A View of the Empire at Sunset

by Caryl Phillips

  Lenglet takes the valise from her and slips his free arm around her waist. As he does so, she is once again assailed by the same sense of fatigued resignation that five months earlier almost smothered her as she made the short sea journey across the turbulent Channel to Holland to rendezvous with her suitor. And now they are married, and she is pregnant, and they have left Holland, and finally they have arrived in the city he had promised her from the beginning—Paris. They walk quietly along the platform and she allows Lenglet to steer her bulk between the dense press of people. She finds it strange to see men who don’t appear to feel it necessary to wear a hat and who seem perfectly at ease sporting themselves bareheaded, and then her child moves and she wonders if anyone has noticed her momentary alarm. It will eventually have to be clothed and fed and given a name and offered guidance and advice as to how to pass safely through the world beginning here, in Paris. She drops a discreet hand to her stomach. So, she thinks, this is my life. This is my new beginning. Our new beginning. This is the city Lenglet vowed he would offer up to me. This is Paris.

  39

  The Negress

  One evening, while slowly making her way to the hotel dining room, she saw the back of a gaunt Negress who was quietly disappearing into a room at the end of the long passageway. She stood transfixed and stared in the direction of the closed door and wondered if her imagination might well be playing some diabolical trick on her. Despite the cumbersome evidence of her pregnancy, of late she had taken to walking lightly, as though keen to leave no footprints, and so she continued on her dainty way. The clumsiness of enforced conviviality depressed her, but having glimpsed the Negress, she was somewhat cheered to be in possession of a secret and determined not to alert her fellow residents to the woman’s presence among them. However, as she took up her seat, the bellicose Monsieur Gaston, whose bald head was decorated with pink blemishes, pushed his soup plate disparagingly away from himself, wiped his mouth on his still-folded handkerchief, and then asked the two women at the table if they were aware that a nigger was dwelling among them. Dame Olivia promptly turned on him, her face colouring as she spoke. “I will not tolerate that kind of talk at the dinner table. Kindly confine your prejudices to less public places.” With his familiar contempt, Gaston ignored the elderly English lady, whose drooping face hung loose off its moorings, and he addressed the hotel proprietor and demanded to know why the city didn’t provide such people with their own places to lodge. Why must they reside, even temporarily, among decent people? “C’est une honte!” The hotel proprietor barely looked up as he cleared the man’s soup plate, but without raising his voice, he made it clear that the Negress was an entertainer of some distinction and she could stay for as long as she wished. He added that it was she who had chosen to eat alone in her room, but his guest was in no way compelled to do so. A florid-faced Monsieur Gaston snorted in evident disgust but said nothing further.

  The following day the Negress left her window open and played gramophone records from early morning to late in the afternoon. By sitting near her own window she was able to listen to the infectious beat of the Negress’s music, and in this manner while away the solitary hours in her cramped hotel room, occasionally feeling the cotton curtain being blown inwards by the draught and brushing up against her bare arm. In the evening the hotel proprietor announced that his absent tenant would imminently be performing a dance recital at a nearby theatre. It now made sense to her. She imagined the Negress in her room practicing steps to the music and contorting her body into all manner of different shapes, a suspicion that was given some credence by the fact that the woman had a tendency to play the same song repeatedly, so either she was busy rehearsing or the poor soul had lost her mind. Her husband would have an opinion, but these days Lenglet seldom bothered to show his face at the hotel before midnight, and on most mornings of the week he was gone again shortly after dawn, and it was therefore unlikely that he would ever see or hear the beguiling woman who now dwelt among them.

