1930 Spring | Camp Katenga, Buzzing with Fun

Now – A restaurant

Europe is muffled, Asia loud, and Africa even more so. Music is everywhere, from malls to road crossings. And when there is no radio, no mp4s, then whistling. My father whistled. His father too. And his father’s father. All the way back to the beginning, likely. 

Whistling works best with old tunes, and Europe had a plethora of those: to this day, one of the most popular French kids’ rhyme, “Malbrouk s’en va t’en guerre” mocks the defeat and near death of the Duke of Marlborough … in 1709. Oh, and the family name of the Duke of Marlborough is Churchill. That tune is so good that you may know its British version: “He’s a Joly Good Fella” (cultural sensitivity for you). 

Music as a social link disappears. Musicals tank if they do not hide that they are musicals, Broadway bleeds spectators, and opera only survives through subsidies formaldehyde. We follow genres or artists for their deeper selves, not for that tune.

Ditties simply disappear from our social space in a puff of dust.

Once a cultural social cement, they now waft in Europe’s malls and restaurants like drifting smoke of centuries past, the soundtrack of Europe, A Cultural Experience. Heard, remembered, but nothing much more.  

Oh yes, these voices, these melodies are eternal; they speak of love, loss, humanity…, they do speak to you whether you understand them or not. 

The soundtrack of a flash frozen continent staring at you from its armoured casing, arms crossed, a knowing smile on its face.

Then – 80 kms South of Fizi, on the border Kivu/Katanga, Camp Katenga, 19 February to 22 May 1930            

Life is Fun. 

You live it, you do not make it or have it. The way she sees it, the way she was taught, entertainment was a duty, a tool. It was only fun because it was supposed to be, and not having fun doing it would be impolite, downright rude. 

Fun is a necessity. He agrees wholeheartedly. 

She does love organising it, buzzing around at light speed until every electron balances every proton in every atom perfectly within their orrery, and fun is achieved. It would be forever like that. A science.

A spontaneous explosion of organisation. Like a perfect picnic. 

There had to be some basic understanding, of course. For example, he killed animals and loved plants, she loved animals and liked plants: each their own individual sphere, overlapping for a moment of entertainment. And, so, she is frowning at posing in front of yet another, but different, dwarf palm tree. 

Darling dear, outside and flora, her, inside and fauna. Balance. 

That is why she was an excellent hostess. It had been drilled into her since birth, by her parents, especially the Dread Aunties. Entertainment as a social expectation. As a girl she assisted in The Hosting of family near and far, friends, of your parents of course, of acquaintances and social grandees such as doctors, notaries, officers or priests. And of course, the obstacle course of pre-approved suitors, just to check out their suitability; hence the name, possibly. 

The Aunties had been rather useless at that, when she thought about it, and they turned up rather rancid, pompous or overly regional candidates … She had taken the matter in her own hands. To the laughter and joy of her father. As usual. 

And here she was. 

But now, she had a household of her own: fun was to be had… if only to maintain the cohesion of the unit, a component of the glue that kept the group together. Not her fun, or his fun, no real point to it, always our fun. She mentally reviews her skillset. Her conversation skills are not that brilliant, but she had been an excellent pianist; she had even played the Salle Pleyel, in Paris! Dance Macabre, pom, pom, popom, she mused. And she could cook up a storm, something she learned at the apron of said Aunties. They had meant well, but she knew it was all a bit provincial. 

While at it, why not wear a hat saying “the Girl from Soissons”, or the “Fat Noodle from the Jura”? 

Suzanne clicks her tongue. The housekeeper turns, startled. She waves her to keep at it. No, François had seen that raw energy, that halo of electricity around her, and now that she had a household … let there be sparks! Let’s get organised! Just a few issues to solve, she smiles to herself. 

First, entertain who? 

Darling dear François’ colleagues are only a few hours away by foot; which means that even just inviting them is an expedition in and by itself. Long range planning, dependent on unforeseeable elements such as …. rain. You could consider the village authorities, but, as proven time and again, the proper protocols were rather heavy, and the potential for embarrassing miss-haps quite high. No, let François deal with that type of social networking.  

Then, there was the what and how? 

You did not recruit people to work months on end alone in the bush digging holes among the most socially adjusted. So what you usually got was the “ma’am” kinda frontier man, the type you saw in these American Westerns, and she was not great on Heehaws and Irish ballads. Roan stew and beans, more than Coq au Vin and … beans, which she was great at, in case anyone should ask. 

And finally, in every sense of the word, where should it happen? 

They were back into a hybrid hut/tent dwelling. She looks at the straw ceiling. There was really no better word for it: a dwelling, something in which you lived, neither hut nor house. The hut part would be the living room, easy to define a door and reception area. Reception as in cramming people around a 2 by 2 foldable camping table. And then talks. She did not mind the sometimes salty topics that had the men cracking up: she had been raised at the table of a police commissioner, who liked to retell the stories of the day at the evening table.

And honestly, that was a proud part of being French, these double entendres and assorted cabaret humour. 

