Meeuwis: The Furthest Escape Of All Graham Greene Studies Volume 1 56 I will do so among others on the basis of The Furthest information found in the personal archives Escape Of All: of Dr. Michel Lechat (1927–2014), the Belgian leprologist who was Greene’s main Darkness And contact during his stay, whose discourse and insights he transposed to Dr. Colin’s Refuge In The in A Burnt-Out Case, and to whom he also 1 dedicated the book. Shortly before Lechat’s Belgian Congo . death in February 2014, his wife Edith Dasnoy handed me the Greene-related part Michael Meeuwis of his archives. This included photocop- ies he had made of the documents he had The 2014 Graham Greene donated to the Harry Ransom Center of International Festival the University of Texas at Austin in 2007, such as letters between Greene and him- Introduction self, but also a number of documents he had newly discovered after 2007, as well as his Graham Greene’s A Burnt-Out Case private and unpublished memoirs, which 2 (1960) is set in the Belgian Congo, the Edith Dasnoy found on his computer and colony in Central Africa over which Belgium in several printouts only in 2013–2014. A ruled from 1908, the year in which it took second major source for me is the original it over from the private hands of King manuscript of the diary Greene kept while Leopold II, to 1960, when the Congo gained traveling in the Congo, in possession of the its independence. In the first months of Harry Ransom Center. The diary was pub- 1959, Greene spent five weeks in the Congo lished in 1961 as In Search of a Character: in preparation for this novel. My intention The Congo Journal (Greene 1961)5, but this here is to contextualize Greene’s Congo trip published version diverges in significant in more detail than what is available in the ways from the diary manuscript, revealing 3 literature so far (i.a., Hulstaert 1994 ; Lechat many deleted bits of sensitive informa- 4 1991, 2007 ; Sherry 2004; Meeuwis 2013). tion as well as wholly different perceptions Greene had of events and people he had 1 A first version of this paper was presented in 2014 at the Graham Greene International Festival in Berkhamsted, UK, under the title “Merriment or Make-Believe? Reflections on the Congo Journal, Missionaries, and a Home Video Showing Graham Greene in the Belgian Congo.” I am grateful to the members of the audience for their feedback. My special gratitude goes to Honoré Vinck for his suggestions, and to Mike Hill and Jon Wise for their invaluable help with identifying the right archives and, not a minor challenge, with decrypting Greene’s handwriting. 2 Greene, G. (1977 [1960]). A Burnt-Out Case. London, Penguin. 3 Hulstaert, G. (1994). Graham Greene et les Missionnaires Catholiques au Congo Belge. Annales Æquatoria 15: 493- 503. 4 Lechat, M. (1991). “Remembering Graham Greene”. The Bulletin: The Newsweekly of The Capital of Europe 18 April 1991: 14-16. Lechat, M. (2007). Diary: Graham Greene at the Leproserie. London Review of Books 29(15): 34-35. Meeuwis, M. (2013). 5 Greene, G. (1961). In Search of a Character: Two African Journals. London, The Bodley Head. Published by Nighthawks Open Institutional Repository, 2017 1 Graham Greene Studies, Vol. 1 [2017], Art. 14 57 The Furthest Escape Of All met in the Congo. In addition to Greene the last week of January in Brussels, with a himself, another important ‘censor’ of the mistress he nicknames “Tony” in the diary diary manuscript was Dr. Lechat, who, manuscript, waiting for his departure by asked by Greene to correct the galley proofs, airplane on 30 January 1959. Greene spent beseeched the writer to omit or change quite his first two days in the Congolese capi- a number of unfavorable descriptions of tal Leopoldville (31 January–1 February), persons still living and working in the Congo after which he traveled on to the city of before the diary went to print. I intend to Coquilhatville, some 600 kilometers to the list and critically interpret the discrepan- north, in the heart of the equatorial rain- cies between the consecutive versions of the forest. His final destination was Iyonda, diary in a future study. Thirdly, I also draw situated only 15 kilometers south of the information from additional literature and center of Coquilhatville. Iyonda was a small from other, minor archives, all of which will village and station of the Missionaries of the be identified in due course. Lastly, I rely on Sacred Heart, which included the leprosy6 the many conversations I continue to have colony and hospital managed by Dr. Lechat. with Edith Dasnoy, who has become a dear Greene spent two periods in Iyonda, friend, as well as with several members of namely from 2 through 11 February and the Belgian