No one will ever know how, when or why Mirno Sevic came to England. But once there, he met Martha Garvey (there was no wedding, neither in a church nor in a registry office), an orphan without a past who had just come out of the institution where she had been brought up. Martha was very thin. I was surprised that Marcus’s first memory wasn’t visual, it was tactile. When he nursed, he recalled, his fingers would move above his mother’s nipples and brush against ridges covered by skin: Martha’s ribs, which cut across her chest.
Martha was very odd. She often talked to fairies that only she could see, beings in the form of lit matches that appeared to her on Tuesdays and Thursdays. She once explained to Marcus that the fairies smoked mashed oak leaves, that they were anti-Catholic and that they hated riding on mosquitoes, which they were obliged to do by the forest God. Martha was a heavy smoker; the orphanage she had grown up in, Catholic; and Mirno, an insatiable lover. We can conclude, then, that the woman projected her phobias onto those imaginary beings.
This woman, disinherited by the world, without fortune or forebears, spoke to her son in French. Perhaps because it was the only positive thing she had learned at the orphanage. Perhaps because it was a way to avoid the tortuous relations with Mirno. During the violent rows between Martha and Mirno, as frequent as the reconciliations, he would end up bellowing in some Balkan language. She screamed in French. Who says that children aren’t discerning? At the age of five, Marcus had opted for French, which he spoke as well (or as badly) as he did English. He learned not a single word of his father’s savage tongue, that ‘language of the forests’, as he himself defined it.
Too poor to even rent a room, Mirno purchased a wagon that he converted into the family home. And thanks to a passing acquaintance he bought an old bear that was going to be put down from a circus company. The bear was as thin as Martha and had as few teeth as little Marcus.
And so began the Sevic family’s artistic career. Mirno was the tightrope walker. The worst tightrope walker ever, according to Marcus. The man’s mishaps, which he survived unscathed even though some of his falls were quite violent, were more popular than his feat of walking on a rope that was nine feet high. Soon it became a comic act. Pepe the bear danced like a drunken goat. They dressed him in a red beret, like the Spanish Carlists, and the Welsh miners accepted the farce. In terms of the bear’s ferocity, suffice to say that on summer nights Marcus slept with him under the wagon. Besides making Pepe dance, Marcus acted out fragments of Shakespeare. The miners were moved by the sight of a little boy with such short legs doing Macbeth. The men applauded. The women cried.
The overall picture was one of an unfortunate and erratic existence. But that wasn’t how Marcus saw it. He explained all the ups and downs of the MMM company (Mirno, Martha, Marcus) with a smile on his lips the entire time. Those were his golden years.
It was as if every sin in the world had passed through him without wounding him, without making him bitter. He spoke of his adversity and he never blamed anyone or anything. I only noticed some resentment when he told the story of a beating he had received from his father.
One day the company set up their camp on the outskirts of a town just like all the others. The wagon sat under a tall oak tree. In his free time Marcus climbed the oak like a monkey. It fascin ated him that something so large and so solid could be alive. It would have taken three men to get their arms around the trunk of that tree. After a few shows Mirno and Martha decided to move on. But Marcus refused to leave. Finally Mirno had to thrash him.
‘I don’t know why I disobeyed my father. It was just a tree,’ said Marcus with a slight laugh.
But I knew why. Or I thought I did.
Perhaps Marcus appreciated the roots of the oak tree more than the tree itself. Perhaps that tree had made him want a more settled life. With other friends besides Pepe the bear. With a decent roof above his head.
I said before that a man’s life is what he thinks it has been. I should add that men are sovereigns when it comes time to ascribe an order to their lives. I went over my notes later; during a two- hour conversation, Marcus had devoted forty-five minutes to talking about his mother, and thirty minutes to Pepe. The rest of the time was taken up by his father and family events, in that order.
‘Sir, time’s up.’
