Seven Houses in France

V

THE REPORT ABOUT the royal journey, published in La Gazette de Léopoldville, caused a great stir in Yangambi, and, more particularly, in the mind of Captain Lalande Biran. Duke Armand Saint-Foix and he had been close friends ever since, years before, on the occasion of the publication of Dix poètes belges, the Captain had inveighed against the editor’s failure to include the Duke’s work in the anthology, crying: ‘You either include both of us or neither,’ adding vehemently, ‘I don’t know Saint-Foix personally, but I know his poems, and I wish to make it quite clear that if there are any great poets in Belgium today, he is one of them. Saint-Foix is on a par with any poet from Paris. Let there be no doubt about it, he must be included in the anthology.’

This praise was quite sincere, for, at the time, Lalande Biran had never met Saint-Foix and was unaware that he was very close to the King. The Duke was unaccustomed to receiving such sincere praise, and the incident, so to speak, touched his heart. Even better, Lalande Biran was not particularly tall, barely five foot nine in his boots. It was a pleasure to be with him and to be able to admire his eyes d’or et d’azur.

In the end, the anthology was entitled Onze poètes belges, and Saint-Foix and Lalande Biran mingled poems and blood like two adolescents. Time consolidated their friendship. This was partly because of their shared metaphysics, their poetic tastes and their love of gambling, and partly because of a shared interest in the physical world. Ever since Lalande Biran had left for Africa, they had been partners in the trafficking of mahogany and ivory, a highly profitable business that bound them ever closer.

It was a very evenly balanced relationship. Lalande Biran, who had flown higher in the fields of poetry and gambling — having published more books and suffered greater economic upsets — was the more complete artist, being a gifted draughtsman and painter as well. On the other hand, Saint-Foix was a master of the non-metaphysical world. Without his collaboration, it would have been impossible to smuggle the mahogany and ivory into Europe, and Lalande Biran would never have been able to pay off his gaming debts or been able to buy the seven houses that his wife, Christine, longed to own in France.

In his letters, Saint-Foix called Lalande Biran ‘Moustachu’, because, when they first met, the Captain had sported a magnificent moustache, which he had shaved off when he arrived in Africa. For his part, Lalande Biran called Saint-Foix ‘Toisonet’, a play on ‘toiser’, to gauge someone’s height, as the diminutive Duke frequently did, and ‘toison d’or’, because at official receptions, the Duke made a point of wearing the sash of the Order of the Golden Fleece.

These forms of address were significant. In Yangambi, everyone had to call the Captain by his full name, Lalande Biran, or by his rank, ‘Captain’; even Van Thiegel, his second in command and his colleague in the complex business of mahogany and ivory trafficking, had to call him ‘Captain’ or, at most, over supper or when they swam together in the river, ‘Biran’. On the other hand, anyone could call Armand Saint-Foix ‘Armand’, because he liked to hear his name on other people’s lips; however, any member of Court who called him Toisonet in public might as well start packing his bags at once. Indeed, it was said in Brussels that certain ministers had lost their post after committing that very blunder.

Mon cher Toisonet, began Lalande Biran’s letters. Mon cher Moustachu, said those from Saint-Foix. Month after month, year after year, the letters formed a chain, so that by 1904, the year in which King Léopold announced his visit to the Congo, they considered themselves to be more like brothers than friends.

Lalande Biran read the article in La Gazette de Léopoldville in the garden behind Government House. His first reaction was one of surprise — an American queen for the Belgian Congo? — his second was one of excitement. What if they were to stop off in Yangambi? If, on their way to the Stanley Falls, the King and his entourage were to pause in Yangambi, would that not be a great opportunity for him?

He gazed out at the landscape. Before him lay miles and miles of jungle bisected by a dark line, like a wound. The line — or wound — grew wider as it approached Yangambi, where it revealed its true nature: it was the Great River, the oft-mentioned River Congo.

