“If I understand correctly, I am a prisoner.”
“Prisoner? Oh no,” protested Saïdou. “How could Fouta’s guest be a prisoner? You white people! Always exaggerating!”
“Is this coming from you, or is it the almami’s decision?”
“It is not up to me. Only the almami can decide where to house his guests.”
Olivier ordered his men to settle in and move his belongings inside, then ran to the palace followed by his frantic companions. In a fit of madness, he picked up a handful of gravel and rushed toward the monarch.
“Yémé!” cried Mâly, his voice exploding with fear.
With tremendous effort, Olivier slowed down, gathered his senses and calmly bent over to place the gravel at the almami’s feet.
“What do you mean by this, white man?” Diogo Môdy Macka demanded.
“It’s—it’s a custom of his homeland,” Mâly stammered, shaking with fear. “A sign of deference…Over there, when you want to show someone your respect you…put gravel at his feet…This white man is not here to disrespect you, almami, but to humbly submit to your decision…It is my fault, I didn’t think to tell him that we do not do things that way here.”
The crowd laughed, and Mâly and Mâ-Yacine breathed a sigh of relief.
“Well then, please stand, my good man,” said the griot, touched by Mâly’s explanation.
“These whites may be respectful,” said the court marabout, “but they certainly have strange customs!”
Was he a prisoner? Every authoritative voice in Timbo assured him he wasn’t. He had been transferred here for his own security. He had nothing to fear—he remained and would always be the guest of the almami and the friend of the Fula people.
But the next day, when he took his sunshade and net to go butterfly hunting, the palace staff were blocking the gate, softly chatting without paying him the slightest attention.
Furious, he scrawled a reminiscence of his Latin lessons in thick red letters on a banner and hung it from the roof of his shack: “Constituenda est Timbo!” Timbo was outraged—some saw it as an insult, others as a declaration of war.
Pâthé had to step in to save the white man from a constant shower of projectiles and hateful catcalling. But peace only truly returned when he consented to take the banner down and burn it in public view. It was a short-lived peace; the next Thursday, he saw Fatou arrive with a laundry basket and a small wood chest.
“What are you doing here, you harebrained fool? Haven’t you done enough damage as it is?”
“What do you mean, what is she doing here?” Mâ-Yacine asked. “Haven’t you heard that one of your Wolofs just married her?”
The kings and princes of Fouta finally gathered in their general assembly.
Guards came to lead him to the palace. He had become familiar with the Fulas’ fastidious protocol. The almami appeared in his dazzling boubou and the entire city fell silent. His suite was far more imposing than the first time, and the griot’s praise boomed twice as loud. The preliminaries lasted until midday. The dignitaries read from the Koran, congratulated each other, and blessed Fouta while the crowd’s ugly curiosity bore down on Olivier. He recognized the griot and the palace marabout. Yet he had to look hard to identify Bôcar-Biro and Pâthé, both of whom were now nearly as regal in bearing as the almami. Then, slowly, lips closed on the civilities and nervous confidences and silence spread through the palace as a drop of perfume fills space. Diogo Môdy Macka waved his hand and the griot stood to read the order of the day:
“To begin with, noblemen of Fouta gathered here, the almami asks us to examine a case that has become important in the kingdom. You are all aware that for several weeks a white man has been among us. This white man says he has come from Bolama. He says he is from a rich family descended from the kings of France. He says his hand is without a knife and his mind is without hate. He says he only wants a road to make the steam come through. He says he is the almami’s friend and Fouta’s benefactor. The almami received him as a friend; he opened his home to him as a benefactor. That is when doubt crept into our minds. Many mouths opened and we heard many things. It appears that his lineage is not certain, his path not straight, and his intentions not clear. All of this troubles our minds, all of this complicates the almami’s business.”
Whispers and coughs were quickly followed by the audience’s first question:
“Tell us, Diogo Môdy Macka, did this man come with a paper from his uncle, the king of France?”
