“Get out of here, old witch!”
He tore a switch out of the brush and chased the children away, then turned to the unfortunate woman to help her up. At that moment, a terrible chill shot up his spine and froze him in place. He took a deep breath and managed to cry out:
“Dalanda!”
“Yémé!”
There was no doubt about it, it was really her. Her decline had not yet made her unrecognizable. She still had that pretty copper skin tone, the sparkling eyes, and a divine figure:
“Take me with you, Yémé! Dion-Koïn is dead. His half brother inherited everything: the throne, the cattle, the women.”
“Did he chase you out?”
“He says I’m too old; he says I never had any children. Take me with you, Yémé!”
He looked at her rags, her blood-clotted nostrils, and the big bruise in the center of her forehead.
“Take me with you, Yémé!”
He turned to his porters, opened a couple of crates, and piled amber and coral in her arms.
“Please, Yémé, take me with you!”
He did not know what to do. He went back to the crates and returned with chocolate:
“This is Marquis chocolate,” he specified, overcome by the poor woman’s shivers. “Do you still like Marquis?”
Remembering Georges was with him only added to his confusion.
“Who is that madwoman, Papa?”
“She’s…as you said, she’s a madwoman. A madwoman I knew years ago who is getting madder and madder…Let’s move!” He strode to the head of the column. He did not dare to look back at Dalanda, but her voice pursued him:
“Take me with you, Yémé, take me with you!”
He marched all day long without saying a word, trying to avoid his son’s gaze and fend off the tide of dark thoughts washing over his mind and threatening to submerge him. His barriers were being breached from every angle. Despite his best efforts to hold on to the most joyous memories of his unusual life, he couldn’t prevent his will from flagging. Dalanda’s decrepitude not only spelled out the impossibility of love, it also announced the end of a dream—the limits of the Absolute, to put it in his language.
Dusk caught up with them before they crossed the river. The Konkouré hadn’t dropped with the beginning of the dry season; it was impossible to cross with night already upon them. They camped in a clearing, protected from the riverbank sludge by a laterite embankment.
The aftereffects were as devastating as those of the poisoned dinner in Sokotoro. He sank into a deep sleep the moment he took off his boots. But he woke in the middle of the night, driven to panic by nightmares and gasping for air like a suffocating animal. He stumbled out of the tent, his hands clutching at his chest, howling as if he were going to spit out his lungs:
“I need…air! Georges…please…air!”
His son struggled to calm him and lead him back to bed. He mopped his brow, massaged his chest, and rifled through the medicine chest for lozenges and lotions. Order was restored. It must have been a day of miracles, because Olivier immediately returned to a deep sleep. The trip proceeded without a hitch, apart from the usual falls, stiff joints, and inevitable stomach ailments. The moment he reached Conakry, he made for the governor’s palace. He found Ballay in his office nervously going over his files with his ruler in hand as always. They greeted each other quickly, without warmth, and wasted no time on pleasantries:
“Ah, good old Sanderval. I don’t particularly care for your company, but I’d rather have you here, right beside me, than out there in your elusive Fouta.”
“Why, that’s nearly a sign of respect, Governor!”
“Very well, what brings you here?”
“What a question! To think I was expecting you to invite me to come by for a talk.”
“About Fouta’s future? Fouta’s future no longer concerns you.”
Everything that had happened had been for naught—the two men remained diametrically opposed to one another. The conversation soon resumed its polemical accents and passionate tone. Olivier de Sanderval tried to make Ballay comprehend that Fouta had to remain autonomous and that France could durably establish itself in the region by allying itself with men like Alpha Yaya. France should help the king of Labé get out from under Timbo’s thumb rather than drive him to resistance. Ballay, on the contrary, wanted to incorporate the country into his colony. He planned on reducing Timbo’s power. There would no longer be one almami but two: one in Timbo and one in Dabola. As for the province of Labé, he intended to break it into five pieces.
