Pandora in the Congo
He moved away from the hole. He leant on the wall opposite, whisky flask in his hands. He pulled his legs up and hugged his knees. He couldn’t stop staring at the hole. He looked at it until his eyes hurt.
Would they come that night or would they wait a few days? The first Tecton wave had been preceded by strange noises. But Marcus doubted that they would be repeated. He suspected that the noises had been caused by tunnelling work. And now the tunnel that connected the lower world with the upper one had already been created, and widened. What’s more, the Tecton knew how they would be received. One thing was sure: they would not be kind to the first human they came upon.
The Congo. Moisture that burns. And below ground, an oven. Marcus breathed in his own sweat. It slid down his forehead and nose to his lips, like a small stream that tried to re-enter the body it had come out of. He finished the whisky. Shortly after, the alcohol, fatigue and desperation made him close his eyes. He dreamt that he fell into a dark well, and he fell, and he fell, but the final impact never came. While he dreamt Marcus knew he was dreaming. He thought to himself that he hadn’t had that dream since he was a child. But he also told himself: ‘No, Marcus, no, the problem is that today you’re not dreaming. This isn’t a dream, it’s reality.’ He opened his eyes. And in front of him, coming closer to his face, was a six-fingered hand as white as snow.
Marcus went from horror to love in a split second: it was Amgam. They hugged each other. Marcus couldn’t help wondering how she had managed to climb down there. He took her by the hand, the same hand that William, every night before going to sleep, tied to a pole in his tent with iron handcuffs. She understood, it was as if her smile said, ‘My love, you have here before you a women capable of dislocating all the bones in her body to get to another world; and you doubt that that same woman could dislocate the bones of one hand to escape from some common handcuffs?’
Amgam had no time to lose. She examined the cave. She took charge of the problem, weighed all the options. Sophisticated machinery moved within her ample white forehead. Marcus could almost hear the squeaking of that Tecton brain.
Finally Amgam pulled Marcus’s arms, tenderly but decisively. He understood what she was suggesting. She wanted them both to escape into the hole, to flee towards her world. The idea had a certain logic. When they met up with the Tectons, Amgam’s intervention might save him. Of course, that meant going into the tunnel. Marcus loved Amgam as he had never loved anyone before, but since the night with Mr Tecton that hole had caused him insurmountable dread. He had to make up his mind. And so, there, deep in that abominable mine, absolute love arm-wrestled with absolute terror.
We shouldn’t believe what romance novels tell us: fear won.
Marcus couldn’t follow her. He would have gone with her to any place in the world. But not to her world. He would never go into that dark tunnel. Ever. Amgam sighed, disheartened.
They had to look for another solution. But what? She was more intelligent than him, she had already thought of everything. And the only alternative was to flee into the jungle. She pulled him by the hands. He objected to the idea, gesturing like an insane monkey. Amgam didn’t know anything about the Congo, she couldn’t know anything about it.
On the expedition to the mine William and Richard had left a trail of blood. The reverse journey, surely, would be as painful as the trip there: a million anonymous Africans must want him dead. Sooner or later they would meet with a revenge as just as it was misdirected. They would never get to Leopoldville alive. Perhaps if the entire expedition managed to clear the way with gunfire. But separately, unarmed and without provisions, never. It was possible that not even Pepe himself, who knew the country and had a rifle, had survived. How could those two, a little gypsy and a Tecton, the oddest couple in Africa, in the world, hope to make it? Wandering through the jungle Marcus and Amgam would be like two beetles on snow.
In her world they would kill him. In his world they would kill them both. And from Marcus’s point of view that was all that needed to be said. They sat very close to each other. Amgam looked at the ugly floor of the mine, with her head bowed. Marcus had never seen anyone so sad. He felt responsible for it: he was the reason behind such a kind-hearted sentiment, and it filled him with a strange satisfaction.
‘My beloved, I’m not dead yet,’ said Marcus, caressing her cheek. ‘Many things could happen.’
