Seven Houses in France

VII

LIEUTENANT VAN THIEGEL WAS startled to see Lalande Biran striding across the Place du Grand Palmier and hurriedly tried to disguise the chaos in his office by hiding away the piles of paper and clothes that filled the room. After life as a legionnaire and years in the desert, all he needed was a tent, nothing more, just a place to leave his weapons, another for his clothes and somewhere to sleep. He felt uncomfortable anywhere else, both in his mother’s house in Antwerp and in the house he had been assigned as second in command in Yangambi, and he found it impossible to keep things in order.

Fortunately, Lalande Biran merely called to him from the door, without coming in.

‘What’s wrong, Captain?’Van Thiegel asked, going outside and saluting. His first thought was that it must be something to do with the rebels. Whenever some important expedition was announced, the rebels in hiding would somehow find out and prepare an attack. They must have been thrilled to learn about the visit by King Léopold and l’américaine.

Lalande Biran managed to startle him again. It had nothing to do with the rebels. The royal visit had been cancelled. The King would not be visiting the Congo. And the country would have to make do without a queen. In compensation, a beautiful statue of the Virgin, the work of a great sculptor, would be placed at Stanley Falls. That was the new objective: the Virgin of the Congo. Many photographers would attend the ceremony, bearing their brand-new Kodak cameras. Not so many as would have descended on them in order to see the King, but enough to spread the image of Yangambi worldwide.

Van Thiegel had taken in only the first thing Lalande Biran had said and ignored the rest.

‘You mean they’re not coming,’ he said. ‘Bloody hell!’

He began stamping hard on the ground as if he were squashing cockroaches. His boots became spattered with mud.

‘Look, Van Thiegel, we get quite enough noise from the mandrills,’ Lalande Biran said, and Van Thiegel stopped his stamping.

‘Bloody hell!’ he said again.

‘Don’t be too dismissive of our visitors from Brussels,’ Lalande Biran told him sternly. ‘Our future lies in the hands of one of them.’

‘You mean Monsieur X?’ Van Thiegel’s eyes grew steely beneath their puffy lids.

‘This Virgin of the Congo business was probably his idea and he doubtless chose the sculptor himself. Anyway, that isn’t what I came to talk to you about. I wanted to give you some good news. From now on, you are to receive twenty-five per cent of what we earn from each shipment of mahogany. The percentage you’ve been getting up until now was rather low.’

Van Thiegel nodded, as if he had just received an order. ‘What with that and the strict rules on gambling in Yangambi, I’ll be a rich man by the time I return to Europe,’ he said.

They sat down under the big palm tree, on one of the white-painted benches, and Lalande Biran explained what he had in mind. His wife Christine and Monsieur X would very much like to receive another shipment of mahogany and ivory as soon as possible, before Christmas. The rains would make working in the jungle difficult, but they had to try. They could organise a more pleasant outing in the dry season.

‘What do you think? Does that seem feasible? I’ll take care of the ivory.’

Van Thiegel understood. The Captain was asking him to make an extra effort and that was why he had increased his percentage.

‘I would have to take fifty men off the rubber-tapping.’

‘That’s no problem.’

Van Thiegel’s mind split in two. On one side he saw the amount he would earn if he took charge of the mahogany. With the new percentage, the operation would bring in a minimum of 120,000 francs. However, on the other side of his mind — the bad side, so to speak — there was a concern. If he took away fifty rubber workers, that would mean a drop in production of 1, 100 pounds over a period of three weeks. Such a fall would not go unnoticed at the palace in Brussels. It could get them into deep trouble.

Lalande Biran read the thoughts on the bad side of Van Thiegel’s mind. ‘I’ve already worked out a way of justifying the drop in production,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell Brussels that we have to build a road on which to transport the statue of the Virgin as far as the falls. I’ll tell them that it’s possible to get fairly close by boat, but that the last two miles or so has to be done on foot, which is why I need fifty sappers to do the job.’

‘Good idea,’ said Van Thiegel.

Boats could, in fact, get within a hundred yards of the falls, but no one in Brussels would know that.

‘So get those fifty men together and prepare to leave.’

‘I’ll need ten askaris as well. The rubber-tappers have to work in small groups, but when felling mahogany they tend to spread out more, and you know what happens then.’

Lalande Biran agreed, and they walked together to the bank of the river. Lalande Biran’s blue and gold eyes — d’or et d’azur — were shining. He was happy.

He changed the subject and started talking about the gambling situation. ‘I know that a lot of the men in Yangambi resent the limit I set on how much they can bet. They would be prepared to gamble away not just ten francs or a hundred, but their own lives. And that’s perfectly understandable. Any man who lives in Africa, and who might have to fight a lion today or a snake tomorrow, and the day after that a rebel, and who has to struggle on a daily basis to keep the askari troops disciplined and the rubber production at its highest possible level, well, one can hardly expect a man like that to behave like a spinster from Brussels in his spare time. On the other hand, Cocó, what are we doing in this damp dungeon? Why are we here?’

