Bernardo Atxaga - Seven Houses in France

Donatien peed in his trousers. His heart was beating so hard, he could feel it in his mouth. He tried to retrace his footsteps, to escape from those thousand small green leaves, but his legs felt as if they were made of wood.

A bird flew out of a tree and over his head. Someone was approaching.

Donatien’s legs were like two wooden stakes stuck fast in the ground; he couldn’t even run and hide behind a tree trunk. The sounds grew clearer: a twig breaking, a foot stepping into a puddle, a branch being sliced off with a machete. A figure took shape among the little green leaves. This time the pee ran down as far as Donatien’s knees.

‘ Monsieur Donatien, voulez-vous une anisette ?’

Before him stood Livo, a broad smile on his face. Tears sprang into Donatien’s eyes and he felt an impulse to embrace his assistant from the Club Royal, but something held him back. He didn’t give Livo boxes of biscuits, as Lieutenant Van Thiegel did, but he did let him into the storeroom. Had he in some way already repaid this favour? He stopped where he was.

‘I was visiting my daughter in the mugini and I heard shots. That’s why I came over,’ said Livo. ‘What happened?’

‘Oh, nothing special,’ answered Donatien.

He was still so agitated that his words were barely comprehensible: ‘ Rianparculie .’

‘I have to get back to the club,’ said Livo. ‘If you like, we can go together.’

Donatien wondered if he should promise him a box of biscuits. He was, after all, doing him a big favour and deserved some reward, but wouldn’t that be setting a precedent? If you give someone one box of biscuits, they will demand another and another and another. That was what had happened with Van Thiegel. Livo was always asking him for biscuits, sometimes for his daughter, sometimes for the children in the mugini or for the witch doctors who supplied him with herbs, and Van Thiegel always said Yes. And that wasn’t right. Van Thiegel wasn’t responsible for the storeroom and so didn’t care, but Donatien knew the value of those biscuits. There were many things in Yangambi, but the only sweets available were bananas and sugar cane. That’s why biscuits were so highly prized.

‘Have you seen the four askaris who came with me?’ he asked.

‘I saw them heading down to the river. They’ll be waiting for you there,’ said Livo.

‘Let’s go, then.’

On the way back, his heart having resumed its regular rhythm and his whole body functioning normally again, he thought once more about the tall girl with the pale skin. He had been so astonished to see her in possession of the emerald earrings that he hadn’t known what to think. It was the strangest thing he’d ever seen in Yangambi. A white officer making a gift of jewellery to a native girl! And the white officer wasn’t just any officer, he was Chrysostome!

The intelligent brother appeared to him as they were crossing the river. He was in laconic mood.

‘It’s hard enough to get information, but even harder to hold it in reserve for the right moment. Don’t waste it, dog.’

It was good advice, but he didn’t really have much choice. Yangambi was a garrison, and his superiors, especially Lalande Biran, were always demanding news. If he kept quiet and they later found out that there had been news, which he had then kept from them, he would be sent straight to the dungeon in Government House or, worse, to the rebel-infested part of the jungle. It would therefore be wisest to tell the Captain the truth. Chrysostome wasn’t a poofter. He had a girlfriend on the other side of the river, a young half-white, half-black girl, as tall as a Watusi.

Lalande Biran would receive this news without a flicker of surprise, as was his way, but then he would immediately sit down on his chaise longue to ponder it.

THE IMAGE OF Christine Saliat de Meilhan remained fixed in both parts of Van Thiegel’s mind. He closed his eyes, and there she was in her wet bathing suit and wet hair, one curl stuck to her cheek, her flat stomach, her athletic thighs. On the very morning that the Captain set off with Chrysostome and Richardson to hunt for antelope, an idea suddenly filled his heart. Or more accurately and more metaphorically, a violent desire gripped his heart much as an animal’s paw pounces on a small bird. He would have that woman. Christine would be his.

Ever since his days as a legionnaire, Van Thiegel had kept a notebook entitled Mon histoire sentimentale , in which, in blunt military manner, with no embellishments, no beating about the bush, he kept a note of all the women he had known: where they came from, how much he had paid for them, and where the act had taken place. After accompanying the hunters as far as the palisade, he returned to his office and took the notebook from the desk drawer in which he kept it.

The last entry stated that there had been 184 women and girls: 155 blacks and 29 whites; 159 free and 25 paid for.

Van Thiegel made some calculations. If he was thinking of spending another three or four months in Yangambi, the number of women would easily rise to 190. Then, once he had got his discharge from the Force Publique and returned to Europe, it would take him about a year to reach Christine’s bed, and meanwhile, he would have another nine women, all of them prostitutes, so as not to waste time. That way, if he was man enough to meet his own calculations, Christine would be number 200.

Van Thiegel felt excited. By assigning her a round number, Christine seemed somehow more within reach. It occurred to him that she could be his in a still shorter space of time. If he went directly from Yangambi to Paris without stopping off in Antwerp, five months would be more than enough. If he lived in Paris, it would take him only a matter of weeks to meet Christine. From then on, it would be easy. A couple of outings together, three at most, and she would be his.

The NCO on duty came to the office to receive his orders. Van Thiegel reluctantly dragged himself out of the dream-state into which his calculations had plunged him and told the NCO that they must set about cleaning up Yangambi. There was no time to lose! The stables and enclosures didn’t matter so much, but the area around the main street and especially around the Place du Grand Palmier should positively sparkle! They would shortly be receiving a visit from a bishop, ‘a great European wizard’ — ‘ un grand sorcier européen ’ — and they must give him a royal welcome.

‘Get all the women together and set them to work. If necessary, use the chicotte on them.’

‘Should we clean this house and the Captain’s too?’ asked

the NCO. ‘ Est-ce qu’on doit nettoyer aussi cette maison et celle du capitaine ?’

Van Thiegel said No. Donatien would be in charge of Government House, and he himself didn’t want anyone coming into his house.

The NCO noticed the general disorder in the office, but said nothing.

‘We also have to prepare three huts for the visitors. Choose three empty ones that are in a reasonably decent state. Inside the palisade, of course.’

He found it hard to speak. Things were changing inside his head. One part of his mind — the official part, so to speak — was reminding him that it was, in fact, his job to decide which huts the visitors should stay in, while on the other side — the rebellious side, shall we say — the image of Christine in her bathing suit was growing and coming alive.

‘If you have no further orders, sir,’ said the NCO.

‘Are there any other officers in Yangambi at the moment, or am I the only one? I know that the Captain, Richardson and Chrysostome have gone off hunting, but what about Lopes and the others?’ asked Van Thiegel.