Brazzaville Beach (13 page)

“We got a few bits and pieces out,” Mallabar said. “And I think you had some clothes being washed.”

We walked inside. My desk was badly scorched but still standing. After some tugging I managed to open the drawer. Black soaked lumps. Cinders. My letters, some books. All my field notes and journal.

I walked around my ruined home. I had lived here for almost a year.

Mallabar's concern was palpable; he was practically wringing his hands. “We'll get it fixed up. Back to normal. Soon as possible.”

“All my field notes have gone. And the journal.”

He winced with sympathy. “Damn. God. I knew it—I saw the desk. Didn't dare to look.” He gave a sad laugh. “I was praying you'd taken them with you.”

“Worse luck.”

 

I moved into the census building. It was a long, thin, prefab hut—army surplus, I guessed—that at one time had housed eight census workers in the good old days. I set up my makeshift quarters at one end. A new bed was provided and a folding canvas chair. That, and my few clothes returned from the laundry, made up my reduced stock of personal possessions. In some respects my new home was better than my old one—I had wooden boards under my feet for a start—but it did not raise my morale. I felt incredibly temporary, all of a sudden, like someone passing through who had to be put up for a night.

My colleagues were upset for me and full of commiserations that evening in the canteen. Mallabar promised again that my tent would be repaired as soon as possible and Ginga donated a desk and a bright green rug to give me something to work on and to cheer up the hut a little. They were kind, but in the end the misfortune was mine and only a mishap to them. Even the destruction of my field notes was of minor significance. My job at
Grosso Arvore was no more than a watching brief; the main body of work at the project would be unaffected by the loss of my data.

I asked Toshiro, who had raised the alarm, what exactly the sequence of events had been. He told me he had been working alone in the lab, had gone to the back door for a breath of fresh air and had seen the smoke. He ran over but by then the back of my tent was well ablaze. He had shouted for help and had snatched a few bits and pieces (my washstand and enamel basin—where were they?) from the front before the heat drove him off. Others arrived, and buckets of water ferried from Hauser's shower stall had eventually doused the flames.

“Lucky we had Anton's shower there,” he said. “Otherwise everything would have gone.”

“Where was Hauser?”

Toshiro frowned. “I don't know. No, actually, I think he had gone to the feeding area.”

I swear to you it was only then that I first thought that the fire might have been deliberately started. You may think me unduly naive, but Mallabar's anxiety and the patent sincerity of his sympathy had me convinced.

“Was Eugene anywhere near?”

“Well, yes. After me he was the first one there. In fact he thought of using water from the shower.”

Hauser absent from his lab and Mallabar close at hand. A fire started by an allegedly careless smoker who was now sacked and not present, or able, to defend himself. No serious damage caused, and minor inconvenience to the victim. But a year's data gone up in smoke. I thought further: in theory I should not even have been away—I had accepted advancement up the provisioning rota as a “favor” to Mallabar.

I was clearing my tray when Hauser came in. He marched straight over to me and put his hands on my shoulders. For one horrible moment I thought he was going to hug me, but an inadvertent and automatic stiffening on my part must have informed against the wisdom of this course of action, and he contented himself with a sorrowful, intense look into my eyes.

“Ach, Hope,” he said. “It's a bastard thing. Really a bastard.”

He was good, as good as Mallabar, but it didn't matter: I was already plotting my revenge on them both.

He went on to inquire about my bits and pieces. Had I lost this? Could he replace it with that? I happily accepted the loan of his transistor radio.

The Vails had asked me round to their bungalow for a drink. I had been quick to accept; I was not particularly looking forward to my first night in the census hut.

We sat—Ian, Roberta and me—and drank some bourbon. Roberta had made great efforts with their two-room cottage. It was comfortable and homey, with cane chairs and bright overlapping rugs on the floor. The walls were painted light blue and were hung with pictures—local naïf oils—and photographs of previous research projects they had been involved in. Ian in Borneo with orangutans. Roberta graduating, clutching her rolled diploma in two tight fists. Ian and Roberta at the Institute for Primate Studies in Oklahoma, where they had met and married.

