No Other Life (15 page)

‘In the streets. Great excitements.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Our friend Jeannot. Broadcasts and demonstrations. Quite disturbing.’

I went into the masters’ common room and turned on both television and radio. The radio played funeral music and the television was running an American soap opera dubbed into French. I picked up the phone and rang the palace. The lines were busy. I kept redialling and after several minutes was put through to Pelardy.

‘How can I reach Jeannot? Is he in the palace?’

‘May I ask what it’s about, Father?’

‘I have news from Rome.’

‘Hold on. I’ll tell him.’

I waited. Another voice came on. ‘The President is leaving for Radio Libre in ten minutes’ time. Where are you?’

‘At the college residence.’

‘Hold on, please.’

After a further delay, the same voice said, ‘If you will wait outside the residence, a car will pick you up in about fifteen minutes’ time.’

I went down to the courtyard. It was growing dark. I could hear the sound of a radio playing in our garage. It switched off and Hyppolite came out, asking if I wanted to take the car.

‘No, no, I’m waiting for someone.’

‘It’s bad in the city,’ Hyppolite said. ‘The justice start. It start now.’

‘What do you mean?’

At that moment a horn sounded urgently in the street outside. A black Mercedes had drawn up at the entrance. Ti-Tomas, one of Jeannot’s self-appointed bodyguards, got out and waved to me. Mathieu Clément, Jeannot’s new press secretary, sat in the front seat beside the driver. When Ti-Tomas held open the door for me, I saw Jeannot in the back seat, hunched over a walkie-talkie. He did not look at me. He was listening intently to a garbled murmur from the walkie-talkie. He leaned forward and tapped Clément on the shoulder. ‘No, no. We have to go there.’

‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.

‘Trouble. We just heard it on the radio.’

As the car drove away from the residence I looked at Jeannot. His eyes were closed, his brow furrowed as though he were trying to remember or memorise something. We weaved through narrow streets and emerged in La Canebíre, the boulevard that winds down towards the seafront.

‘Where are we going?’ I asked, for it was clear that we were not driving in the direction of Radio Libre.

No one answered. We passed under the mouldering arches of the old exhibition grounds. Ahead, on a promontory overlooking the ocean, was the grey hulk of Fort Nöl, the great prison of Port Riche. Like all infamous prisons it was a place of legend, its name a register of terror. We were now in the narrow road that led to its gates. Ahead was a queue of slow-moving vehicles. At sight of them Jeannot slipped off his seat, crouching on the car floor. As we slowed to a crawl in the traffic, a siren started up behind us. A police car moved alongside, its warning lights flashing. The driver waved to Mathieu Clément and the police car moved in front of us, leading us out of the queue to the head of the line of traffic and straight up to the forbidding walls of the prison. There, a mass of people jostled each other, holding up banners, shouting slogans, beating long sticks together to make a din. Faces peered in at us. I leaned over Jeannot, shielding him from sight. As the main prison gates opened to admit us we moved past a double line of army vehicles in which sat soldiers armed with automatic weapons. Searchlights played on the high walls, then swept down to the demonstrators. Looking back, I caught sight of a banner, waving above the crowd.

où est caroline
?

In the courtyard, four officers, members of the Army’s general staff, saluted smartly as Jeannot stepped out of the car. A sergeant turned and ran inside the prison. Moments later, General Hemon, tall, heavily built, with close-cropped grey hair and military moustache, came out, accompanied by a thickset mulatto who was dressed in green combat fatigues and running shoes.

Jeannot looked at Mathieu Clément. ‘Who?’ he whispered.

‘The prison governor.’

Hemon, the governor, and Jeannot then walked a few paces away from the rest of us. Jeannot said something. The General shook his head. Jeannot spoke to the prison governor who nodded and signalled to a subordinate. Hemon abruptly walked away from Jeannot and paced up and down the courtyard alone, watched by his staff officers.

