Naturally, Mrs Pinkerton was trying to say something more than just describing an objective fact. She was trying to suggest that ‘that’ was bothersome, to her and to the other lodgers, and that ‘someone’ should stop, repress or censure Mr MacMahon’s weeping, and that ‘someone’ was none other than me, Thomas Thomson.
And that’s because the height of emotion that Mrs Pinkerton felt was when she received her Christmas card each year: it came from an insurance agency that sent the same card to all its customers who had had their home insurance policy for over twenty years. It was very hard for such a woman to understand something as basic as a man, far from his home and his family, crying with grief. I think that feelings scared her the same way the African jungle scared Doctor Flag’s readers. She didn’t know what dangers lurked within, she was completely ignorant of them, and therefore any aberration was feasible. And if some feeling dared to express itself, unsuspectingly, she repressed it as if it were a tribe of cannibals on the warpath against the British government.
My response was quite blunt: ‘Go on in and speak to him yourself, then.’
Anyway, that dialogue stuck in my mind because it had some very constructive effects: Mrs Pinkerton never mentioned Mr MacMahon’s crying again, nor did she ever again ask me to do anything about it at all.
From what I’ve just explained you might deduce that I was rather unhappy. Quite the contrary. One shouldn’t confuse hay fever with the springtime. It was, in fact, the happiest and most carefree period of my life.
My room was in the most isolated part of the house, at the end of a hallway, a safe distance from Pinkerton, MacMahon and the others. From the window, on the horizon, I could see the smokestacks of Royal Steel. Their schedule marked the pace of the neighbourhood. You could count up to eighteen different shades of grey. The grey of the clouds, of the façades, of the houses’ roofs, of the street, and of the pavement. When it rained each shade duplicated, adding one more tone. I didn’t mind a bit.
My furnishings were as simple, or more so, than those in van Gogh’s room. A table, a chair, a bed, a chest of drawers and my most valuable possession: a very modern typewriter.
I had grown up in a state orphanage, where, in contrast with the spirit of the times, I received an acceptable education. In those days the legal age for leaving orphanages was fifteen years old. But I was so comfortable there, and the institution’s staff so pleased with me, that through various legal sophistries they were able to keep me there four years longer. During those four extra years I worked mostly in the library. That was the stimulus for my love of books. So much so, that when I decided to leave the orphanage of my own accord, at nineteen, I did so with the firm intention of devoting myself to literature. The day I left, they paid me, with the strict rigour of a bookkeeper, the equivalent of four years’ salaried work as a library assistant. It was a generous parting gift that allowed me to live for a while without financial worries, which I spent writing.
In any case, I had arrived at the boarding house with the healthy intention of becoming a writer and I applied myself with spartan discipline. I used Royal Steel’s whistle to establish my schedule. First thing in the morning my index finger would be poised to start typing, waiting for the high-pitched squeal. I would write and write, and my day didn’t end until the whistle let me know that it was time to stop. I lived, literally, like a labourer in ink.
In those days I was a member of a group of young inexperienced writers that made up in pedantry what they lacked in talent. That was where I met Frank Strub. He came one day, only once. When I go back over this story, I realise that he came to snare someone like me. I met him, he read some of my pages right there and asked me to meet him in that cheap restaurant in north London. You already know the rest of the story. Poor Strub? Poor me.
Edward Norton himself opened the door of his office for me. He was dressed as elegantly as he had been at the cemetery, with a tie, a bright white shirt and a silk waistcoat. The front entrance’s hallway led directly to a living room turned into an office. The walls were covered in wood up to eye-height.
The day we had met my defences were low. This time I didn’t want Norton to catch me unawares. It was clear that I would have in front of me a professional who exercised his trade inside and outside the courtrooms. A man that measured each of his gestures with a compass. The trouble with barristers, like doctors, is that if they’re good, you never know what they’re thinking.
He had me sit down facing him and said, ‘One moment, please.’
