He let me go. Through the darkness I saw his white hands move in a gesture of disgust as if he had touched something unclean. - Ferdinand Oyono

I went back to the refrigerator and took the opportunity when the Commander was not looking to spit just a few tiny specks spittle into the clean glass I was filling. He drank it down and put the glass back on the tray without looking at me. He waved me away with a nervous movement of the back of his hand.

Nothing today, except steadily mounting hostility from the Commandant. He is becoming completely wild. Kicks and insults have started again. He thinks this humiliates me and he can't find any other way. He forgets that it is all part of my job as a houseboy, a job which holds no more secrets for me. I wonder why he too refers to me as 'Monsieur Toundi'.

Life, he says, is like the chameleon, changing colour all the time.