Colony

by Hugo Wilcken

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Don’t know what? Don’t know if you’re going to help me?’

  ‘I’m thinking it through.’

  ‘You’re thinking it through?’ She folded her arms. ‘What do you need to think about? What else do you want from me?’

  To be engaged so directly – without any of the usual filters of convention – felt savage, too intimate. Manne could see his own tiny image reflected in her eyes, warped and distorted as in a fairground mirror. She kicked off her sandals and started unbuttoning the front of her dress. It had happened so fast – in a moment – leaving Manne struggling to respond.

  He let his eyes roam over her body. There was something brutal about her nudity. She had a little belly, heavy breasts, some weight around the thighs – not a perfect body. Perfection was a lifeless thing, though. It was the opposite of erotic.

  ‘Do you just want to stand and watch me? Is that it?’

  ‘No.’

  She put a hand to his cheek; he flinched. Her arms were around his neck, as if they were old lovers. Hips and breasts, lips and neck, perspiration, the smell of hair – adrenaline and desire charged the atmosphere. He thought he could sense something through her skin, a relief at being touched. Or maybe she just wanted to get it over with. He pressed her closer, in a movement that was more violent than intended. They were pulling and grabbing at each other like children fighting. Briefly they disentangled while Manne struggled with his clothes and the woman threw a blanket over the wooden floorboards. She was on her knees, tugging him to the ground. Everything had become inward, had folded in on itself, like the smooth, edgeless walls of the folly.

  Slowly, the blanket, lamp, strewn clothes came into focus again. Noises from the river and jungle filtered back in through the shutters. The familiar feeling of loneliness after sex, only this time more intense than usual. The woman was resting on her side now, turned away from him, propping herself up on an elbow, staring at the wall. He noticed a beauty spot under her shoulder blade, like a minuscule tattoo. She trembled slightly, and Manne had the feeling she was silently crying.

  ‘You’ll have to leave now. He’ll be back soon.’

  She hadn’t turned around to address him; her voice had a flat quality to it. He got to his feet, fished his clothes out of the pile and began dressing. The woman remained there, immobile, as Manne buttoned up his shirt, then tied his shoelaces. He wavered at the doorway, looking down at her back and buttocks, still marked with the impression of the blanket weave. He wanted to put a hand on her shoulder. That was impossible. If he stayed a moment longer, he had the feeling she’d do something, she’d scream Get out! The folly, with its womb-like intensity, had suddenly become unbearable. He headed out into the heat.

  Back in the house, Manne made his way to the kitchen. Guépard was at the stove, stirring what looked like a large pot of stew. The butler was sitting by a table, smoking a cigarette.

  ‘Oui, monsieur?’

  ‘I’m feeling a little under the weather. I won’t be down for lunch. Send me up some bread and cold meat. Please inform the commandant and convey my apologies.’

  ‘Très bien, monsieur.’

  The butler had neither got up nor put down his cigarette as he’d addressed Manne, which irritated him hugely. For a moment he thought he’d say something to the commandant about it, before realising that he was overreacting.

  In his room, listless and restless, he seemed unable to do anything, unable to think. He stood by the window, watching the commandant march in across the garden at his military pace. But no sign of the woman. He guessed she’d stay in the folly all afternoon. Surrounded by jungle, the sense of confinement was so great that you automatically sought it out. He himself found his room claustrophobic and yet here he was retreating to it again.

  After his lunch he flipped through some old copies of Le Petit Parisien he’d found in the drawing room downstairs. There was an article about the new Musée des Colonies that had recently opened in Paris, and photographs of the murals that had been painted for it – Edens of exotic plants, animals, savages. Manne gazed out through the window across the river to the other bank. The Dutch side. Exactly the same as here, yet completely different. Like a photograph negative. The same plants and animals, the same climate, same mix of natives and Europeans. He remembered the commandant’s wife asking him why he didn’t survey the other riverbank instead, since it at least was not part of any penal colony.

