Pandora in the Congo
Human life didn’t exist for those Tectons. Like someone who’s colour-blind and can’t distinguish colours well, they suffered from some sort of visual deficiency that impeded their perception of human beings. They only saw objects. And all their activity was concentrated on separating the useful from the useless, that one yes, that one no, that one yes, that one no.
Richard had come out of his tent. He was as dumbfounded as Marcus. The Tectons were going through trunks, emptying out sacks, opening bags and suitcases. In just a few minutes they had turned over the entire camp. Soon the first incident would happen.
A Tecton approached Richard. Or more precisely, the wristwatch he wore. The Tecton leaned over his wrist. He really didn’t use any direct violence; he only had eyes for the watch. But Richard, terrified, took a few steps back. The Tecton persevered, advancing as Richard moved back and all the while working on the watch’s band. Finally Richard lost his balance and fell on his back. The Tectons stopped suddenly, like puppets moved by the same strings, and great peals of laughter came from their mouths. The watch thief even imitated Richard, his crude movements and his spectacular fall. More laughter. Richard, flat on the ground, but unhurt, was crying. Meanwhile another Tecton approached Marcus, attracted by a lighter wick that stuck out of his pocket, and he put his hand in there.
‘No!’ said Marcus, pushing him softly but firmly.
The Tecton looked at him with an annoyed grin. He offered him a stone cube the colour of ash. Inside Marcus’s repulsion mixed with controlled fear. It seemed to him, at that time, that the best thing he could do was to take what he was being offered. It was just a rock, or maybe a piece of ceramic sculpted into a small cube. The Tecton confused Marcus’s hesitation with a bargaining strategy and he doubled his offer. This time he offered him a long stone, similar to school chalk. What was he supposed to do with that? He didn’t have much time to think it over. Amgam had appeared from somewhere and, with a smack to his wrists, had made the stones, or pieces of ceramic, or whatever they were, fall. Then she dragged him towards the edge of the clearing.
In one of the trees that marked the boundary of the clearing there was a Negro tied up. William had grown fond of that punitive method since the day he had tied up all the miners. The man was there for some minor infraction. With both hands Amgam turned Marcus’s head so he had to look at the five Tectons that the African had on top of him.
The Tectons had found the poor devil tied up and had taken advantage of his helplessness. They didn’t need to negotiate anything. Two Tectons were pulling out his fingers and toes with the help of some pliers. Another was boiling a small vessel shaped like a small pot where he diluted powdered chemicals and stirred the contents. The fourth emptied the fingers into the little pot, and with the help of some tweezers he extracted them once they were cleaned of skin and flesh. When the bones had cooled down, he gave them to the fifth Tecton, an individual seated on the grass that worked with jeweller’s tools. The Tectons seemed deaf to the screams of the man they were mutilating. The pliers kept pulling off fingers, the streams of blood didn’t seem to bother them.
Marcus lost control. His first impulse was to run from that scene in the opposite direction, which brought him back to the centre of the camp. He was approached by the same Tecton as before. He grabbed him firmly by the front of his shirt with one hand, and with the other he offered him three small stones, three. And, finally, Marcus understood what material the Tecton currency was made of.
‘Let me go!’ begged Marcus. ‘Leave me be!’
But Marcus couldn’t get the Tecton’s breath from his ear. He didn’t know how to get free of him. Until, without warning, the Tecton’s head burst like a melon hitting a cement floor. Skull fragments flew like shrapnel. Marcus became frightened when he saw his shirt wet with Tecton blood.
William had been the last to wake up but the first to react. In his own style, naturally. He moved with a revolver in his hand and shot all the Tectons that made the mistake of coming too close to him. It was like walking through a shooting range. One step, two, bend the elbow and shoot. The Tectons took a long time to realise what was happening. It was as if they couldn’t comprehend that someone had dared to attack them. There was one who even planted himself in front of William with his arms in the air and shrieking something very angrily. William stuck the barrel of the gun into his mouth, shot and continued advancing, his face spattered with blood, dauntless, choosing victims at random. Encouraged by William’s example, Richard grabbed his shotgun. And soon more bullets than mosquitoes flew over the clearing’s airspace.
