had wanted a conspiracy. I had wanted to hear them laughing at us.
Instead, I heard the truth. They weren't the enemy. They were just prisoners in a different cell block. Mr. Ngu wasn't beating me because he hated me. He was beating me because he was terrified that if I didn't follow the rules, the system would crush me just like it was crushing him.
He was evicted too. He was broke too. The Bookman's hand was around his throat, just like it was around Tashi's.
I waited for the bell. CLANG-CLANG.
I walked out of the latrine. I walked back to the veranda. The teachers were filing out. Mr. Ngu walked past me. He looked at me the boy with the broom. He didn't see a spy. He saw a problem to be solved.
I waited until the corridor was clear. I reached into the flower pot. I retrieved the black lump of tape. It was warm. I put it in my pocket.
I walked back to class. I sat down. Mr. Ngu walked in. He picked up the chalk.
"Geography," he announced. "The exports of Cameroon."
He looked at me. "Nkem. Stand up."
I stood up.
"What is the primary export of the South West Province?"
I knew the answer. Cocoa. Coffee. Oil. I looked at his frayed cuffs. I looked at the tiredness in his eyes.
"Cocoa, Sir," I said. "And Timber."
"Correct," Mr. Ngu said. He didn't smile. But he didn't reach for the cane. "Sit down."
I sat. I took out my cheap Bic pen. I wrote the date. I underlined it twice.
I had built a machine to fight them. But all it did was show me that there was no one to fight in this room. The war wasn't here. The war was Up Station.
The Siege was total. It wasn't just Tashi & Son. It was the whole damn town.
And I had 1,200 francs left.