A Treacherous Paradise Read online

  Once again Hanna was unsure if she had understood properly what he had said. ‘Our streets?’ Whose streets were they not, then?

  Senhor Vaz stopped outside a restaurant that seemed to be wallowing in darkness. Hanna thought she could see the word morte on the sign board, but that surely couldn’t be right. A restaurant in a red-light district could hardly have a name that included the concept of death.

  Nevertheless, she was sure. That was the word she had seen, and it meant ‘dead’ – it was one of the very first words she had learnt from Forsman’s dictionary.

  They ate fish grilled over an open fire. Senhor Vaz offered her wine, but she shook her head and he didn’t insist. He was very friendly, only asked her a few questions about how she was feeling, and seemed to be keen to ensure that she was in good shape.

  But there was something about his manner that made her cautious, possibly even suspicious. She answered his questions as fully as she could, but nevertheless had the feeling that she had closed all the doors to her innermost rooms, and locked them.

  At the end of the meal he informed her that a nurse would be coming to the hotel the following day, and would stay on for as long as Hanna needed her help. Hanna tried to protest. She already had all the help she needed, from Laurinda and Felicia. But Senhor Vaz was very insistent.

  ‘You need a white nurse,’ he said. ‘You can’t rely on the blacks. Even if they seem to be looking after your best interests, the reality might be that they are poisoning you.’

  Hanna was struck dumb. Had she heard right? She didn’t believe what he had said. But at the same time, she had the feeling that a white woman might be able to give her a different kind of company.

  They walked home slowly through the night. Senhor Vaz linked arms with her. She didn’t back off.

  When they arrived back at the hotel, he bowed to her at the foot of the stairs and withdrew. Although it was late most of the prostitutes were sitting idle on their chairs, smoking or talking to one another in low voices. She gathered that it was not a good evening, and thought with disgust about what usually went on behind the closed doors.

  Hanna looked for Felicia, but failed to see her. But when she was halfway up the stairs Felicia emerged from her room together with a white man with a bushy beard and an enormous pot belly. The sight made Hanna’s stomach turn. She hurried to her room and closed the door – but just before she closed it her eyes met Felicia’s. Very briefly, but despite everything they seemed to be exchanging an important message.

  At that same moment she also saw Carlos, the chimpanzee dressed as a waiter, standing next to the piano with a cigar in his hand. He was looking round curiously. At that moment he seemed to be the most alive of all those occupying what was known as a house of pleasure.

  28

  THE FOLLOWING DAY a white woman with a stern-looking face appeared outside Hanna’s door. Her name was Ana Dolores, and she spoke only Portuguese plus a few words of the local language Shangana. But as she spoke slowly and clearly, Hanna found it easier to understand her than both Felicia and Senhor Vaz.

  After the arrival of Ana Dolores, Hanna was better able to understand what Senhor Vaz had said about black people telling lies. Ana was of the same opinion – indeed, if possible she was even more convinced of it than Senhor Vaz. She became Hanna’s guide in a world that seemed to consist exclusively of lies.

  Ana had been summoned because Senhor Vaz had been convinced that neither Dr Garibaldi nor the black servant girls would be able to help Hanna to fully recover. The very next day after his conversation with Felicia he had called a rickshaw and made the journey up the hills to the Pombal hospital. He had spoken to Senhor Vasconselous who was in charge of all the extensive hospital administration despite the fact that he was stone deaf and could only see out of his left eye. For many years Vasconselous had been a faithful client at O Paraiso every three weeks. He told his wife about the long and extremely complicated games of chess he played with his old friend Vaz. She didn’t need to know that in fact he scarcely knew how to move the various pieces across the board. The only lady he wished to be served by when he visited the establishment was the beautiful Belinda Bonita, who was getting on in years but in view of her maturity attracted certain clients who couldn’t stomach the thought of bedding any of the younger women.