There was a certain grandeur in the cold-bloodedness that William Craver showed that day. Not a single muscle on his face moved. When he ran out of ammunition he opened the revolver’s pan, ignoring the Tectons, the screaming and the chaos that surrounded him. He filled the chamber and continued his target practice. One step, two, stop. The arm extended, aimed, bang!, a dead Tecton. And another, and another. His shirt and trousers became stained with the blood of his victims. But William, impassive, didn’t stop. He had in his favour the fact that the Tectons didn’t defend themselves. Many didn’t even realise they were dying; a bullet went through their chest and they fell right there, with their booty still in their arms. The last two were smarter and they fled.
The entire massacre lasted only a few minutes. The pair of Tectons fled towards the anthill. The lifted their skirts with both hands so they could run faster. To Marcus they looked farcical. Which made William’s order to Richard sound so cruel.
‘Kill them, Richard! Don’t let them get away!’
William had run out of bullets. Richard aimed calmly with his elephant-killing shotgun. A spout of blood came from the side of one of the fugitive’s heads and the Tecton collapsed. But his gun jammed and he couldn’t repeat his success with the second fugitive.
‘Marcus! Grab him!’ said William while he turned his pockets inside out looking for bullets.
Marcus’s short legs weren’t made for chasing people. But the Tecton was let down by his skirts, so one could say it was a fair race.
Marcus was getting closer. When the fugitive went along the small mound made by the anthill, he only had four feet of advantage. He didn’t really jump, it was more like the Tecton let himself fall into the void. Marcus stuck his head through the hole. ‘Grab him before he slips away!’ he shouted to the Negroes inside. ‘Grab him!’
But none of them dared move. They all lay against the walls, trying to keep themselves as far as possible from the intruder. Marcus went down the ladder as if he were sliding down a firemen’s pole.
The Tecton was already getting into one of the slits in the wall. Marcus jumped and with extreme force he managed to catch the Tecton by an ankle. The feet were the only part of the Tecton that still stuck out of the hole. The other one kept kicking, trying to strike Marcus’s face.
‘Help me!’ shouted Marcus, who looked like a stuck chimney sweep.
Finally the Tecton’s heel managed to hit his nose. It was a very painful blow. Marcus saw little yellow spots. He let go of the ankle for a few seconds, half blind, and the Tecton disappeared into the tunnel.
‘Why didn’t you stop him?’ shouted Marcus, turning towards the Negroes as the blood began to gush from his nose. ‘They’ll be back!’
Seconds later William and Richard arrived at the mouth of the anthill. They came into the mine and shot into the hole the Tecton had fled through.
Too late.
THIRTEEN
ON WILLIAM’S ORDERS, THE Negroes dug a large pit and dragged the bodies of the dead Tectons there. Everyone helped when it came time to dump the corpses and cover them with dirt. Burying them was a doubly painful operation, because the Tecton’s eyes and skin made them appear to still be alive. According to Marcus, dead Negroes don’t turn white, just grey. Something similar happened with the Tectons. Death made that white skin change very quickly into some sort of waxy white, and then to pearl grey. So, we can conclude that death is
the great equaliser. But the Tecton bodies still had some peculiarity that was hard to pin down. Maybe it was their half-open mouths, like fish. Or their glassy eyes, the lids always raised, a damp cobweb on the retina. Hours earlier they were still looking at the Congo sky, so blue, without wanting to accept that they were already dead and had lost the right to look at the humans’ sky. When he looked at those paralysed features he wasn’t sure if they were really dead, or if they had ever been alive.
‘From dust they came and to dust they return,’ said William after the last shovelful.
No one could tell if it was a prayer, irony or a curse.
Pepe translated the Negroes’ explanations of what happened in the mine. According to their statements, the Tectons had appeared from the noisy hole. They carried ropes and hooks that they used to climb up on the walls.
