Travels with Myself and Another

by Martha Gellhorn

  To this wild music, in the glare of this sun (veiled always in the oppressive white sky, but still bright and boiling), the leper ladies danced. The Grand Guignol never thought up anything like this. They were dancing the Twist. So here is where it comes from, traced to the source. They do it of course far better than the half-witted whites who now revel in it, and their music is infinitely better and more compulsive. The motion is the same, except that they also writhe and shake their upper bodies, when so inclined. They scream, howl, laugh, jerk, twist. They danced alone, facing us, the newcomers, les blancs, the audience.

  There were old women, hags—no adequate word exists that I know of—with rouge dabbed in flat brilliant red circles on their cheeks, beat-up straw hats on their shaved black fuzz, and the shapeless dirty printed calico dresses which must be the missionaries’ legacy to African womanhood. Naked under these dresses, obviously; long flat breasts could be seen to bounce and flap beneath the clothes; when they turned round the protuberant native buttocks squirmed—but the buttocks look hard as iron unlike the breasts. Toothless mouths opened to shriek. They were as drunk as skunks. I could not look closely enough to see how leprosy had affected them, except for the too obvious ones—those without noses, just holes to draw breath in.

  There were also little girls, dancing in this awful gathering. I saw no signs of disease on them; either they were visitors, or uninfected children of lepers. One little girl was lovely; I think she was four years old, round face, baby fat arms, tiny turquoises in her ears, a narrow blue ribbon tied around her shaved head and a short blue dress, a proper western kid-die’s dress. She danced the Twist faultlessly, deadpan, torso steady, not sweating, solemn, and competent.

  I felt faint from the smell, aside from the sight. Jean pointed out several men with a withered stump instead of a foot; more without hands, noses. I think these must all have been arrested cases, though I don’t know, but I saw no sores, bandages, blood; and no leonine faces (at what stage does that occur?).

  Beyond the dancers, arrayed in an impressive row on the ground, were about eighty bottles of red wine—for continuing the celebration. Jean said they would drink, eat and dance themselves into unconsciousness, as the day wore on. But if you have leprosy, my God what could be better than to dance and drink oneself into unconsciousness as often as possible? I very much hope that charitable funds, contributed throughout the world for the care of lepers, went into buying the booze.

  Wringing wet (I was), we left. There is no moving air; even in the car the false wind is hot. I thought that I smelled myself now, and smelled as the blacks do. I spoke of this, still deeply ashamed. It seems at once sissy and inhuman to be so violently affected. Aya and Jean said one never got used to it; you just put up with it, learned control or something. I said that if they smelled so revolting to us, it stood to reason that we must smell in some disgusting way to them. Yes, said Aya, they say we have the “stale odour of corpses;” they find it sickening. This cheers me; fair’s fair; I don’t feel so mean-minded and soft. But I still think no one has yet sufficiently considered this aspect of the fact that all men are not brothers. All men, I think, could hardly be more different, alien, hostile; we are one biological genus, since any of us can cohabit with any of the opposite sex and produce offspring. But I don’t believe we are of one species; the definition is too simple.

  We drove from the lepers to the Catholics. A priest, called Père Moll, has created this world and it is imposing. He has been architect and chief builder (literally, physically) of a large brick church, a hospital, a convent, a girl’s boarding school, and a day school. With such parishioners as he could collect, he cleared the jungle himself, and goes on doing so now, for their crops. It is a little kingdom, seized from the jungle, and created by will and sweat.

  Mass was taking place; we stood at the door of the more than half empty church. Females on one side, with their heads properly covered; males on the other, properly dressed in shirts and long trousers. The choir was nice. Père Moll, invisible at that distance, preached the sermon which I made out vaguely through the echoes: he was telling them some story from the life of Christ and drawing a moral. It sounded rather like the lecturing I remember from Girl Scout days, but with an added, supernatural sanction. I am allergic to church-going when I can understand the words, so Jean and I moved off to the priest’s quarters, with Aya and C. coming after us.

