The Two Hearts of Kwasi Boachi: A Novel (Vintage International)

by Arthur Japin

  You and I are in the unique position of having travelled this enormous distance at an accelerated pace. We ran all the way. There was barely time to catch our breath while we covered the same ground that took Western civilization thousands of years to cover.

  Due to the speed of our journey many things eluded us. But if we have learned anything about the soul of European civilization, it is that its bent is nostalgic. No di ference there from the sentiment you and I are so familiar with. So when we are confronted with envy of what is taken to be our uncorrupted state, you and I should be the first to understand.

  The more man is tamed, the more he longs for the pure state of nature. The new and the old are thus condemned to coexist. Throughout history people have been nostalgic about the past. In art, fashions of dress, furniture and architecture, poetry, indeed in his faith, man always harks back to a previous golden age. Even the ancient Greeks, who were envied by all those who came after them for their natural simplicity and their direct knowledge of the sources of our existence—even they regretted the loss of the true Arcadia of old.

  Since civilization does not advance at the same pace all over the world, but flares up at di ferent times and in di ferent places rather like an epidemic, there is throughout history the recurrent shock of discovering a people, a tribe or an individual that has fallen behind the march of progress. Such lone stragglers came to personify man’s estrangement from nature. Such natural beings were envied for what they had retained. Underlying their harsh daily struggle there was believed to be a primeval guiding force. The absence of shame betokened a carefree spirit. Their naive customs touched the European heart, just as the innocence of a stammering child endears it to the listener—reminders of what has been lost for ever. Is not that sentiment, sweet and melancholy, closely linked with love? And can you begrudge others the love they feel for you?

  You can hardly blame Sophie for admiring us for being what she perceived to be “people, just emerged from the hand of God,” as she wrote to me once, echoing Seneca—although by then her childish enthusiasm had long been supplanted by mature friendship. She pointed out many other authors, from Virgil and Montaigne to Bernardin de Saint-Pierre and Swift, who celebrated man as formed by nature, far removed from the perverting influence of civilization. As though mankind were a cut of meat and civilization a sign of decay. Their celebration of natural man arises from their ignorance of other cultures. The decay is there, too, but the signs are not the same.

  Voltaire’s Zaïre was one of many works in the pastoral tradition beloved of philosophers and utopians, in which Christians are bowled over by the innocence of natural man. It made a deep impression on Sophie, for she read it at the very time she discovered feelings of love in her heart. Her elders approved of her fondness for books, and she was promptly given Marmontel’s study of the Incas to read, as well as Odérahi and Paul et Virginie, the illustrated works of Marc Casteby and the accounts of explorers such as William Bertram and Jonathan Carver.

  Her interest was further aroused by Rousseau’s Discourse on the Origins of Inequality, in which the Dutch governor of the Cape of Good Hope sequesters a Hottentot child so that it may be educated in the Christian tradition and European customs. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? This boy fulfilled the Dutch missionaries’ dream: he became a noble savage. (Incidentally, the boy recants in the end, flings down his clothes at the Governor’s feet and runs home naked. But by then the example has been set.)

  Chateaubriand, too, ranks among the authors with such romantic notions. His Atala and René caused a furore throughout Europe. And although “Atala furniture,” “Atala clocks” and “Atala coi fures” were already out of fashion by the time we arrived in Holland, it is hard to contemplate the drama of Atala without thinking of that which has befallen ourselves.

  It is hardly surprising, then, that a young lady under the spell of these romantic ideas should feel a fection for us, two strangers who entered her secluded life like characters in a true story. Is she to be blamed for that? Do you blame me for rising to the challenge of her interest? Then you must blame each youngster who falls in love for the first time.

  When Atala, torn between two cultures, ends her own life, the explanation of her misfortune is: “It is your education, savage, that has caused your downfall.”

