by Brian Moore
Did we believe him? I wanted to. I hoped we were at the beginning of a new era. I pleaded with Father Bourque to speak to the Archbishop about taking in more noirs. But the Archbishop informed us that no new scholarship students were to be accepted. ‘Frankly,’ he told our Principal, ‘nothing has changed and nothing will change. Doumergue is a puppet. As always, the Army remains in charge.’
The Archbishop was wrong. As I was wrong. Things did change. But, in Ganae, bad news comes through rumour, whispers, night visits, soldiers shooting wildly in the streets. At the college we lived in a world apart, remote as the elite on their Bellevue estates. The arrests, the tortures, the clubbing of those few who dared to demonstrate, none of these things was reported in the newspapers. Radio, the all-important source of information in an illiterate country, remained majestically silent. Parliamentary debates were listened to by other politicians, but never by the people. Within a year of his election Doumergue was a dictator. But we didn’t know it. It was, to my surprise, Jeannot, who first told me of the rumours of repression. I asked where he had heard them and he answered, ‘Claude Lamballe.’
Claude Lamballe was one of Jeannot’s classmates. His father, Simon, was a colonel in the Army and an instructor at the elite Académie Militaire. This same Simon Lamballe had, coincidentally, attended the Sorbonne in the period when I studied there. We did not know each other in Paris but when I met him at a school reception in Ganae, we became friendly because of our shared experience. And so, as no one at the college seemed to know the truth about Doumergue, I went one evening to Simon’s Bellevue mansion.
‘These rumours?’ Simon said. ‘All true.’
‘But isn’t it a fact that his election was backed by the Army? We’ve always assumed he’s your creature.’
‘He was,’ Simon said. ‘But now the Army is Dr Frankenstein.’
‘Yet, he seems sincere.’
‘Perhaps he was, once. I don’t know him personally. But the history of Ganae is like a cheap gramophone record. The new tune plays for a while, then the needle sticks in the groove and the player-arm slumps back and slips off the disc. Every Ganaen leader begins his term by promising to change things. Most of them don’t even try. But the few who do – well, it’s like the gramophone record. The needle sticks in a groove. There are many grooves – the elite, the Army, foreign business interests, the people’s illiteracy – you name it – there’s no way that progress or democratic ideals can work here. And so the leader becomes a strong man, trying to force his ideas through. Enemies have to be disposed of. Coups must be anticipated and crushed. The leader becomes a tyrant. Doumergue is simply a victim of this country’s history.’
‘Can’t the Army get rid of him?’
‘Father, let me give you a little advice. You are a priest, and a white foreigner. But you may not ask such questions of me, or of anyone. When you are discussing Uncle D. you’re not safe, no matter who you’re talking to.’
Some weeks after this conversation I was visiting a former pupil who lived in the Laramie section of the city. As I left my pupil’s house and walked up a side street which led to the Boulevard Carnot, four large noirs wearing blue seersucker overalls and carrying old-fashioned Lee-Enfield rifles came towards me. When they drew level, one of them stopped me by laying the barrel of his rifle across my chest. ‘Cigarette, Mon Pe?’
I said I was sorry but I did not smoke.
‘We do,’ one of the men said. ‘So we need money for cigarettes. Be quick now.’
They did not look like beggars. They had guns, after all. ‘Who are you?’ I said.
One of the men said to the others, ‘Who are we? Why does he not know? He is a priest, not a tourist. He’s making fun of us.’
‘Don’t make fun of us,’ one of the others said.
‘I have never hit a white face,’ a third said. ‘Maybe today is my day to hit a white face.’
‘Give us money, quick,’ the first man said. ‘Ten pesons, OK?’
‘I am a priest,’ I said. ‘Would you rob a priest?’
When I said that, the first man hit me with his closed fist. My nose dribbled blood. The second man swung the stock of his rifle and hit me on the shins. I stumbled and fell to my knees. They formed a circle around me. ‘Ten pesons,’ the first man said. ‘Give it, or we will take it.’
