Impressions of Africa (French Literature Series) (16 page)

Working odd jobs at various farms he found along the way, he managed to save up enough to buy passage to Marseille. There, he signed on as stoker on a ship scheduled to skirt the western coast of Africa. During a stopover in Porto Novo, he deserted his post and returned to his native land, where before long his education and intelligence earned him a prominent position beside the emperor.

We had listened in silence to the story told by Seil-kor, who, pausing a moment from the emotions roused by so many poignant memories, soon resumed to tell us about the master he served.

Talou VII, of illustrious ancestry, boasted of having European blood in his veins. At an already distant epoch, his forebear Suann had conquered the throne by sheer force of daring, then had sworn to establish a dynasty. And this is what tradition held on the subject:

A few weeks after Suann’s coronation, a great sailing vessel, driven forward by a storm, had run aground near the shores of Ejur. Two young girls of fifteen, the sole survivors of the catastrophe, clutching onto a loose piece of flotsam, had managed to reach dry land after braving a thousand perils.

The castaways, ravishing twin sisters of Spanish nationality, had such identical faces that no one could tell them apart.

Suann fell in love with the charming adolescents, and, in his impetuous desire for progeny, married both of them that very day, pleased to affirm the supremacy of his race by the admixture of European blood that could strike the fetishistic imagination of his subjects, both then and in times to come.

It was not long afterward, again on the same day and at the same hour, that the two sisters each gave birth to a male child.

Talou and Yaour—for so the infants were named—later caused their father grave concern: caught short by the unexpected advent of two simultaneous births, he did not know which to choose as heir to his throne.

The perfect resemblance of his spouses prevented Suann from decreeing which one had conceived first, the only way to establish one brother’s rights over the other’s.

They tried in vain to elucidate this latter point by questioning the two mothers; using the few native words they had painstakingly learned, each testified firmly on behalf of her own son.

Suann decided he would defer to the Great Spirit.

Under the name “Trophy Square,” he had just built in Ejur a vast quadrilateral esplanade, so as to hang on the trunks of the sycamores planted around its border the spoils won from the enemies who, with fierce determination, had tried to block his path to power. He went to the northern end of the new site and had planted at the same time, in suitably prepared ground, the seed of a palm tree on one side and the seed of a rubber tree on the other. Each tree was associated with one of his sons, previously designated before witnesses; in accordance with divine will, the first tree to sprout from the earth would determine the future sovereign.

Care and watering were impartially lavished on both fecundated spots.

It was the palm tree, planted at right, that first peeked through the surface of the earth, thus proclaiming Talou’s rights over those of Yaour, whose rubber tree was a full day late.

Scarcely four years after their arrival in Ejur, the twins, overcome by fever, perished at almost the same time, felled by the terrible ordeal of a particularly torrid season. During the shipwreck they had managed to save a certain miniature portrait depicting both of them side by side, coiffed in the national mantilla; Suann preserved this image, a precious document that proved the superior vintage of his race.

Talou and Yaour grew and, with them, so did the two trees planted at their births. The influence of Spanish blood was manifested in the two young brothers only by the slightly lighter complexion of their black skin and a slightly less accentuated thickness of the lips.

Watching as they grew, Suann sometimes worried about the murderous quarrels that might one day break out between them over his succession. Fortunately a new conquest helped allay his fears, by giving him the chance to create a kingdom for Yaour.

The empire of Ponukele, founded by Suann, was bordered to the south by the river named the Tez, the mouth of which was located not far from Ejur.

Beyond the Tez stretched Drelchkaff, a fertile region that Suann, after a successful campaign, managed to place under his dominion.

From the start, Yaour was designated by his father to sit one day upon the throne of Drelchkaff. Compared with the neighboring empire, the privilege seemed rather modest; Suann nonetheless hoped this compensation would calm the jealousy of his disinherited son.

The two brothers were twenty when their father passed away. Things followed their intended course: Talou become emperor of Ponukele, and Yaour king of Drelchkaff.

Talou I and Yaour I—for so they were designated—took many wives and founded two rival houses, always on the verge of entering into war. The house of Yaour demanded the empire, contesting the rights of the house of Talou; and the latter, for its part, emboldened by the divine intervention that had granted it the supreme rank, demanded the crown of Drelchkaff, of which it had been deprived through a mere whim of Suann’s.

One night, Yaour V, king of Drelchkaff, direct and legitimate descendant of Yaour I, crossed the Tez with his army and entered Ejur by surprise.

The emperor Talou IV, Talou I’s great-grandson, had to flee to avoid certain death, and Yaour V, realizing the dream of his ancestors, gathered under a single scepter both Ponukele and Drelchkaff.

By that time, the palm and rubber trees in Trophy Square had reached full maturity.

Yaour V’s first action after claiming the title of emperor was to burn down the palm associated with the abhorred race of Talou and to pull out every root of the cursed tree, whose early emergence from the soil had dispossessed his family.

Yaour V reigned for thirty years and died at the height of his power.

His successor, the cowardly and inept Yaour VI, made himself unpopular by his constant gaffes and his cruelty. Talou IV, leaving the distant exile where he had languished for so long, was then able to surround himself with numerous partisans, who fomented revolt by rousing the discontented populace to their cause.

Terrified, Yaour VI fled before the battle could start and took refuge in his kingdom of Drelchkaff, where he managed to preserve his crown.

Emperor of Ponukele once more, Talou IV planted a new palm seed in the spot Yaour V had desecrated; soon a tree emerged, identical to the first, whose significance it recalled while evoking, like an emblem, the restoration of the legitimate branch.

