“Please do,” says Slade.
“And after that?” asks Casement.
“Well, personal effects are to be transported back home. Mackinnon has me doing that, but in the last letter,” Ward produces a piece of paper and hands it over to Casement, “I’ve been instructed to engage you to help.”
Casement reads the note, the wavering writing flickering on the page, Sell remainder goods to State. See Governor about this. Bring Bonny, all men Expedition, all Barttelot’s and Jameson’s effects and collections Banana; ship them England, care Dawes & Co. If help wanted engage and take back Casement. Wire if these instructions understood.
Casement had not intended to go home, but he had not intended to be a missionary either, and this haphazard landing of different professions and roles was turning into something of a proclivity. And now he was a nurse. As he and Ward waited in Banana for the next ship back to London, Ward fell apart. First, the fever, which Casement is accustomed to dealing with, and then the carbuncles, which in Casement’s reckoning, Ward has never suffered from before. Msa informed him otherwise. Ward was treated a year earlier in Thome. Some sort of ointment had been effective, although such a thing is not available in Banana. Good diet. Rest. Loose clothing, and now for poor Ward, no clothing, as he has a carbuncle the size of a saucer on his right buttock, something eased with cool water and a gentle washcloth. Msa tends to Ward in this way, although Casement wouldn’t mind—anything to make Ward feel better—but that oozing, yellow crater hardly puts him in his most attractive light. And makes Ward, who is already down, profoundly depressed. Ward is like a child in a way. His being sad is much harder to bear than the sorrow of other people.
“Good news, Ward,” says Casement. “The Afrikaans is leaving for London in a few days.”
“How do you know that?” asks Ward.
“Because she just docked and, after minor maintenance, is eager to get the hell out of here.”
“Is that a newspaper?” asks Ward.
“Yes it is.”
“What’s it say?”
“I haven’t had a chance to read it yet.”
Ward’s eyes narrow. “You’re lying. Why are you lying?”
“I’m not lying.” But Casement is, and he wonders how Ward knows this. Or maybe Ward is just clever enough to predict that he is to be slandered by Stanley and that Stanley is rushing to his work, rushing to clear his name, happily tossing Ward onto the bonfire. “It’s not that bad, Ward.”
“Does he mention me by name?”
Casement nods and rifles through the paper. “He has things to say about all the officers of the Rear Guard.”
“And what of me?”
Casement shakes out the paper, folds it open, and finds the place. “‘Mister Ward, at an officer’s meeting, suggested my instructions should be canceled et cetera, and consequently my kit and baggage were sent down the Congo.’”
“I was at Stanley Pool when Barttelot decided to ship Stanley’s traps,” says Ward, sitting up. “I was the only officer not present, a thousand miles away.” Ward wraps the sheet around him and sinks his face into his hands. He looks like a classical tragic figure, toga-ed, wronged.
“Write a response,” says Casement.
“Of course I’ll write a response. But you know what this means.”
And Casement does know. This is the first of many slanders to come as Stanley struggles to clear his name.
Ward adjusts his position and raises his golden head. “What did you hear of the Rear Guard?”
“Not much.”
“I know you’re not one to traffic in rumors, but Casement, I need to know. I need to know what people have been saying.”
“Who’s to say you’re implicated?”
“You can’t protect me, so you might as well help me.”
Casement pulls the chair to the side of the bed and sits opposite. “One of the officers, apparently, purchased a girl and had her slaughtered in order to make pictures of it. Surely, that’s not true.”
“What else?”
“The natives were not well cared for. The diet was poor and disciplinary action was brutal in the extreme. The overall impression of the leadership of the Rear Guard,” Casement is focusing on Barttelot’s role, “was that of madness.”
“And that’s it?”
“All the officers were rumored to have harems. One of the officers supposedly purchased a woman with a pair of boots.” Not that remarkable a detail for one who has been living in the Congo, but achieves a level of scandal when read in the parlors, drawing rooms, and dressing rooms of London.