  Of course, your personality and mine developed in di ferent directions, and for us to become men it was inevitable that we should outgrow our boyhood friendship. I had noticed this for some time, but did not dare mention it to you. We were together twenty-four hours a day. Our mutual irritation increased, as in a stale marriage. Although the growing rift between our minds saddened me, I told myself it was better that we should form our opinions independently of one another. I thought that sharing our achievements and ideas would be gainful to both of us, that we could support, correct, complement and nurture each other, but instead we became entrenched in our separate views and in the end refused to concede an inch.

  What education was it that hardened our hearts? Were we exposed to too little education or too much? Apart from the few occasions when a friendly wrestling match turned mean, we did not fight. Our first quarrel was sparked by reading Atala. You were convinced that the Red Indian girl’s misfortune was due to the fact that she, a primitive being, had been forced to adopt the European way of life. This had occurred to me, too, but I tried to banish the thought at once. I made a joke about Atala not taking her “second” education very seriously, as she had ignored the Christian injunction against suicide. But you were adamant, and obliged me to take a defensive stand. I disparaged her primitive upbringing, and by extension that of all natural peoples. You were enraged and I let you blow off steam, but I did not give in. Giving in would have made matters worse.

  You reproached me for being thick-skinned and too forgiving. The opposite is the case. My protective armour is too thin, it does not reduce my sensitivity. It is merely that I have learnt to control my anger, and therefore in the eyes of others I seem invulnerable.

  And it was Atala I went on about, so as to steer clear of my own sentiments.

  The “Summer of the Bond,” as I referred to it to remind Sophie of our secret, was coming to an end when a Hungarian circus visited The Hague. The princess was eager to see the show, but her governess, Madame Chapuis, would not countenance even mentioning her wish to Anna Pavlovna.

  One afternoon we heard the clamour of a great procession, complete with musicians and elephants, trooping down the avenue past the palace gardens. We were not even allowed into the front rooms to catch a glimpse of the parade. Kwame and I devised a plan. Sophie provided various articles of clothing which, so she believed, would make us inconspicuous, as well as floppy, wide-brimmed hats to hide our faces. For her own use, she had an apron, stolen from the kitchen. The three of us slunk away behind the rhododendrons, scaled the garden wall and raced down the avenue as if pursued by the devil. Only by yodelling at the tops of our voices or beating a tattoo could we have attracted more attention, but no one stopped us.

  The circus tent was orange with blue stripes and had a fringe all the way round. From afar you could already hear applause, shouting and laughter. The smell of damp sawdust and elephant dung made Sophie choke, but when the band struck up she was skipping with excitement. A blonde woman in a glass-fronted booth guarded the entrance. She refused to let us in without tickets, and was unimpressed when Sophie told her who she was.

  “Yes,” the woman scoffed, “and I am the queen of Cloud Cuckoo Land!” We lingered near the cages of the wild animals and were about to give up when we noticed a loose flap of canvas. Tugging at it until the opening was wide enough for us to slip into the tent, we found ourselves in the space underneath the tiers of planking and peered between the legs of the spectators into the big top, where figures dipped and soared like birds. There were fire-eaters, girls in glittering attire balancing on galloping horses and somersaulting into saddles. Skin-tight costumes, straining muscles in the warm, heavy air, thighs
clamped on horses’ flanks . . . We were spellbound. Sophie held her hand over her mouth in shock, but nothing escaped her notice. Two elephants, their spirits broken, performed a lumbering act. A man with a white-painted face played the fool, and I was puzzled by how heartily all these white people were laughing at themselves.

  At long last the ringmaster stepped forward to announce the grand finale. He warned the people sitting in the front rows of the hazards to come, and ordered all the children to be moved to the back. Four men with whips stood guard over the ring and the drums rolled ominously. The excitement reached fever pitch and the audience stamped their feet on the wooden planks, making a deafening noise in our hideaway.

  “Here they come . . .” roared the speaker, recoiling dramatically, “in their most natural state!” The curtains parted. “I must remind you that it is strictly forbidden to feed them, for they come straight from the wild, and eat only human flesh . . .” Another roll of the drums. “Here comes the terrifying Nuba tribe from darkest Africa!”

