Seven Houses in France

XVII

FOR ONCE, YANGAMBI was not the Roi du Congo’s final stopping place; instead, the boat continued upstream, heading for the little island of Samanga. On board were thirty askaris in their red fezes, ten young Africans who had chosen to be baptised, ten sappers, fifteen officers, a bishop, three priests and the journalist Ferdinand Lassalle. Just before the steamship set off from the jetty, Lalande Biran and Van Thiegel saluted each other, and the Kodak camera captured the moment: two white men in military uniform, one — Lieutenant Van Thiegel — with his back to the camera and his Albini-Braendlin on his shoulder and the other — Captain Lalande Biran — facing the camera, with the flag of the Force Publique fluttering behind him, and beneath the flag, the head of the Virgin with her smooth brow and her gaze turned heavenwards.

As soon as he had taken the photo, Lassalle wrote in his notebook the caption that would accompany the image. It was an imaginary dialogue between the two men:

‘Keep order while I’m away, Lieutenant.’

‘And you take care of Our Lady, Captain, and may She protect you and favour you with a safe return.’

Lassalle scribbled a few more sentences: ‘The dangers of the jungle, the lions and the rebels’, said the first. The second read: ‘King Léopold will win the first duel. The Virgin’s foot will trample the head of the serpent.’ These would be the motifs on which his first article would be based.

The Roi du Congo headed slowly but surely upriver, and the figure left behind on the beach at Yangambi grew gradually smaller and smaller. Lassalle watched until the figure moved, and he saw that rather than heading for the Place du Grand Palmier, where Van Thiegel had his office, it went straight to the club. The drunken sot! That rude man who called him Petit Livo! Lalande Biran had told him that Van Thiegel was thinking of returning to Europe, which would doubtless be good news for the Force Publique, just as Lalande Biran’s departure would be a great loss. Fortunately, Chrysostome, that extraordinary marksman, was going to stay in the Congo, and everything indicated that Lalande Biran would propose him as one of Yangambi’s commanding officers. He certainly hoped so. Chrysostome, with his great devotion to the Virgin Mary, was clearly the most devout officer in Yangambi. His second article would be about him. He had already decided on the photo. He would place the young man in the foreground, with the blue ribbon, the gold chain and the medals of Our Lady about his neck; behind him, the statue of the Virgin; and in the background, as much of the landscape as he could encompass from the top of the island of Samanga.

‘I hope you all drown!’ cried Van Thiegel as he walked up to the club, and his eyes grew as dark as those of a black mamba. He hadn’t particularly wanted to be included on the trip to the island, but it was clear that they had all wanted to be rid of him. Another officer could perfectly well have taken temporary command of the post for a few days; given his age and experience, Richardson would have been the ideal choice, and of course, as a Protestant, he had no interest in the whole Virgin rigmarole. No, Lalande Biran had wanted to punish Van Thiegel by denying him any of the advantages that might accrue from that expedition. Lalande Biran’s ambition knew no limits: he wanted to appear in all the interviews and all the photos and to see his poems published in Europe. In a word, he wanted to be both rich and famous. Van Thiegel, on the other hand, would appear in only one photo, taken just before the Roi du Congo set off and in which he had his back to the camera. This was quite wrong, because he was, after all, the officer with most responsibility in Yangambi, the one who restored order, who went boldly into the jungle whenever the rebels surfaced, the one who organised the transport of any of those extra shipments of rubber and mahogany despatched to placate Monsieur X and Christine. But no one in Europe would know of his merits, and if the Military Academy in Brussels ever needed a teacher to give lessons about Africa, no one would think of asking him. He regretted this largely for his mother’s sake, but also as a man in love. How could Christine give him his proper value if there were no photos of him and no interviews in the press? It would then be much harder for him to make her his woman number 200.

As he approached the porch of the Club Royal, he saw a group of five or six mandrills beside the storeroom, and one of them was knocking on the door. There was a scream, and they all sat there, looking at him, mouths open, teeth bared. Van Thiegel gave a laugh that sounded more like a cough. All he needed now was for the monkeys to lose respect for him as well! Perhaps they knew about King Léopold’s rules on the use of cartridges and assumed that he would not, therefore, shoot. What they didn’t know was that he had found a way around those rules and had spent years massaging the figures — for cartridges as well as everything else, especially the figures for rubber and mahogany.

