Letter from Casablanca (10 page)

T
he garden of the small barracks was lost in the dark mass of the forest that besieged the clearing. It was a colonial building, with a faded pink facade and yellow shutters, which must have gone back to 1885, to the time of the skirmishes with Cecil Rhodes, when it must have constituted a decorous general quarters for the commander who controlled the western border near the Zambezi. Since 1890, when our troops had withdrawn from the Niassaland region, the barracks had no longer been a garrison. It was occupied by a reserve captain who remained there the whole period of his military service and by two Negro soldiers, two “sepoys,” elderly and silent, with their wives, whose only duty, apparently, was to act as orthopedists for the occupants of the nearby village who worked for the lumber company. The day of my arrival there had been a frenetic coming and going of limping people, although the captain had reassured me that something unusual had occurred: a pile had collapsed on the piers of the Zambezi. Usually the Negroes preferred to cure themselves on their own with their tribal methods. The Sengas were a very special type—I certainly knew this better than he—and then the medical equipment of the barracks left much to be desired: it was useless to delude ourselves.

The captain was a kind, loquacious, rather clumsy man. He called me “Excellency” and must have been my age or a little older. His accent and behavior, provincial and archaic, revealed him to be a northerner, from Oporto, perhaps, or from Amarente. His thick jaw, his bluish beard, his humble, patient eyes told of generations of peasants or mountaineers, which his short duration in the army had not succeeded in erasing. He was studying law and was enrolled in the University of Coimbra. When his African term of service was over, he would enter the magistrature. He had eight examinations to go, and in that place he had ample time to study.

He had me served a cool tamarind on the little veranda invaded by climbing vines, and began a polite, very tactful conversation from which transpired his desire for a confidential, unconstrained demeanor which, however, he was unable to assume. He inquired with compunction about my trip. It had gone very well, thank you, in so far as three hundred kilometers in a truck can go very well on such a road. Joaquim was an excellent chauffeur. I had come by train as far as Tete, evidently. No, the climate of Tete was not really one of the best. From Europe I had six-day-old news, nothing particularly interesting, it seemed to me. Theoretically I would stay twelve months, if many asked for a survey with a copy of the census for the district of Kaniemba. But perhaps ten would be enough. Thanks for the generous offer of help—probably I would need it. He would be very happy to put at my disposition the “sepoy” who knew how to write. By the way, did the barracks have an archive? Very well, we would begin from there. He had a certain experience with archives? Excellent, I would never have expected such luck. Actually my surveys would be rather rough, let’s say merely oriented toward a future census the government intended to make in the Kaniemba zone.

The tamarind was followed by a very strong brandy which the “sepoys” distilled at the barracks, and we changed the
subject to talk of friendlier, less relevant things. The evening that was falling was full of disquieting sounds from the forest. The mosquitoes became terrible. A very light breeze bore the acrid odor of the undergrowth. The captain had the window netting lowered, lit the oil lamp, and asked my permission to withdraw in order to give directions for supper. Would I excuse him for leaving me alone? We would continue the conversation at the table. I excused him willingly. It did not displease me to remain in silence in the moonlight, to gaze at the night. It had seemed superfluous to tell him, but that day I had completed four years in Africa. I wanted to think about them.

In 1934 Mozambique was a colony inhabited by bizarre people and by great loneliness, with disquieting, obliging shadows, rare, phantom presences, transitory, improbable, adventurous characters. It had something of Conrad’s stories, perhaps the restlessness, the degradation, and the secret melancholy.

I had disembarked at Lourenço Marques four years earlier with a new degree in political and colonial science in my pocket, a surname that prompted bows from government officials, the memory of a brief squabble with my father which still burned me to my soul and which seemed unbecoming for a family like ours, and an appointment as “District Chief’’ in an uncivilized country—in short, colonial officer. Maybe it didn’t seem suitable even for me. But Lisbon was uncomfortable for me like a suit not my own. The Chiado, the Caffe della Brasileira, the summer holidays at Cascais in the family villa, days of youthful idleness, the horses at the Club della Marinha, the dances in the embassies—all these had become suffocating. But whatever could I do, if I wanted to live my life, with a degree in colonial science? Perhaps it had been a mistake to embark on these studies, but by this time they were completed. The choice rested with me between Lisbon’s idleness
and Africa. I chose Africa. I was alone, available, unattached, and composed. I was twenty-six years old.

