A Treacherous Paradise (29 page)

He paused in the doorway.

‘If you decide to leave our town, I’m prepared to offer you a good price for this house. Can we say that I’m first in the queue if that’s the way things go? As a reward for the bit of help I’ve given you this morning?’

He didn’t wait for a reply, but left the building. She could hear his car starting in the street outside.

Carlos had crept into the room unnoticed, and was now sitting in his usual spot on top of the dark brown wardrobe that still contained Senhor Vaz’s clothes.

What exactly does he understand? Ana thought. Nothing? Or everything?

ANA TOOK A
horse-drawn cab down to the brothel. There she picked up Judas who accompanied her to the fort when the worst of the midday heat was over. She was always a little worried when she walked past the armed guards: perhaps the doors to the fort would close behind her? Judas was carrying the basket containing the food for Isabel. Judas suddenly began talking – a very rare occurrence.

‘I don’t understand,’ he said. ‘Why is Senhora Ana helping this woman who stabbed her husband?’

‘Because I know I might well have done the same thing myself.’

‘He should never have got involved with a black woman.’

‘Isn’t that what white men do every evening in my establishment?’

‘Not in the way that Senhor Pimenta did. He sired children with her, and recognized them as his own. That could only end in one way.’

They walked in the shadow to the low building where Indian vendors sat at their stalls smelling of foreign spices.

Ana paused and looked at Judas.

‘I’m going to keep on fighting until I’ve got Isabel out of prison,’ she said. ‘You can tell that to everybody you talk to.’

Commanding Officer Lima was standing on the steps to the building where the fort’s weapons were stored. He seemed to be bored stiff, and was rocking back and forth on his heels. On this occasion he simply waved her through without a word. Judas handed her the basket, then stood there motionless at the spot where she had left him. As usual, he waited for her in the scorching hot sunshine. Ana could hear that Lima was talking to one of the soldiers. About me, she thought. No doubt scornful comments about me.

Isabel was sitting on her rickety bunk. She said nothing, didn’t even look at Ana when she stepped into the murky cell. Despite the fact that Isabel smelled awful, Ana sat down beside her and took hold of her hand, which was very thin and cold.

Not a word was said. After a long silence, Ana took the empty basket from the previous day, and left the cell. As long as Isabel kept eating, there was still hope.

Two days later Ana took the train to Johannesburg. It was a journey she had never made before, and she would have liked to have a companion: but there was nobody she could trust among the whites she knew – at least, not in connection with the matter she hoped to resolve.

A horse-drawn cab took her to the house in the centre of town where the lawyer Pandre had his office. When she arrived, she was surprised to find that he was in – something she had hardly felt able to hope for. He even had time to speak to her, albeit for quite a short time before he had to attend a court proceeding.

Pandre was a middle-aged man, wearing Western clothes but with a turban lying on his desk. He was addressed as
munshi
by his male secretary, who was also Indian. He invited her to sit down, and Ana could see that he was curious to find out why a white woman would want to come and consult him, so far away from Lourenço Marques. His Portuguese was not fluent, but significantly better than Ana’s. When she asked if he spoke Shangana, he nodded – but gave no explanation of why he had bothered to learn one of the languages spoken by the blacks.

He listened intently while she told him about Isabel, and how she had killed Pedro Pimenta.

‘I need advice,’ she said in the end. ‘I need somebody to tell me how I can convince the Portuguese that she should be set free.’

Padre looked at her and nodded slowly.

‘Why?’ he asked. ‘Why should a white woman want to help a black woman who has landed in the worst possible of situations?’

‘Because I have to.’

‘You speak broken Portuguese. May I ask where you come from?’

‘Sweden.’

Pandre thought over her response for a while, then left the room and returned with a dented and stained globe in his hand.

‘The world’s a big place,’ he said. ‘Where is the country that you come from?’

‘There.’

‘I’ve heard about something called the Northern Lights,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘And that the sun never sets during the summer months.’

‘That’s true.’

