The Drifters (91 page)

Apart from his fortunate education, Afonso was a man of unusual abilities, for he possessed the gift of charismatic leadership and a clear perception of where he and his people stood in history. He was also an honest man, brave in battle, and with a keen sense of strategy. He was, in short, the finest leader that the black people of Africa were to produce over a five-hundred-year period, and if ever the African Negro had a chance to establish a secure position vis-à-vis Europe, it was through Afonso; his letters to the King of Portugal in Lisbon were documents of prime historical importance, for in them he asked not for cannon or gold but for teachers and priests who would show his black subjects how to govern themselves.

When Cato reached this point in the history he felt that he had to share his discovery with the others, so he asked Hajj’ if he might take the book to the pop-top, but when he got there, a little boy told him, ‘They go Bar Africa,’ so he joined them, and under the awning, while the fan droned noisily, disturbing the air hardly at all, he read them portions of the record. His white listeners were impressed, and Monica said, ‘I never heard of this man.’ Nor had the others.

It was Gretchen who introduced the subject that would occupy them for several hours: ‘If black people comprise such an important segment of the world population, and especially if they are so crucial to the United States right now, why don’t we study about men like King Afonso? At college I had a course in Belgium history. How big is Belgium? I don’t know, eight or nine million people? Maybe a third as many people as we have Negroes in the United States. Yet it’s academically respectable to have a course in Belgian history because Belgium happens to be white and a part of Europe. But it would be ridiculous to have a course in Congo history, even though the Congo has one and a half times the population of Belgium, because it’s black and is not a part of Europe. Crazy world.’

‘That’s it!’ Cato cried with some excitement. ‘That’s
why we blacks demand that we be given courses in black history. God knows it’s more important to the world today than Belgian history. And for America it’s fantastically more important.’

Gretchen had a subtle point: ‘I don’t agree with you, Cato, that only blacks should be given the course in black history. It’s us whites who ought to take it … so that we can see you and ourselves in different perspective.’

But shrewd Monica saw the flaw in this argument: ‘You can rationalize all you wish, and you can daydream about what might have happened, but the cold fact remains that the history of the world is and apparently always will be the history of what white men have accomplished. The history of Belgium is at least fifty times as significant as the history of the Congo if only because Jan van Eyck invented oil painting there and Maurice Maeterlinck wrote his books. When somebody in the Congo accomplishes something like that, it’ll be worth our while to study how his culture enabled him to do so. Until then …’

Cato grew angry, and demanded, ‘What about the Benin sculptures?’ and Monica, who had heard this question a hundred times in Vwarda and London, snapped, ‘What about the giant heads on Easter Island? Do they make history? Does one lucky break build a culture? You saw the cultural history of Africa … when that commission came down to talk with Sir Victor … then went back and slaughtered his wife. That’s Africa.’

Cato said, ‘I happen to think that tribal groups murdering a white woman in Vwarda is neither better nor worse than Protestants slaughtering Catholics in Ireland. Neither country is fit to govern itself, but we’re stuck with both of them.’

Gretchen, always unhappy when Cato and Monica argued, tried to conciliate their points of view by asking, ‘What happened to King Afonso?’ and Cato replied, ‘I haven’t got to that part yet,’ and Monica said, ‘Pounds to sixpence he sold his people out.’ When Joe told me of the argument later, I asked what part he had played, and he said, ‘I sat there nursing a beer, listening and trying to decide what I thought.’ I asked him what he had concluded, and he said, ‘Like on so many things, I was mostly confused.’

When Cato returned with the book to Hajj’s veranda, he settled down to follow the history of Afonso I, and as
he read, a grief of great magnitude enveloped him as he learned how Afonso’s reign had ended in disaster. The missionaries that Portugal sent to help him found that they could make a fortune by rounding up slaves for European ships that were starting to anchor at the mouth of the Congo; the first of the terrible chain gangs leading from the interior to the beach were shepherded by priests. Traders who were to guide the king became buccaneers waging war against him. White counselors who were supposed to help bring the Congo into the concert of nations perverted everything they touched and defeated each effort of the king to civilize his domain. Worst of all, the Portuguese who had opened the kingdom to trade and Christianity saw quickly that it was not to their interest to have the area governed by a strong central power, so they supported any insurgency that came along and initiated their own when native rebellions flagged. Afonso’s attempts at leadership were frustrated. Savages who stood to gain a little gold by selling other savages in slavery were encouraged to overthrow the king, and in the end, betrayed by the God he had accepted, by that God’s representatives, by his tutors the Portuguese, and by his own people, he fled his homeland, unable to comprehend the collapse that had engulfed him.

Cato closed the book, and when Hajj’ asked him a question about it, he merely stared at the tall saint and walked out into the evening cool. Without seeing the people who passed him on the boulevard, he wandered toward the fort and came to that attractive plaza which stood between the sea and the governor’s palace, and there he saw the familiar statue of Vasco da Gama looking toward India, with the inscription which Cato had always disliked but which now infuriated him:

VASCO
DA
GAMA
1469–1524
Descobriador
de
Moçambique
en
1496

‘Just like the arrogant bastards,’ he muttered to himself, thinking not of the Portuguese but of all white men. ‘They
stumble upon this island in 1496 and announce to the world that they’ve discovered it. The damned thing had been known by Arabs for a thousand years and by blacks for two thousand years. But until white men got here it didn’t exist. When they set their sacred feet ashore it became a part of the known world. Known to whom? Goddammit, the Queen of Sheba knew this island. Regular boats were sailing from here to Arabia when Portugal was still a pigpen.’

He stared at the metal explorer and cursed him: ‘A savage murderer, that’s what he was. That’s what they all were.’ And then, as he stood on this historic spot, where trading ships had tied to the shore for two thousand years, he seemed to see in the shadows the endless procession of slaves, reaching back to the beginning of time, shuffling silently from jungle to barracoon to ship. Among those naked women heading for the slave markets in Lisbon or Pernambuco or Charleston was one who could have been his great-great-great-great-grandmother. Among the men, weighted with wooden yokes, walked his spiritual father, and over all the passage there was a smell of death.

He covered his face with his hands, as if he were ashamed to have the white captains of the slave ships see him weep; his anguish was deep. But then his pride took over. Wheeling away from the shore and its hideous scene, he faced the metal statue and in a loud voice, shouted, ‘Fuck you, Vasco da Gama.’

And then one day the letters arrived! In Lourenço Marques, in Beira and here on the island, Gretchen had gone often—but in vain—to the poste restante; finally, this day, there was a batch of mail sent north by the young man from the consulate. There was a letter from her mother and one from a former escort, both of which she tucked into her handbag. With joy she saw that Yigal had written to Cato, from Detroit, and that Mr. Holt had written to Joe, from Lausanne, and it required much self-restraint to keep from ripping open the envelopes, so eager was she to know what was happening to her friends. But what pleased her most was a letter addressed to her, also from Lausanne, and in Britta’s precise European hand.

Hurrying to Bar Africa, she ordered a glass of white
wine and ripped open her precious letter. Then, unfolding the sheets with care, she spread them before her and began to read.