Impressions of Africa (French Literature Series) (15 page)

Seil-kor gathered Nina in his arms and carried her inside the hotel, where, before her father and mother, who had immediately rushed in, she soon came to her senses after her harmless fainting spell.

His initial fears allayed, Seil-kor blessed the perilous adventure that, making his dream come true, had allowed him to hold his beloved companion for an instant.

Nina’s birthday fell a few days after this event. For the occasion, Laubé decided to throw a small children’s party, to which he invited the several European families living in the city.

Having resolved to celebrate the great day by reciting a fable for the girl, Seil-kor spent part of his nights secretly memorizing and practicing his delivery.

Wishing to give his dear friend a present as well, he decided to risk at gambling the few silver coins he owed to Laubé’s generosity.

A certain accessible casino in Tripoli featured a game of Parcheesi whose stake could accommodate even the most modest purse.

Favored by what is commonly called beginner’s luck, Seil-kor, using a martingale, promptly won enough to order a monstrous Savoy cake from the best pastry shop in town, to be served at the height of the party.

The festivities, which began in daytime, filled the grand ballroom of the hotel with joyful commotion. At around five o’clock, the children, passing into the next room, sat down at an immense table laden with fruits and sweets. At that moment they brought in Seil-kor’s famous cake, which was greeted with cheers and shouts. All eyes turned to the gift-giver, who, standing up without a hint of shyness, recited his fable in a clear, assured voice. At the final verses applause burst out from all sides, and Nina, standing in turn, proposed a toast in honor of Seil-kor, who for a moment became king of the banquet.

After the snack, the ball continued. Seil-kor and Nina waltzed together, then, tired out from having covered the entire floor several times, they broke off near Mme Laubé, who, standing calmly, watched with delight the beautiful childish merriment all around her.

Seeing her daughter approach with her companion, the excellent woman, grateful for all of Seil-kor’s attentions, turned smiling to the young Negro and said in a gentle voice, pointing at Nina, “Give her a kiss!”

Seil-kor, his head spinning, wrapped his arms around his friend and deposited on her fresh cheeks two chaste kisses that left him giddy and unsteady on his feet.

Not long after this grand yet somehow intimate occasion, Laubé, whose energies had been revived by the stay in Tripoli, decided to return to France. The explorer owned a small family château, near a village called Port d’Oo in the Pyrenees, whose calm and isolation he prized highly. It would be the ideal place for him to turn his notes into a detailed account of his voyage.

The departure was set without delay. After a pleasant crossing, Laubé and his family disembarked in Marseille, where they took a train for Port d’Oo.

Seil-kor was very happy in his new residence; the château was located in the breathtaking Valley of Oo, and every day the young African and Nina went on long adventures in the forest, enjoying the last rays of a warm, clement autumn.

One evening, their aimless stroll having led them to the village, the two children happened upon a traveling circus troupe squeezed into a cart that slowly cruised the streets; they distributed leaflets to the curious onlookers and drew the crowd’s attention with sales patter and thumps of the bass drum.

Seil-kor, who had been handed two leaflets, read them with Nina. The first, laid out like a broadside, began with a long sentence in large letters announcing the sensational arrival of the Ferréol troupe, comprising acrobats, dancers, and tightrope walkers. The second half emphatically urged all Frenchmen to beware, given the presence on their territory of the ringleader, the famous wrestler Ferréol, who could singlehandedly demolish armies and topple ramparts. The exhortation began, “Tremble, people of France!…” with the word “Tremble” splashing across the page in huge, eye-catching letters that formed a kind of headline.

The other leaflet, smaller in size, carried this simple testimonial: “We were bested by Ferréol,” followed by countless signatures, reproduced in facsimile, from fearsome professionals whom the illustrious champion had laid flat.

The next day, Seil-kor and Nina returned to the village square to see the announced performance. A large dais stretched high into the air, and the two children had a great time watching the jugglers, clowns, magicians, and trained animals that paraded before their eyes for two hours.

At a certain moment, three men appeared and set up on the right, at the edge of the dais, a section of Renaissance façade, its upper floor pierced by a large balcony window.

