The villas of the European employees of the company stood in a district, well outside the city proper, which Lahbib – without knowing quite why – had once christened ‘the Vatican’.
The houses themselves were all alike, with prefabricated roofs, well-kept lawns, graveled walks, and porches surrounded by a low cement railing. In spite of the nearness of the railroad yards and the constant pall of smoke that hung over them, they had been painted in clear, light colors. Ivy and flowering vines climbed up the posts supporting the porch roofs, and flowers in pots or boxes ornamented the railings. In the gardens at the rear, rose bushes and borders of daisies and snapdragons made vivid areas of color, shaded from the tropical sun by giant bougainvilleas.
Life was easy in ‘the Vatican’ – so easy that it became extremely monotonous, and the adults all seemed to have taken on that scowling, sullen appearance which is the hallmark of boredom. The strike, however, had changed the atmosphere considerably; a constant nervous tension hung in the air, and fear was mingled with normal irritability. The men had secretly organized vigilante committees.
The Isnards lived at No. 7, between the villas of Victor and Leblanc, and the ‘old hands’, as they liked to call themselves, met frequently at the supervisor’s house. They came, usually, just to gossip about the general situation, to speculate on the chances for promotions or transfers, and to give out or learn whatever news there was; and in the course of their meetings they formed petty alliances and conspiracies and spread a good deal of slander. A large part of the time it was the mistress of the house who led them on.
Beatrice Isnard was well past forty, but she was fighting a desperate rear-guard action against the advance of the years. Each night she covered her face with a thick coating of fatty cream, and before the strike she had always slept on the veranda, in the belief that the freshness of the night air would keep her skin firm and youthful. She was not at all satisfied with her face; her nose was too long, and despite her creams and depilatories a fine black down persisted in reappearing on the line above her upper lip.
On the evening of the day the company had notified the strikers of the prospective meeting, she had invited Victor, Leblanc, and a newly arrived young man, whom everyone already called Pierrot, for dinner. In the spotlessly clean and well-ordered kitchen she was grumbling irritably at the Negro cook and kitchen boy.
‘You haven’t even beaten the eggs yet? Well, for heaven’s sake, get a move on! The dinner will be ruined.’
The second boy was setting out the silver and arranging the bottles of wine on the gleaming white cloth of the dining-room table. Through the open door the voices of the men could be heard from the living room. They were seated around a coffee table whose highly polished wood reflected the varied colors of aperitif bottles, glasses, and packages of cigarettes.
‘I don’t know what happened to me – I fired without knowing what I was doing!’
For the hundredth time, Isnard was repeating the same phrase, in a nasal, almost childlike voice, as if he were trying to remember a passage from some schoolday lesson he had long since forgotten. He had been living in a sort of suspended animation ever since the night of the shooting. For twenty- four hours he had not spoken a word to his wife, and several times he had gone in search of his children, holding them close to him for a moment and staring absently into the distance. He had forbidden them to go any farther from the house than their own garden.
When he had at last told Beatrice what happened, she had simply said, ‘After all, one or two children more or less won’t make much difference to them. The number of children running around over there is incredible anyway … The women don’t wait to have one before they’re pregnant with another …’
But Isnard just went on muttering. ‘I don’t know what happened to me … I don’t know …’
‘Look here,’ Victor said. ‘You’ve got to stop thinking about that. We’re all living on our nerves right now. There are times when I find myself talking to myself and saying stupid things like, “All right, go ahead – go out and get yourself killed!” The way they have of just looking at you all the time is enough to set anyone crazy. Don’t think about it anymore. No one saw you – it will all be forgotten.’
Pierrot, the newcomer, listened to them silently, his lips clasped firmly around a cigarette. Since his arrival he had found himself unable to avoid a kind of admiration for these ‘old hands’ in the colony and for the hard and thankless, but fascinating, life that must have been theirs.
Victor uncrossed his legs, leaned across the table, and poured himself an apéritif. ‘You’ll see,’ he said to his young neighbor, ‘you have to learn how to forget. Twenty years ago there was nothing here but an arid wilderness. We built this city. Now they have hospitals, schools, and trains, but if we ever leave they’re finished – the brush will take it all back. There wouldn’t be anything left.’