The redoubtable prime minister raised his stentorian voice to explain that the man had set foot on Timbo’s soil with nothing in his hands but his white gloves. He explained what all of Timbo already knew: in the country of the white man, where everything is backward and twisted, kings don’t write, they speak to their nephews.
“If that’s the case, any stable boy can arrive from Sokoto or Timbuktu and claim he is the king of Mecca’s nephew,” shouted a skeptic.
“Let us begin by shedding light on this question,” Diogo Môdy Macka growled as he turned to the white man. “Yes or no, are you the nephew of the king of France?”
The same scene that had taken place in Prince Aguibou’s court in Guidali now played out in Timbo. Acting in good faith, the white man tried to clear up the situation. But Mâly and Mâ-Yacine promptly shushed him, driving their elbows into his ribs and winking insistently. Their obsequious, persuasive circumlocutions made even the most skeptical Fulas swallow their unlikely tale.
The griot restored silence and turned back to the crowd:
“Does anyone else have something to say?”
“Let’s get back to this Dinguiraye business. It is said that the white man standing among us came with riches and guns he intends to give to the king of Dinguiraye, our sworn enemy. Is this true?”
“The white man has been asked a question,” the griot said impatiently.
Yes, he would like to go to Dinguiraye, Olivier said. No, for nothing in the world would he go to Dinguiraye, Mâly translated.
But Mâly was so busy concocting lies, he did not recognize the man with the burnoose about to speak from the second row:
“Can the white man look me in the eye and swear he never told me he would go to Dinguiraye?”
It was Aguibou, who had replaced his father, the king of Labé, now too old for the assembly. Mâly recoiled with surprise. His stammer was as eloquent as a full confession.
“You see!” someone cried out. “No, Fatou did not lie!”
This time the griot struggled to bring the room to silence. Voices rose up from the back rows, defying convention:
“The white man says one thing one minute and the opposite the next! Decapitate him!”
Diogo Môdy Macka whispered something in the almami’s ear. The almami cleared his throat and once again the griot’s voice resounded:
“Is there anyone among the assembled noblemen who opposes the decapitation of the white man?”
A long silence followed, broken only by murmurs and coughs. Finally, the feeble voice of the king of Kankalabé was heard:
“We are Fulas, kinsmen. Our ethic, poulâkou, instructs us to behave like the chameleon: we must be sure that the world won’t collapse under our first step before we take the second. We are angry this man lied to us. But despite that, let us remain cautious. We kill him, and then we realize he truly is the nephew of the king of France. Have you considered that?”
The audience was baffled. The levelheaded acquiesced. Those who had been calling for blood a moment earlier were seized with doubt. A glimmer of hope appeared in Mâly’s eyes. The poor interpreter lifted his head and tried his luck again:
“Wallahi, this man is a nephew of the king of France! Why would I lie to you?”
“So let him hurry up and prove it before I call the executioner back in,” Diogo Môdy Macka roared.
“Him, a prince?” someone exclaimed in indignation. “If he’s a prince, why are his clothes so drab and too tight? Was he short on fabric?”
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Driven by despair, the white man was struck with a brilliant flash of inspiration. Instead of seeing him collapse, Fouta was stunned to see him burst into laughter:
“Give me a few minutes and I will prove to you that I truly am the king of France’s nephew!”
The griot turned to the almami, who nodded his head in approval.
“All right,” said the griot. “We will grant the white man a few minutes. But the guards will fire at him if he tries to escape.”
He ran to his hut, rummaged through each of his trunks, and finally came upon the Mephistopheles costume he had wanted to throw overboard. He was surprised to see it had made it this far. As he pulled it out of the trunk and unfolded it, he still wasn’t sure he would actually wear it. And even if he had the courage to put the thing on, what would they take him for—the dauphin of France or the king of the clowns? He looked at its crimson fabric, cork buttons, silk ribbons, and horned hood with fur fringes and laughed hysterically, alone in his hut. Then he got dressed with the studied grace of a king preparing to go to the ball.