“It’s over,” says Ward.
Casement keeps his expression gentle, sympathetic, as he expands his knowledge to include Ward as the officer in question. “What’s over?”
“My future.”
And what was in Ward’s future? Probably he had some idea of making his fortune in Africa, mellowing in age, finding a nice wife, and having pretty children.
Ward contemplates the calm that he feels now that he’s lost. It’s that moment when all the cards are pushed to the center of the table and dealt again, the moment when unlimited possibility exists.
“You’ll need to write your own account,” says Casement.
“You know I can’t.”
“You can’t write directly about the Emin Pasha Relief, that’s what Stanley had you sign, but you can write. You can write a book about the five years you’ve spent in Africa. You can include your drawings.”
“Five Years With the Congo Cannibals.” That’s what Jameson had called it.
“If you like. Clear your name by letting people know who you are.”
“Won’t help if Stanley’s lecturing all over England and America.”
“You can lecture. I’m sure someone will sign you up.”
“Stanley is famous.”
“Anyone,” says Casement, “can be famous.”
V
The Saale
October 1889
Sarita sights across the rail: a straight view of uninterrupted North Atlantic, the same one she’s been staring at for the last four days, since the boat left Plymouth. Sarita had been looking forward to the journey as she had much to think over, but now she’s thought and rethought. She’s looking forward to New York and its distractions. She knows nothing of men.
When Sarita was still a schoolgirl in Argentina, a trip was arranged to visit the countryside. One of the wealthier girls owned a hacienda, and she and the others were to spend the weekend picnicking, hiking, swimming, and eating good wholesome food. The girls were crammed into the back of the carriage and Madame Villa Juan forced to sit beside the driver, allowing the girls to descend into their tame gossip and gossamer fantasies. Madame was wearing an enormous hat that she kept in place with her left hand, while with her right she clung to the rail of the bench—small, desperate acts of control. The carriage dipped and swayed along the rutted road and the girls chatted and sang, waved off flies, and tolerated the heat and profound humidity that resulted from three days of heavy rain. At a bend in the road, the carriage drew close to several vaqueros at work with cows. Here, the road narrowed, and as the driver attempted to steer the carriage to the verge, clear of the deep mud, the wheels began to slip and the carriage became stuck.
At this moment Sarita noticed that one cow—in truth a bull—was mounted on top of the other, wiggling, and the activity in question was the breeding of the two animals. This realization was made by all the girls concurrently and met in turn with confusion, horror, glee, and meditative calm. Sarita, who had the unfortunate luck to be seated closest to the spectacle, now saw that the young vaquero who held the rope about the bull’s neck was smiling at her, holding her pale eyes directly in his dark gaze, and although she knew she ought to do otherwise, she could not look away. This is how it was—the vaqueros at their husband
ry, the bull at his—until Sarita woke to Madame Villa Juan, ankle deep in mud, yelling at the girls to please avert their eyes.
For weeks after, every time her mind becalmed or she was falling off to sleep, Sarita would recall that bull—its shifting as it met its mark—and the cow, that might have been distressed but wasn’t. And the vaquero’s smile that had spanned mere seconds in real time but was spinning into hours in its recollection.
She cannot marry Charles Brock-Innes.
Her mother is already on her case. If Sarita didn’t like Charles Brock-Innes, then what was he doing at dinner? He has been a regular at Carleton Terrace and Sarita’s mother, as she struggles to keep on top of what is socially acceptable, has made these invitations, expanded menus, ordered outfits, and vacated drawing rooms in order to let the match take. And Sarita has been happily occupying benches, taking elbows, sitting knee to knee with Mr. Brock-Innes, alert, complicit, and hopeful as the whole family struggles to clean up the American (and even South American!) money with this marriage. Her father is relying on her to steer them into the English peerage. Sarita understands what’s needed but has no help. Her mother, this Sallie-from-New-Jersey, still wears the trauma of poverty, recalls too clearly her husband’s first dollars made peddling boxes of unguents and pills in Buenos Aires, remembers burying a child in New Orleans in a plain pine box.
