Darkness Read online

  At this point Mike rounded off his racial observations with a loud guffaw, and Dan decided there could be worse people to be thrown together with. So he was in no way alarmed when Mike then suggested that they have dinner together in the hotel’s restaurant ‘where they do a very nice pizza – if you don’t mind waiting an hour’.

  They did wait an hour, and for most of this time Mike did the talking. It became very clear very soon that not only had he been to the Congo before – and to this hotel and to the Odzala-Kokoua National Park before – but that he knew a great deal more about this former French colony than his dinner companion did. To start with, he knew a lot more about the guy who had given the country’s capital its name…

  ‘Yeah,’ he began. ‘He started off with the handle… now let me get this right… Pietro Paulo… Francesco… Camillo… Savorgnan di Brazza. And anyway, this guy very soon developed an ambition to join the French navy. Which, of course, was a bit of a problem, because his dad was the Count di Brazza Savorgnan and an Italian. So, right side of the tracks but on the wrong side in nationality terms – if you get my drift.’

  Dan nodded. He did get his drift.

  ‘Right. Well, it just so happened that his dad not only approved of his son’s ambitions, but he also had friends in high places. And that lot always do, don’t they?’

  Dan nodded again, this time without even realising he’d done so. And then Mike carried on.

  ‘So… Pietro’s dad secured a placement for his son at France’s naval academy, and in due course on a French warship. Now, while he was serving on this warship, Pietro apparently witnessed something that he would never forget. And this was how the French went about conducting their foreign affairs. Essentially, this was with guns. And what I mean is that they used the warship’s guns to blow the shit out of some “tribal insurgents” on the coast of one of their overseas possessions. Now, this didn’t put Pietro off wanting to stay in the navy, but it did have a dramatic effect on how he lived the rest of his life – as I will now reveal.’

  At this point in his address, Mike paused for a generous grin, and then carried on.

  ‘You see, it was now sometime in the 1870s, and our young Pietro had joined a voyage to a place at the mouth of the Congo River called Libreville. And this was a port that the French had set up about thirty years earlier – and which they were now on the point of giving up. I mean, the whole area was then seen as just a stopping-off point for ships and certainly not as somewhere worth investing in. Shit, not only could you not get a drop of decent wine there, but the standard of boules was apparently appalling.’

  Here, Mike provided Dan with another wide grin, and at the same time he clearly remembered the glass of wine in his hand. After pausing to transfer some of its contents into his mouth, he then continued.

  ‘Anyway, Pietro had other ideas. He wanted to keep Libreville and he also wanted to make his way into the hinterland of Libreville and win more land for France. And wouldn’t you know it, when he got back to France, he got exactly what he wanted – even if his dad had to help him again. And, in fact, he got more than just a ship and a crew to sail it. He got French citizenship, and our Pietro became… Pierre – as in Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza. This noble son of Italy was now a noble adventurer of France.’

  Here, Mike paused again. He may have been confirming in his mind that he still had an audience for his lecture. And it seemed that he’d decided he had. He therefore quickly resumed his tale.

  ‘Now, as you’re probably aware, the common approach to winning new lands in Africa at that time generally involved a subtle mix of firearms, butchery and brutality. It’s what was going on in the name of King Leopold of the Belgians in what’s now the next-door Democratic Republic of Congo. But our Pierre hadn’t forgotten those insurgents being blown to bits by French guns, and his approach was entirely different. I mean, essentially he used no force whatsoever, but instead applied the concept of what he called “association”, which was his name for encouraging native tribes to come together voluntarily under the French flag. And you know what? It bloody well worked! It’s reckoned that it was partly to do with the fact that the local tribes had been looking for some leadership for years – ever since their old kingdoms had declined – and were only too eager to accept his offer. And it must also have had something to do with the fact that he wasn’t imposing the “shoot the buggers if they don’t submit” regime. But for whatever reason, Mr de Brazza, all on his own, managed to carve out a whole new country for his adopted France – and even set up its capital, the place we’re sitting in now. Oh, and its number two city on the coast as well, the place that’s now known as Pointe Noire. I mean, some bloody achievement…’

  Dan could only agree. When it came to carving out a country, he was happy to admit that he wouldn’t have known where to start. Especially if the use of force was ruled out.

  Mike took another swig of wine and then continued his saga. It appeared that it had not reached its end.

  ‘As you may know, Mr de Brazza’s efforts also marked the beginnings of a colonisation process that would see his adopted country acquiring land that stretched from round about here right up to the Sahara. And we’re now talking about what, by 1910, was called Afrique Equatorial Francais, and what later became the present-day Congo, the present-day Gabon, the Central African Republic… and Chad. And France was hardly an absentee landlord. Remember, even as late as the Second World War, this city of Brazzaville – which had already become the capital of the whole of that equatorial-Francais set-up – then became the symbolic capital of Free France. So, the boy done well. Except, of course, he wasn’t still around to see it. All he saw was his own little patch going rapidly pear-shaped…’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Well, it was in no way the boy’s fault, but if we go right back to the end of the nineteenth century, France was in the business of granting concessions in the Congo in order to exploit its possession, and in particular to exploit its capacity to produce rubber. Remember, we’re talking about a time here when the demand for rubber for car tyres was outstripping supply. So it’s no great surprise that these concessions went to a string of concessionaires who were prepared to adopt any means at their disposal to ramp up production. And some of them were not very nice. Which in turn meant that it was not very nice for all those poor Congo natives who were just part and parcel of the concession.

