I bowed my head and called on the Lord: ‘Give me the power to thwart the heathen.’ I don’t know why I used the word ‘heathen’ and the use of the term ‘thwart’ was even more unusual. It wasn’t at all like me. Perhaps this was what they meant by ‘speaking in tongues’. Or maybe it was just a matter of the comfort of words. If I say that something that brings out the reddish tints in my hair is called Copper Blush, and my foundation powder is called Warm Burgundy, my lash mascara Smokey Ebony and my lipstick Strawberry Surprise, you’d be a fool if you took away anything from this description except a very vague impression because the words are used as a kind of paint and it doesn’t in the least matter whether the words used relate to, or match, or have no connection whatsoever with strawberries and blushes.
Behind me I heard shouts and wolf whistles. And there out on the lake, clambering onto the wooden pontoon that lay moored about thirty metres from the private beach, and which was used as a swimming platform by the guests, I saw Tertius, Hyppolyte and Armand, who were all supposed to be somewhere else, according to André. I’m pleased to say that my recent religious conversation did not stop me from lifting a rigid forefinger in their direction in an unmistakable gesture. They all laughed and applauded and dived off the pontoon and I saw their smooth heads breaking the water like seals playing. The stupid boys had thought it clever to lie to André, who was even then slaving over his lettuce soup and scouring mussels under cold running water and scraping off the black rope-like tufts from the shells with a small sharp knife for the filets de sole marguéry, which his guests were to enjoy that evening; a meal which was no doubt to be served by André as well, for the boys, whose loud catcalls and childish innuendoes, seeming in the main to refer to the way I moved, now reached me faintly across the water, showed no sign of preparing to put on their white coats and take up their dubious roles as waiters.
I walked away from the swimmers, the hotel and the private beach, along the little road that runs around the shore of the lake, dividing the Priory from the plage privée, skirting the waterside where the yachts are moored. The little road passed between the private wooden jetties and the big houses standing at the far ends of their gardens, their beautiful lawns, sweeping down the waterside. Most of the houses were closed up, shutters tightly secured against the wind off the water. Black and graceful streetlamps leaned over me, their pretty heads shaped like musical clefs. Everything in that corner of the lake, where the road hit the mountain and stopped dead, had been made to seem natural, a human settlement painted on the mountainside. Now I entered the picture – a daub of pink against the evening grey, visible to whatever hawk’s eye swept the canvas while I kept moving, invisible the moment I stopped dead at the mountain – then I disappeared into the painting.
Many of the houses have chains around their gates, the links show rustily through ugly, yellow, transparent sleeves. These houses look like they’ve been shut since the nineteenth century. When the streetlamps come on they turn a warm amber. An old painted notice on a fence reads: ‘Respect the purity of the Lake’. I took a good deal of comfort from that sign. Then I turned around and walked back. All the lights on the second floor of the hotel were shining. An entire floor to himself. The guest must be made of money! Thirty rooms for one man, André had said, and no entourage!
Behind me the private beach was dark and the boys were gone from the floating island. Beyond the gates to the hotel is an open space which is used as a parking lot by day. I saw several cars still parked. It was odd to see trippers after dark, too late for bathers, too early for lovers. There were, to be precise, a Citroën, a Renault and a Deux-Chevaux. In each of the cars sat two or three men, tough-looking guys who stared at the dark water as if they were waiting for someone to arrive, a ship or something. But I knew it was too late for the ferries from La Compagnie des Bateaux sur Le Lac which collect passengers from the jetty near the restaurant Les Dents Sacrés. One came by after dark, playing music, all lit up, a floating restaurant – but it did not stop for passengers. Whatever the watchers in the parking lot were waiting for it wasn’t a boat.
From that time when I first got frightened in the TV room, I have had what I think of as my ‘prayer problem’. I’m God-haunted, heaven-possessed, an excess of divine grace fell on me from clear skies. The spirit took me and shook me like a fierce wind, or a fever, and my mind fluttered like a leaf or a feather. I felt increasingly called upon to oppose the likes of Uncle Claude. I heard voices calling me to become an advocate for disorder. ‘Speak for the dead, Bella!’ my voices told me. And I knew what they meant. For my uncle the dead were just that: dead. You might regard them as objects for study, if you were an anthropologist. But you did not weep for them. Or venerate them. Or pray for them. In my case the urge to fall on my knees overcame me in public and private places. My lips moved even when I slept. As a result I slept less, ate more chocolate, waited for something.
And this thing, whatever it was, was no respecter of occasions. I might be togged out in fur flying hat and distressed leather jacket and a pink soda T-shirt so skimpy it ends at the armpits; I could be swimming, dancing, sleeping, eating, when, without warning, the floods broke. The only thing worse than involuntary weeping was uncontrollable prayer. Not knowing where to turn, I wrote for advice to a magazine I liked called N-Ova! They printed my letter, in between one from a twelve-year-old contemplating a second abortion, and advice to someone whose boyfriend had genital warts.
