The King of Kahel

by Monénembo, Tierno; Elliott, Nicholas

  “Maybe to the almami.”

  Throughout this long period of sorrow and wandering, he had never followed the path she led him on. They set off behind his hut, over the fallow lougan. They passed the bamboo hut where he washed, crossed a hedge, and followed a grassy path endlessly twisting between raised vegetable beds to a tiny banana plantation next to a stream. The girl stopped without saying a word and pointed to the plantation. He strained his eyes, which were weakened by sleepless nights and malaria.

  He saw.

  She was there, standing between the banana trees and the stream, wearing a short grass skirt, her breasts bare, her hair covered in coral and pearls. She wore large gold earrings and a dense tangle of coralline necklaces, some barely wider than her neck, some hanging down to the ends of her breast. A gourd and a wooden spoon stood at her feet.

  “Dalanda!”

  She smiled. Then time came to a standstill. They remained facing each other, silent and unreal, like the stone etchings in the cliffs of Hélaya. She whispered something he could not understand. He turned to the little girl to beg for her assistance, but she shrugged her shoulders helplessly. He would have drunk Dalanda’s words with the eagerness of mountain shepherds eating their midday honey after a long morning’s hike. She spoke again, using her hands to explain herself. This time he understood:

  “I saw you yesterday near the royal stables…and the day before yesterday next to the great madrassa. You’re wandering around as if you had lost a chicken.”

  He poured his heart out in a quick torrent of words, telling her of his love, the long nights he had spent waiting for her, and the slow death to which her absence had fated him. She understood nothing. She turned to the little girl, laughing:

  “Good God, how could someone come into this world without speaking a word of Fula?”

  She leaned down and dipped the wooden spoon into the gourd:

  “Drink, it’s milk.”

  He drank breathlessly, like a puppy lapping up water after a long race. He caught his breath and threw himself at her feet. But she uttered a short cry and firmly pushed him away. She cast an embarrassed glance at the little girl, then repeated herself until her meaning was clear:

  “Tonight…when the muezzin’s voice is still, I will come see you in your home.”

  That night he went to bed without opening his journals or touching his chess set. He pulled his plaid blanket over his head to protect himself from the cockroaches and mosquitoes and let the poetic rustle of Timbo sweep over him. One by one, the city’s sounds faded away: the grinding of the pestles, the barking of the dogs, the booming of the Koranic masters, the whining of the children, the voices of the storytellers, and the monotonous chants of the griots. Timbo was falling asleep. He let his mind drift with the chirping of the crickets, the croaking of the frogs, and the terrifying howl of the wild dogs and hyenas. He thought the muezzin’s high-pitched lament would never come; he waited for that supernatural sound that reaches out to anyone awake in the night, even an infidel.

  Finally, the muezzin’s song! All his senses came alert. He stared at the entrance to the hut, but nothing brushed against his door save for cats, roaming dogs, and the usual filthy rats. Perhaps overcome by anxiety, he fell into a light sleep. He was dreaming he was in a theater when something touched his hand. For a moment, he stayed asleep, thinking it was only a rat, then suddenly threw back the cover and dashed for his rifle, afraid it was an assassin or a thief.

  “Don’t be scared, it’s me,” she whispered, her nude body glowing in the candlelight.

  The next day Bôcar-Biro returned to tell him he hadn’t given up hope of securing authorization for him to push on to Dinguiraye. He had broached the subject to the almami, who, all things considered, no longer saw it as a serious nuisance. The monarch had told him:

  “Work it out with Diogo Môdy Macka and the other palace attendants.”

  “It won’t be complicated to convince Diogo Môdy Macka and his vultures,” Bôcar-Biro concluded, “you’ll just have to cover them in amber and coral.”

  Shortly thereafter, he was felled by terrible diarrhea that violently twisted his guts for two days before starting to recede. Fortunately, he had bought a large plastic pot before boarding his ship, and his men took turns emptying it.

  The next week he felt strong enough to reach the bamboo hut that served as his bathroom. As he was about to go in, he saw a shadow move behind the tall mango tree. She approached him with something that looked like a meal on her head. He was too surprised and angry to return her greeting and broad smile. He grabbed her by the arm, ran with her to the back door of his hut, and pushed her inside.

