My Chocolate Redeemer (16 page)

‘Come and look here,' my uncle commands. ‘See, Bella, we've found a meteor shower.'

Through the telescope I can see the skittering, glancing fuzz of lights which seem to be falling directly out of the black heavens and into the lake looking for all the world like a fireworks display, they could be shooting rockets through the roof of the Priory Hotel.

‘The medievals held comets to be the smoke of sin,' Father Duval giggles.

‘The ancients had a bewildering variety of explanations for meteorites,' my Uncle Claude explains. ‘The Greeks thought that they looked like flowing hair, and they reminded the Arabs of flaming swords. They were blamed for everything from wars to weather. When they appeared people panicked. When the great comet of 1466, which was really Halley's Comet, returned, all Europe was terrified. But I think I like most of all the English philosopher Hume's belief in them as a kind of cosmic sperm, a stellar fertilisation programme. In fact, in a way, he might have been correct. As you know there are many theories about the origins of life on earth. I am a meteorite man.'

‘It makes such a pretty show above the Priory Hotel,' I tell them.

‘I think we'll call on the owner tonight,' the Angel remarks. ‘As a leading member of the community I think André owes it to us to tell us anything he knows about his new guest.'

‘We should take something with us,' Father Duval suggests. ‘It would look natural if we expressed our interest by showing hospitality.'

‘A very good idea,' says Uncle Claude, the meteorite man. ‘As Mayor of La Frisette I will present him with free tickets for a ferry ride on the Lake.'

‘And I will give him a bottle of
pineau
,' says the Angel. ‘And a little piece of glass from Lyons. Bought in the same shop which your Mama remembers with such affection.'

‘And I will offer my blessing,' Father Duval smiles. ‘From the sounds of things he might need it.'

A little later I hear them setting off in search of André's guest. They don't walk the five minutes down the little hill to the lakeside, they travel instead in the Angel's big Mercedes.

Chapter 7

André is standing behind the reception desk with Tertius, who is dressed in lemon – a colour that does not suit him. André's pink shirt is creased, his eyes bloodshot. The deputation of the night before has terrified him. Before long I know that this is what they wanted. When he had told his visitors that his guest was seeing no one they attempted to pass on to him their gifts: the bottle of
pineau
from the Angel, my uncle's complimentary ferry tickets, and Father Duval's blessing. But it's the little piece of glass that seems to have upset André most.

‘With its long thin neck, intended for a single flower, no doubt. But would have done as well for an arrow to pierce my heart. It comes from a little shop in the Cours de Verdun. Simply a little vase, of Venetian crystal. Bought with a purpose. Monsieur Cherubini was careful to point out where it came from.'

‘I know. They told me. The shop near the railway station entrance.'

‘Two doors away. When my guest refused to see them – they forced these gifts on me. What could I do? Order the man to meet them?'

‘But why should it upset you so?'

‘The little shop was near my father's offices, of which I have told you, Bella. Though I have not told you all, by any means. It was a warning. They're moving in.'

‘Like a dead cat through the window,' says Tertius unhelpfully.

I want to say, ‘You haven't told me anything,' but I'm put off by the boy Tertius, who stands grinning. It's a horrid smile, curved downwards, flat and thin, a potato peeling of a smile. So all I ask is: ‘Near your father's offices? When he was a stockbroker, in Lyons?'

The smile on the face of Tertius changes into the sort of snagged toothed smile they carve in pumpkins at Halloween. ‘Stockbroker! That's rich!'

It's clear to me that Tertius is pretending to be the reception clerk today. André, with a sad distracted look, fondles Tertius' shoulder and then his neck, as if tenderness will silence him.

‘I have never said that we traded in shares in the city but only that we had offices in Lyons.'

He's stroking Tertius' cheek now. I don't know if he hopes that this will shut him up or calm him down or make him fall asleep. He seems quite unaware of the fact that the sight of the hotel manager fondling the desk clerk is new to me.

‘I've come to see Monsieur Brown.'

‘You may not see him without permission,' Tertius announces pompously.

‘Whose permission?'

He thinks this over. ‘His permission.'

‘Tertius has told me that he intends to become a hotel manager,' says André with paternal delight. ‘I'm planning more of this on-site training for him. It's an ambition on his part that makes me very happy.'

‘They wandered up to the door late last night. The lords of La Frisette – your uncle, the mayor, the
patron
and the boat-boy – and demanded to meet the black chap,' says Tertius, ‘like they owned the place. So poor André trots upstairs and tells him, and d'you know what? – he told André to throw them out! There's a head-on clash coming, Bella – don't you think?'

‘He won't see anyone without an appointment. Best run along home, Bella.' André shrugs. ‘I'm sorry.'

‘I'm invited to tea. I'm expected.'