Lalande Biran followed its course with his eyes. When it reached Yangambi and was joined by the waters of the Lomami, the current flowed much faster on the jungle side, beyond the small mid-stream islands, and far more slowly on the village side. Over time, that quiet water had formed the beach where the first colonists in Yangambi had built the wooden platform that served as a jetty. There the Princesse Clémentine, the Petit Prince, the Roi du Congo and all the other steamships docked. Why shouldn’t the royal boat do the same? He must put this suggestion to Toisonet as soon as possible.

Lalande Biran could already see himself standing to attention on that beach, ready to salute the King. Then he pictured the King, an erect figure at the prow of the boat, returning his salute. It was a white steamship, with five funnels, larger than the Princesse Clémentine and the other boats that came to Yangambi. A huge blue flag with a single yellow star fluttered on the mast. Now and then, the flag would belly out in the breeze.

Rocking back and forth in his chair, Lalande Biran imagined the full-page account of the royal expedition that would appear in all the newspapers of Europe, and he imagined, too, the large photo that would illustrate it. In the middle, Belgium’s tallest palm tree; beside him, holding his arm, the dancer from Philadelphia; to her left, at the end, himself; on the other side, the explorer Stanley and Toisonet. He saw the caption as well: ‘King Léopold on a lion hunt in the heart of the jungle’.

This wasn’t pure imagination. Someone — possibly Toisonet — had told him that the one trophy missing from Léopold II’s hunting pavilion was a lion’s head, and that sometimes this gap in his collection plunged him into gloom, if not envy. And this was understandable. His cousins and other members of the family, representatives of the Spanish and English nobility, had more magnificent collections of foxes and wolves and bears than he did, but if he could bag the head of the king of the jungle, he would be the undisputed champion.

Lalande Biran was not as good at numbers as the King. He liked to say, half-joking and half-serious, that he was ‘too much of a poet’ for such things, and that it was his wife, Christine, who kept the accounts. Despite this, it was as clear as day that if the royal party did stop in Yangambi and the King managed to kill that other king, the king of the jungle, this would be of great personal advantage to Lalande Biran. Perhaps a position at Court, with Toisonet, or in the administration, in the Ministry of Culture. Or perhaps at the embassy in Paris, in charge of cultural affairs, a post that would help fulfil his life-long dream, to become an habitué of Paris’s literary cafés.

It started to rain and he went back inside in order to continue his ponderings at his desk. The royal visit was beginning to seem like a real possibility. There were a few problems, but none were insoluble. It wouldn’t be that difficult to attract a lion to Yangambi if, during the two weeks prior to the visit, bait — in the form of a couple of goats or a few monkeys — was left in an appropriate place. Naturally, it would be best if it was an older lion, or a rather sickly specimen, rather than one bursting with health, because a young, healthy lion capable of leaping thirty feet or more could prove a threat to the King’s safety, which would be to no one’s advantage at all.

In the evening, he got together in the Club Royal with Van Thiegel, Richardson and various other officers. They were more excited about the prospect of seeing the dancer from Philadelphia than about King Léopold’s visit. In the time it takes to drink a martini or a glass of Veuve Clicquot, they were immersed in a passionate discussion about the dancer’s age. Van Thiegel reckoned she was thirty, Richardson, forty.

‘She’s forty if she’s a day, as sure as I’m sixty!’ said Richardson.

He took a piece of paper out of his pocket and spread it on the table. It was a cutting from a magazine published in Monaco and showed a photograph, a close-up of the dancer taken in St-Jean-Cap-Ferrat.

‘There you are, forty if she’s a day!’ Richardson said for the third time.

Van Thiegel raised his martini to the photo. ‘What a beauty!’ he exclaimed.

Richardson turned to Lalande Biran. ‘Although with all due respect, Captain, your wife, Christine, is far more beautiful,’ he declared.

Van Thiegel gave him a shove that almost knocked him off his chair. ‘Show some respect, Richardson!’