  Senhor Vaz told Senhor Vasconselous the facts: a white woman had come to stay at O Paraiso out of the blue. To make sure the deaf man on the other side of the desk understood, he wrote down what he was saying in large letters on the notepad with lined yellow paper that always lay in front of the old man.

  What he wanted was straightforward. Senhor Vaz needed a trustworthy nurse to work for him in the hotel for as long as the white woman needed medical care. He stressed that it should be a mature woman who always wore her nurse’s uniform whenever she visited the hotel. He didn’t want to risk any of his clients getting the idea that the first white whore had arrived in Lourenço Marques. A woman who could also assume various playful and erotically arousing identities, such as that of a nurse for instance.

  Or to be more accurate, perhaps: the second white prostitute in Lourenço Marques. Nobody, least of all Senhor Vaz, knew if it was a myth or something that had really happened, but it was claimed that there was a white woman who seduced clients into joining her in one of the dark alleys of the illuminated rua Bagamoio. Nobody knew where she had come from, nobody was really sure if she actually existed. But occasionally half-naked men used to stagger out of the dark alleys with stories to tell about a beautiful white woman who could perform tricks that none of the black women seemed to be capable of.

  Senhor Vaz had never believed these stories. He was convinced that in the world that black people lived in, lies carried more weight than the truth. Embedded in falsehoods were also superstition and fear, deceit and obsequiousness. From the very first day he had set foot on the quay in Lourenço Marques he had been convinced that one could never trust black people. Without their white overlords they would still be living the kind of life that Europeans left behind hundreds of years ago.

  Senhor Vaz was a firm believer in the civilizing mission of the white race on the African continent. But that did not mean that he treated the women in his brothel badly. It’s true that he occasionally smacked the girls if he was annoyed by them, but he never allowed that to develop into serious ill treatment.

  Senhor Vasconcelous thought over what his friend had to say, then rang a bell. His secretary, a grossly overweight woman who Senhor Vaz recognized from the cathedral where he always attended Mass every Sunday, came into the room and was instructed to fetch nurse Ana Dolores, who was working on a ward for the mentally ill.

  Senhor Vaz was a little worried when he heard this and wondered if his friend Vasconselous had misunderstood him. He didn’t need help looking after a white woman who was out of her mind. She had booked into his hotel, paid for several nights in advance, and then suddenly started to bleed. The bleeding had stopped now, but she was still weak and in need of care.

  He wrote this latter point down in childishly large capital letters. Senhor Vasconselous read what was written with his short-sighted good eye, then wrote simply si, entendo, and lit a stump of a cigar.

  Ana Dolores was very thin with a hatchet face characterized by some kind of rancour. Senhor Vaz was doubtful the moment she entered the room and had her task explained to her. As far as he was concerned it was just as important that she didn’t scare off his clients as that she took care of the white woman confined to bed in room number 4. But he decided he had to rely on the judgement of his friend.

  They agreed on a fee, shook hands, and decided that she should start work that very same evening. Senhor Vaz couldn’t tell from the expression on Ana’s face whether or not she knew about O Paraiso, but she could hardly have failed to be aware of the fact that rua Bagamoio was the most notorious red-light street in the whole of southern Africa. Vaz had a fair idea of the wages normally paid to an experienced nurse, and had
immediately doubled that amount to prevent her from hesitating for financial reasons. He also promised her accommodation in room number 2, which was the biggest one in the hotel – more of a modest suite in fact, a large corner room with a bed recess and a picture window with views over the rooftops down to the harbour and the Katembe peninsular.

  And so Hanna got to know Ana Dolores. When she woke up the following morning it was no longer Felicia sitting in the basket chair by the window, nor Laurinda on her silent feet carrying in a tray with a cup of tea and nibbles. Now it was a nurse dressed in white, standing in front of her and staring at her. Without a word she took her hand and measured her pulse. Then, with no indication as to whether she was satisfied or not, she leaned over Hanna’s face, pulled her eyelid up and studied her pupils. Hanna noticed that this unknown nurse smelled of some fruit or flower she didn’t recognize. Having examined Hanna’s eyes, Ana then whipped down the thin duvet and exposed her lower abdomen. It happened so quickly that Hanna didn’t have time to hide her modesty. She raised a hand, but Ana brushed it aside, almost as if it had been an insect, and opened her patient’s legs wide. Without a word she contemplated Hanna’s pudenda, lengthily, thoughtfully. Then she folded back the duvet and left the room.