One of the more brazen of the mandrills climbed onto a rocking chair and balanced precariously. Van Thiegel grabbed the Albini-Braendlin he was carrying over his shoulder. The mandrill on the rocking chair and the rest of the group fled into the jungle.

He opened the storeroom door and stood for a while studying the provisions piled up there. It was full to bursting. Apart from the anisette and other sweet liqueurs, there were dozens of crates of champagne and no shortage of Martell and Martini either. He saw sausages and salamis hanging from the ceiling, and on a plank, a foot or so above the ground, was a row of cheeses wrapped in cloth. Lalande Biran had obviously put in a special order before the visit of the priests and the journalist. All that was missing from the storeroom was the figure of Donatien. His usual corner was empty.

Van Thiegel walked up to the higher part of Yangambi, and when he reached the square, his eye was caught by a detail he hadn’t noticed before. The coloured ribbons that Lalande Biran had ordered to be hung from the palm tree did not form a cupola, but a half-cupola, for they extended only as far as Government House, and not in the other direction, towards his house. So his marginalisation had not begun with the arrival of the journalist and the priests: it had been planned long before.

‘Oh, Biran!’ he cried.

He continued walking towards the firing range, and as he passed the slaughterhouse, his mind split in two. He remembered seeing the cheetah there, with a bullet hole above its left eye, and at the same time, although only in his imagination, he saw Christine walking down a Paris street, wearing a cheetah-skin stole about her neck. To these were added another two images. In the first, he saw Chrysostome strolling into the village one day, carrying the rhinoceros horn on his back. In the second, he saw Christine sitting on an armchair in her house in rue du Pont Vieux, and behind her, fixed to the wall, was that same horn. Lalande Biran would lie to Christine and tell her that he himself had hunted and killed both the cheetah and the rhinoceros. He had always been slow to acknowledge other people’s qualities.

‘Oh, Biran!’ he cried again.

The seven hundred rubber-tappers he found gathered on the firing range seemed particularly quiet, sitting on the ground in silence, most of them eating. The NCOs greeted him with the usual words: ‘Nothing to report, Lieutenant!’ But there was something to report. Smoke was rising from twenty or so barbecues and there was an all-pervasive smell of roast antelope. It was a scene prepared by Lalande Biran for the journalist’s Kodak camera. It seemed, however, that there had been more than enough meat, and the banquet was continuing.

At one end of the firing range, two figures appeared, one very tall and wearing a white hat and the other very short and with grey hair. Donatien was walking towards him, followed by Livo, who was carrying a basket over one arm.

‘We’re going to the club, Lieutenant,’ said Donatien. ‘We’ve chosen some good cuts of meat to roast on the barbecue.’

Livo lifted the lid of the reed basket and showed him the meat. They were cuts taken from near the tail, the tenderest part of the antelope, and Livo was planning to barbecue one as normal, while the other he would serve with a cheese sauce. There was more than enough cheese in the storeroom. The Captain had had it sent up from Léopoldville.

‘Yes, I saw it,’ said Van Thiegel. ‘Our good Captain has brought many other delicacies too.’

‘Sugar,’ said Livo.

‘Salt,’ said Donatien.

They were joking, deliberately saying nothing about the champagne and the other drinks. Van Thiegel looked up past the seven hundred rubber-tappers and beyond the columns of smoke rising from the barbecues. There was a glint of pride in his eyes.

‘When I was young, as a cadet at the Military Academy in Brussels, we invented a game,’ he said, as if these words were written on the sky and he was reading them. ‘We would pool our money and go round the bars, but we had to order a different drink in each bar. So if we drank wine in one bar, we would order beer in the next, and then gin, cognac or anisette and so on. Of course, we had them serve us the milder drinks in large glasses and the stronger ones in small glasses. And so it would go on until the weakest could no longer stand. Then for those of us with more stamina, it was time for love, and we would take whatever money was left in the pot and set off to see the ladies.’

Donatien and Livo laughed. Van Thiegel was still staring up at the sky.

‘I understand that many students still keep up the tradition,’ he said. ‘And that pleases me.’

‘Of course,’ said Donatien. His Adam’s apple moved up and down in his neck. He felt impatient. He hadn’t had time to take off the dress uniform he had worn for the embarkation ceremony for the Virgin, and he was sweltering. And even though he was wearing a hat, he could still feel the sun beating down on his head.

‘If the Captain ever claims he invented that game, don’t you believe him. We invented it, the first company of fusiliers in Brussels,’ Van Thiegel told them. He was no longer looking at the sky.