  He came back out and locked himself in the bathroom hut for a few minutes. Then he lingered in the courtyard, chatting with his men to avoid arousing suspicion.

  “Make sure no one disturbs me, I’m going to rest for a while,” he ordered before joining her inside.

  A moment ago, he had wanted to reprimand her, but now he could only take her in his arms. She had brought honey cakes and fonio with a folléré sauce. He feasted and listened to her lament over him—the sick man, the poor white man lost among the Fulas, the lover who lacked the honor to settle things by challenging his rival to a knifepoint duel on the plain.

  When she was finished feeding him the delicious little treats she had lovingly kneaded, she gently washed his hands and feet and dragged him to the bed, laughing like a little girl.

  “You’re not a man, Yémé, wallahi!” she said as she undressed. “I thought you would have stabbed Dion-Koïn and run off with Dalanda by now!”

  Now they were sitting on the ground, the white man lost in his notebooks, the young woman leaning on his shoulder, pouring soumbala syrup for him while humming an old shepherdess’s tune.

  “Who do you like better, Fatou or me?”

  “I love only you.”

  He patted her cheek. She delicately ran her finger over the small of his back.

  “You can’t love only me, that’s impossible!”

  “Only you, only you, only you!”

  She managed to make him admit that he had a wife in France, a white woman, of course, and that he loved her just as much. She asked him why he was here in Fouta, and was filled with wonder to learn that he had come to carve out a kingdom for himself.

  “Allah is great,” she exclaimed. “That way you will have two queens: a white one and a black one.”

  “Alas,” he sighed, “things are never so simple for white people.”

  “Why aren’t things ever—”

  She was interrupted by a terrible racket. He grabbed his rifle and went to see what was happening. Over a hundred men armed with swords and sticks were racing down the paths, across the lougans and over the fences, bearing down on his hut while hysterically shouting:

  “Kill the white man! Kill the white man! Kill the white man!”

  His first reaction was to run back inside to protect Dalanda.

  “What is it,” she asked innocently, with the adorable smile of an angel. “Are they chasing a thief?”

  He took hold of her, steering her to the back door, then reconsidered, thinking of the bed. “Come on,” he said, pushing her down. “Stay under there! No moving, coughing, or sneezing!”

  He dropped to the ground in front of the entrance and pointed his rifle at the courtyard. The first men to arrive stopped dead at the sight of his gun barrel. He was not surprised to see Dion-Koïn among them. He watched Dalanda’s husband leap over the fence at full speed and tear his sword out of its scabbard as he reached the orange tree in the courtyard. Olivier’s mind was moving faster than lightning. There were too many men; he didn’t have enough bullets. He was done for—he could blow the bastard away and get lynched by the others or let him hack his head off without putting up a fight. He thought of a third solution—suicide. But that wasn’t his way. You have to save your life no matter what. His father had taught him that on the awful day when the revolutionaries tried to drown him
by throwing him in the Saône. And then he thought of Dalanda. If he died, who would defend her? He had to stay right where he was, his finger on the trigger, but no matter what happened he could not be the one to set off the hostilities—he would only fire if they were about to cross the veranda. Then come what may.

  But something incredible happened. Dion-Koïn was not brandishing his sword at him, but at the others. He placed his giant frame as a barricade between the white man and his assailants and bellowed:

  “I’ll chop off the head of the first one to come any closer! Put your sticks and swords away and go home! Go on, go on! Hurry up!”

  One by one, they put their weapons away and reluctantly turned back to the fence.

  Then Dion-Koïn crossed the veranda, gently helped the white man to his feet, and led him inside the hut. Olivier collapsed on the edge of one of his trunks and stretched his arms and legs to catch his breath. He had to do everything in his power to avoid looking at the bed.

  “Fate is strange, white man,” Dion-Koïn laughed as he sat down on another trunk. “I should have killed you, but I saved your life.”

  “Thank you, thank you,” he replied, mopping his brow. “But please tell me what is going on.”

