A storm kept them trapped inside for several days. The locked door was windowless, and daylight only barely filtered through the narrow slits between it and its frame. Hemo was very bored and he found no pleasure in his favorite games. Crouched near the fire, almost in the fire, stationary, listless, he barely ate, chewed on sugar cane, irritated his throat by breathing in the smoke, coughed, always dying of thirst, always wanting to drink something. If he shook off his listlessness it was to circle around like a wild beast in a cage, to measure out on hands and knees the messy indoors, following the curved wall, which he would strike with his elbow as if he hoped to move it outwards, or to cut a window out of it. Then he stopped before the door, lay down flat to see the outdoors beneath it. Jan was worried. He had tried everything, in vain, and did not know how to distract him. He noticed with great sadness that the poor little contabescent had become silent again, had again regressed, no longer making a sound or uttering a word, even to complain, and did not even sigh. Jan knew that it was best to find him a friend. A child, a little Pahouin of his own age with whom to play, with whom to spend long hours of forced inactivity, this would indeed render his recovery so likely that to not make such an attempt would be barbaric. Unfortunately, for this to occur, he would have to wait for the dry season. His native friends would then come and offer him, of their own accord, a portion of their first hunt. He would ask them for one of their young children, certain that they would all be at odds as to who first would give over their own to the gentle and agreeable white shaman. With a few more fishing expeditions, Hemo could perhaps manage to ride it out. But it was not two or three weeks of delay, but rather four months, four! Thousands of times longer than was needed for consumption to sap Hemo, to sap him unto death. Jan decided to anticipate the situation by going to visit the Pahouins.
Helmeted, dressed, shod in freshly greased boots, axe strapped to his hip, rifle under his arm, a bag of supplies, food and bullets on his back, and Hemo, carefully covered, bundled up in woolens, carried piggyback, he closed the door behind them. A series of quagmires followed one upon the other, and he took his first break in order to cut himself a pole with which to probe them. Hemo, in a livelier mood, chattered above his head and drummed on his chest with his heels. Jan slipped, fell to his knees, walking almost bent in half under his mule’s burden, rose again, often mired in water up to his hips, would fall again, amusing the little one no end, who smacked his lips more loudly, searching, his appetite renewed, in the pouch which Jan had taken from his shoulder and handed him intact so he could choose at his leisure. Jan heard him bite down and chew on something for a while, then sensed him become a dead weight falling asleep under the rocking gait. His back nearly broken, groaning, Jan held back a moan lest he woke him. Laid low by hunger and fatigue, wishing to eat in turn, he looked about him in vain. Hemo, having sated himself, had lost the pouch containing the remainder of the food, holding on to a bundle of corn cobs. Of these he refused categorically to share even a single grain, howling and grinding his teeth when they were threatened. Admiring the little one’s determination in defending that which he had every reason to think belonged to him, Jan took another bite of a kola nut he always kept on his person, lit a pipe full of marihuana to reenergize himself, and moved on. The smoke annoyed Hemo who tore the pipe away, burning himself on the bowl in the process, and whimpered until a hug and a song consoled him.
The rumble of the cataracts announced their proximity to the river. Night fell. On the road since dawn, not wishing to risk passing through the marshy thickets along the banks, in the impenetrable darkness unbroken by even the brightest of summer suns, they camped in the shelter of a sort of cave formed by an overbeetling rocky outcrop, not much bigger than a cupboard, which Jan selected over others given its contrary orientation to that of the wind. Laying with his back to the outdoors, protecting Hemo who had fallen asleep in his arms after crunching up the corn, Jan stocked the fire, necessary in all seasons, not so much against the cold, as against the mosquitoes and carnivorous ants. In the morning, the little one wished to sleep some more, and Jan had the hardest time calming him down. Jan walked while rocking him in his arms. For hundreds of steps he had to jump from root to root, around the flooded trees, so as not to get mired down. At other times he had to climb to the top of one of these trees to map out his way. The Como had tripled in width. The breakers made a frightful din like the rumbling of thunder tearing the skies asunder; frothing whirlpools sparkled in the sun carrying down entire forests, in a single second torn from their centuries-old haunts and still festooned with flowering lianas. Two Pahouin hunters of hippopotami and manatees, on a small island, were keeping watch. Jan drew their attention with two shots from his gun, which he fortunately had loaded before Hemo had lost his ammunition. They recognized him, untied a canoe, and with the ability and boldness of consummate paddlers, they passed through the reefs, torrents and thousands of pieces of floating debris which threatened to capsize them.