That evening, Roberta was strangely relaxed and fussed over me in a rather maternal manner. She brought out a pack of her menthol cigarettes and smoked one, delicately. I could sense Ian's resentment crackle round the room at this little act of domestic defiance. I puffed away at my pungent Tuskers and soon the air was hung with rocking blue strata of smoke. Roberta steadily became tight on the bourbon and started bitching warily about Ginga Mallabar, testing me out to discover whether I was friend or foe. My pointed neutrality encouraged her, and we were then regaled with a year or two's worth of hoarded resentments and grudges. Ginga was manipulative. Ginga commandeered a huge proportion of Mallabar's royalties. Ginga's needless and inept meddling with agents and publishers had delayed publication of the book by over a year, and so on. I sat and listened, nodding and saying things like “My God” and “That's a bit excessive” from time to time. Eventually, she stopped and rose slowly to her feet, announcing she had to visit the little girl's room.

She paused at the door on her way out. “We should do this more often, Hope,” she said.

I concurred.

“I think it's bad the way we all slink back to our homes in the evening. It's so…so British. No offense.”

“None taken,” I said. “In fact, I agree.”

“Well, that's one thing you can't blame Ginga for,” Ian Vail said, with acid pedantry.

“And why not?”

“Because she's Swiss.”

“Same difference.”

“For God's sake!”

I could sense the row—which would inevitably take place after I had gone—was now boiling up dangerously, and so chipped in with some banal observation about how the very geometry of the campsite precluded easy social to-ing and fro-ing—instancing its linear development along Main Street and the almost suburban concern for domestic privacy evidenced in the placing of the various bungalows and huts, etc., etc. The bourbon made me articulate and authoritative.

“You know, Hope, I never thought of that,” Roberta said, frowning, and going off into the night to the latrine.

Ian opened the front door for a moment to let some smoke out. Two moths took the opportunity to flutter in.

“To my knowledge,” Ian said, in a thin voice, “she hasn't smoked for three years. What's got into her?”

I decided it wasn't worth correcting him. Roberta's little secret was safe with me.

“Leave her alone, Ian,” I said. “She was enjoying herself, that's all. God, but she's not too fond of Ginga, though, is she?”

He wasn't listening. “She
was
relaxed, wasn't she…?” He said, as if surprised. He looked at me and gave me an apologetic smile.

“I only say that,” he explained, “because she's always been a little frightened of you.”

“Of
me
?”

“Oh, yes.” He gave an edgy laugh. “Aren't we all.”

I decided not to follow up this remark any further. I reflected on something Meredith had once told me; one of life's great verities, she had said: the
last
thing we ever learn about ourselves is our effect.

 

I slept well in the census hut, lulled by the bourbon, no doubt, and oblivious to the many rustlings, scurryings and crepitations that emanated from the farther reaches of the long room. The place was full of lizards, and something—I hoped it was a squirrel—was living in the ceiling space. Before I fell asleep I heard the tick and scratch of sharp claws on the plasterboard as it scampered to and fro, to and fro above my head.

I was wakened by João's knock at six in the morning. We went to the canteen for some tea and to collect my packed lunch. João said he hadn't seen Liceu for a few days—he was very upset at the sacking, and had gone away. I suggested that whenever he came back we should meet up.

As we crossed the Danube I broke the bad news to João about the loss of my field notes and journal.

“A whole year,” I said, ruefully. Now that I was heading out to work, the loss was suddenly painful. “We'll just have to start again.”

“Well, I don't think is necessary,” João said, trying not to smile. “I have my own notes. Plenty. Every night make Alda copy. For his training. You know he is not so good for writing.”

“From the time I came? Everything?”

“Just the daily journal.” He shrugged. “Of course, some days I am not with you.”

“But I was either with you, or Alda…and Alda has his notes?”

“Oh yes. I check him every night.”

I let the smile grow on my face. “I'll come and get them,” I said. “Tonight.”

“Of course.” He was very pleased with himself. “So nothing is waste.”