It was Sergeant Long Back. He said it as if he were announcing an execution. Garvey stood up. Until that moment I hadn’t realised that the prison uniform and the grey of the walls were so indistinguishable. I stood up too.
‘I enjoyed it very much, actually,’ said Marcus, and he was more animated than he had been at the start of the session. ‘I’ve never told anyone so many things about me before.’
Long Back directed the two guards while they lifted Marcus up, watched over him and took him away peacefully. Long Back didn’t have to move. He led Marcus just as he would have led a cow. His cruelty was within the limits set by the penitentiary code. He seemed to me to be a good librarian of men, that was how I read him.
‘It’s hard to believe that he’s accused of killing two men,’ I said to the sergeant as Marcus was escorted down the hallway. ‘He’s so little, and dark …’
The sergeant was putting the chairs back in order with mechanical movements. When he heard me he stopped for a second. With his hands on the back of a chair, and without looking at me, he said, ‘Yes. Like a tarantula.’
If Garvey or Norton, either one of them, had been a bit stronger or a bit weaker, I would have given up the case that very evening. But neither one was strong enough to proceed without me. And neither one was weak enough for me to have the guts to decide, without a guilty conscience, that their cause was hopeless and I’d be better off washing my hands of the whole affair.
We have a tendency to believe that our decisions are based on perfectly thought out criteria. I believe that we’re first moved by our emotions, which act like an invisible crowbar on our reason. ‘They’re going to hang me, aren’t they?’ My problem was that once I had listened to Marcus I couldn’t escape his influence, which in certain aspects was slight. What a paradox! Marcus Garvey emanated only weakness, but an indestructible weakness. If he had been an arrogant, stubborn man, hellbent on fighting for his life to the last breath, I would have left him to face the challenge himself. Instead, the image that came to me was that of a child struggling against the waves of a typhoon. And you can’t ask a shipwrecked man if they’re guilty or innocent, you can only offer them your hand.
In terms of Norton, his weakness didn’t so much come from his personality as from his position. As he had admitted, he was desperate. The fact that he asked for my help said it all. He didn’t want me to write a book, he wanted me to navigate a dark map. He would interpret the charted area with a barrister’s eyes. That way, perhaps, important hidden information would come to light that would speak in Garvey’s favour.
The write-up of the first session didn’t amount to much. I had two whole weeks to transcribe the interview before my next visit. Since I was used to the pace imposed by Flag’s outlines, that was nothing. I even rewrote the first chapter five times to improve its style. Without realising, I had stuck to Flag’s style in the first draft. I opened my eyes. Flag was history, Doctor Luther Flag no longer existed. I was able to allow myself, with singular satisfaction, to suppress dozens and dozens of adjectives.
Each adjective that I eliminated was a personal revenge. Armed with my red pencil, I remember killing more and more adjectives, and my laughter made its merry way through the entire boarding house.
‘Tommy, old boy, what are you doing up there in your room?’ MacMahon asked me one day.
‘Liberating myself, Mr MacMahon, liberating myself!’
However, my author’s joy was inversely proportionate to the hopes the tale offered. If it had any value, if it transmitted any emotion, it was only because I sympathised with the character of Marcus in a very irrational way. What was Norton expecting having such a limp, dull story written up? Did he hope to provok
e some easy tears? Beg for society’s clemency? If judges were compassionate, prisons would be empty, and they are full to bursting.
When we observe the tragedy that murders cause, we always come up against an irresolvable conflict: that the murderer can defend himself and his victims cannot. I had a wild idea. I couldn’t bring William and Richard Craver back to life, but I could let someone who was very close to the victims have his say. What was stopping me from paying a visit to the Duke of Craver?
Getting an audience with the Duke was easier than I expected. I arranged an appointment over the telephone, and a week later I was in front of the entrance gate.
