No Other Life (3 page)

‘It’s all over,’ he said. ‘I’ve lost my job. I’ve been “promoted” to the Northern Command. The Académie is finished.’

‘But why doesn’t the Army do something?’

‘Do what? It turns out that Uncle D. is a better student of history than the rest of us. He’s found a formula. Tell the
noirs
you’re their president and the enemy of the elite. Leave the rich alone to do what they’ve always done. In turn, they’re grateful for being spared and so they render unto Caesar. As for the Army we thought his game would be to cause divisions by promoting
noirs
over us
mulâtres
. He’s done something else. He’s created his own army. The
bleus
.’

‘So what will the Army do?’

Lamballe laughed. ‘I could ask you the same thing. What will the Church do? Uncle wants black bishops. Ganaens. You foreigners will be pushed out.’

When I mentioned Lamballe’s prophecy to the other professors, no one believed it. The Ganaen hierarchy had always been French. The people were religious and devoted to the Pope. The attack on me by Doumergue’s
bleus
was, everyone said, an aberration, the random violence of hired thugs.

A few weeks later while we were having supper in the refectory of the residence, two men wearing white suits and panama hats came in from the front hall and walked over to the refectory table. Our Principal rose up, irritated at this intrusion.

‘Who are you? What are you doing here?’

The men ignored the question. One of them looked at the food on our plates. It was a supper of beans and rice. The man put his finger into the serving dish and stirred it around. ‘What, no pork?’ he said. ‘Why do you eat like peasants, Reverend Fathers?’

‘Because we are poor,’ the Principal said. ‘Now, who are you and what do you want?’

‘Anti-terrorist Squad. Are you Father Bourque?’

‘I am.’

‘We want to talk to you. Do you have an office?’

When the Principal had gone off with the men, Father Nöl Destouts, a Ganaen, said to me, ‘I don’t think they’re police. They behave like
bleus
.’

The Principal did not return to finish his supper. After the meal we went, as usual, into the lounge where Hyppolite served coffee. As I took my cup from the tray I saw our Principal come downstairs with the two men. He led them to the front door and let them out. Then he came into the lounge. ‘Paul? Will you come with me?’

The others looked at me in surprise. When I went upstairs with Father Bourque he did not speak until he had shut us into the privacy of his study. He went to his desk and took up a printed sheet of paper. ‘This is a leaflet which those men brought here tonight. They say several copies of it were distributed in the Bellevue and Beaulieu districts two nights ago. They were handed out by some boys who, the police say, may be from our school.’

I read the leaflet. I don’t remember the wording, but it said that Ganae was a dictatorship and the only way to free its people was by revolution which must be led by young people ready to give up their lives for the poor. I realised it could be a twisted version of something I had said in class a few weeks before. I had told my students that nothing would change in Ganae until educated young people like them were prepared to sacrifice their comfortable lives and prospects for the good of the poor.

‘Well, Paul,’ Father Bourque said. ‘Do you know anything about this?’

‘No . . . but . . .’

‘But what?’

‘Perhaps,’ I said, stumbling with the words, ‘it could have had something to do with a remark I made in class.’

‘That’s why I asked. I’ve been meaning to speak to you. I know your feelings about this country. But political comments in front of the boys are totally uncalled for. You’re a priest, not a politician. We’ve got to be very careful. We’re white people in a black country. Foreigners – never forget that. Tell me. Do you know anything about these leaflets?’

‘No, Father. Why do the police say the boys could be from our school?’

‘Apparently, they arrested fifteen poor souls who had accepted the leaflets. They took those people to Fort Nöl and you can imagine what they did to them. These people told the police that the boys were well dressed, six mulattos and one black. All dressed like children of the elite.’

One black. I felt my heart in my chest.

‘Anyway,’ Father Bourque said. ‘See what you can find out. And, in the meantime, let’s not mention this to the rest of the staff.’

That night I lay awake. I thought of the policeman in his white suit putting his finger into the bowl that contained our food. I thought of those people arrested and now held in Fort Nöl, a place of torture, a place where protesters are silenced and disappear. When at last I slept, men in white suits stood over me, shouting, ‘You are white people in a black country. Foreigners – never forget that.’ I woke to the sounds of dawn in Port Riche. Roosters crowed. Food vendors, arriving from villages outside the city, passed below my window, the creaking of their ancient carts loud on the cobblestones. A church bell rang. I rose and dressed. It was time to say Mass.

At six o’clock in the school chapel my congregation consisted of seven nuns from a nearby convent. I hurried through the service and at a quarter to seven stood in the vestibule, waiting. Jeannot, like the other boarders, would be at the seven o’clock Mass, which would be said by Father Destouts.

At five minutes past the hour I saw Jeannot come running, among the other stragglers. I stepped out from the shadows beside the Holy Water font, and signalled him to follow me. Behind the chapel there is a cemetery. In it are buried the priests of our Order who died in Ganae. It is small and quiet, shaded by jacaranda trees. In the nearby chapel we heard the shuffling of feet, then silence, as the service began.

‘The police were here last night,’ I said. ‘Do you have any idea why?’

‘Was it about the leaflets, Father?’

I remember that I felt both anger and fear. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘So you’re responsible. What sort of nonsense is this?’

‘Is it nonsense, Father? You yourself told us it’s up to my generation to do something.’

‘So what have you done? What will you do? A few schoolboys with no plan and no idea how the world works. All you’ve done is cause innocent people to be arrested and put in Fort Nöl. And do you know what’s happened to those people?
Do
you?’

I was shouting. I saw him flinch as though I would strike him. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘Forgive me, I shouldn’t lose my temper. How many of you are mixed up in this thing? And what else have you done?’

