Little White Lies

by Lesley Lokko

  ‘But what does that have to do with . . . with this?’ Anouschka all but wailed, pointing at the wreckage of the hotel room. Three suitcases lay open-jawed on the enormous bed, partially filled with his clothes. ‘Why are you leaving now? I thought it was dangerous?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘But I . . . I don’t understand what the rush is all about. When are you coming back?’

  Sylvan turned to her. He felt the presence of history like someone standing behind him. He had never, in all his thirty-four years, felt anything like it. He was needed. For years he’d resigned himself to feeling (and behaving) like a louche playboy, a handsome no-hoper on whom no one could depend. He was his father’s only remaining son but could never shake off the feeling that he’d been – and always would be – a disappointment. His older brother, Epiphanio, had died in a car accident when Sylvan was fifteen and it seemed as though the Betancourts would never get over the loss. Epiphanio, or Épi, as he’d been known, was everything Sylvan wasn’t. Clever, conscientious, disciplined. All the traits one would expect in an heir and leader, except handsome, unfortunately. That was Sylvan’s domain. With Épi’s death came another realisation: not only was his beloved brother gone, so too was the shield that had protected him from everyone else’s expectations, allowing him to do what he did best – nothing. Suddenly he was in the spotlight. He’d spent the next fifteen years apologising inwardly and outwardly for letting them down. Now his chance had come to turn it all around.

  But there was also another, less noble reason for his enthusiasm: money. If he’d understood things correctly (and he was fairly certain he had), there was lots of it to be made, especially if he took control. He had the backing of the French and the Americans, and, as politically inexperienced as he was, if there was one thing on which he was absolutely clear it was this: neither the French nor the Americans would give a fig for who got their grubby little hands on Togo’s phosphate deposits if there wasn’t money at stake. He’d never quite recovered from the humiliation of his stepmother’s last words. Cochon. Pig. For not having enough money. It would never happen again.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said slowly. ‘I’m supposed to take over.’

  ‘Take over what?’ Anouschka’s cornflower-blue eyes were on him. He felt the familiar stirrings of an erection.

  ‘The government. I’m to take my father’s place.’

  15

  Hahatoe, Tsamé, Sevagan, Lomé. Anouschka sat with François, pronouncing the musical names with some difficulty. Her fingers danced over the map. The solitaire diamond on her left hand sparkled fabulously. She lifted it every now and again to admire it. ‘Beautiful, no?’ she turned to François, holding it out for his approval.

  François said nothing. He was sulking. His meal ticket – the girl he’d staked his career on, his closest friend and confidante, the better part of him – was going. Leaving him.

  ‘But I’m going to be La Première Dame,’ Anouschka said, genuinely astonished at the depths of his despair. ‘How can you possibly ask me not to do this?’

  ‘I’ll miss you!’ François wailed.

  ‘Well, I’ll miss you too, chéri, but it’s not as though I’m going to the moon, come on! It’s half a day’s flight! You can come and visit. Visit me in the palace . . . just think of that! You and me, François, in the palace!’ Anouschka jumped up and grabbed his arm, attempting to drag him into a waltz.

  He shook her hand off angrily. ‘It’s not a palace, you idiot! It’s a dump! It’s the Tiers-Monde, not the Champs Elysées!’

  Anouschka stopped. ‘Don’t be so childish,’ she snapped. ‘Yes, I know it’s the Third World. I’m not stupid, you know. I love him. Why can’t you just accept that?’

  ‘Because I love you,’ François muttered.

  ‘You’re gay,’ she said drily. ‘It doesn’t count.’

  He flung her a murderous look and got up from the sofa. ‘I’m going home,’ he announced huffily, picking up his scarf.

