Читать книгу The Flashman Papers: The Complete 12-Book Collection - George Fraser MacDonald - Страница 65

It’s been my experience that however strange or desperate the plight you may find yourself in, if there’s nothing else for it, you just get on with the business in hand as though it was the most natural thing in the world. By various quirks of fate I’ve landed up as an Indian butler, a Crown Prince, a cottonfield slave-driver, a gambling-hell proprietor, and G-d knows what besides – all occupations from which I’d have run a mile if I’d been able. But I couldn’t, so I made the best of ’em, and before I knew it I was fretting about silver polish or court precedent or how we were to get the crop in by November or whether the blackjack dealer was holding out, and almost forgetting that the real world to which I rightly belonged was still out there somewheres. Self-defence, I suppose – but it keeps you sane when by rights you ought to be sinking into madness and despair.

So when they gave me the army of Madagascar to drill and train, I simply shut my mind to the horrors of my situation and went at it like Frederick the Great with a wasp in his pants. I believe it saw me through one of the blackest periods of my life – a time so confused, when I look back, that I have difficulty in placing the events of those first few weeks in their proper order, or even making much sense of them. I knew so little then about the place, and that little was so strange and horrid that it left the mind numb. Only gradually did I come to have a clear picture of that savage, mock-civilized country, with its amazing people and customs, and understand my own peculiar station in it, and begin trying to scheme a way out. At first it was just a frightening turmoil, in which I could only do what I had to do, but I’ll describe it as best I can, so that you may learn about it as I did, and have the background to the astonishing events that followed.

I had the army, then, to reform and instruct, and if you think that an uncommon responsible job for the newest arrived foreign slave, remember that it was European-modelled, but that they hadn’t seen a white instructor in years. There was another good reason, too, for my appointment, but I didn’t find out about that until much later. Anyway, there it was, and I’m bound to say the work was as near to being a pleasure as anything could be in that place. For they were absolutely first-class, and as soon as I saw this, when I had the regiments reviewed on the great plain outside the city, I thought to myself, right, my boy, perfection is our ticket. They’re good, but there’s nothing easier than spending ten hours a day hounding their commanders to make ’em better. And that’s what I did.

Fankanonikaka had told me I had a free hand; he came down with me to that first review, when the five regiments stationed at Antan’, and the palace guard, marched past under my critical eye.

“Like changing guard, left right, boom-boom, mighty fine!” cries he. “Being best soldiers in world, not half, eh? Right turning, shouldering arms, altogether, ha-ha!” He beamed at the comic opera generals and colonels who were standing with us, puffed up with pride as they watched their battalions. “You liking greatly, Sergeant-General Flashman?”

I just grunted, had them halted, and plunged straight in among the ranks, looking for the first fault I could find. There was a black face badly shaven, so I stamped and swore and raved as though they’d just lost a battle, while the staff stared and shook, and little Fankanonikaka was ready to burst into tears.

“Soldiers?” I bellowed. “Look at that slovenly brute, tripping over his bl----d beard! Has he shaved today? Has he ever shaved? Stand still, you mangy b----rds, or I’ll flog every second man! Slouch in front of me, will you, with your chins like a monkey’s backside? I’ll show you, my pretties! Oh, yes, we’ll take note of this! Mr Fankanonikaka, I thought you spoke to me of an army – you weren’t referring to this mouldy rabble, I suppose?”

Of course, it put them into fits. There were generals gaping and protesting and falling over their sabres, while I strode about hazing right and left – dull buttons, unpolished leather, whatever I could find. But I wouldn’t let ’em touch the offending soldier – ah, no. I degraded his section commander on the spot, ordered his colonel into arrest, and scarified the staff; that’s the way to get ’em hopping. And when I’d done roaring, I had the whole outfit, officers and all, marched and wheeled and turned across that square for three solid hours, and then, when they were fit to drop, I made ’em stand for forty minutes stock-still, at the present, while I ranged among them, sniffing and growling, with Fankanonikaka and the staff trotting miserably at my heels. I was careful to snarl a word of praise here and there, and then I singled out the unshaven chap, slapped him, told him not to do it again, pinched his ear à la Napoleon, and said I had high hopes of him. (Talk about discipline; come to old Flash and I’ll learn you things they don’t teach at Sandhurst.)