Outside the prison walls the din of protest continued. I looked back at the gates and saw that two vans from the national radio and television stations had been admitted into the courtyard. The television crew was setting up its equipment. Two women guards came from the interior of the prison. Between them, her hands manacled, was Caroline Lambert. She wore a short, grey prison dress with a convict number stencilled on her shoulder. Her long blonde hair, no longer coiffed or dyed, was streaked in its natural brown colour. She looked pale and ill, very different from the elegant person I had seen in photographs. But I was caught by her beauty. I saw her turn and look at Jeannot as though he were her executioner. Jeannot saw it too and went up to her, taking her hands in his as though she were an old and valued friend. It was a strange tableau: the grim courtyard, lit by prison searchlights; a small, youthful, black man holding the manacled hands of a tall, beautiful, mulatto girl.

‘I’m sorry, Madame,’ Jeannot said. ‘Believe me, I’ve disturbed you this evening only because I must. Some foreign radio station has issued a broadcast saying that you have escaped from prison. Of course it was done maliciously to excite our people and cause civil disturbances. So, I must ask for your help.’

He turned, went over to the governor and spoke to him. The governor signalled and at once the prison gates swung open. Seeing this, the crowd outside moved up to the entrance, shouting and beating sticks. Jeannot took Caroline Lambert’s arm, leading her forward as though this were some official ceremony. In the darkness, the crowd did not see Jeannot and Caroline until the prison searchlights swept down towards the interior of the courtyard.

Letting go of Caroline, Jeannot stepped into the harsh white glare. There was an instant tumult of cheering. He turned back, into the shadows, to lead Caroline into the blinding light. At once, the crowd became a huge angry animal, yelling her name, calling out obscenities, shaking fists and beating on their long sticks. The soldiers stationed just outside the gates stood up in their trucks, guns pointing at the shouting people. I saw Caroline flinch and move back into the shadows. Jeannot let her go. He moved into the centre of the circle made by the searchlight and held up his hands for silence. The shouting died.

Brothers and Sisters,

You know this woman,

You see her before you tonight.

It is not true that she has run away.

She is in our custody.

She is the wife of King Coke.

He gave her furs and jewels, he gave her riches.

Riches he made

From the misery of the poor.

And she helped him, yes, she helped him.

That is why she is here tonight.

We have courts which are the courts of the people.

Let these courts decide her punishment.

We must be just.

I am here tonight to enforce the law.

Why?

Because Someone greater than me has given me this task.

Jesus loved the poor.

He sacrificed His life for them.

As I would sacrifice my life for you.

We must be prepared to do as He did.

To sacrifice our lives for one and other,

Brothers and Sisters,

Do not be afraid.

We will come into our paradise, I promise you.

Look at this woman.

She is in our prison.

It was the prison of the dictator Doumergue,

The poor of Ganae died here.

They were tortured here,

They were shot and strangled here.

There were no trials in those days.

There was no such thing as justice.

Are we Doumerguists?

The crowd roared, ‘No!’

Then go home tonight in confidence.

This woman will not escape our justice.

She will be one of many.

You will have justice, I promise you.

And now I ask you, each and every one.

I ask you all,

Wherever you are watching,

Wherever you are listening.

I ask you to tell your friends.

Let us have no riots in our streets tonight.

Let no one steal the goods of others.

We are one!

We are the people and we are together.

Bless you, Brothers and Sisters.

Now, go in peace.

He moved out of the searchlight which swivelled and focused on the crowd at the open gates. The gates closed. The searchlight died, leaving the demonstrators in total darkness. The beating of sticks started up sporadically and voices called, ‘Jeannot! Jeannot!’ but the momentum of the cries diminished.

In the darkened courtyard Jeannot turned to General Hemon. ‘Are there reports of other demonstrations?’

‘It’s quieting down. At least, here in Port Riche.’