Sarita has no illusions about a life of poverty. She remembers going to the markets in Buenos Aires with her mother to bargain for chickens and vegetables and bread. Mother could do anything in those years, but her Spanish was rough, and Sarita—despite the flat, gray eyes and pale skin—made a convincing Argentinian once given a chance to speak. She wasn’t bargaining for fun or pride or whatever makes the wealthy squeeze money from working people, she was bargaining because she was poor. Whatever cash could be had was being held by Father, who seemed to think if his family could just put off buying that new pair of boots, moving to better rooms, hiring a woman to help with the washing—eating—that he could take those simple coins and turn them into something real. Sarita remembers being cold. She remembers being unbearably hot. She remembers being hungry and the particular humiliation of being white—in a country where that meant wealth—and having no money. If this life of Carleton Terrace and Fifth Avenue is a gilded cage, try the prison of poverty. Sarita’s mother retreats behind curtains, into shadows, up the stairs, with her false headaches and real pills, and Sarita would like to say that it is done. Over. Successful.
That it is marriage.
She liked Charles Brock-Innes. He made her laugh. Brock-Innes did impersonations, including one of her father—his probing eyes, his habit of stretching his fingers like a cat extending claws, the way he sank into a chair, silently observing until those attempting to speak to him dissolved into nervous chatter. But now everything Brock-Innes said is in a new light. She remembers his words, “Sarita, a woman should pursue her own goals, even in marriage.” He must have thought her desperate, but it didn’t seem that way.
The grinding of the ship’s engine draws her closer to New York, farther from London (although they sailed from Plymouth) as if she is a dog on a leash, allowed to wander to a better location, only to be pulled back at another’s will. Sarita shuts her eyes against the sun and the exchange plays through her head. There’s the linen closet. There’s Brock-Innes, exiting, and rushing down the hall. There’s Valentine, her father’s valet, close behind, tucking in his shirt. And there’s Sarita, standing farther up the hallway, with Valentine processing her presence, having lost none of his composure. His usual reserved look read as challenging. And she’d said, utterly ridiculous, “Who is dressing Mister Sanford?”
Valentine had mumbled something about her father needing to compose a telegram before dinner and therefore having been done with his wardrobe early. And after that, she had again taken Brock-Innes’s elbow into the dining room, had managed through the salmon and jellies and roasts and asparagus and puddings and cheeses, the different wines, the winking cutlery spreading out across the cloth like surgical tools. She had carved at all of it: fish, pheasant, fool. Never wittier, she had found humor in everything and there was Brock-Innes laughing at all her jokes. He enjoyed her company. He liked her spark. He wanted her to be the mother of his children.
The bull wiggles.
This is not the time to stir things up. She doesn’t know what deals her father has going down with Barings Bank, but she knows it’s risky. Father is on edge and his usually prickly demeanor has shifted to a disturbing calm—the calm indicative of a looming eruption. But there’s no point in saying what happened. She has no interest in exposing Brock-Innes. She wonders if he thought she too had strange inclinations. She could be more fragile—which men seem to like—but she’s always thought that her handsomeness and warm intelligence made up for that.
No.
She’s not going to blame herself. She’ll leave that to the others.
And then, a shadow.
“Señorita,” says Paz. Paz is Sarita’s maid.
“¿Qué necesitas?”
Paz holds the parasol, which she opens and extends in her direction.
Of course, Paz is right. At her age, twenty-nine, Sarita shouldn’t be presenting her face to the sun. She also knows that pretty Paz enjoys making these reminders, easing waistlines, yanking the occasional gray hair from Sarita’s head. The day is cold and the passengers are arranged about the deck, taking in the air, stirring about the exits, gliding as if on tracks. Sarita moves to the railing, her skirt trailing, and she trails a yet longer shadow. Her heels click as she steps, as she shudders to each new second, marking her progress.