‘Is that why you're dressed in those funny clothes? You look like a squaw.' Tertius ogles me while André goes upstairs to check. I can tell by his slow tread that he does not believe me. Tertius lounges.

He's such a little prick, is Tertius.

‘That's because I am a squaw.'

I am wearing a black-and-white print blouse, a black string tie, with a medallion showing the head of Chief Sitting Bull, in onyx on a silver ground. The medallion is pinned at my throat, threaded through the print blouse on a long and beautiful pin. I also wear a black bandana. The Indian look. Give me an occasion and I dress for it and I have an idea that this will be an occasion, so I have done my hair carefully and it is wild! It took me hours last night, first with curlers and then, afterwards, the somewhat unruly coils wrapped tight around a finger and clipped to the scalp while I slept, and then in the morning because it was, well, more
mad
than wild, I compromised with a wide-toothed afro-comb to soften it slightly. Very slightly.

André comes scampering downstairs, the cracks of concern widening on his eggy face.

‘Well, it seems you are expected, Bella. You can go up.'

‘Be careful,' Tertius warns. ‘We call him the cannibal in the attic.'

‘The attitude of the boy towards our guest is one of camaraderie,' says André apologetically.

‘Go suck yourself,' I tell Tertius and sweep upstairs.

‘Room twenty-two,' André calls after me.

The long gallery where the monks once lived as close neighbours in their little cells is built in two tiers, lines of little rooms like kennels or chicken coops, but it's a lovely, dark and wooden space. Number twenty-two looks like all the other rooms, twenty-four in all, each with a dark oak door, a wooden hook where perhaps the monk hung a cloak or cowl which he doffed before entering his cell. The whole place creaks like a ship.

He answers my knock immediately, as if he has been waiting. ‘How delightful to see you, my dear Bella. Shall we stretch our legs, as the English say, before taking tea?'

A monk's cell is spartan, even if you add a few touches of comfort, and André has added hardly any. The little room contains no more than a bed, covered in a stern white counterpane, a little green chaise longue, a fireplace, table and washbasin. The curtains are new, pink and floral, but that's the only gentleness.

At first I think he's suggesting we take a stroll along the lakeside or potter about the garden but instead he intends us to walk around the gallery. We walk in silence, passing ancient oils of popes and cardinals which stare down from dark wooden walls with sad yellow faces. They have the painted concrete immobility of garden gnomes. We promenade creakily, our footsteps echoing in the chamber. Monsieur Brown wears a blue-grey woollen suit the colour of cigarette smoke and his black shoes are pointed and highly polished. He is a vision of shining elegance, his shirt cuffs protrude an inch or two and have the crispness of communion wafers. In the gloom his heavy, round face with its black glasses and full lips is aloof and relaxed. I can't help noticing how his neck rises from his perfect collar, like a column of pure – well, what can I say? – chocolate! No, cocoa-butter! In the shadows he is solid, silent and shorter than I remember him, pure Bourneville, utter Nestlé, simply Suchard from nose to toe, the lines of his jowls and chin etched as if newly cast from a mould, as if I am seeing the face just before it is wrapped in silver paper to be sent off to delight children, a walking, talking chocolate troll … a most lickable fellow …

‘I don't want to go downstairs. Forgive me, it's not my policy to mix with the other guests. The natives here are curious but they will have to contain their curiosity. I'd have been happier if the hotel had been cleared entirely before my arrival. Sadly the owner wouldn't agree. I suppose we have to get used to a world where tradesmen put profit before affairs of state, and the security of the state. Besides, what we have to say is between us, alone.'

‘Why are you here, Monsieur Brown?'

He laughs, a dark and milky sound. ‘Monsieur Brown! Is that what they call me?'

‘You don't like it? I thought that's what you said – Brown, or was it Boon, or Bane – or even Brain?'

‘It doesn't matter. If that's your name for me, then that's the name I answer to – Brown!'

‘Why are you here?'

‘Ah, that comes later.'

‘Tell me about my father.'

He put his hand on my arm. ‘My poor child – you hope he might be alive still, don't you?'

‘Yes, I hope that.'

‘You mustn't. You must face the fact that your father is dead. I am here to bring you messages from beyond the grave. I am – how does the saying go? – being brutal only to be kind.'

‘I think you mean cruel to be kind.'

‘No. Brutal. Your father was killed by the banditry. Dissident elements who put their military ambitions above the good of my country, overthrew its elected and traditional representatives, let loose such a reign of terror that mothers' milk dried in their breasts and babies died before they could call down vengeance on their murderers!'

‘Who are the bandits?'