The residence of the Duke of Craver was a stately home, twenty miles north of London. Too crammed with objects for today’s tastes, perhaps, but the visitor had a sense that behind those ornate walls endless generations of Cravers had lived secluded in an ecstatic tranquillity, immune to the shocks and mutations of the outside world. Once inside, the butler took me to a small waiting room. He assured me that I would be seen right away. By whom? The Duke in person, of course. I would never have thought that it would be so easy to gain access to nobility.
He was a man as broad as an atlas, immensely vital. His corpulence bound together body and soul well. He sported scars and mutilations, half an ear snatched by a bullet from an Arab musket, for example. But the Duke was some sort of Roman coliseum, where the ravages of history, more than damaging him, actually defined his profile. He emanated natural authority. When Charles Craver walked in I had the impression that the furniture sat up straight and the tiles wanted him to step on them. I even had the reflex to stand to attention.
‘Well,’ he greeted me with affable irony, ‘another book about General Gordon and the Sudan. When are they going to get tired of it? Clearly, never. First came the journalists, then the biographers. I suppose you must belong to the historian’s guild …’
He spoke as he walked towards me. When he stopped a palm’s length in front of me, I opened my mouth.
‘It’s not Gordon that brought me here.’
He looked at me for the first time. He observed me attentively, trying to assess who I really was and what I was doing at his house. I measured my words very carefully. I didn’t want to cause more pain to a man from whom Africa had already stolen two sons.
‘I’m not interested in the Sudan. I wanted to talk about the Congo.’
We store pain in boxes. It’s surprising how a simple word can open them and release their contents. The two syllables of the word ‘Congo’ made the man who stood in front of me change into another man. Invisible fingers pulled the flesh of his cheeks downwards, as if the force of gravity had suddenly increased. His pupils grew larger. The Duke saw a horrible, private landscape. I didn’t want to hurt him. But Craver was a career soldier and he reacted as such: taking the initiative when pain presents itself.
‘What is your name?’ he said with a suddenly energetic voice.
‘Thomson, sir.’
‘Your full name, please.’
‘Thomas Thomson, General.’
‘Were you a friend of my son William?’
‘No.’
‘Of Richard’s?’
‘No.’
Craver was beginning to lose his patience.
‘Do I have to drag every word out of you one by one?’
After a few moments of hesitation, I decided to speak.
‘I’m writing a book, a book on certain tragic events that happened in the Congo two years ago … But I can only reflect a very subjective perspective on the facts.’
Craver didn’t quite understand what I was talking about. And since he didn’t understand, he was getting more and more worked up. He was struggling to contain the fury that boiled within him. He took a step towards me. I had to resist the temptation to back away two.
‘What book? What perspective are you talking about? Are you saying that …’
He understood.
I said, ‘You did not invite me, I’m not your guest. There is nothing forcing you to listen to me. One word and I’ll leave this house.’
‘How dare you show up here and …’
He could have attacked me, but something restrained him. He looked at the floor for a little while. He rubbed his chin. Finally he raised his eyes.
‘You don’t mean to say you are writing a book for my son’s murderer?’
‘I think it’s the last thing he will do in this life. And even a condemned prisoner has the right to some last words.’
It seemed he was hesitating between kicking me out or assaulting me and then kicking me out. Finally he raised a peaceful hand.
‘I’ve always valued audacity. Even from an enemy.’
He turned and walked away so quickly that I had to struggle to keep up with him. I continued to talk to his back.
‘I wouldn’t want you to misinterpret me. What might seem like an intrusion is only an attempt at impartiality.’
‘Do you have children?’ shouted Craver, without stopping to look at me.
‘No, sir.’
‘Well done! Don’t do it. They could die before you do. And of all the unnatural acts, the most aberrant of all is a father burying a son … two sons.’
We arrived at a large office, in shade, although it was midday. The large picture windows were covered with curtains made of heavy velvet. He pointed to a wall on which hung two framed photographs the size and shape of a flattened rugby ball. The first photograph bore an inscription: ‘Richard Craver. Leicester Barracks, November, 1907.’ In the dim light I had trouble making out all the detail of the images.
