with savages, they had become savages too.
When Captain Pierre Massard drifted to the topic of sex, Roger felt an anticipatory disgust and tried to say good night. But by now the officer was drunk, and in order not to offend him or have an altercation with him, he had to stay. In the meantime, enduring his nausea, he listened to him, telling himself he wasn’t in Bolobo to dispense justice but to investigate and accumulate information. The more exact and complete his report, the more effective his contribution to the struggle against the institutionalized evil the Congo had become. Captain Massard felt compassion for those young lieutenants or noncommissioned officers from the Belgian army who came filled with illusions to teach these poor devils to be soldiers. And what about their sex lives? They had to leave behind in Europe their fiancées, wives, and mistresses. And what about here? Not even prostitutes worthy of the name in these godforsaken wastelands. Only some disgusting black women covered with insects, and you had to be very drunk to fuck them, running the risk of catching crabs, the clap, or a chancre. It was hard for him, for example. He couldn’t perform, nom de Dieu ! It had never happened to him in Europe. Him, Pierre Massard, impotent in bed! It wasn’t even a good idea to get a blow job, because with those teeth so many black women were in the habit of filing down, they could give you a sudden bite and castrate you.
He grabbed his fly and began to laugh, making an obscene face. Taking advantage of the fact that Massard was still having a good time, Roger stood.
“I must go, Captain. I have to leave very early tomorrow and I’d like to rest a little.”
The captain shook his hand in a mechanical way but continued speaking, not getting up from his seat, his voice faint and his eyes glassy. When Roger walked away, he heard him at his back, muttering that choosing a military career had been the great mistake of his life, and for the rest of his life he would keep paying for it.
He set sail the next morning in the Henry Reed on his way to Lukolela. He spent three days there, speaking day and night with all kinds of people: functionaries, colonists, overseers, natives. Then he advanced to Ikoko, where he entered Lake Mantumba. Near it he found that enormous tract of land called the Domaine de la Couronne. Around it the principal private rubber companies operated, the Lulonga Company, the ABIR Company, and the Société Anver-soise du Commerce au Congo, which had vast concessions throughout the region. He visited dozens of villages, some on the shores of the immense lake and others in the interior. To reach these it was necessary to shift to small canoes powered by oars or poles and walk for hours in dense undergrowth that was dark and damp, through which the natives cut a path with machetes and where he was often obliged to wade in water up to his waist over flooded terrain and pestilential quagmires amid clouds of mosquitoes and the silent shapes of bats. For all these weeks he resisted fatigue, natural difficulties, and inclement weather without flagging, in a feverish spiritual state, as if bewitched, because each day, each hour, he seemed to be sinking into deeper layers of suffering and evil. Would the hell Dante described in his Commedia be like this? He hadn’t read the book and swore he would as soon as he could get his hands on a copy.
The indigenous people, who at the beginning of the trip ran away as soon as they saw the Henry Reed approach, believing the steamboat carried soldiers, soon began to come out to meet it and send emissaries so that he would visit their villages. Word had spread among the natives that the British consul was traveling the region to listen to their complaints and requests, and then they went to him with testimonies and stories, each worse than the other. They believed he had the power to straighten everything that was crooked in the Congo. He explained the
When Captain Pierre Massard drifted to the topic of sex, Roger felt an anticipatory disgust and tried to say good night. But by now the officer was drunk, and in order not to offend him or have an altercation with him, he had to stay. In the meantime, enduring his nausea, he listened to him, telling himself he wasn’t in Bolobo to dispense justice but to investigate and accumulate information. The more exact and complete his report, the more effective his contribution to the struggle against the institutionalized evil the Congo had become. Captain Massard felt compassion for those young lieutenants or noncommissioned officers from the Belgian army who came filled with illusions to teach these poor devils to be soldiers. And what about their sex lives? They had to leave behind in Europe their fiancées, wives, and mistresses. And what about here? Not even prostitutes worthy of the name in these godforsaken wastelands. Only some disgusting black women covered with insects, and you had to be very drunk to fuck them, running the risk of catching crabs, the clap, or a chancre. It was hard for him, for example. He couldn’t perform, nom de Dieu ! It had never happened to him in Europe. Him, Pierre Massard, impotent in bed! It wasn’t even a good idea to get a blow job, because with those teeth so many black women were in the habit of filing down, they could give you a sudden bite and castrate you.
He grabbed his fly and began to laugh, making an obscene face. Taking advantage of the fact that Massard was still having a good time, Roger stood.
“I must go, Captain. I have to leave very early tomorrow and I’d like to rest a little.”
The captain shook his hand in a mechanical way but continued speaking, not getting up from his seat, his voice faint and his eyes glassy. When Roger walked away, he heard him at his back, muttering that choosing a military career had been the great mistake of his life, and for the rest of his life he would keep paying for it.
He set sail the next morning in the Henry Reed on his way to Lukolela. He spent three days there, speaking day and night with all kinds of people: functionaries, colonists, overseers, natives. Then he advanced to Ikoko, where he entered Lake Mantumba. Near it he found that enormous tract of land called the Domaine de la Couronne. Around it the principal private rubber companies operated, the Lulonga Company, the ABIR Company, and the Société Anver-soise du Commerce au Congo, which had vast concessions throughout the region. He visited dozens of villages, some on the shores of the immense lake and others in the interior. To reach these it was necessary to shift to small canoes powered by oars or poles and walk for hours in dense undergrowth that was dark and damp, through which the natives cut a path with machetes and where he was often obliged to wade in water up to his waist over flooded terrain and pestilential quagmires amid clouds of mosquitoes and the silent shapes of bats. For all these weeks he resisted fatigue, natural difficulties, and inclement weather without flagging, in a feverish spiritual state, as if bewitched, because each day, each hour, he seemed to be sinking into deeper layers of suffering and evil. Would the hell Dante described in his Commedia be like this? He hadn’t read the book and swore he would as soon as he could get his hands on a copy.
The indigenous people, who at the beginning of the trip ran away as soon as they saw the Henry Reed approach, believing the steamboat carried soldiers, soon began to come out to meet it and send emissaries so that he would visit their villages. Word had spread among the natives that the British consul was traveling the region to listen to their complaints and requests, and then they went to him with testimonies and stories, each worse than the other. They believed he had the power to straighten everything that was crooked in the Congo. He explained the
Similar Books
