Seven Houses in France

IX

THE SECOND OF the Barrack huts that made up the Club Royal, and where the officers had their bar and games room, was a strange sight in the middle of the African jungle. Its gable roof was covered by an insulating layer of mud and palm leaves, while inside, everything was made of hardwood — ebony, teak and mahogany — like the private clubs in Brussels and Paris. It had nine tables in all, three of which, round and covered in green baize, were intended for card games. A bar and shelving for bottles were located in one corner of the entrance hall. At the rear, beyond the tables, was the smoking-room furnished with various armchairs arranged in a circle and replete with cushions. This was also where the oddest of the club’s features was to be found — a door made entirely of glass leading into another hut that served as a porch.

On the wall that ran from the bar to the smoking-room was a large photograph of Léopold II — the only picture in the entire club.

Most of the officers were seated at the three round tables, some as card-players and others as spectators. Van Thiegel immediately noticed Chrysostome’s presence. He was, as usual, one of the onlookers, the worst sort, the sort who never even opens his mouth or does anything to encourage the players and liven things up a bit. The poofter obviously felt it was enough to show off his unbuttoned collar and his blue ribbon and medals. Such laxity clearly did not comply with regulations. Many askaris had been punished with a week or more in the guardroom for having the second button of their shirt undone. Yet Chrysostome could go around with three or even four buttons undone and no one said a thing, but then he, of course, was an officer and enjoyed the protection of Lalande Biran.

King Léopold cast a cold and disapproving eye over the scene. Van Thiegel was sure that the monarch, that highest of authorities, would agree with him. The King doubtless liked poofters as much as he did, that is, not at all.

‘Would you care for a Martell, sir? Or, if you prefer, I could mix you a martini. The Roi du Congo brought five whole cases,’ said the manager of the bar. He belonged to the Twa tribe and was now about sixty years old, having been in his day an excellent jungle guide. It was said that he had been the man to lead Stanley to Livingstone, which is where he got his nickname, although he was known as Livo for short.

‘A double martini,’ said Van Thiegel, before going over to the card tables. He sat down next to Chrysostome, then turned his back on him and asked to be dealt some cards.

Lalande Biran was sitting in one of the armchairs in the smoking-room, beside the glass door, reading the article from Le Soir and holding an unlit cigarette in his hand. The sky was heavy with dense clouds, however, and not enough light came in through the small windows or the glass door for him to be able to read easily. He went out onto the porch and sat on the edge, as near to the river as possible. His sight was getting worse and worse. Soon he would need glasses.

‘Your lemonade, sir,’ announced Livo, who arrived bearing a tray and set the drink down on the table. It wasn’t real lemonade, but the juice from various jungle fruits. It was violet in colour and had a bitter taste.

‘And what colour is your oimbé today? This colour?’ Lalande Biran asked in friendly fashion, pointing to his drink.

Livo had told him once, on that very porch, that the Twa people could, in certain circumstances, see an aura around the body. They called this the oimbé, and its colour changed according to the person’s state of mind. It was violet when they were sad, blue when happy, black or dark green when anxious, and red when they were afraid.

‘No, not violet,’ Livo said, but gave no further explanation.

He regretted ever having mentioned the oimbé to the Captain and always avoided responding to his questions, but Lalande Biran did not give up and often, instead of greeting him normally, would ask that same question: ‘What colour is your oimbé today?’ He had even spoken of writing a poem about it, entitled: ‘The men of Twa, inhabitants of the rainbow.’

Lalande Biran put his cigarette to his lips and asked Livo for a light.

‘Is Donatien in the storeroom?’ he asked.

‘I’ll have a look, sir.’

Livo duly went to the storeroom and opened the door, telling the Captain on his return: ‘No, he’s not there, sir.’

‘I need a shave,’ said Lalande Biran.

As well as being in charge of the club, Livo was also resident medicine man and occasional barber. However, he never shaved any of the officers for fear of cutting them.

