The Dream of the Celt: A Novel (7 page)

By the time the judge finally ruled, throwing out the complaint for lack of evidence and because the victim refused to offer corroboration, Roger had resigned his post on the Expedition and was working once more for Henry Morton Stanley—whom the Kikongos of the region had now nicknamed “Bula Matadi” (Rock Breaker)—on the railroad being constructed parallel to the caravan route, from Boma and Matadi to Leopoldville–Stanley Pool. The boy who had been mistreated stayed on to work with Roger and from then on was his servant, assistant, and traveling companion through Africa. Since he never could say what his name was, Casement baptized him Charlie. He had been with him sixteen years.

Roger’s resignation from the Sanford expedition was due to an incident with one of the company directors. He didn’t regret it, for working with Stanley on the railroad, though it demanded an enormous physical effort, gave him back the illusion he’d had when he came to Africa. Opening the jungle and dynamiting mountains to lay down track for the railroad was the pioneering work he had dreamed of. The hours he spent outdoors, burning in the sun or drenched by downpours, directing the laborers and trail cutters, giving orders to the Zanzibarians, making certain the crews did their work well, packing down, leveling, reinforcing the ground where the crossties would be laid and clearing away dense branches, meant hours of concentration and the sense he was doing work that would be of equal benefit to Europeans and Africans, the colonizers and the colonized. Herbert Ward said to him one day: “When I met you, I thought you were only an adventurer. Now I know you’re a mystic.”

What Roger liked less was leaving the countryside for the villages to negotiate the assignment of porters and trail cutters to the railroad. The lack of laborers had become the primary problem as the Congo Free State grew. In spite of having signed the “treaties,” the chiefs, now that they understood what was involved, were reluctant to allow their people to leave to open roads, build stations and depositories, or harvest rubber. When Roger worked for the SEE, he succeeded in overcoming this resistance by having the company pay the workers a small salary, generally in kind, though it had no legal obligation to do so. Other companies began to follow suit, but even so it was not easy to hire laborers. The chiefs alleged they could not send away men who were indispensable for tending their crops and hunting and fishing for the food they ate. Often, when the recruiters approached, the able-bodied men hid in the underbrush. That was when the punitive expeditions began, the forced recruitments and the practice of locking women into so-called
maisons d’otages
(hostage houses) to make certain their husbands did not escape.

Both in Stanley’s expedition and in Henry Shelton Sanford’s, Roger was often responsible for negotiating with the indigenous communities for the surrender of native workers. Thanks to his facility in languages, he could make himself understood in Kikongo and Lingala—and later in Swahili as well—though always with the help of interpreters. Hearing him attempting to speak their language eased the mistrust of the natives. His gentle manner, patience, and respectful attitude facilitated dialogues, as did the gifts he brought: clothing, knives and other domestic objects, as well as the glass beads they liked so much. He usually returned to camp with a handful of men to clear the countryside and work as porters. He became famous as “a friend of the blacks,” a name that some of his colleagues judged with commiseration while others, especially some officers in the Force Publique, reacted to with contempt.

These visits to the tribes caused a disquiet in Roger that would increase with the years. At first he made them willingly, for they satisfied his curiosity to know something of the customs, languages, apparel, habits, foods, dances, songs, and religious practices of peoples who seemed mired in the depths of time, in whom a primitive innocence, healthy and direct, mixed with cruel customs, like sacrificing twins in certain tribes, or killing a number of servants—almost always slaves—to bury along with the chiefs, and the practice of cannibalism in some groups who, as a consequence, were feared and hated by other communities. He would leave negotiations with an ill-defined uneasiness, the sensation of playing dirty with those men from another time who, no matter how much he tried, would never be able to understand him fully, and consequently, in spite of the precautions he took to attenuate the abusiveness of the agreements, he felt guilty of having acted against his convictions, morality, and that “first principle,” which was what he called God.