“They didn’t accept me as a human being, maybe they will accept me as Mephistopheles.”
He had left the palace as a prisoner; he returned as an emperor.
“Louis XVI must have had the same effect on the bumpkins in Saône-et-Loire,” he muttered into his beard, feeling rather proud of his appearance.
Even Diogo Môdy Macka’s eyes glowed with admiration and respect. Olivier listened to the whispers spreading around him and realized he had won.
“In general, white men are ugly, but this one has become really beautiful,” someone ventured.
“Well, he still has the same chameleon eyes and sticky hair, but that outfit, that really is something, yes it is!”
“Even the kings of Mecca don’t wear such ample, colorful clothing!”
Then the voice of the griot was heard rising above the others.
“Let’s have some silence, kinsmen! Ibrahima, the king of Fogoumba, has something to say.”
“This man is the son of a king, so be it,” he began. “Does this mean we must make him the friend of the Fula people? Is this the time for the Fulas to trust the first person to come along?”
The Alphayas couldn’t have wished for a better opening to expose their grievances:
“Yes, almami, why do you let this stranger roam our mountains? Why do you receive him with friendship? White men are our enemy; they come to trouble our rest, steal our women, and maybe reduce us to captivity. We don’t want them here.”
“And what about this Dinguiraye business? We haven’t settled that yet! We need to shed light on this white man’s intentions,” someone shouted from the first row.
Allusions, murmurs, sulking, altercations, consultations—it continued like any other meeting of the Fulas and lasted until evening prayer. Finally the almami whispered something in the griot’s ear and he bellowed:
“The white man who is here is the friend of the almami and the guest of Fouta! The almami grants him what he has requested. He will have the road to make the steam come through, but he is forbidden to go to Dinguiraye. Anyone who helps him to do so will be decapitated.”
Back home, he found the guards leaving his hut with his canteens and trunks again.
“What’s going on now!” he yelled. “Am I being taken to the execution post or exiled from the city?”
Saïdou arrived to reassure him:
“Neither one nor the other. We are bringing you back to your former residence. You see, you really are Fouta’s guest!”
It was like night and day. They helped him settle back in and brought him a big dish of rice with chicken in peanut sauce straight from the almami’s palace.
He was able to return to the markets. People no longer seemed so threatening when they looked at him. His guards grew more discreet and his neighbors more friendly. The waves of curious onlookers returned to his veranda and courtyard and princes from every faction vied for his friendship. Everyone wanted to win over this stranger said to be rich, powerful, and—since that fateful afternoon—a true friend of the almami. They all counted on him for something: the provinces to counterbalance Timbo’s suffocating power; the Alphayas to force the almami to respect alternation; and each Sorya prince for help supplanting his half brothers and acceding to the throne when the time came. Their visits, generally nocturnal, were accompanied by gifts and malicious comments about the enemy camp.
Late on May 10, after he had given up fighting to fall asleep, he wrote out a prophecy: “My instinct tells me this country is on the verge of restaging two of the sorriest episodes in French history in a single scene. On one side, the Armagnacs; on the other, the Bourguignons. On one side, Timbo; on the other, Labé. Each of these gulfs has its Henri III and its duke of Guise. Here, Pâthé and Bôcar-Biro; over there, Aguibou and Alpha Yaya. Strange Fouta! These Fulas are clever, perhaps too clever. Fouta has turned into a trap, a paradoxical trap. It is as easy to make the Fulas fall into it as it is to fall in yourself.”
He roamed the surrounding area locating caves and springs, taking soil and plant samples, and hunting elephants. He survived one bad fall, a poisoning, and a snakebite. Diarrhea and malaria often left him on the edge of unconsciousness. Then one day he was told the king of Koïn had come to see him:
“I am known as Dion-Koïn. You can probably guess that means the master of Koïn,” he chuckled. “Like everyone else, I applauded your performance at the palace the other day. I had been hearing about you for a long time. If you agree, we will become friends. Come through Koïn before you return home. We have fine game and the best milk in the land—as for the women…”
Three insistent coughs were heard from outside. The king leaned forward, eagerly waving someone in:
“Go on! Come in!…Come in!…What are you waiting for?”
