My Chocolate Redeemer (34 page)

The tomb is empty. Whoever was here once is gone. On one of the pieces of equipment in the grass, I can make out the words
Refriga Hungarica
… I understand now that this was some kind of cooling plant, and here he would have lain in state, preserved under the canopy, cooled by the conditioning plant, surrounded by statues of the great ones.

He was to sleep forever, preserved against rot and damp, worms and wives, pharaohed in his greatness, ever secure in his box. Which came first – tomb or tea garden? Tea garden, of course, though at some point it was, as they say, redeveloped, the place made ready, the cooling system brought in, turnstiles erected, glass polished; then something happened. Before the remains of the old imperial tea garden could be torn away there came disaster, the clock stopped, the bush came back, the sun wouldn't go away. New times, new regimes – another ruler who objected to the old pretender had had his praises obliterated, maybe the Number One Peasant, or Number Three or Four, maybe all numbered peasants are indistinguishable, except by their numbers … I breathe on the glass and rub it with my hand in case there is something I missed. Nothing. Not a bit of bone, a tooth, not a relic, not a grain of rice. The purple hangings that were to keep the sun off are torn, all the statues are stones in the grass. But the intention is there, the prayer is there, he was to have lain here in the way my little boat lay on the floor of the lake,
La Belle Indifférente
, and no doubt children passing this way were also to pause and gape in wonder, perhaps to giggle softly as they leaned over the grave, hands on their knees. Nothing. Nothing except the sound of the sun which has been squeezed into a hot choked ticking in the long grass. But I feel him! As I felt him when he stood beside me by the lakeside and peered into the grave of the drowned boat. Suddenly, in case I hear a voice in my ear and find him beside me staring into the glass box built to hold himself, I straighten. The boy watches. He blinks at me, quick and hurt, I think he must be crying until I feel the tears on my own cheeks.

‘Ask her if she knew my father. A white man – a friend of the Redeemer?'

In answer Harp turns and moves away, giving us a glance over her shoulder meaning that we are to follow, and we go out of the garden and down a track and through thick reeds where the ducks fly upward in panic, and there by the riverside, moored in the brown waters of the River Bamba, is a houseboat. It's just like the houseboats I saw in his photographs in his room in the Rue Vandal. It hasn't been occupied for a long time – months, years perhaps. Creepers have begun to grow over it and it creaks protestingly as we climb aboard and clouds of mud float up to the surface of the water as she moves sluggishly beneath our weight. The rugs, the twirly table-legs, the settled, solid and rather pushy, overclothed permanence of a floating home. It's sweltering hot, the windows have not been opened – well, since he went away. Everything is as he left it.

On his desk the photographs stare at me. Here is my mother, young and very beautiful, posing for once for somebody else's camera, hand on her hip with the sea behind her and the wind lifting her hair. Here I am in my First Communion dress and here again on a bicycle, about eight years old, smiling toothily from a gilt frame. And here I am, a baby, sitting on Uncle Claude's lap while he reads to me from Euclid. I am crying but he does not appear to have noticed.

And here is a letter, his pen lies on the paper, uncapped, just as he left it …

‘My dear Bella,

Do not believe–'

Though I try several times the pen will make no mark; it simply scratches the paper of his unfinished letter.

Do not believe
?

The boy and Harp regard me silently. He laces and unlaces his hands. Harp hangs her head and speaks to him in a low whisper.

‘What does she say?'

‘She asks where you got the stone you wear around your neck.'

‘From my father.'

‘She says only wives wear such a stone. It is a gift from him. She asks if you are a new wife. She asks if he made your picture.'

Harp watches me and holds up five fingers. I nod. ‘Yes,' I say, ‘wife number five.'