During an entire minute, a long minute, he wrote something, using an expensive fountain pen. I was sure that it was a trick, that he was just scribbling. He was making me wait, which underlined his importance and diminished mine. I had no choice but to sit there looking at his thin moustache and perfectly bald head.
He put down his fountain pen and made a gesture, a gesture that I would see him repeat many times: his fingertips pressed together as if praying, forming a small pyramid, touching the tip of his nose. I wasn’t there. A few seconds of meditation and he returned to me.
‘Look what I read last night.’
He pointed to a novella by Doctor Flag that rested on one end of the table. Coincidentally it was the same one that had begun my ghostwriting career: Pandora in the Congo.
‘Did you write it?’
‘My name isn’t on the cover,’ I said apologetically, ‘but I did indeed write it.’
‘Then you have a lively pen. I’ve always admired agile writers. I would have tried my luck in the literary world if it weren’t for my congenital lack of imagination. Does your dexterity with words come from your family?’
‘I never knew my parents,’ I said. ‘I was raised in an orphanage.’
‘I’m sorry. I suppose you had a very rough childhood?’
‘I was phenomenally happy.’
My response surprised him. Since he was so sure of himself I felt proud to have disconcerted him a bit. He changed the subject.
‘How do you create an entire story out of thin air?’
‘I don’t. I just follow an outline,’ I explained curtly. ‘I don’t create anything, I just fill in the blanks.’
Norton frowned slightly. ‘Perhaps you’re right,’ he said hesitantly, ‘but I still think that you have a lively pen.’
I guess that he couldn’t compliment that ridiculous book in any other way. Anyhow, he switched topics. ‘What did Doctor Flag pay you for each book?’
‘Flag didn’t pay me anything,’ I said. I was still infuriated and the resentment became evident in my voice. ‘Flag paid a man, that man paid Spencer, Spencer paid Strub, and Strub paid me. Each one squeezed a little bit more out of me than the last.’
‘Well, I’ll pay you three times that. As a compensation for the triple exploitation.’
I didn’t say anything. Norton leaned over the table a fraction.
‘I’d like you to write me a story, an African story. The person who will explain it to you is named Marcus Garvey and he is in prison.’
‘How did he end up there?’
‘Awaiting trial. He’s accused of murdering two brothers, Richard and William Craver. It’s not looking good for him.’
That got my attention. ‘The gallows?’
Norton let out a disillusioned sigh, opened up a file and said, ‘The evidence points to him. And worst of all, the victims weren’t just any two ordinary men. They were the sons of the Duke of Craver.’
I didn’t know what he was talking about.
‘The Sudan, the Siege of Khartoum … remember that?’
‘Oh! Of course!’ I rejoined. ‘Craver, the officer that General Gordon was unable to rescue, besieged at Khartoum. Years later they reinstated him. And they made him Duke.’
‘Exactly,’ he assented. ‘William and Richard were the sons of a patrician. And Marcus is an insignificant stableboy. I don’t think they are going to give him many opportunities. Right now I only have one strategy: to present appeals for procedural
errors and slow the proceedings down.’
My eyebrows rose like a drawbridge. ‘But I don’t know anything about the legal world. I’ve never written juridical documents.’
* * *
‘That won’t be necessary. I am the barrister, you are the writer. Tell the facts according to Garvey’s version, write it as if it were a novel. The plot is worthy of it.’ Here Norton adopted a more solemn tone. ‘Richard and William Craver went to the Congo in the summer of 1912. Marcus went with them as an assistant. The three men travelled deep into remote areas of the jungle. But only Marcus came back out. He escaped justice until he was caught right here, in London, at the end of last year.’
‘And the evidence?’
‘Overwhelming. There is the sworn testimony of the British ambassador to the Congo. The crime’s motive has also been requisitioned: two giant, priceless diamonds. The public prosecutor’s office even has Garvey’s confession. Just one of these pieces of evidence would be enough to hang a failure like Marcus Garvey ten times.’
