Why had Zelini behaved like this to her? She had been good to him, hadn’t she? She had given him cake and cheese and biscuits and beer, hadn’t she, when such things had been hard to come by? She had never actually witnessed the digging in of whatever it had been that he had brought with him, why should she have done so when the “kapo” had been there? Or had something warned her to keep away? She had trusted Karl. She had detested the Camp and everything to do with it. She had thought that the lorry had brought ordinary compost, swill and rotten cabbage leaves. Of course she had!
So that was what Karl had meant by his talk of reincarnated beauty, of those gypsy girls and children—and he must have thought all along that she, too, had known and had been a willing party to it. How could he have done such a thing? How could he?
She swayed and steadied herself by clutching desperately at the back of a wooden chair, and the silver trophies which she held in her arms slipped from them and fell with a clatter and rolled around on to the oilcloth of the floor. Elsa stood rigid and did not bend down to pick them up.
The British officer’s face was hard and fixed as he waited for her to speak. At last he said: “You may sit down, Frau Berger.” He had about him an aura of indescribable contempt as if she belonged to a completely alien and loathsome species. It was infinitely harder to bear than if he had evinced horror. He seemed to have become inured to every abhorrent possibility, having probed into the abyss, and was past showing repugnance.
Elsa looked from one of them to the other, her eyes bright and expectant. So this had been the secret of Hilde’s green fingers! A jingle that she had learned all those years ago from Miss Laycock throbbed unbidden through her head. “How does your garden grow?” That was it! “With silver bells and cockle shells . . .” She closed her eyes. “. . . and pretty maids all in a row?” She could imagine the headlines in the Press, in Germany as well as in the papers of foreign countries. The scandal would raise more of a stink than that of Belsen. Hilde must be a monster. She would never have believed it of her.
And yet was what Hilde had done so unreasonable if one considered it dispassionately? Was it not preferable to be laid to rest in a private flower garden rather than to be flung into a communal grave and covered with quicklime?
“It is women like you, my dear, who will secure the affections of the conquerors.” It was less than a year since she had said those very words to Hilde, to plump and pretty Frau Berger who was so kind to her flowers . . .
Shuddering, she made herself look out of the window to where the men were still grimly excavating. The Herr Major Schultz had had an original idea in gifts. If those . . . those “things” had once been pretty maids they were certainly not so any longer despite the neat arrangement of their row. “Oberleutnant,” she said, “you must believe me when I tell you that I, that none of us, had any idea of what was going on . . . We were in complete ignorance about . . . about all of this. Frau Berger was never one to confide . . .” Her voice petered out.
The young captain paid her no attention. “Sit down, Frau Berger,” he said, and he spoke in perfect German. “Sit down, please. You must realize that there are questions which it is obvious that you will have to answer.”
Hilde’s knuckles showed white through her thin cotton gloves as she lowered herself slowly into the kitchen chair.
BALLET NÈGRE
Their seats were of the eighth row of the stalls, well placed in the exact center. Simon Cust and David Roberts had arrived early, earlier than they had intended, for the traffic had been less heavy than they had anticipated and they had misjudged the timing.
The theatre was filling up, but although it lacked only five minutes to the rise of the curtain, the audience continued to obstruct the foyer rather than take their places. It was the première of the Emanuel Louis’ “Ballet Nègre du Port-au-Prince” and the majority of the seats had been allotted to those on the First Night list of the management. These favored personages included politicians, duchesses of a slightly raffish nature, kings of the property market, shipping moguls, and gentlemen who had amassed vast fortunes by sagacious take-over bids. There were also members of the theatrical profession, both on their way up, and also down, together with a sprinkling of model girls and of those “confirmed bachelors”, who take such an immense pleasure in the display of black and muscular torsos.
The first warning bell rang in the foyer and there was a movement in the direction of the aisles. The Duchess of Dumfries and her tiny simian escort took their places in front of the two men, Her Grace demanding in plaintive tones to be told in what precise section of Africa Haiti was to be found.
Simon Cust looked up from his programme. “What language do these people speak?” he asked David.
“In the country districts a kind of French-Creole patois.”
“Intelligible to a Wykehamist?” the young man asked.
“Yes, if you try and take it slowly,” said David. Simon gave a sigh of relief. He was covering the evening for a colleague who was away on holiday.
“It should be good,” David Roberts said comfortingly. “They’re natural dancers and absolutely uninhibited. Or they used to be when I was there before the war. Of course it’s more than possible that their travels have degutted them,” he said, surveying the sophisticated audience.
The token orchestra, which was white, and composed largely of earnest ladies, was playing a spirited selection from recent American musicals which sounded oddly at variance with the evening which lay ahead. The bell gave a second and more imperious summons and the audience began belatedly to queue, jostling in the gangways to claim their places. In order that they might be able to do so the music continued for a further period before the house lights dimmed.
A tall young man stalked to a seat near to the front, stepping as delicately as a flamingo, and David nodded in his direction. “James Lloyd,” he said, “the impresario.”