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Fine.’ He stomped off, slamming the door behind him. Anouschka sighed and collapsed back into the sofa. He would come round soon enough. After all, she still had another week to go. A week spent shopping – she hugged one of the silk cushions to her chest in glee. La Première Dame. It had such a ring to it, so much more interesting than plain old ‘wife’, or ‘mother’. She’d been surprised, even shocked, at her own unhappiness in those first few weeks after Sylvan left. She, who was so used to seeing herself on television, had been astonished to see him. For a good fortnight, as the French army fought alongside the Togolese to install the assassinated president’s son in Lomé’s Palais National, the previously unheard-of West African country had been on everyone’s lips – and on the nightly television news. The fact that the president-in-waiting was good-looking, with oodles of charisma and had been seen stepping out with France’s best-known and loved actress only added to the drama. Suddenly there was another reason to add Anouschka Malaquais to the evening news list. Oh, it was all too delightful for words. Now, when he appeared on the news, she could practically smell the aura of power and authority. Overnight Sylvan had become a contender. The spoilt, fun-loving playboy was gone. The image staring back at her was that of a man. A powerful man. There was nothing sexier on this earth, she declared passionately to François. Nothing at all.

  A month later, when the last remaining junior army officers who’d instigated the coup had been rounded up and ‘dealt with’, as he put it, and the thirty-four-year-old son of the assassinated leader was finally inaugurated, a man approached Anouschka with an airline ticket. Air Afrique. Paris-Dakar-Lomé. First class. She almost snatched it from his fingers. She couldn’t wait to go.

  16

  She stepped awkwardly out of the car that had been sent to the airport to fetch her and looked around. Once, as a very young child, she’d been struck by the sight of a field of sunflowers, heads dropping towards the ground as if the stalks could no longer hold their weight. She’d asked her mother why the flowers looked so sad. ‘Sad?’ ‘Yes, like they’re crying.’ ‘Oh, it’s the heat, silly. It’s too hot for them. They’ll perk up as soon as the sun’s gone in.’ Today she felt – and looked – just like those wilting sunflowers. The heat. She’d never in her life experienced anything like it. From the moment the aircraft doors opened and she was faced with the blast of hot air – reminiscent of a hairdryer – she could feel herself begin to droop. ‘Where’s Sylvan?’ she asked the silent, stern-faced man who collected her bags. ‘Didn’t he come?’

  ‘Monsieur le Président is busy.’ He looked her up and down insolently. His look said what his mouth wouldn’t. Too busy to come for his wife. She recognised the sentiment as if he’d spoken it out loud. ‘Please to follow me.’

  The palace certainly looked like a palace. Neo-classical, with a long, double row of peeling white pillars and a driveway of raked gravel, leading to a long sweep of identical barred windows, three storeys high . . . Like a palace and an army barrack at once, she noticed with a small chill. Where the hell was Sylvan? Monsieur le Président indeed! The car braked noisily to a halt and the door was flung open, allowing the air-conditioned cool to escape and the fierce, hot breath of the outside to rush in. A hand reached in – a large, pink-palmed black hand with a signet ring squeezed tightly into the flesh. She stared at it for a second, and then gingerly stretched out her own.

  She was helped down from the car and brought abruptly face-to-face with a long line of unfamiliar faces. Servants were lined up; she recognised the uniforms from photographs Sylvan had once shown her (white drill, khaki shorts, red cummerbunds and, incongruously, white gloves); they wore the same disinterested, impassive faces of servants the world over – blank, almost haughty in their indifference. A man in a navy-and-white striped suit with a white carnation pinned to his lapel moved swiftly forwards.

  ‘Madame! Bienvenue!’ His outstretched hand and proprietary air marked him out as someone of importance, if only in his o
wn estimation. She shrank from him instinctively. ‘Welcome to Lomé. Please, come this way. This way, madame, this way.’ He ushered her deftly past the line of blank faces and up the front steps. It was marginally cooler inside the portico. She lifted the heavy curtain of her hair away from her neck, wishing she’d had the foresight to pin it up instead of leaving it flowing down her back. It was Sylvan’s fault, she thought to herself crossly. He liked her hair loose and flowing. Oh, where the hell was he?

  ‘Chérie.’ His voice suddenly broke through the din surrounding her arrival. She looked up. Sylvan was standing at the top of the stairs, looking down at her with an amused, playful smile on his face. She opened her mouth in surprise. It had been just over a month since she’d last seen him.

  ‘Sylvan?’

  ‘Chérie.’ He descended slowly, grandly. His stomach, once flat and solid, was now bloated. He’d broadened in almost every direction. Anouschka’s eyes widened.

  ‘Sylvan? What . . . what the hell have you been eating?’