  Years later, when I tried to explain to Sophie why Kwame had distanced himself from her, I reminded her of this incident. She appreciated the degradation we must have felt, she said, indeed her own sense of shame on that occasion had been as profound as ours. She was as shocked as we were, if not more so, by the idea of a defenceless naked tribe being put on display throughout the countries of Europe and forced to perform wild dances, pull faces and prostitute themselves to a jeering public. The idea of the noble savage, which was so close to her heart, had suddenly been reduced to the level of a circus act, a freak show with a bearded woman, Siamese twins or a five-legged foal. She assured me that she would have given anything to spare us this experience. So upset was she by the memory, that I did not have the heart to tell her how she herself had wounded Kwame with her exaggerated reverence for our exotic origins.

  To cheer her up I reminded her how I had burst into loud sobs, so loud in fact as to draw attention to our presence under the rows of benches. Suddenly we were staring into the upside-down face of a scullery maid, who had bent double to peer between her legs into the space behind. It took the girl some time to believe her eyes: then she shrieked. She fled, screaming that some of the blacks had escaped and were about to gobble her up. I do not remember who was outside first, the factory girl or us.

  In later years I heard tell of many other “noble savages” who found themselves exposed to the oppressive stares of common folk. Naturalism being all the rage, any man of nature could be counted on to draw great crowds. A Mohawk Indian named Sychneta was exhibited in a tavern in Amsterdam; there was Omaï from Tahiti, and the Hottentot Venus whose buttocks could be squeezed for a few pence. Sophie told me about her brother going to see a group of Orange River Bushmen in The Hague, and on one occasion I lost my temper and tore down posters advertising Carl Hagenbeck’s Somali show complete with tents, horses, camels, sheep, and, as the newspapers reported, “black children scampering around like young monkeys.” I never went to see an exhibition of humans again, although in Kumasi we used to enjoy the spectacle of the conquered tribes from the north, whom we mocked for their deviant speech, their customs, and the characteristic features of their race.

  Soon after the incident at the circus we were taken to a different spectacle, in Leiden this time. The minister of Colonies had decided it would be in our interest to study his latest ethnographical acquisitions, which had come from Elmina on the same ship that had set out with Verveer and our portrait some time earlier. No doubt it was intended as a favour to be shown the throne belonging to my father’s friend Badu Bonsu II, king of Ahanta. Two skulls dangled from the back like trophies; the one on the left was pointed out as being that of Adjutant Tonneboeijer. We had known him in the old days in Elmina, and Kwame could not resist inspecting the skull at close quarters. The mandible had been reattached with wires and could be raised and lowered. Doing so had a comic effect, which was not appreciated by our elders. We were led into the adjoining room. On a desk stood an object draped in a velvet cloth. When the cloth was removed we saw a glass jar. In it floated the head of Badu Bonsu.

  When Mr. van Moock saw the state we were in when we returned, he wrote a missive in no uncertain terms to the Ministry of Colonies. That was the last time we were taken to exhibitions of that nature. I believe both items are still on view in Leiden today.

  (As it happened, Verveer’s punitive expedition to Ahanta was not an unqualified success. Badu Bonsu was decapitated and his head preserved, but Verveer, ever susceptible to the tropical climate, fell ill and died of a raging fever some days later at Elmina. Instead of burying him then and there, the idea arose to make use of the remaining preserving liquid, which had been prepared in vast quantity. A large sea chest was tarred on the inside and filled with formalin, into which the body of Verveer was carefully lowered. In order to minimize putrefaction, the lid was clamped down and sealed along the edges. The captain set sail, confident that Verveer’s remains would return home safely, but on the third day the smell of decay was reported below deck, and in mid-voyage the captain noted in the ship’s journal: “The stench from the major-general has become unbearable. Today we held a brief ceremony and put him overboard.”)

