She found the caves rather disappointing. Not so much caves as piles of fallen rocks, to be honest. Slabs that had slipped on top of each other and formed cavities. All right, it was attractive, and looked suitably haunted. Resin skulls were stuck on assegais; torches and spotlights did the rest, and all of the available black crew, including guides, cooks and grips—transformed into extras, wearing old-time fancy dress—were getting ready to clown around. Freeboy was the only one to baulk at the idea. Did they want to provoke the demons? Welcome chased after him to put his make-up on, the big Bantu on the heels of the little Pygmy; laughter rippled through the crowd like a whole lot of switches lighting up. Kouhouesso wanted mouths that would shine on film. ‘As if their mouths were not already visible enough,’ said Welcome, referring to the Pygmies.
Before the clap of the clapperboard, Kouhouesso made each person listen to the tone of Heart of Darkness, a few pages of the novel:
‘The girl! What?…Oh, she is out of it—completely. They—the women, I mean—are out of it—should be out of it. We must help them to stay in that beautiful world of their own…’
Did the passages about women refer to her?
‘It’s queer how out of touch with truth women are. They live in a world of their own…It is too beautiful altogether, and if they were to set it up it would go to pieces before the first sunset.’
Kouhouesso was a literal man who knew about subjugation, who, like her, was conversant with the facts about domination. But no one objected, least of all Favour or Olga. It was a question of narrative, period, point of view…A last bat fluttered around without finding the exit: a low IQ. George went ‘Boo!’ as he shined his pocket torch beneath the bat; Freeboy did not laugh.
Freeboy’s iPod never left his ears. Apparently it didn’t work. Kouhouesso and Olga thought the dozen little trinkets attached to the earbud cords were wonderful. Pebbles, eye teeth, feathers, pearls and twists of string, what Kou called his jujus: wonderful, but best without the iPod. If Freeboy could just be sensible: keep his amulets, but on a leather cord. Otherwise the iPod would be visible on screen.
‘Je wanda…who is this Kouhouesso? Yikes, does he grow Caterpillar machines? Does he eat hot pepper? Who does he think he is. The man is full of himself ! Don’t get me started. Whatever, whatever, I have to speak up now. I wear my things and he wants to use them? Hell! This guy looks really really bad. Helele, what’s he talking about? It’s a lie! What a sycophant. I’ve got a bone to pick with him. I don’t give a fuck! He’s stirring up shit with me. I’m walka me. What a green dog. What a lying cheat, that’s it. I’m outta here, pardon!’
Patricien translated Freeboy’s camfranglais in the neutral tone of an interpreter from the United Nations. So Kouhouesso’s authority was in doubt; persecution had its limits. Freeboy pulled out of the project.
He rolled up his sleeping mat, took some flasks of whisky, some sticks of cassava, his scrap of soap and his scrap of towel, tied it all up with a creeper, and headed into the forest. The sound of his machete echoed for a while, then died away. Freeboy had a flair for the dramatic. Fortunately there were still a couple of Bagyelis guides, M’Bali and Tumelo. But absolutely no one could understand a word they said.
She put on the long white tunic Olga had laid out for her. Welcome had made her up with a pallid complexion, a bit too vampire for her taste, but she would only make a hazy appearance. George-Kurtz was on his deathbed, and the Intended wafted before him. It was her idea—taking liberties with Conrad, but he could go to hell. In front of the spotlights, the insects gathered in clouds so dense you could see them, their buzzing so loud you could hear them. They had to use the fan to drive them away, but without it being visible or audible. Favour, that schemer, was also in the scene, as flamboyant and wild as Solange was pale and languid; one had to wonder if Kouhouesso wasn’t falling for the very clichés he wanted to condemn. She glanced at the video-assist screen: it looked good, anyway. She adjusted her tunic one last time: it was her good side. She leaned forward slightly to get in a better light. Watch out: lights, camera, action.
CAMEO
Those words he had said to her. ‘See, it’s not working.’ He had turned to her at the end of the last take. She felt as if the words had made their way into her forever, as if she would hear them over and over in the silence. See, it’s not working.
And yet the scene was beautiful. She was standing straight, ghostly, soulful. But he said that he didn’t believe in it. That Kurtz’s final thoughts were not about the Intended. That all Kurtz wanted was to ‘exterminate all the brutes’.