‘This was just a beginning, Father. It was my idea. We tried to hand the leaflets out to young people – educated young people. If we can make them turn against their parents that will be a beginning. That’s why we went to Bellevue and Beaulieu.’

‘How many of you are there?’

‘For now, maybe ten. But I don’t want to give their names.’

‘I’m not asking you for their names. Did
you
write the leaflet?’

‘Yes.’

There, in the cemetery, the unrelenting sun of the tropics had already mounted its daily attack. We stood in the hot breath of the morning wind while above us the delicate, violet jacaranda blossoms trembled in the moment before their fall. On the worn gravestones I could read the names of our priests, French and Canadian, forgotten now, their labours ended, their bodies rotted to anonymous bones in the unforgiving soil of this lost and lonely land. What was the true meaning of those lives, lived far from France and Quebec? What would be the meaning of my life if I left this island as I found it, still one of the most desolate, despairing places on this earth? But even as those thoughts moved guiltily in my mind, they were driven out by a stronger emotion, one of fear, the fear of a childless Father facing a brilliant black boy who was, to me, a son. Like a father I did not think of principles or causes. I thought of him, of saving him from men in white suits and panama hats.

‘Jeannot,’ I said, ‘listen to me. If those other boys who distributed the leaflets are caught by the police, their parents will intervene. Their parents are the elite and their sons will not be tortured, they will not disappear into prison and never be heard from again. But if you are taken by Doumergue’s police, it will be the end of you. And for what? What can you, a schoolboy, do to change things here? Nothing. But if you continue your education and go abroad, then, one day, you may come back with the power to influence events. Tell me. Do you still want to be a priest?’

Behind us, in the church, we could hear the rumble of feet as the congregation went down on its knees.

‘Why do you ask me, Father?’

‘Because if you do, I’ll try to arrange that you be sent to Canada or France to study. There are only certain things we can teach you here. With a mind like yours, that’s not enough.’

‘And if I do not?’

‘Please,’ I said. ‘Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not asking you to become a priest. If you do, you’ll be giving up a normal life. And believe me, I will help you in any way I can, no matter what you decide.’

He was silent.

‘You don’t have to decide now,’ I said.

‘I have decided. I want to be someone like you. A priest. A teacher. Someone who gives his life for others.’

‘Jeannot, you mustn’t become a priest because you want to be someone like me. That’s not enough. To be a priest you must want, above all, to serve God. That’s the only reason. Nothing else will do.’

Again, he was silent. On the path below our feet, tiny lizards whisked over the gravel as though fleeing some unseen enemy. In the church behind us, the Sanctus bell tolled. Instinctively, I bowed my head. And then Jeannot put out his hand and touched my sleeve.

‘Christ gave His life for the poor. I want to be like Him.’

‘If it pleases God, you will be like Him,’ I said. ‘But now you must help me. Fifteen innocent people have been arrested. Tell the other boys. This must stop.’

‘It will stop,’ he said.

2

Last night, as I was writing, Hyppolite knocked on the door of my room. He brought me a cup of herbal tea. I had not asked for the tea. Perhaps one of the other priests had done so. But Hyppolite is very old. He forgets. No one still expects him to work as our servant. But he has worked ever since the day, forty years ago, when Father Bourque brought him from Meredieu to act as houseman at our residence. Later, I was the one who taught him to drive the school car, something which gave him great joy and raised his status among the other servants. And so he has always thought of me as his special charge. Last night when he brought the tea I was writing down what Jeannot had said to me. ‘Christ gave His life for the poor. I want to be like Him.’

I looked up at Hyppolite.

‘
Mesiah
,’ I said.

He looked at me, puzzled, then smiled, showing his toothless gums. ‘
Mesiah. Me souviens.
’

Messiah. Of course, he remembers. Which of us, alive in those times, will ever forget that word? But I must not skip ahead, I must write first of those early days when Jeannot was still my pupil. He kept his promise, and I said nothing to Father Bourque. The following year, on my recommendation, our Provincial sent him to Montreal where he became a seminarian and obtained a degree in French literature. At the age of twenty-two, he joined our Order and was ordained as a priest. Because of my duties in Ganae, I was not able to attend the ceremony but I used some money my father had once given me, to buy, as an ordination present, a gold pocket watch with a ‘hunter’ case covering the dial. Inside the case were engraved his initials, J.P.C. In the letter he wrote thanking me, he said, ‘I do not believe that I should ever have or want a beautiful object like this. But I shall keep it with me always to remind me of what you have done for me.’

Shortly after his ordination, our Provincial arranged that he be sent to do postgraduate work at the Sorbonne. He remained in France for two years. At that time I thought I had lost him to the great world. He still wrote every week, telling of his excitement at being in Paris, describing lectures in those crowded classrooms, political demonstrations on the Grands Boulevards, Sunday picnics by the Seine. Yet in each letter he asked for news of the happenings at home. In my replies I spoke angrily, recklessly, about the misery of the poor and the unending cruelties and repressions of Doumergue’s regime. At that time I saw no hope of change. In the United States, dictators were still in vogue. Ganae remained a pawn on the international chessboard, a check against Castro, until the time of communism’s fall.

This, then, was the future I foretold for Jeannot. He would complete his studies and be sent to teach in Rouen, the headquarters of our Order. Gradually, in the course of time, our relationship would weaken and fade. And then, one morning at breakfast, Father Duchamp said to me, ‘I heard something last night which should interest you. I was at dinner at the papal nuncio’s house. He said your protégé, Jean-Paul Cantave, is to become the new parish priest of the Church of the Incarnation.’

‘A parish priest? Jeannot?’

‘It’s true. It seems Uncle D. asked Rome to appoint a black archbishop when Archbishop Le Moyne retired last month. Apparently, the Vatican has agreed. And one of this new archbishop’s requests is that your protégé be given a job as parish priest in La Rotonde.’