BRAZZAVILLE BEACH
WILLIAM BOYD
For Susan
“The unexamined life is not worth living.”
—SOCRATES
Contents
Epigraph
Author’s Note
Prologue
Begin Reading
Epilogue
Praise
Other Books by William Boyd
Copyright
About the Publisher
AUTHOR’S NOTE
This is a work of fiction but some of its themes and subjects have their origins in the real world. Accordingly, I would like to express my indebtedness to books and articles by the following writers, scientists, and thinkers that have been particularly helpful and instructive: Oliver Rackham, Morris Kline, Michael Ghiglieri, Jane Goodall, John Archer-Thompson, Ann Carreck, Laurie Buxton, Michael Guillen, W. V. Quine, Shirley Strum, Thomas Nagel, and Stephen R. L. Clark.
W. B.
London 1991
PROLOGUE
I live on Brazzaville Beach. Brazzaville Beach on the edge of Africa. This is where I have washed up, you might say, deposited myself like a spar of driftwood, lodged and fixed in the warm sand for a while, just above the high tide mark.
The beach never had a name until last year. Then they christened it in honor of the famous Conferençia dos Quadros that was held in Congo Brazzaville in 1964. No one can explain why but, one day, over the laterite road that leads down to the shore, some workmen erected this sign: BRAZZAVILLE BEACH, and written below that, CONFERENÇIA DOS QUADROS, BRAZZAVILLE, 1964.
It is an indication, some people say, that the government is becoming more moderate, trying to heal the wounds of our own civil war by acknowledging a historic moment in another country’s liberation struggle. Who can say? Who ever knows the answers to these questions? But I like the name, and so does everyone else who lives around here. Within a week we were all using it unselfconsciously. Where do you live? On Brazzaville Beach. It seemed entirely natural.
I live on the beach in a refurbished beach house. I have a large, cool sitting room with a front wall of sliding screened doors that give directly onto a wide sun deck. There is also a bedroom, a generous bathroom with bath and shower, and a tiny dim kitchen built onto the back. Behind the house is my garden: sandy, patchy grass, some prosaic shrubs, a vegetable plot and a hibiscus hedge, thick with brilliant flowers.
The beach has seen better days, true, but I feel its years of decline are over. I have neighbors now: the German manager of the bauxite mines—my boss, I suppose—and on the other side a droll, beefy Syrian who runs an import-export business and a couple of Chinese restaurants in the town.
They are only here at weekends, so during the week I have the place more or less to myself. Though I am never alone. There is always someone on the beach: fishermen, volleyball players, itinerants, scavengers. European families come, too. The French and the Portuguese, the Germans and the Italians. No men, just wives, many of them pregnant, and noisy young children. The children play, the wives sit and chatter, smoke and sunbathe and scold their kids. If the beach is quiet they will sometimes slyly remove their bikini tops and expose their soft, pallid breasts to the African sun.
Behind my house, beyond the palm grove, is the village—an attenuated shantytown of mud huts and lean-tos, occupying the scrubby strip of ground between the shore and its tree line and the main road to the airport. I live alone—which suits me fine—but there is enough life around to prevent me from ever being lonely.
I even have a boyfriend, now, after a fashion. I suppose you could call him that, although nothing remotely carnal has ever happened between us. We dine together once or twice a week at the Airport Hotel. His name is Gunter Neuffer; he’s a shy, morose, lanky man in his mid-thirties with a hearing aid. He is a sales director at the bauxite mines. He has only been here six months but he seems already haggard and tired of Africa, of its rabid energy and bustle, its brutal frustrations and remorseless physicality. He pines for cool, ordered Göttingen, his hometown. I remind him of his younger sister, Ulricke, he says. Sometimes I suspect that is the only reason he goes out with me: I am a spectral link with his old life, the ghost of Europe sitting opposite him.
