The Sun is once again blazing in a lightly veiled sky, but despite the heat all the passengers have come out of their cabins to witness the spectacle unfolding before the bow. At first, it was no more than a green streak on the horizon. Now, one can distinguish an endless forest of palms, African oak and mahogany beneath a canopy of billowing cumulus. This is the deep Africa, the destination of our voyage.
It is not a landscape I have never seen before. Only a week ago we sailed past the coast of Guinea, and the view was much the same. Yet, in some sense, this feels different. Perhaps because we now stand before the majestic gateway of the last hidden land in the depths of this immense continent? A single country eighty times larger than my beloved Belgium! I cannot even begin to imagine such vastness. Soon we shall arrive.
A strange anxiety unsettles me. Until now, we have always remained cocooned within the shell of this ship and its European atmosphere, despite the black servants and the decorative objects already meant to breathe the spirit of the 'dark continent': exotic statuettes, tribal spears, or a shield made of cheetah skin – all designed to render the experience unique. Yet none of this prepares you for the reality that now breaks over me like a rogue wave. And this is not even the beginning.
There, hidden within the immensity of the forest that spreads before my eyes, beats the heart of the lion. There, man does not yet rule, but rather the crocodile and the serpent. I have already been warned of the monsters lurking in the shadows, creatures I know only from the illustrations in my books and the zoo in my city. Tusks a foot long, claws that can strip the skin from you in an instant. This is the savage land.
I begin to realise the near impossibility of the challenge before us: to lay another three hundred kilometres of track through this jungle and under that suffocating, humid heat.
Another change strikes me compared to yesterday, when we were still at sea. The water no longer shimmers in the sun with its usual shades of blue and grey, but has turned into a vast sludge with no end in sight. This is the Congo River, emptying into the ocean with such violence that it has carved a trench in the seabed three hundred kilometres long and one hundred and fifty metres deep.
I feel deeply uneasy. I know it is only the sand that gives the ocean this aspect, carried out by one of the most powerful rivers in the world, and yet it looks like a foul cloaca.
On my right I notice an entire family who have chosen to undertake this journey. A father, a mother, and a beautiful daughter of about seven years, hiding her face beneath a hat far too large for her. I see only her little mouth and the blonde curls peeping out beneath its fine lace brim, but it is clear that she too is wholly absorbed by the adventure. She turns her head this way and that, as if measuring the endless forest with her eyes. Then, quite suddenly, she lets go of the rail with her tiny hand and begins to point into the distance.
Curious about her discovery, I raise my gaze once more in the direction she indicates. And then I see it: several columns of smoke rising far above the trees. Fires have been lit to burn the jungle, clearing space for human expansion.
The nearer we draw, the more the horizon sky thickens with smoke, stained with a dirty red that lends the air an unhealthy aspect. Fortunately, the wind blows landward, so we are spared the stench. The flames themselves are not visible, but it is clear they must be enormous. Now almost the whole horizon is obscured by smoke for many miles inland, in every direction. But the ship sails on without pause, leaving the infernal coast to its own port.
"In my opinion, we’ll arrive tomorrow."
Startled, I realise that Commander Rom has joined me without the slightest sound. He gave me quite a fright, and not only because I had not noticed his presence. I had openly offended him last night, and I still feel a strong tension between us, although he pretends, of course, that nothing's happened.
"Ah… Commander, I did not hear you approach."
"Really, Deghendt? Don’t tell me I frightened you? Hahaha…"
Once again, that irritatingly loud laugh.
"Eh, no. Not at all. I was merely daydreaming a little."
"Daydreaming? You had better stop doing that, or you won’t survive a week."
The Commander's suddenly turns all serious as he stares into the burning void to our port side.
"What do you mean, Commander? Is this a joke?"
"Not at all, my dear Deghendt, not at all. We whites, God's chosen people, have grown lazy, do you understand?"
"I'm afraid that I don't, Commander…"
"Then let me explain, and listen carefully if you don’t want to wake up with a blade in your chest. We, in the civilised world, have built a safe nest. We have established laws, and whoever breaks them must pay the price. If it were up to me, I’d hang them all. Criminals, perverts, sewer-rats… murderers or purse-snatchers… every last one."
He takes a long drag from his cigarette and exhales the smoke high into the air from one side of his mouth.
"But the Congo, Deghendt, the Congo… is not the civilised world. It is a hell where the law of the strongest reigns, the law of beasts."
"But surely, Commander, we are bringing civilisation to this land, aren't we? Are the natives not grateful that, thanks to us, they may finally live in peace, in the world of Christian reason and free from the atrocities of slavery?"
"Ah… if only it were that simple."
The Commander's facial expression is beginning to worry me. He continues his speech on a quiet, conversational tone, as if he's just reading the latest fashion trends from a newspaper. And it's precisely this normal tone that unsettles me.
"Les bougnouls are animals who cannot comprehend reason, Deghendt. You may recite the entire holy Bible to a monkey, but it will never understand. They exist only to serve men, as it is written in the Book of Genesis. Unfortunately, their wild spirit will not be tamed so easily, and at times they rebel, despite all that we have given them. They are monstrously ungrateful."
I watch the smoke from his cigarette curl in the air, a momentary wisp of grey against the sky. My starched collar feels like a vice, its pressure suffocating in the oppressive heat. This isn't the undertaking I'd signed up for. A cold pit of dread settles in my stomach as I listen to his words, and I wonder if the heat that is flushing my face is not from the Sun, but from a profound embarrassment at my ignorance.
"But they understand our language, do they not? So surely they can also learn our values?" I try, but I'm finding it difficult to hide my growing unease. What I believed to be a mission of collaboration and development, of human progress and sacred devotion, is quickly turning into something I hadn't anticipated: fear.
"Deghendt, believe me, for I know what I am talking about. One cannot trust the bougnouls. Oh yes, they will show you the sweetest smile, they will bow to us, their masters. But the instant you turn your back, the instant you lower your gaze, they will devour you like any other beast of the jungle. Make no mistake: the bougnouls crave human flesh. It is all they think about. In fact, their witch-doctors make them believe that eating human flesh renders them invulnerable, even immortal. I have personally witnessed their diabolical rites…"
He takes another drag before continuing. Memory weighs heavily on him. For a moment he stares into oblivion, then regains himself.
"Hundreds… hundreds of those damned bougnouls, Deghendt, can you imagine it? All around the fire of hell. Beating on their cursed djembés. A rhythm that could make even the Pope lose his reason. The air was suffocating, thick with the smoke and their chants, a murderous heat that drives you mad. The mungu, the witch-doctor in his devil’s mask, led the diboka, their ritual dance. All circled around the poor wretch they had captured. You cannot imagine… the screams… the screams when the witch-doctor drove his knife into that wretch’s chest to carve out his heart…"
He stops again. The Commander’s mouth trembles; his hands clench into fists.
"And what happened afterwards?" I ask, pearls of sweat now appearing from under my hat and it is not because of the heat.
The commander stares straight ahead, his eyes fixed on the dark continent in the distance.
"We slaughtered them all."
He adjusts his white cap, then turns back towards his cabin. Yet before leaving, he looks me squarely in the face once more.
"The Congo is the place where the Lord has not yet set the order of things. It will be our sacred task to establish it for Him, and to tame even this savage land."
He leaves me shocked upon the deck. At times, the Commander’s coarse way of speaking about the blacks has left a bitter taste in my mouth. Yet I realise that I know even less of Africa than I believed. I am now convinced that the fires I saw are but the beginning of hell. Once we enter the continent by way of the Congo River, hell itself will engulf us. I can only hope that one day it will let me go again.
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