Little White Lies (11 page)

‘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.

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.

She walked unsteadily in the dark back towards the terrace, heat licking her face like a furred tongue. A mosquito sang insistently somewhere near her left ear. She swatted it impatiently. Another twig snapped; something rustled in the blackness behind her. She turned and waited. The clouds parted suddenly to reveal a sheeny, luminous moon that threw an eerie light across the ground. The rains were due shortly. The air was pregnant with sweat. Every glass she took from the refrigerator would bead almost immediately with condensation. At the same hour every afternoon, a sudden gust of cool-smelling wind would blow across the lawn, followed by bursts of air that flattened pieces of paper against the fences, sending up little scurries of dust into nowhere. Ten or fifteen minutes later, a low drumming would begin, turning to a deafening roar within seconds. It rained so hard and noisily you could barely hear your own thoughts. An hour, occasionally more . . . then it ceased as quickly as it had started. She’d never known rain like it.

She sighed as she continued up the steps to the front door. So many things to get used to. Would she ever get the measure of the damned place? Probably not.

One of the armed security guards was suddenly come upon in the dark. He sprang guiltily to his feet. ‘
Vous désirez, madame . . .
?’ He’d been napping on one of the plastic chairs on the veranda.

She waved him away with a hand. ‘
Non, merci
,’ she said and walked slowly up the stairs. It was nearly one o’clock in the morning. Sylvan still wasn’t home.

A week later, she was on her way back from the
grand marché
in the centre of town, delicately picking her way through the piled-up garbage, accidentally caught up in the crowd, when she heard a noise behind her, a long rolling sound, like thunder. She stopped. The silent bodyguard who accompanied her everywhere and whose name she didn’t even know almost bumped into her. ‘What’s that noise?’ she asked, tilting her head to the air, like a dog sniffing the approach of strangers.

‘Nothing,’ the bodyguard shrugged dismissively. ‘Just the market women. They make too much noise.’

‘No . . . there’s shouting. Listen.’ The sound grew louder, a drumming from somewhere behind Rue Tokmaké. ‘What’s happening?’ The sound was growing louder, a rhythmic, swaying chanting of some kind.

He shrugged again. He was carrying her bags, pushing people rudely out of the way as they tried to make for the car. In one, she’d packed a few precious slabs of cheese that she’d bought herself from the Lebanese trader on rue du Grand. It was pointless sending the maids to buy cheese. The poor women couldn’t tell if something had gone off. In the other, there were several bolts of the beautiful local fabrics she liked to turn into those striking dresses she wore on state occasions. There were few white women who could carry off the elaborate headdresses and the strikingly bold patterns and colours, but she could. She had three seamstresses – Nadine, Isabella and Marie-Antoinette – on permanent duty. Together they pored excitedly over the magazines she brought back from Paris, turning out ever more intricate and cleverly fashioned
haute couture à l’africaine
. ‘It’s nothing,’ he repeated. ‘Let’s go.’

Suddenly the air was ripped apart by gunfire. She turned and saw a crowd of men running towards them, hands linked, some of them carrying crude banners that she couldn’t make out. Everything around them had come to a complete stop. Suddenly the market women who normally sat cooking and gossiping comfortably got to their feet, shouting and screaming. There was another burst of gunfire and the crowd began to dissolve as people broke into a run. A few stray dogs and chickens, picking up on the sudden burst of fear, began to bark and squawk, adding to the confusion. She saw the first line of soldiers advancing down the road, guns trained on the crowd, who by now were running in every direction around them.

‘
Madame
. . .
go!
Get inside the car!’ she heard the bodyguard yell above the noise of gunfire as people began to push and shove. A woman balancing a wide pannier of bread on her head broke into a run, sending the loaves flying. ‘
Madame!
’ The bodyguard was shoving his way through the women crowding round to get to her. She caught a glimpse of her pink basket spiralling upwards, cheeses wrapped in greaseproof paper flying through the air. Someone grabbed her arm. She gasped and struggled to break free but it was her bodyguard. He’d abandoned her purchases and was shoving her roughly in the direction of the car. ‘Get in,
madame
! Get
in
!’ He pushed her forwards until they reached it. He yanked open the door and shoved her in the back. There was no time to argue. The driver already had the engine running. More gunshots rang out, pinging crazily against the parked cars around them. The driver turned round, shot them a terrified glance and responded automatically to the bodyguard’s scream, ‘
Go!
’ The car lurched forwards, narrowly missing a woman whose mouth opened as if in slow motion but no sound came through the thick bulletproof glass. Anouschka covered her head with her hands, too terrified to scream.