The village was celebrating.
CHAPTER VIII
At the beginning of the overwintering, they had fought against the Bakalay, who inhabited the lower reaches of the river to the west, over the possession of some poorly cleared areas, when upstream, to the right and to the left were limitless savannahs, more fertile, more arable, and entirely unclaimed. The true reason, this land claim being but a pretext, was that each tribe wished to, at their neighbor’s expense, stock their larder of human flesh.
Victors, the Pahouin warriors had brought back a dozen prisoners to the quartering enclosure, while their spouses, who from afar had supported them in their combats, ran onto the field of victory where, of simple tastes and not yet having acquired a refined taste for aged meat, they ignored the dead, to finish off, carve up and bring back those of the wounded, which remained presentable. The kitchens were smoking, stews bubbled, steamed dishes hissed, roasts browned, and all day the children peeled vegetables for seasoning an orgy of Bakalays served with carrots. Poor elderly anemics regained their adult vigor; the rickety were cured; sad little girls not yet married because of their ballooning bellies, gained enough energy to evacuate in one fell swoop, great bundles of tapeworms with which they had been stuffed.
Until the moment when, in public meals cunningly scheduled so that the guests would avoid having their indigestions come too soon one after the other, they were served as the pièce de résistance, the prisoners were submitted to a progressive fattening, well taken care of, and kept in constant confinement. Chained by the neck in the back of the council hall of the greater dignitaries, they were released, under the watchful eye of numerous guards, so they could stretch their muscles; they were forced to amuse themselves, to gambol about, to laugh, under penalty of the rod; they were washed, shaved, anointed all over their bodies with palm oil, as well as their little mates, and they were only brutalized in their best interest. One of them, lacking in dignity in his role as royal cattle, refused all food, seeking to lose weight and pull one over on the cooks, was slowly cooked alive so he would not lose any further weight. Even his tribe mates applauded his fate. Honorable players, they would have as victors relished some Pahouin meat; defeated, the Pahouins would do the same. Resigned to the will of Amara-Widdah-Booloo, the great serpent which laid the world, and whose knotted coils moved about the Sun and Moon, the Bakalays sang, stuffed themselves all day, vainly competing to be the best fattened on the banquet table.
Akayrawiro, the chief Jan had cured of the fever, still reigned.
Jan had already often damned the practice of cannibalism, in particular during his first passage among them, when, about to be eaten, he had pleaded with all the ardor which someone with a less ardent temperament would have devoted to such an intensely personal issue, began a dialogue in which his limited grasp of African languages forced him to supplement three quarters of his words with gestures, elevating himself to an eloquence of the greatest pantomime. He had stopped one day seeing Akayrawiro, his most faithful listener, listening and
applauding him, while picking clean, with his teeth, a leg of man. Calmly the king had answered his reproaches.
“Certainly, my dear white shaman, it is a poor habit, but it is of such ancient date that to abandon it would show a lack of respect to innumerable generations of our ancestors who passed it on to us. Tradition, old fellow, tradition! And in respecting tradition, you see, everything is knitted together and linked. I grant life to my enemies, this would seem an insignificant detail, wouldn’t you say? But then who knows if tomorrow my own subjects, that is my goods, my inheritance, my merchandise, would not blame me for using them as I saw fit, would not regret that I gave them as cat food to my favorite lion Irro, who will not deign to eat anything else? Do continue your discourses, they interest me—unless you’d like to share my humble breakfast...What! let me lose my throne if I can only understand your fear. From the moment I kill a Bakalay, have I not forgiven him for the crime of being a Bakalay if I eat him myself rather than leave him to Hoo-Too-Vah, the eternal, the loner, the immutable, the infinite?”