  Laurinda came in with the tea tray. She was wearing a thin white cotton blouse and a colourful capulana wrapped around her hips.

  Hanna raised her hand and pointed to the door, trying to reproduce an outline of the woman who had just left the room.

  Laurinda understood.

  ‘Dona Ana Dolores,’ she said.

  Hanna thought she could detect a trace of fear in Laurinda’s voice when she pronounced the nurse’s name.

  But she couldn’t be sure, of course. Not about that or anything else.

  29

  HANNA WAS INFLICTED by some sort of infection that caused her a prolonged fever. She was cared for by Ana Dolores for two months. Her first feelings of being restored to health were followed by a period of extreme exhaustion which almost paralysed her. It was during this time that Ana taught Hanna how to speak Portuguese fluently. Whenever Hanna wasn’t feeling too tired, they practised speaking.

  But this was also when Hanna learnt how white people ought to treat the black people who worked at the hotel – the hotel which was first and foremost a brothel for white men who happened to be visiting the port. At first Hanna thought it was uncomfortable, having to witness the unconcealed contempt, the harsh condescension that characterized everything Ana did with regard to the black women who entered the sickroom. But as time passed, despite herself Hanna began to react less to what Ana said.

  When Hanna had become well enough to leave her sickbed and go for increasingly long walks through town, always accompanied by Ana, she realized that the latter’s behaviour was always the same: in the street, in the park, on one of the long beaches or in a shop – not just within the four walls of O Paraiso.

  Ana Dolores took it for granted that black people were a lower order of beings. It reminded Hanna of the situation in Forsman’s house. Even though he treated his servants better than most – Berta had explained that to her – he also had nothing but contempt for those near the bottom of the social ladder. Not only inside his own house, but in society in general. When Hanna had tried to protest and used herself as an example of Forsman’s kindness, Berta had insisted that he didn’t treat everyone like that. And Hanna had also noticed occasionally that Forsman could be condescending to the poor people he came across.

  Ana explained it to her:

  ‘The blacks are merely shadows of us. They have no colour. God made them black so that we didn’t have to see them in the dark. And we should never forget where they came from.’

  Even though Hanna got used to it, she still regarded Ana’s behaviour with unease. When she hit out at black women who didn’t move out of her way, or didn’t hesitate to smack children who tried to sell her bananas in the streets, Hanna simply wanted to run away. All the time, as if it were an obvious part of the job of caring for Hanna, Ana talked about their inferiority, their deceitfulness, their filthiness in both body and soul. Hanna’s resistance decreased. She took on board what she heard, as if it were true after all. She realized that there was a crucial difference compared with the life she had lived in Forsman’s house. There she had been one of the poor workers and servants. Here, because of the colour of her skin, she was on a quite different level, superior to the blacks. Here she was the one who made the decisions, who had the right to give orders and punish black people with divine blessing. Here she was the equivalent of Jonathan Forsman. Despite the fact that she was merely a cook who had deserted her ship.

  One day, towards the end of the long time Ana was looking after Hanna, they went for a walk in the little botanical gardens a few streets away from the rua Bagamoio, next to the hill where the new, shiny white cathedral was being built. Both of them were carrying open parasols to protect them from the sun. It was very hot, and they sought out the shady areas of the park where it was a bit cooler. Notices on the iron entrance gates to the park informed visitors that benches were for whites only. The text was worded so threateningly that although they had a right to be in the park, blacks preferred not to go walking along the sandy paths. The only ones in the park on this occasion were half-naked gardeners weeding the flowerbeds, constantly on the lookout for poisonous snakes that might emerge from the fallen leaves.