Kneeling, blood dribbling into my mouth, I took out my purse and gave them a ten-peson note. For a moment I thought that they would take the rest of my money, but they did not. The first one took the note, held it up to the light, then put it in his pocket and nodded to the others. They walked away as though I did not exist.
When they were no longer in sight I stood up, my shins aching as I groped for a tissue to stem my nosebleed. Across the narrow street, a young girl was watching me from a second-storey window, but when I looked up at her she at once withdrew her head and closed the shutters. I fingered my nose. It was very painful. It could be broken. Behind me, I heard the sound of wooden clogs on the cobblestones. A tall woman from the countryside came up the empty street, carrying a large bundle of washing on her head. When she drew level she stopped and turned towards me, holding her head high to balance her load. ‘Eh, ben, Mon Pe. Bad times begin. You all right?’
‘Who were they?’
She looked at me, eyes wide, as though she could not believe the question. ‘You joking me?’
‘No, no.’
‘Bleus. They the bosses now. You didn’t know?’
‘No.’
She laughed, the huge load wobbling on her head. ‘Where you been, Mon Pe?’
My nose was not broken but swollen in such a way that everyone in the college soon knew about the attack. On the streets of Port Riche the number of men wearing blue seersucker overalls and carrying old Lee-Enfield rifles increased until they became as common a sight as police and soldiers. And when Jeannot and I passed the presidential palace on one of our walks we saw, inside the gates, not only the ceremonial guards provided by the Army, but men in blue overalls, sitting in comfortable armchairs near the sentry boxes, their weapons at their feet. At night, trucks could be heard racing through the streets. Volleys of rifle fire woke us from our sleep. Then, on the third anniversary of his inauguration, Doumergue announced that he was closing down the Académie Militaire. I went to see my friend Simon Lamballe.
‘It’s all over,’ he said. ‘I’ve lost my job. I’ve been “promoted” to the Northern Command. The Académie is finished.’
‘But why doesn’t the Army do something?’
‘Do what? It turns out that Uncle D. is a better student of history than the rest of us. He’s found a formula. Tell the noirs you’re their president and the enemy of the elite. Leave the rich alone to do what they’ve always done. In turn, they’re grateful for being spared and so they render unto Caesar. As for the Army we thought his game would be to cause divisions by promoting noirs over us mulâtres. He’s done something else. He’s created his own army. The bleus.’
‘So what will the Army do?’
Lamballe laughed. ‘I could ask you the same thing. What will the Church do? Uncle wants black bishops. Ganaens. You foreigners will be pushed out.’
When I mentioned Lamballe’s prophecy to the other professors, no one believed it. The Ganaen hierarchy had always been French. The people were religious and devoted to the Pope. The attack on me by Doumergue’s bleus was, everyone said, an aberration, the random violence of hired thugs.
A few weeks later while we were having supper in the refectory of the residence, two men wearing white suits and panama hats came in from the front hall and walked over to the refectory table. Our Principal rose up, irritated at this intrusion.
‘Who are you? What are you doing here?’
The men ignored the question. One of them looked at the food on our plates. It was a supper of beans and rice. The man put his finger into the serving dish and stirred it around. ‘What, no pork?’ he said. ‘Why do you eat like peasants, Reverend Fathers?’
‘Because we are poor,’ the Principal said. ‘Now, who are you and what do you want?’
‘Anti-terrorist Squad. Are you Father Bourque?’
‘I am.’
‘We want to talk to you. Do you have an office?’
When the Principal had gone off with the men, Father Nöl Destouts, a Ganaen, said to me, ‘I don’t think they’re police. They behave like bleus.’
The Principal did not return to finish his supper. After the meal we went, as usual, into the lounge where Hyppolite served coffee. As I took my cup from the tray I saw our Principal come downstairs with the two men. He led them to the front door and let them out. Then he came into the lounge. ‘Paul? Will you come with me?’
