JUNGLE FEVER

The set designers had done a good job: you could have been in Europe. The ‘mahogany door on the first floor’ had not been at all difficult to track down: ngollan was not expensive here. For the marble chimney of a ‘monumental whiteness’ and for the grand piano ‘like a sombre and polished sarcophagus’, the set designer had, by default, opted for a sepulchral look. A side table, a patched armchair, the existing curtains, an imported rug: filming the Intended’s scenes in the old casino in Kribi cost less than anywhere else. Very European, yes, except for the heat. She and Vincent tried to laugh about it, he in his suit and tie, she in her dress buttoned up to the neck.

She was overwhelmed with nerves. Not because of Cassel: she’d already worked with big names like him. It was Kouhouesso. That connection they had. She had always avoided affairs with directors. She had a pain in her gut. She was taking Imodium every day, as well as quinine infusions. Welcome and Olga were fighting. Welcome was irritable; the colours were running. If things dragged on, they’d have to start the whole thing again—they should have invested in air conditioning. And yet, acting out the cold was possible, like acting out Europe, or acting out sadness.

Olga seemed exhausted. And everyone called her ‘The Chinese Girl’, which infuriated her. The dress and the three-piece suit had never made it to Kribi. Perhaps they were floating in the middle of the Atlantic like debris from a shipwreck. The customs office at Douala operated like a filter, from where indispensable objects reappeared, or not. Olga had had to make another dress, find the appropriate material, dye it, starch it, get some little mother-of-pearl-like buttons made as fast as possible, dig up some lace from somewhere, cobble together a corset, and cut out a frock coat for Cassel from a fireman’s suit.

And the light. The room was facing north, but there was flaring and the lighting engineers were having trouble. While he waited, Kouhouesso filmed small sections of the Intended’s scene with a lightweight camera. He filmed her hands, resting on her knees that were draped in black. She saw them through his eyes: bare hands, pure white, bright blue veins. Welcome had given her a quick manicure… She surrendered her hands to him, the camera moved over them, it was gentle, it was good. Kouhouesso, all for her…

He was looking at her. He was filming her eyes. She stared deep into the lens. Bodies and shadows passed by at the edge of her vision. Welcome. Vincent. Lighting assistants. Set-design assistants, the assistant cinematographer. Kouhouesso was moving back, pulling away from her, and her eyes followed him, the light. The room was spinning, floating…Diaphanous blonde, halo of ash blonde. Lights. She was perfect for the role, it was made for her…Camera. Oh, she felt beautiful, and sad, and desolate. Her clear, smooth forehead illuminated by belief and love…‘No one knew him so well as I…I had all his noble confidence. I knew him best…’

‘Cut,’ said Kouhouesso. ‘We can’t hear you.’

‘No one knew him…He needed me…’

He was staring at her, scrutinising her. She would have liked to have more precise direction, for him to explain this man and this woman to her. For him to tell her the story of their love, tell her again about their betrothal…He kept her in the dark. In the blazing light. And the cameras were not filming, after all. The sun was annoying everyone. Cassel sat down again. Welcome put more powder on him. They started from the top.

‘You knew him best…’ Cassel was Marlow and himself at the same time, just like people speak two languages and come, self-evidently, from two places. In his reply was a hint of cruel doubt, a whole Congo of haziness; she and he had not known the same Kurtz…She had the impression of waltzing, but it was a desperate waltz. The light was worsening, all the efforts of the staff would not prevent the sun from rising…Action, action, Solange: ‘I have been very happy—very fortunate—very proud…Too fortunate. Too happy for a little while. And now I am unhappy for—for life…’ Tears filled her eyes, she was good, she was perfect, but Kouhouesso was not looking at her. Cut.

Instead of its usual grey, the sky flaunted blue depths and a parade of clouds. It flickered on the camera screen, like the light-and-shadow effect of Super 8. They could have been in the Île-de-France. Kouhouesso opened a window; the curtains blew; he inspected the sky as if waiting, from one rim to the other, for birds, omens, a gap in time that would last the length of the scene.

They were not there yet.

Around two o’clock, however, they were getting there, thanks to a big cumulus cloud that turned into a huge storm-filled sky, but which did not burst. They were running behind schedule; the convoy of four-wheel drives took them back in a whirl of dust—any pedestrian who did not get out of the way knew his fate, yikes! God’s pencil does not have an eraser. They stopped at Little-Poco: they were dropping her off, picking up Favour on the way and leaving to film the scenes on the river.

Why didn’t she go to Poco-Beach? She’d be much better off at Poco-Beach. They talked about it for five minutes out the front of Siphindile’s. The heat was appalling. In the shade of the verandah they were haggling over monkeys. The little hanging bodies were stiffening without getting cold. At Poco-Beach she could be eating lobster.

Everyone was looking at them, both standing in the grey full sunlight. She said she would go there straight after Kurtz’s death. Olga had made her yet another dress, a white one, for the scene in the caves. ‘George loves it,’ she assured him. Kouhouesso said nothing. He kissed her. For a long time, on the mouth. He held her gently by the waist and an electric current shot up the back of her neck. He left again in a four-wheel drive. For an instant, she stood there, stunned, her eyes seeing shadows where there were none.

The whole village had seen them kissing: it was official. Even if they had made headlines in the Hollywood Reporter her heart would not have been thumping this hard.

‘Jungle fever,’ said Siphindile. The girls starting laughing. It was a diagnosis: their saying for when a white woman wants a black man. And, sometimes, vice versa. The witch was at it, too: inoffensive laughter, as if none of it was too serious.