Pierrot leaned back in his chair and lit another cigarette. ‘I’d like to know something about how they live,’ he said uncertainly. ‘I’ve wandered around a little in the past few days, but I haven’t seen very much. In the district around the airfield the houses are nothing but rats’ nests. They were swarming with vermin, and, my God, the smell …! I wanted to take some pictures of a child, but his mother came out and cursed me to my face, so I didn’t bother with it. I never thought Africa would be like that.’
‘It’s their own fault if they live in places like that. You can always take pictures of the boys or the beggars, but don’t give them more than twenty francs. This part of Africa is pretty ugly anyway, though – aside from two or three cities there isn’t anything of any interest in the whole of Sénégal. Now you take French Equatorial Africa – that’s something else again. You’ll find all the real animal life of Africa there – and the natives are a lot more peaceable, too!’
The young man refused to be discouraged. ‘You could give me some tips, though. For one thing, I’d like to get to know a real African family.’
‘You must have read too many books! The best thing you can do is forget that nonsense. I’ve been out here longer than almost anyone else, and I don’t know any of them except for my servants and the men in the shop. They keep their distance, and so do we. Ask Isnard.’
But Isnard had left them, although he still sat across the table from them, his eyes half closed, staring at the wall. He had fled from everything around him, escaped from it completely, and taken shelter in a dream. It was winter, and snow lay deep on the gabled roofs of the houses and on the pine trees climbing the slope of the hills. Isnard was home again, in a little village in the Vosges. Spring came suddenly, with burgeoning flowers everywhere and the clear mountain streams running fresh again. Soon it was summer and the Bastille Day festival in the village square. The owner of the hotel brought out tables and chairs, and at night there was dancing in the open air. There were young girls – there was one young girl who left the dancing and walked off alone, toward the viaduct. He followed her, and when he joined her she pretended to be angry and pouted a little, but her eyes gave her away … And then the summer had passed. The leaves from the trees covered the ground, only the pines were still green, it was the time for gathering in the honey …
Beatrice came into the room, untying her neatly pressed white apron. ‘Well, gentlemen,’ she said. ‘We’re not very talkative tonight.’
‘Oh, good evening, madame,’ Pierrot said, rising politely. ‘I’ve just been asking Monsieur Victor and your husband how I could get to know one of the native families.’
‘Well, I don’t advise you to do it.’ The tone of Beatrice’s voice indicated clearly her intention of organizing the newcomer’s life in her own fashion. ‘You have absolutely nothing to gain from it except lice or one of their diseases … When you think of these half-savages going on strike! Honestly, I think I’ve seen everything now.’
‘That’s exactly what I would like to understand, madame.’
‘There nothing to understand. They are children, that’s all. Somebody has put some wild ideas in their heads, but they’ll see sooner or later – this strike is going to cost them a lot more than they can possibly gain from it. Just imagine – they’re all polygamous, and yet they’re asking for family allowances. With the number of children they have! It’s incredible!’
His wife’s diatribe had brought Isnard out of his trance. He swallowed a mouthful of his apéritif and turned to Pierrot. ‘I’ve done everything I could for them. I’ve given my youth and health to this country of theirs, trying to do something for them; and now they are treating us as oppressors!’
‘Tell him the story about your Negress,’ Beatrice said, seating herself on the arm of the couch.
Isnard put down his glass and brought his eyebrows together quizzically, as though he had difficulty in remembering. ‘It was one night a long time ago,’ he said at last. ‘I had just gone to sleep. In fifteen years in the colonies I’ve never seen a night like that – black as a pit and a wind that you thought would carry the huts away. In those days we didn’t have these bungalows yet. Well, I had gone to bed and finally gotten to sleep when suddenly I heard someone calling, “Missé! Missé!” At first, I’ll tell you I was scared, but as soon as I was really awake I started laughing, thinking it was just some girl for the night – they used to come around like that – and what a fool she was to be out. Well, I got up and went to the door and lit my flashlight, and what do you think I saw? A Negress, all right, but a gigantic one. I took a closer look at her and saw that she had a belly as big as a wine barrel. Then she started bellowing, “Doctor! Doctor!” in English, and for a minute I didn’t know what she meant. All of a sudden she fell down on her hands and knees, screaming like a wild woman, and started to have her baby – yes, to have a baby, right there on the ground in front of me! The baby came out all right, but I had nothing to separate it from the woman’s body, nothing at all. Do you know what I did?’
