‘Why didn’t you listen to me? I told you! No, it’s not enough to shake them off. You have to take them off one by one, or they’ll never leave. And if you get a lot of bites, you’ll have spasms.’
Marcus began to curse himself. He should have guessed that freeing her would only bring problems. He couldn’t watch her and the pots at the same time. He didn’t want to tie her up again either.
‘Wait here, please,’ Marcus said to her. He came right back.
‘Look!’ he said, sitting down by her side, among the trees, and putting a photograph into her hands.
She drew the photograph to her, passing her eyes over the image, very close to the paper.
‘That animal is the best friend I’ve ever had. His name was Pepe, he was a bear and this is the only picture of him that I have,’ explained Marcus. ‘Well, actually it’s the only picture I have of Pepe or of anyone. I’d like to have one of my mother, but I don’t. Do you have any pictures of your mother? No, of course not, what a stupid question.’ He pointed to the animal’s head with his finger. ‘Look at that hat! Whenever Pepe danced he wore a hat. He liked hats a lot. You can’t tell from the picture, but it was a red hat. Like Pepe’s. I mean the Negro Pepe, the Negro man that you know, the one who sleeps with me. I used to sleep with Pepe too, the bear Pepe, I mean. Negro man Pepe is a good man, even though he’s not as good a friend as Pepe, I mean not as good a friend of mine as the bear Pepe. Do you like my picture?’
He realised what a jumble of information he had just spouted, and in a language that the woman didn’t know a word of.
‘You understand, don’t you?’ he asked her.
I remember that after he explained that scene to me, Marcus made a sceptical face, as if he still wasn’t sure if she had understood him.
I’d bet anything she did understand him.
The next session didn’t continue in chronological order. I preferred instead that we focus on the character.
‘Tell me about her.’
‘About who? The white woman?’
‘Yes. The white woman.’
Marcus looked from one side of the table to the other, his indecisive act.
‘Do we have to talk about her?’ he asked me with some regret.
He didn’t want to. But my job granted me some prerogatives.
‘Yes, Marcus,’ I replied, implacable. ‘I think so. I want to talk about her.’
According to Marcus she was called Amgam. But I forced him to reconstruct the scene in which she introduced herself and I came to the conclusion that surely Amgam wasn’t her real name. Marcus must have christened her that way based on a linguistic mistake. Marcus told me that, late one evening, she extended a hand towards him, pointing to him, and said, ‘Amgam.’
‘Amgam? I am Marcus,’ he said.
But when I demanded more details of the scene, Marcus said that that evening he had lit a gas lamp. The white woman reacted as if the match had created a miracle. The flame danced behind the glass walls. She laughed. She brought her large palm, with those six long fingers, to the upper opening of the lamp and said, ‘Amgam.’
Marcus thought that those six fingers were pointing to him, addressing him. But when faced with my scepticism, Marcus hesitated. Finally we concluded that she was only exploring the warmth of the lamp. Which is to say, she wasn’t actually introducing herself, she was only referring to the lamp with a Tecton name. But Marcus thought it was an official introduction.
‘Marcus,’ he said.
‘Amgam,’ she repeated.
‘Amgam?’ said Marcus. ‘Amgam.’
So, the most likely conclusion is that Amgam was nothing more than a Tecton word for ‘light’ or ‘fire’ or both things at once. But Marcus began to call her Amgam. And the name stuck.
In that period the heroines in novels were usually angelic beauties, and one of the most surprising aspects of the tale was that Amgam wasn’t.
Did Amgam follow our ideals of beauty? A vague portrait emerged from Marcus’s description. Some parts of her body surpassed our highest feminine ideals. When Marcus remembered the svelteness of her body and her hips, for example, he blushed. Always. Or when he talked of those Egyptian eyes, terrifyingly large and round, with gigantic black pupils at night that became as thin as a hair when bathed in the light of day. One imagines, then, that in the evenings, and in such a white body, her eyes must have stood out like two lighthouses that beamed black light. Marcus described them in a very curious way, he could only say what they weren’t. He said that her eyes were the exact opposite of William’s.
