Tropic Moon (14 page)

Were they talking about Timar? For a moment he thought so, but a glance at the faces in the firelight convinced him that they weren't talking about anything. He could have sworn that the man with the bad teeth was just speaking nonsense, talking for talking's sake, that everyone was carried away by his meaningless words and by the sound of their own laughter. They were amusing themselves like children, talking up a storm without bothering over what it meant.

It smelled of burned wood, of spices Timar didn't recognize, and there was the blacks' own lingering smell. That was what was troubling him now.

He wasn't hungry. He didn't want to open a can of food. It was enough to take a sip of alcohol every now and then, followed by a cigarette. Everyone must have seen him, a white silhouette against the dark entrance to the hut, but no one was looking at him. Timar felt mortified by it, almost regretful.

“Cigarette?” he cried out, throwing one at the nearest black.

He'd found twenty packs in the folding cot. Constantinesco must have put them there. The black picked up the cigarette, rose, paused, then burst into laughter as he showed the others. An old woman turned around. She hesitated for a moment before stretching out her hands.

Timar tossed out a whole pack and the shadows dived for it, shoving one another, while the more enterprising ran right up to him, their hands outstretched, laughing and shouting, men and women together. Timar could smell them all around him, brushing against him. He was standing on tiptoe, reaching over their heads.

The smell from the moving mass of people grew stronger. There were young girls there, too, their small breasts barely formed. But the only one who caught Timar's attention was the pretty girl he'd seen by the river laughing with the mechanic from the flatboat the other day.

She was very near him, not so bold as the youngest ones. Her eyes were begging him to throw some cigarettes her way.

Timar threw her three, one after the other. Each time the cigarette was snapped up in flight or fell to the ground, where the children fought for it underfoot.

Her breasts were large and firm. Her thighs were an adolescent's, not so filled out as her chest, but her stomach was round like child's still. The two of them looked at each other through the excitement. She was pleading and he could only smile.

He threw the last pack of cigarettes in her direction. Timar shouted, “That's it! All gone!”

But they kept on stretching out their hands, until at last the puny fellow with the bad teeth explained that the white man had nothing more to give away. The group scattered as quickly as it had formed. A moment later, they were all squatting around the fire. Thick lips gripping their cigarettes, the blacks exhaled and watched the smoke with pride. Often three or four people smoked the same cigarette.

Timar was alone in front of his hut. He was about to go to bed, but he kept thinking about the black girl, not out of coarse desire but because he yearned for tenderness. He sat on a very low bench. He'd forgotten to save some cigarettes for himself. Women lugged babies into the huts, which fell silent. No more wood was thrown on the fire and the paddlers were the first to wander off.

Where were they going to sleep? Timar had no idea, and it didn't matter. He looked around for the girl, who had disappeared, and he wondered when she had left her companions and which hut she'd gone to. He went on feeling the same sad composure, a heavy animal sadness. There were only five or six shadowy figures left around the fire now. No one spoke. He looked to his left and right.

And suddenly he was trembling. The black girl was there, standing in a shadow, leaning against the wall of the next hut and facing him. Had she sensed his desire? Did she feel something for him or was she just being submissive because he was white?

No doubt Bouilloux would have pointed his finger at the hut and followed her in. Timar didn't dare, and he was afraid to approach her. He felt awkward. In any case he hadn't decided to summon her.

He just stood there. And she came closer, step by step, ready to retreat if he didn't want her. He stood on the threshold of the hut, leaving enough space for her to go by. With a wave of his hand he showed her in.

She came inside quickly and stopped, her chest heaving. None of the blacks around the fire turned to look. He wasn't sure if he should close the door; he was afraid to. What would he say? She wouldn't understand a single word.

She was no longer looking at him. She was staring at the ground, like a young girl in Europe, just as self-conscious, the only difference being that she was naked apart from a tuft of grass.

He tapped her on the shoulder. It was the first time he'd touched a black of his own accord. The skin was smooth. He could feel the muscles stirring underneath.

