You must have already imagined – and if you haven’t, I’m deeply sorry that you hold me in such low esteem – that a man such as myself would never be content to hand over to a court a simple list of signatures. I also have a witness to use against Garvey. But during the meeting that you and I had, the Irish Revolution had already begun. And my fate, triumph or defeat, was also written. It was defeat.
Now it is impossible for me to personally take care of that witness. Can I trust anyone but you? In my circumstances I have no other options. You should know that this witness has received my instructions to go to the address that you gave me. I hope you can offer him the protection that I am unable to give him. Make him take the stand, have him speak. I ask nothing more of you. I know that you are paid by Garvey’s barrister. But I also believe that in this struggle of interests between your superior and justice you will choose justice.
One last thing: the man I am sending to you is a faithful, reliable and disciplined soul. I told him to go to your boarding house and not to move from there until someone attended him Christianly. And believe me, I ordered him not to move and so he will not move. Whether it rains or it’s sunny, or if a thousand years pass. (So I ask you to keep a close eye out for his arrival.) Another thing: this man of ours has been given the strict order not to identify himself or speak about the Garvey case except in front of the right person. And how will this person (that is to say, you) identify himself? With a password. This one:
The Congo is the Congo is the Congo is the Congo.
Repeat this formula three times, for a total of the word Congo twelve times. Sorry, I’m not very original with passwords. But if any word can identify my witness it’s that one. And common sense tells me to keep it simple as to avoid postal censorship; soon I will be a cadaver like any other, but in the meantime I am not a man like any other.
P. S. After reading this letter the authorities whose custody I am in have, very indulgently, determined that it doesn’t contain political information and they have agreed to let it through. So they won’t censure it and it will be sent to the address I have indicated.
May you live for many years and may justice grow up around you like a luxuriant leafy forest.
I had finished reading but the letter continued, in human form, in the seat in front of me. Mr Modepà.
‘Your name isn’t Modepà, is it?’ I said.
Before I finished the sentence, while I was speaking, I realised that ‘Modepà’ was the phonetic translation of the French expression mot de pas, or ‘password’. When he heard me, Modepà moved the Times of Britain from in front of his eyes with the same brusque gesture I had used when lowering the letter to my lap.
‘You are Pepe.’ He looked at me attentively and I said, ‘You should be dead.’
He analysed my statement slowly, and finally said, ‘No. I am alive.’
I stood up, offered him my hand and, with a shiver I was unable to hide, said, ‘Mr Godefroide: I would be immensely honoured if you would allow me to buy you a drink.’
I took him away from the house. Why did I take him away? Surely because, deep down, I knew the truth and I was looking for a way to put off hearing it. We went to MacMahon’s Irish pub, which had a private booth.
The scene that followed showed that the most dramatic moments of our lives could also be the most ridiculous. I knew Godefroide’s real name, and therefore his identity. So, my saying the password was irrelevant. But he insisted on it with fanatical perseverance. He had orders not to tell his story to anyone until the person in question had said it, and he had been waiting for two years and he could wait for two more.
So I had to recite the entire password, but that repetition of the word ‘Congo’ seemed absurd. If Casement, wherever he was, was watching us, he would have killed himself laughing. Godefroide was doing all he could to help. ‘That’s it, you can do it,’ said his face each time I said a ‘Congo’. It became too much when, after that string of ‘Congos’, Godefroide looked up at the ceiling pensively and said, ‘Sorry, could you repeat it? I’ve lost count …’
Somehow we worked it out. And when we had it all in order Godefroide revealed himself to be a real chatterbox.
‘Mr Casement told me to go to the address of the old boarding house. According to Mr Casement sooner or later someone would show up and offer me lodging, and sooner or later someone would ask me about the password. And that’s how it was.’ He drank some whisky and continued. ‘But instead of a building I found a pile a rubble, so I sat down and when someone showed up I repeated, ‘Mot de pas? Mot de pas?’ But no one said the password. Until now. What took you so long?’