On their way back to the Club Royal, Van Thiegel and Donatien stopped off to change their clothes, while Livo went on ahead to prepare the meat. He was in serious mood. He didn’t want the day to end without him being able to take a few boxes of biscuits to the mugini, along with some salami and cheese perhaps. His daughter would be pleased, and the village children even more so.

Van Thiegel took a sip of gin.

‘The flag is still flying high above the palace in Brussels,’ he said, and he saw Donatien and Livo smile. Behind them, ten or twelve chimpanzees appeared to be listening to his words. ‘Yes, the flag is still flying high above the palace in Brussels,’ he said again. ‘It’s still the lair of the most passionate lover the world has ever known. Oh yes.’

The images were starting to spin around in his head again as if on a roulette wheel, but his tongue could not follow them. It felt thick and clumsy in his mouth.

‘There’s never been another lover like Léopold II, and it will be years before anyone breaks his record. I’m no innocent myself, and with a little luck I’ll soon be able to chalk up woman number 200. Beside him, though, I’m a mere babe. As for Chrysostome, well, as for Chrysostome …’

Donatien and Livo finally laughed. The chimpanzees did not. They remained frowning and attentive, looking at the men. Livo poured some anisette for himself, Van Thiegel and Donatien. The roulette wheel briefly stopped spinning and showed Van Thiegel the image of his father.

‘My father was never a supporter of the King, and sometimes, at home, he would start saying bad things about him over supper. He said the King squandered millions on women, that he’d given a brooch worth 100,000 francs to the dancer María Montoya. This enraged him, but instead of getting angry with the King, he got angry with me and my mother and sometimes hit us. He was very free with his hands he was, sharp-tempered, sharp-eyed and sharp-eared too, and he could probably have amounted to something in the world if only he’d been able to control his drinking. There’s nothing wrong with drinking, but you can’t get drunk every day.’

He raised one arm and pointed his index finger.

‘Anyway, my father used to hit me, I don’t deny it. When I was a child, that is, but not once I’d joined the Military Academy.’

He burst out laughing.

‘The day I went home on leave for the first time, my father was in one of his rages, not with the King, but with the man in charge of the stevedores at the port. And he tried to pick a fight with me, telling me to bugger off in my fusilier’s uniform, telling me to get out of his sight. I didn’t move. He pushed me, almost knocked me over. After all those years spent loading and unloading ships, he was a strong man, but I was stronger, at least I was then. I grabbed him by the throat and lifted him about eight inches off the ground. He looked at me, surprised, as if it had never occurred to him that his son might be stronger than he was. I’d been lifting weights at the barracks, you see. His eyes started to go red, and his face turned scarlet too. When I let him go, it took him about ten minutes to recover, coughing and retching he was. He didn’t ever try to knock me about again. And he stopped beating my mother too. He wasn’t a bad man, my father, he just had a nasty habit of hitting people. Yes.’

The roulette wheel was spinning too fast now and his father’s face kept passing again and again through his head. He fixed his attention on what was left on his plate. He picked up a piece of meat and tossed it onto the beach. The chimpanzees fought over it, making a terrific noise. Their cries filled the air, with those who got nothing protesting loudly.

‘I knew a soldier once, a legionnaire like myself,’ Van Thiegel went on. The roulette wheel had stopped unexpectedly and shown him this former colleague. ‘He was the bravest fellow I’ve ever known. People here in Yangambi say of me that I don’t know the meaning of fear, and I’ve heard the same said of Chrysostome, but him and me are mere chickens beside that man. He had a pretty impressive record with women too. People said he’d had every woman in the desert. Anyway, one day, he was found dead in his tent. Poisoned, they said, but I don’t know. No one ever knew for sure. We did find out the secret of his bravery and his sexual vigour, though. They examined his body for a wound or a snake bite, and discovered that he didn’t have two balls like most men, but four! Anyway, I reckon the King has probably got three. I wouldn’t go so far as to say four, but three, yes. Oh yes.’

The chimpanzees had come closer again and were craning their necks. Van Thiegel threw them the plate containing the leftover meat.

‘Time to change drinks, gentlemen,’ said Livo when the chimpanzees’ screams had abated. ‘Il faut changer, messieurs.’

He opened a bottle containing a green liquid and filled the small glasses.

‘The time for love approaches,’ said Donatien. ‘But if we carry on like this, we’ll be in no fit state for the girls.’