‘I wouldn’t do a good enough job,’ he said by way of an excuse.

‘Then I’ll have to wait for Donatien.’

Livo went back into the club.

Lalande Biran took a puff of his cigarette. His supply of tobacco for the hunting party had not lasted as long as expected, and he hadn’t had a cigarette for a week. The smoke made him feel slightly dizzy.

The article in Le Soir was very thorough, and Lalande Biran read it as if it were a poem, savouring every line. He learned that the price of ivory had risen 370 per cent in eight months; that of ebony by 280 per cent, teak by 320 per cent and mahogany by 330 per cent. Knowing what these figures added up to — namely, 1, 500,000 francs — filled him with pleasure. Especially when they were accompanied by confirmation that prices would continue to rise until Christmas, and that the demand for hardwood had tripled or even quadrupled.

He finished his drink and sat gazing at the water, drawing more deeply now on his cigarette. The surface of the constantly flowing river occasionally dimpled and rippled. In the little dock near the store, the canoes gently bobbed and knocked. The jungle, in contrast, was as motionless as a painting. Some lines came into his head:

‘“Sisyphus”, they said, “the rock you are carrying on your back has crumbled; sit down on the river bank, if you wish, and watch the water flowing. There is no weight now, there are no obligations.”’

The poem would have to continue in the same vein in order to reflect the enormous sense of relief he was feeling. Soon, he would be following the same direction as the waters of the river, when he travelled to Léopoldville, then on by train to Matadi, and finally, by steamboat to Europe.

He considered again the numbers in the article — 370, 280, 320, 330 — and wondered if they should perhaps appear in the poem as symbols of the force that would destroy Sisyphus’ heavy rock, his life in Yangambi. But it was difficult to include numbers in a poem. He had never done it before. What a shame he wasn’t in Paris, where he could have debated the matter with his colleagues, the poets of La Bonne Nuit!

Donatien arrived on the porch in great haste, placed three letters on the table, then saluted.

‘This one comes from the commanders of the Force Publique, this from Duke Armand Saint-Foix, and the third from your wife, Christine Saliat de Meilhan,’ he told him, placing his index finger on each envelope as he spoke.

This seemed rather a scant amount of correspondence after three weeks in the jungle.

‘Would you like me to shave you, sir?’ asked Donatien.

‘After I’ve read the letters.’

Donatien seemed disinclined to leave. His Adam’s apple kept moving up and down. He started to say something, then stopped, stammering.

Lalande Biran looked up. ‘Is something wrong?’ he asked.

‘Today is Thursday, sir. The girl is waiting in the grass hut,’ Donatien said at last, running his words together even more than usual: ‘Aujourd’e’jeuimontcatainelafielaupaillote.’

Lalande Biran looked at him hard. Donatien was clearly having difficulty curbing his desires and, had he been made of bolder stuff, would have rushed off to join the girl in the hut. Lalande Biran felt no such urge. Those three weeks spent in the jungle, hunting for ivory, had not awoken in him the slightest desire to possess a young woman. He could not explain such apathy. Like his sight and his love of painting, his sexual desire was becoming ever feebler.

His eye was caught by a shadow flashing over the water, however, it belonged not to bats, but to some birds known as waki.

‘Lock her away somewhere until tomorrow,’ he said, stubbing out his cigarette on the sole of his boot, then placing the butt in his glass.

Donatien had a cage in his hut, which he used whenever he had to keep a girl captive for a while. He nodded; he would do as he was told. His Adam’s apple was moving more slowly now, as if it were sad.

‘Donatien,’ Lalande Biran said. ‘You saw the mandrills we brought back with us, didn’t you? They’re on the firing range. If you really can’t control your sexual urges, I suggest you select one of the females. I’m sure you’ll find one to your taste.’

For a moment, Donatien hesitated. Then he again saluted and went off to the storeroom.

