No Other Life

by Brian Moore

  ‘What will we do, then?’

  ‘We must try to get to Callil. Father Pat Redmond – remember his radio station? It’s local, so they’ve probably overlooked it.’

  We were still about two hundred yards from the roadblock. ‘All right,’ Jeannot said. ‘The rest of you go through. They don’t know you.’

  He motioned me to stop the car. He got out and slipped into the queue of men and women who were trudging along the edge of the road. I saw him speak to a woman who was laden with baskets. He took some of the baskets and fell in behind her. In his cane cutter’s floppy hat, his worn shirt and trousers, he looked no different from the others. The soldiers ahead, intent on checking the vehicles on the road, were paying little attention to the pedestrians who shuffled past the armoured car.

  Our line of vehicles speeded up. We left Jeannot behind. When we reached the roadblock, the officer looked first at me, the blanc, and then at Pelardy, the mulâtre.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘To the St Viateur School,’ I said.

  He nodded and waved us on.

  We drove slowly and pulled in at a turn in the road, out of sight of the soldiers. When I saw Jeannot coming towards us, still part of the peasant group, I thanked God for his deliverance. But when Jeannot got into the car and we drove slowly on in the stream of rickety vehicles my prayer mocked me. What deliverance?

  Then, confirming my fears, Pelardy said to Jeannot, ‘I’ve been thinking. You shouldn’t risk a radio address. It’s far too dangerous. You should try for asylum in one of the embassies and put your case from there. It’s not going to be easy for you. Raymond’s saying this is a political upset. Unfortunately, the world’s going to believe him.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ Jeannot said.

  ‘Is it? Your “machete” speech was reported in all the foreign media. Since then we’ve had street riots, property burned down, people killed. That’s what the world is hearing about. And there’ll be more of it once our people realise that they’ve lost their little priest.’

  ‘They haven’t lost me,’ Jeannot said. ‘When I go on radio they’ll rise up and turn these plotters out. And the world will back us. We represent democracy, we were freely elected. The United Nations – every parliament, every country – will be on our side.’

  ‘If you go on radio,’ Pelardy said, ‘the Army will make sure you don’t do it twice. This is a small island. They’ll find you and kill you.’

  Jeannot turned around and smiled at Pelardy who was sitting in the back seat. ‘I know you don’t believe in God, Pele. But God is here, He is with us now and He, not I, dictates these events. If it’s His will that I be killed, then I must accept it. In the meantime, we’ll go to Callil.’

  We drove on. Two miles up the road, I turned off on a small road that led to the Pondicher region. For the next twenty miles, the only vehicles we saw were three heavy old army trucks laden with vegetables, which passed us slowly, going in the opposite direction. A sergeant sitting on top of the load was listening to a blaring portable radio. The announcer was speaking in Creole. I couldn’t catch the words.

  ‘Did you hear?’ Jeannot asked. ‘He said something about a riot in Mele. That means they haven’t taken over the radio stations yet. If they had, they’d never let that news get out.’

  I looked at him. He was smiling and cheerful as I’d rarely seen him in these last weeks. He saw my look and said, ‘Cheer up, Paul. We’re winning. I know it.’

  Shortly after two o’clock we reached Callil, a large village which had grown up around two coffee plantations owned by a wealthy mulatto family who lived in Port Riche. The peasants who worked in these plantations lived in huts made of wooden frames, walled with mud-daubed wattles and thatched with palm branches and guinea grass. Approaching Callil, one could imagine oneself in rural Africa. But in the past ten years, with help from Jeannot and his boys’ club workers, Father Pat Redmond of the Holy Ghost Fathers had built a church, an elementary school and, because he was a fervent radio ham, a small transmitting station from which he broadcast sermons and news of the region. Redmond, a carrot-haired Irish priest, was a natural rebel, often in trouble with his religious superiors. He was one of Jeannot’s strongest supporters.

  Now his parishioners, seeing our car, ran down to the village well, where Redmond was at work repairing the pump. ‘Jeannot! Jeannot, ici!’

  At once it seemed that half the occupants of the village came running out of their dwellings and up from the coffee groves to cluster around Jeannot, cheering, embracing him as he got out of the car. ‘Wait, wait,’ I heard him say. ‘Were soldiers here today?’