They embraced. Dead tired, Marcus fell asleep with her chest as a pillow. He didn’t sleep long. Before the sun came up he opened his eyes. She was no longer there. At some point in the night Amgam must have gone back to the tent.
There was still an hour before the sun came up. How did Marcus Garvey spend it? Reviewing his brief existence on earth? Putting his soul in order? No. Marcus spent that hour suffering from horrid jealousy. Amgam’s visit had made him think of many things, all of them bad. The binds with which William constrained her meant nothing to her. That had been very clearly demonstrated. Why then did she tolerate William raping her every night? What did William feel for her? And Amgam for him?
The Tectons were about to arrive. And he was jealous. I remember that as I took notes of that scene I thought, ‘People can be incredibly absurd.’
The sun came out. A basket suspended by a rope was lowered into the mine. Above they had installed a pulley. It was too far from the mouth of the anthill to see who was handling it. The basket shook for a few seconds at the end of the rope. Then it stopped, as if to say: what are you waiting for? Fill me up. Marcus obeyed. The basket took off and shortly after came back, falling in the same spot, empty.
‘William!’ shouted Marcus. ‘You can’t leave me here. The Tectons could come at any moment. They won’t be long now!’
The only response was a jerk on the rope. The basket jiggled like an impatient puppet. But this time Marcus ignored it.
The tunnel. Marcus started to fill it with rocks. Rocks and more rocks. But he only managed to create a ridiculous screen of stones. It was as if a man condemned to die were trying to delay the morning of his execution by covering the window of his cell with towels. Marcus raised his eyes.
‘William! Will you let them kill me while I work as the devil’s chimney sweep? Why, William? Why? What have I done?’
‘No one wants to harm you, Marcus.’
It wasn’t William’s voice, it was Richard.
‘Richard! Where is William?’
‘Fill the basket.’
With Amgam, obviously. The whole thing was a deliberate, cruel revenge: the Tectons would come and they’d kill Marcus, and meanwhile William would have Amgam for himself. What a dark soul, William Craver’s. Unlike other spiteful lovers, he wasn’t jealous of the feelings she didn’t have for him, but rather of the feelings he couldn’t have for her.
‘You’re not like William,’ Marcus flattered him. ‘Lower the ladder, Richard!’
‘Only if there is a problem. That’s what William told me to do. Until then, work,’ said Richard, still keeping himself invisible.
‘A problem?’ said Marcus with a desperate voice. ‘An underground race is about to invade the Congo, the world! And you won’t lower the ladder until there’s a problem? You’re as mad as a hatter, Richard Craver!’
Marcus didn’t know how to interpret Richard’s silence. Maybe it was merely the passivity of a morbid spectator. But what if behind that silence lurked feelings of guilt? Marcus was thinking very quickly. He guessed that William had never explicitly ordered Richard to kill Marcus. That wasn’t the nature of their relationship. Surely William had only given him some neutral instructions that would eventually lead to Marcus’s death. What other reason could there be, otherwise, for an order that prohibited helping a shipwrecked man until his head no longer sunk below the water? Because, obviously, the only possible ‘problem’ was the Tectons. And once they appeared, when they were already in the mine, the last thing that Richard would even consider doing would be to lower the ladder.
‘Think, think,’ said Marcus to himsel
f, ‘there are no desperate situations, only desperate men.’ He had to take advantage of the fact that William wasn’t there, and that Richard was free of his influence. He had to give him reasons that would justify disobedience.
‘I’ll remind you that three minus one makes two,’ stated Marcus. ‘If they kill me you’ll only be two men defending yourself against the Tectons. Lower the ladder!’
Nothing.
‘At least stick out your head. They told you to lower the ladder if something strange happened. Fine. But how are you going to know what’s happening if you can’t see it? Richard? Richard? Richard!’
It was useless, even though Richard had his doubts. If he was sure of his role he would have shouted at Marcus to fill up the basket. He didn’t.