  It was hard to think of anything else but her, to visualise anything but her body. The shock of the encounter – he recalled what had happened in the folly in a series of erotic fragments. A wretched, hollow feeling invaded him.

  He forced his mind to other things. To Edouard’s escape, for example. In Saint-Laurent, Manne had made discreet enquiries, but no one had been able to tell him much. It was known that the évadés had bought a boat, and that one had been spotted at dawn at the headlands one morning, sailing straight out into the ocean. How it was that Bonifacio had ended up back at Renée remained an enigma, though, since he’d refused to say anything after his recapture. All that was left were his last words: ‘Je suis le bagne!’ Manne thought of the commandant’s gardener, who’d also escaped with Bonifacio’s gang. And therefore must have known Edouard. Given their professions, it was possible they’d known each other previously. It might be an avenue to pursue. He wanted to try out his thoughts on paper. But it was unwise to write down anything too specific about Edouard in his journal, in case anyone should read it. Ideas continued to circle and shadow each other in his mind.

  The spectacle of the sunset over the jungle. The afternoon lost in a maze of thought. He focused on the shattered colours of the river, the deep reds and yellows. The sun was dramatically puffed up and grandiose, as though it were the last sunset ever at the end of the world.

  On his way downstairs, Manne heard voices from the commandant’s office. At first he assumed it was the commandant and his butler, but when he stopped to listen, it seemed one was his own servant. The commandant raised his voice, as though he were remonstrating with Guépard. All Manne could make out was the occasional oui, m’sieur and non, m’sieur from Guépard. He waited by the door until Guépard finally emerged looking flustered. On seeing Manne, his expression had turned to shock. But he’d scuttled off before Manne had time to stop and interrogate him. No matter. He’d catch him after dinner, or in the morning.

  She was already at the table. Again, she’d dressed smartly and in black, with a hint of provocation in the tightness of her blouse against her breasts. She hardly looked up from the book she was reading as he sat down.

  ‘What’s the book?’

  Without a word, or even interrupting her reading, she flashed him the cover of a battered copy of La chasse spirituelle. For a moment Manne was on the verge of making some comment about it, but stopped himself. Polite conversation would be an absurdity. It was as if they’d gone directly from the stilted formalities of strangers to the silent indifference of a long-married couple.

  ‘Hello, dear. Evening, Hartfeld. Sorry to have kept you both waiting – had some work that needed finishing.’

  The commandant had brought his glass of rum with him and sat down uncertainly. His wife put her book aside as the butler served the entrée. A light drumming on the roof signalled the beginning of the evening rains. Here, no one ever commented on the weather, since it rarely varied. The clockwork of dinner chat had to be triggered in other ways.

  This time, though, they ate in silence. Tonight’s dinner had a subdued, post-coital feel to it after the high tensions of the last two. Even the commandant seemed to be in a reflective mood and avoided his usual, awkward attempts at conversation. As Manne ate, he found himself indulging in a fantasy – that they’d all been living in this house for years; that the commandant was fully aware of his wife’s affair with Manne, which had also been going on for years; that he and Manne were old friends and, despite or because of the circumstances, had somehow remained
so …

  No one wanted coffee, and the commandant’s wife again quickly excused herself after the meal. The butler had brought out the drinks tray and Manne accepted a glass of cognac; he had no wish to sit and talk to the commandant, but felt the desire to get a little drunk.

  After a few banal pleasantries, the commandant started in on his construction plans again, with Manne interjecting the occasional reply. This time he was talking about building an airfield, to link his settlement to Cayenne and the French West Indies. The commandant’s words were tumbling over each other – for once, drink seemed to be affecting his control. At one point he leant forward, touching Manne on the knee. ‘You know, it’s a relief to be able to talk these things through with somebody like you. Trouble is, I’m so isolated. No one I can speak to. My wife is the only person I feel is my intellectual equal out here. And she’s simply not interested in all this.’

  Difficult to know how to answer that. Eventually Manne said, ‘What sort of things is she interested in?’

