Pandora in the Congo

  Marcus didn’t know how to do it. Her armour was even more delicate than Mr Tecton’s. It fitted round her neck and wrists perfectly. Marcus ran a hand along her shoulders, breasts and belly, searching her, looking for some hidden button. The armour was incredibly compact, of one single piece, rough to the touch. No button appeared. She understood Marcus’s intentions. She turned to show him her back. At first Marcus thought that that was her way of refusing to be stripped naked. He panicked. William and Richard’s rifle barrels were still there, just feet away. Fortunately she wasn’t refusing, she was showing him how to take off her armour. Marcus looked more carefully, and on the woman’s back he could see some tiny clasps. He tried to undo one, but all ten of his fingers trembled.

  ‘Don’t be afraid,’ said Richard, mistaking Marcus’s feelings. ‘We’ve got a close eye on her.’

  She had to help him. Her arms were very long. They moved back in a contortionist’s pose and undid the ten clasps in five seconds. The only thing Marcus did was finish taking off the tunic. She had extended her arms so it would be easier for him, and the whole armour came off like a banana peel.

  ‘All of it!’ shouted William. ‘Take it all off!’

  Below the tunic the young woman wore a vest and some skintight red trousers. Marcus moved a hand towards the shirtsleeves, but he stopped halfway. Instead of touching her he brought his hand to his cheeks. They were very warm. Especially his ears, which burned as if he had stuck his head in an oven. Had the touch of her hand made his whole body warm? No, that warmth had a different source: the embarrassment of taking a woman’s clothes off.

  ‘Marcus!’ shouted William.

  And with the tip of his rifle he poked him twice in the back. Luckily the young woman understood what the Craver brothers were demanding and she helped him. Her shirt came off over her head pulled by four hands at once. Then she stood up. Until that moment they had only seen her lying down. She was very tall, almost six feet. Marcus bent down and lowered her trousers, grabbing them where the pockets would have been. Her white thighs went on forever. She stood and looked at him as if she didn’t quite understand why he was doing that.

  From the beams hung nine oil lamps. But the woman’s body would have been completely visible anyway: it was so white that just a speck of light would have been enough to see her. She was even whiter than Mr Tecton. Her nipples, for example, were also white. And in her pubic area there was a small rug spread, like while velvet. Only some crusty traces of ochre mud, on her hands and in her hair, attenuated that whiteness.

  ‘That’s what the monkeys were squawking so much about?’ said William. ‘A little white albino, dirty and lost.’

  ‘Albino?’ asked Richard.

  ‘Didn’t you see any in Leopoldville? Black albinos are very strange. Like white Negroes, or black whites. There must be a fair lot of albinos around here. That must be it.’

  ‘And they live underground, these black albinos?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘But we saw her come out of the hole,’ insisted Richard with his ox-like stubbornness. ‘Marcus saw it too. Didn’t you, Marcus?’

  ‘So?’ William was losing his patience.

  ‘So she must have come from underground.’

  ‘No, Richard, that can’t be,’ said William with a sarcastic ring to his voice.

  ‘And why not?’

  William answered with deliberate intonation, dogmatic and violent, dragging each syllable. ‘Because underground there are no people, Richard. People don’t live underground. Underground there are only dead people buried in cemeteries.’

  Richard still dared one last dissension. ‘Perhaps not. But in that case, what was she doing underground?’

  ‘Think about it for a second! The most likely scenario is that she came with the old man. For some reason she must have stayed back. When she saw that we tied up the old man, she hid in the mine. Then the Negroes went into the mine, and she must have gone into the hole where we found her. Three days ago. What she wasn’t expecting was that the Negroes never left the mine. She was exhausted and in the end she had to come out.’ He picked up the young woman’s armour with the tip of his rifle. ‘Look at these clothes! Why are they so dirty and wrinkled? Because she’s been stuck in these catacombs for three days.’

  ‘Or because she comes from far away,’ murmured Marcus.

  ‘Did you say something?’ demanded William.

  Marcus, naturally, didn’t repeat himself.