I wasn’t at all sure I wanted to ask him the crucial question. But I didn’t really have any other option. It was a miracle that we were there. Godefroide was seated before me and willing to speak. I had spent four years writing a book, always basing it on invisible characters, and now one had appeared. I only had to ask him one question, just one.
‘Godefroide, what happened in the jungle?’
At first Godefroide’s story was very similar to Marcus’s. Godefroide had been hired by some white men, the Craver brothers, as their assistant on a mining expedition. They left Leopoldville with one hundred bearers. They went deep into the jungle through a tunnel hacked into the most aggressive vegetation in the world.
‘One day,’ continued Godefroide, ‘when we were very, very deep into the jungle, the caravan stopped in a clearing. Young Master Richard was convinced that there was a large diamond mine there.’
‘Diamonds? Are you sure?’ I stopped him. ‘They found a diamond mine or a gold mine?’
‘Diamonds. Young Master Richard said that one could see gold and one could smell diamonds. And he smelled diamonds,’ said Godefroide unwaveringly. ‘We set up camp at the clearing. The Craver brothers slept in one tent, Marcus and I in another. The truth is that they only found two diamonds. But what diamonds they were! Each one was as big as a baby’s fist. The night they were found Marcus was so nervous that he couldn’t sleep. He kept turning on his cot, muttering, “Bloody hell, why do those two get to keep the two diamonds and I don’t get any?” And I said to him, “I’m tired, Young Master Garvey, let’s go to sleep.” But he went on and on, “Bloody hell, why do those two get to keep the two diamonds and I don’t get any? And I politely repeated, “I’m tired, Young Master Garvey, let’s go to sleep.”’
Godefroide’s reiterations were starting to irritate me. I grabbed his forearm and said, ‘Godefroide! What else happened?’
He opened his eyes extraordinarily wide. In that face so black, and with his retinas so yellow, his eyes looked like two fried eggs. ‘Well, then Young Master Garvey said to me, “Shut up, you bloody nigger,” and he left the tent with a lamp and a revolver and he headed towards the tent of the Young Masters Craver. He threw the lamp inside, any which way, to see them better, and I heard him fire six shots from his gun. I’d left the tent. I could see the two silhouettes of the Young Masters Craver outlined against the canvas. William was thinner and Richard was fatter. I could also hear them. They were wounded. They were crying and begging Young Master Garvey not to kill them. But Young Master Garvey, who was standing outside the tent calm as could be, reloaded the weapon with six more bullets. He shot the Young Masters Craver again, this time at closer range. All six bullets. But he still hadn’t killed them. Young Master Garvey loaded again and shot six more bullets. First William, then Richard, then William, then Richard, then William, then Richard. When he was sure they were quite dead, Young Master Garvey turned round. He saw that I was behind him and he said, “And what the hell are you looking at, coon?” But then he changed his attitude and said, “Wait a minute, Pepe, I want to talk to you about something.” Young Master Garvey, when he was in a good mood, didn’t call me a coon, he called me Pepe. But the truth is he was almost never in a good mood. I realised that he was pretending to be nice, but that meanwhile he was reloading the revolver. Why would he need to load it when the Y
oung Masters William and Richard were already dead? That could only mean that he wanted to kill me as well, and since I didn’t want him to kill me I ran into the forest as fast as my legs could carry me. Young Master Thomas!’
Godefroide had noticed that my palm was bleeding. My nails had punctured the flesh and it was bleeding. I was so absorbed in the story that I hadn’t realised. I poured whisky on the wound and wrapped it up with a handkerchief.
‘Godefroide,’ I said. ‘Why don’t you explain it all to me?’
‘All of it? What do you mean, Young Master Thomas?’
‘All means all,’ I said.