Jan asked about this awful Hoo-Too-Vah, and the chief concluded:
“Hoo-Too-Vah, He who is. In the Heavens, on Earth, everywhere. The one of whom even the Bible, the white man’s book you have been reading to me, exalts the sovereign grandeur; the king of kings, the uncreated, that is to say born from nothing...”
“Too-Hoo-Vah: Jehovah!” Jan cried out, deeply moved.
“No, Hoo-Too-Vah, the one who is without navel, without feet, without eyes, without ears and without a mouth, born of all creation, always like unto himself, going everywhere, seeing, hearing, devouring all...”
“Why yes, Jehovah!”
“No, Hoo-Too-Vah, god of the maggots.”
Remembering the adage on morality or rather morals which vary according to the latitude, not knowing besides how to answer the native’s question as to why the white man perceived a difference between eating his dead enemy or leaving the worms to eat him, Jan fell silent, less so to avoid future discussions than to avoid the prime minister’s unending obsession with having him honor him by marrying his wife for the duration of his stay among them. All he had gotten out of them was that while he was present his friend Akayrawiro would no longer surrender himself, nor let any of his subjects surrender themselves to such delicacies. So he demanded that day, having caught them preparing the manducation of the last prisoner: the village was alarmed, the pots and clay jars lined up before each doorway, the stake erected in the middle of the main street. Akayrawiro apologized, the white man’s visit was unexpected, how were they to hide the feast from him? The worst part was that he could not put it off, as the women had invited a number of friends. But Jan was no longer listening: overcome with a saintly furor in seeing the Bakalay stupidly watching the preparations of his own cooking, he ran forward, untied him, and pronounced him freed. The other, never having seen a white man, remained stunned for a moment, assuming him to be an invited guest at the banquet, was terrified at the prospect of passing through the stomach of this pale monster. He jumped on him, bit him deeply on the hand, on the shoulder, and would have bitten his throat out had Jan not, losing his composure, struck him down with a blow from his axe. It was the first time he had had any trouble with a savage; it seemed to him a poor omen for his continued work. He cried upon hearing the famished cries of the crowd accompanying the cooks taking away the corpse, and he cried harder upon receiving the congratulations of the executioners upon his skill; they only suggested that in a similar circumstance he should not strike the skull for it damaged the brain, a choice morsel.
Happy cries from Hemo, playing with a group of children from which he only differed by his slightly more intelligent features, drew Jan from his lamentations. Believing himself to already be smelling the odors of the fierce kitchens, he wished to leave the village as quickly as possible, and stated the purpose of his trip. The assembled elders smiled, had the young girls paraded before him, and he was forced to once more explain that he was not asking for a wife for himself, but a playmate for his young...ape, he alleged, hesitating to renounce D’ginna’s son. A child? A little boy no doubt? And the elders laughed uproariously, declaring themselves to be flattered that he had finally adopted their manners. He blushed at their disgusting insinuation, and moved off with Hemo. Akayrawiro asked him to sit down again; no one wished to offend him; they were all laughing because all felt great pleasure in advance at allowing him to choose in their seraglio of both sexes. They were mistaken, but all in good faith, and their white cousin should not hold it against them. And the good king, commanding the chief among his favorites, one always ready to play the role of being indispensable, to gather up a cohort from the families’ sons under his watchful supervision, made a sign to the elders, tapping himself on the forehead, indicating that they should ignore the white man’s poor manners: the white friend has enough qualities that fashionable society can cut him some slack.