They made love. Let’s call it love. At first it seemed like he didn’t want to. But as soon as he touched her…Perhaps, also, he was astonished, confused, mystified. They were radiant, intoxicated, in awe. They both plunged beneath their skin. One shudder after another. Stripping back, layer after layer, a little more, a little further, until they reached the skeleton, the universal whiteness of bone, in the universal blackness of flesh.
He was so tired. George was flying back tomorrow. All the close-up shots were in the can, but for the end of the film, well, Kouhonesso would use a mannequin or a body double to set up the scenes where Kurtz’s corpse is carried on board the boat. He was talking to himself. His hands were moving like moths. He might as well take the role himself, a Hitchcock appearance, a cameo. He would appear, then disappear, dead, stiff, a cadaver; they could whiten his hands and substitute George’s head in the editing. Cinema language was all he used now: these were becoming his everyday words. She wondered if he was taking amphetamines or something. Words of love were the words she was speaking, softly, her head in his neck, in that nocturnal, salty hollow. Was he annoyed by her feelings for him? Why would he be annoyed…She mouthed I love you, breathed I love you.
Words. The substitution. The editing. The Intended. She saw strange bodies. Creatures from films. Ancient monsters, Blemmyes, whose heads were in their torso and who were said to be cannibals, the Nubians seen by the first white explorers. See, it’s not working. She saw the child on the ground, in the witch’s hollow tree. She felt her forehead burning but she was cold: two climates had a hold over her, a chronic malaria and a drowsiness that was all her own. He was taking the time to explain the film to her again, even though time was running out for everything.
But he did not know on the last night. He did not know himself that it was their last night. She was certain of that: now the film was finished, he was not making any plans. She herself did not know; no one knew that was it, their last night.
That was the end of the film shoot. There was a party for the men at the Kribi casino. The next day he was not to be seen. Perhaps he was not even in his hut; she couldn’t hear the fan. And the guard had left, disappeared, gone back to the forest.
Perhaps she knew. Of course she knew. That there would be no more nights. It was obvious from the fact that she went walking on the beach the following day. Poco-Beach—the name is meaningless. The local name is Mohombo. Paradise, coconut palms and smooth sea, a potholed road. He had told her that he would take her there, but he had stayed on the river; no one could get him to leave that boat. There was a spot for her in one of the pick-up trucks with Welcome and Olga, and Hilaire and his family, Germain and his sisters, and M’Bali, his wives and his children, but not Tumelo, who could not be found. It was all being dismantled, already. Welcome and Olga could no longer stand each other. But Welcome was not even calling her ‘Miss Chinese’ anymore; he looked depressed. Bits of the set turned up, they were taken to pieces, sent away, resold, stolen, shared around. It was all coming to an end; the different orbits were set in motion again: Olga off to another film, Vincent to Singapore, the Africans staying put. She was heading in the direction of Kouhouesso. Welcome was returning to Lagos, to the Nollywood studios, where he would find work. As for the others, who could tell? The fate of a homosexual make-up artist in black West Africa—who could tell?
Equatorial Guinea was a green line under the rain. The
river was wide here, shimmering, and the rain was a speck over there. The Ntem River was nicknamed the Little-Congo. Still, it was not the Congo. A motorised canoe, loaded fit to sink, was carrying a pyramid of fuel barrels. A single shot from Guinea and the guy would disintegrate, for the equivalent of—she mused, her head empty—what must be the cost of the perfume she had given her mother for Christmas. The film crew got their supplies through him. Otherwise there was nothing, nothing at all. The mangroves seemed to have been coated halfway up their roots in some white pesticide mixture. At the low-tide area, the silt beach was cleared beneath the sentry box of the customs official who spent his days here, alone. It designated the centre of Poco-Beach, as it were. The central business district, let’s say. He liked to chat, understandably. He had not been paid for two years, and did a bit of wheeling and dealing in butane on the side.
The sea was in the shape of a wave, beneath the horizon, at the point where the green receded. A grey-white rip current. The mouth of the river, the Earth opening up, the whole expanse extraordinarily wide and flat, spreading, held back from non-existence by a few suspended molecules. On this side, the encampment of Nigerian fishermen. On the other side, the sea, shacks, the silt turned to sand, the mangroves turned to coconut palms. She stirred up spider crabs and sand fleas with every step.