‘That’s all right,’ said Lalande Biran. ‘Christine is not averse to compliments.’

He started reading the accompanying article. The journalist was lavish in his praise for the dancer: ‘Born in a humble shack in Missouri, she was merely the flickering flame on a match; that flame is now a great fire that can light up the world like a star, like the star that adorns the flag of the Congo.’

Lalande Biran could just imagine Toisonet dictating these words to the journalist.

That night, in his room, he lay down on his bed with the intention of continuing his thoughts about the Good that the visit might bring or the Bad that might result were the lion to eat the King. However hard he tried to focus on the matter from a pragmatic point of view, his mind insisted on responding in terms more appropriate to poetry. The words ‘a duel between kings’ kept slipping into his thoughts, and his literary instinct was telling him that this could be the title of a poem.

‘A Duel between Kings’. The title demanded to be continued and would not leave him in peace. Finally, after nearly an hour of struggle, he saw the first lines of the poem with absolute clarity and went over to his desk to scribble them down by the light of the oil lamp: ‘A duel between kings. Each in his own territory, but what territory can accommodate more than one king? I am not speaking, Calliope, of the war between white rose and red, nor of that war, years before, in which Hector faced Achilles …’

Feeling calmer, he went back to bed and, in his dreams, again imagined the report of the royal visit that would appear in the European press. In this new fantasy, the photo took up half the page and showed the five protagonists, each carrying a rifle: the King, the dancer from Philadelphia, Stanley, Toisonet and himself. Behind them stood another figure, a man carrying two Albini-Braendlin rifles, one resting on his shoulder and the other raised and ready to fire. He tried to identify that sixth person, but his dream grew confused at that point. This figure was a strong young man, frowning at the camera, squinting into the sun. The first three buttons of his shirt were undone. The blue ribbon and the thick gold chain bearing an image of Our Lady had got tangled up on his chest.

Then the penny dropped. His imagination had wanted Chrysostome, the best marksman in the Force Publique in the Congo, to be there in the newspaper photo. He turned over in bed. Yes, that was the solution. If Chrysostome came with them, one of the kings of that territory, the lion, would be in danger, but not King Léopold.

When he woke, it was raining, and so he rejected the idea of going down to the river and starting the day with a swim. Since he couldn’t go out into the garden either, he went to his office and sat on his chaise longue to wait for Donatien to bring him his breakfast.

He picked up La Gazette de Léopoldville, intending to leaf through it, but couldn’t concentrate. He wanted to examine the room and the state of the furniture.

The chaise longue was attractive, but, being upholstered in a pale grey fabric — pale grey with a pattern of pink roses — it looked very grubby and worn. The King couldn’t possibly sit there. Nor could Toisonet. But they would have to sit somewhere when they visited the house. This was a serious problem, because the other armchairs in the office, especially those on which Van Thiegel and Richardson sat for their meetings, were in an even worse state. Otherwise, the room was light and spacious, and not without charm. With its book-filled shelves and mahogany desk, it looked like the study of a famous poet. And the round mahogany table they used for meetings was equally handsome. However, the problem remained. It would have been good, in the name of traditional values, to offer their visitors authentic African chairs, but most Africans sat on the ground. He would have to find another solution.

The walls of the office were hung with paintings and drawings he himself had made. They couldn’t possibly stay there, because most of them showed naked girls and would offend the priests travelling with the King and Toisonet, especially since the models were all black Africans. He could leave the largest of the paintings, though, depicting the porch of the Club Royal.

Lalande Biran studied the picture. A mandrill was sitting on a rocking chair. There were other mandrills on the river bank and near the storeroom. He had painted it shortly after arriving in Yangambi, and time had left its mark. The edges were blotched with mildew. Oddly enough, one of those spots resembled a monkey.