The others looked at me in surprise. When I went upstairs with Father Bourque he did not speak until he had shut us into the privacy of his study. He went to his desk and took up a printed sheet of paper. ‘This is a leaflet which those men brought here tonight. They say several copies of it were distributed in the Bellevue and Beaulieu districts two nights ago. They were handed out by some boys who, the police say, may be from our school.’
I read the leaflet. I don’t remember the wording, but it said that Ganae was a dictatorship and the only way to free its people was by revolution which must be led by young people ready to give up their lives for the poor. I realised it could be a twisted version of something I had said in class a few weeks before. I had told my students that nothing would change in Ganae until educated young people like them were prepared to sacrifice their comfortable lives and prospects for the good of the poor.
‘Well, Paul,’ Father Bourque said. ‘Do you know anything about this?’
‘No . . . but . . .’
‘But what?’
‘Perhaps,’ I said, stumbling with the words, ‘it could have had something to do with a remark I made in class.’
‘That’s why I asked. I’ve been meaning to speak to you. I know your feelings about this country. But political comments in front of the boys are totally uncalled for. You’re a priest, not a politician. We’ve got to be very careful. We’re white people in a black country. Foreigners – never forget that. Tell me. Do you know anything about these leaflets?’
‘No, Father. Why do the police say the boys could be from our school?’
‘Apparently, they arrested fifteen poor souls who had accepted the leaflets. They took those people to Fort Nöl and you can imagine what they did to them. These people told the police that the boys were well dressed, six mulattos and one black. All dressed like children of the elite.’
One black. I felt my heart in my chest.
‘Anyway,’ Father Bourque said. ‘See what you can find out. And, in the meantime, let’s not mention this to the rest of the staff.’
That night I lay awake. I thought of the policeman in his white suit putting his finger into the bowl that contained our food. I thought of those people arrested and now held in Fort Nöl, a place of torture, a place where protesters are silenced and disappear. When at last I slept, men in white suits stood over me, shouting, ‘You are white people in a black country. Foreigners – never forget that.’ I woke to the sounds of dawn in Port Riche. Roosters crowed. Food vendors, arriving from villages outside the city, passed below my window, the creaking of their ancient carts loud on the cobblestones. A church bell rang. I rose and dressed. It was time to say Mass.
At six o’clock in the school chapel my congregation consisted of seven nuns from a nearby convent. I hurried through the service and at a quarter to seven stood in the vestibule, waiting. Jeannot, like the other boarders, would be at the seven o’clock Mass, which would be said by Father Destouts.
At five minutes past the hour I saw Jeannot come running, among the other stragglers. I stepped out from the shadows beside the Holy Water font, and signalled him to follow me. Behind the chapel there is a cemetery. In it are buried the priests of our Order who died in Ganae. It is small and quiet, shaded by jacaranda trees. In the nearby chapel we heard the shuffling of feet, then silence, as the service began.
‘The police were here last night,’ I said. ‘Do you have any idea why?’
‘Was it about the leaflets, Father?’
I remember that I felt both anger and fear. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘So you’re responsible. What sort of nonsense is this?’
‘Is it nonsense, Father? You yourself told us it’s up to my generation to do something.’
‘So what have you done? What will you do? A few schoolboys with no plan and no idea how the world works. All you’ve done is cause innocent people to be arrested and put in Fort Nöl. And do you know what’s happened to those people? Do you?’
I was shouting. I saw him flinch as though I would strike him. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘Forgive me, I shouldn’t lose my temper. How many of you are mixed up in this thing? And what else have you done?’
‘This was just a beginning, Father. It was my idea. We tried to hand the leaflets out to young people – educated young people. If we can make them turn against their parents that will be a beginning. That’s why we went to Bellevue and Beaulieu.’
‘How many of you are there?’
‘For now, maybe ten. But I don’t want to give their names.’
‘I’m not asking you for their names. Did you write the leaflet?’
‘Yes.’
