Bernardo Atxaga - Seven Houses in France

Far off, in the jungle, the monkeys kept up their screeching. Whether they were mandrills or chimpanzees, he couldn’t tell.

‘The jungle swallows everything and gives back only the cries of monkeys.’ That could be the beginning of a poem, he thought, except that he didn’t know how to go on. Besides, it wasn’t true. The jungle also gave him money. A lot of money. At least 500,000 francs a year, 100,000 through the regular channels and about 400,000 through irregular ones.

He got up from the chaise longue and sat down at the desk with Christine’s letter in his hand. His wife’s handwriting sloped so exaggeratedly to the right that some words looked almost like straight lines and were very hard to read. Her ideas, on the other hand, could not be clearer: ‘… in order for us to buy the house in St-Jean, we need just two more batches, 10–500 and 10–500. Do your best, Captain. I ask you this on my behalf and on that of our friend Armand. It would mean, at most, one more year and then the numbers would coincide: 7 years, 7 houses. Van Thiegel will help you. Talk to him. I’m sure he’ll be prepared to put in a little extra effort.’

His wife’s proposal was probably worth considering. He was stuck in Yangambi, imprisoned there. Perhaps that was why he saw so many bats. He should do more physical exercise, although not in the way Cocó did. Cocó liked to work up a sweat felling mahogany in order to control his natural tendency to put on weight. Hunting for elephants might be fun. Besides, since that whole area of the French Riviera belonged almost exclusively to Léopold II, Toisonet might be able to help them buy a villa for a bargain price. Two batches, 10–500 and 10–500, one in the rainy season and another in the dry, and that would be that. And the following year, he could bid farewell for ever to Yangambi.

LIEUTENANT VAN THIEGEL WAS startled to see Lalande Biran striding across the Place du Grand Palmier and hurriedly tried to disguise the chaos in his office by hiding away the piles of paper and clothes that filled the room. After life as a legionnaire and years in the desert, all he needed was a tent, nothing more, just a place to leave his weapons, another for his clothes and somewhere to sleep. He felt uncomfortable anywhere else, both in his mother’s house in Antwerp and in the house he had been assigned as second in command in Yangambi, and he found it impossible to keep things in order.

Fortunately, Lalande Biran merely called to him from the door, without coming in.

‘What’s wrong, Captain?’Van Thiegel asked, going outside and saluting. His first thought was that it must be something to do with the rebels. Whenever some important expedition was announced, the rebels in hiding would somehow find out and prepare an attack. They must have been thrilled to learn about the visit by King Léopold and l’américaine .

Lalande Biran managed to startle him again. It had nothing to do with the rebels. The royal visit had been cancelled. The King would not be visiting the Congo. And the country would have to make do without a queen. In compensation, a beautiful statue of the Virgin, the work of a great sculptor, would be placed at Stanley Falls. That was the new objective: the Virgin of the Congo. Many photographers would attend the ceremony, bearing their brand-new Kodak cameras. Not so many as would have descended on them in order to see the King, but enough to spread the image of Yangambi worldwide.

Van Thiegel had taken in only the first thing Lalande Biran had said and ignored the rest.

‘You mean they’re not coming,’ he said. ‘Bloody hell!’

He began stamping hard on the ground as if he were squashing cockroaches. His boots became spattered with mud.

‘Look, Van Thiegel, we get quite enough noise from the mandrills,’ Lalande Biran said, and Van Thiegel stopped his stamping.

‘Bloody hell!’ he said again.

‘Don’t be too dismissive of our visitors from Brussels,’ Lalande Biran told him sternly. ‘Our future lies in the hands of one of them.’

‘You mean Monsieur X?’ Van Thiegel’s eyes grew steely beneath their puffy lids.

‘This Virgin of the Congo business was probably his idea and he doubtless chose the sculptor himself. Anyway, that isn’t what I came to talk to you about. I wanted to give you some good news. From now on, you are to receive twenty-five per cent of what we earn from each shipment of mahogany. The percentage you’ve been getting up until now was rather low.’

Van Thiegel nodded, as if he had just received an order. ‘What with that and the strict rules on gambling in Yangambi, I’ll be a rich man by the time I return to Europe,’ he said.

They sat down under the big palm tree, on one of the white-painted benches, and Lalande Biran explained what he had in mind. His wife Christine and Monsieur X would very much like to receive another shipment of mahogany and ivory as soon as possible, before Christmas. The rains would make working in the jungle difficult, but they had to try. They could organise a more pleasant outing in the dry season.

‘What do you think? Does that seem feasible? I’ll take care of the ivory.’

Van Thiegel understood. The Captain was asking him to make an extra effort and that was why he had increased his percentage.

‘I would have to take fifty men off the rubber-tapping.’

‘That’s no problem.’

Van Thiegel’s mind split in two. On one side he saw the amount he would earn if he took charge of the mahogany. With the new percentage, the operation would bring in a minimum of 120,000 francs. However, on the other side of his mind — the bad side, so to speak — there was a concern. If he took away fifty rubber workers, that would mean a drop in production of 1, 100 pounds over a period of three weeks. Such a fall would not go unnoticed at the palace in Brussels. It could get them into deep trouble.

Lalande Biran read the thoughts on the bad side of Van Thiegel’s mind. ‘I’ve already worked out a way of justifying the drop in production,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell Brussels that we have to build a road on which to transport the statue of the Virgin as far as the falls. I’ll tell them that it’s possible to get fairly close by boat, but that the last two miles or so has to be done on foot, which is why I need fifty sappers to do the job.’

‘Good idea,’ said Van Thiegel.

Boats could, in fact, get within a hundred yards of the falls, but no one in Brussels would know that.

‘So get those fifty men together and prepare to leave.’

‘I’ll need ten askaris as well. The rubber-tappers have to work in small groups, but when felling mahogany they tend to spread out more, and you know what happens then.’

Lalande Biran agreed, and they walked together to the bank of the river. Lalande Biran’s blue and gold eyes — d’or et d’azur — were shining. He was happy.

He changed the subject and started talking about the gambling situation. ‘I know that a lot of the men in Yangambi resent the limit I set on how much they can bet. They would be prepared to gamble away not just ten francs or a hundred, but their own lives. And that’s perfectly understandable. Any man who lives in Africa, and who might have to fight a lion today or a snake tomorrow, and the day after that a rebel, and who has to struggle on a daily basis to keep the askari troops disciplined and the rubber production at its highest possible level, well, one can hardly expect a man like that to behave like a spinster from Brussels in his spare time. On the other hand, Cocó, what are we doing in this damp dungeon? Why are we here?’

Pausing, Lalande Biran gazed into the distance at the point where jungle and sky merged. The cities he most loved — Paris, Antwerp and Brussels — were more than three thousand miles away.