  ‘Have her put the red pyjamas back on,’ William ordered. ‘I don’t want the monkeys to see her naked. They’re capable of anything.’

  And he took her. Richard and Marcus followed him. Once they were out of the mine, William had the Negroes surround her. He stood firmly with his legs apart and his hands on his hips. Pepe translated what he said.

  ‘This is what you were so afraid of! A little girl. Look at her! And you, one hundred men, whining with fear because you heard a creature moaning. Aren’t you ashamed of yourselves?’

  In the light of the Congo the woman’s whiteness hurt their eyes. William’s speech managed to have a certain effect on the miners. William was a master when it came to taming logic. He knew how to choose his arguments in such a way that reality always worked in his favour. William never tried to convince his opponent, just crush him. And so listening to him was obeying him. He even went much further, perversely far.

  ‘You worked very hard,’ he said to the Negroes. ‘Perhaps we haven’t been considerate enough to you. If you’ve made it this far you also deserve to take part in the success. We have decided that if the gold mining goes satisfactorily, you’ll get fair and generous compensation. And now let’s celebrate that our fears have vanished.’ William moved a hand, ‘Pepe, Marcus, bring a little table and some bottles of champagne. And be quick about it.’

  So they did. William himself served the first swigs of champagne. Each man held out the wooden bowl for food and got a small stream of champagne. Happiness.

  ‘Champagne for the monkeys?’ asked Richard, surprised, while the Negroes drank and laughed.

  ‘That will motivate them. But don’t untie them.’

  ‘And the white girl?’ asked Richard.

  William thought it over for a while. The woman hadn’t moved. Finally he said, ‘Me first,’ handing over the bottle so he could continue serving champagne. ‘Meanwhile, you keep watch.’

  And William went into his tent with the woman. Richard left Marcus as the waiter and he kept watch to make sure the Negroes didn’t do anything crazy. He paced slowly up and down, smoking, with his rifle at his back. When Marcus had filled all the bowls, Pepe whispered to him, ‘Mr Marcus, there’s a man here who wants to speak with you.’

  ‘With me?’

  ‘Yes,’ and Pepe pointed with his finger to a very old man, perhaps the oldest of all the Negroes.

  The champagne didn’t interest him and he stayed at the margins of the celebration. The other Negroes drank and danced as much as their ankle shackles allowed. Marcus and Pepe approached the old man. William was inside the tent, but Richard could see them, so Marcus took the old man behind a tree. While they were there, Marcus asked Pepe, ‘He’s a poor devil just like the rest. Why are you making me talk to him?’

  ‘One always has to listen to the elderly.’

  Marcus looked behind him. Richard had one eye on the Negroes elated by the champagne and the other on the tent, waiting for his turn. The old man spoke with a profusion of gestures and curtsies. He had been going on for a minute and Pepe hadn’t batted an eyelash.

  ‘Why don’t you translate for him?’ demanded Marcus.

  ‘Because he hasn’t said anything yet. He’s introducing himself.’

  The old man changed his tone. And Pepe said, ‘He says that he has nothing to lose, that he is an old man fed up with life. He says that he has seen six children and nineteen grandchildren die at the hands of white men. Some died on the caravans, others collecting rubber, others as punishment. He wanted
to die, once and for all. That’s why, when the people in the village fled, he didn’t move from the door of his hut.’

  Marcus remembered that. In one of those empty villages they only found an old man with a cane that sat, indifferent to everything. They were very short on bearers and all arms were welcome. Pepe had handcuffed him.

  ‘He says that he doesn’t understand why he has lived so long. Dying, when you really look at it, isn’t so bad. People live until they die, and when they die they turn into ancestors.’

  ‘The abridged version, Pepe!’

  ‘He says that he doesn’t mind dying. But now, here, he can’t understand what he has done to deserve such a horrific death.’

  ‘Pepe! What does he want from me?’

  ‘He says that he wants to choose his death,’ translated Pepe without any sign of emotion. ‘He says that he wants you, the least white of the White men, to kill him.’

