Tropic Moon (13 page)

“I knew a guy who only survived by throwing a stick of dynamite at them. Have you had something to eat? Believe me—eat first, think it over—”

“And don't go!” Timar shouted. “Thanks a lot … You're still here, you?”

It was the salesman, getting ready to leave. He said to Constantinesco, “Anything you want me to take farther on up?”

That meant upstream, where the jungle was thicker.

“Speaking of which, I'm going to see that fellow you were supposed to replace. You know—the one who promises he's going to shoot you.”

A few minutes later, the three white men were standing by the water, near the okume log. Two blacks started up the salesman's flatboat. It made a semicircle and turned into the current.

Twelve natives were waiting by a canoe that had been loaded with bananas, palm oil, and cassava. The air was scorching. Every breath of wind was like a burning caress. Constantinesco looked Timar in the eyes as if to say, “It's still not too late.”

Timar lit a cigarette and offered the pack to the Greek.

“Thanks, I don't smoke.”

“Too bad for you.”

Pointless words—he'd said them just to fill the emptiness. Timar looked uphill toward the house, the newly built native huts with their banana-leaf roofs, and, high up, a window facing a kapok tree. Last night he'd been looking out of that window into the jungle.

“Let's go!” he said suddenly.

The paddlers understood and climbed into the canoe, all but the chief, who waited to help the white man in.

Constantinesco hesitated before saying, “I'm sorry, but … you're not going to get her in trouble, are you? Please don't make matters any worse. She's an admirable woman.”

Timar gave Constantinesco a hard look and almost said something. But no—what good would that do? He sat down, scowling, in the bottom of the canoe. Twelve carved paddles rose as one before plunging into the water.

The house disappeared quickly. There was little to see apart from the red-tile roof, then nothing—only the top of the kapok tree towering over the forest. The last time he'd looked at that milky trunk he'd been in bed beside Adèle, who'd been naked, within his reach, counting her breaths and pretending to sleep. And he'd refused to say a thing. Maybe a single word would have been enough, or touching her arm.

She'd touched him later, furtively. He'd acted like he hadn't noticed.

Now he felt like bursting into tears, out of disgust, desire, despair, just because he wanted her.

They were on the same river, maybe twenty miles apart. She was on the flatboat with the black; he lay crammed in the bottom of a rocking canoe. Twelve paddles rose out of the water together, dripping liquid pearls in the sunlight. They hung suspended for a moment and then came down, while the men lifted their voices in a sad unchanging chant whose muted powerful rhythm would be with them throughout the trip.

A
BLACK
with rotting teeth yelled out a string of words. The instant all the paddles rose in the air, he fell silent—an interruption in the canoe's pulsing life.

Then twelve voices called back in response, chanting vigorously, and the paddles plunged into the water twice.

The little man started all over again in his high falsetto voice.

Two strokes of the paddle—that was the rhythm, exactly. Then the same brief pause, and the fury of the chorus calling back.

The whole exercise had been repeated something like five hundred times, and Timar—neck straining, his eyes narrowed—had started to anticipate the moment when the leader would once again drone out his bit. And he'd noticed that for the last hour it had always been exactly the same thing—maybe with the change of a word or two. The little fellow recited his piece without feeling, while various expressions—sometimes laughing, sometimes surprised, sometimes smiling—passed over his companions' faces as the couplets sounded.

And always, just when the twelve paddles hung suspended in the air, the twelve voices burst out energetically.

Suddenly, Timar was startled to realize what he was thinking about. He was amazed to find himself observing the blacks in a spirit of friendly curiosity, feeling quite calm and at peace. He felt thwarted, as if he'd been cheating someone—himself—in the drama he was playing out.

Even so, he went back to examining the natives one by one. Sometimes the river was rough, sometimes calm. Sometimes, notwithstanding the best efforts of the men, the canoe spun sideways. Each stroke of the paddle was followed by a great shock, a shudder that shook the canoe from stem to stern—at first it had made Timar uneasy. Now he was used to it, just as he was used to the smell of the blacks. Most of them wore loincloths, but three were completely naked.