Dear ‘Weepie’ of La Frisette, they wrote, your condition is unusual and more suited to medieval times than to our 20th century. Perhaps it is associated with psychological problems? Or it may be an allergy. The need you also have ‘to speak for the dead’, as you put it, is probably linked to the praying problem. This aspect of it is not particularly advisable and is best left to the professionals. It’s possible that energetic physical exercises might dampen down the urge to pray, swimming say, or riding. Avoid places like churches, shrines and religious gatherings. Tears are less of a problem and even excessive weeping will do no harm – though it plays hell with your make-up! Never mind, if you want to cry, go ahead and bawl your head off! Though we know how embarrassing that can be at a club or disco or on that heavy date, or when you’re in close quarters with your lover. He/she might think (wrongly) that it reflects your opinion on their performance. Would it help to discuss this with a doctor, relative or family friend? In the circumstances, a minister of religion would not be such a hot idea …
I began to learn to take steps to hide what was happening. I would bury my face in a handkerchief when the tears started, pretending I had a bad cold or hayfever, or a sneezing fit, and run from the room. If I was down by the lake, I would dive in; if I was in bed I would bury my head under the pillows; if I was having a meal I would pretend to be choking. These were unpleasant deceptions but they kept away the questions I dreaded. Only with Clovis did I once allow myself to cry unashamedly and he patted my head soothingly and seemed rather pleased by it all, though I must say he did try to remove my blouse at the same time and I had to restrain him. I jabbed him in the stomach with my elbow and winded him quite badly. He fell over and had trouble getting up again. Through tears in my eyes I saw tears in his eyes. I don’t believe in hitting cripples, as a rule, but I had to defend myself. It’s not easy to be firm when you’re rubbery with inexplicable sorrow. However, the floods never lasted long and when they passed I always felt rather lighter, as well as a bit older and somehow wiser, if rather curiously rusty. Far from complaining about my treatment of him, Clovis always looked back on the shared occasion with delight, calling it ‘the day the rains came’. He seemed to have forgotten that I’d hit him and was hoping that it would happen again.
Chapter 5
Pass through the entrance arch of the Priory Hotel where the menus stand to attention in their glass cases on either side of the arch, fixed to the brickwork which is crumbling picturesquely like pink cheese (today we have jugged hare) and cross the
tarmac parking lot where the three cars occupied by big men still have not moved, and you will see the rickety jetty where the pleasure craft are moored: paddle boats, windsurfboards and darkly varnished rowing boats hired by the old cross-patch Leclerc. On the other side of the jetty, before you come to the restaurant Les Dents Sacrés, lies one of the landmarks, or one of the watermarks, really, of La Frisette, the drowned boat, a dinghy lying in a few metres of water. She’s been there for as long as I can remember, perfectly preserved and seen as if through a plate-glass shop window behind which someone has made a rather theatrical scene supposed to represent Davy Jones’ locker. The tip of an anchor is peeping through the sand, a school of small fish investigate her ribbed belly, oars repose peacefully in the rowlocks and little crabs scuttle across their blades. So clear is the water you can read her name painted on the side, La Belle Indifférente. It’s only when a breeze shivers the surface, or a paddle boat with a couple of kids, their knees pumping like mad, churns away from the jetty destroying the surface calm, that the illusion of shop windows and painted scenes melts as the drowned boat dissolves and crumbles, crabs run for cover, the fish swirl and vanish and you see that La Belle Indifférente isn’t a prop at all. She really is lost beyond recall. But the funny thing is that although she lies in the shallows and could be got at very easily, no one has ever interfered with her. She is my guardian spirit, my protector, sister, friend. Her preservation is miraculous. She doesn’t seem to rot, there are no holes that I can see in her timbers, her body holds together and the villagers of La Frisette regard her as a kind of monument. They pause as they walk by and stare into the water with a feeling of sadness, affection, gratitude that although she’s gone, she’s somehow still with us. The attitudes of the children of tourists who have never seen her before is very interesting because they come by, pause and perhaps giggle a bit at first as if they’d seen someone undressing. It’s so strange: here is a boat not on the water but under it, and that’s when they start to quieten down, when they realise they’re staring into a transparent grave.
It is about ten in the morning, the shadows are just lifting from the water, and the lake, like a giant machine, is being cranked into action for another day, when I stop briefly to pay my respects to the drowned beauty, La Belle Indifférente, in her glassy coffin. Perhaps I should add that as I stand by the water’s edge I’m leaning forward slightly, as is my habit, in order to get a closer view of the shadowy water spirit, resting my hands on my knees.
I’m wearing a pair of tight, long lemon shorts with brass buttons on the back pockets and an imitation snake-skin belt which, when pulled tight, gives me the wasp-waist look I am trying really hard for. I’m wearing as well (should you care to know it) a circus-tent top in red-and-white stripes, really floaty and light. Though I intend to spend a few hours on the private beach I’m not planning to swim this morning, the curse having descended with its usual irregularity the evening before.
‘What a charming prospect,’ says a voice behind me, in English.