Therefore, at the end of December 1888, before he had completed a year on Stanley’s
chemin de fer
, he resigned and went to work at the Baptist mission of Ngombe Lutete with the Bentleys, the married couple who ran it. He made the decision abruptly after a conversation that began at twilight and ended at the first light of dawn, in a house in the colonists’ district in Matadi, with an individual who was passing through. Theodore Horte was a former officer in the Royal Navy, which he had left to become a Baptist missionary in the Congo. The Baptists had been there since David Livingstone began to explore the African continent and preach evangelism. They had opened missions in Palabala, Banza Manteke, and Ngombe Lutete, and had just inaugurated another one, Arlington, in the vicinity of Stanley Pool. Theodore Horte, an inspector of these missions, spent his time traveling from one to another, giving help to the pastors and looking into opening new centers. That conversation produced in Roger an impression he would remember the rest of his life; during the days of convalescence from his third attack of malaria, in the middle of 1902, he could have reproduced it in minute detail.

No one imagined, hearing him speak, that Theodore Horte had been a career officer and, as a sailor, had participated in important military operations of the Royal Navy. He didn’t speak about his past or his private life. He was a distinguished-looking, well-mannered man of about fifty. On that tranquil night in Matadi, with no rain or clouds, a sky studded with stars that were reflected in the river, and the calm sound of the warm breeze ruffling their hair, Casement and Horte, lying in hammocks hung side by side, began an after-dinner conversation that Roger thought, at first, would last only for the few minutes after a meal and before sleep and would be another conventional, forgettable exchange. But shortly after their chat began, something made his heart beat faster than usual. He felt lulled by the sensitivity and warmth of Pastor Horte’s voice, inspired to speak about subjects he never shared with his colleagues at work—except, occasionally, Herbert Ward—and certainly not with his superiors. Preoccupations, anxieties, doubts that he hid as if they were something ominous. Did all of it make sense? Was the European adventure in Africa by any chance what was said, written, believed? Was it bringing civilization, progress, modernity by means of free trade and evangelization? Could those animals in the Force Publique be called civilizers when they stole everything they could on their punitive expeditions? How many of the colonizers—businessmen, soldiers, functionaries, adventurers—had a minimum of respect for the natives and considered them brothers or, at least, human beings? Five percent? One in a hundred? The truth, the truth was that in the years he had spent here he could count on one hand the number of Europeans who did not treat the blacks like soulless beasts whom they could deceive, exploit, whip, even kill, without the slightest remorse.

Theodore Horte listened in silence to the explosion of bitterness from young Roger. When he spoke, he did not seem surprised by what he had heard. On the contrary, he acknowledged that for years he, too, had been assailed by terrible doubts. Still, at least in theory, that business about “civilization” had a good deal of truth in it. Weren’t the natives’ living conditions atrocious? Didn’t their levels of hygiene, their superstitions, their ignorance of the most basic notions of health mean they died like flies? Wasn’t their life of mere survival tragic? Europe had a great deal to offer to bring them out of primitivism. So they would end certain barbaric customs, the sacrifice of children and the sick in so many communities, for example, the wars in which they killed one another, slavery, and cannibalism, still practiced in some places. And besides, wasn’t it good for them to know the true God and replace the idols they worshipped with the Christian God, the God of mercy, love, and justice? True, many evil people, perhaps the worst of Europe, had ended up here. Wasn’t there a solution? It was imperative that the good things from the Old Continent come here too. Not the greed of merchants with dirty souls, but science, law, education, inherent human rights, Christian ethics. It was too late to take a step backward, wasn’t it? It was pointless to ask whether colonization was good or bad, whether, if left to their fate, the Congolese would have been better off without Europeans. When things could not be turned back, it wasn’t worth wasting time wondering whether it would have been better if those things had not occurred. It was better to try to redirect them along the right path. It was always possible to straighten what had become twisted. Wasn’t that the greatest teaching of Christ?