After that it was plain sailing. They realized they were in the grip of a mad martinet, and went crazy perfecting their drill and turn-out, with their officers working ’em till they dropped, while Flashy strolled about glaring, or sat in his office yelling for lists and returns of everything under the sun. With my ready ear for languages, I picked up a little Malagassy, but for the most part transmitted my orders in French, which the better-educated officers understood. I built a fearsome reputation through stickling over trivialities, and set the seal on it by publicly flogging a colonel (because one of his men was late for roll-call) at the first of the great fortnightly reviews which the Queen and court attended. This shocked the officers, entertained the troops, and delighted her majesty, if the glitter in her eye was anything to go by. She sat like a brooding black idol most of the time, in her red sari and ceremonial gold crown under the striped brolly of state, but as soon as the lashing started I noticed her hand clenching at every stroke, and when the poor d---l began to squeal, she grunted with satisfaction. It’s a great gift, knowing the way to a woman’s heart.

I was careful, though, in my disciplinary methods. I soon got a notion of who the important and influential senior officers were, and toadied ’em sickening in my bluff, soldierly way, while oppressing their subordinates most d--nably, and keeping the troops in a state of terrified admiration. Given time I dare say I’d have ruined the morale of that army for good and all.

Since most of the leading aristocrats held high military rank, and took their duties seriously in a pathetically incompetent way (just like our own, really), I gradually became acquainted – not to say friendly – with the governing class, and began to see how the land lay in court, camp, city, and countryside. It was simple enough, for society was governed by a rigid caste system even stricter than that of India, although there was no religious element at all. There were eleven castes, starting at the bottom with the black Malagassy slaves; above them, in tenth place, were the white slaves, of whom there weren’t many apart from me, and I was special, as I’ll explain – but ain’t that interesting, that a black society held white superior to black, in the slave line? We were, of course, but it didn’t make much odds, since all of us were far below the ninth caste, which consisted of the general public, who had to work for a living, and included everyone from professional people and merchants right down to the free labourers and peasantry.

Then there were six castes of nobles, from the eighth to the third, and what the differences were I never found out, except that they mattered immensely. The Malagassy upper crust are fearful snobs, and put on immense airs with each other – a third-rank count or baron (these are the titles they give themselves) will be far more civil to a slave than to a sixth-rank nobleman, and the caste rules governing them are harsher even than for the lower orders. For example, a male noble can’t marry a woman of superior caste; he can marry beneath himself, but he mustn’t marry a slave – if he does, he’s sold into slavery himself and the woman is executed. Simple, says you, they just won’t marry slaves, then – but the silly b-----s do, quite often, because they’re crazy, like their infernal country.

The second caste consisted of the monarch’s family, poor souls, and at the top came the first caste, an exclusive group of one – the Queen, who was divine, although quite what that meant wasn’t clear, since they don’t have gods in Madagascar. What was certain, though, was that she was the most absolute of absolute tyrants, governing solely by her own whim and caprice, which, since she was stark mad and abominably cruel, made for interesting times all round.

That much you have probably gathered already, from my description of her and of the horrors I’d seen, but you have to imagine what it was like to be living at the mercy of that creature, day in day out, without hope of release. Fear spread from her like a mist, and if her court was a proper little viper’s nest of intrigue and spying and plotting, it wasn’t because her noble and advisers were scheming for power, but for sheer survival. They went in terror of those evil snake eyes and that flat grunting voice so rarely heard – and then usually to order arrest, torture, and horrible death. Those are easy words to write, and you probably think they’re an exaggeration; they’re not. That beastly slaughter I’d witnessed under the cliff at Ambohipotsy was just a piece of the regular ritual of purge and persecution and butchery which was everyday at Antan’ in my time; her appetite for blood and suffering was insatiable, and all the worse because it was unpredictable.

It wouldn’t have seemed so horrible, perhaps, if Madagascar had been some primitive nigger tribal state where everyone ran about naked chanting mumbo-jumbo and living in huts. Well, I remember my old chum King Gezo of Dahomey, sitting slobbering like a beast before his death-house (built of skulls, if you please) tucking into his luncheon while his fighting women chopped prisoners into bloody gobbets within a yard of him. But he was an animal, and looked like one; Ranavalona wasn’t – quite.