‘We all come from somewhere,’ said Pandre. ‘I’m not going to ask you why you have come to Africa, but please tell me what you are doing in Lourenço Marques.’

During the long train journey she had made up her mind to tell the truth, no matter what questions were asked.

‘I run a brothel,’ she said. ‘It’s very successful. I inherited it from my husband. A lot of my customers come from Johannesburg. Just now there are thirteen women of various ages and various degrees of beauty in my brothel, so I can afford to pay for your services.’

‘What do you want me to do?’

‘Go to visit her. Get her to talk. And advise me what to do in order to have her set free.’

Pandre sat there in silence, slowly rotating the globe and pondering what she had said.

‘I shall charge you one hundred English pounds for my visit,’ he said eventually. ‘And I also have an extra request, bearing in mind the business you conduct.’

Ana understood without his needing to say anything more.

‘Of course,’ she said. ‘You will have access to the brothel whenever you feel like it. Gratis, naturally.’

Pandre stood up and looked at a clock hanging on the wall.

‘I’m sorry, but I have to go now,’ he said. ‘One of my clients, who I unfortunately failed to defend successfully, is due to be hanged in the municipal prison. He has requested that I should be present. It’s not something I’m going to enjoy doing, of course; but on the other hand, it doesn’t upset me all that much. Anyway, I take it that we have reached an agreement. I can pay a visit to your black woman next week.’

It required quite an effort on Ana’s part not to storm out of the room when the lawyer displayed such total indifference to the plight of a client who was about to be hanged. Just how would this man be able to help Isabel?

‘Is it a man who’s going to be hanged?’ she asked.

‘Of course it’s a man.’

‘Black?’

‘White. A poor man who could only afford an Indian lawyer to defend him.’

‘What had he done?’

‘He cut the throat of two women, a mother and daughter, in an attack of jealousy. Very brutal. It was obviously impossible to avoid the death penalty. Some accused can be saved, others can’t. And some don’t deserve to be saved. Unless we are intent on transforming human beings into beasts of prey.’

Pandre bowed, rang a bell and left the room. The obsequious secretary came in, and noted down her address in Lourenço Marques.

‘What does
munshi
mean?’ she asked.

‘The word means “a man who is a teacher” in Hindi. It is usually an honorary title. Herr Pandre is a wise man.’

‘But nevertheless his clients are hanged?’

The secretary flung out his arms as if he were regretting what he’d said.

‘That very rarely happens. Herr Pandre has a good reputation.’

‘Does he have any black clients?’

‘He never has had so far.’

‘Why not?’

‘The courts decide which lawyers will represent blacks. All blacks have to be defended by whites.’

‘Why?’

‘To avoid any suggestion of bias.’

‘I don’t understand that.’

‘Laws and jurisprudence are matters for specialists. Herr Pandre understands. As I said, he is a wise man.’

The following day she travelled back to Lourenço Marques. She had not forgotten the secretary’s words.

When she returned to the brothel Felicia informed her that somebody had placed a headless chicken on the steps outside the prison governor’s residence. An amateurish drawing of Isabel on a piece of brown wrapping paper from one of the Indian stalls had been attached to one of the chicken’s legs. It could only mean that a lynching might take place at any time.

The threat had become more menacing, more imminent. Things are closing in on me, Ana thought. Everywhere, everything.

AFTER HER TRIP
to Johannesburg Ana began spending more of her time in the brothel. Felicia, who was by now her only confidante, had told her that certain clients had suddenly begun to mistreat the women. Ana therefore wanted to be present among them as the men were hardly likely to try anything on in her presence. She could see immediately that the women were both surprised and grateful. On the other hand, if any of them treated a customer off-handedly or merely did the minimum necessary to satisfy his desires, Ana would immediately give the person concerned a telling-off. They were not allowed to use their treatment of clients as a way of taking revenge on those who wanted to harm Isabel.

