Scene 4

Maille had tried to make contact with Agent Roff but his disguise seemed to be a rather too complex for easy detection. So he resolved to look around the island of Goree on his own. Squashed between goats and paper sacks full of white bread, between Cola containers and jam bottles, gas bottles and cooking vessels, Maille travelled on the early morning ferry to the isle, accompanied by deafening music played by a bouncy little brass band that had no qualms about playing a range of French chansons and marches in their very own fashion. Their music was merry, if a tad off-key. Maille visited the Maison des Esclaves, where once men, women and children had gathered prior to being despatched to the New World. Here, these hapless people had assembled and prepared for their journey, been divided into groups, fed, beaten, broken, branded and chained. The secret agent listened to the explanation of the guide, who was providing visitors unsparingly with the bloody details of those days. And he felt as though the sweat was oozing out of every pore in his body when the guide looked him direct in the eyes for a nano-second, during which he recognised the scoundrel who had, in the span of a few years, robbed the best men of the Black Continent: «Les coupables, on les connaît: c'était l'homme blanc, c'étaient les européens». Then, at long last, he heard his mobile phone go beep-beep.

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