  “The Portuguese killed a Fula on the coast, so these idiots want to take revenge.”

  He looked around the room and asked the white man if he had obtained his document for the railroad. He answered that he hadn’t, but that he had no reason to doubt the almami’s promise.

  “I know why he is making you wait around. It’s because he’s still unsure about your relationship with his enemy in Dinguiraye. People at court say you are hiding piles of riches and rifles for him.”

  “Where would I be hiding them?”

  Dion-Koïn stood and looked at the bed:

  “Under your bed, of course!”

  “Go on, take a look,” said the white man, sucking air into his lungs to hold down the feeling of panic coming over him. “You’ll see there isn’t anything there. Just a little hooch!”

  Dion-Koïn retched and stumbled back:

  “Hooch? Ugh!”

  He spit on the ground and walked out. As he crossed the veranda, he whipped around:

  “You’re sure you still don’t want to convert?”

  The next day, he noticed an ugly bump on her head when he met her at the banana plantation by the stream.

  “Who did this to you? Who? It was him, wasn’t it? Well, come what may, this time I’m going to kill him!”

  “No! It wasn’t him, Yémé! It was…it was Fatou. Your favorite!” she sobbed and ran off to hide behind the banana trees.

  He tore into the Wolof’s hut like a hurricane. Fatou was alone, sitting near the hearth grinding peanuts. He was about to grab her by the neck when he noticed her belly. There was no doubt about it—she was pregnant. At least three months pregnant!

  Poor Wolof husband! Now I understood why that woman was so eager to marry her daughter off to me!

  He left disgusted, while Fatou’s bone-chilling cries resounded behind him:

  “I’ll kill the bitch! I’ll kill her, I’ll kill her, I’ll kill her!”

  Over the next few days there was no news from Dalanda.

  “I can’t take it anymore, I have to find her,” he told himself as he hastily pulled on his helmet, shoes, and gloves. “Let her husband kill me, I don’t give a damn!”

  But when he reached the fence, he was stopped dead in his tracks by an emissary from the palace:

  “Is the white man ready? The almami is waiting for him.”

  “But why?”

  “Why? Why? To leave!…For Donghol-Féla, of course, the almami’s country house! They’re just waiting for the white man, the entire court is waiting, their boots strapped and the horses harnessed.”

  “I see,” the white man sighed. “He’s worried that I’ll run off to Dinguiraye during his absence.”

  His tedious stay in Donghol-Féla dragged on for nearly a week. When he finally got back to Timbo, he received the devastating news that Dion-Koïn had left the city. He had returned to his fief with his weapons, baggage, innermost circle, and cavalry.

  The departure sapped the last of his strength. He went back to his hut overcome by a horrible feeling of emptiness. He drew a thick guipure curtain between himself and the wicked turmoil of Timbo and sank into obscurity, tired of counting the days, the diarrhea attacks, and the migraines. His existence was reduced to the shackles of insomnia and the searing intensity of his memories of her. That accursed day the revolutionaries had thrown his father in the water, he had been taught that you need to find something to hang on to, that there is no other way to escape the abyss. He was now in the heart of danger—all the more reason to hold on, hold on, and still hold on. Behind him were the muffled intrigues of the court and the hardships of travel—the falls, the comas, the countless attempts to poison him, the dizzying beauty of this cruel and fascinating country. Before him, the bottomless chasm of utopia and dreams. The slightest misstep and he would be set adrift.

  When reality becomes so squalid, so suffocating, the wise man owes it to himself to look upon it with scorn and take the high road. And so he took shelter in Dalanda’s soothing eyes and wild fruit smell, and stubbornly refused any entreaties from the outside world. He rejected Mâ-Yacine’s dishes and survived by chewing his last pieces of chocolate and drinking bland tea—for he was down to a single sugar cube. Once again, he thought of suicide and madness, realizing that after what he had been through he could face still more starvation, sickness, heartache, and death threats.

