A Treacherous Paradise

  about it.’

  They entered Isabel’s cell. Ana noted that the basket was empty. Isabel was sitting motionless on her bunk.

  ‘You have a visitor,’ roared the commanding officer.

  Isabel didn’t react. Pandre nudged the officer’s arm to indicate that he shouldn’t yell at her again, then went up to Isabel and sat down beside her. Ana stood by the side of the bunk, while the officer remained in the half-open doorway. Ana had no idea of what Pandre was saying to Isabel, but Isabel bucked up the moment the lawyer started speaking to her, and answered his questions in her own language.

  The commanding officer rattled his sabre impatiently. Ana took a step closer to him and began to tell him the story she was making up as she spoke.

  ‘They’re talking about her children,’ she said. ‘They are discussing her great sorrow at having been deceived by her husband, and her regret for what she has done. She’s telling him how much she wants to leave this dump of a prison and start work in one of the white missionary stations, spreading the true faith among the black population.’

  Ana tried her hardest to imbue the story she was making up with as much conviction as she could possibly muster. The commanding officer listened in stony silence. He’s not really interested, she thought. Isabel means nothing to him. It doesn’t matter to him if she lives or dies. He only came along with us because he was bored stiff.

  She continued to elaborate on her story while Pandre and Isabel spoke quietly to each other. When the conversation was over – and it stopped suddenly, as if absolutely everything had now been said – Ana rounded off her account by repeating what she had said about Isabel’s longing to devote her life to a Christian missionary station.

  When they returned to the hotel they sat down in the shade of some frangipani trees and gazed out over the sea. Pandre had said nothing in the car after saying a polite goodbye to the commanding officer. Now he swayed slowly back and forth in the garden hammock, a glass of iced water in his hand.

  ‘Isabel is ready to die if she has to,’ he said. ‘She will die rather than admit to any guilt. Her silence is due to her dignity. Her soul. She kept repeating that word over and over again. “It’s all about my soul.”’

  ‘Doesn’t she want to live for the sake of her children?’

  ‘Of course she wants to live. Perhaps she might be able to escape. But if her only way out is to admit to being guilty, she would rather die.’

  Pandre continued rocking back and forth, gazing out to sea. He stretched out the hand in which he held the glass of water and pointed at the horizon.

  ‘That’s India over there,’ he said. ‘Thirty years ago my parents came to Africa from there. Perhaps I or my children will go back one of these days.’

  ‘Why did your parents come to Africa?’

  ‘My father sold pigeons,’ Pandre said. ‘He heard that there were a lot of white people in southern Africa who were prepared to pay large sums of money for beautiful pigeons. My father had learnt how to glue extra tail feathers on to his pigeons so as to get a higher price for them.’

  He looked at Ana with a smile.

  ‘My father was a confidence trickster,’ he said. ‘That’s probably why I have become his opposite.’

  He put down the glass of water.

  ‘I can’t really give you any advice,’ he said. ‘The only thing that can save her is if she can escape. Perhaps the commanding officer can be bribed? Perhaps one of the soldiers can be persuaded to leave her cell door open one evening? I’m afraid I can’t suggest anything else. But as you have plenty of money, you have access to the one thing that might be able to get her free. I simply don’t know how best you can use your money in this particular case.’

  ‘I’ll do anything to get her out of that prison.’

  ‘I suppose that’s what I’m suggesting. That you do anything at all you can.’

  Pandre took an envelope out of his inside pocket and gave it to Ana.

  ‘Here is my bill,’ he said. ‘I’m intending to visit your women tonight. I’d like to be picked up from here at nine o’clock. I’ll have dinner alone in my room.’

  He stood up, bowed and walked over to the white hotel building. Ana stayed where she was, thinking over what Pandre had said. She knew that he was right. Isabel was trying to choose between dying and saving her soul.

  Is that what I’m doing as well? she asked herself. Or has the possibility of choosing already passed?