  ‘She … well, she reads a lot. But …’ He poured himself more cognac. ‘As I’ve already told you, she hasn’t been well lately. I can’t help feeling your presence has pepped her up, though. Oh, I’ll tell you one thing she’s interested in: your orchids. I knew her as a child, you see. Our families were close. Occasionally I used to take her on trips to the mountains, in the Savoie. She used to collect wild orchids.’

  ‘Really? I wonder why she hasn’t mentioned that.’

  ‘She doesn’t like talking about the past.’

  ‘Why not?’

  The commandant quickly downed what remained in his glass and cast an unsteady look up the stairs, as though his wife might be listening in.

  ‘Probably shouldn’t be telling you this. Can see you’re the discreet type, though. Truth is this. There was a family tragedy. You see, my wife was originally engaged to her cousin, Paul. Friend of mine, boyhood friend. We went to military school together. Then just before he was due to be mobilised, he drowned in a river that ran through the family estate. They found the body kilometres downstream. She took it badly.’

  Abruptly, he stopped talking. The staccato phrases had been fired out as if the pressure to expel them had been building for months. Now he was staring into the middle distance, lost in thought. In the silence, Manne could hear the squawk of monkeys fighting in the canopy, somewhere not far from here. Once, when trekking through the jungle, he’d seen a young male push another out of a tree, killing him.

  ‘Took it badly,’ the commandant repeated, seemingly minutes later. ‘She was resting, in Switzerland. Things went from bad to worse. Her father had made some unwise investments. For a while I took it upon myself to cover her expenses. Some might have considered that improper. But I did it because I was a friend of the family. And also because I was a good friend to her fiancé. I felt the responsibility. When she finally accepted me, she made me the happiest man in France.’

  That final cliché struck a sombre note. One of the table candles sputtered to its end in a pool of wax. The commandant stirred himself, then stared at Manne, as though he’d forgotten that Manne was there or even who he was.

  VII

  He could hear birds calling to each other along the river as he lay in bed, caught in the disorientating moment between sleep and waking. Finally he opened his eyes, swung himself out of bed and went straight to the door. Nothing. No note pushed under it. He sat back down on the bed, filled with a sense of overwhelming disappointment.

  Manne went to the basin and washed the sleep from his eyes, then got dressed and went downstairs. Again, too late for the commandant, and he found himself breakfasting alone. As the butler served him coffee and toast, Manne said: ‘Please go and find my servant and tell him I’d like to see him.’

  Minutes later Guépard arrived, anxious and breathless.

  ‘I want to speak to you after breakfast. Go and wait for me in my bedroom. Sort out my laundry while you’re there.’

  ‘Oui, m’sieur.’

  A copy of Le Figaro lay on the table; the commandant must have left it out for him. It was only a few weeks old and had probably come in yesterday with the evening post. Manne scanned the front page, but he didn’t recognise the people mentioned and couldn’t follow the stories – he’d have been more at home with a newspaper from Caracas. Only the place names reminded him of the deeper connection: the rue de Rivoli, the Comédie-Française, the avenue Montaigne, the boulevard Montparnasse – they were like a grid, placed over another life.

  Upstairs, Guépard stood quivering by the bedroom door. He’d got himself into a state of complete nervousness, to the point where he was finding it hard to speak. Manne put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. ‘What are you worked up for? There’s nothing to worry about. Sit down, I just want to ask you a few things.’

  ‘Oui, m’sieur.’

  ‘I was wondering what you were doing in the commandant’s office yesterday.’

  ‘M’sieur?’

  ‘Just before dinner. I saw you come out of the commandant’s office. What did he want to see you about?’

  ‘I … I don’t know what you mean, m’sieur.’

  ‘I heard you talking. I saw you come out. And you saw me too. What was it all about?’

  Guépard shook his head. ‘I don’t know anything, m’sieur. I swear it.’

  ‘Guépard, I’m not accusing you of any wrongdoing. I just want to know what the commandant said to you.’

  ‘No, m’sieur. I never spoke to him, m’sieur.’

