1941 June 30 | Kabinda, Between War and Peace

Then – The house in Kabinda, Congo

The Sun is already high up in the sky, 32ºC at the ready, showers on their way at 17h00, like every day, Monday or not. But none of the sweltering heat and cloying humidity, a breezy sunshine.  

The palm trees sway, the hedge smells of cloves and dust. This morning, the family has lined up in the shade of the patio to wave off François on his way to meet a cotton bigwig in Kamende, around an hour away, down South. Driving around looking for a position, how else would you find one, if not by literally knocking on doors? Not like there are newspapers listing job offers. 

On cue, everyone waves: Suzanne with Colette in her arms, Claude and Françoise. 

Suzanne checks the swaddling of Colette, born a month ago, promptly baptised on the 12^th of June. You learn things. François waves back and honks the klaxon partly to thank the audience, partly for due comical effect, hilarious, and partly to wash out the pang of sorrow they all feel. The dog barks once in a deep rumble in reply. Leaving home for days, weeks has become routine now. It is not for pleasure, but for business, so everyone swallows their feelings. Stamp on them, bury them. Eyes straight. The car turns and disappears behind the dense hedge. Suzanne tchips to call the small ceremony off. 

Off he goes, who knows? A new job, a new village, ever more South …  And, over the horizon, Likasi, François’ real prize.

The stay at the Thielen’s Mission had clarified so much. Some of the priests that hosted the small family were veterans of the decades François had missed. These Days are gone, friend, plain and simple, we are just the Old Breed, we tell old stories. Your Likasi crowd? They would push 40, married and scattered. The mercenary engineers, the Malachite Manglers, Max? Off to new eldorados, for all we know. Times just move on while you are away. 

Congo has become a career, it is not Adventure anymore. 

François and the old missionaries had shared the same furtive glint in their eyes, defiant and sad. Whatever had been, is irrelevant now. They are new rules, you have to  play by them to fall back on your paws… feet that is. But he had known that, that was why they had bought a new car the moment they landed in February. Necessity, and a slight indulgence, Suzanne knew. But it was also statement, advertisement. Imagine driving in some beaten old clunker to knock on the door up the driveway. Heavens no, not a desperate refugee, an engineer enquiring for a potential mission? Behold the brand-new Chevrolet, a Master Sedan 1941, freshly imported, glossy black, number plate C1215 CB, for Belgian Congo. 

An engineer car. An investment. 

Suzanne looks at the little troop filing in. They truly are the Dulière Family. She let the words roll off. A name, a rallying cry, a banner. A family. It was high time! Claude is nearly three, Françoise just behind. That means kindergarten, for socialising. And learning, both. Suzanne has “borrowed” from Bétaré a French elementary School book, the first reads of Mamadou and Binetta, to help nature take its course. The kids have been well behaved in Thielen’s, in March-April. The bearded Brothers took to them and drove them around squealing in delight on their tall bicycle. Entertaining. François had put it all on camera. Wild. That was the cue. 

As soon as we are settled, that needs to be adjusted. Another investment if you will.

Like the car: new toys, carts and teddy bears, a statement and an expected outcome: initiative and emotional indulgence. Light lessons of letters, basic counting, short reads. A stepladder for school, when we find one. A new dog, a bit like Boy, discreet and devoted, but less wild: a Belgian shepherd, a Groenendael. Emotional connection to close the circle, Suzanne’s laager.

Bangbel’s monkeys, antelopes and crocodiles all fade into a family mythical past, images and memories kept blurry.

François still talks to Claude about the Nkudu head of Bétaré Oya. He should not. Dripping skulls and carcasses are not conversation topics for young girls, sorry, darling dearest dear. We do not live anymore on the Frontier, that Africa which now only exists in your mind. Remember? Times have moved on. My go now. Sorry dear. Greet, demurely shake hands and make polite conversation to the neighbours. 

The next investment is to socialise the girls; they need to fit back into Polite Society.

Kabinda will do for now. We have respectable lodgings in a nice enough neighbourhood. Our life moves indoors, now, between a living room and a kitchen. When the door closes, the world is shut out. Nature is still there, in the garden big enough to run around, the manicured lawns and hedges. And a veranda to lounge and catch the breeze at the end of the afternoon. That is our bungalow in Kabinda, complete with swaying oil palms fronds and a tiled roof. 

The view? Well… you can’t have it all.

Our house is respectable enough that we can receive the neighbours for tea. As incongruous as it once sounded to us. As ludicrous as it looks now. A duty, an investment. Kabinda is but a welcome staging area. And a crossroads. To me the inside, to you the outside.

Suzanne has gone fully Madame Dulière now. Jaw set, eyes as ablaze as ever. Can’t say she dislikes that, she was born to the role.

She looks at the garden through her glass windows. 

Yes, this is another life in another Africa.

They had seen it first in Ngidinga, the first stop on the road to the mission Thielen-Saint Jacques. Roads, churches, lawn, rhododendron hedges, street signs. Dust and savannah are not fate. At the mass there, overwhelmingly Black by the way, styles and people, had blended seamlessly, helmets, hats, full suits and leather shoes, with colourful headwraps, toques, boubous, sarongs and bare feet. An organic crowd. 

Belgian Congo. Not the Wild West. They both really need to adapt. 

She winds up the phonograph; classical music is good for maths. And she likes it. War has receded thousands of kilometres in the North and East. Haïle Selassie, the Negus, is back on his throne. Hitler had the bizarre idea to attack his ally, Russia, a week ago. That should keep him busy then. Everyone else is fighting it out in Libya. Even the French have taken some oasis on their own, Al-Kufra or something. 

War only exists on the radio or in the newspapers here. 

The dog runs across the lawn, barking, hunting something that only exists in his mind. 

Free in the garden. 

Now – 2014, Sint-Martens-Latem, Belgium

Polite Society is not High Society. They overlap, but less and less as the world powerbrokers splinter into concentric circles of nepocracies, bloodlines of office, sports, arts,… 

Polite Society used to be a sort of stepladder, a trial period that could last for generations, but offered the possibility to eventually feel native to the higher circles. You do not inherit Polite Society, it always remains a conscious choice. Maybe even yours. 

It gels around concentric circles of behaviours, sounds, sights, locations and activities, and invisible glue of expected, reassuring patterns that wordlessly confirm the understanding of order, rules, distances, hierarchies, priorities and place.

It was born in the reassuring familiarity of the family living room. How else could  anything sensible bring balance and bliss? It must become a mindset, where all of these unspoken rules feel obvious, natural, fluent. Just common sense, really.  Manuals have been written about how to eat a banana politely, but success at blending in is only measured by the ability to juggle seamlessly all variables into an effortless performance, at once brilliant and invisible. 

There is what you do. How you do it. And where you do it. 

To set the perfect stage, a house in the suburbs, as the air there is best for the kids. Suburbs are ideal, if and only if there are woods nearby, for those long Saturday or Sunday educational or prandial walks. And a garden for the dog, of course, to learn about responsibility and loyalty. Proximity to tennis courts and golf is good, if only because they require fenced spaces. That is always a plus. And if you play either, …

Because, ultimately, the core of Polite Society is where you thrive to live. 

Location, location, location. 

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You read part 34 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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