  She remained sitting there until the sun set. Then she went home, changed her clothes and went to pick up Pandre at nine o’clock. He was now wearing a dark suit with a high stiff collar, and smelled of a perfume Ana had never before come across on a man.

  ‘That stethoscope,’ she said when they were sitting in the car. ‘Where did you get it from?’

  ‘I made my preparations,’ said Pandre. ‘Before I was picked up I paid a short visit to the hospital. A friendly doctor let me have an old stethoscope very cheaply.’

  They sat in silence for the rest of the journey.

  When they arrived at O Paraiso, Pandre sat down on one of the red sofas, was served a glass of sherry, and then started to assess the women carefully, one by one.

  Ana sat down on a chair in a corner of the room, and watched him from a distance. She still hadn’t opened the bill he’d given her. They had agreed earlier on £100, but she suspected Pandre would have added considerable extra costs that she would have to pay him.

  She observed Pandre and his critical eyes.

  Isabel’s dump of a prison seemed very close by. A chain round Isabel’s leg chafed and rattled quietly somewhere deep down inside Ana.

  63

  WHEN PANDRE EVENTUALLY chose the woman he wanted to be with, and pointed at her as if he were selecting an animal for slaughter, all present were surprised to find that his finger was aimed at the pale and almost repulsive A Magrinha. Ana thought at first that it was Felicia he had selected, as she was standing next to A Magrinha. But when she saw Pandre stand up and bow in front of the extremely thin woman that hardly any of the customers ever chose, there was no doubt about it. She was astonished; but if there was one thing she had learnt during the time she spent in the brothel, it was that the desires of men and their views on what was tempting were impossible to predict. It also occurred to her, not without a degree of satisfaction, that Pandre’s selection of A Magrinha meant that the cost of his visit had decreased because A Magrinha was a net loss to the brothel rather than making any money for it. Perhaps the time had now come to have one final talk with her, ask Herr Eber to pay her enough money for a vegetable stall in one of the town’s markets for the blacks, and then to send her packing once and for all.

  But she got no further in her thoughts before something unexpected happened and distracted her. There were rather a lot of clients in the brothel that evening, crowded round the little bar in one corner of the room with their glasses and cigars, and as Pandre was on his way with A Magrinha to her room a tall, well-built man suddenly stepped in front of them and blocked the way. O’Neill, who could always sense when danger was in the air, got up from his seat next to the door. Ana did the same. The man standing in front of Pandre was called Rocha, a person with an Italian father and a Portuguese mother. He worked in the colonial administration, in charge of the maintenance of roads and sewers, and visited the brothel every week. He was usually well behaved, but he occasionally lost his temper when he had been drinking too much. When that happened he would be escorted off the premises before he could cause any damage.

  Ana suspected instinctively that something very serious was about to happen. Rocha pushed A Magrinha to one side and began speaking to Pandre in broken English.

  ‘I have choosed her to spend the evening with me,’ said Rocha.

  ‘I find that very hard to believe,’ said Pandre, without losing his friendly smile.

  ‘To say as it is, all the women have already clients for the evening. You come too late.’

  Ana had approach
ed close enough to hear the brief conversation, and knew immediately what it meant. She had noticed how many of the white customers had reacted when a coloured man entered the brothel. It had never happened before during her time in charge, although Senhor Vaz had told her how he very occasionally made an exception for influential Indians from Durban or Johannesburg. As nobody had protested openly, she thought that the complaints would come directly to her later, after Pandre had left the brothel. That somebody might ask her what she meant by allowing such a person in when all the other customers were white, and that she would reply that she was the one who decided whether anybody should be turned away or not. She knew that they wouldn’t like it, no matter how much she stressed that it was an exception.

  All conversation had ceased, everybody was looking at the two men and the girl, who hardly knew what was happening around her.

  ‘Is there a problem?’ Ana asked.

  ‘Not really,’ said Pandre. ‘It’s just that this man is standing in our way. We were just about to withdraw.’