  They made themselves at home in the shabby little room that Père Moll and his adjutant priest use for home. It was furnished with a few worn leather chairs, a table with a dusty lace doily, and magazines, photographs of something religious on the walls. No one could suggest that these men live in luxury.

  The adjutant priest, a big, stout, red-faced, quiet, beaming Dutchman, came in. They wear white robes and sandals and topees; I do not know what their order is. He was teased by my friends, who are on terms of great intimacy with the two priests and call them “tu;” what was he doing ambling around, not working on a Sunday morning, and furthermore joining us in a drink (which the Kolars had ordered, without ceremony, from the priests’ affable black boy). He had been taking mass since 6 a.m. and had been up before then; now Père Moll arrived, High Mass being over.

  Père Moll is tall, lean to emaciation, with sunken cheeks and a beautiful vertical line down them, very bright grey eyes, thick, wiry, short-cut grey hair. He is a handsome man, aged fifty and an Alsatian peasant. He must be made of solid muscle and is unlike any priest I have ever before seen; his most striking quality is his tough maleness. The conversation was entirely joking; Père Moll’s Alsatian accent is a treat. I am perplexed by the clergy; do not know the right tone; and besides I now feel so rotten that I could hardly be good company with anyone. We drank whisky and soda (surely madness in this heat), and departed. That evening the two priests were to come to the Czechs’ house, as usual, for their weekly bridge game.

  After a delicious lunch, we separated for naps; I fell into a dazed sick heavy sleep. It was cool in the late afternoon, and again we sat under the tree, chatting. Jean is too dogmatic for me; this is because I am dogmatic myself. I have a sudden notion of why history is such a mess: humans do not live long enough. We only learn from experience and have no time to use it in a continuous and sensible way. Thus I know the thirties and forties of this century, but have only been peeking at the fifties and sixties. Jean starts where I leave off. Naturally our conclusions, based on our experiences, are radically different. It is as if the human race was constantly making new road maps, unable to guide itself due to changing directions. Jean has given up hope for his country and his countrymen, finally, since the behaviour of Czecho during the Hungarian revolt in 1956. C. does not speak of himself at all; I have no idea where he came from, what his life was before Africa; and why Africa and the career of a trader. He listens marvellously, the sort of listener who makes everyone talk better and whose laugh is a reward.

  We waited for the priests and a last drink before driving back to Yaoundé. The natives had told Jean of a gorilla, living nearby (place-names mean nothing to me) in the jungle. The said gorilla had kidnapped two girls, at different times. The first was dead when found, the second lived long enough to say that the gorilla had been “très tendre,” had built her a nest in the trees and brought her bananas, but he “broke her” and she died of it. I said flatly that I did not believe it; Jean believes it absolutely. I said what nonsense; it’s against nature. Père Moll, grave for once, said, “C’est contre tout.” (Did he mean God’s plan?) Jean insisted. (N.B. Months later, I asked Solly Zuckerman about this. He roared with laughter. “Do you know how big a gorilla is?” He held up his pointer finger. “A gorilla has hardly enough energy for a lady gorilla, let alone strange black girls.”)

  Père Moll began talking of medicine and the blacks. Their stories are unlimited. The blacks, for unknown reasons, believe that gasoline is a splendid cure-all, taken internally. A boy asked Père Moll’s permission to give some gasoline to a man with fever. Père Moll
naturally refused. The boy stole it; the sick man swallowed it happily and died. This apparently is not infrequent.

  Schweitzer is not regarded locally as a hero and great thinker. His medicine is thought to be backward and his life not unique, or saintly, but only highly publicized. The feeling is that others, unknown and unsung, do better and harder jobs.

  Jean showed me an elephant’s tooth; I wish I had seen more of their trinkets. I cannot judge weight and size but I’d say this one tooth weighed at least three pounds and was four inches square. It made me realize the size of elephants more than anything else has.

  They all advise me to go north, where there are wild animals and real natives, the naked pagans, the Kirdis.

  In the darkness one cannot see the dust on the road, but only choke on it. C. and I dined and talked a bit. He knows a great deal about the blacks, from observation, but says no white understands them. He himself has an infinite capacity for patience, and treats the blacks with quiet, slow good humour. I think he is a man who does not judge; combined with intelligence and gaiety, this makes a rare creature.

