1942 May | Becoming Mme Dulière of Panda

Then – Congo, on the road from Busanga to Panda-Likasi, travelling to our private California in Africa, May 1942

There is no time for this dear, we will, once this is done. Let’s get there first, then organise, and then, we see, shall we? So, all aboard!

They are leaving Busanga. No time to lose, no time for one last photo, that won’t be necessary. There is no leaving do because they leave nothing. What team? What colleagues? Friends? Don’t start me. Once Suzanne and François step into the Chevrolet, there is no real memory of none of them, just frozen pictures and random names of locations. The process of duty. 

No time celebrating arriving either, nor anything worth reporting in between, really. A blank.

There is no time to remember, and even less need for it. What to record? Suzanne shapes, moulds, trims. The world the Old Photos showed? Private memories. If that. Moments to grow out of: we create new memories, arrayed in the living room, staged in the kitchen. Much better ones, if I may say. 

The Past melts into this new life: away with the canvas, enter the patio, embrace the  myth! 

Mme Dulière of Panda.

François has packed the car well, that is his domain. She tucks in the animals and the kids, food for the road and suitcases. They have had enough time here, high time to go into the light. The Chevrolet is packed to the rafters with everything that could ever be needed and especially whatever will be needed arriving in Panda. There will be shops there, bakers, hair-salons, a living, breathing society, more than scraping a life. 

Until then, the journey through the spare trees of the savannah. 

The Sun shines in a Transvaal Blue immaculate Sky. Suzanne checks on Colette in her lap, turns in her front seat to smile at Claude and Françoise, sitting quietly in the back. They dutifully smile back. The dog lies between them, head dropped in the foot-well, resigned. Everything has been shoved in the car, pulled out, crammed in again, until it doubles up as crash padding. 

She stares at the road ahead, willing the trip to go faster. 

Once there, François will be a draughtsman once again. Back to the drawing board then, he had winked at Suzanne. Jokes. So, so tiring. Anyway, a job, at a desk, in an office, with colleagues and a boss seating next door. From 09h00 to 17h00, with a midday break to walk back home and have lunch. Or the canteen. A seat at a desk in an office. And a nice company bungalow next door. They agreed that this is really what he needed, what he wanted. 

All these restless treks should not last forever. 

Panda had been where he started off; there was poetry at play here, fate even, maybe, that he had found a position there. There was a nice circularity to it. The pits, the mines, the woods, the rivers, the teams, the villages were duly recorded in photos, glued and labelled in albums, and the albums stacked and shoved at the back of drawers. There had been a small moving remembrance ceremony before putting them all away, one last exhibition on the living room table in Busanga. 

Suzanne is driving to Panda. Jadotville. Katanga. Congo. All of it was slowly blurring into one: Africa.

They drive the scenic route through Kambove, turning right at Dilambwe. She concedes that this is a much nicer road, with great sights, panoramic views on the plains around, better than the arrow-straight valley road. This has flair, this feels authentic, and civilised. The last miles before Panda. François prepares for a story, she can see that: he is breathing in. Here we go. 

Kambove. That’s where I really started, he says, checking in the rear view mirror the reaction of his backseat audience. 

You remember the photo of the leopard? Silence. Suzanne loyally picks up the answer: yes we do, don’t we, she says, virulently nodding? And points at the gigantic anthill coming up ahead. Look at that! Even now, even to him, the landscapes around them do not quite match what he remembers. She knows these pictures, memories and stories of the Great Green he had weaved for her in Soissons. The leopard in front of the Greek’s store? One of his old party tricks.  

And this wooden bridge, up ahead? Kapemba? Just a quick photo of Claude and the maintenance, dear? It is like an invisible border: on the other side, Kakontwe Road. 

Suzanne signals the end of the short stopover and ushers everyone back in. Everything on the road now says “soon”. Hedges sprout by the roadside, a town takes shape. The dog sits up on the backseat, lapping up the anticipation in the car. François rattles out names and locations, in the nervous jabber of a starting tour guide. 

And at the next turn in the road: behold Jadotville, City of the Hills, City of Lights! And over there? Panda. 

Lush greenery, breezy hills. Warm days and balmy nights. Fireworks of colours from flowers and buildings everywhere: drooping Golden Rain trees, dripping wisterias, thick rhododendrons, elegant amaryllis. And wait, what is that by the road? With the slyness of an afternoon magician, pretending to look for directions, François has slowed up and parked on the grass kerb.

Suzanne beams at the scene playing across the fence. 

Even the dog is pressing its snout to the glass. Oh, girls, look at that! Is this an advertisement? A swimming pool of multiple depths. Every sort of springboard, toboggan, slide and ladder to get in or out of the water. Kids enthusiastically splashing in the water, their parents lounging around under colourful parasols, sipping drinks and smoking American cigarettes. 

California. Wealth, indulgence, hedonism, surely, nowadays… Suzanne tries to make herself feel a bit guilty, at least.

He smiles at her dilemma: that’s Le Zoute, named after the area in Knokke. Kind of the Belgian Deauville… Dystopia. Suzanne finally turns and nods approvingly, accepting to be impressed. This is not your rough-and-tumble Panda 1919, the explorers, the prospectors, the buccaneers. The Greeks shopkeepers, the Indians jewellers, the Russian doctors stayed, everyone else has moved on. 

The legendary figures of the Oldest Photos, gone into the sunset. 

He points left towards Kapolowe, the station of the Greek’s warehouse with the tame leopard. Only the foundations of it remain, archaeological evidence of what once was.

An affluent society is splashing here in the water, building together a legacy-free society. Engineers, foremen, entrepreneurs, many of them characters, but not anymore only chancers. 

And soon François would be one of them, back at the drawing board. 

Only one last small incline left now, a short stretch, and 21 Avenue Francqui, the  house under the eucalyptus trees. 

Everyone in the car strains to be the first to spot the future. 

Suzanne can finally relax. 

A space of their own. 

This is where it can truly begin. 

Very soon, September and the school starts.

Now – 2026

Petit Futé DRC 2026, CERCLE DE LOISIRS DE LA PANDA

“This is the historical leisure circle of the UMHK. The site lost its superb, like its foot football pitch and its empty […] swimming pool … […] enjoy a drink to discover this ancient club of Likasi and imagine what it had to look like at its peak … For the nostalgic […].”

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You read part 36 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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