The rain was moving in, the rain from the equator. There was a rainbow like a whale’s spurt, forming a bridge over to Guinea. One day, a long time ago, she had given a book to her son, at her mother’s place, a book about a little travelling rainbow. He had never wanted her to read it to him. Her mother had told her that it was a bit childish for a ten-year-old boy. Here the sun rose every day at 6.18 a.m. precisely, and set exactly twelve hours later, at 6.18 p.m. Nights as long as days. An eternal equinox. It would drive you crazy, she thinks.
Poco-Beach, on the side with the shacks, was a scrap left over from the Africa of the film shoot: three bungalows that were almost elegant, a canteen on stilts, almost-western toilets, an isolated beach. There was a bit of money left, for a small party; the luxury four-wheel drives would be returned tomorrow in Douala; the more valuable material would be loaded into containers for Hollywood, via Panama. Jessie had left ages ago. The big shindig was over. Now it was time for the Africans to party.
POCO-BEACH
She was walking; there she is walking on the beach. While the meal was being prepared. Years later, there is still a photo, taken on her iPhone by Olga. It was the beginning of photos sent by phone: a slender figure, long legs and a small bust, in a blue and gold Hermès sarong, a big straw hat, Chanel sunglasses, bare feet. In the end, it could have been anyone, any old white person of childbearing age, wearing high-end fashion accessories and corresponding to the beauty criteria of the year 2008. An ad for Poco-Beach. Ten minutes later she went for a swim. He had just arrived. She wanted him to see her, for him to say again ‘a real little fish’. After leaving her sarong on the sand with her hat and glasses, she dived into the waves. She was wearing her pretty bikini. She was the only one swimming. A game of beach volleyball was starting up. Everyone was in their swimming costumes except Olga, who was staying out of the UV rays.
Welcome, in swimming shorts, was good-looking but odd. From a distance, you couldn’t help noticing it: unlike most human beings, his face was lighter than the rest of his body. He was two-tone. Skin-whitening creams. A fake Michael Jackson look.
M’Bali was making gestures, difficult to interpret but somewhat alarming. ‘Mami wata,’ he said. Sharks? Opposite, on the horizon, there was only the oil rig and the surveillance boats around it. Germain, Hilaire, his wife and children, Welcome, Saint-Omer, Kouminassin, Abou, Glueboy, Thadée, Favour, Idriss, and Ignatius of the blowpipes, and even Patricien’s wife studying in Yaoundé—it was as if they were all on hold, in slow motion on the beach. Mami wata, no one was happy about it. The spirit of water, lascivious and feminine, which wants all of you and takes it. Before swimming, you had to exorcise the spirit of the sea. Kouhouesso was laughing. All the same, he didn’t come in for a swim. She returned to the water’s edge. She remembered Malibu, the illusion that he was hers: come on, splash, in the water, come on, Kouhouesso, splash in the setting sun… He pulled his arm away; stop it, he said—so cold, so sharp. She realised he did not know how to swim.
There was a screening of the rushes. As if performing an exorcism, the Bagyelis made gestures at the images portraying their own deaths. Afterwards, everyone laughed, everyone drank. There were some leftover blowpipes. They had a mock battle, harmless arrows rained down. Fish on the grill. Palm wine flowing. They chewed on kola nuts and drank beer. The sun set directly over the oil rig and the sky blazed. A huge sound system had been brought in from Kribi, but the electricity kept cutting out, the same phrase of music was on repeat, kiri kiri mabina ya sika, the catchy, sad guitar of Docteur Nico was the essence of the Congo, the lost Congo of the rumba, of the merengue, all the things she knew absolutely nothing about and to which Kouhouesso had led her, and, melancholy, they danced barefoot in the sand, in their ideal Africa, their Africa of coconut palms, of black people all together, of kind white people, with Asia, with Olga, with America and cinema, and petroleum flowing like water without oil spills, gold and ivory decorating palaces without genocides, and diamonds sparkling on girls’ fingers, all girls, an Africa where everyone loved each other, and danced, with Welcome and his painted mouth, come on friends, kiri kiri mabina ya sika, the Africa of electric guitars with wah-wah pedals, the Africa of Hawaiian shirts, of Sapeur-suited fashionistas and high-heeled shoes, the post-independence Africa photographed for all time in its stucco sunlight, the Africa of the band, African Fiesta.