  Here, in my role as the story’s transcriber, it would have been very easy to do Marcus a favour. This small episode had no bearing on the general course of events. Therefore, I could have said that Marcus Garvey took pity on the old man and set him free. But that’s not what he did.

  ‘Make him shut up!’ shouted Marcus. ‘Kill him yourself, if that’s what he wants. You’re even less white than me!’

  ‘He says that white men are more dangerous than danger. He says that they kill when we don’t ask them to and never when we do.’

  ‘Don’t translate any more for me!’ yelled Marcus with his hands over his ears. ‘Why are you doing this to me, Pepe? Why? I thought we were friends!’

  They heard Richard ordering the men back to the mine. Soon he would notice their absence.

  ‘You heard Mr Richard, Pepe,’ said Marcus exasperated. ‘Everyone back to work!’

  William took a long time to come out of the tent. When he did he looked like a different man. His eyes were even more piercing than before. Also sadder. Marcus was very surprised to see him with that expression, because William was a man who was un familiar with sadness, he only knew disappointment. But he took a good look at him, and the longer he watched William the more incredible he seemed to see him.

  He had the feeling that William had come out of the tent twenty years younger. He was a child, a mischievous child. An enraged and at the same time frightened child. He took a few, strangely staggering, steps. He looked vaguely into the distance. He took a revolver and aimed randomly, as if he was trying to remember some forgotten notions of target shooting. He looked like an actor rehearsing a role that he had played years earlier. He lowered the gun. He opened and closed the fingers of both hands to awaken sleeping limbs. Richard didn’t see any of that. He only wanted to go in the tent. He trotted with those elephantine steps so particular to him, stomping on the world, anxious and lighter than one would think seeing his robust body. But William blocked his path.

  ‘No.’

  ‘No, what?’

  ‘I’m keeping her.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Richard, indignant.

  ‘I’ve changed my mind,’ was all William said.

  ‘It’s been too long since I was with a woman!’

  ‘You’ve never been with a woman, just with girls,’ said William. ‘And what’s in that tent isn’t good for you.’

  The entire clearing was witness to a very bitter argument. Finally, of course, Richard relinquished the white woman. His strategy changed, now he scorned his brother’s conquest. His demands became sarcastic remarks. It was like that fox in the fable that decided the grapes too high to reach were too green. But that wasn’t the end of it: William kicked him out of the tent! More arguments. As was to be expected, Richard gave in. And there was a movement in the camp like dominoes. William took the tent that had been both of theirs, to share it with the white woman. Richard moved his luggage to Marcus and Pepe’s tent, where he would sleep from that night on. And Marcus and Pepe, evicted, were ordered to set up in the smaller tent, which up until then had only been used to store packages and to tie up Mr Tecton. The rest of the day was, apparently, normal. They worked on their usual jobs, but everyone could feel William’s anxiousness for the night to arrive.

  He was the absolute king of the clearing, of that miniature world. He didn’t need anyone’s permission to go to his tent when he wanted to. Even still, he held himself back. Probably he was measuring the limits of his own desire, of a new and unknown sensation. All day long no one dared speak a word to him. Everyone chose to avoid him. He was like a lightning conductor after an electric storm. They could almost see sparks at the tips of his fingers.

  At dinnertime William couldn’t contain himself any longer. He drank a few sips of coffee that was still boiling. Streams of black liquid flowed from the corners of his mouth down his neck. He stuffed a few pieces of half-raw meat into his mouth, like a cannibal, and he went to his tent, with her.

  The others didn’t wait long before heading to bed themselves. Inside their new tent, Pepe and Marcus didn’t say anything to each other. The oil lamp was out, but they didn’t sleep. Marcus was listening intently. He wanted to know what was going on in William’s tent. He couldn’t help that childish, malicious snooping. But he didn’t hear anything. Nothing. No yelling or moaning, not from her or from him. Just the sounds of the African night.

  TEN

  POSSESSED BY A CALVINIST mentality that they had discovered in the tropics, the Cravers started work first thing in the morning. Marcus was ordered to bring breakfast to the captive as soon as William had left the tent. He always found her barefoot, dressed in some trousers and one of William’s white shirts. And with a hand cuffed to one of the poles that held up the tent’s canvas. So much whiteness hurt his eyes.