  ‘Not today. They came two days ago. We had a demonstration but they stopped it. They took Marie-Claire Boulez and her husband. Shot them. There.’ They pointed to a crucifix of palm branches and a wreath of frangipani placed against a wall of the village school.

  At that moment I saw Pat Redmond come up the rutted path from the well, red-faced, and a little out of breath, his cassock hiked up around his waist showing baggy khaki trousers and heavy workboots. Attached to his belt was a small radio which he shut off as he came towards us. Jeannot went to him, asking, ‘You heard about the coup?’

  ‘Of course.’ He pointed to the radio on his belt. ‘I’ve been listening all morning.’

  ‘Tell us,’ Pelardy said. ‘We have no radio.’

  ‘Macandal’s plane arrived from Paris an hour ago. Lambert is with him. General Hemon has stepped down as Army Chief of Staff. So it looks as if you’ve lost your backing.’

  ‘The people will back me,’ Jeannot said.

  Redmond hesitated, then said, ‘Jeannot, you’re not safe here. The Margitals have their spies. They’re probably phoning them from the plantation office, right this minute.’

  The Margitals were the plantation owners. I had thought of the same thing. But Jeannot said, ‘We won’t stay long. I came to make a broadcast. Is that possible? I’ve got to let people know that I’m safe.’

  Redmond glanced at the expectant villagers clustered around us. ‘Let’s go inside.’

  He led us into the schoolhouse where children sat at homemade desks, listening to Father Rourke, a Holy Ghost Father in his twenties, who had recently come to help run the parish. We went into Pat’s crowded office, one part of which was partitioned off and filled with his radio equipment.

  But he did not take us in there. Instead, he shut the outer door of the office and said, ‘We’ve had a lot of trouble here. The day after your “machete” speech our people marched down to the plantation office asking for proper wages. The Margitals were scared and called in the soldiers. Two people were shot to death and I had to send fourteen others, some of them kids, over to the hospital in Melun. It was like the old days with Doumergue’s bleus. Brutal.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Jeannot said.

  ‘Are you?’

  We were standing in a semi-circle, Pelardy, Mathieu Clément, myself, Pat, Jeannot. In the other room we heard children’s voices recite a verse. Behind the desk an old wall clock ticked away. I stared at Pat’s sun-reddened Irish face, his cold, blue, Gaelic eyes.

  Then Jeannot said, ‘Of course I’m sorry that these things happened. But I’m not ashamed of it. The people themselves will make the revolution. I am only the catalyst. This morning, the elite tried to get rid of me. They failed. I am here. I am still President. When people find that out they will go into the streets again and demand that I be reinstated. I’m not asking for violence. I ask for justice. Democracy must prevail.’

  ‘And if it doesn’t,’ Pat Redmond said, ‘how many of our people will be killed? Half an hour ago I spoke with friends over the short-wave radio. The streets of Port Riche, Mele, Doumergueville and Papanos are filled with soldiers. Maybe, the only thing that really works in this country is the staging of a coup. They’ve taken over Radio Libre – ’

  ‘I know that,’ Jeannot said. ‘That’s why I’m here. I don’t know anything about radio but if I speak on your transmit
ter it will be picked up, won’t it? Abroad, as well?’

  ‘It’s not only your speech that will be picked up,’ Pat said. ‘You’ll be picked up. Once they find out where the broadcast is coming from, they’ll close off all roads to Callil in half an hour. Where will you hide?’

  ‘People will hide me,’ Jeannot said. ‘But that’s not important. The important thing is that I speak out now. That the truth is broadcast to the rest of the world, to the United Nations, to the Organisation of American States. If that happens they’ll never get away with this. Will you help me?’

  ‘No.’

  We stood there, all of us, as though shot by that one word. We were the faithful and Jeannot was our leader. He had helped Pat build his church and build the schoolhouse we stood in. He was asking for something vital, something only Pat could give.

  ‘Are you afraid?’ Jeannot said.

  ‘Yes. This is my parish, these are my people. If we help you, we’ll be punished. They won’t shoot me, but they will shoot men, women and kids who can’t read or write, who never heard of the United Nations or the OAS, who marched down to the Margitals’ office last week because you told them to. You say you won’t preach violence but it’s too late for that. Violence has begun. The people believe in you. They will march against armed soldiers to defend you. They think of you as the Messiah. I don’t.’