Inhambane, after two years in Tete, seemed almost like Europe to me, even though it was a sleepy, dirty city of ravaged beauty, passed through by transitory people. Somehow the little commercial harbor sheltered behind the Punta da Barra, where every month the steamers put into port from Port Elizabeth and Durban straight from the Red Sea, gave an illusion of civilization, constituted a remote tie to the world. A walk as far as the docks, when the little English steamers or the ship from the Lisbon Line arrived, was fairly modest comfort, but it was as much as it was possible to have. And the smoke from the ship that was moving off into the horizon awoke a nostalgia for a Europe as remote as a children’s tale, already inconstant in its memories, perhaps nonexistent.

Africa, with its immensity and its lassitude, magnified distances and deadened memories. The newspapers reported that in Austria Chancellor Dollfuss had been assassinated, that in America there were seventeen million unemployed, that in Germany the Reichstag burned. My father wrote me informative, verbose letters: my brother was thinking about taking holy orders, they had installed a telephone in the villa at Cascais, the monarchists’ cause had suffered a hard blow with the loss of Don Manuel. His death left the claim to the throne to an unknown young foreigner tied to the Miguelist faction, while my family belonged to the liberal aristocracy. The new Portuguese constitution, a copy of which was wide-open in front of me, defined my country as “a cooperative, united state,” and a government dispatch ordered the photograph of a young professor from Coimbra, with a scornful and presumptuous face, who had become Cabinet Minister—Antonio de Oliveira Salazar—to be hung up in public offices. I had hung it behind my back with a vague sense of uneasiness. But on my table I kept the portrait of Don Manuel, to whom I was
bound by an almost familial affection. It was a contradiction, but Africa let contradictions live with perfect tolerance.

The last English steamer had brought me a novel popular in Europe that took place on the Côte d’ Azur, but it lay uncut on the table. The nights of Inhambane were too far from the lights of Antibes of which popular novels spoke. Apparently the life was similar. There were palm trees, the moon was spectacular, there was lobster for supper at the Club, people loved with intense, voluble passion, the orchestra ventured upon jazz, the women accepted courtship with disarming ease. But everything was lived as if it were different and far away. Africa was a space in the spirit, unanticipated, hazardous. In Africa everyone had the sensation of being far away, even from himself.

The trip had not, in fact, gone very well. I had lied to the captain. It had turned out to be uncomfortable and studded with incidents, including getting bogged down in the mud, which had stolen an entire morning. Fortunately, Joaquim was a first-rate mechanic and had a perfect knowledge of the road. He was an elderly mulatto, kind and pleasant, used to adversity and resigned to misfortune, who faced life as an obligation and the inconveniences of the roads as a diversion from the tedium of the trip.

Lying down on the berth of the truck, while the African forest passed by above, I thought about the Vice-Governor’s rod that had moved over the map hung on the wall in his office in Inhambane pointing out to me the most favorable route. It was hot, the fan hummed loudly, from the wide-open window came the afternoon light and the buzz of a market deadened by the trees in the garden. The pointer moved slowly along Tete’s heavy-duty road, then swerved toward the northeast. The route on the map at that point was a slender white thread across the dark green of the forest, with no city within
the radius of three hundred kilometers. The first large center was Kaniemba. Then there were two days by truck, if no breakdowns occurred. Now I was pursuing the course of the pointer, carrying out that incomprehensible, possibly rather absurd, order. A census at the boundary of the region of Kaniemba, five hundred kilometers away from my seat, work that in theory could last ten months, had the taste of punishment, together with a threatening warning. I wondered about the reasons why I had been able to induce my superior to entrust me with this task. I saw again the photograph of Don Manuel on my desk, I thought of the trial of a rich colonist for bullying his employees, at which I acted as plaintiff, I remembered the threats of a most excellent personage whose trafficking I indiscreetly set out to investigate. Perhaps something of all this entered into it, or something that I was unable to imagine. But by this time even to know did not change things much.

The “sepoy” brought me the note while we were having coffee. The captain had been telling me a very Portuguese story of misery and nobility. It was a printed invitation, one of those used on ceremonious occasions among persons who have a certain place in society. It was slightly wrinkled and looked frankly old. It said in English that Sir Wilfred Cotton had the honor to invite for supper (a blank space followed filled in by pen with my name) for Thursday, October 24, at seven o’clock. Evening dress would be preferred. R.S.V.P.

