And yet coiled beneath all these conversations, like a baby black mamba beneath the dry leaves on the jungle floor, was that word ‘poofter’. It soon reached every corner of Yangambi, and not an evening passed in the Club Royal without someone mentioning it at one of the tables. One night, Van Thiegel went further, took a step forward:
‘I don’t know what it is with Chrysostome,’ he said in the middle of a game of cards, ‘but he seems to positively avoid the company of women.’
Chrysostome was not in the club at the time, and Van Thiegel did not bother to lower his voice when he made the remark. He found it strange that a man in peak physical condition should have no contact whatsoever with women, especially in a place where, as Richardson used to say, even the feeblest could find fodder for his cannon. His fellow players sniggered, but did not pursue the comment. They were more cautious than the Lieutenant. They were thinking about Chrysostome’s perfect marksmanship and his large supply of cartridges and preferred to keep a low profile.
However, despite these fears and precautions, the die was cast. Like the young of the black mamba, which matures very slowly inside its egg, the word ‘poofter’ would need, firstly, a few months to grow and for its poison to infuse, and, secondly, the right circumstances in which to strike, for strike it would. The snake — the word — would be hurled at Chrysostome with the firm intention of destroying him.
The spring of 1904 was followed by the summer, a particularly beautiful summer that brought a round sun to the south of France, to the whole of the Riviera, to the Côte d’Azur, and, more to the point, to the small peninsula of St-Jean-Cap-Ferrat. Paradoxically, the circumstances that were about to intervene in Chrysostome’s destiny and come to fruition in Africa, in the darkness of the jungle, began to take shape there, in one of the centres of the world, in one of the most luminous, glittering, marvellous places of the Belle Epoque.
IV
IN THE EARLY summer of 1904, the tallest palm tree in Belgium, the head of the heads of the Force Publique, King Léopold II, invited a famous dancer from Philadelphia to visit his African colonies. He issued this invitation while at his summer residence in St-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, and one could say that the monarch acted out of love or, to be more exact, out of a desire to conquer the dancer’s heart and other parts of her body.
It was extravagant, a way of showing off, behaviour inappropriate in a man well advanced in the age of discretion. But the Rothschilds, the Maharajah of Kapurthala and many other tall palm trees had put down roots in that part of the Mediterranean coast, and within that select circle, the gift of an emerald and diamond brooch was as nothing; one had to come up with something more original in the battle of love. That is why, when the dancer from Philadelphia praised the King’s garden, admiring the trees and the parterres, the monarch was quick not to let the opportunity slip.
‘I have an even larger garden in Africa,’ he said.
‘I find that hard to believe, my dear,’ replied the dancer.
The King looked out to sea, to the south, towards the Congo.
‘It’s true, my African garden measures over 900,000 square miles.’
‘Really?’ said the dancer.
‘We could travel there together, and you could be proclaimed queen,’ insisted the tallest palm tree.
‘Really?’ said the dancer again.
King Léopold nodded vigorously, shaking his long white beard.
‘How wonderful!’ exclaimed the dancer.
The King summoned Armand Saint-Foix, the Duke who was his aide in love and war, and ordered him to prepare for the journey at once. He would make an official visit to the Congo as soon as the summer season in St-Jean-Cap-Ferrat was over. He wanted to give the Congolese people a queen.
‘Off you go, and don’t come back until everything is ready,’ he ordered. ‘Quickly now.’
‘Your Majesty,’ replied the Duke, ‘in that part of Africa, there is incessant rain until the month of December, a fact you might deem worthy of consideration. You would have to carry an umbrella at all times and travel along muddy roads.’
The King was most displeased to hear this, although not for long. He was keenly aware that, in matters of the heart, postponements were always dangerous, and that ladies like this dancer, whom he had just met in his garden, could, in the interim, have gone off with some other prince. On the other hand, December was the month of Christmas, one of the most interesting festive dates of the year. An idea came into his head: Rome would be thrilled if he could put on a solemn mass attended by the largest congregation ever seen on African soil.
‘All right,’ he said to the Duke, ‘December it is.’
The King had a special gift for numbers. He was capable of translating any activity or event instantaneously into francs, correct to the last centime. That afternoon, in the garden of his palace in St-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, with the Mediterranean light in his eyes and a glass of Veuve Clicquot in his hand, he was less exact than usual, but exact enough. The grand Christmas mass would be celebrated in his city, Léopoldville, and would bring him 120,000,000 francs’ worth of publicity in the Christian world. As for the coronation of the queen of the Congo, that would take place upriver, in some spectacular setting, the Stanley Falls, for example, preferably in the presence of Stanley himself. The explorer and the dancer would doubtless bring him more favourable publicity than the Christmas mass, for it would provide some useful counter-publicity that might silence the criticisms being directed at him by Protestant priests and journalists in America and by equally Protestant politicians in England. The operation could easily bring him a profit of 160,000,000 francs.
The tallest palm tree in Africa stroked his white beard while that number travelled through his mind. The ceremony was sure to be a great success. Like him, most people preferred dancers to priests and journalists, and explorers to politicians.
‘In round numbers, the whole operation will be worth 280 million francs,’ declared the King, emerging from his numerical daydream.
‘Wonderful!’ exclaimed the dancer.
Armand Saint-Foix looked up at her, for he was barely five foot three and she was more than five foot eleven.
‘The King loves exactitude as passionately as the keenest of mathematicians,’ he said.
Had these words been pronounced in more dulcet tones, they would have seemed ridiculous, but Duke Armand Saint-Foix had the loud, harsh voice of an ogre at a puppet show, and so they sounded quite sensible.
‘Wonderful!’ repeated the dancer. The word had clearly got stuck on her tongue.
‘Armand is a poet and he can interpret my feelings better than anyone,’ said the tallest palm tree. The dancer laughed, and Saint-Foix left them in order to begin preparations for the journey.
Among the many journalists who were covering the summer social scene in St-Jean-Cap-Ferrat was Ferdinand Lassalle, a professional writer who had achieved fame when he won the Prix Globe for the articles he had written about the Foreign Legion. Ever observant, Ferdinand had noticed the King’s movements and gestures and suspected that something unusual was afoot. There was a definite whiff of news in the Court of St-Jean-Cap-Ferrat.
He ran hopefully after the Duke, because it was rumoured among the journalists that the Duke was far kinder to people who were less than five foot three inches tall than to those who were more. Ferdinand was among the chosen few. He was a mere five foot two. Besides, he wrote for Le Soir, the most widely read newspaper in Belgium.
His instincts were soon confirmed. Instead of the usual ‘No comment’, the Duke took his arm and led him to a summerhouse. As they sat surrounded by tulips and orchids and enjoying a cool glass of lemonade, Saint-Foix told him about the King’s plans, inventing certain details to flesh out the facts a little.