  Outcomes are insignificant; what gives life meaning is the effort you put into it! Never set your sights in the distance, but on each step. Once you’ve successfully taken one step, turn your attention to the next. His father’s infallible voice had stirred his frail eight-year-old self: once upon a time in Greece, there was a man called Sisyphus…Everyone is here on earth to do what he has to do. Each man is fated to push the boulder that is his to push, without worrying whether it will roll back down once he’s gotten it to the top.

  For now, his boulder was to survive, to survive no matter what—in other words to preserve that minimum soundness of mind and body, without which tomorrow nothing would be possible. He would have to wait to attend to his potential return, his railroad, his projects for plantations and trading posts, and his dreams of glory and empire. To do that, he needed to find the strength in the velvety sound of her voice, which he thought he could still hear, and in the vapor of perfumed herbs rising from her body, of which his hands were still fragrant, as if he had just left her. How trivial the venal and shifty Fula princes’ conspiracies, his neighbors’ suspicious glances, the passersby’s morbid curiosity, and the bugs swarming his hut seemed after having experienced that.

  It made no difference to him if all this lasted for a month or an eternity.

  That brainless little Fatou still wouldn’t leave him alone. Tired of waiting for him by the folding chair outdoors, she came to find him in his hut, searched his trunks, tried on his hat, gloves and boots, and strutted around his bed muttering senselessly. But she could not succeed in shaking him out of his torpor. She stayed through the nights to keep warm, curled up near the hearth, whispering to herself until dawn. She only left once her poor husband implored Mâly and Mâ-Yacine to carry her out of there.

  But in fact he no longer even saw her. It was Dalanda who haunted him. Dalanda and her silky hair! Dalanda and her body tasting of papaya, so tender and fresh and golden brown!

  If only she were the one hanging around and bothering him like this!

  Finally, the tolling of reality got the better of him. He dragged himself to the folding chair and wrote a message for Mâly and Mâ-Yacine to deliver to the court:

  “What is it that you want? That I slowly shrivel up and die or that I go crazy? I must warn you that if you don’t give me what I demand immediately, the railroad will start in Saint-Louis and go directly to your enemies in Di
nguiraye, then to Ségou, home of the Bambaras!”

  His stratagem was so successful that he regretted not using it from the beginning: Môdy Pâthé came to see him right away. Then Bôcar-Biro arrived followed by a crowd of marabouts, advisers, princes, and barons. They all begged him to forgive them and be patient:

  “Diango, fab’i diango! Tomorrow, the day after tomorrow! The almami accepts…His advisers are in favor…All the marabouts are having a meeting…Diango, fab’i diango!”

  Diango, fab’i diango. The next Friday he saw Môdy Pâthé come over the fence and for the first time in a long time his heart glowed with a genuine glimmer of hope:

  “Come, my friend!…No need to get your helmet and gloves. Come right away, before the almami changes his mind! You’ll see, it will be quick!”

  Môdy Pâthé had spoken the truth. The almami asked for the document to be read before the assembled court and then personally handed it to Olivier:

  “Bismillahi!…I give grace to Allah!…To Allah alone, salam!

  “The man who presents himself with this document comes on behalf of the head of the marabouts, the king named Sory, son of Abdoul Kadiri.

  “Let all those who look upon this document know that this man who comes from the land of the white men came here and said to the almami: ‘I am your guest…I ask you to give me a road to let the steam through to the place I choose.’ This is what he told the almami. The almami answered: ‘These, of course, are your words. I give you the road to let the steam through. May Allah’s protection extend to you!’

  “Written on June 1, 1880, by marabout Saliou Doukayanké under dictation from almami Sory. Interpreter: he who is called Mâly.”

  He was also given another document, which was not deemed necessary to divulge to the court: an authorization to cross Fouta to Boké on the road of his choice to buy supplies and recruit porters.

  After which the griot addressed him:

  “You are no longer a white man like the others. You have become one of us, a brother to the almami, a friend to all of Fouta. We hope that what you are saying is true and that you will return. The problem with you white men is that we never see you twice. Lambert also said he would return and Lambert never returned. We are ashamed that we didn’t always treat you well. To make up for it, the almami will have gold and tiger skins and one hundred porters brought to you. The almami has decided that you will leave tomorrow. Go now, white man, be happy, and most important, think of us!”