‘They’re talking about her children,’ she said. ‘They are discussing her great sorrow at having been deceived by her husband, and her regret for what she has done. She’s telling him how much she wants to leave this dump of a prison and start work in one of the white missionary stations, spreading the true faith among the black population.’
Ana tried her hardest to imbue the story she was making up with as much conviction as she could possibly muster. The commanding officer listened in stony silence. He’s not really interested, she thought. Isabel means nothing to him. It doesn’t matter to him if she lives or dies. He only came along with us because he was bored stiff.
She continued to elaborate on her story while Pandre and Isabel spoke quietly to each other. When the conversation was over — and it stopped suddenly, as if absolutely everything had now been said — Ana rounded off her account by repeating what she had said about Isabel’s longing to devote her life to a Christian missionary station.
When they returned to the hotel they sat down in the shade of some frangipani trees and gazed out over the sea. Pandre had said nothing in the car after saying a polite goodbye to the commanding officer. Now he swayed slowly back and forth in the garden hammock, a glass of iced water in his hand.
‘Isabel is ready to die if she has to,’ he said. ‘She will die rather than admit to any guilt. Her silence is due to her dignity. Her soul. She kept repeating that word over and over again. “It’s all about my soul.”’
‘Doesn’t she want to live for the sake of her children?’
‘Of course she wants to live. Perhaps she might be able to escape. But if her only way out is to admit to being guilty, she would rather die.’
Pandre continued rocking back and forth, gazing out to sea. He stretched out the hand in which he held the glass of water and pointed at the horizon.
‘That’s India over there,’ he said. ‘Thirty years ago my parents came to Africa from there. Perhaps I or my children will go back one of these days.’
‘Why did your parents come to Africa?’
‘My father sold pigeons,’ Pandre said. ‘He heard that there were a lot of white people in southern Africa who were prepared to pay large sums of money for beautiful pigeons. My father had learnt how to glue extra tail feathers on to his pigeons so as to get a higher price for them.’
He looked at Ana with a smile.
‘My father was a confidence trickster,’ he said. ‘That’s probably why I have become his opposite.’
He put down the glass of water.
‘I can’t really give you any advice,’ he said. ‘The only thing that can save her is if she can escape. Perhaps the commanding officer can be bribed? Perhaps one of the soldiers can be persuaded to leave her cell door open one evening? I’m afraid I can’t suggest anything else. But as you have plenty of money, you have access to the one thing that might be able to get her free. I simply don’t know how best you can use your money in this particular case.’
‘I’ll do anything to get her out of that prison.’
‘I suppose that’s what I’m suggesting. That you do anything at all you can.’
Pandre took an envelope out of his inside pocket and gave it to Ana.
‘Here is my bill,’ he said. ‘I’m intending to visit your women tonight. I’d like to be picked up from here at nine o’clock. I’ll have dinner alone in my room.’
He stood up, bowed and walked over to the white hotel building. Ana stayed where she was, thinking over what Pandre had said. She knew that he was right. Isabel was trying to choose between dying and saving her soul.
Is that what I’m doing as well? she asked herself. Or has the possibility of choosing already passed?
She remained sitting there until the sun set. Then she went home, changed her clothes and went to pick up Pandre at nine o’clock. He was now wearing a dark suit with a high stiff collar, and smelled of a perfume Ana had never before come across on a man.
‘That stethoscope,’ she said when they were sitting in the car. ‘Where did you get it from?’
‘I made my preparations,’ said Pandre. ‘Before I was picked up I paid a short visit to the hospital. A friendly doctor let me have an old stethoscope very cheaply.’
They sat in silence for the rest of the journey.
When they arrived at O Paraiso, Pandre sat down on one of the red sofas, was served a glass of sherry, and then started to assess the women carefully, one by one.
Ana sat down on a chair in a corner of the room, and watched him from a distance. She still hadn’t opened the bill he’d given her. They had agreed earlier on £100, but she suspected Pandre would have added considerable extra costs that she would have to pay him.
She observed Pandre and his critical eyes.
Isabel’s dump of a prison seemed very close by. A chain round Isabel’s leg chafed and rattled quietly somewhere deep down inside Ana.
63
When Pandre eventually chose the woman he wanted to be with, and pointed at her as if he were selecting an animal for slaughter, all present were surprised to find that his finger was aimed at the pale and almost repulsive A Magrinha. Ana thought at first that it was Felicia he had selected, as she was standing next to A Magrinha. But when she saw Pandre stand up and bow in front of the extremely thin woman that hardly any of the customers ever chose, there was no doubt about it. She was astonished; but if there was one thing she had learnt during the time she spent in the brothel, it was that the desires of men and their views on what was tempting were impossible to predict. It also occurred to her, not without a degree of satisfaction, that Pandre’s selection of A Magrinha meant that the cost of his visit had decreased because A Magrinha was a net loss to the brothel rather than making any money for it. Perhaps the time had now come to have one final talk with her, ask Herr Eber to pay her enough money for a vegetable stall in one of the town’s markets for the blacks, and then to send her packing once and for all.
But she got no further in her thoughts before something unexpected happened and distracted her. There were rather a lot of clients in the brothel that evening, crowded round the little bar in one corner of the room with their glasses and cigars, and as Pandre was on his way with A Magrinha to her room a tall, well-built man suddenly stepped in front of them and blocked the way. O’Neill, who could always sense when danger was in the air, got up from his seat next to the door. Ana did the same. The man standing in front of Pandre was called Rocha, a person with an Italian father and a Portuguese mother. He worked in the colonial administration, in charge of the maintenance of roads and sewers, and visited the brothel every week. He was usually well behaved, but he occasionally lost his temper when he had been drinking too much. When that happened he would be escorted off the premises before he could cause any damage.
Ana suspected instinctively that something very serious was about to happen. Rocha pushed A Magrinha to one side and began speaking to Pandre in broken English.
‘I have choosed her to spend the evening with me,’ said Rocha.
‘I find that very hard to believe,’ said Pandre, without losing his friendly smile.
‘To say as it is, all the women have already clients for the evening. You come too late.’
Ana had approached close enough to hear the brief conversation, and knew immediately what it meant. She had noticed how many of the white customers had reacted when a coloured man entered the brothel. It had never happened before during her time in charge, although Senhor Vaz had told her how he very occasionally made an exception for influential Indians from Durban or Johannesburg. As nobody had protested openly, she thought that the complaints would come directly to her later, after Pandre had left the brothel. That somebody might ask her what she meant by allowing such a person in when all the other customers were white, and that she would reply that she was the one who decided whether anybody should be turned away or not. She knew that they wouldn’t like it, no matter how much she stressed that it was an exception.