The rest of the day Pepe was even more silent than usual. In the evening, when Marcus met up with him at the tent, neither of them wanted to talk. Before closing his eyes, Marcus pulled a blanket over himself. Since they had been in the tropics it was the first time he had covered himself up to sleep.
‘I didn’t know it could be cold in the Congo,’ reflected Marcus aloud.
‘It’s not cold,’ said Pepe. ‘It’s fear.’
A little while later Pepe added, ‘It’s over.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Marcus.
‘I’m leaving,’ was the reply. ‘Tonight. I’ll wait until William and Richard have fallen asleep. Then I’ll get out of here, take the men from the mine and we’ll run off.’
Marcus sat up. ‘Have you gone mad? You can’t do that.’
‘Why not?’
Marcus didn’t have an answer. He lay down again. He looked up at the tent ceiling and said, ‘You knew it already, didn’t you? You’ve always known. The Negroes know some legend about those people that live in hell.’
Pepe turned towards Marcus. He even seemed amused. ‘Legend? What legend are you talking about? I don’t know any legend.’
Pepe laughed so hard, and so much, that he had to contain himself for fear of waking up William and Richard, even with the distance that separated the two tents.
‘No,’ explained Pepe. ‘Everything I know I learned from my grandfather. He talked about what he had seen. And he said that whites always behaved the same way, no matter where they came from.’
Marcus’s curiosity was piqued. He turned his body towards Pepe, leaning his head on one hand.
‘What do you mean?’
‘My grandfather knew what he was talking about. The white men always do the same thing. First, the missionaries arrive and threaten hell. Then, the merchants come and steal everything. Then, the soldiers. They’re all bad, but the new arrivals are always worse than the ones before them. First came Mr Tecton, who wanted us to believe in his God. Today the merchants appeared. And soon the soldiers will come up. I don’t want to be here when they arrive.’
‘What about her?’
Pepe hesitated. ‘There are strange people everywhere.’
‘Did you see what the Tecton did with that man’s hands and feet?’ said Marcus.
‘White people are like that,’ reflected Pepe. ‘They make us work as bearers and miners. And they become rich that way.’ He sighed. ‘At least I’ll have the pleasure of taking my brothers in the mine with me.’
‘Now they’re your brothers?’ said Marcus sarcastically. ‘I remember when we chained them up you took part very happily. Oh, Pepe! We are more than five hundred miles from any civilised place, or even inhabited. If you find anywhere it will be one of the villages we attacked on the way here. You only have an old rifle and hardly any ammunition. You’ll be alone. When they recognise you, they’ll kill you. That’s if the jungle doesn’t kill you first.’ Marcus sighed. ‘Don’t do it, Pepe. You say you want to free the boys in the mine and leave with them. How do you know they won’t kill you the first chance they get? They’ve got good reason.’ ‘Maybe so,’ said Pepe, ‘but at least it will be them that kill me.’
From the jungle came some animal roars of an unknown, twisted beauty. The noises of the jungle, the lit oil lamp, the tent and each other’s company combined to give them some pleasure. It wasn’t until then that Marcus understood that it was all about to end, that Pepe was leaving.
‘Come with me,’ offered Pepe.
‘No, I’m staying here,’ said Marcus.
They put out the lamps. But they didn’t sleep. Five minutes later, from the darkness, Pepe said, ‘It’s because of her, isn’t it?’
After a little while Marcus answered, ‘I’m tired, Pepe, very tired. Tonight I’m going to sleep soundly. So soundly I won’t hear a thing.’
They didn’t sleep. But they pretended to be sleeping. Three hours later Pepe got up, took his old rifle and his red hat, and before leaving the tent he put his lips close to Marcus’s ear. He said, ‘Du courage, mon petit, du courage.’
And he left.