  She saw by the quick, severe frown that appeared between his brows that she’d angered him before she’d properly opened her mouth. With a quick, peremptorily dismissive wave, he shooed the small crowd who’d clustered around her away. ‘Go on, get lost. I’ll call you when I need you. Yes, you too, Atekpé. Even you.’

  ‘But, M’sieur le Prési—’

  ‘Buzz off! Now!’ Sylvan cut him off. He stood on the second or third step, staring imperiously down at them as they backed out, one by one. Anouschka’s mouth was still hanging open as the door at the bottom of the stairs closed and they were finally alone.

  ‘Don’t ever do that,’ Sylvan said, waiting for her to mount the last few steps to join him. ‘Don’t criticise me in front of them. In front of anyone, for that matter.’

  ‘But I—’

  ‘Don’t.’ His voice was cold. Then he relented. His face – broader now than it had been a month ago – broke into a smile. ‘You look beautiful, chérie. Come.’ He held out a hand. ‘Come and see your new home.’

  It was a role to be played that was no different from the roles she’d played on screen before. La Première Dame. Within a week of her arrival into a world that was as unfamiliar to her as if she’d landed on the moon, she realised she had to find a way to make sense of it or she’d simply sink. Aside from the heat – which seemed to her to be a living, breathing human being, another presence in her life – there were dozens of other things to consider. Protocol, for one. Africans, she decided, were big on protocol. Who went through a doorway first, who was the first to speak, who spoke to whom and in what tone . . . it was exhausting. Then there were the functions – dinners, lunches, state openings, state addresses, television and radio appearances, openings of schools, new offices, churches, churches, churches . . . she hadn’t been in a church since she was sixteen, she protested to Sylvan after their fourth visit in as many days.

  ‘Well, you’re making up for lost time,’ he chuckled, adjusting his tie. He turned to face her. ‘This one or that?’

  ‘The blue one. But you’re not even religious!’ she protested, selecting a pair of pearl earrings.

  ‘I am now.’

  And that was that. A role, no more, no less. She would have to quickly inhabit it as though her life depended on it – which, in a way, it did. They were surrounded by people who made the beaming, professional ploy of making Sylvan’s interests their own. They were not to be trusted. She could see, even if he chose not to, the ravenous, wolfish aspect behind their smiles. Sylvan’s father had been disposed of – pouf! – in spite of their pledges of allegiance and undying loyalty. She knew instinctively they wouldn’t hesitate to do it again. In the scramble for power and resources which followed Sylvan’s ascent to power, there were promises made which had to be kept. She came upon the conversations when she wasn’t supposed to. So much to this one, so much to that. Sylvan seemed to revel in it all. ‘It’s a game, chérie, that’s all. Just a game.’

  A few weeks later, at a dinner one night, Anouschka listened to Maurice Couvéde Murville, the French foreign minister, give both the happy couple and the country’s newly restored commitment to democracy his blessing. She stole a surreptitious glance around her. All down the length of the elegant table with the heavily starched cream napkins and the gleaming plates that she’d personally polished all afternoon were Sylvan’s government ministers, French mining bosses, West African oligarchs from the neighbouring states and the usual clutch of sycophants and professional hangers-on. Sylvan sat at the head, accepting the congratulations and praises being heaped down upon him with a smile as long and wide as the table at which they all sat. A man in his element. Almost overnight, it seemed, he’d developed a way of speaking – long, flowery sentences, then a pause, allowing space and time for his audience to murmur appreciatively to one another, then to him, their voices growing louder, stronger, his own swelling and echoing in response – that made her feel quite faint. A chill stole over her. It was horrible; it was as if they drew something out of him, some essential, secret life force . . . like flies feeding on a corpse. Sylvan thrived on it. Later, in the car on the way back to the palace, he abruptly ordered the driver to pull over and asked him to step away from the car for a few minutes. He fucked her hurriedly but with great passion on the back seat. He adjusted his clothing, straightened his tie and called the driver back. He, unlike her, was in his element. La Première Dame. Yes, it had a certain ring to it. And it was now her life.