‘What good will it do him if I write an extensive narrative of what happened in the Congo?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Norton laconically.
‘Why then do you want me to write Garvey’s version?’
His next statement was more rhetorical than sincere. ‘Because I’m desperate.’
He paused and ruminated at length before speaking.
‘I don’t have time to take down an exhaustive declaration from him. Perhaps by reading the whole story we can establish some reasonable line of defence.’
I didn’t know what to say. He smiled.
‘Your novellas have entertained many people. Now you may have the chance to save a life.’
From his perspective they must have been very solid arguments, because he didn’t even ask me if I would accept the assignment. It’s also true that I didn’t object. We tied up a few contractual details and he walked me to the door.
Norton could be very warm and he could be very cold. During our short walk to the door, in the hallway, he said, without looking at me and in a tone somewhere between instructive and recriminating, ‘Don’t ever again ask a barrister if his clients are guilty. If Jack the Ripper were my client I would defend his interests. But we don’t have to mix the job of defending someone with the choice of believing him. That belongs to the private realm. And my most personal conviction is to oppose the death penalty. When the state kills, we stoop to the level of the worst murderer.’
‘Are you saying that Marcus deserves the gallows?’
‘What I am saying is that you are smart enough to be able to form your own opinion. No one has ever been as close to Marcus Garvey as you’ll be.’
He opened the door for me. With his hand still on the knob he smiled shyly.
‘Now that I can count you among us, we’re three people involved in this case. A man, a noble spirit and a gentleman. I’m not entirely sure which one is which.’
‘I don’t understand,’ I said.
Norton erased his smile.
‘What happened in the Congo surpasses human understanding, Thomson. It’s one of those stories that makes us doubt everything. Listen to it and write it down. I’ve never heard anything so extraordinary. Never. And neither will you have.’ Norton presented himself to the world as a young ambitious barrister. My intuition told me more: that behind that cold exterior there was a rational steamroller, without friends or enemies; a privileged mind and a stubborn will at the service of basically selfish interests. A man like that couldn’t be on Tommy Thomson’s side. We should pay more attention to our intuitions.
THREE
MY TASK HIT SERIOUS difficulties from the very beginning. Marcus Garvey had not yet been tried. That situation, as contradictory as it may sound, offered me fewer advantages than disadvantages. He hadn’t been sentenced and, therefore, had none of the rights of the long- term prison inmates. Prisoners awaiting trial were only allowed two visiting hours every fifteen days. I would have to use those little blocks of time wisely in order to interview him.
Two warders escorted me inside the prison. We passed through some workshops and I saw that the saws, planes and squares the prisoners used were chained to the walls. It depressed me: even the objects in there were doing time. We finally arrived at a cell, sparsely furnished with two chairs and a large rectangular table. A sergeant with a Serbian-style moustache and a very straight back was waiting for me. His top button and his belt buckle were separated by quite some distance. I reflected that the civil service must have spent extra money on the cloth for that uniform, but the investment had paid off, thanks to the authority that such a long torso projected. This man was whom I would have to deal with during my visits and I gave him the name Sergeant Long Back.
I heard Marcus Garvey before I saw him. From the hall I could hear some rhythmic sounds, like wood or iron moving. He entered the room with his wrists and ankles shackled; on his feet were wooden clogs, which explained the peculiar combination of sounds. He wore the grey uniform that turned the convicts into souls in purgatory. But that sad grey failed to negate Marcus Garvey. He was an exotic-looking man. And the covering of grey created a contrast that made the other colours on his body sparkle even more. The first thing one noticed about Garvey was that Moroccan hair that some women love so much, curly and tight. From his dark complexion, bright like leather soaked in oil, two green eyes shone with the phosphorescence of a summer glow-worm.