‘I will be in the palace tonight, if you need to reach me,’ Jeannot said. Hemon nodded and walked over to his staff car. At this point I was standing close to Jeannot. Caroline Lambert, flanked by her jailers, turned and came up to us. To my astonishment she spoke, not to Jeannot, but to me.

‘You are Father Paul Michel?’

‘Yes.’

‘I don’t know you, Father, but I have heard many people speak of you. Would it be possible for me to see you now, in private? That is, if the President will permit it?’

I looked at Jeannot, who said at once, ‘Of course, Madame. Paul, I must get back to the palace but I’ll send a car for you, so that you can join me later.’

He turned to Caroline Lambert. ‘Goodnight, Madame. Again, my thanks.’

Hemon’s staff car had already passed through the main gates. Jeannot’s aides waited by the black Mercedes as Jeannot shook hands with the prison governor. The Mercedes drove out into the night. The gates shut and, at a signal from the governor, the women warders led us through the prison doors. Inside, I at once smelled a special stench, a mixture of excrement and strong disinfectant. I followed Caroline Lambert down ill-lit corridors, past foul cells crowded with prisoners, who, when they saw her, became excited, yelling insults and threats even more vehement than the shouts of the mob outside the prison gates. Some made sexual gestures, others mimed throat-slitting, some howled at her like animals. Walking behind her I felt as though, unloosed from their bars, they would have massacred us both. Caroline Lambert ignored the tumult, walking steadily, staring straight ahead. The wardress unlocked a heavy iron door and we passed into a large hall whose filthy dining tables had recently been hosed down, then into a narrow corridor where there were cells shut off from outside view. An old turnkey, wearing a faded black-and-red cap which I recognised as the uniform cap of the prison service in Doumergue’s day, unlocked a small iron door which creaked eerily as he closed us in. I was now alone with Caroline Lambert, not in a cell but in a sort of interrogation room. There was an overhead light, a scarred wooden table and two chairs. In a corner were a pail of water and a bench on which lay a jumble of half-seen objects, including a rubber truncheon. Here, the noise of the prison was stilled. This was a room of silence.

I pulled out a chair for her and we sat facing each other. She was beautiful. As I looked at her I was filled with a strange resentment, an anger I had often felt in my youth when I realised that to young women I was a priest, something other than a male. I was ashamed of this prideful vanity and surprised that it had come back to me now, in the forty-seventh year of my life.

‘What is it you want to talk about, Madame?’

She glanced at the door, as though worried that we might be overheard. When she spoke it was in the accents of the Parisian upper classes for, like many of Ganae’s
gratin
, she had been educated in France. ‘People have told me about you,’ she said. ‘Simon Lamballe says you are a good man, not political, like Father Cantave. And Artemis Brun. I know he was a bad person but when he was put in prison you gave money from your own pocket to help his wife and you kept his son in your school. There are many stories about you, you know them better than I. They say that you are the one who keeps Cantave from doing terrible things.’

‘That’s not true. What is it you want?’

‘There is no reason you should help me.’ As she spoke, she ran her fingers distractedly through her long, dark-streaked and, I now saw, dirty hair. ‘I know how much I am hated. People all over my country have been told about my parties, the caviar I fed to my guests, the cases of champagne that were drunk in my house, while outside in the streets there is despair and AIDS and terrible poverty. I know that children die of hunger every day. It’s true, it’s true, but we have always had poverty in Ganae. Remember, Father, I didn’t choose my parents. I am a member of what your friend Cantave calls the elite. It was normal for me to have good clothes, luxuries, all of that. After all, my grandfather was president of this country. I married Alain Lambert, a man of my class, an officer in the Army. No one told me about this drug thing before I married him. I didn’t ask him about any of that. Never. It just wasn’t done. Of course I knew that he had money, lots of it. But in my circle, it’s understood that high officers in the Army have access to contracts, to all sorts of advantages. I am being punished not for what I did but for who I am. I am Alain Lambert’s wife. That’s my crime. And I am going to die because of it.’