As foolish as it was, he piled up a few more rocks at the hole. After a while the first few feet of the tunnel were more stuffed than a Christmas stocking. He put a last little stone there, like a finishing touch. He sat down again. Right there, below the hole, with his back leaning against the wall.
Marcus thought about Amgam, about the things that William must be doing to her. He knew that William wouldn’t be satisfied with raping her. His imagination offered him demonic scenes. All the Congo’s perversion fitted inside there, inside a simple canvas tent. A cold melancholy nested in Marcus’s chest. He hadn’t died yet and he already missed life.
He felt something hit his head lightly. He saw something bounce off his head and fall to the ground. He took a good look at it: it was the last stone he had placed in the tunnel.
He got up.
‘They’re coming, Richard!’ shouted Marcus. ‘Stick your head in and you’ll see it for yourself. Damn you, Richard Craver! Look!’ he insisted when he got no response. ‘That’s all I’m asking of you. Look!’
The hole trembled. The wall of stones shook. Something pushed harder and harder.
‘Richard, look! Just look!’
Now the stones fell like a cascade. Marcus had the impression that the wall would burst at any second.
‘Richard!’
The bulky torso of Richard Craver appeared up above. Just in time to see the tip of some sort of black spear come through the stones. No, it wasn’t a spear; it was a gigantic drill bit. Richard suffered some sort of hypnotic crisis. He couldn’t take his eyes off the instrument that was destroying the fragile wall of stones.
‘What are you waiting for? Lower the ladder now! Bloody hell! Richard!’
The last shriek woke Richard up. He looked at Marcus as if it was the first time he had ever seen him.
We mustn’t confuse desperate acts with useless ones: that wall of rocks saved Marcus Garvey’s life, because while the Tectons were breaking through it Richard had one critical moment to make up his mind. William hadn’t counted on that extra minute. Richard saw Marcus begging for help and the black-tipped drill, and he remembered William’s instructions: there was no reason not to lower the ladder. And he lowered it.
Marcus rushed to the ladder. At that moment the first Tecton’s head emerged. It was completely covered by a helmet that had three small round openings, two for the eyes and one for the mouth. He used his head like a battering ram, pushing away the last stones that blocked his path. Behind the head appeared a furious torso, white armour, dusted with red earth. And two arms that held the drill. It was a perforating instrument, more than a weapon, but Marcus was sure that the Tecton would try to kill him, that he would grab him from behind as he was climbing up the ladder. He knelt down, then he threw a handful of red earth at the holes in that helmet and climbed like a lizard without a tail.
‘The ladder!’
Richard and Marcus pulled up the ladder before the Tectons had a chance to climb up it. As they raised it they could see the inside of the pumpkin-shaped mine filling up with white bodies at an alarming rate. In less than a minute close to a hundred Tectons must have emerged.
‘To the fence!’ shouted Richard.
They took the ladder, then they went through the drawbridge door and closed it behind them. William had just come out of his tent.
He hadn’t had time to get dressed. He wore only black boots and white trousers. We have to imagine that he must have been surprised to see Marcus alive. ‘Richard, go to the twelve o’clock loophole,’ ordered William. ‘And don’t shoot until I do.’
Richard obeyed and went round the fence to the northern loophole. When they were alone William had the audacity to give Marcus a rifle. He tossed it to him with one hand. The weapon crossed the space that separated them making a parabola. Marcus caught it so awkwardly that he almost tripped. William said, ‘Do you know how to work it?’
‘No.’
‘You’re a clever boy, you’ll learn quickly.’
William and Marcus took up their positions. Marcus at seven o’clock and William at five, separated by the door. The guns went in through some slots in the shape of horizontal rectangles. That allowed each barrel to cover the entire space inside. On the other side of the fence, at the twelve o’clock position, emerged the tip of Richard’s gun, which kept shifting from the right to the left within its slit, searching for a non-existent target. Because the anthill remained incomprehensibly calm.
‘What are they waiting for?’ wondered William. ‘Why don’t they come up?’