The letter from the commanders of the Force Publique asked the same question they had asked every autumn for the last six years. They wanted to know if he was prepared to continue serving the company. King Léopold would, of course, be most grateful, but they were obliged to tell him that, given the huge amount of investment being poured into the Congo, an increased percentage of the profits from the sale of rubber was, at that moment, impossible.

His reply to that letter from Brussels had also been the same for the last six years, but this time it would be different: ‘My sincere thanks to the King for his kind offer, but the time has come for me to retire …’

He put the official letter down on the table again and picked up the one from Toisonet. Before he read it, he glanced across at the river. Dozens of waki were flying above it, criss-crossing the air like swallows, except that they were brilliant white in colour.

Toisonet began his letter with the words ‘Moustachu, mon cher ami’ rather than his usual ‘Cher Moustachu’. Lalande was taken aback by this change. Something must be wrong.

Line by line, the contents of the letter confirmed the Captain’s first impression. Hardly anyone would be present on the visit to Yangambi. He, Toisonet, would not be coming, nor would Mbula Matari. The party would comprise only the sculpture of the Virgin, the bishop who would officiate at the mass and Ferdinand Lassalle, possibly the best journalist of his day, winner of the Prix Globe for his articles on the Foreign Legion.

‘Moustachu, do try and make friends with Lassalle. You won’t find a better companion among the delegation,’ Toisonet urged him.

He also referred to the house in St-Jean-Cap-Ferrat. Christine would be sending him all the details, but he wanted him to know that the administrator of that part of the coast was fully informed and had undertaken to find them a villa in the quarter known as La Petite Afrique. Since they were rich — ‘even richer now’, said Toisonet, underlining the words — they would have a salon lined with mahogany.

‘Moustachu, mon cher ami,’ Toisonet said again at the end of the letter. ‘Don’t break anything, don’t whip the lion I’m having sent to you from Brussels. Keep your rage and your chicotte for when you come to St-Jean-Cap-Ferrat. There are as many creatures who deserve a good whipping here as in Yangambi, possibly more. Why, you need look no further than myself, for I definitely deserve to be punished. One does not treat a true friend as I have treated you, promising an embrace and then withdrawing it.’

Lalande Biran looked around him, but could not see his chicotte. He seemed to remember taking it with him when he went for a swim. He must have left it in the changing-room or on the jetty. An instant later, before he had even finished that thought, there it was in Van Thiegel’s hand.

‘A servant found it in the changing-room,’ Van Thiegel said, coming through the glass door onto the porch. He wasn’t sure where to put it.

Lalande Biran grabbed it and hurled it at one of the posts where the canoes were moored, but he threw it so hard that it reached the river’s edge, where it lay like a snake that had died on leaving the water.

Van Thiegel sat down beside him, legs splayed.

‘They’ve written to me as well,’ he said, meaning the letter from the commanders of the Force Publique. ‘What’s that expression in Latin?’

‘Alea jacta est.’

‘That’s it. It’s over. For me too.’

The two men sat in silence, watching the ceaseless toing and froing of birds over the surface of the water. It was evening. The day, it seemed, was drawing to a close with not a drop of rain. There was no noise, apart from the odd word from the card-players inside that occasionally penetrated the glass door.

‘Was there a lion on the steamboat?’

‘On the steamboat?’ Van Thiegel asked, wide-eyed.

‘That’s what Monsieur X says, that they’ve sent us a lion from Brussels. From the zoo, I suppose.’

‘Not as far as I know,’ Van Thiegel said. ‘No lion has arrived in Yangambi on the steamboat or by any other means. And no lion has gone near the mandrills you brought back with you either.’

‘Just as well. We don’t need lions here. If anyone wants one, he can go and find one in the jungle and shove it up his arse,’ declared Lalande Biran.

Van Thiegel laughed. He enjoyed it when the Captain got angry.

‘What are we going to do with those mandrills?’ he asked.

‘The askaris will want to eat them, as will Richardson,’ said Lalande Biran. ‘I suppose the best thing would be to organise a shooting match. In the next couple of days. Sunday perhaps.’