He glanced at the desk and at the photo of his wife Christine. He thought, half in jest, that her smile was wider than it had been the day before. Christine loved the Court and revelled in the friendship of people like Toisonet. She dreamed of growing richer and richer. If the royal visit did go ahead, she wouldn’t just smile, she would crow with pure delight.

The rhinoceros horn he had exchanged for the watch was there in one corner. He should do something with it. In the right place, it could have a real impact. And if the King expressed an interest, he would give it to him as a gift.

He caught sight of Donatien standing in the doorway, his head almost touching the top of the door frame. He was bringing him his breakfast on a tray: baked bananas, fried eggs, the bread made from manioc flour that the Africans called kikuanga, and coffee.

‘You’d better come and get the tray yourself, Captain,’ he said. ‘My boots are covered in mud and I wouldn’t want to dirty the rugs. It rained a lot last night. I don’t know how much longer it’s going to go on like this.’

He gabbled his words — ‘Ilser’teilleursiv’prenlerecipien’ — and his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down.

Lalande Biran put the tray on the round table, with La Gazette de Léopoldville beside it.

‘I think the King’s visit will be a great thing for the Congo, Captain,’ said Donatien from the door. He was taking off his boots. ‘I haven’t read about it myself, but apparently it’s in the newspaper. They say it will be a happy day for everyone here.’

‘We’ll do our best to make it so,’ said Lalande Biran.

Donatien was still lingering on the threshold, with his shoes off now. He was observing the Captain.

‘I left the ring in the usual place, Captain,’ he said. ‘I don’t know if you saw it.’

Lalande Biran found it hard to sleep with his wedding ring on his finger and used to leave it on a shelf before going to bed. Sometimes, though, he forgot and would take it off in his sleep, and it would disappear among the sheets and end up on the floor. It was a beautiful gold ring encrusted with diamonds.

Lalande Biran went over to one of the shelves. In a space between the books was a small ivory box. Donatien usually left the ring there.

‘Is there anything else?’ asked the Captain, turning towards his assistant, without putting on the ring.

Donatien lowered his eyes. His Adam’s apple sank in his throat.

‘I’ve sent four askaris,’ he said.

Every Thursday, Donatien went into the jungle in search of a young girl to bring back for the Captain. In theory, this was an easy enough operation, but in practice, it proved quite difficult, for the simple reason that Lalande Biran would only accept virgins. He didn’t want to take any risks. Syphilis had reached the jungle, it wasn’t just something you could catch in Paris or in Antwerp.

‘Whatever the weather, you have to go. It’s your job. This had better not happen again.’

Donatien didn’t like it when the Captain got angry with him.

‘When they bring her, I’ll wash her and do all the necessary tests,’ he said. ‘I always do that. I never leave that part of the work to the askaris.’ ‘Jamaisjélescepartd’tyravailauaskari.’

‘Make sure this is the last time!’ said Lalande Biran.

‘Yes, Captain.’

‘The last time!’ Lalande Biran said again.

‘If I may, I’ll go and tidy your room now, Captain,’ said Donatien, disappearing from the door.

When the Captain had eaten the baked bananas and the fried eggs, he went over to the desk, taking a cup of coffee with him. He moved a few papers and documents to clear a space, then lit a cigarette and began the letter he had been writing in his head during breakfast:

My dear Toisonet,

Allow me to begin this message from Africa with a few words from the Master: ‘When the earth has become a dank dungeon, from which Hope like a bat flits away …’ Believe me, if he had been here, he would not have seen the bat of Hope, only its ghost. Yangambi is far more terrible than Paris, although, in some ways, it can also be more beautiful. Beauty, as you well know, can sometimes be an aspect of the terrible. You often talk to me of palm trees, snakes, lions, rhinoceroses and the other inhabitants of these lands …

The introduction was somewhat over-long, because once he had begun in that vein, he could go on for ever. Nevertheless, he managed, line by line, to clarify his ideas. He asked Toisonet to do all he could to ensure that the royal steamship stopped in Yangambi, and not in Kisangani or in any other place close to the Stanley Falls. He wanted to welcome the King and the future queen of the Congo to Government House, along with Mbula Matari and, of course, himself, Toisonet. The problem was that there, in that remote corner of the Congo, he lived in such utter intellectual solitude. Not one of the eighteen officers knew who Baudelaire was, indeed, his second in command, Lieutenant Van Thiegel, called him Baudelaine, and thought it was a woman’s name because it sounded like ‘Madelaine’.