In the book I wrote another account of Pepe’s farewell. What was it? It was the version that Marcus had recounted to me: that of a long-suffering Pepe, who stays with him even though Marcus begs him not to, fighting against the Tectons, protecting him with his life, until Marcus himself threatened him, pointing a revolver at him to get him to leave. I couldn’t believe it. Pepe’s attitude was so heroic that it was almost a caricature. So one day, when we revised that chapter, I took a stand at our table with my arms crossed and my elbows sticking out, and I surprised him by saying, ‘Marcus, why are you lying to me?’ He looked from one side to the other, hesitant, ashamed, and more unsure than ever.
I knew the answer. He was lying to protect Pepe’s good name, the only friend that he had had in this world. Some will ask: if I knew he was lying why did I write the false version? The answer is: because I was fed up with Doctor Flag’s Negro characters. For once, I said to myself, have a Negro that blows tons of white blokes to bits, the opposite of what rotten old Flag would have made you write. And since it didn’t affect the narrative structure, I allowed myself that.
How could I be so simpleminded? It’s the second version that describes the best of all possible Pepes. It shows us that Pepe was the only sensible creature in that camp.
Much has been said about the loneliness of those faced with the gallows. Less has been said about the loneliness of the executioners. Marcus would never forget William and Richard’s expressions the next morning, when they discovered the mass flight. They had imagined all the possibilities – attempts at murder, revolts and thefts
– except that one. Richard always slept with his long rifle lying by his side, like a lover, William with a revolver under his pillow. The little sacks of gold were buried under William’s tent. But no one wanted to steal their gold or their lives. No one wanted to get rich. Or even to get revenge. They just wanted to escape, that was all. And the Craver brothers couldn’t have anticipated that.
Marcus recalled the human desert the clearing had become that morning. The Negroes’ bodies no longer filled the mine. Their voices weren’t loud enough to disturb the noises of the jungle. Slaves without a master are free. Masters without slaves are nothing. They were alone.
The previous night’s fire was still smoking, and that dying fire was a very good representation of the camp’s spirits. Marcus and Richard sat in front of the dwindling smoke, looking at it apathetically. Further on, William found Pepe’s canteen. He picked it up and weighed it in his hands and then he threw it to the ground with fury. Marcus and Richard didn’t take their eyes off the embers.
‘And now what?’ said Richard.
‘Now they’ll kill us all,’ answered Marcus spontaneously, as he smoked. Not even he had known that his voice could be so harsh.
‘Kill us?’ said Richard, startled. A sarcastic smile crossed his face. ‘Who do you think will kill us, now that everyone’s gone?’
Marcus raised his eyes from the ashes, he looked at Richard, he turned his neck and looked at the mine. Richard understood. br />
‘Oh God, oh God!’ whined Richard, covering his face with both hands.
‘What’s going on here?’ demanded William, who had now forgotten about Pepe’s canteen.
‘Richard’s crying,’ was all Marcus said, with an uncharacteristically harsh voice. William realised that. And he looked at him as if to say: first Richard, then I’ll take care of you.
‘Come on, you’re a soldier!’ William said to encourage him, putting an arm around his shoulder. ‘Where’s your fighting spirit?’
But Richard wasn’t a soldier, he was a wreck. William insisted.
‘You are an officer of the British Empire!’
‘This isn’t part of the Empire,’ said Richard finally. ‘This is the Congo.’
William liked that. You can’t talk to somebody who’s not even listening. Richard had replied, and if someone replies that means they can be convinced.
‘Richard! What did they teach you at the military academy? What should you do in a situation like this?’
‘You don’t want to understand,’ said Richard, who in spite of all his limitations could be very lucid. ‘No military instructor taught us what to do in case of a Tecton invasion.’
But William shouted. Marcus had a very vivid memory of that shout. He remembered it like he would have remembered an unexpected eclipse. It was a new, anomalous voice, halfway between ambition and brutality. It was a claim of ownership and it was a declaration of war. He was not leaving. He was not giving up the mine. Never, and to no one. Let them come for it. William yelled and it came as a nasty surprise to Richard.
‘Richard!’ he demanded. ‘What should we do? You’re an engineer. Tell me what we should do!’
Richard opened and closed his mouth a few times, but William was on top of him, not letting up on his demands.