Bôcar-Biro invited Olivier to sit next to him, cast a glance over their surroundings, and made a sweeping gesture:
“It’s changed, hasn’t it?”
He had completely rebuilt the palace that had been destroyed during the war with thicker outer walls, taller fences, and reinforced security. In almami Sory’s time, sentinels had stood only at the entrance to the mosque and near the palace. Now they watched over the alleys and the gates to the city. But that wasn’t all that had changed in Timbo: the court was no longer the splendid place it had once been, the princes, marabouts, and griots, the whole basis of Timbo’s prestige had been replaced by a dull assembly of young men, captives, and unassuming griots.
“Yes,” Olivier responded in a mocking tone, returning Bôcar-Biro’s smile, “I can barely recognize the Timbo I knew. Where did your marabouts and griots go?”
“They’re all hypocrites, hiding poison and knives behind their smiles and working for Fouta’s biggest enemies. I have no use for them.”
“A court without Fula marabouts and Mandingo griots is no court at all. You know that as well as I do, Bôcar-Biro.”
“Prestige, prestige. No prestige will ever live up to the sword.”
Then the white man’s gaze moved from the almami to inspect the surroundings. His face became pensive: “Bôcar-Biro is not the almami of Fouta. This is just a warrior here facing me. The real Fouta has abandoned Timbo. That could work in our favor.”
The almami’s resonant voice shook him out of his reverie.
“Did you have a chance to go to Labé?”
“To Labé? To do what?”
“Very well, you haven’t seen Alpha Yaya, but surely you’ve seen Ballay. Did he give you a letter?”
Olivier handed him the letter from Saint-Louis:
“Read it, it’s written in Fula.”
Bôcar-Biro read it and flew into a rage, tearing the pages to shreds:
“Bastard white men! You don’t want to trade, you don’t want friendship, you want Fouta!” He leaned over in a fury and tapped the ground with his fingers. “This is the land of my forefathers, white man. Anyone who wants to take it will first have to slit my throat, and if he misses, I won’t, whether his name is Ballay or Yémé.”
At that moment catastrophe struck and once again our friend Yémé found himself on the verge of losing his head in Timbo. The guards brought forward a sweat-drenched man who had clearly traveled a great distance. The man quickly bowed and leaned in to the almami to whisper something in his ear.
The monarch turned to the white man and it was no anger, but the calm, placid, terribly serene look of hatred that was written across his face:
“Now white man, look me in the eyes and answer without blinking: yes or no, have you seen Alpha Yaya?”
“I have not seen Alpha Yaya. Why would I lie to you?”
“I was going to offer you the path to Dinguiraye. But you won’t be going to Dinguiraye. Take this man away! I’ll decide what I must do with him tonight.”
A feeling unknown to the Oliviers took hold of him and tied his stomach in knots: fear, a violent and uncontrollable fear he did not even try to hide from his son. This wasn’t the first time he had been imprisoned in Timbo, but the circumstances were no longer the same. In 1880, he was a newcomer to Fouta, he had committed no crimes. And a real almami ruled over the palace, a wise man respectful of custom. Since then he had become Fula and a citizen of Fouta, he had gotten too involved in the country’s affairs, too tainted by its fearsome world of secrets and conspiracies, and in front of him was a brute without prestige, without legitimacy, whose only claim to power resided in his warrior’s instincts and uncontrollable impulses. And to make matters worse, he wasn’t alone but with his son.
Struggling with insomnia, he watched his son snoring away. Too bad, he told himself. I may have to kill you, my son, and swallow my cyanide capsule. You’ll have to forgive me, Georges, but it’s better than torture or humiliation.
But the next day a young rider put an end to his anguish and led him to the palace, where he was surprised by Saïdou’s warm handshake and the almami’s smiling face:
“I’ve thought long and hard, Yémé. You’re a Fula like me, I should not have treated you like that. Forgive me for having been so brutal. To repent, I’d like to offer you a present. No matter how hard I think about it, all I can come up with is Dinguiraye. That’s the only thing that could make up for my terrible behavior. What do you think?”
“What? I have your authorization to continue on to Dinguiraye?”
“Exactly.”
“When?”
“Whenever you want, Yémé.”
