The ones whose throats they did not cut were tied head down to a stake, then a fire was lit at the foot of the stake, to some they dangled the prospect of the fiery furnace and to the rest they talked of paradise, mind you, our soldiers didn’t take many prisoners either, photos of heads lined up in a row on a low wall by grinning squaddies, they send stuff like that home, when they kept a prisoner, it was to make him talk, and their letters to their mates, yesterday we occupied a village, bints to bust your tackle. Lyautey’s officers did not care for that sort of thing.
On the lawn of the Consulate, de Vèze has noticed the historian’s wife, yellow dress, bare shoulders, wispy floating material, he tries to approach her, a reflex, for something to do until the guest of honour comes, because she’s married, because he wants her to look at him, she’s not a tease, not very tall, almost plump, light auburn hair, pointed nose, quick movements, not my type, it would be a change.
And the historian-husband has twigged what de Vèze is up to, like the dog which instinctively positions himself between its mistress and the passer-by, he spends his time coming between de Vèze and his wife, accidentally as it were, like Moine, Albert Moine, who also went to school at the Lycée Montaigne, Moine is in a restaurant with his wife, she is ten times better-looking than him, one day he was seen with this woman, no one ever knew how he’d managed it, dark hair, beautiful and, as in Brave New World, pneumatic, with eyes that shine. The moment he sees de Vèze coming towards their table Moine gets up, round face, small round glasses which make him look like Beria, he stands in front of the table, says hello, shakes hands, darling this is my friend Henri de Vèze, Éliane, my wife, it’s twenty years ago since that happened but you can still hear Moine’s intonation, very refined, ‘my wife’, intended to indicate that you’re not such close friends as all that, he smiles, Moine knows you only too well, he stood in your path, with his left hand extended holding his napkin to remind you that he has better things to do than talk to you, no way will you be invited to join them, show’s over, the women have been shared out and you sense that if you try to force the pace the distinguished husband will grab you and wrestle you to the ground, it comes to the same with the historian and his wife.
All de Vèze can do is glance at the young woman out of the corner of his eye, plumpish, vivacious, against a background of greenery, a weird display of vegetation obviously assembled by a collector who put tropical plants next to a few species imported from Cornwall, the ones that have survived, for broadly speaking European plants need winter, a proper winter.
Max has picked the croquet teams: the Consul and his wife, no, said the Consul, I have to keep an eye out for the arrival of our guest, must stick to protocol, very well, said Max, de Vèze I’ll inflict you on our Consuless.
The Consul’s wife is a tiny lady with a downcast mouth, a flat chest, ‘Consuless’ has not gone down at all well with her, Madame Morel, Max went on, you keep your husband who likes history, but let’s have no domestic scenes, croquet is a less bloodthirsty game than conjugal tennis but can also have its moments, and the two inseparable great diplomatists of tomorrow, the pink and the grey, can stay together, I shall supervise, he surveys the scene and smiles, the first plays take place against a background of trees, the fan-palms, the Perrier bottleshaped palm trees topped with thornless branches, and other successively taller palms which lift the whole space up towards the sky, why does Singapore look so small today? Nothing like what it was back then, maybe because I was younger? The same hoops, maybe not the bottle-shaped trees, but the same wooden balls, the same mallets, Rabat, lawn and gravel, same game, but it feels so cramped today.
Even the gravel in the paths doesn’t seem of the same standard as in ’25, you aren’t up to the same standard either, the chippings are less uniform, not as well maintained, six small stones and a bigger one, a full-scale revolt, six small stones, we left the Residence at Rabat with its perfectly raked gravel, and the jacaranda trees, I’ve not seen any jacarandas here in Singapore, did four hundred kilometres of twisting roads, and then we were in the high jebel, confronted by more small stones, and you do not understand.
It’s a game, explained the agent for Native Affairs who accompanies Max to the Riffian village, six small stones in one hand, with the other the little girl tosses the big one in the air, and before she catches it she has to put one of the small stones on the ground, and so on, I throw the big one up, I grab a small one, I put it down, I catch the big one before it hits the ground, I throw it up again, I grab a small one and put it next to the first one, when she gets to the end she starts again, she tosses the big stone in the air but this time she puts two little ones down, not together, one after the other, quickly, while the big stone stays aloft you look up, you keep your eye on it so it doesn’t bang you on the nose, and the girls who manage twos can go on to throw the big stone up again and pick up and set down three little stones one after the other every time they throw the big stone up, the longer they go on the harder it gets, the likelier it is that they’ll get hit in the face, no, I never saw it played myself, the agent for Native Affairs described it to me because on two occasions I’d seen little heaps of stones on the ground, at the entrance to a village that had been bombed, there were also traces of hopscotch and rain maidens.
An ideal husband, murmurs de Vèze as he observes Morel, worse than Moine, worse than a guard dog, a full back, a very close marker, never a moment to get anything going with the wife.
It’s Morel’s turn first, he hits his ball very quickly, rejoins his wife, Morel, you hit it too hard, cries Max, you’ve gone through the second hoop without going through the first, you’ll have to come back through hoop two the other way, before you can go through hoop one, then you’ll go through two again, the right way this time, otherwise it doesn’t count, Morel protests, the rules mean he’ll have to negotiate the second hoop three times, and de Vèze has stayed close to his wife; it’s quite usual, says Max, you have to clear the backlog, you’ve racked up a number of errors, you’re allowed to clear them, this is a very honest game, especially if you strike the ball properly instead of poking it cautiously with the mallet like our friend here! Max nods towards the grey diplomat, you’re pushing not hitting, it’s against the rules, foul stroke, you’ve got to make a noise, old man, a recognisable sound, wooden mallet against wooden ball, a distinctive ‘clack’, you went through the hoop in the right direction, but it wasn’t a legal stroke, naughty naughty, you were seen, so you’ll have to play the hoop again from the other side, so back you go!
De Vèze watches the young woman, her breasts move a little when she leans forward to play her shot but stay pretty firmly in place, that’s the good thing about girls with fuller figures, young flesh, elastic, on a plate, a woman to spend a siesta with, the woman is lying naked on de Vèze, she straddles him, he takes her breasts in his hands, she smiles, arches her back, and Max, who has observed what de Vèze is up to and the husband who keeps getting in his way, finds the spectacle hugely entertaining; Monsieur Morel there’s something I wanted to ask you, he gives the husband no option, don’t you think there’s a peculiar smell, comes in waves, acidic, it’s not coming from the town, de Vèze tries to use the opportunity to make a masterly approach to the wife, and then Max, with one hand on Morel’s shoulder, calls to de Vèze, can’t you see it’s your strike next, whatever are you thinking of?