Pierrot, who was feeling slightly ill at the thought of the big black body opening up, and blood flowing across the ground, shook his head.
‘Well, I did it with my teeth. That was the only thing I had, so I did it with my teeth.’
‘Good God,’ the young man murmured.
‘You see what I meant?’ Beatrice demanded. ‘That’s the sort of thing that happens in the colonies.’
At this moment they all heard a thick, slurring voice from the veranda. ‘Don’t believe a word of what that liar says!’ It was Leblanc. He was already very drunk and almost fell as he came up the steps.
‘He’s told that story a hundred times, and it’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.’ He pointed an unsteady finger at Isnard. ‘Take a look at him. With his teeth, he says! With those store-bought teeth of his he couldn’t bite into a rum baba! As for you, my young friend, you seem to have all the right ideas, but just wait a little while and you’ll see what happens to them. And as for me, I’ll tell you frankly that I don’t like these blacks. They not only despise us but now they’re trying to pretend we aren’t even here. Do you know what we are, in this place, my young friend? We’re nothing but an advance guard in an enemy country!’
Isnard, Beatrice, and Victor stared at Leblanc in disgust. They called him ‘our intellectual’ sneeringly, and although they continued to receive him in their homes because he belonged to their race they had nothing but contempt for him. He was an ex-student who had arrived in Africa one day ‘to study anthropology’. After wandering about the continent for some time with a Haitian Negro companion, he had accepted a minor position with the company and remained in Africa ever since, dividing his time between work and drinking.
There were very few people who recognized that Leblanc’s present condition was more the result of unrealized hope than of any thwarted ambition. He had tried in vain to establish some sort of friendly relationship with the Africans, but his knowledge intimidated them and his natural shyness made it difficult for them to approach him. This hostility – or rather, this lack of any response to his efforts – had gradually discouraged him, and his drinking had completed the work. He had become a harrow, bitter person, laughed at by the blacks and mistrusted by the whites.
Pierrot could not take his eyes from Leblanc’s flabby, rumpled face. The yellowish, unshaven skin made him look like a plucked fowl, his eyelids drooped, and the scars of climate and alcohol had deformed and pitted his features. A heavy odor of sweat steamed from his open shirt.
The young man rose to say good night, but Beatrice stopped him. ‘No, no, Monsieur Pierre – you must stay and have dinner with us. We’re waiting for Edouard.’
‘By all means stay then, young man,’ Leblanc said, pouring himself another drink. ‘Edouard is a very important man – it’s a good idea to have him on your side. Believe me, in the colonies a few friends in high places are worth a lot more than twenty years of work. And tomorrow it will be Edouard who is going to represent the gangsters against the Negroes.’
Beatrice turned to him abruptly. ‘Aren’t you ashamed of yourself, Leblanc, acting like this? What will Monsieur Pierre think of us?’
‘Ah, but that isn’t the question. The question is, what do the Negroes think of us?’
‘Oh, shut up about your Negroes,’ Victor interrupted angrily. ‘You get damned boring after a while.’
‘But I’m not really the one who bores you – it’s “my Negroes”, as you call them. But you haven’t seen anything yet. Now that those two kids have been murdered, we’re going to see the hour of truth.’
‘What truth, Leblanc?’ asked a jovial voice from the veranda. ‘Good evening, everyone.’
Edouard came into the room, carrying a large briefcase. ‘Good evening, madame – Isnard, your wife is just as beautiful as ever – the heat doesn’t seem to affect her at all.’
Beatrice laughed. ‘And you don’t change either – always the flatterer. How is your wife?’
‘Still fighting with the boys, as usual, but, aside from that, everything is fine.’
‘They are really becoming impossible. I…’
‘… should be damned glad to have them,’ Leblanc said. ‘Another one of our privileges that will be hard to give up – four black servants for the price of one in Europe.’
‘Be careful what you say, Leblanc – you could get yourself in trouble. It might be a good idea if you went to see Doctor Michel.’
