My Chocolate Redeemer (23 page)

My grandmother is fast asleep. The door to my uncle's den is open. His telescope is not pointing at the sky, the moon is out, the light good and the magnification beautiful. What I see through the telescope is the deck of a yacht, on the lake. I know immediately that it's the
Minnie III
because I recognise the couple who move together like oil and shadows on her deck, I swear the image of them is so clear you can see her mouth open and I tell myself I hear her groan of pleasure. Now I know what Clovis saw and why he went back to the needle. My uncle's passion for astronomy has given Clovis a glimpse of uncharted universes.

‘Your uncle is searching the village. It is terrible! What did the cannibal want – did you find out?'

‘I think I know.'

‘Well?'

‘He wants me.'

‘But Bella, what could such a person want you for?'

Before I can begin to answer, Uncle Claude bursts in, his face mottled with rage, and stands grinding his teeth. ‘Please find him!' he cries to Duval. ‘Where is he? I must kill him! Nothing else will do.' He sees me and rushes over and drops to his knees. ‘Bella, you're his friend. Tell me where he is! I will give you chocolate, money, clothes, anything – find him so I can strangle him soon.'

‘Who do you want?'

‘The post boy, the cretin, the motorised idiot with the hoof!'

Everyone is mad.

‘Clovis?'

‘The assassin! The virus! The defective!'

‘What did he do?'

‘My flasks!' Uncle Claude's voice rises to a howl. ‘My formulas. Years and years and years of work. My solutions, my primordial soup! Gone, all gone, forever!'

‘He damaged it? Knocked it over?'

He shakes his head. ‘He drank it!'

Chapter 10

The dark lake opens its mouth. Lap, lick, a gulp and we're gone! The invisible one beside me, black on black, coalhatch man, king of the caramel islands, snuffles in delight as he slips aboard and we head out.

‘Keep as low as possible. I'll do the paddling.'

The watchers sit in their cars and do not sleep, I can tell by the little glow from their dashboards. Ever alert, but looking the wrong way. I didn't expect any more of a break than this and that's why I've laid my plan so carefully, manoeuvring the paddle boat silently alongside the
plage privée
. Number 66, stolen earlier in the day from old Leclerc the boatman and moored around the headland which juts out into the lake. Into the waterproof tanks of number 66 I have introduced several small holes with the help of Uncle Claude's drill, though I have never been one for do-it-yourself. These punctures are sealed with patches of rubber from my bicycle-tyre repair kit. At eleven o'clock I left the house and walked to the little beach where the paddle boat waited under the headland from which the divers plunged into the lake, some never to surface again.

At three minutes before two, on the
plage privée
of the Priory Hotel, he is waiting for me, a bag over his shoulder, his shoes slung around his neck, his trousers rolled, one of Uncle Claude's precious black holes of such gravitational power that not even light can escape from it, and with one hand on the jetty he kneels down, pulls me alongside and then he's aboard.

We must be at least a hundred metres out now, passing the lovely lawns of the restaurant
Les Dents Sacrés
, rounding the jetty where the ferries pick up their passengers for trips upon the lake. The guest, or prisoner, of the Priory Hotel has been sprung, there is no way we can be followed and little chance that our pursuers can organise a boat at this time of night to give chase.

‘Wonderful idea – escape by water! I am remembering my flight from the presidential palace, down the river Zan, away from the city of Waq, also by night and by water, in a dug-out. Praise be the memory of your papa! You are his own true daughter.'

‘You smelt of fish for days.'

‘Yes! And the Wouff do not eat fish.'

‘Why's that?'

‘Because we believe fish to be the children born of the marriage of rocks and rivers. And the Wouff do not eat the fruit of the gods. Unlike some people I could mention.' He grunts sarcastically. ‘Like the Ite, who make it a practice to eat their gods. It's part of their religion. But we are very careful about what we eat.'

‘Or whom you eat, I suppose?'

I can feel him stiffen beside me, what was warm velvet turns to coal. Then the moment passes and he is all delight again. I'm wearing black velvet trousers and black silk blouse, and my pendant is tucked inside my blouse lest moonlight strike it. But there is no moon tonight.

Once past the restaurant I steer for the shore and beach the craft. I push him out, drag the boat back into about five feet of water and remove the rubber patches from her floats. She sinks without a whimper, bedding down in the water as her floats fill, with a sideways shuffling motion like a fat woman settling herself on a crowded bus seat.

‘Why drown the boat?' He is distressed.

‘Because to leave her here on the shore is to allow them to work out where we landed and maybe even guess where we're headed.'