The blacks faced forward, looking at the white man in front. They looked at him as they sang or when they laughed at a funny verse and as they plied their paddles with an air of fierce resolve.

Timar wondered if they were judging him, if they spared him any thought beyond generalities. It was the first time he'd looked at blacks as something other than objects of curiosity, picturesque, with their skins tattooed or actually carved up, some with silver rings in their ears, one with a clay pipe stuck in his frizzy hair.

Now he looked at them as human beings, trying to grasp their lives from that point of view, and it all seemed very simple to him, thanks perhaps to the jungle, the canoe, and the current carrying them along as for centuries it had carried identical canoes to the sea.

It seemed a lot simpler than, for example, the blacks in Libreville with their clothes, or boys like Thomas.

A photograph of the whole scene would have been picturesque: Timar thought of the little exclamations of his sisters and girlfriends, his friends' knowing smiles. A classic image of the colonial life, for sure: the canoe, Timar in front in his white outfit with a cork helmet on his head; without saying a word, the blacks had built him a canopy of banana leaves that made him look, if not regal, at least important; then, for the length of the canoe, the naked or half-naked paddlers standing one behind the other.

But it wasn't even picturesque—it was natural, soothing. It made Timar forget about himself—or anything at all. He took in images, sensations, smells, and sounds while the heat smothered him and the glare forced him to keep his eyes half shut.

Basically, the blacks seemed like good people, if a little backward, crying out in piercing voices when the canoe passed a village or even an isolated hut. Then they pushed the canoe to dizzying speeds. Brandishing their paddles over their heads, they all yelled together in joy and pride; other cries echoed from the bank in reply.

At one point, some black children dived into the water to try to race them. One of them was cheeky enough to say to Timar, “Cigarette! Give cigarette!”

The boy pretended to throw cigarettes into the river. Timar tossed a handful, and from afar saw the children fighting over them, soaking wet, in a great fireworks display of splashing, before they tore off into the bush.

An immense feeling of peace, that's what he was experiencing, but a peace tinged with sadness—he didn't know why. He had tenderness to spare within him, though it lacked a precise object, and it seemed to him that he was on the verge of understanding this land of Africa, which had provoked him so far to nothing but an unhealthy exaltation.

The river was calm, and the blacks steered the canoe to the bank and tied it up. Timar wasn't scared, he didn't feel the least twinge of apprehension, though he was the only one there who didn't speak the language. To the contrary—he felt as though they'd all taken him under their wing, like a child entrusted to their care.

They stood knee-deep and waist-deep in the water and washed their bodies. They took mouthfuls of water, gargled, and then spat.

Timar wanted to savor the sensation of the cool water, too. He got up, but the singer with the rotting teeth guessed what he was thinking. He shook his head, “Not good white man.”

Not good for white people. How come? Timar didn't know, but he took it on faith. The man told him to eat, so he opened a can of pâté. The blacks contented themselves with cassava and bananas. The jungle was dark. At one point, the men were all ears, leaning forward and smiling. Timar looked at them inquisitively. One of them made a face and burst out laughing. “Macaque,” he said.

They didn't see the monkey. They could only hear it in the branches. The sun was high up in the sky. Timar took some sips of whiskey—two or three. Soon he felt a luxurious sleepiness.

He was still examining the paddlers and without thinking playing a little game. It consisted of finding resemblances between them and people he knew in Europe.

His thoughts turned from France to Libreville, to the governor, the police chief, Bouilloux, and Adèle. The spell was thoroughly broken. He no longer looked around. He closed his eyes and felt the stirrings of a crisis.

It was like an angry swelling in his chest. He wanted to drink so as to do something bad, to scream, to make someone else suffer—himself, too. During one of these moments, he opened his eyes halfway and shouted to the blacks, who were chanting monotonously as always, “Silence! Shut up!”

