A Treacherous Paradise (16 page)

It was as if, for a few brief moments, Hanna had witnessed the birth of a new social order, as a sort of trial, only to see it disappear again just as quickly.

That same evening, when the mysterious iceberg had become a frustrated memory that would soon fade away, it started raining. It started as drizzle, but became heavier and heavier. At three in the morning Hanna was woken up by the booming sound of rain thudding on to the roof tiles.

She got out of bed and went to look out of the window. The rain seemed to be a grey wall between her and the darkness. But it was just as hot as during the day. When she stretched her hand out of the window and allowed the rain to lash down on to her skin, it felt very warm – as if it had started boiling on its way down to the ground.

She eventually managed to get back to sleep. When she woke up at dawn, the rain was just as heavy. She could see that the street was already flooded.

It continued raining for four days and nights. When it finally stopped, water was trickling in on to the brothel’s stone floors, despite the fact that everybody had been required to assist in sewing sacks and filling them with topsoil and gravel in order to keep out the floods surging along the streets. As all links with the interior were broken, the only customers coming to the brothel now were sailors. Senhor Vaz turned them away. There was a state of emergency, the brothel was in distress and was closed. One young man, dripping wet and dressed in a French naval uniform, commented that he was also in distress and his plight was a state of emergency. Senhor Vaz and Esmeralda felt sorry for him and allowed him in.

When the rain had stopped and it was replaced by clouds of steamy damp mist, the air was full of insects fluttering everywhere. All windows and open areas were closed, and gaps and chinks were sealed. When the gatekeeper came in to fetch something, Carlos flung himself at him immediately and started gobbling up the insects that had settled on his body. White insects were sitting round his black head like a wreath of flowers. Carlos ate them all. Hanna could see that they were a great delicacy for the chimpanzee.

Everything gradually returned to normal. People came drowsily in from out of the dampness with steam rising in clouds from their bodies, as if their insides had also been filled with water. During the commotion caused by the alleged iceberg and then the days of heavy rain, Senhor Vaz had not pestered Hanna with questions about her response to his proposal. She had had time to think about it while the rain was pouring down. She had no doubt that Senhor Vaz’s intentions were honourable – but who exactly was he, this little man who kept his hair and his moustache and his fingernails impeccably clean, his clothes immaculately creased, and was liable to fly into a fit of fury if he so much as spilled a drop of coffee on to his clothes or his body? He’s a friendly man, Hanna thought, at least twice as old as I am. I don’t feel anything of the vibrations that existed between me and Lundmark. He makes me feel safe in this world that is so foreign to me, but the thought of loving him, of allowing him to come to bed with me, is impossible.

So she had decided to turn him down when the rain had stopped, the insects had gone away and the brothel had opened again.

Then Carlos vanished. One morning there was no sign of him.

It had happened before that he had run off for a few hours to visit a secret world that nobody knew anything about. There were no other chimpanzees in Lourenço Marques, but sometimes baboons appeared in the town’s parks, looking for food. Perhaps Carlos had gone to see them?

But this time the ape didn’t return. Carlos was still missing after three days. The women who worked in the brothel went out looking for him. Senhor Vaz sent out everybody he could to search for Carlos. He promised to pay a reward, but nobody had seen the ape, nobody saw it when it disappeared, nobody had seen it since.

Hanna could tell that Senhor Vaz was grieving over the disappearance of Carlos. For the first time his austere mask had slipped, and he was displaying both regret and worry. Hanna was touched by what she saw, and it dawned on her that the man who had proposed to her was also very lonely. Surrounded by girls, but most of all attached to a confused ape that had come into his possession when a client had been unable to pay his bill.

Perhaps that is why Carlos ran away, she thought. So that I would be able to see Senhor Vaz as he really is?

She thought that he reminded her of her father. Elin had always kept him clean, just as Senhor Vaz was careful to look after his body and his appearance. Hanna knew that in one of the rooms at the back of the house where she had never yet ventured, Senhor Vaz had a bathroom: but he never allowed anybody to see him bathing in his enamel tub.