Time dragged. And it was unbearably hot. Marcus dropped his rifle to one side. The mugginess made him so dizzy he had to rest his forehead against the wood of the palisade. At the edges of his visual field he saw yellow lights. Rivers of sweat fell from his cheeks, they congregated on his chin and trickled to the ground in a small vertical stream. He felt the mosquitoes slide off his skin, trapped in sweat too dense for their tiny legs. The wall of tree trunks surrounded the anthill, the forest surrounded the clearing. Thousands of animal sounds went up to the sky like the smoke from a pot. There were also the squeaks of a train braking. And the creaking of an overloaded rocking chair. But that constant roar came from the insects, like grinding teeth, thousands and thousands of tiny teeth gnashing against each other.
Something caught Marcus’s attention. He looked at the sky, as if checking the weather, and spoke.
‘They’re coming,’ he said to William. ‘Listen.’
Silence had fallen over the clearing like a meteorite. Since that day, so long ago, when they had left Leopoldville, they had always been accompanied by noises, night and day, day and night. Sounds shrill and harsh, wild and friendly. Irritating like a drill or sedating like flowing water. Noises of birds, of monkeys, of unidentified beasts. The sound was so constant that they had stopped hearing it. And now, all of a sudden, silence.
‘Do you see?’ shrieked Richard from his position. ‘Do you see what I’m seeing? Oh, God!’
Three hooks now clung to the mouth of the anthill.
‘Shut up!’ said William. ‘And don’t shoot!’
They could see that from the hooks hung some hairy ropes. The ropes were taut. They held heavy weights: Tectons ascending. There was no doubt about it. Now they could also hear some military voices, very similar to the shouts that mark the rhythm on galley ships. On top of each hook appeared a helmet. One of those stone helmets that covered the entire face except for three round holes, two for the eyes and one for the mouth. The heads didn’t move from the anthill. They hadn’t expected the primitive fort that contained them. After a few very long minutes they decided to show themselves, standing up, still. Behind them appeared more Tectons. They all wore the same stone helmets and the same armour, with long skirts that went down to their ankles. The Tectons made a circle around the mouth of the mine. Disciplined and still, back against back, as if each one had to keep up individual combat with the tree trunks in front of it. More Tectons came out. The formation created the effect of a living sculpture. Suddenly, though, a guttural voice was heard, and all the Tectons took a step forward, expanding the circle. That was what William was waiting for. Before they could get to the trunks he shouted, ‘Now!’
It was impo
ssible to miss. Richard’s enormous shotgun made some horrific holes in the stone armour; William’s rifle shot with the cadence of a machine-gun. In such a small space and in the midst of that crossfire the Tectons had only one strategic option: to climb up the wall of trunks before they were killed. Impossible. They were shot down before they could even start climbing. Tectons didn’t stop coming out of the anthill. It was as if the mine spat them out. They showed admirable discipline, complete indifference to the rain of bullets that killed them. The dead bodies piled up inside the enclosure. Then some sort of howl was heard, very similar to what would come out of a horn. It was a retreat order. When they heard it, the surviving Tectons returned to the mine. They had called off the attack. At least for the moment.
‘They’re leaving!’ announced William. ‘Cease fire!’
But Richard must not have heard him. Around the anthill there was a heap of dead. Richard shot and shot into those dead bodies.
‘Richard! That’s enough!’ shouted William. ‘Stop shooting, save your ammunition!’
Fear kept him from hearing anything. He continued shooting. Through the lookout, Marcus focused his attention on the pile of dead. And he was surprised to see that, indeed, he could still make out movements. What Richard didn’t understand was that all that agitation was caused by his own bullets, which were designed to kill elephants. Each time a corpse received an impact the entire pile shook. The heads and appendages moved as if they were still alive and sprayed the inside of the fence with blood.
William and Marcus went around the fence to Richard’s position. There William shook his brother by the shoulders. Richard jumped. He thought he was being attacked from behind. With a horrific scream he moved his rifle like a sabre, attacking us dementedly.