Soon, a second, similar stage set stood on the left, at the other end of the floorboards, and one of the stagehands carefully hung an iron wire between the two balconies, which were positioned exactly opposite each other.

Scarcely were these preparations completed when the right-hand window quietly opened to let through a young woman dressed like a princess from the time of Charles IX. The stranger made a sign with her hand, and immediately the other window yielded to a richly adorned nobleman who appeared at his own balcony. The newcomer, in a brocaded doublet, short breeches, and velvet pillbox cap, wore a stiffly encasing ruff and a mysterious mask appropriate to the clandestine expedition he seemed to be planning.

After an exchange of signals full of admonitions and promises, the lover, straddling his balustrade, posed his foot on the tightwire; then, arms outstretched like a balancing pole, he endeavored to cross, via the aerial route he had, in his daring, chosen, the distance separating him from his lovely neighbor.

But suddenly, cocking her ear toward the inside of the house as if listening for the step of a jealous rival, the woman rushed back to her room, warning the bold lover with a hand signal; the latter, retreating with great strides, regained his point of departure and hid behind the curtains.

Several moments later, the two windows opened almost simultaneously, and the hazardous voyage began again with renewed hope. This time the crossing continued to the very end without false alarms, and the two lovers fell into each other’s arms amid prolonged applause.

The tightwire and twin stage sets were hastily removed, and a young Spanish couple, rushing onstage, immediately began dancing a frenetic bolero, accompanied by shouts and stamping feet. Both the woman, in a mantilla, and the man, in a waist-length jacket and sombrero, held in their right hands Basque tambourines with jingles, on which they beat vigorously in time. After ten minutes of continual pirouettes and hip thrusts, the two dancers ended by freezing in a smiling, graceful pose, while the electrified crowd applauded wildly.

The performance ended with several stunning victories by the famous Ferréol, and night was already falling when Seil-kor and Nina, delighted by their afternoon, headed arm in arm back to the château.

The next day, kept indoors by a fine, persistent drizzle, the two children had to forgo their daily walk. Happily, the château grounds contained a huge shed with a vast space suitable for even the most rambunctious games; it was under this shelter that the two scamps went to spend their playtime.

Haunted by the previous day’s show, Nina had taken along her sewing basket, intending to make Seil-kor an outfit like the one the tightrope walker had worn. In the back of the shed, two horse carriages facing each other, their harnessing shafts placed end to end, offered a convenient and easy testing ground for a first attempt by the still novice funambulist.

Armed with a pair of scissors, a needle and thread, and the two leaflets Seil-kor had kept, Nina set to work; from the first sheet she cut a pillbox cap, and from the second a mask decorated with two strings to go around the back of the ears.

The ruff required a larger supply of paper; in a corner of the shed, thrown on a scrap heap, lay a pile of back issues of
La Nature
, a magazine Laubé received regularly and for which he wrote all his travel narratives. Ripping the blue covers from numerous copies, Nina was able to fashion an elegant collar of uniform hue, and soon, adorned with the three items carefully confected by the adroit crafts-woman, Seil-kor made his debut in the tightrope walker’s trade, crossing the narrow, unsteady path provided by the two shafts from one end to the other.

Encouraged by this initial success, the children then decided to copy the Spanish couple’s bolero.

Seil-kor removed his paper disguise and the dance began, soon turning chaotic and feverish. Nina in particular put a strange ardor into her gesticulations, clapping her hands sharply to replace the rhythmic resonance of the Basque tambourine and continuing her giddy frolics without a thought for fatigue or shortness of breath. Suddenly, halted in full frenzy by the bell for afternoon tea, the two dancers left the shed to return to the château.

The temperature had dropped with the early twilight, and a kind of melted snow, penetrating and frigid, fell slowly from the opaque sky.

Bathed in sweat from the mad, prolonged dance, Nina was overcome by terrible shivers, which stopped in the dining room, where the first fire of the season blazed in the hearth.

The next day the shining sun had returned, lighting one of the last pure, translucent days that every year precede the coming of winter. Wanting to take advantage of the calm afternoon that perhaps marked the last fine weather of the year, Seil-kor gaily suggested to Nina a long walk in the forest.