“Then I’ll go right away, before you change your mind.”
Olivier de Sanderval said his goodbyes. As he was about to stand to leave, the almami handed him a package:
“Here, on your way through Sokotoro, give this to my cousin Hâdy. He’s the king there. I sent him instructions to give you a fitting welcome and to show you the way to Dinguiraye. May peace be on your path, Yémé!”
Hâdy came in person with a trail of riders to meet them and lead them into Sokotoro. He had water heated for their baths, provided real wood beds with embroidered sheets and kapok-stuffed pillows, and mobilized all the women of his fief to prepare a meal worthy of his name: nineteen calabashes filled with the most delicious dishes in Fouta! The father and son ate to their hearts’ content, rocked by the flutists and the griots. It was only later that night, when their stomachs seized up in pain and they began to vomit, that they understood. They spit up blood and writhed in agony until morning. Their porters were at the other end of the village and could not hear their hiccups and their groans. Nothing would stop death’s slow progress. Through sheer force of will, the father managed to raise himself on one elbow to look at his son, lost in a coma: I hope he’s already dead and that my turn will come soon. Make it be so, O my Lord, I beg of you!
Miracle of miracles, they were still alive the next day at sunrise when their host tiptoed into their hut, whispering incomprehensible words to the three attendants following him. Witnessing this ugly little game, Olivier de Sanderval mustered what strength and lucidity he had left and mumbled:
“Thank you for dinner.”
The man gave a start. Shallow breathing and disjointed words served as his unwitting confession:
“You’re not…Um, no…yes so…Um…”
They left immediately, despite their pitiful state. The man followed them late into the morning, watching out of the corner of his eye as they staggered lethargically forward.
“That baboon wants to see us croak. Please, Georges, my son, let’s not give him that pleasure. We’ll die later. Live, Georges, whatever it costs you! Think of The Absolute! Think of Vigny’s wolf! Whatever you do, do not collapse—that would make him far too happy.”
Seeing they were still not dying, Hâdy became discouraged and turned back:
“Allahu akbar! God is on Yémé’s side. No one can harm him!”
Georges collapsed the moment he had disappeared beyond the bushes.
Three days later they were still alive, or rather more stunned than alive. Pale, yes, dazed, definitely, bones poking up beneath their skin, but alive! Though their enemies had failed to kill them, their trip was undoubtedly compromised. They could not think of continuing to Dinguiraye or Timbuktu. In their condition, they had to make haste to the closest French outpost. It took them an entire week to reach the Tinkisso, comas alternating with spasms, delirium with suffocating. Georges eventually made a full recovery, but his father’s state got worse by the minute. Poor inert Sanderval had to be lifted onto a pirogue to be taken down the river, then carried by his men until they reached the waters of the Niger.
In Siguri, Doctor Durand, the medical officer at the French garrison, gave Olivier an injection and put him to bed, then called Georges aside and solemnly whispered:
“Your father won’t make it past the third stage of the trip. I advise you to continue anyhow, th
at will get him closer to the railroad and our base in Kayes. Unless you want to bury him here.”
Georges thanked him without betraying any trace of emotion. He detected a hint of satisfaction in the doctor’s words, but realized he was probably right and that it was best to get closer to civilization before the worst could happen. Naturally he envisioned his father’s final resting place in Marseille, next to his mother, and nowhere else.
A week later, the sick man’s pulse remained alarming but his temperature had dropped and he was no longer shivering as much. Nonetheless, Georges remained convinced he would die before they reached the next French base. He pushed the column to travel faster and farther, dismissing fatigue, hunger, mosquitoes, boils, and the porters’ laments. He focused all his energy, his entire reason for being, on a simple yet impossible idea: to get to Kayes as quickly as possible and reach the railroad before it was too late. To bolster his courage, he sang military songs and recited passages from The Absolute. But you needed the mental fortitude of a Buddhist monk not to be shaken by the sight of dozens of graves marked by plain crosses decorated with French flags. War was raging in this corner of the world. Caught between Gallieni’s troops and Samory’s fierce warriors, Mandingo country was dying a slow death, festering with burned-out villages and starving troops. Sometimes he stopped before a random grave, lay branches and flowers before it, and sang the Marseillaise while looking desperately back at his father, unconscious in his sedan chair. In the colonies you always had an enemy somewhere—the Negroes’ poisoned darts on one side, treacherous disease on the other. Heads or tails, death always hovered over the white man.