‘I’ll be all right,’ retorted Van Thiegel. ‘It would be the first time ever if I wasn’t. I may only have two balls — because I’m perfectly normal in that respect — but I have very strong legs. Of course, you need more than that. Either it all has to work or not at all.’

He paused, trying to understand what he had just said and failing.

‘How are things with Chrysostome and his girlfriend? Are they often at it?’ he asked.

‘It’s not a question of often,’ stammered Donatien. ‘They d-d-don’t do it at all. Ilsnelelelefonpa.’

Van Thiegel felt something moving in the centre of his body, but his tongue came to a dead halt. He wanted to say that the facts would prove him right in the end because, unlike Lalande Biran, he still believed Chrysostome was a poofter; but no sound came from his lips. He tried again. He wanted to ask Livo if he had ever seen this Madelaine from close to, and what kind of body she had.

Fortunately, Livo didn’t need words. The look in the Lieutenant’s eyes was enough.

‘Bamu is an extraordinary woman,’ he said. ‘She’s a veritable palm tree that girl.’

‘A palm tree! You’re the real poet of Yangambi, Livo. Better than the Captain,’ Van Thiegel wanted to say, but his tongue was still stiff. On the other hand, the movement in the centre of his body grew more intense, or, rather, unstiffened.

‘The palm tree is beautiful from the waist down,’ Livo went on, ‘and even more beautiful, if that were possible, from the waist up. Her hair isn’t curly, but wavy, and her eyes …’

He suddenly fell silent and stood looking out at the jungle. It seemed to him that the thousands and thousands of trees had fallen silent, the river had stopped flowing, and the group of chimpanzees on the beach had turned to stone. Then the pounding of a drum traversed the silence and could clearly be heard on the porch.

‘Who’s that drumming?’ cried Livo.

He clasped his hands to his head. Yes, the inhabitants of one of the mugini were holding a traditional funeral. Lalande Biran would be furious because he found the noise of drumming unbearable and had forbidden it in the area around Yangambi. Livo might have to despatch some askaris to silence the drummers, and he would have to be their guide, his least favourite job.

Then he breathed a sigh of relief. Of course, Lalande Biran wasn’t in Yangambi, but on board the Roi du Congo heading for the small island of Samanga. It would take them two or three days to take the statue of the Virgin there and come back, and by then, the funeral would be over.

His oimbé appeared. A glow of dark green marked with black lines surrounded his body.

He understood then what was wrong. Although he had only been pretending to drink from most of the bottles, he was nevertheless a little drunk. That was why his thoughts were so slow; that was why he had spouted all that nonsense about Bamu to Van Thiegel and Donatien.

He shouldn’t have told them about the young woman called Bamu, still less in the terms he had used, telling them that she was as beautiful as a palm tree. Saying such a thing to the Lieutenant was like showing a salami to a monkey.

Livo’s oimbé changed colour. Now it was purple. A sad idea had just occurred to him. He was a monkey too and had acted as he did, playing up to Van Thiegel, in the hope of receiving a box of biscuits. He wouldn’t get one though. Drunks tended to be mean, at least in Yangambi.

Donatien filled their glasses with a yellowish liquid.

‘They say the girl has very round ears,’ he said, ‘not that I’ve seen them, because the first time, I caught only the briefest of glimpses, and then the Captain forbade me from going anywhere near her mugini. I’m obviously not going to get my reward. And I would really like to have my emeralds back. When we open our club in Antwerp, I want to see them behind the bar, adorning my wife. The customers would appreciate that. One of my sisters always used to say that nowadays people want a bit of elegance, not the seedy bars of our parents’ day. And you know what, we could install Chrysostome’s girlfriend there too. If she’s so beautiful, she would be a real draw for the customers.’

‘Why don’t you just shut up?’Van Thiegel said. Gradually, the use of his tongue was returning. At least it was moving now, however clumsily. He looked at Livo. ‘If they don’t have sex, what do they do?’ he asked.

‘Observe, Lieutenant,’ Donatien broke in. He took Livo’s hands and gazed at him tenderly. Then he began to caress him, first one cheek, then the other, the left side of his chest, then the right. Very slowly and gently.

‘So our young girl is more of a virgin than the stone one they’ve just carried off to Samanga!’ said Van Thiegel, standing up. The chimpanzees immediately plunged off into the jungle. ‘Let’s go! The moment for love has arrived. Madelaine is calling me!’ he bawled.

The breeze brought with it the sound of drumming.