But, as for her general figure, and if we limit ourselves to purely aesthetic criteria, we would have to conclude that some parts of Amgam bordered on the disastrous. Her legs and arms, for example. Her long legs affirmed a gazelle’s silhouette. Unfor tunately, excessively long arms ruined the overall impression. When she held them against her body she could touch her kneecaps with the tips of her fingers. Her hands and feet were also very large. If Marcus put his palm on top of hers, every one of Amgam’s fingers went beyond his. William’s trousers and shirts were too short for her: she was a tall woman, very tall. She was a head and a half, maybe two, taller than Marcus. Men are used to looking at women from above, and the perspective that Amgam gave, the opposite of the usual one between men and women, made Marcus extra timid. Small breasts, almost non-existent, nipples like buttons. Nose thin and long, with the skin tight to the bone. And since her lips were also very long, her face was designed around a sort of upside-down capital T.
And, yet, any aesthetic judgement of Amgam would have to take into account the magnetism that that creature of lime radiated.
She was a complete foreigner, and as such the most impartial witness to life above ground. If Amgam formed an opinion about our world, it would be an entirely disinterested judgement, without prejudice or prior sympathy. During our sessions, Garvey never used that reasoning. I arrived at it on my own. (It was an inevitable conclusion.) The Craver brothers didn’t think of it because they were blinded by the pirate’s gaze: they couldn’t see the treasure, only the booty. Garvey, who was much more humble, at least saw her as a woman.
One morning Marcus realised that Amgam wasn’t in the clearing. That wasn’t exceptional. She often disappeared from his sight, into the jungle, and came back after a short walk. That day it started to rain. The way it does in the Congo, in a torrent that threatened to flood the world. The drops made the jars and cans ring as if they were being shot at, and the clearing became an immense pool of mud. But Marcus had already learned that the storms in the Congo were as brief as they were apocalyptic. Normally the Cravers took refuge under a large piece of fabric suspended between four poles near the mine. But if the rain didn’t stop it was also highly likely that they would decide to take shelter in their tents. And in that case William would discover the absence of his prized white woman.
The sun came out, thank God. After a storm William and Richard were more irritable. Before starting the digging again they had to evacuate the water from the mine. Which, naturally, meant wasted time, and if they wasted time they wasted money. From where he was, Marcus could hear the Cravers’ howling and the lash of their whips.
But Amgam didn’t return. The mud had already solidified. The jars flooded with rain were already filled with stupidly drowned insects. After a while he started to really worry. He left the pot and he went into the jungle.
‘Amgam? Amgam?’ he shouted.
There was no reply. All he could hear were the sounds of the jungle and the cracks of the branches he broke with his steps. Damn! Why had he taken for granted that Amgam wouldn’t run away? The jungle was filled with dangers, she would never manage to get anywhere. For some reason it had seemed absurd to him, he had considered her intelligent enough to reject the idea of running away. But maybe Amgam had a different perspective. As bad as the jungle was, nothing could be worse than William’s tent. Yes, William Craver. He would kill him. It was one thing to set free Mr Tecton, and q
uite another to lose his night-time plaything.
‘Amgam!’
She could be anywhere. And it was useless to follow a woman with such long legs. He threw his hat down and stamped on it, furious. Luckily, in that part of the jungle the vegetation was thin enough to allow him about ninety feet of vision. And there, on a rock, he saw a white figure.
Amgam sat on a rock high enough that the grasses hadn’t completely triumphed over it. In that corner, just above the rock, the jungle’s ceiling was thicker. That was why the weeds hadn’t devoured it, because of the excess humidity: the upper strata accumulated so much water that it filtered down all day long. So it was no longer raining in the clearing, but on Amgam a fine, regular shower fell. The vault of vegetation had converted the spot into a shady place. All the light was reduced into thin, compact rays that fell erratically onto the rock.