Two weeks after Doctor Durand’s sinister prognosis, his father was still alive, though terribly gaunt and continuing to drift in and out of a comatose state. But with all the graves littering the path, all the charred homes, and all the destroyed villages, Georges was convinced they were cursed. And so he nearly fainted when one of the porters ran up one morning yelling:
“Come quick, Georges! Come quick!”
He grasped an acacia branch and stammered:
“It’s…it’s over, isn’t it?”
“Three drops, Georges! He drank three drops of milk!”
Heartened by this miracle, he immediately raised camp, thinking, Now is the time to risk it all to get as close as possible to Kayes. If he makes it there alive, he can get the treatment he needs. If not, it is God’s will and it will be easier to bring his body home.
The next day our patient left his sedan chair and continued on horseback, holding on to his son. The day after that he walked along on his own two feet with the assistance of one of his men. Then he gradually turned away from herbal teas, biscuits, and milk and asked for a real meal.
In Niagassola, they put their trunks down at a French post: a twenty-five-year-old lieutenant, an adjutant, a corporal, and a hundred or so infantrymen. Seeing that his father’s health had improved, Georges accompanied the lieutenant to the market to buy new donkeys and fresh supplies. But their appearance there was greeted by unfriendly whispers and hostile glances. A long-bearded giant with a Mandingo hunter’s boubou and a sword slung over his shoulder proved most aggressive of all. He walked up to the young lieutenant waving his sword around and furiously spit in his face. The lieutenant waited a few seconds, then, with a calm that stunned Georges, slapped the man’s face so hard the sound ricocheted throughout the bushes. The two men looked at each other with eyes full of hate. For a brief moment even the flies came to a dead halt. The market was in the grip of searing tension, as unbearable for the blacks as for the whites. Then a young boy burst into laughter and pointed a finger at the giant:
“The white man slapped Tiékoro Kélèn! The white man slapped Tiékoro Kélèn!”
The crowd looked at him, hesitated for an instant, then joined in:
“The white man slapped Tiékoro Kélèn! The white man slapped Tiékoro Kélèn!”
The man lifted his sword and went chasing off after the boy, soon followed by the crowd loudly chanting:
“The white man slapped Tiékoro Kélèn! The white man slapped Tiékoro Kélèn!”
That evening over dinner Georges told his father about the incident. Moved by this precocious act of bravery, Olivier de Sanderval stood to embrace the lieutenant. But he hadn’t noticed the color drain from the young man’s face as the fear he had kept bottled up erupted with the fury of a tidal wave ripping through sea walls:
“Do you realize, Monsieur de Sanderval, do you realize? That primate could have killed me and…”
He passed out before he could finish his sentence.
During the night, while the lucky ones lying beside him enjoyed Morpheus’s embrace, Olivier de Sanderval wrote the following in his notebook: “No need to conquer Gaul to become Julius Caesar, sometimes you just need a good smack.”
In Kayes, stunned to see him walk in on his own two feet, Governor Trintinian greeted him with these words: “Good old Sanderval! I was waiting for you with a bier, but I’ll have to offer you a glass of champagne instead.”
HE RETURNED TO KAHEL as soon as the poison cleared from his veins and his legs were no longer numb. Unable to resist the sirens of Fouta any longer, he delighted in rediscovering the melody of its springs and flutes. He hastened to breathe in the smell of fonio and lemongrass, to taste the rancid butter and hot taro. This land, he no longer saw it with his eyes, he felt it beating inside him along with his pulse.
