In Bhouria, though starving and tormented by stomach cramps, pimples, and scabs, he was able to fall asleep but was soon assailed by nightmares—he dreamed that his son was dying.
On Tuesday, April 7, after three days of boils and fever, he finally arrived in Timbo.
THE LITTLE TOWN STOOD at the peak of a mound of ferns and lantana rising from the depths of a hollow. The mosque’s rattan palisades and conical roof looked just as they did in Hecquart and Lambert’s sketches. To the west, the legendary wooded ridges blended with the horizon. To the south was Koudéko hill, to the southwest the plateau of Niâli. That distant outline in the east had to be Mount Helaya, where the mystic Karamoko Alpha had retreated for seven years, seven months, and seven days before founding the kingdom. And that flamboyant gallery forest must have grown along the Bâdio-Dori River, which crossed the Saroudia Plain where the condemned were taken to be executed.
He put his binoculars away and came down from a granite boulder thinking about what Taïbou had told him: “Take care of yourself, stranger! In Timbo, there are no half measures—either you move up in rank or your head comes off.”
Now he was in the heart of Fula power—a veritable viper’s nest. Everything would depend on him, on his ability to use his mind and control his impulses. He knew he was preparing to play the most decisive chess game of his life. He knew he would come out of it with a crown or no head at all. To save his skin, he would have to be noble without seeming arrogant, shrewd without proving inflexible, and humble without appearing cowardly. Taïbou had made it crystal clear: the Fulas tested you before they opened the doors of their hearts and homes to you. Only accomplished men were worthy of becoming their friends. But what was an accomplished man in the eyes of the perverse Fulas? Someone who saw without being shown and understood without being told. Someone who could set a trap and turn the traps set for him into nooses for his enemies.
Time and again, she had told him: “Discernment, that’s the key to poulâkou, the legendary Fula ethic.”
But he no longer needed Taïbou to realize that. In five weeks of walking, he had had time to open his eyes and see through the many masks of the Fula people. He had grasped their Florentine art of conspiracy and sidestepping. He had understood that they considered cunning a noble sport. To live was first and foremost to dupe your fellow man. The man who hatched the most ingenious plots earned the praise of the griots and his place at court. Commoners and the dull-witted did not deserve any compassion. Here you were born crafty or cursed; king or no one at all.
Timbo lay before his eyes, inert and impenetrable like a diabolical chess game. He could win the game if he played wisely. Then he would have a country of his own—with gold and cattle, power and glory. But the slightest misstep would land him in prison—or on the executioner’s block.
He crossed the river, staked his tent in the middle of the plain, and sent his two faithful servants to announce his arrival to the court. He waited all day, playing chess and eating chocolate to ease his nerves. But a long day of waiting at the gates of Timbo felt like a day in the antechamber to Nero’s gallows. What had become of his two emissaries? Perhaps those treacherous Fula kings had arrested them, slit their throats, hanged them, or sold them as slaves. The idea had forced its way into his mind early that morning. By the end of the day it was a full-blown obsession. Despite the chess, the chocolate, and his stoic, imperturbable Olivier blood, he was finding it hard to hide his concern. His men sat a few feet away grilling tubers and broad beans to assuage their hunger. They no longer sang. Their resounding, grating laughter no longer shot across the plain. Now they merely grumbled in their dialects, looking at him with an evil eye. Of course this was all his fault. No matter what dialect they used, he could sense their wrath and their desire to flee as soon as night fell, leaving him—white, Catholic, and starving—alone among the Fulas. What would he do then? He would start by trying to liberate his two companions (honor demanded it), then turn his mind to his precious cyanide capsule (his fear of pointless suffering recommended it).
About five in the afternoon, the distant voice of the muezzin calling to the alansara prayer—marking the exact moment when the shadow stretches longer than the man—drew him out of his macabre ruminations. He looked up to the river and saw Mâly and Mâ-Yacine surrounded by a few notables wearing bright boubous. He let them draw closer, discreetly holding his rifle at the ready. But when he could no longer question whether those were smiles illuminating the Senegalese men’s faces, he happily dropped his weapon.
Soon a man whose brilliant burnoose and multicolored parasol set him apart as the most important in the group moved ahead to offer him a gourd of milk and a kola shell. The sign that he was welcome!
Mâ-Yacine told him that the man was Saïdou, secretary to the court. The almami had sent Saïdou to greet him. Their unfortunate delay had only been due to slow protocol and the almami’s hairsplitting.
As they entered the city, a woman with a calabash on her head stared at him and said:
“This is the first time I have seen a white man. I was told that the heathens all smelled charred, but now I see it isn’t true!”
His hut looked like a real house. Like all the other homes in Fouta, it had banco walls and straw thatching, but it also had blinds, doors, and several rooms—admittedly infested with roaches and flies, but well ventilated. His men piled into five neighboring straw huts. A large mango tree stood in the center of the courtyard, and a bamboo fence with a rattan and liana gate surrounded the whole compound.