“Each of these Fulas will have his own kingdom; that way everyone will be happy.”
As for Sanderval’s treaties, they were off the table for good. Generous and eternal France would grant him five thousand hectares of land in the Kolenté Valley in Susu country.
“In exchange, you have to forget about Fouta Djallon. I forbid you to return there.”
“Fouta Djallon is my home!”
“Fouta Djallon no longer exists, Olivier de Sanderval. We are in France, and here France is me.”
Olivier let the poor man break his ruler and huff and puff for a while before he left.
When he reached the courtyard where he had left Georges with their baggage, he found his son in tears. Georges told him that their property in Kâdé had just been ransacked. Nevertheless they loaded their trunks back onto the animals and headed back for the tortuous path to Fouta, followed by their porters and servant boys. Near Gongon, they were intercepted by a column of infantrymen headed by a young French lieutenant as smooth-cheeked as he was arrogant:
“I have orders not to let you by. Don’t insist or I’ll be forced to fire.”
“Is this Beckmann’s doing or Ballay’s?”
“It’s France’s, sir!”
He looked at his son as if to say, “We’re Oliviers! Let’s use our weapons and travel on!” But Georges sadly shook his head to dissuade him:
“Let it go, Father. We’ll come back some other time.”
BACK IN CONAKRY, Olivier chose to take quarters in his own place. His property on the promontory was ready for him. A handsome four-room tile house* with a cement staircase leading to a terrace platform, surrounded by a low wall, it had pride of place among the palm trees and mango trees. The kitchen was a small structure with a vaulted roof reminiscent of Fula huts and cubic Arab houses. A half-mile avenue lined with flamboyants and mango trees led from his home to the governor’s palace. He had the promontory leveled so he could install a thatch-covered terrace where every night he graciously invited the colonists to have a drink and a game of chess, and play the harmonica.
Conakry had become a pretty little town, distinct from the jungle, with brand-new avenues lined with single-story houses decorated with wrought-iron balustrades. There was a post office and a community hall in Boulbinet, a prison in Coronthie, a garrison in Tombo. Tax and public works offices had just been established. The colonists were preparing to inaugurate the cemetery and the public records office.
The European city sparkled proudly between the Temen and Baga hamlets, with its well-kept paths traveled by colonists on foot, pushcart, and three-wheeler. By now there were about four or five hundred Europeans, including many women and a few children. The members of this small community kept themselves busy fishing and hunting, playing boules, having aperitifs at the caravanserai, and regularly inviting each other to dinner.
Life in Conakry was the dreary humdrum of a tiny closed world. You ran into your neighbor ten times a day. Everyone bad-mouthed everyone and slept with someone else’s wife. You consumed your boredom in games of belote and your malaria in Pernod. These were the colonies; people didn’t like each other much, but they had to stick together to survive the hostility of the outside world: the Negroes and the jungle, the vermin and the boredom. The Sandervals fit themselves into this provincial life transported to the tropics, all slyness and promiscuity, where everyone knew everything, saw everything, heard everything. Their liv
es as solitary squires and their old bush habits hadn’t prepared them for this narrow existence, but they were delighted to find compatriots with whom to play chess, enjoy a glass of wine, eat a real meal, and discuss opera and philosophy.
To occupy themselves, they cultivated bananas and pineapples on the land they had been granted, while waiting to reclaim what was due to them: Fouta Djallon. But despite their supporters in Paris and their countless visits to his office, Ballay proved inflexible.
Three months later, Beckmann arrived in Conakry from Timbo, where Ballay had appointed him Resident. The governor flew into a rage upon receiving his voluminous report. Olivier de Sanderval was immediately sent for:
“A caravan was pillaged in Boulléré!” the master of French Guinea erupted. “Reliable witnesses accuse your men. According to these same witnesses, you are clandestinely circulating money and weapons for your friend Alpha Yaya. What do you have to say in your defense?”