Van Thiegel was taken by surprise.

‘So soon?’

‘It would probably be best to wait until Christmas, but that won’t be possible with a bishop and a journalist hanging around. Besides, there won’t be time then. We have to take the statue of the Virgin to the island of Samanga, and that will take us three or four days.’

Van Thiegel drank his martini down in one.

‘Why Samanga? You’ve lost me, Biran. Tell me more.’

Lalande Biran gave him the necessary information. Another change of plans in Brussels meant that there would be no royal party, just a journalist and a bishop, who would celebrate mass. So there seemed little point in travelling all the way to the Stanley Falls. The idea of taking the statue to Samanga had only just occurred to him, but he was sure the little island would be the ideal place, given that it was much nearer and looked rather like a small mountain. In Europe and the Americas, statues were usually placed on some high vantage point, and Africa should be no different. The Virgin would look out over the river and over many square miles of jungle.

‘So this Christmas we’re going to Samanga,’ he concluded. ‘But first, we’re going to have some fun with the shooting match.’

‘Both seem like excellent ideas,’ said Van Thiegel.

His mind had divided not into two this time, but three. The Captain — thought one of those three parts — had clearly reverted to his usual state of mind after that brief burst of happiness in the changing-room. According to the song, the grasshopper sang all summer, but the Captain’s joy had lasted barely an hour. He was absolutely furious. The proof of this was the chicotte he had hurled away so angrily and which still lay at the river’s edge.

‘What news from Paris? Is your wife well?’ asked the second part of his mind, but the letter from Christine Saliat de Meilhan, he realised, had not yet been opened.

‘We’ll find out now,’ said Lalande Biran.

He read it quickly. His wife said much the same as Toisonet, that they were to be the owners of a beautiful house in St-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, and that agreement had been reached ‘thanks to the mediation of Duke Armand Saint-Foix’.

‘Christine is happy with her houses,’ he said, putting the letter down on the table again. ‘And she’ll be even happier when I send her the cheetah skin. We killed it on the way back, so it hasn’t started to smell yet.’

A question arose in the second part of Van Thiegel’s mind. Since leave in the Force Publique was rare and only brief, even for the higher ranking officers, how did Christine cope with her solitude? Was she unfaithful to the Captain? For a moment, his mind was filled with the image of that woman, of the same Christine he had seen in a photo in his superior’s office, but this time she was wearing a stole made of cheetah skin wrapped about her neck. A few golden curls spilled onto it. She was utterly adorable.

‘We had no problems at all with any attempted escapees while we were in the jungle,’ he said, shaking off the image of Christine and moving into the third part of his mind. ‘I didn’t waste a single cartridge collecting that timber.’

‘I’m pleased to hear it. All the more ammunition for the monkeys,’ said Lalande Biran, standing up.

A feeling of unease gripped that third part of Van Thiegel’s mind. He would once again be pitted against Chrysostome in the shooting match, and if the poofter repeated his triumph, Van Thiegel’s reputation as a hunter and his good name in general would reach rock bottom. His time in the Foreign Legion had taught him one thing, which he bore engraved on his mind: if an officer ever revealed a weakness, his enemies would flock to it like mosquitos to an open wound.

‘How far away will the target be? A hundred yards?’ he asked, picking up the chicotte from the river’s edge and returning it to the Captain.

‘Oh, two hundred at least,’ replied Lalande Biran. ‘It’s not a matter of finishing off the monkeys as quickly as possible. We don’t want the party to be over too soon.’

‘Fine, two hundred yards it is then. By the way, Biran, what happened to the fourth porter? There were only three hands in the bag.’

‘He got swept away by the current and we weren’t going to hang around for the sake of a hand,’ said Lalande Biran, tucking the chicotte in his belt.

Van Thiegel tried to blank out the third part of his brain, but failed. The image of Chrysostome refused to disappear.