But I mustn’t digress: Gunter has no significant part to play in this story. I introduce him only to explain my present circumstances. Gunter gives me work. I earn most of my living working for him as a part-time commercial translator, for which he pays me far too well. Indeed, if it wasn’t for Gunter I couldn’t live on Brazzaville Beach. What I will do when he goes, I have no idea. In the meantime a melancholy meal in the Airport Hotel is no penance.
I love the beach, but sometimes I ask myself what am I doing here? I’m young, I’m single, I have family in England, I possess all manner of impressive academic qualifications. So why has the beach become my home…?
How can I explain it to you? I am here because two sets of strange and extraordinary events happened to me, and I needed some time to weigh them up, evaluate them. I have to make sense of what has taken place before I can restart my life in the world, as it were. Do you know that feeling? That urge to call a temporary halt, to say: enough, slow down, give me a break.
Two sequences of events, then. One in England, first, and then one in Africa. Two stories to tell. I fled to Africa to escape what happened in England and then, as the continent will, it embroiled me further.
But that’s not the way to start.
Another problem: how do I begin? How do I tell you what happened to me?
My name is Hope Clearwater…or, “Hope Clearwater is that tall young woman who lives on Brazzaville Beach.” It’s not so easy. Which voice do I use? I was different then; and I’m different now.
I am Hope Clearwater. She is Hope Clearwater. Everything is me, really. Try to remember that, though it might be a little confusing at first.
Where shall I begin? In Africa, I think, yes, but far from Brazzaville Beach.
A final note: the important factor in all this is honesty, otherwise there would be no point in beginning.
So: let’s start with that day I was with Clovis. Just the two of us. Yes, that’s a good place…
Begin Reading
I never really warmed to Clovis—he was far too stupid to inspire real affection—but he always claimed a corner of my heart, largely, I suppose, because of the way he instinctively and unconsciously cupped his genitals whenever he was alarmed or nervous. It was rather endearing, I thought, and it showed a natural vulnerability, in strong contrast to his usual moods: raffish arrogance or total and single-minded self-absorption. In fact, he was self-absorbed now as he sat grandly at ease, frowning, pursing and unpursing his lips—completely ignoring me—and from time to time sniffing absentmindedly at the tip of a forefinger. He had been similarly occupied for upwards of an hour now and whatever he had stuck his finger into earlier that day had obviously been fairly potent, not to say narcotic and ineradicable. Knowing Clovis as I did, I suspected he could maintain this inertia for ages. I looked at my watch. If I went back now it might mean talking to that little swine Hauser…. I debated the pros and cons: spend the remaining hour I had left to me here with Clovis or risk enduring Hauser’s cynical gossip, all silky insinuation and covert bitchery?
Should I tell you about Hauser now, I wonder? No, perhaps not; Hauser and the others will engage us as we meet them. They can wait a while; let us return to Clovis.
I changed my position, uncrossed my legs and stretched them out in front of me. A small ant seemed to have trapped itself under the strap of my brassiere and I spent a few awkward minutes trying vainly to locate it. Clovis impassively watched me remove first my shirt and then my bra. I found no insect but discovered its traces—a neat cluster of pi
nk bites under my left armpit. I rubbed spit on them and replaced my clothes. As I did up the top button on my shirt, Clovis seemed to lose interest in me. He slapped his shoulder once, brusquely, and clambered into the mulemba tree beneath which he had been sitting, and with powerful easy movements he swung through the branches, leapt onto an adjacent tree and was away, lost to sight, heading northeast toward the hills of the escarpment.
I looked at my watch again and noted the time of his departure. Perhaps now he was going to rejoin the other members of his group? It was not unheard of for Clovis to spend a day on his own but it was out of the ordinary—he was gregarious, even by chimpanzee standards. I had been watching him for three hours, during which time he had done almost nothing singular or unusual—but then that too was worth recording, of course. I stood up and stretched and walked to the mulemba tree to examine Clovis’s feces. I took out a little specimen bottle from my bag and, with a twig, collected some. That would be my present for Hauser.