Lundmark had not always been clean. Hanna had sometimes been upset when he came to lie down beside her without having washed himself properly.

During the days when Carlos was missing, Hanna began to see Senhor Vaz in a new light. Perhaps he was not the person she had first thought he was.

One day Carlos came back. Hanna was woken up at dawn by somebody downstairs crying out in joy. When she had dressed rapidly and gone out to investigate, she found Carlos sitting with his arms round Senhor Vaz, who was hugging the ape tightly.

When Carlos came back he had a blue ribbon tied round his neck. Nobody knew where Carlos had got the ribbon from, or who had tied it round his neck.

The chimpanzee’s sudden disappearance and equally sudden return remained his secret. But Carlos seemed to be most surprised by all the fuss, and started yelling and hitting out and pulling down curtains when everybody wanted to stroke him or slap him on the back.

Only when nobody bothered about him any more did he finally settle down.

HANNA THOUGHT: WHAT
happens to an ape when it doesn’t want to be an ape any longer? Could that also happen to a human being? That he or she no longer wanted to be the person they were?

She wrote down her thoughts in her room on a loose sheet of paper. But of course, she didn’t mention anything about it to anybody – not even to Elin, in her thoughts.

After the return of Carlos, Senhor Vaz began courting her again. She had intended to tell him the facts: that she had recently become a widow and that her period of mourning would last for quite a long time to come. But Senhor Vaz didn’t make her any new proposals. He simply continued to court her, quietly, sometimes even distantly. One day he took her for a ride in one of the few motor cars in Lourenço Marques, owned by an artillery colonel in the Portuguese regiment stationed in the town. They drove along the narrow road that followed the shoreline. A large-scale promenade was being built alongside the harbour. Hanna saw the black labourers struggling with the heavy blocks of stone in the oppressive heat – but Senhor Vaz, who was sitting beside her, didn’t seem to notice them. He was enjoying the sea views, and pointed out a little sailing boat bobbing up and down on the waves.

They turned away from the sea, and the car climbed up the hills to the more elevated part of the town. A number of stone houses were being built along two long, wide esplanades. There were rails for horse-drawn trams.

The car stopped outside a house that seemed to have just been finished. It had a white-plastered facade, and a garden with rhododendrons and acacias. Senhor Vaz opened the car door and helped Hanna out. She looked questioningly at him. Why had they stopped outside this house?

The door was opened by a maid. They went in. There was no furniture in the rooms. Hanna could smell paint that hadn’t yet dried, and wooden floors that had only recently been oiled.

‘I want to give you this house,’ said Senhor Vaz without further ado.

His voice was soft, almost husky, as if it were a woman speaking. She had the impression that he was very proud of what he was offering her.

‘I want us to live here,’ he said. ‘The day you agree to marry me, we shall leave our rooms in the hotel and move here.’

Hanna said nothing. She explored the empty house in silence with Senhor Vaz a few cautious paces behind her.

He asked her no questions. He didn’t invite the answer he must have been longing to hear.

When they returned to the hotel, Hanna thought yet again that she would never be able to explain to anybody about what had happened to her during the time she had lived in Africa. Least of all how a man who barely reached up to her shoulders and owned a brothel had proposed to her and wanted to present her with a large stone house with a garden and a sea view.

Nobody would believe her. Everybody would take it for granted that it was either a lie, or a wild dream.

Hanna decided to talk to Felicia. Perhaps she would be able to give her some advice.

A few evenings later, when Felicia had said goodbye to one of her regular clients, a banker from Pretoria who always wanted her to be brutal and torture him during their sessions, Hanna went to visit her in her room. Hanna told her the truth – that Senhor Vaz had proposed marriage to her.

‘I know,’ said Felicia. ‘Everybody knows. I think even Carlos gathers what is going on. He may only be a chimpanzee, but he’s clever. He understands more than you would think.’

Her reply surprised Hanna. She had thought that Senhor Vaz’s proposal had been made most discreetly.

‘Has he spoken about it? To whom?’

‘He never says anything. But he doesn’t need to. We understand even so. But he doesn’t realize that, of course.’