The curtain rose on a riot of color. The backcloth was of a nebulous plantation, sugar-cane or banana. The front of the stage was a clearing in the jungle. At either side a group of musicians squatted in loin cloths crouched over their drums and primitive instruments. After a studied pause to erase the former tinklings, the drums began to throb.
The first number was spectacular but unexciting, a dance concerning the cultivation of the crops, stylized and formal, and accompanied by muted chanting. Next came a homage to “Papa Legba”, one of the more benevolent of the voodoo hierarchy. This was succeeded by a tribute to “Agoué,” the God of the Sea, with a magnificently-built negro playing the part of the deity, a scene during which the company warmed up, and which ended to considerable applause.
The final item of the first half of the bill was devoted to the propitiation of “Ogoun Badagris,” the most feared and powerful of all the Powers of Darkness in the sinister cult of Voodoo. The scene had been changed to the interior of a “houmfort” or temple. Against one wall stood a low wooden altar bearing feathered ouanga bags, a pyramid of papier-mâché skulls, and a carved symbol of a hooded serpent in front of which burned coconut-shell lamps with floating flames. On the floor before the altar were calabashes brimming with fruit and vegetables, adding a deceptively peaceful note.
Simon had been able to study the programme with its explanatory notes, and so recognized the characters as they appeared, such as “Papa Nebo,” hermaphroditic and the Oracle of the Dead, dressed as part man, part woman, top-hatted and skirted and carrying a human skull. This figure was accompanied by “Papaloi,” crimson-turbaned and sporting a richly embroidered stole, and by “Mamaloi,” glorious in her scarlet robes, and surrounded by their male and female attendants and by dancers disguised in animal masks as the sacrificial victims, sheep, kids, goats and a black bull, that had surely but recently taken the place of human beings.
The stage was crowded with a motley of old and young, weak and strong, and th
e tom-tom drums increased the pace of their rhythm and their volume, building up into a crescendo. “Damballa oueddo au couleuvra moins.” It came as a mighty cry.
Simon glanced sideways at David. “Damballa Oueddo, who is our great Serpent-God.” He whispered the translation.
And now came the offerings of the sacrifices and the complicated ritual of voodoo worship, in which terrified animals had been substituted for the boys and girls of yesterday. The propitiation over, there came the celebration dances to the deafening clamor of the drums and gourd rattles, the tempo ever increasing, ever mounting, until the scene was awhirl with lithe black bodies, some practically nude, others with flying white robes and multi-colored turbans centered round “Papa Nebo,” curiously intimidating, the smoked spectacles which were worn emphasizing the significance of the blind and impartial nature of death.
The dancers were becoming completely carried away, shrieking and sweating, degenerating into a beautifully controlled but seemingly delirious mob, maddened into a frenzied climax of blood and religion and sex.
The curtain fell to a thunder of appreciation, and the house lights went up. As they struggled towards the bar David Roberts said: “I have to admit that they still appear to be totally uninhibited!”
The second and final half of the programme consisted of a narrative ballet based on a legend lost in folk lore. The story was that of an overseer who, with the help of his younger brother, hired out workers to till the fields. In order to augment his labor force he took to robbing the graves of the newly dead to supplement the quota of the living men with zombies, their identity being no secret to their fellow workers, who were themselves little better off than slaves and so too afraid to inform.
After a while the younger brother, overcome by pity for the zombies’ misery, for his former love had been included in their ranks, broke, from the softness of his heart, the strictest rule which all must observe, that which forbade the use of salt in their spartan diet, for having partaken of salt the zombies would at once be conscious of their dreadful state and rush back to the cemetery in an effort to regain the lost peace of their violated graves.
Included in this saga was a stupefying dance, when a man and a woman swayed and postured in a lake of red-hot ash and, so far as the audience could see, this is precisely what they did, in fact, do.
It was the crux of the ballet, which was itself the high spot of the evening, and the leading players had not appeared during the previous act. Their extraordinary performance and gaunt and ghastly make-up was breathtaking, and they seemed indeed to have strayed from another world, filling the most blasé of the spectators with a profoundly disquieting sense of unease.
Simon struck a match to see who they might be. Mathieu Tebreaux and Hélène Chauvet. At curtain fall he turned to David. “This is it!” he said. “It’s quite incredible. Don’t you think so? How in God’s name did they fake the fire?”
“Perhaps they didn’t.” David smiled. “They were probably drugged or doped. Narcotics are not unusual in those voodoo rites; and the soles of their feet are as tough as army boots,” he finished prosaically.
“Be that as it may,” Simon said with enthusiasm, “I’m off to get an interview and,” he glanced at his watch, “I’d better be jet propelled about so doing or I’ll be given no more of these assignments. Not that I’ve designs on Baring’s job. Don’t think that! But I must get back to the office. Will you come along with me to interpret?”
“If you’d like me to do so,” said David. “My Creole dialect may be a bit rusty. It’s been a long time since I’ve used it.”
Simon presented his Press card to the stage doorkeeper and, after a few minutes wait, the two men were escorted up to a dingy functional room where the manager of the Ballet Company was awaiting them.