The girl, burning with fever but convinced she was suffering only from a passing cold, accepted her friend’s offer and set off at his side. Seil-kor carried a copious snack in a large basket dangling from his arm.

After an hour’s walk in the deep woods, the two children found themselves before an inextricable tangle of trees, marking the beginning of a vast, unexplored thicket that the locals called “the Maze.” The name was justified by an extraordinary mesh of branches and vines; no one could venture into the Maze without the risk of becoming lost forever.

Until that day, during their escapades, Seil-kor and the girl had wisely skirted around the fearsome border. But, enticed by the unknown, they’d promised each other to someday attempt a bold expedition to the heart of that mysterious region. This seemed a good opportunity for them to accomplish their project.

Seil-kor, with foresight, decided to mark the return path in the manner of Tom Thumb. He opened his basket of provisions, but, recalling the famous hero’s misadventure, did not tear his bread into crumbs. Instead he chose a Swiss cheese of dazzling whiteness, whose particles, undigestible to bird’s stomachs, would stand out clearly against the dark background of moss and briar.

The reconnaissance began; every five steps, Seil-kor poked the cheese with the tip of his knife and tossed a small fragment to the ground.

For half an hour, the two heedless children plunged into the Maze without finding the other end; daylight began to wane, and Seil-kor, suddenly worried, gave the signal for retreat.

For a while, the boy found his way, which he had marked continually. But soon the trail ended; some famished animal, fox or wolf, sniffing out the appetizing markers, had licked up the particles of cheese, severing the two wanderers’ lifeline.

Little by little the sky had darkened and the night grew opaque.

Terror-stricken, Seil-kor persisted for a long time in trying to find a way out of the Maze, but in vain. Nina, exhausted and shivering with fever, followed him with great difficulty, at every moment feeling her strength about to fail her. Finally, the poor child, faltering despite herself and letting out a cry of distress, lay down on a bed of moss at her feet; Seil-kor approached, anxious and discouraged.

Nina fell into a morbid sleep; it was now dark night and the cold was bitter. Advent had just begun, and a feeling of winter floated in the damp, glacial atmosphere. Seil-kor, frantic, removed his jacket to cover the girl, whom he didn’t dare wake from a rest she so desperately needed.

After a long doze fraught with restless dreams, Nina awoke and stood up, ready to resume her walk.

The stars shone with their brightest light in the clear sky. Nina, who knew how to orient herself, pointed to the North Star, and the two children, now following an invariable direction, reached the edge of the Maze after an hour. A final leg brought them to the château, where the girl fell into the arms of her parents, who were ashen with fright and anxiety.

The next day, still wishing to deny the illness that was now progressing rapidly, Nina awoke as usual and went to the study room, where Seil-kor was writing some French composition that Laubé had assigned.

Since returning from Africa, the young girl had been taking catechism at the village church; that morning, she was to finish her own composition, due to be handed in the next day.

A half hour of concentrated work was all she needed to finish her task and reach her final resolution.

Having written these first words: “I resolve…” she turned to Seil-kor to ask his advice about the rest, when a terrible coughing fit shook her entire body, provoking deep, painful rattles in her chest.

Horrified, Seil-kor approached the sick girl, who between two spasms told him everything: the shivers she’d felt when coming out of the shed—and the fever that, not having lowered since the day before, had certainly grown worse during her dangerous nap on the bed of moss.

Nina’s parents were immediately notified, and the girl was put back to bed without further ado.

Alas! Neither the resources of science nor the many attentions of a passionately devoted entourage could triumph over this terrible malady, which in less than a week removed the poor child from the worshipful affection of her kin.

After this sudden demise, Seil-kor, driven mad with despair, came to loathe the places until then divinely illuminated by his friend’s presence. Sites he’d visited so many times with Nina were made odious by the horrible contrast between his present grief and his lost happiness. On top of which, the cold season horrified the young Negro, who in his heart of hearts felt nostalgic for the African sun. One day, setting on the table a letter for his beloved protector, full of affection, gratitude, and regrets, he fled from the château, taking with him like holy relics the pillbox cap, ruff, and mask that Nina had made.