No Other Life by Brian Moore

Author:Brian Moore
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2011-09-25T16:00:00+00:00

jeannot is us – raymond is them

power to the poor

jeannot

our voice – don’t shut him out

As we watched, the procession approached the gates of the parliament buildings. Inside the courtyard the cars of parliamentary delegates could be seen parked in rows, a sign that parliament was in session. In front of the gates soldiers were disembarking from trucks and hastily shuffling into a double line to block the demonstrators. At the head of the crowd I saw four young priests wearing white soutanes, two of them holding aloft processional crucifixes, and two presenting open pages of bibles, as though bearing witness. Behind them were the familiar faces of Port Riche’s lower town, women in white bandannas and ugly flowered dresses, grey-grizzled, rheumy-eyed old men, thin starveling girls in short white shifts, nervous, stick-like little boys. The television cameras, rising higher, showed the thick mass of the crowd behind these emblematic representatives of the slums. Suddenly, the voice of a commentator was heard.

‘We are at the Place du Parlement where a march led by supporters of President Cantave has come to protest parliament’s proposal to appoint the leader of the Progressive Party, Alphonse Raymond, as premier of Ganae. Father Cantave’s choice, Yves Gabin, has been rejected by parliament on the grounds that he has close ties to the President and this, in effect, encourages one-party rule. As you can see, this demonstration is made up of ordinary people, most of them belonging to the poorer classes. The crowd is calling for Members of Parliament to appear and answer its challenge, but it now seems unlikely that they will receive the courtesy of a reply.’

At that point, the commentator seemed to run out of words. The cameras roved aimlessly over the heads of the crowd. When, at last, they came to rest on the rows of soldiers lined up at the parliament gates, the commentator found his voice again. ‘It is obvious that the Army, under the command of General Hemon, is backing the President and these soldiers are here purely to maintain order. Violence is being avoided.’

And, indeed, there was no violence. After a few minutes the huge crowd, as if on orders, began to move away from the parliament buildings, going back up the Avenue Beaucaire in straggling, disorderly fashion as though the demonstration were breaking up. At that point the television cameras were shut off and the television screen showed a studio interior. An announcer, sitting at a desk, told us we were now being returned to normal programming.

‘This is an historic occasion,’ Father Duchamp said as we ate our lunch. ‘Dictators put down demonstrations. Jeannot provokes them. The mob is his army.’

Duchamp was, of course, in the habit of making this type of sarcastic comment and normally I would have tried to ignore his remark. But, on that same afternoon, Monsignor Taburly, the Vatican’s acting chargé d’affaires in Ganae, asked me to come and see him on an urgent matter which he could not discuss on the phone.

I went at once.

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