The boy translates. Harp's face breaks into an enormous smile, relief, happiness and something else. It's only when she goes down on one knee that I recognise what it is, adoration …

I missed the bus. But there is a little steamer that plies the River Bamba, fifty years old at least; it was called the
Comrade Atkins
but that's been scratched out and it is renamed the
Uncle Dickie.
Signs of the developments which are everywhere in the air. Up the River Bamba, beating against the current, the steep-sided banks where the monkeys scream overhead and the tight green bush ticks like a bomb. Everybody seems to be travelling to Waq and by the time we reach the confluence of the Bamba and the River Zan, the little steamer sits low in the water and there is no space to be had. Someone has a crocodile aboard and feeds it twice a day with bushmeat, propping open its jaws with a piece of stick and tossing titbits into its jaws like a mother bird feeding her baby. The water ran out soon after we left and only beer remains. Plantain, if well roasted, is tolerable, the cooks working on deck sweating over their smoking braziers. The first-class cabins are crowded with important functionaries travelling to the capital to see for themselves the developments of which everybody has heard, although no one can say what they are. The second- and third-class cabins are stifling black holes, best never entered. Once we reach the Zan we begin stopping like a train at so many small sidings, packed villages on the banks where the looming ebony and mahogany trees have been cut back and dug-outs push from the shore to offer fish, manioc, out-of-date penicillin and even older pop cassettes …

Do not believe
– the last words my father wrote. Well, that's not so difficult, I do not believe. But Lord, help my belief!

In Waq I find they are doing something to the facts of history. The facts are in a state of continual revision; like symptoms of serious diseases, if you catch them early enough, repercussions can be prevented.

I am met by a party of Wouff all in a great state of excitement, jumping up and down so that their little skirts flap and the hollowed-out stones that they wear around their necks bounce on their chests; they sing and dance, and it seems that I am expected, known, and this is why they go down on one knee and bow their heads and insist on escorting me to the Kingdom Towers Hotel, even coming with me into the foyer, though the doorman who wears the hat which once hung on the tree beside the door tries in vain to prevent them. They spill into the newly painted lobby, chattering and smiling and pointing, happy as children. The Kingdom Towers Hotel is now another place, smart and sparkling. Big cars draw up to the entrance and men in suits climb out. The swimming pool has been cleaned, the urchins banished and women lie about in bikinis, sipping drinks from coconut shells. The Roumanian manager is a changed man, running up and down the foyer shouting ‘Front!' and ‘Good day!' and beaming horribly, and smacking his hands together with a sound of paper bags bursting. On the walls are framed telegrams praising the President of Roumania for his shining achievements: King Olaf of Sweden congratulates him on the new spirit of architecture; and Queen Elizabeth of England celebrates with him the anniversary of his accession to power. The manager wears a swallow-tail coat and pretends not to recognise me.

‘Do you have a booking?'

‘What do you mean, a booking? I have a room. I'm staying here.'

‘Dear Miss, we are very busy. We have the President upstairs, Comrade Atkins. Up on the tenth floor, plus his entourage, plus medical staff. We have visitors from everywhere. We're having to double up. Rumours about the health of the President have attracted enormous attention.'

‘But where am I to stay?'

He shrugs. ‘I'm sorry. But if you have no booking … Are these your Wouff?'

He looks coldly at my chattering entourage.

‘Yes.'

‘I'm afraid we allow no one in tribal dress into the hotel.'

It's no better in the bar, where Kwatch also refuses to recognise me and it's only when I go over with my hand outstretched that I force him to see me. He takes my hand vaguely and shakes it.

‘It's me. Bella.'

Kwatch stares. ‘Bella?'

‘Bella Dresseur, you know.'

Now he does know me, he smiles, he shakes my hand vigorously. But this recognition I do not like, this recognition is for somebody else. ‘Miss Dresseur,' – he smiles widely – ‘I knew your father! When did you arrive? Have you come all the way from France?'

‘I have no room. The manager says I have no room.'

‘It's true, the hotel is very crowded. But surely you've booked? We're packed out. There isn't a millimetre of space to be had. If we'd known you were coming … I was very attached to your father, he was a good friend to this country. But we have great developments going on here, you see. Many foreigners in town.' He points to a group of noisy beer-drinkers in the corner: ‘South Africans. Keen observers of our political developments. And over there,' – he drops his voice – ‘with the vodka, Russians. You see – it would have been wiser to book …'

My accompanying band of Wouff seem delighted that I have been refused entrance and I guess that's why they pick me up and carry me along Patrice Lumumba Drive towards the Presidential Palace.