  ‘I don’t know what you take me for. I saw you. You saw me.’ At that, the boy started to whimper. ‘Well, if you won’t tell me, I won’t force you. I shall ask the commandant. Now, another thing. You remember what I asked you to do the day before?’

  ‘Oui, m’sieur. Le bagnard, m’sieur.’

  ‘Go up to camp today, ask around, find out anything you can. Get me some writing paper from one of the administrative offices while you’re up there – that can be your pretext for the trip.’

  ‘I can’t do it today, m’sieur. The butler’s told me to …’

  Manne interrupted him with an irritated wave of the hand. ‘Tomorrow then, for God’s sake. Now be off with you.’

  Guépard bolted like a frightened cat. Gramophone music wafted up from the ground floor. Manne was on the verge of going down and having it out with the commandant, but then thought better of it. He stared out of the window, thinking of the woman, her dark hair. A horrible frustration filled him, both sexual and intellectual.

  He remembered the day he’d arrived in Saint-Laurent. Sitting by the river and watching the sun set, struck with the feeling that everything had changed. Later that same evening, he’d been at the cocktail party at the governor’s residence, and Leblanc had told him about the commandant’s wife, and her flight from the camp. Just from the tone of his voice, Manne had understood that she was beautiful. Could it be that he’d already wanted her, even then? Could that have been the moment? He wrote in his journal:

