Martin Pearce is an English adventurer in Africa. Polyglot, orientalist, impeccably dressed, it is not clear what he does for a living although he writes, drinks whiskey and recites the great poets by heart. He could be the protagonist of one of many exotic adventure novels or, with a tortured nuance, one by Joseph Conrad, but he has been lucky enough to appear in the new story by Nobel Prize winner Abdulrazak Gurnah (Zanzibar, 1948), The Deserter ( Salamander) –originally published in English in 2005–, and star in a passionate story set initially in East Africa at the end of the 19th century but that reaches London in the sixties, with the descendants of a forbidden love story between a African and a European.
Like other Gurnah works, The Deserter shows the uses and customs (amorous, legal, commercial...) of the time through the intimate stories of each character. “An interracial relationship in 1899, like that of Pearce and Rehana, was something illegal,” he explains, in the Madrid hotel where he receives us. “In fact, when one investigates the colonial archives, it is as if those relationships had not existed, because no one wrote nothing about it. They have hidden them from us but they existed, and I try to show what they were like. Neither he nor she, for different reasons, could talk about her relationship, it was a taboo on both sides of the cultural spectrum. That part, let's call it romantic, is another hallmark of an author who exclaims: “How can you write a novel without a powerful love story?!”
Gurnah intentionally turns the archetypes of African adventure novels on their head. “Here the white man does not arrive precisely as a conqueror, but in his last moments, dying, covered in rags... And the culture of hospitality of those who live there makes them go out of their way to take care of him. This often happened in colonial encounters, the first men to arrive were given great welcomes, or treated attentively and compassionately if they were unwell, but when they recovered and became stronger, they became monsters, colonizers. One might think that Europeans, with everything they have experienced in their history and the exoduses and repressions they have suffered, should behave this way with the refugees who arrive in their countries, but we live in a time of amnesia. It is the obligation of every human being to help those who arrive with problems, injured or hungry.”
The novel also addresses the consequences of that illegal couple on their descendants, in London and other Western cities sixty years later. ”The granddaughter suffers a curse because of what her grandparents did, and she, at the same time, is frowned upon for that, as if she were the fruit of something wrong. One is always a prisoner of one's past and one's family, and I am interested in how the prejudices of one era are transferred and survive, in other forms, in the next generation."
The racist conversations of the white characters are striking, no matter how cultured they are. “That's how it happened. They were interested in literature but then they were capable of committing savages. Being cultured does not free you from cruelty. The most classic case is the chamber music orchestra that existed in Auschwitz, they played while the crematorium was operating, and its Nazi promoter did so not out of cynicism but out of love for classical music. He would choose some newcomers and, instead of burning them, he would send them to play.”
Pearce “is an orientalist, somewhat old-fashioned. Edward Said showed us that Orientalism was a vehicle of imperialism. But these people were divided: they often had the knowledge that what they were doing was wrong.”
Rehana, the girl, is rejecting the marriages agreed upon by her family. “It is not a modern vision, it is something that was already happening at that time. Muslim societies are portrayed as forcing women into marriage, but the reality is that they used to have the final decision on the proposal, depending on circumstances, family, class, need... In the West too The parents decided on these things, I suppose that happened in Spain too and that the daughter could also say no, at least sometimes.”
Rehana, for example, is interested in whether her suitors already have another wife because she does not want to be the second. “There are many women who flatly reject the idea of polygamy, even if it is legal. And many parents also reject their daughters entering into a polygamous marriage. Polygamy is a masculine ideal, based on man's desire. Tolerance towards the idea occurs in couples where the woman is no longer interested in sex and her father is still interested, and she opts for another, younger wife. That, her defenders say, keeps the man at home, he does not go through the streets looking for something, and the young woman can do the tiring housework while the older woman rests. But... in reality, all the cases that I know directly of polygamy end badly, a second wife greatly disturbs the calm of the family, its functioning, and causes unhappiness. Today it is tolerated only in very, very traditional societies. What usually happens today is that they divorce before marrying another, even though polygamy is permitted.”
The female characters have a lot of weight, like Farida, who suffers the trauma of being excluded from the educational system. “That was something very common, I have four sisters, all alive, and only the youngest was able to study, because things were beginning to change. But it was not because of the parents, but because of the system,” she clarifies.
The deserter takes us to the streets where everything happens, with the smells, colors and, of course, “my dear merchants, gardeners, carpenters... older people with artisanal experience”, another brand of the Gurnah house, who this time uses also different narrators and points of view, with the system of 'found notebooks', stories within stories, in his case not a Cervantes tradition – “I have only read the book of the boy from La Mancha,” he jokes – but coming from Lord Jim, by Conrad, “where someone receives a manuscript that completes a story.”
Stevenson, Conrad, Johnson, Melville, Senghor and many others... appear at various times. “I have read them all, I don't care if they were racist, some were racist to an unbearable extent, but reading them is wonderful. In Melville's remarkable Benito Cereno, the American captain carefully observes how the body and structure of black people makes them especially suited to serve, to contribute to the well-being of others,” he says.
As he says goodbye, Gurnah proudly shows us photos of his granddaughter. “I was the only writer in the family, but she, at 7 years old, is writing her memoirs, what do you think? In order not to discourage her, I don't explain to her that I wrote my first book when I was twenty-something but I didn't manage to publish it until I was almost 40 years old, ha ha."
