BEYOND THE PALE

FIRST ENTRY

This is Sunday, so it’s time for a short story. This one takes place in Congo, just as they declare Independence. It’s a love story, first and foremost, no matter how you look at it, it’s a story about love.

Photo by Jay Monty on Unsplash

BEYOND THE PALE

    I

I don’t remember exactly where we were when my father died, or how long he’d actually been dead before Gerald’s telegram reached us—but reach us it did. Gerald is my son from a previous marriage. We were somewhere on the Congo, Richard and I, on what people these days would call a working honeymoon. We were making our way to Stanleyville, under a full head of steam on board the one hundred ton Edgewater Fortune.

With the hot equatorial sun beating down on us—even with a sunshade it was as relentless and merciless as it can be sometimes—I watched the river slipping silently behind us. I can still recall the trembling vibration of the ship’s engines under my feet, hear the churning wash of the propellers below, and just as easily see the colourful streaks of oil in my mind’s eye, staining the water behind us. I watched as a small mail packet came out of nowhere to meet us, the man behind the wheel waving frantically before we hove to and he threw a line out to a waiting deckhand. The Captain—a heavyset Irishman with serious mutton-chop whiskers and what appeared to be a permanent Popeye squint—lashed the wheel into place, pulling back on the throttle at the same time, before calling down to the man.

“What’s this, Rodney? Ye seem determined to beat the Devil at his own game!”

The man Rodney stood up on the deck of the packet, carrying a bundle of official correspondence he asked the Captain to transport to Stanleyville for him. He looked dirty, his shirt sweat-stained and torn, his face unshaven, his teeth—what few he had, I should say—were black and rotten. He was wearing wire-framed glasses that kept sliding down his nose and he was constantly pushing them back into place. The other passengers looked at him with a sense of disdain, trying to avoid him as much as possible once he scrambled up the ship’s side and stood on the deck before us.

“Terrible business ‘ere, Jack,” he said to the Captain, turning to look at Richard and I with a polite nod. “It’s all this talk ‘bout Independence,” he added. “These Monkeys ain’t ready for it, I say,” he went on. “If ye ask me, these damned Froggies’re pulling out too quick—”

“Belgians,” Richard corrected him with a cough, watching the Captain shuffle through correspondences and letters as if they were an oversized deck of playing cards. “The French are in Brazzaville—” Richard added, coughing again. It was a heavier cough, enough so that the Captain paused with his sorting through the letters to watch Richard fumbling in his pockets for his inhaler. Finally, reaching out, he handed Richard a telegram.

“Right,” the man Rodney said after a moment, “all the same, it’s Bra-ville for me. I’m for gettin’ outta here ‘fore things start to really fall apart,” he added, pushing his glasses up. “Too many bush bunnies ‘round here waitin’ to kill me for bein’ a white man—an’ they’ll do it too, if they get half a chance, don’t ye think they won’t!” he added with a laugh and another push on his glasses. “Ye should be thinkin’ ‘bout getting’ out too, Jack,” he said to the Captain. “Ye’d best be gettin’ out while the gettin’s good.”

“Obviously, you’re not a man who takes his obligations too seriously, are you? He’s taking this vessel to Stanleyville,” Richard said, and then began coughing again, holding onto the railing for support. Both men, the captain and Rodney, turned to look at me. I made a move to help Richard, but he waved me away as he took another deep breath of his inhaler. I stepped back, stiffening awkwardly, feeling as if I’d been slapped in public.

“We’re to meet someone who will be taking us to Bulongo Station.”

“Bulongo Station? Ye mean the school there?” Rodney asked, looking at me closer.

“They’re Missionaries,” the Captain confirmed. “The Patons.”

“Missionaries? God damn me, before they do, eh?” Rodney said with a laugh.

“We’re not Missionaries,” Richard explained, “we’re teachers, and I think it somewhat defeats the purpose if—”

“By Christ, if I’d’ve come across any Missionaries lookin’ like her, I might’ve stayed in Church a little longer when I was a lad, eh Jack?” Rodney interrupted, looking at the Captain with a grin. He turned to look at me again, pushing his glasses up on his nose. It was a look I’ve seen often in my life—a lewd, lascivious leer, attractive women too often encounter in their younger years.

“Beggin’ yer pardon, I didn’t mean to take the Lord’s name in vain,” Rodney added, crossing himself. I think it was done more out of a superstitious fear than any religious conviction he may have had. He didn’t strike me as the sort of man who held to many convictions, and certainly not religious ones.