There, in the cemetery, the unrelenting sun of the tropics had already mounted its daily attack. We stood in the hot breath of the morning wind while above us the delicate, violet jacaranda blossoms trembled in the moment before their fall. On the worn gravestones I could read the names of our priests, French and Canadian, forgotten now, their labours ended, their bodies rotted to anonymous bones in the unforgiving soil of this lost and lonely land. What was the true meaning of those lives, lived far from France and Quebec? What would be the meaning of my life if I left this island as I found it, still one of the most desolate, despairing places on this earth? But even as those thoughts moved guiltily in my mind, they were driven out by a stronger emotion, one of fear, the fear of a childless Father facing a brilliant black boy who was, to me, a son. Like a father I did not think of principles or causes. I thought of him, of saving him from men in white suits and panama hats.
‘Jeannot,’ I said, ‘listen to me. If those other boys who distributed the leaflets are caught by the police, their parents will intervene. Their parents are the elite and their sons will not be tortured, they will not disappear into prison and never be heard from again. But if you are taken by Doumergue’s police, it will be the end of you. And for what? What can you, a schoolboy, do to change things here? Nothing. But if you continue your education and go abroad, then, one day, you may come back with the power to influence events. Tell me. Do you still want to be a priest?’
Behind us, in the church, we could hear the rumble of feet as the congregation went down on its knees.
‘Why do you ask me, Father?’
‘Because if you do, I’ll try to arrange that you be sent to Canada or France to study. There are only certain things we can teach you here. With a mind like yours, that’s not enough.’
‘And if I do not?’
‘Please,’ I said. ‘Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not asking you to become a priest. If you do, you’ll be giving up a normal life. And believe me, I will help you in any way I can, no matter what you decide.’
He was silent.
‘You don’t have to decide now,’ I said.
‘I have decided. I want to be someone like you. A priest. A teacher. Someone who gives his life for others.’
‘Jeannot, you mustn’t become a priest because you want to be someone like me. That’s not enough. To be a priest you must want, above all, to serve God. That’s the only reason. Nothing else will do.’
Again, he was silent. On the path below our feet, tiny lizards whisked over the gravel as though fleeing some unseen enemy. In the church behind us, the Sanctus bell tolled. Instinctively, I bowed my head. And then Jeannot p
ut out his hand and touched my sleeve.
‘Christ gave His life for the poor. I want to be like Him.’
‘If it pleases God, you will be like Him,’ I said. ‘But now you must help me. Fifteen innocent people have been arrested. Tell the other boys. This must stop.’
‘It will stop,’ he said.
2
Last night, as I was writing, Hyppolite knocked on the door of my room. He brought me a cup of herbal tea. I had not asked for the tea. Perhaps one of the other priests had done so. But Hyppolite is very old. He forgets. No one still expects him to work as our servant. But he has worked ever since the day, forty years ago, when Father Bourque brought him from Meredieu to act as houseman at our residence. Later, I was the one who taught him to drive the school car, something which gave him great joy and raised his status among the other servants. And so he has always thought of me as his special charge. Last night when he brought the tea I was writing down what Jeannot had said to me. ‘Christ gave His life for the poor. I want to be like Him.’
I looked up at Hyppolite.
‘Mesiah,’ I said.
He looked at me, puzzled, then smiled, showing his toothless gums. ‘Mesiah. Me souviens.’
Messiah. Of course, he remembers. Which of us, alive in those times, will ever forget that word? But I must not skip ahead, I must write first of those early days when Jeannot was still my pupil. He kept his promise, and I said nothing to Father Bourque. The following year, on my recommendation, our Provincial sent him to Montreal where he became a seminarian and obtained a degree in French literature. At the age of twenty-two, he joined our Order and was ordained as a priest. Because of my duties in Ganae, I was not able to attend the ceremony but I used some money my father had once given me, to buy, as an ordination present, a gold pocket watch with a ‘hunter’ case covering the dial. Inside the case were engraved his initials, J.P.C. In the letter he wrote thanking me, he said, ‘I do not believe that I should ever have or want a beautiful object like this. But I shall keep it with me always to remind me of what you have done for me.’