  ‘Basically, the sort of atrocities committed in Belgian Congo were now becoming commonplace in the French Congo. And if the concessionaires could only get rid of the Governor General, a somewhat sensitive soul by the name of Pierre de Brazza, they could become more commonplace still. And they did get rid of him, claiming that his soft approach to the locals was hampering their efforts to maximise the production of that all-important rubber. And, frankly, how could one get on with one’s essential atrocities with a softie at the head of the local administration?’

  ‘I see,’ interjected Mike’s now enthralled audience.

  ‘And it gets worse. Because when they had got rid of him, things went from bad to a helluva lot worse, and so bloody worse that de Brazza ended up back here to prepare a report on what was going on. That got back to France – and was heavily sat on – but de Brazza never got back to France. He died on the return trip, under suspicious circumstances in Dakar…’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, really. Of course, the French gave him a state funeral. Good PR and all that. But it didn’t wash with his wife. She had him exhumed and reburied in Algiers. And then, much later – and I mean much later, like in 2006 – he was exhumed again and, along with his wife and his four offspring, he was installed in a rather plush mausoleum in this very town. The people of the Congo had “brought him home”.’

  ‘That’s quite remarkable.’

  ‘Dan, de Brazza was quite remarkable. I mean, just think; using persuasion rather than fire power to create a nation. Res
pecting the rights and the dignity of “mere natives” when in most of the rest of the world – and certainly here in Africa – they were regarded and treated as either ignorant savages or potentially useful commodities. I mean, he was extraordinary. And it’s why Brazzaville is the only capital in Africa that bears the name of a colonist – and why he is still so highly regarded in this country, and seen as its creator and not as its exploiter. He must have been a fascinating man to know. And who knows? He may have got himself reincarnated… as… well, he was a different colour, but maybe Nelson Mandela was his more recent manifestation…’

  Dan smiled.

  ‘Can’t argue with that,’ he said. ‘And who knows? Maybe he’ll come back again. And we could certainly do with as many de Brazzas as we can get…’

  Mike shook his head.

  ‘We certainly bloody could. And we could certainly do with our bloody pizzas as well.’

  But they didn’t arrive, not until the two diners had been granted the required full hour’s wait. And this meant that Mike had plenty more time to furnish Dan with even more information about the Congo, including a profile of the man whose mugshot was hanging on the wall behind reception, the country’s supposedly much-loved and indisputably long-term president. It transpired that he’d been around for years, first as the Congo’s Marxist president and more recently as the country’s so-called democratic president – and that he was decidedly not the reincarnation of Pierre de Brazza. He was much more in the style of the majority of African leaders, gentlemen whose focus seems less on the welfare of their people and more on that of themselves and their loyal lieutenants. Dan was not unduly surprised.

  He was, however, pleasantly surprised by the quality of his pizza. It even crossed his mind that its delay in arriving at the table was the result of the chef discarding his first twenty attempts and only releasing a finished product when, in this case, he had two of them that had been prepared to his satisfaction. He knew that this was nonsense and he also knew that he’d entertained this nonsense, albeit briefly, because he was tired. He was therefore relieved when Mike suggested that they call it a day when the pizzas had been consumed, with the understanding that they would meet again in the morning for an early breakfast.

  Consequently, Dan soon found himself back in his room and thinking – first about Mike, and in particular what he hadn’t talked about. Because whilst he’d had plenty to say about the Congo, he’d had nothing to say about himself. Nor had he sought to find out anything about his new companion. There had been some literally unspoken agreement between the two of them not to establish any aspects of each other’s background. Hell, they hadn’t even discussed what other wild places they had each visited in the world, an almost obligatory requirement for all “safari types” when they first meet. And they certainly hadn’t touched on their respective occupations or even whether they were married. It was all a bit peculiar really, but, for Dan, very welcome. After all, the less Mike knew about him the better. Albeit that wouldn’t mean that he’d avoid his company. On the contrary, he’d found Mike more than amiable and, of course, a fountain of knowledge on a country that many were entirely unaware of. Back in England, if people knew of “The Congo” at all, it would be of what was once Zaire and is now the Democratic Republic of Congo, and they would probably be surprised to find it had a smaller, non-democratic Congo neighbour to its west. And they would definitely know nothing of Pierre de Brazza.