One morning Ana gathered all the women together, along with Zé and Judas, and told them about her visit to Johannesburg and the meeting with Pandre. She didn’t say anything about the promise she had given him for the time being, but she could tell by the reaction she received that even if there was an element of surprise and astonishment, they were delighted to discover that Ana had not abandoned Isabel. While the whites in Lourenço Marques regarded her as a disgraceful criminal who had killed an innocent man, for the blacks she was not exactly a heroine – she had after all killed the father of her children – but a woman who had made a valiant attempt to rise out of her misery and offer some resistance.

Ana thought that was an appropriate description of Isabel’s fate: that she had risen up and offered some resistance. Even if she was now locked up in a cramped prison cell, guarded by menacing and often drunken soldiers, it was as if she had walked away from her plight and left behind all the white people who despised her.

That same day, a white man she had never seen before came to the brothel and asked for a job. It did happen from time to time that white men, often in a bad way thanks to a fever or alcohol, came to her asking for work. She had hitherto always sent them packing as they had nothing to offer her that could be of use.

But the man standing before her now made a different impression. He wasn’t dressed in shabby clothes, nor was he unwashed with a straggly beard. He introduced himself as O’Neill, and explained that he had worked as a bouncer in bars and brothels all over the world. He also produced a well-thumbed bundle of references from previous employers.

Ana had often wished she had a white bouncer in the brothel. Even if Judas and the other security guards did what they were supposed to do, she was never absolutely sure that they would react as she wanted them to.

She decided to employ O’Neill on trial for a few months. He seemed to be strong and radiated determination. She thought it would soon become clear if he was a person she could employ permanently.

Later on Ana had a conversation with Felicia under the jacaranda tree. It was evening by now. Felicia was waiting for one of her regular customers from Pretoria, a religious gentleman farmer who was always talking about his eleven children, and that the only reason he visited the brothel was that he no longer wanted to have sex with his wife because she was worn out after giving birth to all those children.

Ana asked her about Isabel’s family. There was so much she still didn’t know. It also surprised her that none of Isabel’s relations had been to see her in the fort. Ana was the only person who visited her, apart from Father Leopoldo who always did the rounds of those imprisoned there. Ana had been to the cathedral again to see him, and he told her that Isabel never spoke to him either. She kept it to herself, but that knowledge gave her a feeling of relief. She knew that she could well have become jealous if Isabel had chosen a priest to talk to.

Felicia was dressed in white, just as the gentleman farmer always wanted her to be.

‘I don’t know much,’ said Felicia. ‘Isabel’s sisters are looking after the children. She also has an elder brother called Moses. He works in the mines in Rand. He’ll no doubt come here as soon as he can. If he can.’

‘Are her parents still alive?’

‘They live in Beira. But the sisters have decided not to tell them anything about what has happened.’

‘Why not?’

Felicia shook her head.

‘Perhaps because they are afraid that the news would cause their parents such great grief that it kills them. They are old. Or maybe they don’t want them to be afraid that the whip would start lashing their shoulders as well. Everybody seems to be waiting for the brother who works in the mines.’

‘When will he come?’

‘Nobody knows. Neither when nor if he can come.’

Ana began talking about the headless bird that had been lying on the prison governor’s steps.

‘Who could have done that?’

Felicia drew back, as if Ana were accusing her of doing it.

‘I don’t mean that you did it, of course. But who would want to kill her? No white man would put a dead bird on a step as a warning. Surely it must have been somebody black?’

‘Or somebody who wanted to make it look that way.’

Ana realized that Felicia was right.

‘So you think it was a white man?’

‘Only a white person would want her to die.’

‘Why do you think she refuses to speak?’

‘Because she’s grieving.

‘Grieving?’

‘Grieving for the husband she was forced to kill.’

‘Because he had deceived her?’

‘She knows that all whites do that.’

‘Are you saying that all white people tell lies?’

‘Not to other whites. But to us.’

‘Do I tell lies?’

Felicia didn’t answer. She continued looking at Ana, didn’t turn her eyes away, but remained silent. So I shall have to answer the question myself, she thought. She’s making me decide. It’s my decision and nobody else’s.