“Nothing, Governor. No man can defend himself against a cabal.”
“Careful, Sanderval! Are you accusing France’s Resident-general in Timbo of being a liar?”
“Your Beckmann is not merely a liar, he’s also a thief.”
He stepped close to Ballay and whispered something in his ear, then headed straight back home. An hour later, an infantryman found him with his hair combed and his shoes on, as if he knew he were coming for him:
“The governor has asked me to take you to him.”
Ballay was waiting for him on the terrace with a chess set and a nice cold beer:
“Sit down, Sanderval. We can talk here without arousing suspicion.”
“Is he still here?”
“He’s taking a nap.”
He shifted a few pawns around and glanced suspiciously at Sanderval before continuing:
“Very well. Can you repeat what you told me earlier? And be sure you don’t make any mistakes.”
“I repeat that your collaborator Beckmann stole Bôcar-Biro’s gold. And that there is no doubt the reason he arrived unexpectedly from Timbo is to slip it over to France.”
“Watch out, Olivier de Sanderval. If your allegations are false, you will finish your days in a penal colony.”
“You like chess as much as I do, Governor, so I’ll suggest a little game: have the man’s baggage searched. If you find Bôcar-Biro’s gold, all the accusations against me are invalidated. If not, I’ll personally put the chains on myself so you can send me to the penal colony.”
“I have two good reasons not to believe your story: first, because it is totally unlikely, and second, because it is coming from you.”
“I’m only suggesting a game, Governor, a simple game that won’t cost you anything and will have the advantage of settling all our misunderstandings.”
“Very well, Sanderval, very well. This will allow me to confound you instead of poor Beckmann. Because if your accusations are false—and I know they are, Sanderval—I’ll finally find a way to get rid of you. And forever!”
Thrilled at the idea of finally enjoying his pretty little colony without anyone to bother him, Ballay had his collaborator’s baggage discreetly searched that very night. Of his ten trunks, eight were stuffed full of shiny gold. This was not what the poor governor had wanted, but there was no arguing with the evidence. He had no choice: he arrested his faithful Beckmann on the spot and sent him home bound hand and foot on the first ship out.
Relations between the two men improved notably. They started dining together again and organized hunting parties. Sitting on the terrace covered in dead insects’ wings, they would drink cold beer and talk about the colonies’ future like two old war buddies. Sometimes the mood got so convivial that Sanderval would let loose and recite Sully Prudhomme poems or read long passages from The Absolute. They laughed together, talked about Paris and the latest inventions—you would have thought they were friends. Then Fouta Djallon would rear its ugly head, that cursed name blurted out by one or the other, and it was back to squabbles and arguments and weeks of sulking.
Actually, Beckmann’s departure hadn’t resolved anything; they had merely learned to tolerate one another. So it goes: men feel they have something in common the moment they have to defeat the same enemy. This lasted at least a year before the rift between them became so wide and so deep that it could never be closed again. Everything started with an incident neither of them could have predicted.
Ballay took advantage of Samory’s defeat in 1898 to abolish Fouta Djallon’s status as a protectorate and integrate it into his colony along with the Mandingo chief’s land. He took a piece of jungle from Liberia to complete the unwieldy semicircle that would become present-day Guinea. He reorganized the locations of mosques and markets, as well as the caravan routes, convinced—with good reason—that a colonial geography was needed to usher in a colonial history. He did away with the provinces and replaced them with cantons whose chiefs were equals reporting directly to him. The king of Labé now had the same status as the grooms he sometimes appointed to represent him in the most remote districts.
Extremely satisfied with himself, Ballay whipped up a decree to explain his actions to his subordinates:
“The Governor of French Guinea, the most honorable, most eminent Doctor Noël Ballay brings to the attention of his colonized population the following: all kings and princes are invited to present themselves in Conakry…
Signed: the most honorable, most eminent governor who personifies France in this part of the world.”