‘Sure, sure.' He gives this great big sigh, the kind of sigh, I am beginning to think, in which there is more air than feeling. ‘So the little ship must be sacrificed in the cause of freedom. Sad but true.'

Almost more unnerving than his attachment to inanimate objects is his willingness to ‘sacrifice' for the sake of freedom. Freedom seems to mean letting him do something he wants, and to invite sympathy for the suffering this causes him. What makes a monster are little human touches. This results in the clashing emotions you feel when you hear about the hangman's tennis elbow, or the janitor who complains about his back while having to gather up the victims' teeth or the charlady with asthma who has to swab away the blood … How many died for freedom? Died, were cooked and dished up, maybe with rice? Am I the wrong person to be taking Monsieur Brown out and about in the world? Maybe it should really have been my Uncle Claude, who takes a fairly unsentimental view of things, up to a point. He's also really big on unexpected titbits, unorthodox cuisine, maybe he and Monsieur Brown would have got along a lot better than they think? Maybe they could have talked menus?

He snaps his fingers. ‘Do you think this is how she ended – the other little boat,
La Belle Indifférente
? I'm thinking perhaps that she gave her life to let someone escape. Important personages. Even lovers, perhaps?'

‘Who knows? Now you must stick very close behind me because I'm going to take you home through the lanes and backstreets.'

‘Home through the lanes and backstreets,' the darkness beside me sighs. ‘I'll stick closer to you than your shadow; lead on, kindly light!'

And he follows in my wake, lumbering along, snuffling happily in the night, barefoot, all the way home, through the dark lanes overhung with clematis and bougainvillaea. I realise now why his shoes make such a difference. Something that's niggled at me ever since we went sailing together. Without them he's shorter than I am. Monsieur Brown wears platform heels.

So tell me then, did he who made the lamb make thee? Did he who made little Bella, just fifteen, though somewhat developed for her age, with a weakness for chocolate, questions, rather inferior heavy-metal rock and a soft spot for oppressed tyrants and beleaguered monsters who come her way, also make Monsieur Brown? And cannibals, murderers and corrupters of persons innumerable? I mean, just who is in charge around here? No, on second thoughts, perhaps you'd better not answer that.

‘We are in your house?'

‘Yes. We must be very, very quiet. Perhaps talk into my ear.'

‘We are in your very room?' His whisper lifts a tendril of hair on my forehead.

‘Yes.'

‘Where can I put my bag?'

I open my cupboard. He catches my eye.

‘It's a change of clothes. Are there others in the house?'

‘My Uncle Claude. He's asleep above us. My grandmother's in the bedroom below. She's not well. Perhaps even dying. At one stage they thought she would die before the rally, but I know she won't do that. Tomorrow morning at twelve the leader of the
Parti National Populaire
steps onto the platform. Hundreds of people are expected. Everyone will have their eyes on Monsieur Cherubini, the leader, down there.' I open my curtains. ‘Look. But stand back from the window.'

‘Slogans!' He claps his hands. ‘Beautiful!'

‘Please – no noise!' I switch on the little reading light above my bed.'

Below us the town square waits for the triumphant entry of the Angel and all his hosts, lit by the lamps left on overnight. Everything is ready: the platform with its flags and bunting; the lectern and the microphone. Rows of empty chairs face us, happy to receive the faithful, the banner is proud of its golden legend:
liberty, family, fatherland
. And on every available streetlamp, spike, rooftop and railing the initials of the Party,
pnp
, also in gold, with the Ps slashed with silver crosses, a design said to be inspired by the sacred symbols on Father Duval's Parisian vestments.

‘I love a good slogan,' he says. ‘I had lots but one of my favourites, I remember, was
motherhood, mirth, majesty
. It worked for a time, at least until Tympany tired of it, and we found another. Uncle Dickie's drive for independence made for some dull slogans. He favoured:
viva marxist leninism
! But of course this meant nothing to the masses, only an aristocrat would think it could. But I can't be cruel. To my Uncle Dickie, God rest his souls, we owe our successful struggle for independence. Oh yes, it was just after the war when the imperial powers still felt that they were in the driving seat for an unforeseeable period. Such was the cloudy optimism of the colonialists they thought they could go on exporting our diamonds and cocoa slaves forever, and so, when my uncle rose up against them, with his New Freedom Party, they were, well, I suppose they were out for coffee. At any rate, they didn't know what was happening.'

‘Was it – very violent?'

‘Bless you, my dear, of course it was! We weren't making our First Communions, you know. It started off quietly enough with Uncle Dickie going around the slums of Waq rousing the rabble. Again, it takes an aristocrat to really stir things up. Next thing we knew, windows were being broken, cars overturned, government offices set on fire. The fire engines came to put out the fires and we slashed through the hoses with cutlasses.'