‘Shall I draw the curtains?’ I asked.
‘No.’
Outside a magnificent sun blazed. I didn’t understand why we had to suffer this gloom. But you don’t question the Duke of Craver.
The photograph of Richard Craver was a close-up of his head and shoulders. In the vast majority of men’s faces you can make out the traces of the child they once were. Not in Richard Craver’s. The picture made you think more of a barracks sergeant than an aristocrat. Coarse features, of poorly sculpted stone, and a flaccid fringe of greasy black hair. There was no doubt that the Duke of Craver was someone used to giving orders from the day he was born. His son had also devoted himself to giving orders, but with a truncheon in his hand.
And his eyes. Richard Craver’s right eye was noticeably larger, rounder, more open. His left eye indicated a more feminine side. The lid was lower, the gaze more sensitive, melancholy, almost defenceless. He had a slight squint, perhaps more obvious in the photograph than in person. A thick droopy moustache tried to reassert the masculine aspect of his personality. The attempt at camouflage was too obvious, and the moustache had the opposite effect of its intended mark of honour.
William was a very different sort of boy. The image showed a body and a character very different to those of his older brother. Craver guessed my thoughts and said, ‘William took after his mother, may she rest in peace.’
This photograph showed the young man’s entire body in a relaxed pose. Handwritten around the oval, you could read, ‘Happy William Craver at his twenty-fifth birthday party.’ William was dressed in white from head to toe. Even his shoes were white. The image had little contrast, but I would have wagered that his hair was as pale as his shoes.
All of William’s facial features were projected outward, like a fox’s head. He sat on an Empire-style armchair with one knee over the other. He was looking at something beyond the frame, at a vanishing point only he had discovered. Unlike Richard, the two halves of his face were as symmetrical as a spider’s body. He held a cigarette and he appeared to be, more than just a smoker, a tobacco tamer, as if everything that came into contact with him became his natural accomplice. William was smiling, and I sensed that cunning was the first aspect of his being that had conquered adulthood.
‘If men understood the risks of fatherhood, they would give it up. But that would be the end of the world. And we don’t want the worl
d to end. Isn’t that right, Mr Thomson?’
‘Yes, sir.’
The Duke jerked open the curtains.
‘I don’t like to see it.’
The curtain hid a large balcony. We went onto it. Craver took in a deep breath. From up there all the Duke’s land could be seen. The Craver mansion was shaped like a croissant. The croissant’s horns became walls that embraced a large garden. One entered the garden through a gate that united the two tips of the croissant.
Craver threw a question into the air. ‘What is the point of happiness?’
‘I don’t know, sir,’ I hesitated. ‘I always thought that happiness was an end unto itself.’
‘You’re wrong. We want to be happy so we can bequeath our happiness.’
In the foreground a man was leading a horse to the stables slowly. We could hear the noise of the four hooves on the stone; it was a very pleasant noise that blended with a stream of water from a fountain. In the background, very close to the tip of the right horn, there was some sort of cabin made of unfinished trunks of wood. Craver told me that, as a child, Richard played there for hours on end. At the tip of the left horn, there was a white summerhouse. A favourite spot for William’s seductions, according to Craver. (What a sad smile he had when he mentioned these two buildings.) Between the cabin and the summerhouse, right in front of the entrance, was an oak. It was so broad they had been able to carve a great passageway through the trunk. I myself had passed through that opening on my way to the mansion.
‘Murderers are the worst thieves. They steal the most valuable thing men have: their past and their future.’
Craver was no longer hostile. He rested his arms on the railing. The voice that spoke was desolate. Can one imagine how the stump of a tree cut down by a murderous hatchet would speak? I can, since that day, when the Duke of Craver said, ‘Take a good look, Mr Thomson, take a long hard look. All of that will die along with me.’