He was a short fat Negro, and was wearing a dinner jacket with a yellow carnation in his buttonhole. He advanced to greet them, his gold teeth gleaming. “Mr. Cust?” he asked, looking from one to the other, Simon’s card clutched in his left hand and with his right outstretched. “Mr. Lloyd has already left. He will be sorry to have missed you.”
“I am Simon Cust. This is David Roberts who knew your country well at one time. We were both of us deeply impressed by the performance tonight.”
“My name is Emanuel Louis,” said the Negro. He shook their hands in turn. “Shall we speak in French? I regret that my English is very halting. I cannot express myself as I would desire.”
“By all means,” Simon agreed. “You will have noticed from my card that I represent the Daily Echo. I would like to have the pleasure of meeting some of your cast, in particular Monsieur Tebreaux and Mademoiselle Chauvet.”
Emanuel Louis gave an apologetic smile. “I am afraid, Monsieur, that that is not possible. My dancers give no interviews. I discourage strongly the star system. We work as a team. Personal publicity is strictly against my rules. I would have liked to co-operate but I cannot make exceptions. In any case it would be useless, for neither Mademoiselle Chauvet nor Mathieu Tebreaux speaks one word of English, and very few of French.” He shrugged apologetically. “They come from a remote and backward part of my island.”
“Mr. Roberts,” said Simon, “could translate. He could talk to them in their own patois.”
Monsieur Louis seemed taken aback by this suggestion and the look he gave David was speculative. “In the patois of La Gonave?” he inquired incredulously. “That is indeed unexpected.”
David shook his head. “La Gonave? I’m sorry. No.”
“And I regret, Monsieur, that I can make no variations to the regulations. It is not in my province to do so. You will understand. It is to me a great pleasure that you have enjoyed the show. My poor children are exhausted by their efforts. It is very tiring. Haiti is one thing. A large capital city is another thing altogether.” He was shepherding them towards the door.
“I feel still,” said Simon obstinately, “that I might get somewhere with them by mime, despite the language barrier. I could telephone my copy through to you for your approval.”
Emanuel Louis’ face set. “I have already told you, Monsieur Cust, that what you ask of me is absolutely impossible. May I wish you both a good evening?” His dismissal was curt. Simon opened his mouth, but decided against further argument.
“I’ll drop you off,” David volunteered as they stood waiting for a taxi.
As they neared Fleet Street Simon said: “I wonder just why that fat little bastard wouldn’t let me go back-stage. I’ve half a mind to double back and have another try at reaching them by by-passing the so-and-so.”
“I don’t think you’d succeed,” said David as he lit a cigarette. “And how about your deadline?”
“Bugger my deadline,” said Simon robustly, “and the same thing goes for Monsieur Louis.”
David laughed. “Chacun à son goût,” he said, agreeably, as the taxi drew up at Simon’s office.
The “Ballet Nègre du Port-au-Prince” received fantastic notices, and by the afternoon all bookable seats had been sold out for the six weeks’ season, for the telephones of the agencies had been ringing since early morning. Overnight it had become a “must” for London’s theatregoers.
More than ever Simon fretted about his failure with Emanuel Louis, nor was he at all mollified when he learned that the representatives of rival papers had been equally unsuccessful. During the day he telephoned David Roberts, finally locating him at his Club. “After the performance tonight,” he told him, “I’m going to follow that loathsome black beetle back to where they’re all staying. He can’t possibly stick with them every moment, and tomorrow I’ll shadow the place and wait my chance. Care to come?”
“Certainly not,” said David. “The wretched fellow has a perfect right to run his own business according to his own views. And you must be aware,” he added in an over-polite voice, “of my fee
lings regarding newspaper men, yourself included, and their thrusting ubiquity!”
Simon delivered himself of a few blistering remarks on the subject of the lack of helpfulness of the public in general and of David Roberts in particular, to struggling journalists, and rang off before David could have a chance to elaborate his theme.
At eleven o’clock that night, having contrived to fold his long length behind the driving seat of his turquoise blue Mini-Minor, and with his lights turned off, he sat watching the stage entrance of the Princess Theatre.
He had learned from the doorman, after a friendly talk and a cigarette and the passing of a pound note between them had created the right atmosphere, that the Company was called for each night by two buses, but the man did not know, or had been unwilling to divulge, their destination, beyond the fact that it was an hotel somewhere in the Notting Hill direction which catered for “coloreds”. “Accommodation is always their problem,” he had said. “We had the same thing when the “Hot Chocolates” were here, and a nicer bunch you couldn’t wish to meet”
Simon peered at his watch. It was nearly half-past eleven, and the transport, two thirty-seater charabancs, was in the process of backing-in to the narrow cul-de-sac. The dancers, on cue, were coming out into the street, some in their native clothes hidden under coats, others in European dress, and were starting to climb into the vehicles. They talked softly among themselves.
Emanuel Louis stood by one door checking a list, and a gigantic Negro in a light grey suit was similarly engaged by the other. When the buses were full they both jumped in and the vehicles moved off.
The Smell of Evil Page 9