  Many of the benches were occupied that afternoon. Relaxing in the park were civil servants from the various colonial offices, mothers with daughters playing hopscotch and sons running after their hoops.

  Ana suddenly stopped dead. Sitting fast asleep on a bench in front of her was an elderly black man. Hanna could see the anger in her face even before she hit the man on the shoulder. He woke up slowly, looked enquiringly at the two women, then prepared to go back to sleep.

  Once before in her life Hanna had seen an old man open his eyes in that same slow way. It was when she and Jukka had entered the room where the old man who had been a lodger in her relatives’ house was lying in his filthy bed. Just like him, this old black man barely knew where he was. He seemed hungry, thin and on the brink of dehydration. His skin was stretched tightly over his cheekbones.

  Before Hanna had chance to react Ana had grabbed hold of him, lifted him up like a floppy doll and thumped him so hard that he went flying into a clump of rhododendron bushes. He remained lying there on the ground while Ana wiped the bench with a handkerchief, then beckoned Hanna to sit down.

  For a brief moment everything in the park came to a stop. The hoops stopped rolling, the ladies on the benches fell silent, the half-naked gardeners with their sweaty bodies crouching down in the flowerbeds remained stock-still. Afterwards, when normality had been restored, Hanna wondered if the stillness was due to what had already happened, or to what was going to happen.

  Would anything at all happen, in fact?

  Hanna glanced furtively at Ana, who was holding her parasol in one hand and slowly waving the other one in front of her face. Hanna looked behind her. The old man was still lying among the blossoming bushes. He wasn’t moving at all.

  I don’t understand this, she thought. Lying behind the bench I’m sitting on is an old man who has been beaten and flung on to the ground, and nobody is doing anything to help him. Not even I.

  She didn’t know how long they remained seated on the bench, but when Ana decided it was time to go back to O Paraiso, the old man had vanished. Perhaps he had crawled deeper into the clump of rhododendron bushes, and hidden himself alongside the poisonous snakes that everybody was scared of.

  A few days later something took place that shook her deeply, and made her wonder what was happening to her. Laurinda dropped a dish when she was serving Hanna’s morning tea. The dish shattered when it hit the stone floor. Hanna was standing in front of the mirror, combing her hair: she turned round quickly and slapped Laurinda on the side of the head. Then she pointed at the shards and told her to pick the
m up.

  Laurinda crawled around on her hands and knees, picking up the bits of porcelain. Meanwhile Hanna sat on the edge of the bed, waiting for the tea to cool down sufficiently for her to be able to drink it.

  Laurinda stood up. That annoyed Hanna.

  ‘Who said you were allowed to stand up?’ she asked. ‘There are still bits of china on the floor.’

  Laurinda got down on her knees again. Hanna was still annoyed because she could never read Laurinda’s thoughts from her facial expression. Was she afraid that Hanna was going to punish her? Or merely indifferent, or even filled with contempt for this white woman whose life she had once helped to save?

  Laurinda’s eyes were very bright, gleaming with a sort of mysterious inner radiance that Hanna could never recall having seen in the eyes of a white person.

  ‘You can go now,’ she said. ‘But I want to know when you are coming and going. I want you always to wear shoes when you wait on me.’

  Laurinda stood up and disappeared into the darkness. She somehow managed to make her bare heels sound like shoe heels. Hanna assumed she was on her way to the kitchen to partake of some of Mandrillo the chef’s stew.

  Hanna remained seated in the darkness. Shadows were dancing around the gas lamp. She tried to envisage the house by the river in her mind’s eye. Elin, her brother and sisters, the brown and clear water flowing down from the mountains.

  But she could see nothing. It was as if everything was hidden behind a film her eyes couldn’t penetrate.

  She regretted the way she had treated Laurinda. It frightened her – the ease with which she had humiliated this friendly woman. She felt ashamed.