‘Like pirates!'

‘Exactly. The colonial powers really knew things were on the hop when they saw us with our cutlasses slashing the fire-hoses. Until then fire engines were for attacking fires. When they saw the people preferring fires to fire engines, our masters went pale. The leaders of our rebellion carried the fight to the government. We broadened our appeal among the people and changed the name of Uncle Dickie's Freedom Party to the Party of National Salvation. A modest suggestion of mine, I remember. Uncle was wonderful. Everyone was for salvation. He went about the city making speeches, he was smart, Western-educated, a superior public performer, full of rhetoric and beautiful gestures. And a linguist. When he went to speak to the people it was in their own language, in the vernacular. He never used English or French. Under his direction we all began to do it, to speak in our own tongues. Or to yell in the vernacular. Well, the Wouff yelled, the Kanga muttered and the Ite mumbled. Do you get the picture? This terrified the government. I remember a little clerk named Fabrice running out of Government House screaming: “Speak French, you swine, speak French!” Oh happy days, I can tell you. And we had our different youth groups. I was in the Wouff group, of course, and we were called the Action Troopers. The Kanga formed the Action Groupers and we fought the government forces. Sometimes we fought each other.'

‘What about the Ite?'

‘The Ite made a lot of money by selling flags and badges with the Party insignia. Six months later we had a new constitution, and our independence.'

‘Was that the constitution you drove a Lagonda through?'

‘Yes, later. When it went rotten. The government ministers were soaking up public cash, housing ministers were taking ten per cent on contracts and cheating their own civil servants. I abolished all that. And them. But back in the early hours of our independence my uncle wished us simply to be free. Free black Anglo-Frenchmen he thought us. Western and superior. He wanted us to be free citizens of the Republic of Zanj. Later we saw that it needed a stronger broom than my uncle and I was that broom in the hands of destiny. And so it was that the old order gave way to the new. Not that I spat on the old verities, or deliberately offended cherished beliefs. Nothing could be further from the truth! I did my best to respect the customs of others. With each wife I married I embraced a new religion. And then there was our flag which incorporated the sacred rocks of the Wouff, the Crescent for the Kanga and the Cross for the Ite. And we always sang “Lead Kindly Light” at my political rallies.

‘Motherhood, Mirth, Majesty! Ah yes …' He comes away from the window muttering sadly, wrapped in memories of former days. ‘We didn't have banners as glorious as those of your uncle and his Angel, made from such rich stuffs, but then we are a developing country.'

I draw the curtains and sit him down on my bed. My room is very plain, I have a long pink counterpane on my bed and pictures of Papa, suave and smiling on the wall. Mama is here too, as Miss Torquay 1967. But there is little else except the silver trunk which used to stand underneath my bed and which is now beneath the window. Cupboards to hold my clothes and rack upon rack of cassettes like dark giraffe stripes across the silver chevrons of my wallpaper. I get the feeling he's becoming rather emotional. I hope he's not going to cry. There really is nothing worse than a weeping Redeemer, a tearful monster. I raid the silver trunk and the sight of the chocolate cheers him up.

‘We'll have something to eat.'

‘You've put bricks under the legs of your bed.'

‘Yes. To protect me against the spirits you told me about.'

‘Very sensible. Those little devils get everywhere. As you know, I had it done the moment I entered the Priory. I had those useless bumboys belonging to the owner go out and forage bricks for me. You should have heard them complain! You'd think I'd asked them to build the Cathedral of Reims! Is your uncle still sleeping on silver paper?'

‘Yes.'

‘The world is full of ignorance. And helpless superstition. A man sleeps on silver paper and moves the furniture around. This place is full of savages. Now tell me: is this my hiding place? Very well, where do you want me to sleep?'

I point to the space under my bed.

He laughs.

‘With my bed up on bricks there's plenty of room. I've moved my trunk. I usually hide the trunk under my bed – it's for my chocolates. And my money. You'll be safe here, out of sight. But please be very quiet. My uncle has the rather worrying habit of putting his head round the door.'

‘You above, me below?'

‘You'll be quite invisible. Somebody could walk right up to my bed and never see you.' I lift the pink bedspread that reaches to the floor and show him the second bed that I have made underneath mine.

‘A double storey!'

‘And in the morning you'll have a fine view from this window. Only don't come too close or you might be spotted. As soon as the people are in the square and the rally's underway, you creep downstairs – and disappear!' I reach over and turn off the light above my bed.