  This is when Dan’s mind abandoned thoughts of didactic Mike and turned instead to this hero from the past, and how he might be fitted into his long-held view of mankind and especially of those who ruled it…

  There was a parallel, he believed, a parallel between those business-class oafs he’d witnessed earlier and that cadre of presidents, prime ministers and ministers who together hold sway over the millions beneath them. And the parallel was that all those disparate caesars and kaisers, just like the oafs on the plane, used their positions of power to do what their nature dictated. That is to say, these rulers consistently abused their positions and exploited those they ruled, first to retain their power and then to accumulate more power and often a great deal more wealth. Of course, whilst pursuing these ends, they often made appropriate but tongue-in-cheek noises about serving the people and having as their primary goal their people’s welfare and the improvement of their lot. That they were merely the servants, and it was the people who were in charge. (Especially when that device called democracy had been brought into play.) However, it was all a joke. And what’s more, everybody knew it was a joke – and accepted it.

  All those downtrodden souls in the Middle East, in much of Africa, Asia and South America, knew very well that “to serve the people” one didn’t need a Swiss bank account – or a cavalcade of shiny black limousines and a private jet. They also knew that by locking up and torturing so-called dissidents or by incarcerating journalists and political opponents, their rulers didn’t make a great deal of progress in improving their own lowly lot. But despite this awareness of what was really going, and what it meant in terms of their own continual exploitation, they accepted it. They accepted that their own nation state, along with the vast majority of other nation states in the world, was no more than a nation-sized gangland territory, a private fiefdom run by a gang, with, at its top, a “much-loved” and much-enriched godfather/gang-leader. It was just the way things were, and, whilst not so blatant, it was the way things were in the sophisticated West as well. There, the abuse might be a little more discreet and the references might be to ruling elites rather than ruling autocrats and tyrants, but it was much the same: the many being preyed upon by the few – and the many accepting this almost willingly.

  Why there was such a widespread acquiescence to what was patently an egregious and corrupt conduct of human affairs had once puzzled Dan. However, he now knew why. It was simple. Given the opportunity and given the facility, most of the world’s oppressed individuals would mimic the behaviour of their oppressors. Corruption, after all, is in mankind’s DNA. It may manifest itself in different ways in different people and in different societies, but it is inescapably an integral part of the human condition. It is always there ready to be deployed. And for it not to be deployed by those who can deploy it safely – because they are in charge – would be extraordinary and, for those not in charge, literally incredible. After all, they, according to Dan’s model of human behaviour, would act equally corruptly and be equally exploitative should they be elevated to positions of power.

  But then comes along someone like de Brazza, someone who didn’t fit into Dan’s dismal view of humanity, and who would therefore now have to be in some way reconciled to the “standard model”.

  It wasn’t difficult. He was an aberration, decided Dan. Just like Nelson Mandela, he was a rare deviation from the norm that would be easily dealt with. Soon the anomaly would be no more and the conventional gangster arrangements would be reinstalled. For Pierre, it was a gang of concessionaires and a complicit replacement governor who, between them, could ensure that the normal enrichment and brutality programme was put back in place. For Nelson, it was Zuma and more corruption than South Africa had ever experienced before.

  So Dan had now successfully resolved the challenge to his view of mankind. He should therefore have been relieved. However, instead he was just desperately sad – again. He carried a burden. Constantly. It was the burden of being a man, of being part of a humanity he found to be wanting in so many ways. And this burden became that much heavier when it was loaded with even more reminders of man’s appalling credentials. And the fact that, on this occasion, it was one man’s admirable credentials that had sparked these reminders was no consolation whatsoever. What the world really did need, as he’d rather flippantly said to Mike, was a whole slew of de Brazzas – and Mandelas. But it wasn’t going to get it – ever. That thought, all on its own, made the burden almost unbearable. The only way Dan could put it down was to sleep. So h
e did. And when he slept he dreamt of Kim…

  three

  The restaurant’s steps were adorned with the head of a sheep. It dripped blood, and in its dead eyes there was still the unmistakable expression of surprise. In Kim’s eyes, however, there was just disgust, tinged with dread.

  Dan could understand this. On an earlier expedition to Syria – before that country had imploded – he and Kim had eaten in restaurants where sheep flesh was on public display, often in a window somewhere near the restaurant door. He had assumed that this was designed to act as an inducement to eat within, and he had found it entirely inoffensive. Maybe this sheep’s head here was serving a similar purpose. But maybe not. Maybe, here in Morocco, it was more a reflection of local attitudes to four-footed animals. They might provide meat for the table but that didn’t earn them any respect. Accordingly, it was quite in order to discard their unwanted remains on one’s threshold, and nobody would care. Well, nobody who lived locally would care, and one would have to be a stupid foreigner even to notice they were there.

  Had it been Dan and Kim on their own, they would almost certainly have given this restaurant a miss. They would have sought another with unadorned steps, or they would have simply gone without food. However, they were not on their own. They were with fourteen other Brits, fourteen middle-aged travellers who were on their way to the south of Morocco. And this restaurant in a village at the foot of the Atlas Mountains was their first stop since leaving Marrakesh. It would be their only opportunity to feed and relieve themselves until they arrived at their destination in the late afternoon. So, they had little choice but to accompany their new companions into the restaurant’s interior and hope that it was an improvement on its distinctly off-putting exterior.