‘Well, all it is,’ obeyed Godefroide. ‘I managed to get back to Leopoldville, but I didn’t know what to do. I was terrified at the thought of seeing Young Master Garvey again in Leopoldville, and I was afraid he would accuse me of the murders. Since I am black and he is brown, the whites would believe him before me. One day I did see him walking along the streets of Leopoldville! I was very frightened, so frightened that I gave confession to a Belgian missionary. I confessed my sins, but above all those of Young Master Marcus Garvey. The missionary had known me for many years, and he also knew Mr Casement. The missionary urged me to speak to Mr Casement, and Mr Casement believed me. He told me to keep quiet, that if we wanted justice we had to be very crafty. Mr Casement didn’t trust the Belgian courts. But when he found out that Young Master Garvey had been arrested in England, he sent me money for a boat passage. I had to go there to testify in a trial. But that trial never took place. Then the war broke out and my trip was postponed many times. The rest of the story you already know. When I was able to leave, Mr Casement sent me a message. I had an address to go to where they would take me in. But I shouldn’t give my statement until I heard the word “Congo” twelve times in a row from the mouth of the same person. Mr Casement did it that way so I could remember it more easily: the word “Congo”, where I was born, and twelve times, like the twelve apostles of the Good Lord.’
‘And what else? Where is the rest of the story?’
Godefroide didn’t understand my impatience. He looked up at the ceiling, then turned to me and said concisely, ‘That is all. Is there something else I should know?’
‘And the white men?’
‘All the white men of the expedition are dead, except for Young Master Garvey, who is brown and who killed them.’ Godefroide was sincerely hurt when he asked me, ‘Maybe I didn’t explain it clearly enough? Young Master Garvey is a murderer and justice must be done. Young Master Thomson, your hand is still bleeding.’
I hated being called ‘Young Master Thomson.’ And he knew it. But insisting was futile. Godefroide was one of those men willing to offer his life for his superiors, but incapable of changing a habit even if the good Lord Jesus himself commanded him to.
The music passed through the wooden walls and reached our ears clearly. I didn’t know that Irish music could be so sad. Godefroide had taken my hand. He undid the handkerchief and poured whisky on it from his glass. While he redid the bandaging he continued.
‘I was very frightened, and when I ran away I didn’t look back. I returned alone, through the jungle, and it’s a miracle I survived. I ate mushrooms off tree bark, fruits that hung from branches, and I gobbled down grasshoppers as they jumped. I had to hide from the savages, because on the way to the clearing we had done ghastly things to them. Ghastly, Young Master Thomson, you can’t even imagine! And I survived like that for a month! Young Master Garvey was a bad sort. On the trip out he liked to throw bombs of dynamite at the villages, just for fun. The Young Masters Craver, who wanted healthy bearers, would often scold him because he went too far and threw many more bombs than was necessary. He also made the trip back alone, like I did, but armed with rifles and sticks of dynamite, and no one would have dared go near him. He would have bombed even the lizards he came across!’
‘So William wasn’t killed by your fellow countrymen? They didn’t hang him upside down so the rats would eat his brain?’
‘Master William hung upside down?’ Godefroide laughed. ‘No, of course not! I can’t even imagine anyone doing that to Young Master William. That was the punishment the Craver brothers applied to lazy bearers. Although the original idea for that punishment was Young Master Garvey’s.’
‘And what happened to the white woman?’ I tried again.
‘Oh, please, Young Master Thomson!’ he said. ‘What white woman are you referring to? On the expedition there were no women, much less white ones.’
‘Go home, Godefroide,’ I said abruptly.
At that moment the musicians paused. My change of tone and the musical silence disconcerted Godefroide.
‘Did I say something wrong, Young Master Thomson? Are you angry with me?’
‘Go back to the boarding house.’
He left. I ordered another double whisky, then another, and another. At first I said to myself that I was drinking because the whisky helped me to think. It was a lie. I was drinking because drinking helped me not to think.
Fear and phlegm accumulated in my chest in equal parts. My brain wanted to discredit Godefroide, or Modepà, or whoever he really was. I said to myself: he’s an impostor; he’s a deserter; it’s a trick by Casement, a resentful sodomite; he’s an uneducated Negro, don’t trust him. But as I downed the last of the whisky, I realised that without fuel those ideas had no substance. I decided, ‘I need to find more fuel.’