  On Sunday, Monsieur Gaston presented himself at breakfast in his finest clothes and announced that he was going to church. Nobody had asked him about his intentions for the day, but Gaston was obviously keen that everybody should be apprised of this new development. “The church near the Gare du Nord seems respectable” was how Gaston introduced the subject. Dame Olivia peered over the top of her spectacles and stared directly at him. “And are you familiar with their service?” After Gaston had left the dining table, Dame Olivia reached over and placed a comforting hand on her arm. “He is a Jew, you do know this, don’t you?” Monsieur Gaston’s heritage held no interest for her, and this knowledge was unlikely to colour her already jaundiced impression of the man. Dame Olivia continued. “Are you waiting for me to leave so that you are free to take your husband his breakfast?” She felt herself blushing, but she chose to say nothing in response. “My dear girl, you remind me of an ayah we had in Ooty during the interminably long hot summers. A snippet of a thing she was, and the fragile girl said precious little.” It was undeniable: On Sunday mornings her husband expected her to bring him breakfast, and so she had been deliberately lingering in the hope that Dame Olivia would leave. Once she was alone, the hotel proprietor would invariably hand Madame a small tray, for he had evidently seen something in her plight that encouraged him to feel pity.

  That Sunday morning she left her husband’s breakfast tray of caf é au lait and fresh rolls and butter on the chest of drawers while he continued to sleep, and then she did as Dame Olivia had suggested. She knocked gently on the Englishwoman’s door, and as Dame Olivia ushered her in, she discovered that the old lady’s room was much larger than her own, and being at the front of the hotel, it was also brighter. Through the open window she could clearly hear the loud, competing bells of distant churches, and there was also a clamour of raised voices in the street below, but this discord was preferable to the clatter of the courtyard at the back of the hotel, where her own room was situated. “Well, sit, sit.” Dame Olivia briefly surrendered to a fit of coughing before clearing some newspapers from a chair and practically pushing her down. “Now,” she said, eyeing her closely, “you must tell me the truth about yourself. You are not happy, are you? With either yourself or that husband of yours.” She opened her mouth to speak, but Dame Olivia’s hand shot up like a signal. “No, I won’t hear a word of protest. You will talk to me, young lady, even if it means keeping you here all morning.”

  Two days later, the hotel proprietor told them over breakfast that the Negress had departed and they would not, after all, be able to make a group excursion to see the woman onstage. Purportedly her project had collapsed due to some financial misdealing, and although the proprietor didn’t appear inclined to offer up any facts, she suspected that the man knew more than he was willing to share with them. Both she and Dame Olivia thanked him for the news, but as he made ready to leave the dining room, the proprietor spoke again. “Madame Venus is her name.” He paused. “Her name for the stage.”

  * * *

  Lenglet moved a protective arm around the back of her chair, which had the anticipated effect of silencing Dame Olivia, who simply smiled in the direction of the married couple and said nothing further. As soon as it was apparent she might give birth at any moment, her husband had fallen into the new habit of returning to the hotel in time for dinner. Once they were back in their room, an agitated Lenglet paced the floor and nervously sucked on a cigarette. He turned to face her and gestured with the cigarette. “We can’t stay here, do you understand? I told you not to talk with these people. Why does the old woman need to know that we spent five months in Holland? You’re a damned fool.” She looked calmly in her husband’s direction, but felt as though she had suddenly fallen through a gap in the floorboards. Having rediscovered her balance, she searched for the right words, but they eluded her. Why would Lenglet shout at her like this? It was true that dinner had been trying, but surely Lenglet understood that diplomacy was hardly Dame Olivia’s strongest suit. The
elderly lady had oddly uncoordinated hands that she moved with great animation whenever she wished to emphasize a point. “And so,” she said, “I believe the child was conceived in Holland during a short five-month stay, is this not the case?” Dame Olivia had addressed the question to them both, and as the persistent Englishwoman continued with her attempts to ensnare them in conversation, she felt Lenglet move his arm around the back of her chair. And now, having returned to their room, her husband stood over her and continued to fume. She heaved herself to her feet and reached for her coat, and then she remembered her friend Mabel’s words. “Trap you, that’s all some men ever want to do to a girl. Just get you where they want you.” She ignored Lenglet’s protests, and as she left their room, she gently closed the door behind her.