Saïdou ordered dinner and water for a bath to be brought, then took his leave. As Olivier left the straw shanty behind his hut that served as a lavatory, he found the woman he had seen earlier waiting for him in the courtyard, at her side a pretty young girl with sparkling, intelligent eyes and a magnificent bronze-colored body. He gave the girl a new name on the spot: “Rest for the eyes.”
“This is my daughter Fatou,” the woman told him. “She will come sweep your home. You will also have clothes to wash and she will wash them. My hut is on the other side of the fence after the lougan. You’ll recognize it by the squash vines covering the roof.”
The next day he wanted to go out to stretch his legs but was stopped at the gate by men armed with rifles and swords.
No one else came to see him, not to say hello nor to bring him any food or drink.
On the third day, he came to the end of his supplies. There were twice as many guards in front of the gate now, and they no longer held their weapons concealed under their boubous, but in their hands.
On the fifth day, alarming speculations began to circulate among his men. The almami must be unhappy! They imagined him locked in a wing of his palace deciding on their fate—expel the white man or decapitate him? Seize his goods or sell his men in Sierra Leone?
On the seventh day, he began to seriously consider taking the cyanide capsule he had hidden in one of his molars. He would do anything to avoid the fate of white prisoners at the mercy of the king of Dahomey, who were forced to mutilate and behead their companions before they too were mutilated and beheaded.
On that seventh day, he filled himself with quinine and camphor water to assuage his hunger and scrawled in his journal: “I understand: these Fula jackals don’t want to soil their hands! They want me to die without their help. Malaria or starvation. And of course they think they can kill one bird with two stones and negotiate a fat ransom from Saint-Louis in the meantime! That would be typically Fula!” He put down his pencil and slapped his forehead: “Of course! The English! I should have known…Their friend Lawrence…Fouta’s guest…the border opening so quickly…My God, the trap was set all the way back in Bolama!” He went out and called to the guards: “My men haven’t done anything wrong, let them eat!” But only the weaver finches in the leaves of the mango tree seemed willing to answer him. Despondent, he turned back to his hut, thinking, So it will be tonight, at the twelve strokes of midnight! He stretched out on his cot and wrote a long letter
to his wife, then gave Mâly and Mâ-Yacine instructions in the event that they survived. He set his alarm clock and returned to bed, his hands joined on his chest.
The sounds of a pestle striking the mortar, shepherdesses hailing their cows, the call of the muezzin…Barking, footsteps in the courtyard…Before he could lift his head, Mâly was standing at his bedside:
“What are you waiting for white man? Go out and greet the prince!”
A handsome young man of fifteen was waiting for him on a sheepskin under the mango tree, looking like a bronze statue in the darkening night.
“My name is Diaïla and my father the almami has sent me. He will receive you tomorrow after the dawn prayer. Môdy Saïdou will come lead you to the palace.”
BARELY AWAKE, HE FOUND HIMSELF STANDING before the entrance to the palace, facing an imposing line of men holding swords and rifles. One could only cross the line with special authorization, under pain of death. The turrets, walls, and roof were nothing but a pitiful assemblage of dry straw and banco. Nonetheless, he was impressed by the place’s solemnity—and this was a man who had seen the court of the czar of all Russia, when the czar had dispatched a general to convince him to come build the chemical factories in Odessa. No laughing, no whispering! You were only allowed to cough or sneeze.
As soon as he entered the palace, he was brought to the mbatirdou, the pavilion in the middle of the courtyard where the almami granted his public audiences. After a moment, a day griot with a high-pitched voice, wearing a red boubou and turban, sang the song traditionally used to announce the arrival of a guest. The almami entered the room and took his seat without anyone in the audience rising: Sanderval was to his left, his ministers and brothers to his right, a significant distance away from the high dignitaries, who were seated in rows according to their importance. The interpreters stood between him and the high dignitaries.
A tall man with a rough beard and an austere burnoose stood and looked out at the audience with blazingly ferocious eyes. This had to be the one Alpha Yaya warned him about, Diogo Môdy Macka. He announced the order of the day and asked Saïdou to let in the visitors waiting in the vestibule one by one. These were mostly caravan drivers who had come to request the right to travel to the coast, emissaries of provincial chiefs and various plaintiffs. The almami, who never spoke in public, listened to the appeals and expressed his decisions by moving his head. Some were restored their rights, others sentenced to hand over cattle or gold. His decisions were effective immediately, including banishments and death sentences. Cases were heard all morning, until the toubab was struggling to repress his yawns.
The palace was a maze of alleyways, courtyards, and huts barely more imposing than those of the regular citizens. The crowd of court officials huddled around their ruler, remaining impressively silent and dignified. Sanderval admired their majestic bearing and noble features, but was struck by the plainness of the setting and the modesty of the furniture. He was brought a chair.
“A chair among the Negroes! Probably the only one in the kingdom,” he chuckled to himself.
Diogo Môdy Macka’s telluric voice shot through the crowd:
“What did the white man say?”
“He says that even back home, in France, the chairs are not so beautiful,” Mâly quickly interjected.