It’s odd, now that I think about it, but even though he must have been a few years older than me, in our relationship I was always the one in charge. I knew that first impressions leave a lasting mark. A well-dressed, well-coiffed man is a man and a half. So, I prepared myself from tip to toe for my first visit. I wore my hair very short and damp with moisturising lotions. I’m sorry to say that even at nineteen my lovely blond hair was already threatened by violent receding, two estuaries as deep as all the hair I had left pooled in a yellow band at the base of my skull. Each hair was turned toward its respective side, like an army in formation. I couldn’t afford expensive clothes, but who ever said that you need a lot of money to dress impeccably, with dignity and even a certain elegance?
Marcus, on the other hand, was at a disadvantage. He was a prisoner, with all the indignities that that implied. What’s more, there was another element: Garvey’s physicality, which had an un deniable bastard, gypsy beauty, had some anomalous facet that detracted from it. The two guards who escorted him weren’t giants, not by any means, but even so they stood a whole head taller than him. I finally realised that his thigh bones were shorter than normal, excessively short. And his weak knees eliminated all aesthetic merit. When he walked it made one think of some sort of wooden puppet controlled by an inexpert hand.
I was just about to take my place at the table when Sergeant Long Back stopped me. ‘No, please, not here.’ He ordered the two guards to place the chairs on the short sides of the rectangular table. So our hands were far apart, making any type of contact impossible. We sat down and I felt as if we were one of those rich married couples, more separated than united by their dinner table. Instead of silverware, Marcus had his chains, I had blank sheets of paper and a pencil. (They had confiscated my fountain pen because it was metal and pointy.)
‘We’ll be watching you,’ announced Sergeant Long Back, ‘in case there’s any problem.’
The way he said it didn’t make it clear if the problem was Marcus, me, or the combination. I interviewed Marcus Garvey many, many times. And I have to say that that tall, lanky sergeant didn’t miss one minute of our sessions. He was always behind the bars, seated, politely deaf to our words, incredibly attentive to our hands. He was never substituted, he never took a holiday, he was never off sick. He was a perfect human sphinx. I often wondered: does this man never rest? Doesn’t he have physical needs, doesn’t he have eyelids?
There is a private universe of sounds inside prisons. From unknown corners, we heard echoes of bars opening and closing
, and fragments of human sentences so muffled by the layers of cement that they were unintelligible. We sat facing each other with a silent chasm between us. I wasn’t at all sure how to begin the conversation. I shuffled paper to buy time. Garvey may have sensed my hesitation. He opened wide those green eyes and said, ‘They’re going to hang me, aren’t they?’
His simple sentence had the virtue of fusing sadness and beauty. I don’t know how to describe the candour and deep conviction with which he said those words. They would have soothed Attila.
‘You have to have faith in Norton,’ I said tersely. ‘He sent me to write your story. All of it.’
Marcus looked from one side of the table to the other as if he was searching for something he had lost. In the sessions that followed I would realise that that was his way of expressing uneasiness. Finally he asked me, lifting his eyebrows high, ‘And how do we do that?’
I didn’t have the slightest idea. I was supposed to be a professional but I had never written a biography. And it could almost be said that I was about to invent a new genre, halfway between a biography and a will.
What is a man’s life? What he thinks it was? I didn’t want to judge it, that wasn’t my job. I had promised myself that I would talk little and listen a lot. I wanted to be an uncritical, cosmic ear. We had a lot of sessions ahead of us, which would by their nature create a certain intimacy, and I didn’t want to sympathise with him.
‘Let’s start from the beginning,’ I said.
‘I didn’t kill William or Richard.’
‘No,’ I said, ‘from the beginning.’
‘If I remember correctly we landed in the Congo on …’
‘No, please,’ I interrupted. ‘Where and when were you born?’
Marcus Garvey didn’t know how old he was or exactly where he was born. He mentioned a small place in Wales, but I could see that the name meant nothing to him. His father came from somewhere in the Balkans, but Garvey wasn’t very clear on that subject either. On the other hand, he expressed deep emotions of gratitude and remorse for his mother. He had inherited his father’s hair and eyes, and his mother’s naïveté.