A figure hesitated in the distance, crossed over the gravel courtyard, and crouched on the veranda.
“This is my wife…Come in, come in!…Come on, hurry up!…You don’t mind if she comes in, do you? She would be very disappointed. You understand, she has never seen a white man.”
The young woman hesitated a moment longer, then entered with a single stride and lit up the whole room with her presence. She was the young woman he had seen on his way back from the spring, over whom he had nearly gotten himself lynched. The white man no longer paid the slightest attention to what his guest said. She was beautiful, so beautiful, even more beautiful now that he could see her up close! He devoured her with wild eyes, his mouth hanging open and his breath coming quickly. He knew he looked like a madman and did not care. He looked her over from head to foot, dwelling on the curve of her neck, her earlobes, her nose, and the corners of her mouth—she was flawless. Her Fula complexion and her jewels glowing in the darkness of the hut reminded him of the way the most beautiful stained glass windows at Chartres glimmered in the sunlight.
Dion-Koïn started to worry:
“Hey, what’s come over you, white man? By Allah, what’s happening to you?”
Olivier did not know what was happening to him; he did not know if he was falling in love or going insane.
He stood up. He took Dion-Koïn by the shoulders and spoke directly:
“Give me your wife! I beg you, give her to me!”
Thinking it was a joke, Dion-Koïn burst out laughing and ran out to his attendants, who had remained in the courtyard:
“The white man is completely crazy! He wants me to give him my wife. I’ve never heard of such a thing! What a funny story! You should sing that, griots!”
He wiped his eyes and returned to the hut, where he found the white man exactly how he had left him, looking like a hypnotized child.
“Please, give me your wife,” Olivier de Sanderval repeated, his face clear of irony.
“But I can’t give you my wife—she is the daughter of a great king and furthermore that king is a friend. You see that I can’t give her to you. Why don’t you go to Kébou? You’ll f
ind far more beautiful women there.”
“Then tell me her name.”
“Her name is Dalanda. But that name is too complicated for you, I’m sure you’ll forget it right away.”
He took his wife’s hand and led her outside. Once he reached the veranda, he turned and said:
“And forget her too. That will be better for all three of us.”
HE FELL PREY TO A TERRIBLE SICKNESS, more serious and unbearable than diarrhea and malaria and without even a name to identify it. An undefined pain burned through his body, poisoned his blood, and clouded his mind. Mâly thought he had gone crazy, Mâ-Yacine that he had been poisoned again, and his Senegalese soldiers that one of those fearsome Fula marabouts had worked on him with his beads. He became solitary and irascible. He refused everything they offered him to eat, whether curd cheese or millet couscous, taro puree or lamb meatballs. He spent entire days sprawled in a corner of his hut. Then he wandered the alleys of Timbo, oblivious to the hordes of sticklike women and children who laughed behind his back, cruelly mocking his bird eyes and skin the color of embers. He went from one hut to the next, searching the verandas and every inch of the lougans. He risked staring at the women grinding fonio and returning from the well. She wasn’t anywhere to be found. He no longer cared how reckless he was being by ignoring the proverb the Nalus in Cassini had told him over and over: “If you want to avoid the Fula knife, avoid his throne, his cattle, and his wife.” He searched all of Timbo and the neighboring hamlets, improvised long soliloquies on the riverbanks, but could not drown his sorrow. Every night, he dragged himself back to his den like an old defeated lion.
Then one fine afternoon a young girl came to lift him out of his stupor.
“What does she want from me?” he barked at Mâly.
“She wants you to follow her.”
“To go where, good God?”
The King of Kahel Page 9