The whites who lived in Lourenço Marques had themselves photographed by Picard when they got married, celebrated a birthday or some other anniversary, or lay dead, waiting to be buried or shipped back to Portugal in a well-sealed zinc coffin. He never took photographs of black people on principle, but Ana knew that the amount of money she intended to offer him would ensure that he made an exception. Picard was a skilful photographer, but he was also greedy.
He was in the process of photographing a newborn baby when Ana entered his studio. The baby was crying and Picard, who hated taking photographs of unruly children, had stuffed his ears with cotton wool. As a result he didn’t hear Ana when she came into the room and sat down quietly on a chair. The mother holding the baby was very young. Ana thought it could well have been Berta sitting there with Forsman’s child in her lap. Ana could see that the mother was looking at the child without a trace of pleasure in her eyes, and assumed she was one of those young white women who are forced to move to the African continent by their husbands, and soon become desperate and scared by what they regard as the realm of unbearable terror.
Picard disappeared under his black cloth and took a picture of the screeching baby. It was only after he had more or less shooed the woman and her child out of his studio that he noticed Ana. He took the cotton wool out of his ears, and bowed.
‘Do you have an appointment?’ he asked, looking worried. ‘If so my secretary hasn’t been doing her job properly.’
‘No, I don’t have an appointment,’ said Ana, ‘but I have come here to ask you to take a picture. At very short notice.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘In a few hours from now.’
‘Here?’
‘At the brothel.’
Picard gave a start.
‘I shall pay you more than you have ever received before,’ she said. ‘For a group photo. With me and all the prostitutes. None of them will be naked. Then I want as many copies as there are people in the picture. And the copies must be in my hands tomorrow morning before ten o’clock — but preferably this evening: if you can manage that I shall pay you extra, of course.’
Before Picard had chance to reply or raise any objections, Ana had taken several English pound notes out of her handbag and placed them on the table in front of him.
‘I want the picture taken at four o’clock this afternoon — three hours from now.’
‘I promise I’ll be there.’
‘I know you will,’ said Ana. ‘You don’t need to assure me of that.’
After her visit to the photographer’s Ana asked the chauffeur to drive her down to the promenade. She got out of the car and wandered slowly around in the shade of the palm trees, gazing out to sea. The small fishing boats with their triangular sails that she had become so fond of were on their way into port. She knew that this would be one of the images she would take away with her: fishing boats scudding along over the waves or swaying gently in the swell when the winds had dropped, just as she would remember the small black figures standing at the helm, or cleaning the nets and sorting out the catch.
I live in a black world in which the whites use up all their energy deceiving both themselves and the blacks, she thought. They believe that the people who live here wouldn’t be able to survive without them, and that black people are inferior because they believe that rocks and trees have a soul. But the blacks in turn fail to understand how anybody could treat a son of God so badly that they nail Him on to a cross. They are amazed by the fact that whites come here and rush around all the time in such a hurry that their hearts soon give way, unable to cope with the never-ending hunt for wealth and power. Whites don’t love life. They love time, which they always have far too little of.
What kills us off more than anything else is all the lies, Ana thought. I don’t want to become like Ana Dolores who really is convinced that black people are inferior to whites. I don’t want it to say on my gravestone that I was somebody who never appreciated the value of black people.
She sat down on a stone bench. The sea was glittering. The heat was bearable when cool breezes were blowing. She thought about what she was going to say in her speech to the women, then finally stood up and returned to the car.
She was driven back home to pick up Carlos. Needless to say, he was going to be in the picture that Picard would take.
When she arrived at the brothel she handed Carlos over to Judas, with whom he had always got on well. Carlos felt secure in his company. As Ana was early, the room with the red sofas was deserted. She went quietly up the stairs and into her old room. In the large wardrobes was a collection of clothes that could be worn if some customer had special desires about what his woman should be dressed in, or if for some reason or other one of the women was short of a garment.
She closed the door, undressed quickly and then opened the wardrobe doors. Several times towards the end of her stay in that room, when she was coming to the end of her long convalescence, she had taken out dresses and shoes, and even the tiaras and bracelets lying on the shelves. She had often been tempted to dress up in silk and adorn herself with rings and necklaces, but she had never done so.
Not until now. She slid her hand over the long row of silk skirts, dresses and suits. She settled on an oriental-style costume in green and red, with touches of golden embroidery. She put it on in front of the mirror. The blouse was low-cut and could be opened simply by unfastening a ribbon underneath the breast. She selected a circular tiara to match the clothes, and placed it on her hair. Then she slid a broad bracelet similar to the tiara on to her left arm.
Among the rings she also discovered brushes, powder and lipstick. She made up her eyes and painted her lips, put a pair of silk slippers on her feet, and was ready.
She looked at herself in the mirror and it struck her that the change in her appearance was much greater than she had expected. She was not Ana any longer, but a woman of oriental extraction. There was nothing left of Hanna Renström. Whoever she really was, she knew that she had transformed herself into a woman who would attract a lot of customers if she were to sit down on one of the red sofas and wait for a proposition.
She sat down on the bed. It would be some time yet before all the women had gathered.
The time eventually came. She went down the stairs and stopped by a half-open curtain that at night-time was closed in front of the opening to the inner courtyard.
The women were sitting around chatting as usual when she appeared from behind the curtain. Silence fell immediately. Ana could see that several of them didn’t recognize her at first, and as she had expected, none of the women commented on the change in her appearance. Nobody laughed or admired her beautiful clothes. They daren’t, Ana thought. Even if I have changed completely, I’m still first and foremost the white woman, nothing else.
She walked into the room.
Zé was sitting at the piano, tuning a single key deep down at the bass end of the keyboard. The guards had succeeded in not allowing any new customers in. A few sullen-looking and half-drunk sailors from a Norwegian whaling ship were staggering along towards one of the side streets where there was another establishment.
‘Are there any customers left?’ Ana asked Felicia.
‘Just a couple, asleep. They won’t wake up.’
‘Perhaps you’ve given them some of your magic medicine?’
Felicia smiled, but didn’t reply.
Picard had arrived. He had set up his large camera, hung the black cloth over it, and rearranged the furniture so that there was room for everybody in the picture.