  About a year later, towards the end of 1840, Kwame and I had a violent argument. The king had abdicated in order to marry his beloved lady-in-waiting, and Sophie’s father had succeeded him as King Willem II. Anna Pavlovna stood at his side wearing a robe of gold and silver scattered with gems during the coronation in the New Church, which we attended. A fresh wind blew through the kingdom. Festivities were organized in the grand tradition of the tsars, and the richness of the new queen’s apparel at these celebrations was a clear signal that the days of austerity were over. The mood of the people was sanguine. The Hague was given a glimpse of future wonders when, on 5 December, dozens of buildings were lit up with gaslight, as if by magic.

  We went to the palace in good spirits. Sophie’s brother Willem Alexander, now the crown prince, had just become a father, and so it was his turn to lead the traditional St. Nicholas Eve party. As soon as we arrived he drew me aside, grinning roguishly. His boyish enthusiasm was contagious. Besides, Sophie’s brother was not someone you could easily refuse. Perhaps I was a little flattered, too, by his confiding in me and needing me as his accomplice. Me! Of course I also hoped to make an impression on Sophie. Willem Alexander painted my lips and put a cap on my head. The bloomers fitted me, but the black stockings were far too wide, and I leaped out from behind the curtain barelegged.

  It was not until I was face to face with the assembled guests, who let out startled cries, that I realized what I had let myself in for. There was applause for Willem Alexander’s capital idea of engaging a real Moor for the part of Black Peter. Sophie stared at me in disbelief until the musicians struck up again. Just as in other years, the guests fled from Black Peter in all directions. I chased them, brandishing my birch rod and leaping about, until I found Kwame barring my way. He was standing motionless in the midst of the tumult, with clenched fists. There may have been tears in his eyes. At all events, he knocked my cap off my head, tore madly at my jerkin until the seams split, and then bolted. I wanted to go after him, but all eyes were fixed on me. So I put on a funny accent and kept rolling my eyes until everyone was laughing again.

  Never had I seen such a miracle as the illuminated streets through which we rode home that night. I tried to enjoy the sight, but Kwame’s sullen silence dampened my spirits. When we arrived in Delft I screwed up courage to tell him I would ask Mrs. van Moock to make me a bed in the disused maid’s room. I told him we were too old to share the same cot. This feeling had troubled me for some time, but it was only now that I was so angry with him that I dared speak my mind. He looked at me as if he couldn’t believe his ears, but when he saw that I was in earnest, he broke his stubborn silence at last.

  “I suppose that’s her idea, is it?” he fumed, and it was a little while before I realized he was not referring to Mrs. van Mo
ock. “Because you’d rather be in bed with her, wouldn’t you? Don’t deny it . . . I can tell. All the whispering, the flirting behind my back. You can’t fool me. Well, go away then. Go. Now.” Ducking to avoid the personal belongings he was hurling at me, I denied his accusation hotly. And yet I was flattered that he should think I was so grown up, that I might be on such familiar terms with Sophie as to warrant behaviour of that kind.

  At breakfast the next morning he sulked. Undaunted, I whistled a cheerful tune, as if I was glad to have spent the night on my own. Without looking at me, Kwame replaced his spoon in his bowl of porridge and moved to another table, taking his porridge with him. That evening I found the rest of my belongings in an untidy heap on my bed where Kwame had flung them: books and notebooks, some underwear and the Georgian fan that Sophie had worn at the coronation ball, which was badly creased. My sketch pad lay on top of the pile. Angry words had been scrawled in charcoal across my study of a dragonfly. I had some difficulty reading them, as the stick of charcoal had snapped at least three times, but the message proved to be absurdly formal, and strongly reminiscent of Chateaubriand: “To you I am a wild man in need of civilization; to me you are a civilized man gone wild.”

  3

  “For several days I have noticed people staring at me as if I had escaped from the zoo . . . it must be something very wicked that I am accused of.” “It is not wicked, merely ridiculous.” “That I . . . what? Have robbed the National Bank? Or that I fell in love with one of the princes of Ashanti?”

  —Jacob van Lennep De lotgevallen van Klaasje Sevenster