Oh the city of Waq is turned on its head!

Well here I am, and here are the six bathrooms with golden taps in the shapes of swans and griffins, dozens of lavatories and crystal bidets, here are the apartments of the wives, four of them, great purple beds. Whose wives? Does it matter? Here are five thousand pairs of shoes, in these cupboards you will find three thousand pairs of pink panties. The Wouff carry me to the biggest bedroom of all: a field of a bed, clothed in gold, smelling slightly of onion.

This then is my position, I think. I am a guest of the Wouff or, seen in another light, you might call me a captive, a prisoner – but there are compensations. I have the run of the palace, except in the morning when the people are allowed in to gape at the spoils of the rulers, the thousands of bottles of anti-wrinkle cream, the boxes of toys bought for the children and never, as far as I can see, unpacked, the two hundred games of table football, for instance, and the thirty-six pogo-sticks, the entire rooms full of electric trains. Curious crowds wander in each morning and stroll down the corridors gazing at the beds, the chandeliers, the dozens of coffee-dispensing machines, and the Wouff make sure they do not touch anything though they are allowed to flush the toilets, which they do with great enthusiasm and cries of disbelief.

The Wouff, my guards or companions, patrol the corridors and they line the red carpet that leads to the throne. Yes, there is a throne, it's the famous Leopard Throne. Well, it's not what you might think of as a throne as much as a wooden chair, more a stool actually, made of two parallel discs of wood, one forming the base and the other the seat, and between these discs are a circle of leopards on whose backs ride little foetal creatures, baby spirits, infant ghosts. The back of the chair is carved in the shape of a trinity; a man sits with his knees spread widely apart and rests his hands on the heads of a man and a woman. It's surprisingly comfortable and I've rather taken to it. This is where I am obliged to sit whenever visitors call. For instance, Kwatch, the barman, who drives over with hot food from the Kingdom Towers where it seems that the health of the Number One Peasant is still in the balance. I can see Kwatch would like to stay and talk but the Wouff prevent this, urging him onto the throne where he deposits my tray; it's a kind of meals on wheels service, or rather a meals on knees service because poor Kwatch is forced to approach the Leopard Throne backwards, and on his knees, guided only by the sound of my breathing. Naturally I breathe as loudly as possible and try to guide him, I'm a kind of pneumatic lighthouse. Even so, he's inclined to wander off course occasionally with unhappy results, falling over a pogo-stick or backing into a chair, and I'm afraid the Wouff seem to enjoy this.

As the weeks pass I feel more at home. I can, for example, now recognise the presence of my Wouff escort without opening my eyes; I can tell just by the swish of their little leather skirts when they are near, and the thump of the hollowed stones that they wear around their necks bouncing on their breastbones. And from the window I can see other tribes gathered outside the palace. The Kanga in their white robes, praying to Mecca, dark, silent and patient. The Ite, in jeans and coloured shirts, have set up a little entrance beyond the palace where the queues of people form. I strongly suspect they are charging an entrance fee to the trippers who wander the lower floors of the palace each morning.

All of them waiting.

The news of my condition, of my position, has been spreading. I've had a letter, which I will not read you, from Monsieur Cherubini. It seems that my uncle has been corresponding with another comet fiend in this part of the world for some time, and in the course of the letters they exchanged, his friend happened to mention the white girl who had been enthroned in the palace of the former Redeemer of Zanj. It was but the work of moments, the Angel writes, to guess her identity. It's a surprisingly friendly letter. It seems they're planning a trip to what the Angel calls my part of the world. Father Duval's coming too. It's to be a threesome. The reasons given are that the southern skies are very fine for astronomical purposes and that Uncle Claude, who has been much depressed since the loss of his soup, might here realise his life-long wish to discover a comet. But I am not fooled by this for a moment. They intend calling on me. They want to see if the rumours are true. Why else should Monsieur Cherubini ask if they should bring anything with them? If there's anything that I need?