She had not bad taste in clothes, for example, and knew enough to hang pictures on the walls, and have her banquets laid with knives and forks just so, and place-cards (Solomon was right: I saw ’em – “Serjeant-General Flatchman, Esq., yours truly” was what mine said on one occasion, in copperplate handwriting). I mean, she had carpets, and silk sheets, and a piano, and her nobles wore trousers and frock coats, and addressed their women-folk as “Mam’selle” – my G-d, haven’t I seen a couple of her Comtesses, sitting at a palace dinner, chattering like civilized women, with silver and crystal and linen before them, ignoring the cutlery and gobbling food with their fingers, and then one turning to t’other and twittering: “Permittez-moi, chérie,” and proceeding to delouse her neighbour’s hair. That was Madagascar – savagery and civilization combined into a horrid comic-opera, a world turned upside down.

And at the head of the table she would sit, in a fine yellow satin gown from Paris, a feather boa stuck through her crown, pearls on her black bosom and in her long earrings, chewing on a chicken leg, holding up her goblet to be refilled, and getting drunker and drunker – for when it came to lowering the booze she could have seen a sergeants’ mess under the table. It didn’t show in her face; the plump black features never changed expression, only the eyes glittered in their piercing uncanny stare. She wouldn’t smile; her talk would be an occasional growl to the terrified sycophants sitting beside her, and when she rose at last, wiping her sullen mouth, everyone would spring up and bow and scrape while two of her generals, perspiring, would escort her down the room and out on to the great balcony, lending her an arm if she staggered, and over the great crowd waiting in the courtyard below would fall a terrible silence – the silence of death.

I’ve seen her, leaning on that verandah, with her creatures about her, gazing down on the scene below; the ring of Hova guardsmen, the circle of torches flaming over the archways, the huddled groups of unfortunates, male and female, from mere striplings to old decrepit folk, cowering and waiting. They might be recaptured slaves, or fugitives hunted out of the forests and mountains, or criminals, or non-Hova tribesmen, or suspected Christians, or anyone who, under her tyranny, had merited punishment. She would look down for a long time, and then nod at one group and grunt: “Burning,” and then at another, “Crucifixion,” and at a third, “Boiling.” And so on, through the ghastly list – starvation, or flaying alive, or dismembering, or whatever horror occurred to her monstrous taste. Then she would go inside – and next day the sentences would be carried out at Ambohipotsy in front of a cheering mob. Sometimes she attended herself, watching unmoved, and then going home to the palace to spend hours praying to her personal idols under the paintings in her reception room.

While most of her cruelties were practised on common folk and slaves, her court was far from immune. I remember at one of her levées, at which I was in humble attendance with the military, she suddenly accused a young nobleman of being a secret Christian. I’ve no idea whether he was or not, but there and then he was submitted to ordeal – they have any number of ingenious forms of this, including swimming rivers infested by crocodiles, but in his case they boiled up a cauldron of water, right in front of her seat, and she sat staring fixedly at his face as he tried to snatch coins out of the bubbling pot, plucking, and screaming while the rest of us watched, trying not to be sick. He failed, of course – I can still see that pathetic figure writhing on the floor, clutching his scalded arm, before they carried him out and sawed him in half.

Not quite what we’re accustomed to at Balmoral, you’ll agree, but at least Ranavalona didn’t go in for tartan carpets. Her wants were simple: just give her an ample supply of victims to mutilate and gloat over and she was happy – not that you’d have guessed it to look at her, and indeed I’ve heard some say that she was just plain mad and didn’t know what she was doing. That’s an old excuse which ordinary folk take refuge in because they don’t care to believe there are people who enjoy inflicting pain. “He’s mad,” they’ll say – but they only say it because they see a little of themselves in the tyrant, too, and want to shudder away from it quickly, like well-bred little Christians. Mad? Aye, Ranavalona was mad as a hatter, in many ways – but not where cruelty was concerned. She knew quite what she was doing, and studied to do it better, and was deeply gratified by it, and that’s the professional opinion of kindly old Dr Flashy, who’s a time-served bully himself.

So you see what a jolly, carefree life it was for her court, of whom I suppose I was one in my capacity of mount of the moment. It was a privileged position, as I soon realized; you recall I told you how I took pains to curry favour with the top military nobles – well, I soon discovered that the compliment was returned, slave though I was officially. They toadied me something pitiful, those black sweating faces and trembling paws in gaudy uniforms – they assumed, you see, that I only had to whisper the word in her ear and they’d be off to the pits and the cross. They needn’t have fretted; I never knew one of ’em from t’other, hardly, and anyway I was too alarmed for my own safety to do anything with her d----d black ear but chew it, loving-like.