‘To answer that I must tell you something more of the history of my country, up until the time of the insurrection which brought ruin on us all. The country of Zanj is poor but, as they say in the old song, it is honest. I've explained a little about our three main tribal groupings: firstly, the Wouff, which is my tribe, they're animists, they worship the sacred stones of their fathers. The Christian Ite are a sad disappointment to me, a milky, soppy, preachy congregation of hypocrites, but my countrymen right or wrong, as the old saying goes, and a group I have struggled mightily to save from their own weakness and stupidity. And finally there are the Kanga, Moslems who go in for a good deal of bowing and scraping to Mecca, then put a knife in your back when the praying is over. But enough. I am not here to condemn, I am here to explain. The Wouff are the smallest of the tribes, but being clean and brave, they have generally provided the soldiers of Zanj, and its rulers, from the time of the ancestors. Inhabiting the central highlands, the Wouff are a proud, fierce people, the Spartans of Africa they are called. Perhaps you have heard the expression? No? Well, I can tell you, that if you go anywhere in our part of Africa and ask after the Wouff, you will be told they're Spartans, real Spartans. And this is the tribe to which I have the privilege of belonging. This little band with its great responsibilities, which they have never complained about, which they have borne however great the weight, like a stack of firewood. It is the Wouff who have intervened to save the Ite from attacks by the Kanga during religious riots. The Ite are southerners, supplicant yet greedy, merchants, shopkeepers and traders. They control the markets in which the Kanga must sell their produce and because the Kanga are subsistence farmers and herdsmen in the inhospitable north of our country, the Ite exploit them. And so the Kanga turn on the Ite for strangling prices and throwing farmers a pittance, they fall on the Ite with spears and rifles, and when this happens it is the Wouff who must step between them – brave, uncomplaining, alert! You can picture it, I feel sure.'

I'd like to say that I can picture it, that I can see in my mind's eye the strange country of Zanj with its warring tribes, its brave Wouff, soft Ite and sullen Kanga, its sacred stones and its strangled prices. But I don't, I see nothing of it. I don't even see my father, dead in some unmarked grave, somewhere in Africa. I simply see the black bulky figure of Monsieur Brown frowning at me in the gloom and holding up five fingers in front of his face, all of them exactly the same width, dark, tubular fingers, inches from my face, fingers from which the rings always slip, fingers which the gloves cover and which his subjects press to their lips.

‘You will be amazed to hear, no doubt, that you see before you the ruler for life of Zanj. Let me explain my elevation to that position. My enemies will tell you that I claim to be king or emperor. Lies! Five times I refused the offer, five times I turned aside the proffered crown, five times I put by the laurel wreath until at last my people forced me to face my responsibilities and accept their command, not to become king or emperor, but something far more modest, more in keeping with the tribal traditions of Zanj – I became, by popular acclamation, the Redeemer! I can tell you it was a golden afternoon, it was a love feast, it was a happy time of the sort you people in Europe are said to have enjoyed before the Great War. It was at this time that your father became my friend. More than a friend, he was aide, confidant, counsellor, the only man who was permitted to approach the Leopard Throne with his eyes open, all others having to enter on their knees with their eyes closed, guided solely by the sound of my breathing, which you will notice is not excessively loud.'

And it's true. It isn't excessively loud. It's more of a soft, sighing sound like the wind across sand, soothing and rather lonely. Now that he's stopped walking and stands so stock still, and behind him the windows are filled with the brightest blue, he looks as if he were part of a giant picture someone has hung there at the end of the hall. And so I stand listening to his breathing and he stands holding up his five fingers and somehow I know that we're going to be friends, me and this fat, black ugly man who stands so still he might have set solid.

‘I like your black headband. You're a young widow, perhaps?'

‘It's supposed to be the Indian squaw look.'

‘You enjoy dressing?'

‘Not especially. But you know what bodies are. Your own and others.'

‘Never there when you want them?'

‘Yes. Grandmama says Marshal Pétain made France the gift of his person – he was personally present in the gift, like God in the communion wafer.'

He snaps his fingers. ‘That's not so unusual. I've made my people the gift of my person many times. In return, many people have made me the gift of their … persons.'

‘Well, I don't feel sure enough to start giving away my – person … My body sometimes feels like it's working loose, floating off. So I keep checking in the mirror. I'm always hoping to find somebody worth dressing.'

‘Who?'

‘Me.'

He looks at me closely. Now Monsieur Brown has his looks, the panoramic, the aerial, the microscopic, the spy satellite capable of zooming in and focussing on the smallest detail. It's my pendant, the blue diamond my father gave to me. And he gives it the look of a lawyer and a lover, it's a tender, almost dewy-eyed stare. Instinctively, I reach up and put my fingers around it. It's all I have from Papa, the rest they took away, the shoehorn men in the government, our home, Mama's jewels, everything, including my Bapuna mask.