François knew everything about cabaret, these French music halls where you could eat and especially drink while enjoying the performance; restaurants and cafés first, stages second. He had fond memories of the ones around the Sorbonne quarter, where he lived in Paris. Suzanne obviously had NEVER gone to a cabaret, but she knew all the tunes by force of habit. And if she did not, François was only too happy to oblige.  

Her name was Suzanne, and she had a wooden leg, … Yes, she got it, the “hilarious” play on words about a small wooden peg, which no lady would ever acknowledge. Her inner faerie may laugh out loud, her face never moved. 

And while her mind wanders, the night has brutally fallen as usual. 

On the pounded earth, they recline in their deckchairs, letting the day end. The joy of being. Life as Fun. Silence. Gone are the shouts and cries, the chants and the cadences, the pounding tools and raking shovels. Off time, but also their only on-time. 

Buzzing with it.

She mends and sews, sews and mends, listens to him shuffling pages, picking a paragraph, reading it out loud for her. Or talking about some promising rock formation, an animal he saw, or the latest twist in the on-going saga between the chief and the dastardly medicine man, a powerful féticheur, revered, as much as feared and despised. He could transform as a leopard at night, she had been assured. And when she asked François if he thought it possible, he never truly answered. 

No cards, she hated it, no games either, just let the day unspool. 

She bites the thread clean in two and smoothens the shirt. There, done, good as new. 

Both enjoy good literature, so they could joust and riff on poets and writers, their own private Parisian salon, but frankly? Cultured, yes, intellectuals, no. She reads and quotes Colette, and especially on the new freedom of women. The point of it? Here, she is out of social reach, at the cutting edge of life. He? He just had fun. Why question any of it? Let those that like it, pontificate. All that questioning is just flimflam and haberdashery. 

Life should be built on a calling, not necessarily industry and business, which meant that every day had to matter. 

François had a tendency to drift back to that American mindset he loved, whenever she was not quick enough to catch him out. 

You could only shed the stink of money through manners. Especially manners. Hence, an etiquette even more rigid than the Versailles Court Rules was the eye of the needle you had to go through. 

He stands up and lights a cigarette by the door, behind the mosquito net. He is very happy with himself today, and rightly so: he shot a big buffalo. Very good meat on these. The tracker had his share; the team and the village too. It was his practise. Not outright bribery, but the right motivation to get the best spoors and tracks: everyone had a vested interest in a successful hunt. Not sure the crafty White Fathers had the same success rates, however much they hunted themselves. 

And tomorrow? Time on their own, a walk to one of the spots he had earmarked. 2 hours forth, 2 hours back, a stroll he calls it, for a picnic in a breathtaking clearing. With the rifles, just in case. 

He interrupts again her lyrical thoughts whistling that most gutter of all French song: “Monte là-dessus et tu verras Montmartre”… Typical, she would have to build a deeper inner moat to fortress Suzanne then… He smiles as he sees her raising her head from the needlework. He winks; yes, yes, she gets it, haha, … she stares blankly at him until he turns, sits and plunges back into his book. 

Standards, please, in my, sorry, our house, Dear Sir. 

He likes contemporary music; his mind seemed like a library of these little jewels of French culture, cabaret songs. To be fair, most of them still had some mileage in them. She smirks and hums a few bars which start him: earworms they are. He could not sing, nor play any instrument, but was a pretty good whistler. That is, according to that most impartial of critics, himself. She always shrugged when he asked and kept her counsel.

And so, she was just waiting now for THAT medley of Maurice Chevalier, with “Dans La Vie faut pas s’en faire”, followed by a few others, and culminating with a shrill rendition of “Viens Poupoule”, the sophisticated epitome of double-entendre, as old as the century itself. 

She was now amused, warming up to the theme.

Oh, they would sometimes visit nearby settlements, outposts where you would arrive, wave from afar, and invariably, and hilariously, make the thematic joke: Officer Xx or Mr xx François, I presume. At a pinch, maybe exchange ceremonial introductions in Kiswahili, to get on with the primary business of eating and drinking beer. Or gin. And share tall stories of hunts. She knew they were mostly lying, inventing themselves extraordinary lives they did not have. That was what men did. 

But she was in their world, so, as long as they did not cross the line, no issues. And if they did, well, she had survived the semi-feral kids of the ruins of post-war Soissons, so they were welcome to try.

A woman amongst “engineers” from the 4 corners of the known world, men looking for gold, diamond, and a new life. Explorers. Adventurers. Mercenaries, really. Mostly Belgian and French, less of the Americans and Brits that made the majority in the Old Days crews. The hardened flotsam of the Great War, Revolutions and assorted massacres of the closing Roaring Twenties. 

All here, on the edge of the map. 

Never complain, never explain why. 

Life is Fun.

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You read part 14 of Transvaal Blue Skies: the true story of how, early last century, Suzanne moved to Africa and built her laager. This is a series of loose dots weaved in a chronological thread, wrapped into a story to be plucked and observed, heard and remembered, recognised and judged. Suzanne Dulière was my grandmother.  

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