You may wonder how I stuck it out; or how I could bring myself to make love to that female beast. Well, I’ll tell you; if it’s a choice between romping and being boiled or roasted, you can bring yourself to it, believe me. She wasn’t bad-looking beneath the neck, after all, and she seemed to like me, which always helps – you may find it difficult to believe (I do myself) but there were even moments, on warm, silent afternoons, when we would be drowsing on the bed, or by her bath, and I would steal a glance along the pillow at that placid black face, comely enough with the eyes closed, and feel even a touch of affection for her. You can’t hate a woman you sleep with, I suppose. Mind you, once that black eyelid lifted, and that eye was on you, it was another story.

One thing, though, I feel inclined to say in her defence, having said so much ill of her, and rightly. At least some of her excesses, especially in the persecution of Christians (I wasn’t one, by the way, during my Madagascar sojourn, as I took pains to point out to anyone who’d listen), were inspired by her idol-keepers. I’ve said there was no religion in her country, which is true – their superstition was not on an organized basis – but there were these fellows who read omens and looked after the stones and sticks and lumps of mud which passed for household gods. (Ranavalona had two, a boar tusk and a bottle, which she used to mutter to.)

Well, the idol-keepers had helped her to the throne when she was a young woman, after her husband the king died, and his nephew, the rightful heir, had been all set to ascend the throne. The idol-keepers, in their role as augurs, had said the omens favoured Ranavalona instead, and since she at the same time was busily organizing a coup d’état, slaughtering the unlucky nephew and all her other immediate relatives, you couldn’t say the idol-keepers were wrong: they’d picked the winner. They obtained such influence with her that they even persuaded her to kill off the lovers who had helped her coup, and she relied on them for guidance ever after.

I was always very civil to them myself, with a cheery “Good morning” and a dollar or two, mangy brutes though they were, shuffling through the palace with their bits of rag and string and ribbon – which were probably idols of terrific potency, if I’d only known. They helped Ranavalona determine her policy by throwing beans on a kind of chess-board, and working out the combinations,⁴⁰ which usually resulted in massacre for someone, just like a Cabinet decision; she would admit them at all times of day – I’ve seen her sitting on her throne, with her girls helping her try on French slippers, while the lads crouched alongside, mumbling over their beans, and she would nod balefully at their pronouncements, take a squint at her bottle or tusk for reassurance, and pronounce sentence. They once walked in when she and I were having a bath together – deuced embarrassing it was, performing while they cast the bones, but Ranavalona didn’t seem to mind a bit.

If there was any other influence in her life, apart from the mumbo-jumbo men and her own mad passions, it was her only son, Prince Rakota – the chap to whom Laborde had managed to steer Elspeth. He was the heir to the throne, although he wasn’t the old king’s son, but the offspring of one of her lovers whom she’d later had pulled apart, naturally. However, under Malagassy law, any children a widow may have, legitimate or not, are considered sons of her dead husband, so Rakota was next in line, and my impression was that Madagascar couldn’t wait to cry “Long live the King!” You see, despite my misgivings when I’d first heard about him, he was the complete opposite of his atrocious mother – a kindly, cheerful, good-natured youth who did what he could to restrain his bloodthirsty parent. It was common knowledge that if he happened along as they were about to butcher someone on her instructions, and he told them to let the chap go, they would – and mama never said a word about it. He’d have had to spend all his time sprinting round the country shouting “Lay off!” to make much impression on the slaughter rate, but he did what he could, and the populace blessed and loved him, as you’d expect. Why Ranavalona didn’t do away with him, I couldn’t fathom; some fatal weakness in her character, I suppose.

However, mention of Rakota advances my tale, for about three weeks after I’d taken up my duties, I met him, and was reunited, if only briefly, with the wife of my bosom. I’d seen Laborde once or twice beforehand, when he’d figured it was safe to approach me, and pestered him to take me to Elspeth, but he’d impressed on me that it was highly dangerous, and would have to wait on a favourable opportunity. It was like this, you see: Laborde had told Rakota that Elspeth was my wife, and pleaded with him to look after her, and keep her tucked away out of sight, for if the Queen ever discovered that her new buck and favoured slave had a wife within reach – well, it would have been good night, Mrs Flashman, and probably young Harry as well. Jealous old b---h. Rakota, being a kindly lad, had agreed, so there was Elspeth snug and well cared for, not treated as a slave at all, but rather as a guest. While I, mark you, was having to pleasure that insatiable female baboon for my very life’s sake. They hadn’t told Elspeth that, thank G-d, but jollied her along with the tale that I had taken up an important military post, which was true enough.