Pausing, Lalande Biran gazed into the distance at the point where jungle and sky merged. The cities he most loved — Paris, Antwerp and Brussels — were more than three thousand miles away.

‘You mean gambling debts, don’t you?’ said Van Thiegel, slowing his pace, but not stopping. He wanted to get to the club.

‘My wife says that it’s madness to devote yourself to earning money in Yangambi only to spend it all in Yangambi as well. She’s quite right, and I don’t want anyone to fall into that trap. That’s why I set that limit.’

‘I told my mother, and she thought it was a good idea. She says I should go back to Europe and set up a business, but I’m not sure …’ Van Thiegel shook his head. ‘Anyway, I agree with you,’ he went on. ‘At least we have plenty of women, which is why most of us put up with being here. That’s why Chrysostome’s such an odd case. I just can’t understand it.’

Lalande Biran ignored Van Thiegel’s final comment. ‘On the subject of rules,’ he said, ‘there’s another one that my men are reluctant to accept. It seems that no one likes having to change their shoes before going into the club. But imagine what would happen if they didn’t. The place would be full of mud. And that wouldn’t be right. The Club Royal should be like an island in Yangambi, what the Latin poets called a locus amoenus.’

They had reached the river bank. The beach was completely empty. It would remain like that for another three weeks, more or less. Thereafter five hundred mahogany logs would occupy the area opposite the jetty. The elephants’ tusks would be on display there too, very clean and white.

They went into the Club Royal. It wasn’t really a building, but a group of four barrack huts. The first was used as a changing-room, and there you could find the officers’ lockers and the pigeon-holes for their post; the second contained the bar and the gaming room; the third, right on the bank of the river, served as porch or terrace; the fourth and largest hut was set slightly apart from the others and served as the club storeroom.

‘Oh, I agree with that rule too,’ said Van Thiegel. He was taking off his muddy boots. ‘I find the club a very restful place. It’s much more pleasant than my office.’

Lalande half-closed his eyes. This was his way of smiling. ‘I’m pleased to hear it, Cocó. If a garrison is to work well, the commanding officers have to be in agreement.’

‘Who else will be going on the hunt?’ asked Van Thiegel.

‘Chrysostome. It’s best to be on the safe side and take a good marksman along, don’t you think?’

Van Thiegel wondered if Chrysostome would get a percentage of the profits from the ivory. If so, Lalande Biran was ranking him higher than he did Van Thiegel. Going hunting was more exciting than felling trees. A hundred times more.

‘He’s an excellent shot, there’s no doubt about that,’ he answered. ‘How many men are you taking altogether?’

‘Thirty porters, ten sappers and ten askaris as guards. It’s all arranged.’

Van Thiegel crouched down to tie the laces of the clean boots he had just put on. That was a lot of men. It wasn’t so very hard to find and kill five male elephants. And five askaris would be more than enough to guard thirty porters and ten sappers. With someone like Chrysostome on hand, you could make do with even fewer. And they would need a lot of cartridges. Knowing Lalande Biran, at least two hundred.

‘That’ll mean a lot of cartridges. You never can tell in the jungle,’ he said.

Lalande Biran merely nodded.

That night, Van Thiegel stayed very late at the club. When he did finally leave, a new rumour had sprung into life in Yangambi. It turned on the elephant hunt, with the number of cartridges the main motive for speculation. Various figures were bandied about, two hundred, three hundred and fifty, even the incredible figure of five hundred. A day passed, and like dough that has been left to rest, the quantity swelled and grew: it would be four hundred cartridges. Another day, and the vox populi of Yangambi announced the distribution: two hundred for Captain Lalande Biran; one hundred for Chrysostome; ten for each of the askaris.

On the third day, when Lalande Biran, Chrysostome, the askaris, the sappers and the bearers were setting off, the now poisonous rumour was circulating among the officers in Yangambi. They could understand the Captain having two hundred cartridges, and the number set aside for the askaris too, because they were going hunting and would need more than the customary two; but they simply couldn’t stomach the one hundred cartridges allotted to Chrysostome. A sharpshooter like him would need, at most, twenty cartridges to kill five elephants.

Before the party had disappeared into the depths of the jungle, a large black mamba of a word was slithering slyly from one hut to another in Yangambi. In the end, it managed to climb not only onto Van Thiegel’s table, but onto each and every table in the Club Royal. It was humiliating that such a privilege — one hundred cartridges! — should be given to that great poofter Chrysostome, the biggest pédé in the whole Force Publique.