More a growl than a voice, water over stones, or gravel, deep yet flowing. I straighten pretty smartly. I do not take kindly to voices at play and I take a dim view of words like ‘prospect’ which I thought went out with the California goldrush. But all straightening up does is to bring my ear into almost nibbling contact with his lips. And then I realise it is not on my body that this approval falls – his eyes are fixed on the drowned boat.
‘It should be lifted and preserved in its entirety, like the wreck of the Mary Rose, pride of the Tudor navy – Henry VIII’s royal flagship – which I watched being raised from the deeps on an October morning some years ago. On the television. At the time I was esconced in my coastal retreat, not very far from Nice, a pleasanter spot was never spied.’
Now let’s just hold it right there. I had also seen the Mary Rose being raised from the ocean floor, in bad weather with TV cameras nosing through the depths like sharks, and this big yellow mechanical cradle breaking the surface like a cat with a mouse in its mouth. The remains of the ship were no more than a few old bits of wood. Talk of an excess of technology over artefact! It was like sending a bulldozer into a reliquary. The scientists went fishing with a computer-controlled cage and bags of balloons and came up with this sad little fishbone saved from the deep. The mountain of media laboured and brought forth the backbone of a mouse. And for what? In order to dredge up the spirit of the past they sent in a mechanical digger. Maybe one day they’ll invent a robot archaeologist, like the sort of mechanical dog they use for sniffing out bombs, and cut out the human factor altogether – ‘Hullo, my name is Colin, I’m a remote-controlled researcher investigating the pollen count in a cess-pit of an iron-age settlement – press my nose for a print-out …’
It’s at times like this that I vow to put on my earphones and never take them off again. I distinctly object to finding strange men in my ear. I move forward sharply and return to my study of the drowned beauty but not before taking a good look at the invader.
A white suit and panama hat sporting a black-and-gold ribbon, a pair of enormous wrap-around sunglasses. His shoes are white with gold laces. This is the first time I’ve seen him with clothes on. He moves beside me, places his hands on his knees, and we both now bend and stare into the water. We must make an odd sight. Several passers-by give us curious glances.
‘Do you believe it to be an antique?’
‘No. Just an old rowing boat. She’s been there for years.’
‘Pity just to leave it there to rot. Of course I know what you’re going to say. Why bother? After all, this is a disposable age. I dispose. You are disposed. We are disposed of! You in the West live off your technological cornucopia. We in Africa are tossed the fag-ends and they are not, if I may say so, finger-licking good. But allow me to place my finger on what I sense to be the root of your objection to rescuing this craft from the water and at the same time give me the chance to correct the old assumption among those who know nothing about Africa that it’s a place of warring tribes who run around with bones through their noses.’ He lifts the finger referred to, big and round, like a black cigar tube, and lays it across his nose. In fact all his fingers are distinctly tubular. ‘I happen to know that once the timbers of this ship are exposed to the air they can be preserved by an application of a solution of polyethylene glycol, after which the relics are freeze-dried to preserve them for posterity. Freeze-drying is a process which is used, as possibly you know, to preserve instant coffee. Coffee is an interesting case, since it’s an important cash-crop of several South American as well as of some African countries and its price is manipulated by brokers in the West to the detriment of its growers. Coffee, I might add, is also a by-product of the cocoa bean whose origins are magnificently South American, though we have made its bronze acquaintance in Africa. The bean was first used by the ancient Aztecs and other South American Indians. The tree from which it comes was a gift of the feathered snake god, Quetzalcoatl, who gave it as a gift to man. From the bean the Aztecs made chocolate, not as we know it, but a hotly spiced, rather bitter beverage which was frothed up before drinking. In this form it was presented to the conquistadors as a royal drink. Coffee came from the court of a king whom Cortés killed.’
He likes this ghastly alliteration because he repeats it twice. I do not need to be lectured on the history of chocolate. Besides, the thing to do is not to study it – but to eat it.
‘Montezuma.’
‘Monte – precisely – Zuma. As you say. You know about these things?’
‘I more or less have to live on chocolate. I don’t seem to be able to eat anything else. Well, maybe a little fish. And fruit. But mostly chocolate.’
‘Ah well, then we have something to share.’
‘You also?’
‘I eat more than I should. I break the taboo when I eat it. I belong to the Wouff tribe. D’you know them? They are the number one people in my country of Zanj and, as
a rule, they do not touch it, cannot touch it, believing it will kill them to eat it. I’ve tried to coax them out of this superstition, but they are traditionalists, the Wouff, and do not change easily. It’s a damn shame. We could make a considerable success if we introduced the cocoa plant in my country. We know it well. My people were among the very first to raise the crop on the African continent. Now others do it, like Nigeria and Ghana, but we were the first. We learned the hard way that the young cocoa trees thrive best when planted in the shade of yam or banana trees. As the green armoured pods begin to swell and glow, we watch like mothers! We see the golden hue that speaks of the ripening seed within. We carefully cut the pods, scoop out the beans from their envelopes of rubbery white pulp, ferment them, dry them and pack them in bags to feed the chocolate-crazy thousands of Europe.’
My Chocolate Redeemer Page 9