From the mists of daydreams to the hard rocks of reality, what a journey! He, Olivier de Sanderval, spoke Fula, breathed Fula, came and went in Fula country. He lived in Fouta, or rather Fouta lived in him. This was more than a bond, it was fusion; more than a connection, a mystical communion! Yes, what a journey from hopscotch and short pants, maybe even from the void! A simple intuition, in the beginning, then a dream, then a plan. Now he was hard at work, putting on the finishing touches, the last two or three decisive moves and soon…
The prehistoric era of Father Garnier and his alter ego Guénolé was a distant memory. Zaratusthania was no longer a wild dream. Now he walked on its stones, drank its water, and savored its landscapes and fruits. He had become indigenous to this untamed land, this end-of-the-world place—a true native, and a tribal leader at that! His currency was used in his markets and his soldiers paraded on his high plateaus! He, the Fula, the lord and master of Kahel, was now an unavoidable link to Fouta. He only had to lift a finger and the entire region’s fate would be turned upside down. Soon he would lift that finger, soon Fouta’s fate would be turned upside down.
Everything had fallen into place by itself since his first trip to Timbo. The god of the Fulas clearly relished working by his side. Aguibou and Pâthé were too dangerous? Fate eliminated them without asking anything in return. Alpha Yaya or Bôcar-Biro? The diabolical meal in Sokotoro had removed any lingering doubt: Bôcar-Biro had to be eliminated and soon! The beast of Timbo, the almami with smallpox scars remained the last and only obstacle. He need only get rid of him and everything would come true, everything: the narratives, the drawings, the atlas and Guénolé, the Pacific atoll and Zaratusthania.
After a few days spent on his property overseeing progress on the foundations and scaffolds, the henhouses and plantations, the rice paddies and stables, he left Georges and Mangoné in the middle of the night and traveled to Labé. He found his three acolytes in the same isolated hut sitting before a handsome wood fire.
“Bôcar-Biro sent assassins to kill Ibrahima. Do you hear that, Yémé? Ibrahima has sought refuge on my land.”
Yes, he heard, and how reassuring it was, especially since Alpha Yaya looked like a wild animal as he spoke those words—his terrifying little eyes projected cruelty, his lower lip trembled, his face was swollen with anger and glowed an ugly red in the crackle and sizzle of the wood fire.
Something terrible and irreparable had taken place between Timbo and Labé, between the two former friends, during his absence, and naturally this did not displease him.
&
nbsp; “Assassins, but why, good Lord?” he asked, affecting a look of tremendous concern.
“You ask me why? Why do you think he wanted you dead in Sokotoro, huh?”
“This man is a monster!” Ibrahima added, seething with rage. “He wants to eliminate the provinces, and rule over Fouta with an iron grip, alone. Madness!”
Tierno, who could keep his cool in the middle of a fire, explained the stupid, absurd, exasperating reasons “why” in a clear, levelheaded manner. Last Friday, Ibrahima, Fouta’s religious leader and guardian of the law, had pronounced a sermon in his mosque in Fogoumba, the most sacred in all Fouta, that had severely displeased Timbo. What crime had poor Ibrahima committed? Simply that of promoting common sense and reminding the Fulas of a few crucial facts: namely, that a single finger cannot spin cotton, throw a stone, or sow a seed, that a single branch does not make a tree. Besides the trunk, the branches, besides the branches, the offshoots, then the buds, the leaves…Then yes, there would be sap, fruit, and shade. Why had their ancestors, those enlightened men, conceived of Fouta with an almami, kings, princes, nobles, serfs, and so on? So that Fouta would always have sap, fruit, and shade, today, tomorrow, and forever. Alas, a thousand times alas; the light of the ancestors was beginning to fade; there were more nights than days, more thieves than honest men in these bad times. Now Ibrahima, had learned—and how he wished he hadn’t!—that someone was preparing to clip Fouta’s branches, to reduce this beautiful blossoming tree to a single piece of wood. May Allah, the all powerful, curse the propagator of such news and give the almami the power to protect the country from such a calamity!
These allusions of perfidy had hit their target, reaching the ears of you-know-who.
First Bôcar-Biro sent emissaries to the king of Fogoumba to ask him to retract his statement. Then he sent killers. This was where the situation stood. And that was why they had gathered in this sordid hovel crawling with mosquitoes and mice, but safe from Timbo’s daggers and eye. There was no longer any time for idle talk: Bôcar-Biro had to be killed or they would die at his hand. The three acolytes conspired for many nights to devise a plan. Dead or alive, Bôcar-Biro had to be off the throne within a month. It didn’t matter how—coup d’état or ambush, dagger or poison.
The King of Kahel Page 22