He pretended to hunt for some cigarettes, though he knew he wouldn't find any. He wanted to give her something. In the folding cot there was nothing except for a thermos. He patted his pockets. His hand felt his watch, a present from his uncle. It was held by a chain, which he suddenly took off and handed to her.

“For you.”

He was wracked with anxiety. Turning around, he noticed the blacks had left the fire. What was he going to do? What did he want to do? Did he want her? He had no idea. His throat was dry. And the black girl stood there, with the chain in the palm of her hand.

He came up to her and stroked her shoulder again. He let his hand slip slowly down to her breasts and circle around them.

She didn't encourage him or discourage him. She looked at the chain.

“Come here.”

He drew her toward the mattress on the extended rails of the cot. She followed him.

“Are you …”

He wanted to ask her if she was a virgin, because that would have stopped him. She couldn't be made to understand.

“Sit.”

And, pressing down on her shoulders, he forced her to sit on the bed. Then, very embarrassed, he went for a sip of whiskey.

At last, with a brutal movement, he slammed the unlatched door of the hut.

T
HERE
had been a serious incident and Timar was in a bad mood. They'd been shooting some rapids.

The paddlers, in their excitement, were putting everything they could into it, their mouths wide with silent laughter even as they struggled to catch their breath. They were making tremendous speed. The men were keeping an eye on the eddies at a bend in the river. They intended to clear them in one go.

But the current took them close to a tree branch, its leaves outspread like a small island. The canoe could still avoid it. But instead, in a spirit of fun, the blacks all crowded to one side and paddled furiously.

Their large eyes shone with childish glee, as they looked back and forth between the eddies, the branch, and the white man. They wanted to cut close to the branch: it was going to be a thrill.

Most of the branch was behind them now, but before they passed there was a crash. The canoe rose out of the water.

Timar didn't have time to get up or to realize what was happening. It wasn't all that serious. The boat had struck a submerged part of the branch, but it didn't tip over and the men worked together to right it.

The canoe was nearly half full of water. Timar was sitting in it.

Suddenly he was furious. He swore at the blacks, who couldn't understand. He was all the more furious because he was wet and miserable.

He was out of cigarettes—that was another reason. In the morning, when he'd woken up in the hut, he'd realized that he'd spent the night with a black girl. She had left—he didn't know when.

He'd headed down to the waiting canoe with his men. The villagers were standing by the water with their children. Timar's girl was also there. She was too scared to leave the crowd, to approach him, to make a sign of greeting.

He'd been about to stop for her when he changed his mind. He took his place in the canoe while the blacks climbed in, paddles in hand, one behind the other.

The girl was still standing in the sunlit clearing. She moved away from the crowd and looked at him.

Twelve paddles plunged into the water; at one stroke the canoe was fifty yards out, right in midstream. It seemed to Timar that only then did the girl raise her arm, reaching out ever so slightly, in an incomplete gesture of farewell.

The crash had nearly staved in one side of the canoe. Now there was a man bailing it out with both hands.

Timar watched him at it for a long time then took out one of his remaining cans. He dumped its contents into the river and handed it over.

Suddenly all eyes were turned on him in total astonishment. The blacks knew that a can of pâté cost twelve francs—nearly two weeks' work for them. The man scooping away with the can could hardly get enough of dipping it into the sun-dappled water. The others watched with envy.

Timar was no longer thinking about them. He was increasingly preoccupied as they neared the end of the trip. Adèle must have gotten to Libreville the day before, probably toward midafternoon, since the flatboat had had the advantage of the current. Where had she slept? Who had she had dinner with? What had she been doing all morning?

For the first few hours, he thought about the black girl occasionally. After noon, though, his thoughts turned entirely to Adèle —mostly to the memory of their last night together, side by side in bed, in the darkness, looking at the ceiling and pretending to be asleep but listening for each other with their every sense on the alert.