branch of the congregation of again from 26 February through 5 March the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, the 1959. As I discuss in section 3, during the priests among whom Greene spent almost first term he was torn between on the one all of his time in the Congo. hand an escapist comfort offered by the My account is organized chronologically, Iyonda priests’ unconcern with his celeb- following Greene’s itinerary. In section 1, I rity, and on the other the disappointment first try to come to grips with Greene’s choice of not finding among them the deep reli- of the Congo when looking for a suitable gious reflexivity he had hoped. I also background for his new novel. For that, I will consider the exasperating attention Greene be referring to the help he requested in 1958 received from those colonials who did take from the Belgian Baroness Hansi Lambert, an interest in the personality that he was. In to whose beau-monde circle Greene section 4, I relate how, from 12 through 25 belonged, as well as to Lechat’s invocations February, he traveled the Ruki-Momboyo of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness in river, a tributary branching off from the his first letters to Greene. I will also discuss main Congo river at Coquilhatville, in order the remarkably apolitical intentions with to visit two other mission stations and lep- which Greene went to the Congo. In section rosariums. This two-weeks’ river journey, 2, I explain how all these preparations and which Greene made by steamer, is of impor- intentions culminated in Greene’s spending tance for several reasons. First, during the 6 I avoid the term “leper,” which, as Brandsma and Deepak explain (2012: 326), is nowadays deemed offensive towards leprosy patients. Other terms for “leprosy hospital and colony,” indicating the settlement where leprosy patients are treated and isolated from the rest of the population, are “leprosarium” and, borrowed from the French, “leprosery.” Brandsma, J. W. and S. Deepak (2012). “Surgical and Social Rehabilitation”. In: Leprosy: A practical guide. ed. E. Nunzi and C. Massone. Milan, Springer: 321-327. https://digitalcommons.northgeorgia.edu/ggs/vol1/iss1/14 2 Meeuwis: The Furthest Escape Of All Graham Greene Studies Volume 1 58 idle hours on the steamer, Greene took planned to spend some weeks in such a to rereading Heart of Darkness, the long remote leprosarium, in order to personally novella Joseph Conrad had written on the collect all contextual and technical informa- basis of his own steamer journey on the tion needed to compose a background, and Congo river in 1890. This rereading allowed maybe also some dramatic material. For this Greene to come to a thorough reinterpre- purpose, in September 1958, he contacts his tation of the novella’s merits. Secondly, Belgian friend Baroness Johanna “Hansi” much of the narrative in A Burnt-Out Case von Reininghaus-Lambert (1899–1960), revolves around a leprosarium situated on widow and heir of the famous Brussels the banks of a river that likewise is not the banker Baron Henri Lambert (1887–1933)8. main Congo but one of its smaller tributar- Hansi Lambert was a lady of the Belgian ies. Greene’s journey on the Ruki-Momboyo high society, collecting art, among which and the individuals and localities he saw on paintings by no lesser names than Miró, its banks thus served him as an important Chagall, and Picasso, and always keen on source of inspiration for the book. Finally in inviting, in old salon-style, famous artists, section 5, I deal with Greene’s second term writers, composers, and politicians for lunch in Iyonda (26 February–5 March 1959), or dinner. As her son Philippe Lambert during which a remarkable home video was (1930–2011) remembers, Greene was one of shot of him, for which I provide background the celebrities in Hansi’s entourage: information and an interpretation, as well as with his last days back in Leopoldville “My mother [. .] was the product of a (5–6 March), his brief visit to Brazzaville world where appearance and demeanor in French Equatorial Africa (7–8 March), mattered, and had a great savoir-faire and to Douala in Cameroon (8–12 March), combined with anirresistible charm. [. .] where he visited a fourth leprosarium. Hansi was lucky to have financial means to support her strong need for friends 1. Finding a destination and influence. She dreaded being alone for an apolitical trip and took every opportunity to expand her social circle and surround herself Already while writing and finalizing Our with interesting people. Whether it was Man in Havana (1958), Greene was concep- in her homes in Fudji, Avenue, Marnix tualizing his next novel, envisaging to set it or Gstaad, [.