The most self-assured was Antoine, Simone’s husband, on whom the nature of his job and the assurance of future promotion conferred an immense authority. When he spoke, his words had the power of a private bill being read to the National Assembly.
The handsomest was without doubt Bebe’s partner, Piotr. This Swede, who would not have been out of place in a film by Ingmar Bergman (the early Bergman) shared and supported her enthusiasm. Like her, he knew that Art should be brought to the people and not the reverse. Like her, he had a different notion of Art than that found in school manuals. Art is everywhere, in the street, in everyday objects. To explain his point Piotr had recently pulled off a major accomplishment. With the help of a photographer, he had plastered over the buses in Cape Town giant pictures of the market in Cocody before it went up in flames, a London double-decker filled with turbaned Sikhs, the junks and floating restaurants of Hong Kong, the mosque at Djenné, and a caravan of camels crossing the desert on their way to the salt mines at Taoudenni.
The most romantic was Peter, an Australian, a telecommunications engineer who had had to flee Sokoto after eloping with Latifah, the only daughter of the sultan. Latifah spoke only Hausa, Peter only English. The couple had three children. But Peter had still not learned a word of Hausa and Latifah not a word of English, which goes to prove that passion forges its own idiom.
The most captivating was Stephen, with his intellectual charisma, his somewhat obscure language, and his references to works of fiction that nobody had ever heard of but that he made you want to read. Once he was at Bebe’s, as Rosélie had guessed, he seemed to forget his reservations and was determined to charm anyone who approached him.
The most average was an American high school teacher from Boston who boasted of being a WASP, on honeymoon with his Congolese wife from Brazzaville who taught at the same school. Together they had written in French a seven-hundred-page novel, extremely boring, Les derniers jestes d’Anténor Biblos, published by Gallimard.
But it was Patrick who stole the evening, a somewhat common-faced fifty-year-old who escorted his wife, a Congolese, this time from Kinshasa. Patrick was a former deep-sea diver. For years he had lived on offshore oil rigs from Indonesia to Gabon, from which he escaped every two weeks to blow his phenomenal wages plus danger money in the brothels. At the age of fifty, when the hour of retirement had sounded, he had decided to settle down in Cape Town, where the climate suited his arthritis of the knee, contracted in the ocean depths. During the meal he held his audience captive, recounting quite simply how he used to dive down over a thousand feet, brushing against the fish and the coral amid the silence and darkness of the ocean deep.
But at dessert, however, the conversation got bogged down in inescapable terrain. Life as a mixed couple. In the ensuing brouhaha everyone had a story of prejudice, rejection, or exclusion to tell, and one’s heart never knew whether to laugh or cry or do both at the same time. In fact, no society is prepared to accept the freedom to love.
The most spectacular tale was that of Peter and Latifah. To prevent this union, which he considered unnatural, the sultan Rachid al-Hassan had his daughter locked up in one of the wings of his palace, the Palace of the Wind. Here she was watched over day and night by four ferocious hounds and six old hags who fed her nothing but curds in order to incapacitate her. She had escaped with the help of a guard who had poisoned the hounds with meatballs and drugged the old hags with a sleeping potion. Up to this very day the radio in Sokoto is still broadcasting the description of Peter as a wanted person and public enemy of the sultanate. The sultan has never given up hope of jailing him after having first castrated him with a fine blade inset with ivory dating from the eighteenth century.
Stephen refused to give in to the general gloom. He began by cheering up his audience with his sardonic erudition. The mixed couple is a very old and honorable institution. Ca’ da Mosto and Valentin Fernandes can testify to it. It dates back to 1510, when a group of Portuguese from Lisbon, including criminals fleeing the kingdom, settled at the mouth of the river Senegal and, adopting the African custom, took up with black women. Although they were held in contempt by their fellow countrymen, they were adored by the Africans and called themselves lançados em terra, those who are thrown onto the shore, or tango mâos, the tattooed traders. At the same time, 1512 to be exact, other Portuguese were washed up on the shores of Brazil, near São Paolo, one of whom was João Ramalho, who took as his wife the daughter of a Tamoia Indian chief. On June 14, 1874, Lafcadio Hearn married Alethea Foley, a woman of mixed race from Cincinnati. In the same humorous vein, Stephen then asked why we only take into account the biological element. Isn’t the union between a Spaniard and a Belgian a mixed marriage? Between a German and an Italian? A Czech and a Romanian? An American and a French woman? And after all, aren’t all couples mixed? Although they may belong to the same society, the spouses themselves come from different social and family backgrounds. Even if a brother married his sister it would be another case of mixed marriage. No individual is identical to another.
He brought out a sense of pride in the guests by painting in glowing colors the day when the entire world would follow their example. Yes, the mixed couple would conquer all! The greatest thinkers of our time are saying that the world is in a state of hybridization. You only need two eyes to see it for yourself. New York, London, cities of hybrids. Hybridized cities.
In their enthusiasm Piotr and Bebe proposed they join forces, and pursue and repeat the “Art for the People” operation. Could he select lines from poems or meaningful quotes by writers? They would be blown up into giant posters and displayed in the markets, the bus stations, the railroad stations, and bus shelters, everywhere where crowds gather. Stephen was only too pleased to accept. He believed the poets who are reputed to be the most difficult are in fact the most accessible. Simone looked at Rosélie angrily, betraying what she thought. Incorrigible Stephen! Once again he had managed to make himself the center of attention. Me, me, me!
Antoine and Simone were resolutely hostile to Stephen. For Antoine, Stephen remained a son of perfidious Albion, despite his French upbringing. He had not learned “Frère Jacques” at nursery school. He preferred Alice in her Wonderland to General Dourakine, and had never caught himself humming a song by Edith Piaf in the shower. As for Simone, she kept quiet about her real reservations. At the most, she would go as far as accusing him of being a show-off, an actor who always wanted to be center stage.
Rosélie received the criticism leniently. A little like a mother allowing for her son’s failings. Hadn’t Stephen always dreamed of becoming an actor? He had never achieved his ambition. Instead of sending a thrill through an audience, facing the applause, the standing ovation, and receiving the bouquets of flowers from an enthusiastic crowd, he had to be content with his drawing-room successes.
The evening at Bebe’s ended in disaster.
Around two in the morning, Arthur, the half-German, half-English photographer (a hybrid!) who had participated in Piotr’s artistic campaign, turned up perfectly drunk, accompanied by an ebony-skinned whore with hair dyed red, wearing a low-cut dress open to her navel, whom he had picked up at the Green Dolphin, where such creatures guarantee bliss for a few rand. His slurred opinion on the sexuality of black women made everyone feel uncomfortable. While fondling the breasts of his trophy, Arthur claimed he was incapable of getting a hard-on with a white woman.
“White women,” he shouted, “are like a meal without salt or spices. A dish without condiments! I never touch them!”