Jacques Delpech came directly from his office to the Italian ambassador’s garden party. That morning he had returned, relieved, from another trip to Lubumbashi where the plant appeared to be returning to normal production after a series of fights, strikes, and the usual transportation problems. A Sabena stewardess, one of his wife’s friends, had stopped by his office and left off a long, abusive letter detailing Janine’s plans for a separation and a financial settlement. The letter read like the whining of an old, miserly, distant relative, secretly aware that her claims on your life and money are bogus.
Though Jacques, like other businessmen in Africa, made it a point to keep up his social obligations—parties were never simply parties but ways of getting information and making necessary contacts—he had come to the Italian ambassador’s residence primarily in search of his accountant, a young bachelor who played mahjong on Thursday afternoons with the ambassador’s wife and was a regular guest at official receptions.
The long drive leading up to the residence was lined with drivers, chatting and smoking, standing alongside Mercedes and Peugeots. Flame trees glowed orange, and plump scarlet blossoms fallen from tulip trees stained the gravel drive in ragged blood-red circles. Grey guinea fowl, which the ambassador believed would kill any snakes in the garden, noisily roamed the lawn, glistening acid green in the late afternoon sun.
Barefoot houseboys in starched white uniforms with rows of gold buttons moved silently through the crowd offering trays of drinks and hors-d’oeuvres. Women glittered in heavy gold jewelry and diamonds and wore cool, brightly colored dresses that bared their shoulders and arms. They swayed back and forth trying to balance their drinks and keep their thin high heels from plunging into the soft, moist lawn.
Jacques was standing under an arbor of bougainvillea talking with his accountant, slightly apart from the general flow of guests in the garden, when Nicole Scott, in black Thai silk pants and a blouse like a man’s tuxedo shirt, interrupted them.
“I’ve brought someone to meet you,” she said, looking at Jacques and ignoring the young accountant, who turned and strolled away. She was deeply tanned and held by the arm a short, dark-haired man with a mustache. “This is Guy Marceau.”
Jacques turned and looked down at the man at Nicole’s side. As they shook hands, Jacques was startled by the man’s expression and wondered what stories Nicole could have told him.
“Guy is with Petro-France,” Nicole said, and Jacques smiled, remembering her almost mystical faith in the power of oil company executives. In one of her more recent liaisons with a Mobil oilman, Nicole had almost snatched the gold ring, but the man’s wife had refused to give him a divorce, and the affair had limped along and died after the Mobil man failed to appear at a rendez-vous at the Hotel Meurice in Paris.
“I’ve got a terrific party house.” The short Frenchman’s face appeared to be struggling to find a pleasant expression. He had a tidy little body and long, expressive hands with fingertips stained amber brown. “Nicole can tell you what great parties we have.”
Amused, Jacques raised an eyebrow at the proprietary “we” and glanced at Nicole. “I’m sure.”
“Don’t we, Nicole?”
“Formidable, really terrific,” she said.
“Yes, formidable,” Marceau said, his angry hawk stare never leaving Jacques’ face.
“So, Petro-France has set up an office in Kinshasa, has it? I knew that the drilling in Equateur has been successful,” Jacques said.
“Splendid offices. In the C.C.I.Z. building, opposite the InterCon. You should drop in sometime. Sixteenth floor. Beautiful view of the river. The city, too, and Brazzaville.” He seemed barely able to get his words out, so absorbed was he in scrutinizing Jacques’ face.
Jacques lit a cigarette. The small man seemed awfully keen on local real estate. “Do the elevators work?”
“Sometimes,” Marceau said, a quick flash of anger darkening his eyes. “I mean, sometimes they don’t work.”
The Centre Commercial International du Zaïre building sat like a dead and decaying glassy monster of modern architecture amid the profuse tropical growth along the river. Twenty stories tall, it had been built by the French at an extravagant cost to Zaïre in the late seventies with so many payoffs that there was apparently little left over to construct a functioning building. The electricity rarely worked, shutting down the elevators, the air-conditioning, lights, and office machines. Since the windows were sealed and the stairwells pitch black holes in the middle of the building, corporations steered clear of it and most of its offices were vacant. The ground floor had become a hangout for beggars and salesmen of trinkets and ashtrays in the ubiquitous copper and malachite and ivory.
“My card,” the Frenchman said. “We must meet for lunch.”
“Oh, yes, mine, too,” Jacques ran his hands through his pockets. “Ah, sorry. I don’t seem to have any. Happy to have met you.”
With that, he grabbed a glass of pink champagne from a passing tray, lifted it briefly in salute, turned, and was gone.
“The usual cocktail party vanishing act,” Nicole said dryly as they watched Jacques walk away toward the ambassador’s wife.
“He didn’t like me,” Marceau said.