A strange state of affairs, you’ll allow – but nothing out of the way for Madagascar, and no more incredible than some of the things that I’ve known and heard of in my time. I was so bemused with what had happened over the past few months anyway, that I just accepted the bizarre situation; only two things worried and puzzled me. How had the Queen, who found out everything through her system of spies, which was directed by Mr Fankanonikaka, failed to get word of the golden-haired slave in her son’s palace? And why – this was the real conundrum – were Laborde and Prince Rakota in such a sweat to help Elspeth and me? What was I to them, after all? I’m a suspicious brute, you see, and don’t put much stock in altruistic virtue; there was something up here. I was right, too.

Laborde presented me to the Prince on an afternoon when Ranavalona was safely out of the way, watching a bullfight, which was her prime hobby. It was a byword that the fighting bulls were the only living things she had any feelings for; the only times she was known to weep was when one of them died, or was badly gored in the ring. So it was deemed safe for me to take an hour off from parade, and with Fankanonikaka, Laborde, and a leading general named Count Rakohaja, I was borne out to the Prince’s garden palace in the suburbs of Antan”.

Rakota received me in his throne room, where I was graciously permitted to prostrate myself before him and his Princess. They were tiny folk – he wasn’t more than five feet tall, and dressed like a Spanish matador, in gold tunic and breeches, buckled shoes, and a Mexican sombrero. He was about sixteen, lively and smiling all over his round olive face; he had the beginnings of a moustache.⁴¹ His wife was much the same, a dumpy little bundle in yellow silk; if anything, her moustache was further along than his. They spoke good French, and when I’d clambered upright Rakota said he had brilliant reports of the way I was training the troops, especially the royal guardsmen.

“Sergeant-General Flashman has worked wonders with the men, and the best officers,” agreed Count Rakohaja; he was a big, lean Hova aristocrat with a scar on his cheek, dressed in a coat and trousers which would have been perfect St James’s, if they hadn’t been made of bright green velvet. “Your highness will be enchanted to learn that he has already won the loyalty of all under his command, and has shown himself a most dependable and trustworthy officer.”

Which was doing it rather too brown, but the Prince beamed on me.

“Most gratifying,” says he. “Winning the confidence of the troops is the first essential in a leader. As commander-in-chief – under the sublime authority of Her Majesty, The Great Cow Who Nourishes All The World With Her Milk, of course – I congratulate you, sergeant-general, and assure you that your zeal and loyalty will be amply rewarded.”

It seemed a trifle odd. I wasn’t a commander, but a glorified drill instructor, and everyone knew it. However, I responded politely that I didn’t doubt the troops would follow me from h--l to Huddersfield and back, which seemed to please his highness, for he ordered up chocolate and we stood about sipping it from silver bowls, two-handed. (The Malagassies have no idea of quantity; there must have been a gallon of the sickly muck in each bowl, and the gurgling of the royal consumption was something to hear.)

It seemed to me that Prince and Princess were slightly nervous; he kept darting glances at Rakohaja and Fankanonikaka, and his little chubby consort, whenever she caught my eye, smiled timidly and bobbed like a charwoman seeking employment. The Prince asked me a few more questions, in an offhand way – about the quality of the lower-rank commanders, the equipment of palace pickets, the standard of marksmanship, and so on, which I answered satisfactorily, noting that he seemed specially interested in the household troops. Then he took one last gulp and belch at his chocolate, wiped his moustache on his sleeve, and says to me, with a little smile and wave:

“You are permitted to withdraw to the other end of the room,” and began to talk in Malagassy to the others.

Mystified, I bowed and retreated, a door at the far end opened, and there was Elspeth, smiling radiantly, and dressed in the worst possible taste in a garden-party confection of purple taffeta – purple on a blonde, G-d help us – tripping towards me with her arms out. In a moment Madagascar was forgotten, with its Queen and horrors and dressed-up mountebanks; I had her in my arms, kissing her, and she was murmuring endearments in my ear. Then propriety returned, and I glanced round at the others. They were ignoring us – all except Fankanonikaka, who was having a sly peep – so I enfolded her again, inhaling her perfume while she prattled her delight at seeing me.