“What would I do without you, João?”

He laughed at me, averting his face and making a tight wheezing sound. I clapped him on the shoulder.

“Well done, João,” I said. “We're going to be famous.”

We came to a junction in the path. Back to work.

“All right,” I said. “Where do we start?”

“Ow.” João smacked a palm against his forehead. “I forgot. Lena and her baby, I saw her. She have a boy.”

“Let's go and find her.”

 

We found Lena at midday with a few other members of the southern group. They were resting in the shade of an ironwood tree. Lena was nursing her new baby and around her lounged Mr. Jeb, Conrad, and Rita-Lu. There was no sign of Clovis, Rita-Mae, Lester and Muffin.

João and I approached a little closer than usual, settling down only thirty feet or so from Lena. Her baby was almost hairless, and blue-black in color. Conrad was grooming Mr. Jeb, but I noticed from his regular glances toward Lena that he was clearly fascinated by the baby. Rita-Lu lay idly in the grass. She looked half asleep. I noticed a fresher pinkness on her rump and possibly some signs of swelling.

“We need a name,” João said softly, “for the baby.”

I thought for a while. “Bobo,” I said, finally. I had no idea why. João wrote it down on his record sheet: “Bobo, male, son of Lena.”

Conrad stopped grooming Mr. Jeb and slowly made his way over to Lena. She was leaning back against the trunk of the ironwood tree. Bobo clung feebly to the hair on her belly—through my binoculars I could see his tiny fists clutching tufts of fur—and sucked hungrily on her right nipple. Conrad moved closer, and Lena gave a small bark of warning.

Conrad sat down a few feet away and gazed at them both. Then, with Lena watching him intently, he reached forward very slowly across the gap between them and touched Bobo's back. I had always assumed that Clovis had impregnated Lena, but now I had a funny feeling that Conrad might be Bobo's father. Then Lena got up and moved away from him. I saw that the placenta was still hanging from her and the black loop of the umbilical cord was still connected to Bobo.

I shifted my position slightly and the noise I made caused Conrad to turn and look at me. With his white sclerotics, Conrad's gaze was always the most disturbing I had ever received from a chimpanzee. The whites around the brown iris made his eyes as
meaningful as any human's. I looked at his black muzzle, the wide thin slit of his mouth and his heavy brows…he always seemed to be frowning. Conrad, a rather solemn and dignified character, not given to displays of frivolity. He came toward me a few paces and made some pant-hoots. Then he sat down and stared at me for a full minute, unswervingly. I looked into his eyes for a second or two, and then turned away.

Then, in the distance, I heard more hooting and barking. The other chimps hooted in response. Soon a crashing of branches heralded Clovis's arrival, followed by Rita-Mae, Lester and Muffin. Like Conrad, Clovis was very curious about Bobo, but Lena would not let him come close, barking and grimacing and even, at one stage, climbing into the ironwood tree. Clovis gave up and moved away. However, when Rita-Mae approached, Lena was much less anxious, even going so far as to lay Bobo down in the grass. Rita-Mae peered closely at him, seemingly fascinated, and stroked him gently once or twice. Then Lena gathered him up and moved away again to the periphery of the group.

After resting in this way for a couple of hours the chimpanzees roused themselves and moved off northward, João and I following behind. They halted at a fig tree above the banks of the Danube, where the river cut a deep ravine through the foothills of the escarpment. We watched them feed for a while. I watched Rita-Lu repeatedly touching her genital area and sniffing at her finger. She was coming into season.

 

That evening I walked down the track into Sangui to collect all João and Alda's field notes. João had said that he hoped Liceu might be there.

João's house was one of the largest in the village, and one of the few to be made of concrete. He was sitting on the narrow veranda with a small baby on his knee. He told me this was his third granddaughter. I took the baby while he went to collect the papers. She was naked, fat, and almost asleep, drugged by her feed. She had small gold earrings in her long, soft lobes and around her hips was a string of tiny multicolored beads. Her belly button was a small hard dome, the size of a thimble. I stroked her hair and thought of Lena and Bobo.