  ‘He has stolen the woman I have picked for this evening,’ said Rocha.

  He spoke Portuguese to Ana. When he started to translate, Pandre raised his hand to stop him. He had understood everything that was said.

  Rocha pulled A Magrinha roughly to his side, as if to underline what he had said. In a flash Pandre took her back again – but before either Rocha or Ana had time to react, A Magrinha had snapped out of her trance-like state. She pushed Pandre to one side and stood next to Rocha.

  ‘He is going to be with me tonight,’ she said. ‘Not that brown man.’

  Pandre’s smile vanished. It was as if a flame had been blown out. He turned to Ana. She could see that he was furious.

  ‘I insist that I have made my choice,’ he almost snarled.

  ‘That’s my impression too,’ said Ana, turning to A Magrinha and gesturing that she should go back to Pandre.

  ‘I don’t want to,’ she said. ‘He’s brown.’

  ‘And you are black,’ said Ana. ‘I’m white. And I’m the one who decides what you’re going to do.’

  ‘No,’ said A Magrinha. ‘I’m not going to get undressed for him.’

  Rocha smiled. O’Neill had moved closer as it looked as if blows were about to be exchanged. But Pandre gave up. Ana knew that he was not accepting defeat, he was still furious: but he could see that things could become very nasty, and he wanted to avoid that.

  ‘I’m going back to my hotel,’ he said. ‘I assume that the payment for my services will have arrived before I leave Lourenço Marques around noon tomorrow.’

  He bowed, then hastily left the establishment, followed by O’Neill. The men clustered round the bar applauded approvingly. Rocha pushed A Magrinha away contemptuously, and she flopped down on to a sofa. Ana could see that right now she hated the place she found herself in – more than ever before.

  When Ana heard the car’s engine start, she went out into the street. O’Neill was standing there, smoking.

  ‘That man should never have come here,’ he said. ‘It’s none of my business, of course. But if you let the likes of him come in, you’ll soon find that all the other customers disappear.’

  Ana didn’t respond. She knew that she ought to go in and order Rocha to leave the premises, but instead she crossed over the street and went into a little bar run by two Portuguese brothers. One was small and fat, the other a hunchback. The bar was cramped. It contained a wooden counter, a few tables in the dark corners, and a number of street walkers who divided their time between parading up and down outside and having drinks bought for them in the dark interior of the bar. Ana asked the hunchbacked brother for a glass of cognac, emptied it rapidly and ordered another. She recognized one of the women lurking in the shadows. She had frequently asked to joined Ana’s brothel, but been rejected by the other women because she had a reputation for stealing. She was also in the habit of punishing customers who didn’t treat her well by poisoning them with magic potions. The poison didn’t kill them, but rendered the men impotent for a considerable length of time.

  When Ana saw that the woman was coming towards her, she gestured with her hand that she should keep her distance, put money on the counter to pay for her drinks, and went back out into the street.

  The night sky was clear. She thought about her father and the evenings when he used to show her the constellations he was so familiar with. She waited there in the street until the car returned from Pandre’s hotel, and just before clambering in she turned to O’Neill.

  ‘Tell the women I want to see them all at seven o’clock tomorrow morning.’

  ‘They’ll be asleep then.’

  ‘No, they won’t,’ said Ana. ‘They will be awake, washed and dressed. At seven o’clock tomorrow morning I want to see them gathered around the jacaranda tree.’

  ‘I shall be there.’

  ‘I want to talk to the women, not to you. You will not be there.’

  She closed the car door. She could see through the rear window that O’Neill was standing with an unlit cigarette in his hand, watching the car leave.