  The following week William Owen Lenglet was born, and when they brought him back to the hotel, they placed the tiny child in a small basket and stared at him, neither of them having any clue as to how they might integrate the child into their lives. Sometime later they noticed that not only was their baby refusing food, the diminutive tot’s colour was changing, and so, having accepted advice from the hotel proprietor, they took their son to be cared for at the hospital for poor children. Reluctantly, they left him there and returned to their dour hotel room, where they were now both keen to avoid prying questions from Dame Olivia. Soon after, the hotel proprietor received an urgent telephone call, and having replaced the receiver on its cradle, he slowly climbed the stairs and informed the anxious couple that William, their three-week-old son, had died of pneumonia. “Je suis vraiment navr é.” Once they reached the hospital, the kind nurses ushered the confused couple into a small windowless room and asked them to please take a seat. Having done so, they informed the bereaved parents that they had taken the precaution of baptizing the infant before his death in the hope that this might ease the child’s passage into the next world. She felt her cheeks beginning to flush red, and as her husband reached over to take her hand, she pulled it away in a gesture of calculated rancour.

  40

  A Child

  She lies on a bed in a darkened room in a small town near Brussels. She looks up into the bright blue eyes of the woman who hovers above her and realizes that these are the same judgmental eyes that stared disdainfully at her when she danced onstage in the chorus. This time, instead of suppressing the longing to curse, she looks into the woman’s eyes and gasps an oath, for the pain is once again opening her up and she knows that she is making a commotion. The woman ignores her profanity and, with the aid of an assistant, raises her hindquarters and slips a coarse towel beneath her; a layer of rubber is leafed between towel and sheet, and her hips are now encouraged to fall back onto the bed. “D étendez-vous et continuez à respirer profondément.”

  It is two years since the first child died. She remembers hurrying to the Parisian hospital and looking down at the three-week-old doll. He had been scrubbed clean and was laid out in a cardboard box that had been emptied of its orig inal contents; the nurses had stuffed crumpled wads of old newspaper into what little space remained. Shortly after their loss, she and Lenglet left for Vienna, and then Budapest, and now Belgium, but weary of this aimless wandering, she is now determined to make her way back to Paris with or without her husband. The blue-eyed woman places a cold hand on her clammy forehead and once again orders her to push. “Nous y sommes presque.” As she makes one final effort she closes her eyes and remembers the keen young chorus girl who quickly grew to dislike both herself and those who gawped at her. Mabel understood the truth of the situation: “Trust me, Gwennie, I’m your friend, and I’m telling you, love, you’re not cut out for this life.” The woman removes her cold hand, and she can feel a small run of blood on the inside of her leg, and then an inert warm bundle is placed in her arms. She continues to be embarrassed, for she knows that her ill-fitting gown is far too short. But why is there no crying? She opens her eyes and stares at her still-bloodied child’s tiny fists and she wants to apologize, for as yet she has no name to offer this girl. I’m sorry, she says as she stares into her daughter’s face. I wish I could tell you that I spoke with you before you arrived, but I didn’t know what to say. The silent assistant hands the nurse a jug of steaming water, and then the moon-faced girl crosses to the window and draws back the curtains, revealing a rooftop view of black chimney stacks, above which hovers a grey, cloud-choked sky. Will her daughter forgive her? Already she feels guilty, for she knows she is making mistakes. O Holy Mother of Jesus, a child can never run away from an unhappy childhood. She knows this. Eventually the poor girl will become trapped by her childhood memories. She must at least make some effort to offer the poor innocent a name. “ Soutenez la t ê te. Voil à , comme ç a.” After a few minutes the blue-eyed woman loses patience and reaches down and gently takes the newborn from her arms, and she is unburdened. “Il faut dormir maintenant.” She feels defeated by a feverish desire for a large glass of rum or brandy, and then she surreptitiously brushes away a tear and wonders what Lenglet might make of this peculiar late-morning Belgian scene.