“… for it has been so long, and while their highnesses have been kindness itself, I have been yearning for you night and day, my love. Do you like my new dress? – her highness chose it for me herself, and we think it most becoming, and it is so heavenly to have proper clothes again, after those dreadful sarongas – but we will not talk of that, and the hateful separation, and the odious behaviour of that… that man Don Solomon – but now we are rid of him, and safely here, and it is such fun – if it were not that your duties keep you from me. Oh, Harry, must they? But I must be a good wife, as I always promised, and not put myself forward where your duty is concerned, and indeed I know the separation is as cruel for you as for me – and, oh, I do miss you …”

Here she embraced me again, and drew me down on to a settle – the others were deep in their own conversation, although the dumpy little Princess fluttered her fingers at us shyly, and Elspeth must rise to curtsey – even black royalty was just nuts to her, obviously – before resuming her headlong discourse. I never got a word in edgeways, as usual, but I doubt if I’d have been coherent anyway. For to my amazement, Elspeth seemed to have not a care in the world – well, I’ve always known she had a slate loose, and was incapable of seeing farther than her pretty nose – which reminded me to kiss it, tenderly – but this was beyond belief. We were prisoners in this heathen h--l-hole, and to hear her you might have imagined it was a holiday at Brighton. Slowly it dawned on me that she had no true notion of the ghastliness of our plight, or even of what Madagascar was like at all, and as she babbled I began to understand why.

“… of course, I should like to see more of the country, for the people seemed not disagreeable, but the Prince informs me that the position of foreigners here is delicate, and it is not advisable for me to be seen abroad. For you, of course, it is different, since you are employed by her majesty – oh, tell me, Harry, what she looks like, and what she says! How does she dress? Shall I be presented? Is she young and well-favoured? I should be so jealous – for she cannot fail to be attracted by the handsomest man in England! Oh, Harry, I much admire your uniform – it is quite the style!”

I’d taken advantage of the custom of the country to wear all red, with a black sash, pretty raffish, I admit. Elspeth fairly glowed at me.

“But I have so much to tell you, for the Prince and Princess have been so good, and I have the prettiest rooms, and the garden is so beautiful, and there is some very select company in the evenings – all black, of course, and a leetle outré – but most agreeable and considerate. I am most happy and interested – but when shall we go home to England, Harry? I hope it is not too long – for I sometimes feel anxiety for dear Papa, and while it is very pleasant here, it is not quite the same. But I know you will not detain us here longer than must be, for you are the kindest of husbands – but I am sure your work here will be of the greatest service to you, for it is sure to be a valuable experience. I only wish” – her lip suddenly trembled, despite her efforts to smile – “that we could be together again … in the same house … oh, Harry, darling, I miss you so!”

And the little clothhead began piping her eye, leaning on my shoulder – as though she had anything worth weeping about! It was a d----d letdown, for I’d been looking forward to pouring out my woes and complaints to her, bemoaning my lot, describing the horrors of my plight – the respectable bits, anyway – and generally making her flesh creep with my anxieties. But there seemed no point now in alarming her – she’d just have done something idiotic, and with the others almost in earshot, the less I said the better. So I just patted her shoulder to cheer her up.

“Now then, old girl,” says I, “don’t be a fool. What’ll their highnesses think of your bleating and bawling? Wipe your nose – you’re a lot better off than some, you know.”

“I know. I am very foolish,” says she, sniffing, and presently, when the Prince and Princess withdrew, she was all smiles again, curtseying like billy-ho, and kissing me a tender farewell. I remarked to Laborde as we returned to the palace that my wife seemed happily ignorant of my predicament, and he turned his steady eyes on me.

“It is as well, is it not? She could be a great danger to you – to both of you. The less she knows, the better.”

“But in G-d’s name, man! She’ll have to find out sooner or later! What then? What when she realizes that she and I are slaves in this frightful country – that there’s no hope – no escape?” I grabbed his arm – we had left our sedans at the entrance to my quarters at the rear of the palace, Fankanonikaka having parted from us at the main gate. “For the love of heaven, Laborde – there must be a way out of this! I can’t go on drilling niggers and piling into that black slut for the rest of my life—”

“Your life will last no time at all if you don’t control yourself!” snaps he, pulling loose. He glanced round, anxiously, then took a deep breath. “Look you – I will do whatever I can. In the meantime, you must be discreet. I do not know what can be achieved. But the Prince was pleased with you today. That may mean something. We shall see. Now I must go – and remember, be careful. Do your work, say nothing. Who knows?” He hesitated, and tapped me quickly on the arm. “We may drink café au lait on the Champs Elysées yet. À bientôt.”

And he was off, leaving me staring, mystified – but with something stirring inside me that I hadn’t felt in months: hope.