I turned the note around between my fingers. I must have looked as perplexed as the situation was perplexing. A barracks inhabited by an officer and two old “sepoys,” the city of Kaniemba—granted that it could be called a city—two days away by road, the deepest forest within kilometers, and an invitation to dine in evening dress and would I please respond. I asked the captain who Sir Wilfred was. An Englishman—well, of course, that I had supposed. But what kind of
Englishman? Who was he? What did he do? He had arrived a few months earlier, he may have come from Salisbury—at least it was believed so—he lived in a little cottage at the edge of the village, who he was no one had the slightest idea, he always looked after his own affairs, he was an elderly gentleman—well, let’s say fifty, maybe a little more—he had an elegant appearance, he seemed to be a refined person.

I was about to put the invitation into my pocket, but the “sepoy” looked at me with an aggrieved expression without leaving the room. I asked him what more there was. Mr. Cotton’s servant was at the kitchen door, Excellency, was what it was, maybe he should send him away? Sent to tell His Excellency that he took the liberty of reminding him that tomorrow was Thursday, he said exactly that.

Wilfred Cotton’s cottage had belonged to the administration of the lumber company before the factory had moved two kilometers to the south toward the Zambezi. On the wooden colonnade at the entrance, under a recent paint job, you could still see an axe with a swallow-tail blade, the company trademark. A small uncultivated banana plantation separated it from the village. In the background, in the direction of the river, the heavy-duty road for Tete passed by. The rest was overhung with forest tentacles.

It was exactly seven o’clock. Cotton was standing on the veranda waiting for me. He was wearing a white jacket with a silk bow tie. He said welcome, supper was almost ready, would I please sit down, my chauffeur could eat in the kitchen—he sent a servant to call him—would I care for an aperitif? A boy in black trousers and a white shirt was waiting near a sideboard with a bottle of wine in his hand. On the table there was a meat pie spread with currant jelly. It was a short supper, pleasant, relaxing, with neutral, formal conversation. Would I remain here for long? Perhaps a year. Oh, really? He hoped that this prospect did not frighten me. Did I like the place?
Moderately? Oh, certainly, he found it understandable, but the climate was not too bad, didn’t I think? The humidity was bearable. A phonograph in the living room softly played Haydn.

At tea we talked about tea. What we were drinking, so dark and aromatic, was a mixture of his: leaves of Li-Cungo, those tiny ones, that give an intense color and contain a high percentage of theine, mixed with some quality Niassa, very light and fragrant. A carillon clock struck eight, and Wilfred Colton asked me if I liked the theatre. I liked it very much, I admitted with a certain regret. In Lisbon I had liked it very much. Perhaps it was the artistic expression which I had liked the best. My host stood up with a certain haste, it seemed to me. Very well, he said. In that case I believe that this evening there is a performance. If you will come this way, I will have the pleasure to invite you. We should hurry.

The hut was situated in the middle of the clearing that separated the cottage from the forest. It was a spacious round hut made of straw reeds, like those of the Negroes, but more robust in appearance. On the inside the reeds were whitened with lime. In the center was a little platform with a reading-desk, and leaning against the wall a modest bench. There was nothing else. Wilfred Cotton invited me to sit down, went up on the platform, opened a book which he had held under his arm, and said, “William Shakespeare.
King Lear
. Act One. Scene One. A state room in King Lear’s palace.”

He read, or better still, he recited, with a surprising intensity, all the first act and half of the second. He was a Lear devastated by a mortal melancholy, but also a Fool sparkling with cynical, burning genius. Toward the middle of the second act, his voice seemed to betray his fatigue, and the conversation between Lear and Regan went slowly, perhaps a bit awkwardly. I thought of getting up, of saying to him, Enough now, Sir Wilfred, please sit down. It’s been lovely, but perhaps
you’re tired. You look a little pale, too, you’re sweating. But at that moment the Duke of Cornwall spoke. He had a deep, troubled voice, full of foreboding. “Let us withdraw, ’twill be a storm!” And so the tragedy regained momentum, the voices got livelier, Gloucester leapt forward to say that the king was in a towering rage, that night was approaching and the winds becoming furious. And at that point the deep voice of Cornwall, as if thundering from the spacious room of a palace with very high ceilings, shouted to bolt the doors, in that tempestuous night, to protect themselves from the hurricane.