“Nobody’s said anything about Independence; it isn’t official,” Richard said with an effort, wiping spittle from his mouth and carefully folding his handkerchief before patting his forehead. “What could possibly happen at this late date?”

“Yes. What?” Rodney said with a fixed smile.

He turned and looked at me, his smile falling from his face.

“I get genuinely befuddled whenever I see a beautiful woman,” Rodney said in a soft voice, ignoring Richard. “And yer definitely what I’d have to call a beautiful woman.”

I could feel the embarrassment creeping up my face and looked at Richard, wishing he’d say something, but of course, he didn’t. He wasn’t the sort of man to take another man’s effrontery as an insult I was learning, no matter how obvious the insult. It was something that would need to be addressed, I told myself.

“Ye don’t see too many good looking women traveling upriver this far,” he went on. “Missionaries, sure, and Red Cross nurses most certainly; but they’re usually old before their time, or just plain homely. Ugly, if ye know what I mean—like most of the women around these parts—but yerself?” he smiled, pushing his glasses back up on his nose again, “yer a sight for sore eyes, ye are.” He smiled, and all I could see were his dreadful, blackened teeth.

I backed away, looking for some sort of support from among my fellow passengers, even though I knew there’d be little support for me. I’ve learned this much about people over the years, that while some women might pretend to like me within the limits of their own company, they often times feel threatened by my presence whenever their husbands are about. The women stood huddled close to their husbands—as if they were seeking protection for themselves, not looking to give it.

“Yes, well, we really should be getting back up to steam if we expect to make any headway,” the Captain said, sensing my discomfort. Clapping Rodney on the back, he guided the horrible man away from me. “I’ll take care of these for you Rodney,” he added, waving the envelopes. “Don’t you worry your pretty little head about them, but like I said, we’re going to lose all the headway we’ve gained drifting back with this current if we don’t get underway.”

“Of course, Jack, I understand,” Rodney said, looking at me over his shoulder. “I just don’t want to make the trip up to Stan; ye understand my reluctance, don’t ye? It’s Bra-ville for me, then on to the Pointe, and home.”

Richard coughed heavily as we waited for Rodney to climb down to his boat. Rodney paused on the ladder for a moment, looking up at Richard fumbling in his pocket for his inhaler again.

“Ye really should do somethin’ ‘bout that cough there, mister,” he said, and then smiled at me. “Or maybe not,” he added with a laugh, winking at me directly.   

He stood on the deck of his small packet as the deckhand threw down the line. I watched his boat drifting on the current—a piece of driftwood on the wide river—and ignored him as he called for us to get out of the country before it was too late. Richard watched the boat drift out of sight, then turned toward me holding out the telegram.

He looked at me with a curious tilt of his head, his eyebrows drawn into a quizzical knot. I reached up to push his hair out of his face, but he turned away from me without another word, and sitting in a deck chair, picked up his newspaper. I watched his body spasm with another heavy bout of coughing as I opened the telegram, but instead of reaching for his inhaler, he forced the cough aside as if he were punishing himself, and then sat back in his chair trying to catch his breath.

“It’s from Gerald,” I explained, and he nodded.

I read about my father’s suicide, thinking how he’d finally lived up to his past threats and taken his illness into his own hands. I don’t know when I dropped the telegram—but I watched it, a hapless butterfly borne away on a light breeze—as though it were the memory of a bad dream—and I thought how it looked comparable to a wounded dove as it sat on the water’s surface. Richard watched me over his newspaper before approaching me and asking me if everything was alright. 

“My father’s dead,” I said in a matter-of-fact tone, and he looked at me as if maybe expecting me to fall to the deck in hysterics. My father wasn’t the sort of man anyone was likely to waste their tears over— certainly not any of his children.

Richard took me to our stateroom, pouring me a tall drink of water. I thought it would have been better had he offered me a gin, but I drank it anyway, feeling grateful for the coolness of it. He lay stiffly on the bed beside me, and I tried resting my head on his chest, watching the soft afternoon light break in through the small, latticed windows. The light fell across the room like the iron bars of a cage, and I told myself somewhat wryly that bars do not a prison make, not believing it for a moment. All the while I could feel the dull thump of the ship’s engines from somewhere deep within the bowels of the vessel, along with the unsteady beat of Richard’s heart through his laboured breathing.