  Those moments. The tiny instants when, almost imperceptibly, one’s world tilts, then tips over into something else entirely. One day, you might be holed up in your trench section, under sporadic enemy fire, your socks and boots wet through with the winter mud. A day not unlike a hundred others you’ve already endured in the same place, under the same conditions, in the same war. The only difference is that today you’re enjoying the fine cigar you just received from your father, by some miracle neither lost, damaged nor pinched in transit. The nicotine sweeps through your body like a narcotic, the cigar fumes envelop you in a cloud of solipsistic well-being. It occurs to you that the passageway leading to the service trench is just opposite where you’re sitting at the moment, as you enjoy your cigar. From there on, there are other passages to other trenches even further behind the front positions. In fact, you can probably walk a good kilometre back along various trench routes. As an officer, there’s even a decent chance no one’ll stop you, especially since there’s a
major assault planned for three o’clock the next morning and everything is in a chaos of preparation. Without even much thinking about it, you find yourself winding your way back from the front line, past troops huddled against the spitting rain, smoking and clutching their tin mugs of hot drink. Somewhere, a soldier is singing an old music-hall melody you remember from your childhood. You stop to draw on your cigar, and it fills you with a marvellous sense of calm. The further back you get, the fewer actual troops you encounter; the trenches widen out and are divided into little offices for army administration. Even further back are temporary wards for the wounded. It’s like the outer suburbs of a city. In fact, there’s no firm point where the trenches stop and the fields and farms begin. Presently you find yourself walking along a country road. You pass by convoys of troops and trucks making their way up to the front. People look at you strangely but no one stops you or even asks you where you’re going. If they had, you’d have said you were on a half-day leave and cadged a lift back. You’re near the village now, which would normally be teeming with officers, and where most likely you’d bump into someone you know. You decide to take a detour, avoiding the village and cutting through the fields instead. Again, there seems to be no firm point where a few hours of excusable AWOL might turn into desertion. But somewhere you must have finished your cigar and thrown the end away without even thinking about it. More fields. You come across one that’s intersected by a stream. You take off your boots and trousers to wade across. It’s deeper than you suppose and you end up having to swim a few strokes, holding your clothes above your head. You get out trembling and feeling numb and ill. What a stupid thing to have done in the middle of a northern European winter. You rub your legs and body to get the circulation going and put your clothes back on. You walk on briskly. The exercise warms you up and you start to feel better. For a moment even, a certain exhilaration fills you. Lighting the cigar was one of those moments, crossing the stream another. You rejoin the road. You pass by a roadside café and stop for a late lunch. Nothing more than sausage, cheese and wine, but it’ll do. You’re a lone officer, on foot, not far from the front line – you wonder if the proprietor suspects something, but if so, he doesn’t do anything about it. And you walk on. Soon it’s dark, but you know if you stick to the road you’ll end up at a town and a railway station. Your mind wanders as you walk, although never focusing on anything, simply alighting here and there on a memory or a thought, like a butterfly among garden flowers. You have no idea what time it is when you reach the outskirts of the town. But when you get to the station there’s a big clock that says twenty past ten. You look at the train timetable; the last Paris train is due to leave in five minutes. Even if you had enough money on you, and you don’t, there wouldn’t be time to get a ticket, and you wouldn’t have the necessary military permit anyway. So you rush to the platform and jump on. Most of the passengers have settled in and are dozing. You can’t do that, though, because you know the ticket inspector will be along at some stage. What will happen then? Suddenly it all hits you. At the next big station you’ll be handed over to the transport police, who’ll hand you over to the military. From there, it’ll be arrest, back to barracks, and a quick court martial. You’re an officer with privileged knowledge of a major assault; the court will be pitiless. There might be a long prison sentence, or with luck an insanity verdict. But most probably, the firing squad. You sit there, rigid in your seat. The inspector seems to be taking an eternity. And the dreamy sense of well-being that has lingered since you first lit the cigar has curdled into paranoia. Finally you hear a carriage door slam. Vos billets, s’il vous plaît! You get up, make your way to the WC. An old trick that’s most unlikely to work. Still, you never know. In a moment of inspiration, you leave the WC door ajar, banging gently with the rhythm of the train, and then you squeeze behind it. That way, the inspector might think it’s unoccupied and not bother to look too closely. A horrible anxiety grips you, actually not too dissimilar to the feeling you get the night before going over the top. You hear the inspector clumping along the corridor. Closer, closer. Then you see a uniformed arm reach out, grab the handle of the swinging door, pull it shut. More clumping and then he’s gone, on to the next carriage. But you’re so frozen with fear you can’t even move. How long you stay like that in the WC you don’t know. When the door opens again, you’re confronted with the surprised face of a lady in a fur coat. Just a minute, you say. You pull yourself together and go back to your seat. Somehow, time passes. And somehow you find yourself at the Gare de l’Est. You look about for military police, but you don’t see any. You make your way quickly to the exit. What a relief to disappear into the anonymity of the Paris night! By now, it must be about two in the morning. Your small apartment’s across town, on the rue la Boétie. You’ve been walking all day, you’ve another hour to go, but you don’t feel tired. You don’t feel anything. All you can think is thank God it’s late at night, I’ll avoid the concierge and with any luck I won’t bump into anyone on the stairs. The streets pass by in a dream. And the carriage entrance of your building looms out of nowhere. You cross over the cobbled courtyard and make your way upstairs in the dark. Slowly, quietly, you creep into your apartment. For a minute or two more you’re bursting with nervous energy. You don’t know what to do with yourself. You pour yourself something alcoholic. You check the small safe in your bedroom and find that you have ten thousand francs in cash. Well, thank Christ for that. Then from one second to the next you’re so tired you can barely stand up. You collapse on your bed. You’ve already decided you’ll have to be up early, well before light, to leave Paris and make for the Swiss border. You wonder whether you’ll wake up in time. Or whether you’ll sleep until the military police come banging on the door. To be honest, you don’t care any more. As it happens, you don’t sleep at all, you’re too tired even for that. You fall into that delirious state where the world recedes and proper thoughts are hard to distinguish from random fears and fantasies. The reality of your situation hasn’t sunk in yet. You see it, but you don’t really understand that there’s no turning back, and no way home. It hasn’t hit you that you’ll never see this apartment again, this city again, this country again, your family again, your lover again. It’ll be months before you read that French newspaper in Geneva and find your name in minuscule print on a pages-long list of those missing in action, presumed dead. And months again before you board the ship in Liverpool, bound for Brazil. No, all you can think of as you lie there on your bed for the last time is that it’s the cigar, it’s because of the cigar, and if you’d never received that cigar today, or even if you’d saved it for another day, then none of this would have happened.