I walked back down the path that led me in the general direction of the camp. A large proportion of the trails in this part of the forest had been recently cleared and the going was easy. I had had markers and directional arrows nailed to trees at important intersections to help me find my way about. This portion of the reserve, south of the big stream, was far less familiar than the main research area to the north.
I walked at a steady even pace—I was in no particular hurry to get back—and in any event was reasonably tired. The real force of the afternoon’s heat had passed; I could see the sun on the topmost branches of the trees but down here on the forest floor all was dim shadow. I enjoyed these walks home at the end of the day and I preferred the confined vistas of the forest to more impressive panoramas—I liked being hemmed in, rather than exposed. I liked the vegetation close to me, bushes and branches brushing my sides, the frowsty smell of decaying leaves and the filtered, screened neutrality of the light.
As I walked I took out a cigarette. It was a Tusker, a local brand, strong and sweet. As I lit it and drew in the smoke I thought of my ex-husband, John Clearwater. This was the most obvious legacy of our short marriage—a bad habit. There were others, of course, other legacies, but they were not visible to the naked eye.
João was waiting for me, about a mile from camp. He sat on a log picking at an old scab on his knee. He looked tired and not very well. João was very black, his skin almost a dark violet color. He had a long top lip that made him look permanently sad and serious. He rose to his feet as I approached. We greeted each other and I offered him a cigarette, which he accepted and carefully stored in his canvas bag.
“Any luck?” I asked.
“I think, I think I see Lena,” he said. “She very big now.” He held out his hands, shaping a pregnant belly. “She come very soon now. But then she run from me.”
He gave me his field notes and I told him about my uneventful day with Clovis as we strolled back to camp. João was my full-time assistant. He was in his forties, a thin, wiry man, diligent and loyal. We were training his second son, Alda, as an observer, but he was away today in the city, trying to sort out some problem to do with his military service. I asked how Alda was progressing.
“I think he will return tomorrow,” João said. “They say the war is finish soon, so no more soldiers are required.”
“Let’s hope so.”
We talked a little about our plans for the next day. Soon we reached the small river that Mallabar—I think—had whimsically named the Danube. It was fed from the damp grasslands high on the plateau to the east, and descended in a series of pools and falls in a long deepish valley through our portion of the Semirance Forest, and then moved on, more sedately and ever broadening, until it met the great Cabule River a hundred and fifty miles away on the edge of the coastal plain.
Beyond the Danube, to the north, the forest thinned out and the walk to the camp cut through what is known in this part of Africa as orchard bush; grass and scrubland, badged with occasional copses of trees and small groves of palms. The camp itself had been on this site for over two decades and, as it had become established, most of its buildings had been reconstructed in more permanent form. Canvas had given way to wood and corrugated iron, which was in turn being replaced by concrete bricks. The various sheds and dwelling places were set generously far apart and were situated on either side of a dirt road that was known as Main Street. However, the first sign of human habitation you came across, as you approached the camp from the direction of the Danube, was a wide cleared area, about the size of three tennis courts, in the middle of which was a low concrete structure—hip high—with four small wooden doors set in one side. It looked like some sort of cage or, I used to think, something to do with sewerage or septic tanks, but in fact it was the research project’s pride and joy: the Artificial Feeding Area. It was deserted now, as João and I passed it, but I thought I saw someone sitting in one of the palm frond hiding places at the perimeter—Mallabar himself, possibly. We kept on going.
The camp proper began at the junction of the forest path (which led south to the Danube) with Main Street, which was itself just an extension of the road from Sangui, the nearest village, where João and most of the project’s assistants and observers lived. We stopped here, arranged to meet at 6:00 A.M. the next day and said goodbye. João said he would bring Alda if he had returned from the city in time. We went our separate ways.