He ate a banana. He didn't know when they'd get there and couldn't ask the man with the bad teeth. The hours passed slowly. Twice they stopped the canoe to make some adjustments to his leaf shelter. Another time he snarled, “What are you waiting for? Sing!”

The blacks didn't understand, so he started to sing the song from the day before. They looked at one another, enormously relieved. The puny fellow started out with a couplet that was even longer and more flowing than anything Timar had heard before.

He didn't pay any attention. After five minutes, he didn't even know they were singing. Why had Bouilloux come to the concession? Why had Adèle left without telling him?

He fell asleep two or three times, but only briefly. He felt a painful drowsiness brought on by the heat and the motion of the canoe. At last the sun sank behind the trees. There was a short dusk, a semblance of coolness, a less brutal glare in which things regained some of their color. Fifteen minutes later it was night and they still hadn't reached Libreville. Timar was furious—all the more so because there was no way for him to ask a question.

They'd been traveling in the dark for an hour when they spotted a red and a green light. Higher up, in the sky, something was shining that wasn't a star. At the same time, they heard a record player and noises on a wooden floor.

The bulk of a cargo ship rose beside the canoe, which had reached the mouth of the river—the place where Timar had seen the other ship being loaded with logs. The record was over, but they'd forgotten to turn the record player off—you could hear the needle skipping.

A blinding light. It swept the water a few times before shining on the canoe and following them. The light came from the captain's gangway. Three men, their elbows on the rail, watched the canoe with the white man in it go by.

“Ahoy!” cried a voice.

Timar didn't reply—he couldn't have said why. He sat glumly in his corner. When the canoe crossed a sandbar and began to pitch, he gave a start.

Before him was the ocean; to the right was a string of lights, a waterfront like every other waterfront in the world, like a real European waterfront, with car lights slipping along into the night.

They beached their vessel among the fishing canoes near the place where the market was held every morning. Blacks dressed like whites, others in Arab garb, strolled the esplanade. Timar felt like he was returning from a long voyage.

The electric lights made the red of the dirt road look darker; by contrast the vegetation was the green of glazed china. The whole landscape looked like stage scenery—especially the palms, whose leaves, lit from below, made velvety black silhouettes against the sky.

And there were noises, voices, footsteps, squeals, unfamiliar people walking by, a car with occupants who didn't even wonder about this traveler emerging out of the night.

The three blacks who were naked wrapped their waists in cloth while the others hauled the canoe onto the beach. Timar couldn't make up his mind what to do. Should he tell the blacks to go back to the concession? Or should he keep them here with him? How would he feed them or house them? How would they manage in a city? He went up to the puny fellow with the rotten teeth and made an effort to ask, “Can you sleep here on the beach?”

Timar put a hand to his cheek, bent his head, and closed his eyes.

The black smiled and made a reassuring gesture.

“See madame!” he said.

He'd go see Adèle—she was the one who counted. Timar was just a passenger. In the hierarchy of beings, he was only some sort of protégé of madame's. He wasn't even a real settler, since he didn't speak the local tongue and hadn't shot down the ducks flying over the canoe. He'd given away cigarettes. He hadn't hit anyone. He hadn't pointed out the places to stop at. He was an amateur, a mere passerby.

“Me see madame!”

Timar turned his back to the black and reached the road lit by electric lights. His pants were stained and wrinkled from the accident in the canoe, and he had a three-day growth of beard. A car drove up just as Timar emerged into the glowing circle cast by a streetlight, and he heard the engine slow down. Someone peered at him through the glass; he recognized the chief of police, who went on by but turned to look back twice.

Timar was only three hundred yards away from the hotel. In a dark corner, a black woman draped in blue cloth laughed and rubbed up against a well-dressed native. She was on the plump side, like all the women in the city. Her frizzy hair was arranged in a complicated pile, and she'd lost the respect for the white man that was the rule of the jungle and the bush. As Timar passed she looked at him without saying a word. He was barely ten feet away when she burst out laughing.