The Attempt to Visit Louison in Brazzaville

The Attempt to Visit Louison in Brazzaville recounts Romain Gary’s thwarted effort to reach Louison after she was sent away for treatment. What begins as an attempt to reunite with someone he cannot bear to lose becomes a sequence of interrupted journeys: first an aircraft crashes in the Congo, then the pilot of the alternative route disappears, and finally military orders send Gary elsewhere. He never sees Louison again.

Separation and the Plan to Reunite

Louison’s illness made separation necessary, although the narrator had resisted accepting that they would have to part. A report of a new treatment tested in Leopoldville offered hope that the disease might be stabilized and perhaps cured. Louison was therefore flown from Brazzaville to Bangui aboard the aircraft known as the flying wing, piloted twice a month by Warrant Officer Soubabère. Gary remained behind, bereft; he describes her absence as reaching into every part of his body and leaving his arms useless.

The prospect of going to Brazzaville on the next flight gave the separation a possible end. Every fortnight, Hirlemann piloted a Blenheim on military liaison flights between Bangui and Brazzaville, and arrangements were made for Gary to travel with him. The plan depended on a narrow timetable: he would have to wait for Hirlemann’s next trip to get closer to Louison.

The Journey Is Repeatedly Prevented

That journey never took place. Hirlemann’s aircraft lost a propeller over the Congo and crashed in flooded forest. Hirlemann, Bequart, and Crouzet were killed; the mechanic, Courtiaud, survived with a broken leg and spent three nights and four days fending off red ants. They were Gary’s friends, and their deaths brought the planned flight to an abrupt halt. A severe bout of malaria left Gary unconscious for a week, further delaying any attempt to travel.

Gary’s next hope was to wait for Soubabère’s return the following month and try again aboard the flying wing. Soubabère also disappeared in the Congo forest, along with the unusual aircraft that only he and Jim Mollison knew how to handle. The two successive losses erased both available routes to Brazzaville: the first flight crashed, and the pilot of the second vanished.

Orders, News, and Silence

Before Gary could make another attempt, he was ordered to rejoin his squadron on the Abyssinian front. He obeyed and was later sent to Libya. The military assignment took precedence over the journey he had hoped to make, and he never saw Louison again.

For a time, news came through friends in Brazzaville. They reported that Louison was being cared for, that there were hopes of a cure, and that she asked when Gary would come back. She was said to remain cheerful. Then the reports stopped. Gary wrote letters, made inquiries through official channels, and sent angry telegrams, but the military authorities offered no cooperation and no further news reached him.

An Unresolved Parting

Gary was also ordered to be examined for signs of the disease; he had none, but that finding brought little comfort while Louison remained beyond his reach. The episode closes not with confirmation of her fate or a reunion, but with the silence that follows the last reports. The failed journeys and unanswered inquiries leave the separation open-ended, while Gary’s recollection preserves his longing as an enduring attachment to Louison’s voice and presence.