I sauntered through the camp toward my hut. On my left, scattered amongst neem and palm trees and big clumps of hibiscus hedge, were the most important buildings in the camp complex—the garage and workshops, Mallabar’s bungalow, the canteen, the kitchen and storage sheds, and beyond them the now abandoned dormitory of the census workers. Beyond that, over to the right, I could just see, through a screen of plumbago hedge, the round thatched roofs of the cooks’ and small boys’ quarters.
I continued past the huge hagenia tree that dominated the center of the camp and which had given it its name: grosso arvore. The Grosso Arvore Research Center.
On the other side of the track, opposite the canteen, was Hauser’s laboratory and, behind that, the tin cabin he shared with Toshiro. Thirty yards along from the lab was the Vails’ bungalow, not as big as chez Mallabar but prettier, freighted with jasmine and bougainvillea. And then, finally, at the camp’s northern extremity, was my hut. In fact “hut” was a misnomer: I lived in a cross between a tent and a tin shack, a curious dwelling with canvas sides and a corrugated iron roof. I suppose it was fitting that it should go to me, on the principle that the newest arrival should occupy the least permanent building, but I was not displeased with it and was indifferent to what it might say about my status. In fact Mallabar had offered me the census hut but I had declined; I preferred my odd, hybrid tent and its position out on the perimeter.
I reached it and went inside. Liceu, the boy who looked after me, had tidied up in my absence. From the oil drum of water in a corner I poured a few jugfuls into a tin basin set upon a stand, took off my shirt and bra, and washed my sweaty, dirty torso with a washcloth. I dried myself down and pulled on a T-shirt. I contemplated a visit to the long-drop latrine outside, housed in a structure that looked like a sentry box woven from palm fronds, but decided it could wait.
I lay down on my camp bed, closed my eyes and, as always when I returned home at the end of the day, tried not to let my feelings overwhelm me. I arranged my day and my routine in such a manner as not to leave myself with much time alone and little to do, but this moment of the early evening, the light milky and orange, with the first bats jinking and swooping between the trees, and the tentative creek-creek of the crickets announcing the onset of dusk, always brought in its train a familiar melancholy and cafard and, in my particular case, an awful self-pity. I forced myself to sit up, took some deep breaths, inveighed powerfully against the name of John Clearwater, and went to sit at the little trestle desk where I worked. There, I poured myself a glass of scotch whisky and wrote up my field notes.
My desk was set in front of a netting window in the canvas side wall, which I rolled up to let in as much breeze as possible. Through it I had a view of the back of Hauser and Toshiro’s cabin some eighty yards away, the matting sentry box of his latrine and the wooden shower stall that Hauser had personally constructed beneath a frangipani tree. The shower was an elementary contraption: the shower head was fed from an oil drum set higher in the tree, the flow controlled by a spigot. The only onerous task was the filling of the oil drum: buckets of water had to be lugged up to it by ladder, but that was a job Hauser was happy to leave to his houseboy, Fidel.
As I watched, the door in the shower stall opened and Hauser himself appeared, naked and glossy. Clearly, he had forgotten to bring a towel. I watched him tread carefully across the prickly grass to his back door. The tight dome of his big belly gleamed and the little white stub of his penis waggled comically as he flinched his way to safety. Hauser did this quite often—that is, wander naked to and fro from shower stall to cabin. He had a full view of my tent with its windowed sides. It had crossed my mind several times that he might be deliberately exposing himself.
The sight of Hauser’s little penis and the taste of the scotch combined to cheer me up and it was with restored confidence that an hour later I walked down Main Street toward the canteen, lit now with the blurry glow of hurricane lamps. As I passed his cabin, Hauser emerged.
“Ah, Mrs. Clearwater. Such timing.”
Hauser was bald and thickset—a strong fat man—and his eyes were dull and slightly hooded. In the months I had been at Grosso Arvore our relations had never advanced beyond mutual guardedness. I suspected that he didn’t like me. Certainly, I didn’t warm to him at all. As we walked together to the canteen I gave him the specimen bottle full of Clovis’s fecal matter.