“He’s jealous, that’s all.”
She looked so lost, standing there on the terrace in her simple outfit among the chattering crowd of perfumed and smoothly coifed women, self-conscious, preening themselves in their latest indulgences from the elegant boutiques of Paris, Brussels, and Geneva, that Jacques stopped on his way to thank his hostess to introduce himself and ask if he could get her a drink.
“It’s so hot, thank you,” Sarah Laforge said, fanning herself with the stiff invitation she had received for the party.
She wanted a scotch and soda, and Jacques was surprised, having expected her to ask for a simple tonic or a Coke. Perhaps she was not a missionary, after all, but then, what would a missionary be doing at a diplomatic party? Peace Corps, probably. She was dressed in a dark blue batik print peasant skirt and a simple white, gauzy blouse with dark circles of perspiration under the arms. She looked damp, hot, uncomfortable. She wore thick-soled leather sandals, and Jacques noticed that she had delicate, surprisingly slender feet for a woman so tall. Her thick, springy hair, a sun-streaked strawberry blond, masses of it, kinky, tightly curled, was pulled back in an elastic band at the nape of the neck. She was definitely an unusual presence at the Italian ambassador’s garden party.
“You look familiar,” Jacques said, when he returned with her drink. “Haven’t we met before? It seems to me we have.”
“I don’t think so,” Sarah said, her wide set blue eyes full of amusement.
“You’ve heard that before?”
“Yes,” she said gently. “A few times.” She drank thirstily. “Are you French? Your name sounds French.”
“No, Belgian.”
“Then let’s speak French, shall we? I never speak the language, except with my assistant, and my servant,” she said in fluent French. “I’m always with Americans. I think I ought to speak the language of the country I work in.”
She had the manner of a schoolteacher, and he thought with painful longing of his father and his self-discipline, his humorous obsession with self-improvement.
Sarah fanned herself. “It’s so hot. I’m not used to the heat. The air-conditioner doesn’t work in my apartment, and my shipment hasn’t arrived.”
“Ah, c’est l’Afrique,” Jacques said.
“What does that mean?” she asked sharply.
Jacques looked at her. “I don’t understand,” he said, “you speak perfect French.”
“I know,” she said impatiently. “I know, but everybody goes around saying that. Every time I say something, they come back with that. I don’t understand what it means.”
“Why, I suppose it means that you can’t expect everything to go smoothly here. Things aren’t necessarily logical or efficient or dependable. As they are in your country, I’m sure.” He was rather rattled by her abruptness, but her accent made him smile. She sounded like a peasant from a potato field. “Are you French-Canadian?”
“My father is. Was. My mother, though, is very New England, a descendant of Jonathan Edwards. The Puritan minister. The last gasp of Puritanism really.” She felt like a backward teenager babbling away with this man who looked as much like a movie star as any she had ever seen. Yet he seemed totally unaware of how attractive he was. To her great surprise, and irritation, she found herself wanting to impress him. “I’m sorry, Puritanism probably doesn’t mean much to you, does it?”
“No, not really. But no need to apologize.” Up close, he could see a splash of golden freckles covering her slim nose and her cheeks. Her skin was very pale and moist and her eyes round and childlike.
Over her shoulder he saw Augusta Pearce, the American consul, step out of the shade of a papaya tree and start across the lawn toward the terrace, her bright party smile firmly in place, closing her eyes as she lifted her face to the afternoon sun.
“I should know more about your country,” Jacques said, disappointed at seeing Gussie Pearce bearing down on them. “You are American, aren’t you?”
“Oh, yes. Yes, I am,” Sarah said, jumping nervously as Gussie put her hands on her shoulders.
“Yes, what, dahlin’?” Gussie asked, looking flirtatiously at Jacques. Her high heels screeched disagreeably against the flagstones; the toe of one shiny black patent pump was smeared with guinea fowl turd like a dollop of white and green whipped cream.
“Mr. Delpech asked me whether I was American, Gussie.”
“Of course, she is. She’s our new cultural attaché. Dudn’t she look just as American as can be?” crooned Gussie Pearce, wrapping her fragrant arms around him. “Trois fois . . . à la belge,” she said, kissing him three times on the cheek, darting her pointed chin back and forth. She then leaned back a little, still pressing against him, and rubbed her lipstick from his cheeks with her fingers. Jacques suddenly remembered Carter Everett’s surprising comment about Sarah Laforge at the poker table, Donovan’s young widow, the new girl in town. She’s lovely, really lovely, Carter had said, keeping his eyes lowered.
Finally, satisfied, Gussie released him and turned to Sarah. “Look at you. Aren’t you sumpin’? I leave you alone two minutes, and you end up with the handsomest man in Kinshasa. Now, aren’t you a hoot?”