  17

  1975

  TEN YEARS LATER

  ANOUSCHKA MALAQUAIS-BETANCOURT

  Palais National, Lomé, Togo

  She was obliged to feel her way in the darkness down the path towards the pool. Nothing moved, not even the leaves on the palm trees to her left and right. No moon, no light, nothing other than the thick, soft night above her and no one to witness her going. She’d fallen asleep earlier in the evening whilst waiting for Sylvan to return from some meeting or other and woken up drenched in sweat. The electricity had gone off and the air-conditioners had stopped. Nothing other than a swim would cool her down. She was out the door before she could change her mind.

  She stumbled, brushing her calf against one of the wiry bushes and drawing blood with a sharp sting. She didn’t stop to look. She reached the tiled edge of the pool, shrugged her dress over her head and kicked off her flip-flops impatiently. She walked to the edge, sat down, and then slowly slid in. The pool drank her in: feet, ankles, thighs . . . she sank gratefully into its cool, wet mouth with a relief that brought tears to her eyes. She submerged herself again and again, feeling the rush of water around her ears as it swallowed her up. The night air, which had been so hot and oppressive up there in the bedroom, was now cool against her burning cheeks.

  Half an hour later, her midnight swim was over. She hauled herself out of the water, droplets falling like diamonds all around her. She was stark naked. It was nearly ten years since she’d come to Lomé and she still hadn’t got used to the heat. She never would. The heat. The heat. An oppressive, never-ending refrain. It was the first thing she thought about in the morning when she opened her eyes and it was invariably the last thing she thought about at night, lying in that enormous circular bed of theirs, praying the electricity would last through the night. Heat and electricity. Electricity and heat. In her entire life she never thought she would think of either, let alone in the same breath. And yet, here she was, First Lady of Togo, wife of the Président de la République, dreaming of the cold, of autumn and winter and of France, her breath scrolling before her like a signature on frosty December mornings. Some mornings she woke up parched, her skin stuck to the drenched bed sheets, and she could have wept for the realisation that she wasn’t at home, in Paris, somewhere where the lights always worked and the air wasn’t as thick and hot as soup. Here in Africa, the heat stuck to everything; it turned her make-up to sludge, her hair into a damp, frizzy cloud and although there were noisy air-conditioners installed in practically
every room, a constant supply of electricity was required for the damned things to work. Another of life’s essential commodities she was learning to live without – electricity. It was enough to make you weep, she thought to herself bitterly – and she frequently did.

  She bent down to pick up her dress. A sudden rustle in the bushes made her pause. ‘Est-ce-qu’il y a quelqu’un?’ she called out, her voice strong and clear in the night air. There was no answer. It didn’t occur to her to be afraid. She slipped the dress over her head, fastening it and felt her way into her flip-flops. ‘Est-ce-qu’il y a quelqu’un?’ she called again. There was still no answer. Probably one of the guinea fowl that wandered in and out of the gardens all day long, she thought to herself as she made her way back up the garden path. Every now and then she would hear a loud squawking as one or other of the guards managed to catch one; she didn’t like to think how they were killed. Women at the roadside grilled them over open charcoal fires with a spicy pepper sauce that made the eyes water. Sylvan claimed it cooled you down. She wasn’t so sure. Whatever the case, she drew the line at eating there, by the side of the road. Dirty, she said, wrinkling her nose. And common. Not for him. He said it was good for the local people to see him eating just like them.

  ‘You mean, not like some bourgeois Frenchman?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘But you are a bourgeois Frenchman,’ she said innocently.

  He glowered. ‘Je suis Togolais,’ he said, displeasure showing around his mouth.

  She knew better than to argue. After nearly a decade she’d come to understand, better perhaps than he did, that the line separating him from his fellow countrymen wasn’t quite as invisible as he made it out to be. She’d come to his country ignorant not only of where it was in the world but even more ignorant of its history. The Betancourts belonged to a tiny minority, a privileged elite, descendants of freed Brazilian slaves who’d returned to Africa in the late 1800s. These Afro-Brazilians, as they were known, banded together, worshipped together, did business with one another, married each other’s offspring and generally considered themselves a cut above the local population. Anouschka had never met people like them before. They fawned over her, of course, praising Sylvan for his ‘good taste’ and ‘excellent choice’, euphemisms, she eventually realised, for her blonde good looks, fair skin and blue eyes. They were mostly insufferable gossips with nothing to say. The world Sylvan had brought her to was smaller and more claustrophobic than anything she could ever have imagined.