Ward and Glave have another five days before they reach New York. Casement, visiting relatives in England, will join them in a few weeks. They share a small cabin, stacked one on top of the other in bunks, as if they’re corpses. One crate of Ward’s is jammed behind the door, making it difficult to enter. There is a small porthole window that spills light into the room, something that Ward argued against, but Glave prevailed—even offering to pay for it—and thank God, because without it, there would be no air. To be shared with the other passengers, there is a privy down the hall. Ward has heard the passengers say, “Better than nothing,” but Ward, who has made do with nothing for many years, knows the statement to be false.
This is Second Class.
At dinnertime, Ward and Glave sit on long benches eating rich food ladled out of bottomless, frothing pots. There is salt and fat and gravy. There is pudding. There is silverware. There is as much wine as one can drink, included in the five-guinea fare, and Ward grows fatter, which is good, considering the countenance he presented in London—more of a specter. Major Pond has signed him on for a nationwide tour across the United States in anticipation of his upcoming book, Five Years With the Congo Cannibals. And Ward has packed up the masks, and spears, and gourds, the feathered rattles, the shields—this miniature Congo—and crated them carefully. There are four crates in all. One is inconveniencing Glave in the cabin. The other three are in first-class storage as Ward has bribed the First Purser to stow them there. Glave has joked that for Ward to present a genuine experience of the Congo, he ought to have gathered up a couple of whip-cracking Belgians, some Arab slavers, mosquitoes, fever, and an infinite coil of red tape. Glave is headed to the Yukon to do some exploring, which always sounds like it’s something concrete and never is, more a condition of motion propelled by a particular state of mind.
Ward had started writing his book while still on the Transvaal, making the journey from Africa to Europe. Casement advised him to do this. The book had to be in good shape, in the hands of a publisher, off the presses, and ready to be shelved at the bookstores no later than six months after the publication of Stanley’s account, the six months stipulated by Stanley in the contract.
“This will offset the damage,” Casement said. “Just do a good job of it.”
; So Ward, sequestered in his cabin, had begun to generate page after page, while Casement fiddled with his lines. Casement was enjoying the journey, eager to get to Liverpool and see his fun-loving cousin Gertrude, his clever sister Nina. Casement had people to miss. He missed his friends in England, and people—as judged from the volume of letters Casement received—missed him. Ward’s immediate family now lived in California. He would arrive back in London an Englishman with no one to welcome him, no one to care. Maudlin. Pathetic. And anyone who might have been intrigued by this young, golden adventurer would now know him as the man who had either purchased a girl to watch her be eaten or acquired a sex slave with a pair of top boots. Scandalous. Untouchable.
Distant Africa was looking better all the time.
In order to manage the last of the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition shipment, Ward had enlisted the Zanzibaris from Bangala—twelve of them—and they had strolled about the Transvaal decks in their flowing white robes, presenting ever-more-startling countenances as the Transvaal drew closer to Europe. Casement spent much time with them, working on his Swahili. And Ward, who was not feeling particularly sociable, drew deeper into his writing, trying to bring the life of the Congo—the heat, the women, the laughter, the terror—alive on the page. He thought of where his drawings ought to be placed and as he sorted through the sheaves of paper, his mind often wandered back to Jameson and how he would be remembered. What had happened to his drawings? Were those of the slaughtered girl in these crates?
Ward will have to meet with Jameson’s family. He doesn’t like this role, but he knows he’s good at it—sympathetic and patient. He’s done it before. After Hatton’s son Frank was killed hunting elephant in Borneo, Ward had brought the body back to England. Hatton was grateful for the effort, of course, but Ward had been ready for a change. Hatton, missing the son, seeing the young man who had returned in his place, had been moved to help Ward. It was Hatton’s letter of introduction to Stanley that secured for Ward his first employment in the Congo.
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