I left the pub. But instead of going back home I went to another drinking place. And when they closed it, another. Each place was worse than the one before. Finally I couldn’t find anywhere else open. But I persevered in that dumb heroic way drunks have. In the docks I found an open pub, the worst of them all. It wasn’t a pub so much as a hideout. All the women were prostitutes and all the men were thieves, or vice versa. I didn’t care. I could get drinks in exchange for money.
The place was shaped like a laboratory tube, with a very narrow neck cut by a bar and a wider expansion at the end. It was packed with people, and the noise was so loud everyone shouted instead of spoke. I had to bawl into the waiter’s ear to make myself understood. I asked myself why they would have such uncomfortable architecture. Even with the all the alcohol fumes fogging my brain I got it and I laughed.
It was the most abject, perverse and degenerate den in London. The regulars had to be always on alert for police raids. The tube shape allowed you to see the police enter from far away. The density of bodies would make it hard for the officers to move too quickly. Meanwhile, those being chased had time to jump through one of the windows that opened out on the other end of the tube, where the widened space seemed designed for people to be able to dance.
I had drank far too much. I had a spiralling thought. I thought that England had the largest empire in the world, which made my country the most evil in the world. I thought that London was its capital, which made it the most perverse city in the world. And since I was in the worst bar in the worst city in the worst country in the entire world, its regulars must be, logically, the worst specimens of the human race. Following this reasoning, then, the worst of the worst of the worst had to congregate at the bottom of the tube, far from the entrance and close to the window. I stretched out my neck from where I was, at the middle of the bar, to observe those representatives of the dregs of humanity and, naturally, there was Marcus Garvey.
He was dancing with an old prostitute painted like a tropical cockatoo. The music was created by a violin, heels that tapped against the wooden floor, hands that clapped without rhythm, and many voices tortured by tobacco. Marcus and the woman laughed. She laughed like a madwoman and Marcus laughed at her. The woman’s dress was covered with stains, small and large, old and recent. I couldn’t even imagine the variety of human liquids that must have come together to create that archipelago. Among the dancing men was one who was so drunk he couldn’t stand up. But the throng didn’t let him fall. He swayed from back to back, resting his head on some shoulder until two arms pushed hi
m a bit further on, towards another body.
Marcus grew tired of the old woman and traded her in for a tankard of beer. The woman protested, so Marcus broke the tankard over her head. The people that noticed laughed. A mixture of blood, beer and pink dye trickled down the woman’s head. She had been knocked unconscious but, like the drunk man, she didn’t fall to the ground. Their heads hypnotised me. They both floated among a sea of shoulders, unconscious, moving like two spinning tops. Sooner or later they would meet up on some shoulder and kiss in oblivion. Then I said to myself, ‘Wake up.’
I headed towards Marcus. But moving in that forest of chests and backs was impossible. I pushed without thinking, using my arms as crowbars and poking ribs with my elbows. Marcus saw me when I was only a few feet away. But in that place a few feet was an unattainable distance. He remained motionless like a lizard in the sun. Now he could see no one but me. And he was a different man: all of a sudden I saw his famous green eyes as pools of rotting seaweed. I had never seen him with that expression. It was an insolent hate, a hate as hard, concentrated and dense as a bullet. That expression was nothing like the sad, helpless face I had witnessed in our sessions. The racket made it impossible for us to hear each other, even though we were so close, so Marcus moved his lips very slowly, mouthing, ‘You fucking bastard.’ And he leapt through a side window.
I lunged after him. I could see his silhouette running into the docks, and before the fog swallowed him up I gave chase. The piles of unloaded goods created labyrinth-like passageways. Bundles, bales and containers of different shapes and sizes were heaped around us forming random circuits. Marcus tried to lose me in one of those cargo corners. His little legs ran at a surprising speed, as if impelled by an engine that was independent from the rest of his body. I had drunk too much. All I could do was run and yell, ‘Come here, you bastard!’