“Palaver, palaver, palaver, there’s no doubt I’ve landed among the Negroes!” he wrote that evening to recap the long and tedious hearing.
The morning had drawn to a close by the time the griot turned to Mâly and, with theatrical gestures and rhetorical flourishes, asked him to introduce the white man.
Following his introduction, he was asked to provide the passport Aguibou had issued him. The almami glanced over it and Môdy Saïdou read it out loud. Now the griot could speak directly to the stranger:
“We understand that you left from Bolama. We understand that you passed through Buba. We also understand that this is the passport Aguibou issued you. What we don’t understand, white man, is the object of your visit here.”
“Yes,” the court burst into a cacophony of voices, “alone from France and why all the way to Timbo?”
“So that we can be friends and so I can ask your authorization to trade,” he struggled in answer, straining his voice.
“What could he want to give us and what does he want from us?” the crowd asked, growing even noisier.
The almami cleared his throat.
“Silence,” yelled the griot.
“Trading is on the coast,” someone said.
“You’re right,” someone else agreed, “the white men never bring anything good. Let them stay on the coast!”
“Silence!” repeated the griot.
“Let him start by telling us who he is!”
“Silence!” yelled the griot once again. “Very well. I think you have understood, white man. First tell us who you are.”
“My name is Olivier, Aimé Olivier. I came here as a friend, I want nothing but peace. I only want to visit your land, make trade agreements, and receive your authorization to build a railroad.”
“What kind of road?” the griot exclaimed.
“I told you! He wants to imprison Fouta with rails,” an old man moaned.
The almami cleared his throat again. The griot translated with a single gesture of his hand, imposing silence:
“What is a railroad?”
“Wait,” said Olivier, rising. “I’ll be right back!”
He took off for his hut, leaving the court in stunned silence. Mâly chased after him but could get no explanation for his rash behavior. Olivier tore through his canteens and trunks and soon reappeared at the palace carrying a large package. He opened the parcel, muttering words incomprehensible to the court.
“This is what a railroad is!”
With Fouta Djallon’s dumbfounded dignitaries looking on, he put together the rails, placed the ties, set up the locomotive, and coupled the cars.
“We’re just missing the sound, but I can do that,” he said, serious as can be. And sure enough, he imitated the din of the engine, the whistle of the smokestack, the patter of gravel against the sides of the cars, the whacking of the branches, and the melodic song of the wind.
“With this,” he added, “you can go from Bolama to Timbo between sunrise and sunset.”
Then he respectfully approached the almami and handed him the machine:
“And this is for you, your Majesty. Admire this marvel, it is my gift to you.”
The whole thing seemed unreal. Onlookers scratched their heads, their eyes bulging out of their sockets and their mouths hanging open in stupefaction. Only the stunned look on their faces could adequately express their response to such an incredible sight—or possibly the silence and humility with which the Fulas greeted eclipses, earthquakes, and every one of the good Lord’s wonders. An eternity passed before anyone could pronounce a single word.
“This white man is a liar!”
The exclamation came from the left-hand rows, from a notable of a far-off province, his brow glistening with sweat, exhausted and disgusted by what he had just witnessed.
“You’re right. I don’t see how rails could run at a speed a horse could never reach.”
“Yes,” one of his neighbors agreed, “this white man is mocking us. We should cut off his head!”
“And even if it were true, why would we need a railroad when we each have two feet and our markets are brimming with horses?”
The almami motioned with his head and the griot’s high-pitched voice was heard again:
“And you’ll build this with your own hands, white man?”
“No, not with my hands, with my mind,” he answered deceptively. “You will give me the hands.”
A murmur of discontent swept through the crowd. The assembly knew how many slaves were needed to work on the royal digs or take a thousand heads of cattle to Bolama; they did not want to think what it would cost to put their hands to work building an entire road made of rails!
“Well what?”
“Are we going to let him get away with this or are we going to cut off his head?”
The almami cleared his throat and the griot translated:
“Beware, nobleman! This is not your jurisdiction, but the almami’s…That is all for this morning. The sun is high, we must separate. Go in peace, nobles of Timbo, see to your orchards and cattle.”
The griot winked, and Mâly told the white man he should stay. The almami vanished behind the palace walls, trailed by his suite and the resounding praise of the griot. Only then did the crowd scatter. Olivier waited in the courtyard, alone with Mâ-Yacine and Mâly, until a guard came for him:
“Hey you, white man, is it true that you are the nephew of the king of France?”
“Um, yes…it’s true…”
“Then come with me. The almami will see you.”
He was led beneath the arbor the almami and his closest advisers used as a royal lounge. Now the monarch had him sit beside him and spoke to him without the griot as an intermediary. He brought out the miniature train and had Olivier explain the system to him in detail. The white man showed him the location of the engine and boiler, simulated the wheels’ motivity, and explained why there were gaps between the rails. He praised his machine and vaunted the benefits of trade.
“So be it, white man, so be it! So long as it is for trade, you will be my friend and will remain the guest of Fouta. You may open trading posts and import what you wish.”
The King of Kahel Page 7