He re-read what he had written and was pleased, especially by that mention of Mbula Matari, ‘the breaker of rocks’. This would impress Toisonet, who would know it was Henry Morton Stanley’s old African nickname, dating from the time when the explorer had played a part in building the railway between Matadi and Léopoldville. Twenty-five years on, very few people remembered it, and the few who did called him Bula Matari. And yet the name was more exact and more meaningful with that initial ‘M’, Mbula, Mbula Matari. That one little letter made it sound far more African somehow.

He dated the letter 12 July 1904 and signed with his full name: Philippe Marie Lalande Biran.

At the bottom of the page there was space for another ten lines or so, and he decided to fill it with a postscript:

I’m working on a new poem. It’s entitled ‘A Duel between Kings’. I’ll send it to you as soon as it’s finished. Oh, and I was going to paint a landscape for you, as you requested, but I ordered the canvases from Léopoldville over two months ago and still haven’t received them. I will be having a visitor today, so, instead, I will send you a pencil sketch of the girl, in the hope that it will soften your heart and encourage you to grant the favour I’m asking you.

Lalande Biran was aware that his metaphysical superiority over Toisonet was due not only to his merits as a poet, but equally or possibly even more so to his talent for drawing and painting. That postscript would add its grain of sand when it came to tipping the scales in favour of the royal visit to Yangambi.

He put the letter in the envelope and wrote Toisonet’s address: Monsieur le Duc Armand Saint-Foix, Palais Royal, Bruxelles, Belgique.

He consulted the calendar and made his calculations. The steamship would pass through Yangambi the next day, and so the letter would leave without delay. The letter should be in his friend’s hands by the beginning of August.

Covered by the mosquito net, his bed was like a small semitransparent hut within the room itself. Biran lay down, his eyes open.

The knotted cotton threads of the mosquito netting formed squares or rectangles that were about the size of the canvases he used for painting. But they weren’t canvases, and you couldn’t paint on them. He found it very difficult to devote himself to painting in Yangambi. He had managed to finish a number of paintings during his years there, but the heat and humidity had ruined them. Even though he loved painting as much as he loved poetry and considered it a better way of passing the long hours in the jungle, he was gradually losing interest. He did pencil sketches once a week, but that was all. And he did those sketches more for sexual reasons than out of any artistic urge. When Donatien brought him a girl, he would begin by drawing her body. It was a way of postponing the pleasure.

He went over the last part of the letter in his head. ‘Mbula Matari’. Toisonet would be sure to notice the African touch that the ‘M’ gave to Stanley’s nickname. As for the poem he had promised to send, Toisonet would be sure to like that too, and he could even perhaps recite it on some occasion when the King met with Belgian poets.

His imagination gave a small leap and he began to savour in advance the image of the young girl Donatien would bring to him that day. He imagined her full lips, strong shoulders, firm breasts and thighs and, lastly, the centre of her body. Soon, that girl, or another very like her, would be his. It was wonderful to be able to allow himself such a pleasure. It was wonderful, above all, because for that young woman, he would be the first man. He couldn’t risk contracting syphilis in the way that Van Thiegel, Richardson and the other officers did. Christine would never forgive him. His wife was French and Parisian to boot, and although much more open than he was when it came to sex, syphilis was quite another matter. Sometimes he was assailed by the fear that Donatien might not take enough care when it came to testing the girls or might even lie to him about them, but he had been carrying out the task for nearly six years now and there had been no mishaps yet. Donatien might be a fool, but he took the Captain’s threats very seriously. He knew that one mistake would mean being sent up the Lomami River, to the place where the Congolese rebels hunted white men and flayed them alive.