  41

  Parc Monceau

  Sitting alone on a gracefully curved bench in the Parc Monceau, and watching her breath cloud in front of her face, her mind returned to that initial dinner at the Caf é Royal. With his enticing accent he abruptly asked her if she had ever considered leaving England, which made her heart leap with unexpected excitement. She watches children feeding the ducks and rolling around on the grass under the vigilant eyes of their primly dressed nannies and wonders why this man who rescued her from England now seems to have lost patience with her. Has he looked closely and finally come to the determination that there is nothing there? Her child is staying temporarily with a family in Versailles, and so when she is not posing as a mannequin for one of the fashion houses in the Place Vend ôme, she prefers to sit in this park and watch other people’s children giddily chasing one another along the dusty paths and testing the patience of their frustrated guardians, as opposed to moping in dimly lit bars which mock her loneliness.

  She leaves the Parc Monceau and meanders along the shadowed side of the caf é-cluttered boulevards outside of which the French seem determined to loiter in order to advertise the virtue of leisure over business. She suspects that it is some unfortunate repercussion of Lenglet’s illegal business dealings that has caused him to disappear from her life and that of their child, and she knows she will never truly forgive him for this abandonment. As the sun begins to dip in the sky, and shine first through the top of the trees and then descend even further, so that it is now visible from under the awnings of the establishments, it is the women who seize her attention with their stylish haircuts and false eyelashes, and the open fretwork of their stockings, and hems that expose ankles that taper down into shoes that are laced with ribbons. As she stares she wonders if she should dye her hair blond or simply change her name to something more seductive, for these delicate sylphs still possess what she appears to have lost, which is an intimation of the boudoir.

  Eventually she reaches the sluggish Seine, where she tries and fails to visualize the sea, but her eyes are always caught and held by the surprising spectacle of men fishing with rods and lines. She walks further and begins to peruse the contents of the oddly shaped bookstalls that, at the end of the day, fold back into strange green boxes. As ever, she finds herself ignoring the trays of books and focusing her gaze on the maps and then the photographs, a great number of which feature images of sad-looking women clad only in undergarments. Suddenly she looks up, for she sees a young boy who is holding a stick on the end of which a blue balloon is being buffeted by the wind. The boy stands forlornly with his mother, and the pair of them appear to be stranded and unable to cross the road, for there is no break in the motorized traffic. Although the dancing balloon is clearly making the helpless pair visible to all, nobody shows any inclination to stop, and after a while the distraught boy begins to cry in the same blubbering way she cries at night in the privacy
of her cheap hotel on the Rue Vavin, and as she imagines her daughter might cry in the safety of her pleasant room in a strange family’s home in Versailles. When she can no longer bear to look at mother and child, she turns again to the bookstalls, but she has now lost any appetite to continue her inconsequential browsing.

  42

  A Knight in Shining Armour

  She wakes up in the middle of a noisy Parisian night and discovers him sitting on the solitary chair nervously smoking a cigarette. She can see that Lenglet is agitated, but she rubs her eyes and tries to remember what he is doing in her hotel on the Rue Vavin. She craves a drink, but knows that her solitary bottle of whisky is now empty and any mention of alcohol will only stimulate her husband’s judgmental nature. Then through the thin walls which separate the rooms in this run-down establishment they both hear a woman scream, and then the report of a slap—an open hand against skin—and Lenglet quickly stabs out his cigarette on a plate that lies at his feet. A few moments later they hear the woman scream again, but this time her cry is pitiful, almost a resigned whimper.

  “Do you have to tolerate this every night?”

  She sits up in bed and then looks over towards the corner of the room where the tap has begun to drip.

  “It’s not every night.” She pauses. “Most nights, but not every night.”

  “But can you not find somewhere else to stay?”

  She listens with dismay to the aggressive manner in which her husband is questioning her, and her mood plunges. After all, it is she who, in the absence of his having made any other arrangements, generously invited him to share her high-ceilinged, carpetless room.