  In the night, the sickness, which has been building in me from my first day in Africa, exploded like a fierce intestinal storm. I have decided to call it ptomaine poisoning, for the comfort of a known name and known ailment, but it passes in violence any previous attack. Pain, aches throughout, insides turned to water, sleepless night. I am in despair with myself; imagine caving in, so quickly. Am I simply not going to be up to Africa, appalled by the heat, smells, dirt, and now sick?

  January 29: Up at dawn, no breakfast, do not dare even drink water, since I have to sit on the plane to Garua for a couple of hours. C. saw me off and found another R. and W. King representative, bearded, stout, young, a travelling inspector or some such, at the airport; consigned me to him as a precious package. Plane journey hot, unpleasant with muffled thunder in my stomach and shooting pains. The airport at Garua is modern and elegant, a false front for the town. There is even a cement highway from the airport to the centre. But once in Garua, Africa has come closer than at Yaoundé.

  There is one hotel, a collection of bucaroos (the native hut—round, thatched roof) improved for European use which is to say with cement floors, screens on the windows, and a bathroom. The huts are dirty, the central building—eating place, kitchen, and lounge—is dirty; and there was no room. I half reclined in the shaded lounge from morning until about 2 p.m. longing for a bed or death. At last the proprietor, a loud, bullying-to-blacks, smarmy-to-whites, mixed-up character gave me a bucaroo. Huge spider in the loo, which loo fills by pouring water into it from a pitcher; cement floor under shower slimy; all vile, all stifling, but a bed.

  Now R. and W. King again enters my life; I regard that company as guardian angel and owe them, it, undying gratitude. The local manager, a fair slender young man, not at all C.’s type, called on me; very kind, indecisive, solemn. The problem was to rent a car to go farther north, to Waza, the game park, and to the hill villages of the Kirdis. I called on the game warden, large easygoing man whose house looks as if he was moving a collection of secondhand furniture either out or in; it occurs to me that the French do not live in these parts of Africa, no matter how long they actually do live here. They do not settle, take trouble, own, beautify; they do not send down roots. They are all going back one day to France.

  The game warden had a panther, aged one and a half months, as a kitten. It was adorable, friendly, soft, cuddly, and with a blue eye that warned how dangerous this little house pet was going to become. In his dusty backyard, he has a small private zoo ranging from crocodiles to antelopes. The natives know he loves animals and bring them for sale.

  The game warden said he was going to Waza himself tomorrow and would see me there, he sketched out a journey for me, and though I waited hopefully for him to offer me a ride, he did not do so. (C. was an exception.) Though polite and helpful, I doubt if the French are any cosier here than in France; hardly cosy to each other; and never ones to say come and have dinner, or come along on the trip.

  January 30: Half the day spent on acquiring a car. Finally, I had to take what I can get (three are available); a huge Citroën sedan, worth its weight in gold obviously. In the course of this hot and rather muddled dickering, I saw Garua: two short streets of shops and warehouses, and a native village enclosed behind high red adobe walls, with pointed thatched roofs showing above the wall. Very handsome and absolutely off limits. Natives sell vegetables, fruits, odds and ends, alongside this wall. The blacks here are a new kind, and a pleasure; the Fulbé (Fulani) is the predominant tribe; they are Moslems and must have Arab blood, judging from their features. They are a handsome race, with smaller noses and mouths and larger eyes than the coastal blacks. The men wear white, striped or coloured djellibahs and skull caps, the women wear a flowing pagne, like a sari, in brilliant printed cotton, with a gold ring through one nostril. The clothes that absolutely do not suit the blacks, and degrade them—as bad cheap copies are always degrading—are white western clothes. The only ones who look right in anything belonging to us are the boys and young men, naked except for ragged khaki shorts.