The barkers scattered across the markets and streets, repeating the words of the most honorable, most eminent to the sound of the tabala and the fife. The new Caesar of the Fulas, the Nalus, the Susus, and the Mandingos prepared to receive his subjects’ allegiance. Alpha Yaya, whose taste for pomp and ceremony was known even to the Arabs, arrived with a suite of three hundred riders and fifty Mandingo griots chanting his hymn to the sound of the balafon and the kora. The splendid cortege drew curious onlookers from the gates of the city to the palace gardens. Ballay, seething with anger, locked himself in his office and ordered the guards to bring Sanderval:
“This was a plot, wasn’t it?”
“Come now, Governor, I didn’t even know that Alpha Yaya would answer your summons.”
“I know what I have to do, Olivier de Sanderval: I have to neutralize you, you and your underhanded Fula friends. If I take away their captives, upset their trade circuits, and build our cities on the land of tribes hostile to the Fulas, your gang of Fula aristocrats will vanish like smoke out an open window. What an arrogant mob! Especially that Alpha Yaya! Who does that Negro think he is?”
“The King of Labé. But who are you?”
“Get out of here! Get out of here before I bite you!”
And he set about breaking every ruler in sight.
From that day on, an insurmountable hatred stood between them and neither man made the slightest effort to overcome it. They stopped hunting together and playing chess and even saying hello. If one turned up at the caravanserai, the other immediately slipped away. When they were unfortunate enough to run into each other in the street, they cursed through their teeth and turned their backs to each other.
Then one fine evening, the ladies on the terrace at the promontory began to whisper as someone neared the gate. One by one, the men stood up and removed their helmets.
“Ladies and gentlemen, look who’s here…The governor himself…Ballay at Sanderval’s place, but why? My God! What will happen now?”
The governor slowly crossed the threshold, tapping his ruler against the palm of his hand, and responded to his subjects’ bows with a solemn nod. As he came forward, the men spontaneously formed an honor guard: grave demeanors, worried looks! The governor now stood thirty feet from his opponent, then twenty-five, fifteen, ten. He came to a halt with a screech of his hobnailed boots and declined the glass of champagne offered by a servant boy with a terse gesture:
“I have excellent news for you, Olivier de Sanderval. I found
five thousand hectares of vineyards for you in Meknès. I guarantee that Morocco will suit you very nicely.”
“I do like Africa, Governor, but without the turbans and dunes. For me, Africa means megalith-shaped clouds, impenetrable forests, steaming marshes, primitive creatures—no, they are sleeping gods waiting for a sign to create a new Rome.”
“I didn’t come to listen to a delirious concert, Sanderval, but to settle an entirely practical matter that has been put off far too long.”
“Do you mean to say you’ve come to return my treaties? I always knew you’d come back to your senses.”
“I didn’t come to return your treaties, I came to ask you to leave.”
“To leave? I was here before you were. You are here thanks to me, Ballay.”
“There isn’t room for both of us here.”
“You’re the extra man, Ballay: the land belongs to the first occupant, as the Bible will confirm.”
“You are a mythomaniac and a pain in the ass, Sanderval! As long as you’re here, I will not succeed in building my colony. Whether you want to or not, you will have to leave.”
He snapped his ruler and stormed off, leaving an unbearably tense silence in his wake. He turned back a last time before boarding his three-wheeler and said in a voice muffled by rage:
“Whatever you do, never set foot in my palace again, Ai-mé O-li-vier!”
The guests hesitated, turning from Sanderval to the governor and back again, then exited in small groups, grumbling and looking back with disapproving glances. The only man to remain was Pénelet, the French Telegraph Company’s local agent, an old bachelor who was always a little drunk but a fine fellow, open-minded and faithful to his friends.
So the Sandervals had one person left to talk to, only one, in the entire colony of French Guinea.
This was the beginning of a long period of sorrow and solitude. Though he had often proved that he was a real Olivier, Georges cracked within the first few months:
The King of Kahel Page 25