  ‘If only I were,’ Jeannot said. He went up to Pat and embraced him. ‘All right, Pat. Follow your conscience. That’s what they taught us.’

  He turned to Mathieu Clément. ‘There’s another possibility, do you remember that station in Cap Gauche, the one run by Willi – Willi something?’

  ‘Willi Narodny,’ Mathieu said. ‘He’s a wild man.’

  ‘And he doesn’t have a parish,’ Jeannot said. He turned back to Pat. ‘Can I use your phone? Is that all right?’

  ‘I can do better than that,’ Pat said. ‘Willi’s a ham. We talk all the time. Come in here.’

  He led Jeannot into the room that was his radio station. As they went in, Jeannot closed the door, leaving me, Mathieu and Pelardy alone in the outer office.

  ‘He should go to an embassy,’ Pelardy said. ‘Tell him, Father. He’ll listen to you.’

  ‘He won’t.’

  ‘How far is Cap Gauche from here?’ Pelardy asked Mathieu.

  ‘An hour. But we have to go through Papanos. Pat said it’s full of soldiers, remember?’

  ‘I’m not going with you,’ Pelardy said.

  We looked at him.

  ‘Because you’re not going to make it. Let me go back to Port Riche. I’ll go to the Canadian Embassy and ask for their help. If we could get him in there, he’d be safe.’

  But when, a few minutes later, Jeannot and Pat came out of the radio room and Pelardy made his suggestion, Jeannot said at once, ‘A prisoner in an embassy, surrounded by Lambert’s soldiers, waiting for the big world to help me out? No thanks.’ He turned to me. ‘Paul, will you take me to Cap Gauche? I’ve spoken to Willi. His station hasn’t been shut down. He’s been told he can stay on the air but he must issue no news bulletins until he’s given one by the coup leaders. He’s obeyed so far, but he’s willing to help me.’

  Pelardy said, ‘Jeannot, let me tell you one thing. You don’t understand politics, you never will. If you want to be a martyr, I can’t stop you. But if you go on to Papanos and are arrested, it will be the end of everything we fought for. I’m going back to Port Riche.’

  Jeannot turned to Mathieu. ‘And you?’

  ‘I’m your press secretary,’ Mathieu said. ‘You want to make a broadcast. Fine.’

  And so we stood there with Jeannot in that room, two who would go with him, two who had refused him. Jeannot made no difference between us. As he had embraced Pat Redmond, he now embraced Pelardy.

  ‘Pele, I want to thank you for all you’ve done. In a few weeks this will be behind us. You’ll be back in your old office telling me what to do.’

  We went outside. A crowd of some fifty people waited, as though they expected Jeannot to make a speech. Instead, he waved to them and walked quickly to the car. People, seeing him leave, ran to him, crowding around him, touching him as though he were some sort of talisman. When we reached the car, Pat Redmond called out, ‘Jeannot, just a minute.’ He then unhooked the little portable radio from his belt. ‘Take this. At least you’ll know what’s going on.’

  Then Redmond, who was a foot taller than Jeannot, bent down and scooped him into his arms as though he were a child. ‘God bless you, lad. Safe journey.’

  And so we set off. I drove. Mathieu sat beside me while Jeannot, in the back seat, endlessly spun the radio dial. The stations of Ganae played mindless Java music. At last he caught a Spanish-language voice broadcasting from San Juan. Jeannot spoke Spanish. He listened, becoming more and more excited at what he heard. ‘Do you know what’s happened? Everyone – the American government, the OAS, the French – everyone refuses to recognise Raymond as premier! Americans say they will cut off aid.’

  The Spanish-language station was now broadcasting other news. Jeannot again fiddled with dials. We heard a voice from Barbados. ‘The Port Riche International Airport has been closed and a Reuter’s correspondent was attacked by soldiers as he attempted to enter an area of the slums where the Army is shooting at rioters. The rioters are supporters of Father Cantave, the deposed president. Canada and France have responded to the OAS appeal and have withdrawn assistance programmes to Ganae totalling some forty-eight million dollars.’