  The river here is navigable during the rainy season and Garua is a port; the river is now a wide shallow stream flowing between sandbanks, very picture-book tropics. Peanuts and cotton are shipped from here. I spent some time at the R. and W. King office, listening to the peanut business being transacted. A notable (i.e. rich man) or chief arrives, very large and very stout (are these certain signs of wealth and power?), wearing wonderful garments—one chief looked like a miraculous male bride, in immense white embroidered robes and a beautiful turban, made of a fine white material with white design, which was the size of a pumpkin and intricately wrapped on his head. He had delicate hands, a voice of girlish softness and shyness, a café-au-lait face, and I took him to be about seventy years of age. He was in his forties, a chief and a member of parliament. These gentlemen sat down, in turn, and talked to the R. and W. King manager who adapted his manner to theirs; thus jocose with one, quiet and formal with another; but always in perfect humour and with no sign of impatience, seeming to enjoy the visit and the deal, as they did.

  They were discussing the price of peanuts and the amount each notable would guarantee to have delivered to the R. and W. King warehouses. The price seemed to be open to discussion, and the amount (in tons, in what?) equally so. I inferred that these great men got the order; their underlings then went from village to village and collected and delivered the goods. I would like to know what the humble grower got out of the deal, finally; and how the workers (the wives) were rewarded, if at all. For the first time in my life, it occurred to me that there was glamour in business; previously I had only thought business was a dreary way to make money.

  The R. and W. King warehouses covered sand dunes, mountains, of fresh shelled peanuts. Impossible to believe; the source of peanut butter, American childhood’s pet fattener. Peanuts look lovely in pale beige drifts like that, and smell lovely too. Blacks were sweeping the peanuts back up into a tighter space. The highest peanut-dune must have been twenty feet high. Being a trader now seems to me a romantic life. One of them told me about buying the pagnes, the printed dress material which comes in a regulation length, so that each dress, or sari, is a completed pattern with a border of solid colour around the design. It is necessary to know what next year’s fashion in pagnes will be. How this can be discovered, I am unable to guess. One year the black ladies will prefer blue to any other shade, or red or purple; it changes. Sometimes birds and leaves, sometimes flowers, sometimes a rather abstract design find more favour. The trader, who is an importer as well as exporter, has to be on his toes to lure the ladies’ fancy. What fun. Buying for Neimann Marcus or Selfridge’s, on the other hand, would seem to me a crashing bore.

  I had to send a cable home, giving my future address; I feel that I have been far off and lost for months; you might think I was hiking through really darkest Africa in Livingstone’s time. T
he post office was crowded, as usual, and the black petty bureaucrats have adopted the French manner in post offices; to wit, nasty. They are just as rude as the French, whom one always wants to murder as they write away with their squeaking pens and pale ink, but they are far less efficient. Somewhere in the post office a white always lurks, tactful and rarely seen, to keep this inferior machinery running at all. The black clerk could not find out in what country London was located. I suggested Grande Bretagne. He was angry and said sullenly, “Mais oui. Londres est très connu.” Then he began to read slowly down the long long line of microscopic print, the names of all the countries in the world. I wanted to help, impatient, and again harassed by the smell of my black brethren all around me.

  The King manager restrained me, with a smile, not a word. The unwritten law is not to offend by impatience, which impatience is the clearest possible way of saying: you are a fool. Impatience is the emotion that comes most easily and is hardest to govern. Also, one must not laugh at incompetence or bone-headedness; one must wait. Finally the clerk located London; it took forty-five minutes to send a cable of ten words.

  Turning away from the counter, I nearly fell over a leper who was crouching by me on the floor, one stump of leg bound with a bloody bandage. He raised his hand for alms, a hand without fingers, a ridged stump, half healed, half bleeding. You stick a coin in a ridge, trying not to look or touch. It is tragic and revolting. “Un lèpre,” said the King manager. “Il y en a toujours dans les bureaux de poste.”

  By three o’clock in the afternoon, I was ready to go. An R. and W. King driver had produced a friend off the street to be my driver, no one knew him nor knew whether he could drive (we are casual hereabouts). He is a slender, fine-looking, fine-featured, pale brown Fulani youth, wearing a clean apricot-coloured djellibah and a little embroidered round orange cap. No painful body odour, too good to be true. The working of the Citroën, which I also do not know, was explained to him; he drove once round the block with the garage-owner; and we were off.