He didn’t want to think about disease any more and so looked instead at one of the knots in the mosquito nets. He focussed on the poem again. ‘I do not speak, Calliope, of the war between white rose and red, nor of that war when, years before, Hector faced Achilles …’ A tiny change had just occurred to him: ‘I do not speak, Calliope, of the war between white rose and red, nor of that war when, as you well know, Hector faced Achilles …’

Sleep overwhelmed him as he was searching for the next line of the poem, and the word that had been in his mind shortly before — syphilis — stirred in his head, presenting him with the image of the Master as he had seen him in Paris once when he was very young and the Master was ill and ugly and contorted with pain. At the whim of the dream, however, the image was immediately replaced by that of another ailing man, sitting in a rocking chair at the door of Government House, staring up at the palm tree in the square. At first, he didn’t realise who it was, because the man’s face was all bruised, but suddenly he did: it was him, Captain Lalande Biran. He had contracted syphilis, and the monkeys were screeching at him from the dense fronds.

When he woke, he was sitting up in bed. Outside, in the jungle, the monkeys really were screeching. And that wasn’t the only true aspect of the dream, the rest of it fitted too, not the details, but the general feeling. He did not feel comfortable in Yangambi. He couldn’t listen to music in Yangambi; there were no cafés in Yangambi like the ones he used to frequent in Paris, La Bonne Nuit, for example, with its white tablecloths; in Yangambi, you couldn’t ever enjoy a bowl of Vichyssoise followed by mouton à la gourmandise. Toisonet laughed at this list of complaints. Once, he had sent Lalande Biran a photo actually taken in La Bonne Nuit, where he could be seen sitting before a platter of mouton à la gourmandise in the company of half a dozen Parisian poets. It should be said, though, that the same boat that brought the photo also brought a crate of Veuve Clicquot. Toisonet could be very good and very wicked at one and the same time.

The Captain noticed Donatien standing on the other side of the mosquito net, and next to him was a girl of about fifteen. She was strong, very like the girl he had imagined. She had thick lips. He could see the shape of her breasts beneath her sariya. And her legs were strong too. She smelled very clean, of the soap Donatien used, and an immaculately white handkerchief covered her eyes. Everything was exactly as he liked. He used to divide this Thursday play into three acts: first, the drawing, then the embraces and caresses, until the moment came to remove the handkerchief from the girl’s eyes; then, the final act.

‘Donatien,’ he said. ‘I’m going to leave a very important letter on my desk in the office. I want you to put the drawing I’m about to do in that same envelope and tomorrow take it down to the boat and place it in the hands of the man in charge of the post. Don’t leave it in the pigeon-hole at the club.’

On some Thursdays, when he’d had his fill, he gave his assistant permission to take the now ex-virgin back with him to his hut. Donatien was waiting to be given this permission now. His Adam’s apple moved up and down in his throat.

‘Bring me my drawing things,’ ordered Lalande Biran.

The Adam’s apple disappeared and reappeared. There would be no prize today. The Captain wanted him to go into the jungle with the askaris and not leave the choice of girl to them. That was why he was being punished.

He placed a sketch pad and three pencils on the Captain’s bed, then, having removed the girl’s clothes, he led her to him. The girl said something, and Donatien replied in one of the few words he knew in the Lingala language: Tsui! Be quiet! He placed one hand on her back and was aware of the heat of her skin.

‘That will be all, Donatien!’ ordered the Captain.

Donatien saluted before leaving. One had to take things as they came. If he couldn’t have that girl, he would have the next. The main thing was to stay in the Captain’s good books and retain his position as orderly, a position that was the envy of all the officers in the garrison, because if they, so to speak, needed to satisfy their itch, they were obliged to take risks and pay for their adventures with one or even several infections.