‘Oh, I know all about your Doctor Michel, and I know exactly what would happen. I wouldn’t have turned my back before his telephone was ringing. “Hello, is that you, doctor? Leblanc is coming over to see you. He isn’t well, and he really should be sent home … you understand, don’t you? Of course, thank you, doctor.”’ Leblanc acted out the scene as he spoke, holding his glass in one hand and an imaginary telephone in the other. When he had finished, he tossed off the drink in a single swallow and collapsed against the back of his chair, as if he had been knocked unconscious. No one except Pierrot paid any attention to him.
‘What news is there from Dakar?’ Victor asked Edouard.
‘Nothing; but they have heard the news from Thiès. They know the story of the apprentices … and I’m to meet with the fellows tomorrow and see what they have on their chests, that’s all.’
‘Are you supposed to satisfy their demands or try to work out a compromise?’
‘Satisfying their demands isn’t possible – but we have to talk to them. They are children who want to learn to walk by themselves, and it is up to us to give them a hand.’
‘You know that if they get everything they are asking for we are finished here?’
‘Look, Victor, I came from Dakar with very clear instructions, and I saw Dejean before coming here tonight. We’re going to try to do everything we can about the matter of salaries; for the rest, I’ll see what they want and make a report, but you have to realize that the bastards have got us over a barrel. Do you know that at Bamako they picked up a man who had gone back to work, by disguising themselves as policemen? And then they held a trial, right under our noses! They’re talking about it everywhere, and since it happened we haven’t been able to get one of them to go back. At Dakar and Saint-Louis some of the women have been battling with the police in the streets. Then there is that story about the three million francs … Did you know that Bakayoko, their leader, raised more than fifty thousand francs when he spoke at a meeting in Saint-Louis?’
‘I thought he was at Kayes,’ Victor said.
‘He was, but then he came back this way. We thought he was coming here, but he stopped at Djoubel and then went to Saint-Louis. He’ll be back here soon, though.’
‘He’s a dangerous man,’ Isnard said.
‘For once, you are right,’ Leblanc said, opening a bloodshot eye. ‘Very dangerous. But be careful – he’ll be more dangerous dead than alive.’
‘There’s nothing more disgusting than a drunken failure,’ Victor said, looking at Leblanc angrily.
‘That’s true; I am a failure,’ Leblanc said. ‘I’ve failed at everything, even treachery. I like the Negroes, or I used to like them – but they shut their doors in my face. I’ll tell you something, though. I sent them twenty thousand francs to help out with their strike. Yes, that’s right; you don’t have to look at me like a bunch of dead fish – I did it. Twice, I sent them a ten-thousand-franc note.’
He got up and bumped heavily against the coffee table, causing the glasses to jump. He filled his and emptied it again with a single gulp.
‘That took you by surprise, didn’t it? Why, you … I think I’ll go and tell them what you are planning now. I may be a failure, but when I’m around you … Victor, do you know why Greece couldn’t defend herself against the Romans? No, of course you don’t, you’re much too stupid for that. All right, it’s true enough that the Negroes don’t like me, but it’s because of you and people like you that they don’t. It doesn’t mean that I don’t understand Africa – this trollop of a continent! Do you hear me, my young friend? If you really love Africa, she will still give herself to you – she is so generous that she never ceases to give; and so greedy that she will never stop devouring you.’
He had started toward Pierrot, but he stumbled against a chair and would have fallen if the young man had not caught him.
‘Just understand that,’ he mumbled. ‘The Negroes hate you; that’s one thing we’re all agreed on. I think I’ll go and see what I can do to make sure they hate you more.’
‘Someone had better go with him,’ Victor said.
‘Right,’ Isnard said. ‘We’ll take him home.’
They caught up with Leblanc, who was weaving uncertainly around the veranda, looking for the steps.
‘I don’t need you – I know what you’re going to do. Let me go!’
They each took him by the arm and almost carried him away. Some children had come out to the sidewalk to see what was happening, and windows were being opened in the neighboring houses.
Pierrot was still standing beside the coffee table, embarrassed and not knowing quite what to do. Beatrice came over to him, standing so close that her breasts brushed against him.
‘It was to be expected,’ she said. ‘Don’t let it bother you. Stay and have dinner with us – they’ll be back in a few minutes. We can get better acquainted.’
Her voice hardened suddenly, and she added, ‘It’s what always happens to fools.’