  One day he took pity on her and freed her wrist. It wasn’t, in fact, as risky as it might seem. William worked all day long. If he left the mine it was only to go hunting, so he didn’t return to the tent until the evening. As for the woman, Marcus knew perfectly well that she wouldn’t go anywhere. He was convinced that she came from the depths, and so the only place she could flee to was the mine, watched over by a hundred men.

  ‘The jungle is enormous, enormous!’ Marcus explained to her, stretching out his arms. ‘Go round wherever you like, but come back here before it gets dark. Do you understand?’

  It seemed to him that she agreed. That first day of limited freedom, though, he kept one eye on her while he cooked. The woman didn’t go very far anyway. For her it was a new world, and she walked through it with the cautiousness of someone afraid that they’ll break something with each step. She admired a blade of grass as if it was something fantastic and new. She lay down anywhere and passed her hand along the ground, astonished by the carpet of grass. Marcus thought: ‘If the grass goes to your head, dear, wait till you see the jungle. You’ll be drunk on trees.’ And indeed, a little while later the woman disappeared from his sight, into the jungle. Marcus followed her, just in case, and he found her hugging a tree. She had her ear to the trunk, as if she was listening for a heartbeat. He noticed the woman’s feet, which gave him a start.

  ‘Get out of here!’ he shouted, pulling her away.

  After he had gotten her a few feet away he showed her the thick boots he wore on his feet. She didn’t understand. Marcus took off his boot and placed it in front of her eyes.

  ‘Do you see it?’

  But the woman looked at the boot without understanding.

  ‘Ant,’ said Marcus, pointing to a small black body stuck to the leather, which moved its legs frantically. ‘That place was full of ants. They are very small but they can devour a live goat.’ He pointed to the insect. ‘This one has been chewing on my boot for two days. If you go near them, they attack you. Watch this.’

  Marcus grabbed the ant’s body with two fingers. Only the body. The head remained there, chewing on the boot with its jaws.

  ‘Do you understand now? They are bad.’

  She made a disgusted ‘ach’ sound. It was the first time she had op
ened her mouth. Marcus hadn’t ever heard her before. The young woman turned her neck and then her whole body. She sat, crossing her legs. She usually sat like that, with her heels touching the inside of her thighs. Now she did it with her back to Marcus. She was displeased, strongly displeased. Marcus felt perfectly stupid, with a dead ant on the tips of his fingers and asking for forgiveness.

  ‘It was just an ant …’ Marcus stammered. ‘And it could have hurt you …’

  He didn’t know what else to say and he returned to his work.

  For Marcus, work was a way to avoid the mine, the Congo, everything. When he was working the world faded away. They had a huge mud pot shaped like an upside-down spinning top. It was so big that half a buffalo could have fitted inside. Marcus wasn’t too refined with their diet, but he didn’t torture the Negroes either. He filled the pot with chunks of different meats and with vegetables, a handful of salt and pepper, and he let it boil, stirring it every once in a while with a cane shaped like an oar. The Craver brothers’ menu, obviously, was very different, and Marcus prepared it in more delicate vessels. The European ingredients had run out almost completely a while ago, and Marcus had had to adapt the Cravers’ palate to the jungle produce. Both brothers liked ladies’ fingers, dwarf bananas served fried, and children’s ears, very wrinkled peanuts shaped like fava beans, which he boiled. The meat was usually Scottish liver, which was what they called the liver of a bird very similar to a pheasant that Richard hunted whenever he could. (They called it Scottish liver because according to William those large birds had livers more swollen than a Scottish drinker.) But an hour after his run-in with the woman, he heard her again, ‘Ach, ach, ach!’ The voice came from the jungle. Marcus ran there as fast as he could.

  It was her, of course, in the middle of four trees laid out in a perfect rectangle. She had sat on another anthill and she struggled frantically against a handful of ants that were climbing up her trousers. On such a white body the ants stood out. He helped her.