One of the great dignitaries arose and kowtowed deeply before this sound observation. Akayrawiro had for the good of his kingdom, and the needs of the next war, just cast off half of his progeny into the army, at the rank of colonel. Who would then, in the Pahouin nobility, supply replacements? Why, did this great dignitary not have on his knee, at this very moment, his last born son, which he dragged everywhere in the hope that the king would notice him; in his paternal foresight he was gripped by the fear that Jan would strip him of his favorite and unknowingly cause irreparable damage to his ancestor’s honor. To get off cheaply from this quite conceivable turn of events, he rushed off and brought back one of his daughters for the white friend, the little Kaylinkah.
Jan was effusive with his thanks and left, Hemo in one hand, Kaylinkah in the other.
The Pahouins accompanied him on the way back, helping him across the river and through the marshes, then returning quickly for a Bakalay dinner.
From then on in the isolated cabin there was constant commotion, high spirits, and an endless liveliness.
Hemo was no longer the same. He who yesterday sulked sluggishly when presented with any sort of meal, could today not hold himself back at the table. Finding everything tasty, he stuffed himself, and like a schoolboy hoarded his dessert to finish during recess. Between the three daily meals, at every moment one had to be ready to prepare them a slice of bread and jam, to hand out fruit, or to pour them something to drink. They moved and upset everything. The first one to stop remained prey to the other’s teasing, so they only settled down when fatigue overcame them both simultaneously; even then they were inseparable, and wherever they happened to be they dropped in one another’s arms, and Jan, at the risk of waking them and their racket, would pick them up and put them to bed as one.
At first, in spite of Kaylinkah’s constant prattle, Hemo’s language skills showed no sign of improvement. But by dint of listening to him, Jan discerned that his many vocalizations were reproduced in an identical manner when circumstances were the same, that an undeniable logic guided his comparisons when he designated several objects by the same sound. He uttered genuine “hee, hee!” and “ah, ah” sounds when presented with anything shiny: the morning sun, the lamps which allowed him to see clearly and continue his games, the coals which warmed him, the debris of a broken mirror which he picked up. Thunder and gunshots made him utter the same “hoo! hoo!” sounds, and anything which surprised him lead him to exclaim “oh! oh!” Along this path Jan went from discovery to discovery, and the intelligence of this little bit of a man almost floored him. When Grumpy, Hemo puffed up his cheeks and blew “f, f, f,” on a wisp of down to indicate that the wind had blown in a similar manner over his hat. The next day, having released a little bird which Jan had managed to find for him, he blew once again, “f, f, f,” crying and showing his empty hands. Kaylinkah would ask the names of the plants they picked in the clearing, and Jan, to answer her, consulted his guidebook to local flora. Hemo would tear up some grass in turn, grab the huge manual of botany, open it, pretend to be looking for a page
, put his ear to it, wait gravely for the book to speak, but the book, alas! kept quiet, so he would toss it away, annoyed. On another occasion, rolling on some pelts spread out to dry, his sudden surprise was made manifest in such a way that his gesturing caught Jan’s attention. On his knees near Kaylinkah, who was resting on her back, Hemo made a detailed examination of the pretty girl’s body, then of his own, underscoring by noisy “oh! oh!” the anatomical details which he discovered to differ, wishing then to continue his investigations on his father, who, to keep him away had to flick him on the fingers.
That night Jan’s dreams changed.
For a long time, since his doubts as to Hemo’s origins had originated, the perplexities which haunted him every night brought him D’ginna’s ghost. As soon as he fell asleep, the only door to the cabin solidly closed, she entered, came up to his hammock, squatted on his chest, identical in aspect and pose to the grimacing demons of nightmare in old prints, but even more hideous in form and feature as the most Medusa-like of monsters improvised by the black fancy of a Goya or a Rops, for she came forth from the marsh which had swallowed her up, her fur plastered down, a shroud of mud on her decomposed corpse, with growths and tumors crawling beneath, finally bursting open in infectious maws.
The Missing Link and Other Tales of Ape-Men Page 9