She was naked. She sat on the moss that covered the rock with her legs crossed and her eyes closed, turning her neck so that the water was distributed all over her body. Her hair, now clean, shone as white as the rest of her body. Marcus approached her. Now that he had found her he was embarrassed to disturb her while she was bathing. No, it was something more than just bathing. She seemed like a different woman.
When he was close to the rock he cleared his throat to announce his presence. She ignored him. Marcus saw a fine film of white smoke surrounding Amgam. It was the water itself, evaporating from the contact with such hot skin.
Marcus was getting wet. He stretched out an arm to touch her knee.
‘Hello.’ And pointing to the clearing. ‘We have to go back.’
Amgam opened her eyes. Her eyelids had an enormous span, compared to ours. When she raised them it was with a mechanical slowness, like an opera curtain.
She looked at him from the height of that tropical moss-covered rock, and what Marcus saw in those eyes was pure intelligence, pure in the same way that gold could be pure. She didn’t obey him. Instead of coming down from the rock, she spoke.
Of course, Marcus couldn’t understand a word. But he did understand the tone. She wasn’t a resentful woman, just severe. It was a recriminating, accusatory voice. Amgam had lived in the clearing long enough to understand the essence of the power that ruled it. And when she spoke that way, when she looked at him that way, what she was saying was: you also form part of the established order, Marcus Garvey, you cook for the murderers.
Marcus denied it vigorously with his head. ‘I can’t do anything about it. I can’t.’
Amgam didn’t say anything more. The water slid down her forehead, went into her eyes, and even still she didn’t blink. Marcus took a step forward, intimidated and ashamed.
‘I can’t do anything to the Cravers. No one could.’
He had gone into the jungle after her, and now he was the one who was fleeing. Back to camp.
One day I typed until well into the night, and at half past one strange things started happening. I couldn’t get Amgam out of my head. I was thinking that the judge’s clerks had written thousands and thousands of procedural pages, but the most determining person in the Garvey case didn’t appear in them. Amgam, yes, a critical eye that had a disruptive effect on those she cast it on. Marcus Garvey had come up against her, and once he had been interrogated by Amgam he couldn’t go back to being the way he was before. I remember that I lifted my hands off the keys and covered my mouth.
Even though it was very late, I went into Mr MacMahon’s room.
‘Mr MacMahon … Wake up, Mr MacMahon …’ I whispered, shaking his shoulder.
‘Tommy? What’s going on, son?’ MacMahon was frightened. ‘Is the building on fire?’
I sat on one side of the bed. MacMahon had only had time to sit up.
‘Mr MacMahon,’ I said, ‘how do you know when you are in love with a woman?’
‘What did you say?’ he asked, wiping the sleep from his eyes. ‘For the love of Saint Patrick, Tommy! Do you know what time it is?’
‘Please, tell me.’
‘I’m tired, Tommy. Can’t it wait until the morning? Tomorrow I’ll tell you about Mary.’
‘No, please, now.’
MacMahon wiped his eyes. For a second I was afraid he was going to let out some resounding wind. He scratched under his armpits and the nape of his neck.
‘Well, look,’ he said as he organised his thoughts, ‘I wanted a woman that was young, clean, gentle and happy. And one that could give me many children, obviously. So I started to look for her. First in my village and then in all the villages of the county.’
‘But what were you looking for, for God’s sake? To get married or to buy a cow?’ I protested.
MacMahon replied with a suddenly firm voice. ‘Mary is the best woman ever. I would have travelled the world over ten times to find her.’
‘Do you mean that?’
‘Yes, son, yes. It’s true.’
‘Was it love at first sight?’
‘No. It was more than that, much more. I loved her before I saw her.’
‘Before? How’s that possible?’
‘Because I had spoken with her. That’s how villages are. Everybody knows each other. And voices are very important. They had told me a lot about Mary, and all good things. Before I saw her I was already walking like a dog, with my head bent and my mouth half open. And one day, while I was getting spruced up to go to the festival in her village, where some mutual friends had arranged for us to have a date, I knew that Mary would be the love of my life.’
‘How could you be so sure of that?’