When, at dawn, Roger asked him whether it was possible for a layman like him, who had never been very religious, to work in one of the missions that the Baptist Church had in the region of the Lower and Middle Congo, Theodore Horte gave a little laugh:

“It must be one of God’s jokes,” he exclaimed. “The Bentleys, at the Ngombe Lutete mission, need a lay assistant to give them a hand with bookkeeping. And now you ask me that question. Isn’t this something more than mere coincidence? One of those jokes God plays on us sometimes to remind us that He’s always there and we should never despair?”

Roger’s work from January to March of 1889, at the Ngombe Lutete mission, though short-lived, was intense, and it allowed him to leave behind the uncertainty in which he had lived for some time. He earned only ten pounds a month and with that he had to pay his room and board, but seeing William Holman Bentley and his wife work from morning to night with so much energy and conviction, and sharing with them life in the mission that was not only a religious center but a dispensary, a site for vaccinations, a school, a store for merchandise, and a place of recreation, counseling, and advice, made the colonial adventure seem less harsh, more reasonable, even civilizing. This feeling was encouraged by seeing how around this couple a small African community of converts to the reformed church had arisen who, in their attire and the songs the choir rehearsed every day for Sunday services, as well as in classes in literacy and Christian doctrine, seemed to be leaving tribal life behind and beginning a modern, Christian life.

His work was not limited to keeping the books of income and expenses for the mission. That took him little time. He did everything, from removing excess foliage and weeding the small cleared space around the mission—it was a daily struggle against vegetation determined to recover the clearing that had been snatched away—to going out to hunt down a leopard that was eating the fowl in the yard. He took care of transport by trail or by river in a small boat, fetching and carrying the sick, tools, and workers, and he watched over the operations of the mission store, where natives in the vicinity could sell and acquire goods. This was done principally by barter, but Belgian francs and pounds sterling also circulated. The Bentleys laughed at his ineptitude in business and his vocation for prodigality, for Roger thought all the prices were high and wanted to lower them, even though that would deprive the mission of the small profit margin that allowed it to supplement its meager budget.

In spite of the affection he came to feel for the Bentleys and the clear conscience he had working at their side, Roger knew from the beginning that his stay at the Ngombe Lutete mission would be temporary. The work was honorable and altruistic but made sense only if accompanied by the faith that animated Theodore Horte and the Bentleys and that he lacked, though he might mimic its gestures and manifestations, attending the commented readings of the Bible, the classes on doctrine, and the Sunday service. He wasn’t an atheist or an agnostic but something more uncertain, an indifferent man who did not deny the existence of God—the “first principle”—but was incapable of feeling comfortable in the bosom of a church, in common cause and joined with other believers, part of a common denominator. He tried to explain this to Theodore Horte during their long conversation in Matadi and felt clumsy and confused. The former naval officer calmed him: “I understand perfectly, Roger. God has His ways. He makes us uneasy, disturbs us, urges us to search. Until one day everything is illuminated and there He is. It will happen to you, you’ll see.”

In those three months, at least, it hadn’t happened to him. Now, in 1902, thirteen years later, he still felt religious uncertainty. The fevers had passed, he had lost a good deal of weight, and though at times his weakness made him dizzy, he had resumed his duties as consul in Boma. He went to visit the governor-general and other authorities. He returned to the games of chess and bridge. The rainy season was at its height and would last for many more months.

At the end of March 1889, when he finished his contract with Reverend William Holman Bentley and after five years away, he returned to Britain for the first time.

V

“Coming here has been one of the most difficult things I’ve done in my life,” said Alice by way of greeting, pressing his hand. “I thought I’d never manage it. But here I am at last.”

Alice Stopford Green maintained the appearance of a cold, rational person, far removed from sentimentality, but Roger knew her well enough to understand that she was moved to the marrow of her bones. He noticed the very slight tremor in her voice she could not hide and the rapid quivering of her nose that appeared whenever something worried her. She was close to seventy but still had her youthful figure. Wrinkles had not erased the freshness of her freckled face or the luminosity of her bright, steely eyes. In them the light of intelligence always shone. With her usual sober elegance, she wore a light suit, thin blouse, and boots with high heels.