  ‘You see,’ Jeannot said excitedly, ‘they won’t get away with it.’

  ‘Jeannot,’ Mathieu Clément said. ‘Listen to me. Pele was right. I think you should try to find asylum in one of the embassies. The world is on your side now. Let the OAS do your fighting for you.’

  ‘I will, after the broadcast,’ Jeannot said. ‘But first, people must hear my voice.’

  Jeannot was listening again to a Spanish-language broadcast as I drove our little Peugeot off the gravelly side road and on to a pot-holed main highway which led towards Papanos. Soon, we overtook a local bus and passed it. But the road was curiously empty. No market women walked its rim bearing their daily burdens, no donkeys laden with charcoal impeded our passage. We stared ahead waiting for a sight of army vehicles. But even as we came within a few miles of Papanos, the road was deserted.

  Now, on the horizon, we saw a heavy column of smoke.

  ‘What is it, a bonfire?’ Jeannot asked.

  ‘It’s bigger than that,’ Mathieu said.

  At a turn in the road people came towards us on foot, carrying bundles and babies, a very old woman being pulled along in a makeshift cart, a man herding three goats. They were peasants. When they saw our car approaching they hesitated, as though afraid of us.

  I stopped the car. Mathieu got out and went towards the people. After a few minutes, Mathieu came back and got in.

  ‘Soldiers have burned their village. They say people were shot and thrown in a ditch.’

  ‘But why?’ Jeannot said.

  ‘When the radio announced the coup, the village people came out of their houses calling for you. After a while army units drove in from Papanos. The villagers threw rocks at them. The soldiers opened fire, then burned the village down. They say the Army’s still there.’

  ‘Should we go on?’ Mathieu asked.

  ‘We must.’

  I drove on. When we came to the village I saw that the huts had been reduced to smoking, skeletal frames. A few people sat in the middle of the ruins. We drove past them slowly. They did not look up. At the far end of the village three army trucks were zig-zagged across the road. From one of them we heard the static of an intercom. The soldiers, about twenty of them, were sitting on the ground, eating their midday meal. For a moment I thought they would ignore us, but as we drove up to them, a sergeant put down his plate, got up and pointed a rifle at me. I stopped. He slung the rifle over his shoulder and came towards us, unhooking a clipboard from his belt. I rolled
down the window. He looked in, then handed me the clipboard and a pencil.

  ‘Put down your licence number. Where are you going? Papanos?’

  ‘Further. St Viateur.’

  I wrote down the number on the line he indicated. The licence numbers of other vehicles were listed above mine, written in different hands. He looked at what I had put down, walked to the front of the car to check it against the licence plate, then waved us on. As we drove up the road, Jeannot said, ‘He’s calling in our number.’

  Through the rear-view mirror I saw that the Sergeant was using the truck’s intercom. ‘Licensed to the Collège St Jean,’ Mathieu said. ‘Right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Driven by a blanc priest. They’ll know it’s you, Father.’

  ‘We got through,’ Jeannot said. ‘God is telling us: “Keep going.” ’

  Ten minutes later we reached Papanos. At first the city seemed deserted, shops shuttered, streets empty of traffic. But as we drove closer to the centre we came upon overturned vehicles, shopfronts broken into, and, a strange sight, some fifteen pigs moving across a square, rooting in and eating from heaps of rubbish. Suddenly, there were soldiers everywhere, some in army trucks, some in a variety of vehicles which they had commandeered, camionettes, taxi-buses, private cars, delivery vans. They drove aimlessly through the streets at the city’s centre, blowing horns, firing off rifles at random. Sometimes, soldiers leaped down from a vehicle, to smash a shop window and loot its contents, sometimes they poked open guns from car windows and took potshots at chimneys, stray cats, billboards and lampposts. Because of this, the streets were empty and the few people who had been caught unawares huddled in doorways, trying to keep out of sight. Once, a soldier poked a gun at us and, grinning, fired over our heads. It was a scene of macabre carnival, fragmented as in a disturbed and senseless dream.

  Jeannot turned on the radio and we heard a voice speaking in Creole. ‘We ask for understanding, we ask the people of Ganae to show, once again, their great patriotic virtues – ’