‘I was.’
‘Yes, I can understand that,’ I acquiesced.
‘No, you don’t understand it,’ said MacMahon, contradicting me. He looked directly into my eyes, he pointed to my nose with his finger and said, ‘Love is very difficult to understand. And do you know why? Because love is the most idiotic thing in the universe, Tommy, but also the most important. That’s why it’s so hard to understand.’
ELEVEN
I’VE ALREADY MENTIONED THAT William and Richard were very fond of hunting. And since the work at the mine had become more routine, they had more free time. Pepe could handle controlling the workers inside the mine, and the few that worked outside, on the rotating system, washing the gold in the tub, showed an infinite capacity for obedience. In addition, if he needed to, Pepe could always ask for help from Marcus, who was boiling the pot very close by. But Pepe never needed to. A less distrustful and more realistic look at the situation would have made the Craver brothers see that the Negroes didn’t show even the slightest hint of revolting, that they didn’t even attempt to take an ounce of gold.
One morning Marcus went hunting with Richard. They were looking for something large, some buffalo or deer that they could use to feed the troop of miners. Richard knelt down to examine some footprints in the mud. He turned towards Marcus, very excited, and said, ‘Tell William! There’s a lion close by.’ And getting himself excited, ‘Damn it, we’re going lion hunting!’
‘And what if William’s in his tent, very busy?’ said Marcus. ‘I’m sure he doesn’t want us to interrupt him.’
‘Do what I tell you,’ ordered Richard. ‘What do you think would interest William more? Hunting a lion or screwing the white girl?’
Marcus obeyed, but he was positive that his prophecy would be fulfilled. And William did curse his name when Marcus interrupted him from the other side of the canvas. But Richard’s assumption was also correct, he was thrilled at the idea of shooting a lion. William came out of the tent completely naked. And while he got dressed as fast as he could, he ordered, ‘Ah, Marcus. The tent is dirty. Sweep it out.’
William disappeared into the jungle. Marcus went into the tent. The ceiling was very low and he had to get down on his knees. He used a brush of black hairs to sweep. It was made from the eyelashes of an elephant the Craver brothers had shot. He had put together the eyelashes from both eyes and had made a very handy little broom for cleaning corners.
He swept and, out of the corner of his eye, looked at Amgam at the back of the tent. He was embarrassed to look at her. William could have been raping her just a few seconds earlier. He was getting further and further inside the tent, and sooner or later he would reach where she was.
She didn’t seem especially hurt. Naked, with her eyes open and looking up at the ceiling, Amgam ran a hand over her chest and belly, very slowly. Her fingers reached her white pubic hairs and went back up. It was as if Amgam had ordered her senses to hibernate. She wasn’t in that tent, only her body was.
Amgam didn’t fight against the pain. Instead she extracted it from inside her and watched it as if it were something foreign and alive. A large part of her secret, thought Marcus, was that she understood pain differently. And in that same moment he knew that Amgam was an infinitely superior being to all the others gathered there in the clearing. And he knew it with a clear, pure logic, just as he knew that England was very far away or that there were trees in the forest.
Marcus was still sweeping the tent. He was a slave to the automatism that months in the service of the Cravers had instilled in him. The brush dragged a strange object. He couldn’t tell what it was and he held it up in the air with two fingers. It was a small bag of flexible rubber, filled with liquid. Marcus dropped the condom with a shiver of disgust.
He was getting dizzy. In that clearing in the Congo reality and fantasy were two nations at war, invading each other. William raped Amgam, and the one who was afraid of catching something was William. And meanwhile, while all that was going on, he, Marcus Garvey, swept the ground with elephant eyelashes. He felt strangely drunk, as if the air in that tent was alcoholic. He felt like laughing, but he held it in. He sensed that if he let that laughter loose, he would go mad. He grabbed his skull with both hands: if he didn’t, his ears would grow wings, he was sure, and his head would go flying. Near him he saw a flask of whisky. He took a very long sip. Then he tossed a shirt and some trousers toward Amgam’s naked body.