  Carlos spent that night lying asleep, looking like a hairy ball, in the bed beside Ana. He touched her arms now and then in his sleep, as if he were climbing. As he didn’t whimper at all she assumed that meant he wasn’t having nightmares. If indeed apes had dreams like humans did. She wasn’t sure, but perhaps by now Carlos had moved sufficiently far away from his life as an ape. She had the impression that more and more often he was having dreams that scared him. Ana herself lay awake, dozing off briefly now and again, but most of the time rehearsing for the meeting tomorrow morning. She needed to prepare them for the difficulties which were going to get worse for as long as she continued trying to secure the release of Isabel. She would tell them that she had no intention of giving up, no matter what problems that might cause. But at the same time she wanted to know what they thought about it all. Did they understand Isabel’s situation? Was there any desire to help her?

  During the night Ana got out of bed now and then – quietly in order not to wake Carlos up, even if she was never sure if he was only pretending to be asleep. She leafed through her well-thumbed and shabby Portuguese dictionary in an attempt to find the right words to express what she wanted to say the next morning. She went out on to the veranda in the warm night air. The guards were asleep beside their fires, a solitary dog trotted past without a sound in the street below. From the sea she could see the twinkling lights of ships waiting for high tide so that at dawn they could progress into the harbour and berth.

  One of these days I’ll go down to the quayside as well, she thought. With a life newly shattered, in an attempt to mend it. That’s what brought me here. Soon it must also lead me on to the next stage, even if I don’t yet know where my destination will be.

  64

  EVERYBODY WAS ALREADY there when Ana arrived at the brothel the next morning. On the way, she had stopped at Pandre’s hotel and handed over an envelope sealed with sealing wax to the half-awake manager. It contained the money Pandre had asked for. As she left the hotel, she wondered if she would ever see him again. She didn’t really know anything about him, apart from the fact that his father was a confidence trickster who used to glue false tail feathers on to pigeons.

  There was no sign of O’Neill when Ana entered the brothel for the early-morning meeting. A chair had been placed under the jacaranda tree for her. To her surprise it was Felicia who started talking the moment she sat down. It became obvious to Ana that the women had prepared for the meeting in advance, perhaps just as thoroughly as she had.

  Felicia spoke on behalf of them all.

  ‘We know that Senhora Ana is trying to help Isabel. That is something that surprises us, and we respect you for it. No white man would do that. Probably no other white woman either. But we are also aware that your doing so is causing difficulties for us. We are getting fewer customers, and the ones that do come are not as generous as they were before. We’ve a
lso noticed that they sometimes treat us more roughly than they used to. The word in town is that men are choosing to go to different establishments with different women, as a protest against what you are doing to help Isabel. That means that we are earning less – if it goes on like this we shall soon have no customers at all. In other words, this place would lose altogether the good reputation it used to have.’

  Felicia had spoken as if she were reading from a script. Ana knew she was right. The number of customers had indeed gone down – at first only slightly, but lately much more noticeably. Herr Eber was worried and had shown her a graph illustrating how income was falling – not exactly over a precipice, but down a hill that was growing steeper and steeper.

  Nevertheless, Ana was both annoyed and disappointed by what Felicia had said. She had hoped for approval and support for her efforts to get Isabel released. She found herself feeling contempt for these black women who sold their bodies without a second thought. All that mattered to them was their income.

  She realized immediately that the thought was unfair. She was the one who earned more than anybody else from the activities of the brothel. She was the one who could afford to spend time and money on attempts to help Isabel. She was the one who had the means to bring Pandre to Lourenço Marques from abroad, and she was the one who might eventually be able to bribe somebody to allow Isabel to escape.

  But what Felicia had said continued to annoy her. Even during the time when Senhor Vaz was alive, the women in his establishment had earned much more than those in any of the town’s other brothels.

  ‘The difference in earnings can’t be all that great,’ said Ana. ‘Is there really anybody among you who has cause for complaint?’

  Ana noticed that her voice was tense. She wanted them to be aware of her anger.

  None of the women spoke. They all stared into space. Nobody reacted even when two orange-sellers in the street outside started quarrelling. The women were normally more interested in fights or noisy quarrels outside the brothel than almost anything else.