The film shoot was over. The Africans were looking into the distance. Gazing offshore, as if witnessing their own absence in countries where they had no place. That was all it was, in the end, a film; it was already over. Back to disappointment. The future did not last long. Eight weeks of eating protein every day, eight weeks to gain another eight weeks, two months of future for the village, sacks of rice and palm oil. Kouhouesso had left them a Toyota and a generator, and diverted some Company money to pay for typhoid vaccines, twelve euros for the vaccine times one hundred and fifteen children, and as many boosters in a year, which could be stored at the right temperature, or not, in Siphindile’s fridge.
‘To be African has no meaning, except to be frightened of losing what you have.’ Kouhouesso was drunk. He was hugging her but he was also hugging Olga. He said, ‘It’s okay, girls.’ He said, ‘How will we do it? Do you fancy a threesome?’ The way he spoke, she heard treesome. More tree business? Olga got angry, so she realised it was a proposal for the three of them and, even knowing he was drunk, she felt hurt, yes. She felt like crying. Favour was the one who had retained her dignity; she was looking at them with her superior air, with the same look as on the first day: unscathed, untouched. Favour Abebukola Moon. A future star. There was no escaping it.
Patricien was not dancing. Patricien was not drinking. There had been…an incident. On the track heading towards the rubber plantation, in one of the displaced-persons camps. A little girl had been hanged. The mother had died giving birth to the newborn boy and the little girl, six years older, had been accused of devilry. One group of camp inmates, against the wishes of the rest, had hanged her by the feet to extract a confession. She had been left there, dangling from a rubber tree. A cousin ran to tell Siphindile; he ran across the whole plantation, ignoring the guards, straight through the rows of trunks. Siphindile told the witch, who said, ‘I don’t get involved with those people.’ He ran to see the only official in his sentry box on Poco-Beach. He even tried to find Kouhouesso, but he was not on the boat or answering his phone. When he found Patricien, who knew the Kribi police, it was too late. And anyway, those people in the camps—they are violent-violent, those people like problems, yikes.
In the plane on the way back she read the French papers. The Angoulême museum had reopened. Sebastien Loeb had won the Rally
Mexico in a Citroën C4. The city of Lyon was celebrating the bicentenary of Guignol. A large cannabis network had been shut down in the Saint-Étienne region. A high-school student of African origin who stabbed his female teacher had been imprisoned for thirteen years. The Brown Western Spadefoot toad had been declared an endangered species. For the first time a woman was president of the board of directors of the École Polytechnique. A public prayer of reparation was recited by militant anti-abortionists outside Timone Hospital. The court case concerning human growth hormones was continuing. Idriss Deéby, in Chad, pardoned the French charity workers who had falsely claimed a number of children were orphans. A Chinese freighter carrying 4300 tons of tropical wood from the Congo had been intercepted off Ouistreham. On the internet, a social network called Facebook, driven by its American success, had launched in France. A French paracetamol manufacturer was moving offshore, to India. Lazare Ponticelli, the last survivor of World War I, had died at the age of 110. The Greens had lost half of their votes in Paris. The disabled community of France were demonstrating for a pension increase. According to a survey run by the Catholic church in the region of Nîmes, 44 per cent of the respondents said they did not necessarily believe in God, 65 per cent thought that one can be a Christian without belonging to a particular church, and 56.5 per cent maintained that God existed. The Chtis community claimed it was insulted by a banner displayed during a soccer match in Lens. Alain Bernard beat the world 50-metre freestyle record. The social security deficit was not increasing. In Cherbourg, Nicolas Sarkozy unveiled the construction site of the nuclear submarine Terrible (weight 14,200 tonnes, length 138 metres, diameter 12.5 metres, maximum speed 25 knots). Gold was trading at $1000 an ounce. The parents of Maddie, the girl kidnapped in Portugal, proclaimed their innocence. A senator from Illinois, Barack Obama, won the presidential primary in Mississippi. A Japanese satellite was sent into orbit by the space shuttle Endeavour. Bombings in Russia. Riots in Yerevan. Violence in Sudan. Elections in Malta and in Sri Lanka. A base camp was swept away in the Himalayas, a survivor reported: ‘All of a sudden it was dark. I realised we must be under an avalanche.’
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