They didn't understand right away. Then the man with the rotting teeth, who must have known a little French, turned to his companions and translated. There wasn't a word of protest. They simply fell silent, still looking at the white man: twelve pairs of eyes betraying no emotion at all. That upset Timar, especially since he wanted a drink. People like that—you shot them dead with a pistol!

Hadn't he been told that, the way they were, any one of them was capable of poisoning you in complete innocence?

The word “innocence” made him sneer. That was delicious! Here you could kill “in innocence”—that was it! Whites killed blacks and blacks killed each other, and sometimes, sometimes, they attacked a European. With no feeling. Because you have to live. No one was really a murderer. Maybe the little man with stumps for teeth had killed a few people. With tiny thorns steeped in poison—you put them in someone's food and let them slowly tear out their guts. Or with poisoned needles strewn at the entrance of your victim's hut.

They stopped again. Timar asked why. It was because the sun had shifted and was now falling on the nape of his neck. Two blacks brought banana leaves to shield him. Blacks who'd probably done their share of poisoning, too!

He drank more, but it didn't have the same effect as on other days. He didn't get angry or feel anxious. He lay back, eyes closed, unhappy and brooding.

Only when night fell did he return to reality. Darkness spread across the sky like an oil stain. There was no sunset to give relief. They were on a sluggish part of the river. It was wide, and the water was black around the canoe and especially along the bank under the trees. Somewhere far off a drum was beating, and the men, who'd been forbidden to sing by the white man, had to make do with a little grunt at every beat.

It was pointless to ask where they were. No one would understand, and in any case Timar wouldn't understand the answer. Where was he going to sleep? What was he doing here? Adèle had promised him she'd be back in two or three days. Why hadn't he waited for her at the house, where at least there was another white man?

What would he do in Libreville? He had absolutely no idea. When you got down to it, he hadn't wanted to be treated like a child, he'd been afraid of being taken for an accomplice, and he was jealous. Jealous above all. What had Bouilloux come to the concession for? Why had Adèle lied?

His worries returned. He drank a mouthful of warm liquor, and it soothed his stomach enough for him to lift his head and take a look around.

Night surrounded the canoe on all sides, and the men were no longer paddling in unison. They were going at it frantically. Sometimes two paddles struck together. And, instead of looking at the white man, their eyes strayed toward the jungle. Then, with a great heave, the canoe ran up onto the bank, lodging its prow in the undergrowth.

Only on land did Timar recognize where they were—in the village with the market where he'd stopped with Adèle on their way upriver, where she'd eaten two bananas and gone into the hut of a black.

There was a fire in the middle of a clearing surrounded by huts. Shadows squatted around it; Timar was afraid to go closer. He waited for the others, especially the man with the rotten teeth. Timar considered him to be his guardian.

The villagers didn't get up. They just turned their heads to observe the commotion down by the river. The folding cot and Timar's provisions were taken out of the canoe. Three paddlers carried everything to the center of the village. The puny fellow signaled for Timar to follow.

Not much was said—a few words at most. The man opened the doors to the huts, looked inside, and none of the occupants protested. From one of the huts he evicted the old woman who, only days before, had been squatting in front of her display at the market.

The cot and the provisions were placed in the hut. The black threw out the matting and, pointing at the décor, earnestly said, “Good! Here good!”

He went off after that without a noise, leaving Timar alone in the lighted hut. Only in the middle of it could he stand. It reeked of smoke: inside the fire must have been burning all day; the embers were still hot.

For ten minutes or so Timar struggled with the folding cot—he didn't know how to set it up. Finally he succeeded and made his way to the door, where he stood, smoking a cigarette. His paddlers had joined the villagers around the fire. He could only see their outlines, but they were all eating, using their hands to scoop boiled cassava from earthen plates.

Someone kept talking—loud and fluent like the singer in the canoe. Maybe it was him; the voice was the same. A few phrases came out very quickly, and they all sounded alike. Then he'd fall silent. Instead of the paddlers' refrain, there was a burst of laughter from the assembly.