Hanna suddenly became unsure about what to say next. Their conversation was turning out to be quite different from what she had expected.

‘Senhor Vaz is a friendly man,’ said Felicia. ‘He can be brutal, but he always regrets it afterwards. And he lets us keep nearly half of what we earn. There are brothels in this town where the women hardly get a tenth.’

‘How come he isn’t married?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Has he ever been married?’

‘I don’t know that either. He came here from Lisbon over twenty years ago, with his brother and his parents. His father was a businessman and worked far too hard in the heat we have here. He died not long after he arrived. His wife went back to Portugal, but the two brothers stayed on. A few years later Senhor Vaz started this brothel, using money he’d got when he sold his father’s business. That’s all I know.’

‘So there’s never been a woman in his life?’

Felicia smiled.

‘Sometimes I simply don’t understand the questions white people ask,’ she said. ‘Of course there have been women in his life. I don’t really know how many, or who they are. But he does the same as other brothel owners do in this town – he never touches his own girls, but goes to his colleagues’ establishments.’

‘Why does he want to marry me?’

‘Because you are white. I think he’s also impressed by the fact that you can afford to live here and pay for your room. And I suppose he’s stricken by the loneliness that affects all white people in this country.’

‘My money will soon run out.’

Felicia looked thoughtfully at her.

‘You’re not ill any more,’ she said in the end. ‘You’re strong enough now to continue your journey to wherever you were or are going to. But you choose to stay here. Something is making you stay here. I don’t know if it’s because you don’t have anywhere to go to or to return to, or whether there is some other reason. Anyway, now Senhor Vaz has proposed to you. You could marry a worse man than he is. He’ll treat you with respect. He’ll give you a large house. That’s something my husband would never be able to give me. He’s a fisherman, his name’s Ateme. We have two children and I’m happy to see him every time we meet.’

‘Who looks after your children when you’re here?’

‘Their mother does.’

Hanna shook her head. She didn’t understand.

‘Their mother? I thought you said you were their mother.’

‘My sister. She’s also their mother. Just as I’m her children’s mother as well. Or my other sisters’ children’s mother.’

‘How many sisters do you have?’

‘Four.’

Hanna thought that over. There was of course another question she felt bound to ask.

‘What does your husband say about you working here?’

‘Nothing,’ said Felicia quite simply. ‘He knows that I’m faithful to him.’

‘Faithful? Here?’

‘I only go with white men. For money. He doesn’t bother about that.’

Hanna tried to understand what she’d just heard. All the time the gap seemed to grow wider rather than narrower. She didn’t comprehend the world she was living in.

She thought about Carlos again. Perhaps he no longer wanted to be an ape, but he couldn’t be a human being.

The lonely chimpanzee had changed into a vacuum inside a white waiter’s coat.

What was she turning into?

THAT EVENING HANNA
decided to accept Senhor Vaz’s proposal of marriage. The most important reason for her decision was that she had come to accept that she could no longer cope with living as a widow. And perhaps one day she would be able to feel the same for Vaz as she had done for Lundmark.

The following day she gave him her answer. Senhor Vaz didn’t seem to be surprised, but evidently regarded her ‘yes’ as a formality that he had taken for granted.

Three weeks later they were married at a simple ceremony in the Catholic priest’s residence next to the cathedral. The marriage witnesses were people Hanna didn’t know. Senhor Vaz had also taken Carlos along, dressed in his tailcoat, but the priest had refused to allow the chimpanzee to be present. He was quite shocked, and regarded the proposed presence of Carlos to be blasphemy. Senhor Vaz had no choice but to accept the priest’s ban. Carlos waited outside while the ceremony took place, and climbed up into the bell tower. Afterwards they had dinner in the best hotel in town, which was situated on a hill with views over the sea. Carlos was with them, because they had a private room.

They spent their wedding night in a suite in the hotel. There was a smell of lavender when Hanna entered the bedroom.

When they had switched the light off she could feel the warm breath of her new husband on her face. For a short, confused moment it was as if Lundmark had come back to her; but then she smelled the pomade in his black hair and knew that this was a different man lying by her side.