Since then, everything had proceeded normally, without violent overthrows or problems of succession. It was now Talou VII who reigned over Ponukele, and Yaour IX over Drelchkaff, both perpetuating the traditions of hatred and jealousy that, from time immemorial, had divided their forebears. The mark of European blood, long erased by many purely native unions, no longer left any trace on the persons of the two sovereigns, who resembled their subjects in the shape of their faces and the color of their skin.

On Trophy Square, the palm planted by Talou IV now magnificently outshone the rubber tree, half dead with age, that served as its counterpart.

A
T THAT POINT IN
his narration, Seil-kor stopped to catch his breath, then broached certain more intimate details concerning the emperor’s private life.

At the beginning of his reign, Talou VII had married a young, ideally beautiful Ponukelean named Rul.

Utterly smitten, the emperor refused to choose other brides, despite the customs of his land where polygamy was the norm.

One stormy day, Talou and Rul, then three months pregnant, were walking arm in arm along the beach of Ejur to admire the sublime spectacle of the furious waves, when they saw out at sea a ship in distress that, after smashing against a reef, foundered straight to the bottom before their eyes.

Speechless with horror, the couple stood there for a long time, watching the fatal area where bits of wreckage had started bobbing to the surface.

Soon the corpse of a young white woman, evidently from the sunken ship, floated toward the strand, tossed about by the waves. The passenger, lying flat with her face to the sky, wore a Swiss costume composed of a dark-colored skirt, an apron with multicolored embroidery, and a red velvet corset that, stretching only down to her waist, encased an unbuttoned white blouse with wide, puffy sleeves. Through the transparent waters, they could see behind her head the glint of long golden hairpins, arranged in a star around a solidly braided chignon.

Rul, who was mad about finery, immediately became entranced by that red corset and those golden pins, and dreamed only of how they would look on her. Yielding to her pleas, the emperor sent a slave who climbed into a dugout canoe and headed out with orders to retrieve the drowned woman’s body.

But the foul weather made the task difficult, and Rul, whose morbid desire was only whetted further by the obstacles in its path, anxiously followed, with a mix of hope and discouragement, the perilous maneuvers of the slave whose prey kept eluding him.

After an hour of unrelieved battle against the elements, the slave finally reached the cadaver, which he managed to hoist into his boat; it was then that they discovered the corpse of a two-year-old child strapped to the dead woman’s back, her neck convulsively encircled by two feeble arms still clinging tight. The poor toddler was probably the drowned woman’s nursling, whom she had tried to save at the last instant by swimming for safety with her precious burden.

The nurse and child were carried to Ejur, and soon Rul took possession of the gold pins, which she arranged in a circle in her hair, and of the red corset, which she coquettishly fastened above the loincloth encircling her hips. From that moment on those adornments became her pride and joy and never left her body; as her pregnancy advanced she simply loosened the laces, which slid easily through the fine metal grommets of the eyelets.

For a long time following the disaster, the sea continued to toss ashore wreckage of all kinds, including numerous chests filled with a wide variety of items that were carefully gathered. Amid the debris, they found a sailor’s cap bearing the word
Sylvander
, the name of the ill-fated vessel.

Six months after the storm, Rul gave birth to a daughter whom they named Sirdah.

The hour of anxiety that the young mother had spent before the Swiss woman’s body was brought ashore had left its mark: the child, in all other respects healthy and well formed, bore on her forehead a peculiarly shaped red birthmark, from which radiated long yellow lines arranged like the famous golden pins.

The first time Sirdah opened her eyes, they noticed that she was severely wall-eyed; her mother, very proud of her own beauty, was humiliated at having produced an ugly duckling and developed an aversion to this child who offended her vanity. On the other hand, the emperor, who had so keenly desired a daughter, felt only deep love for the poor innocent, whom he showered with care and tenderness.

At that time, Talou’s adviser was a certain Mossem, a Negro tall of stature, at once a sorcerer, medicine man, and scholar, who served as the emperor’s prime minister.

Mossem had fallen for the alluring Rul, who for her part fell under the sway of the seductive adviser, admiring his majestic bearing and great learning.

The affair followed its inevitable course, and Rul, one year after Sirdah’s birth, delivered a son who was the spit and image of Mossem.

Fortunately, Talou did not notice the fatal resemblance. Still, this son never quite entered his heart, where Sirdah still had pride of place.

Following a law Suann had instituted, each deceased sovereign was succeeded by the firstborn child, no matter the sex. Twice already, in each of the rival branches, girls had been called to rule; but in every case their premature deaths had transmitted to their brothers the right of supreme leadership.

Mossem and Rul hatched a despicable plot to do away with Sirdah so that one day their son could become emperor.

While this was happening, Talou, prey to his bellicose impulses, left for a long campaign and entrusted the throne to Mossem, who during the monarch’s absence would exert absolute authority.

The two accomplices seized upon the opportunity, so favorable to the realization of their plan.

To the northeast of Ejur stretched the Vorrh, an immense forest primeval where none dared venture because of a certain legend that the shade of its trees was populated with evil spirits. All they had to do was abandon Sirdah there, where her body, protected by superstition, would not be found by any search parties.

One night, Mossem went off carrying Sirdah in his arms; the following evening, after a long day’s walk, he reached the edge of the Vorrh and, too intelligent to believe in wives’ tales, fearlessly penetrated among the haunted trees before him. Reaching a wide clearing, he laid the sleeping infant Sirdah on the moss, then headed back to the plain by the same path he had just forged through the thick branches and vines.

Twenty-four hours later, he entered Ejur under cover of night; no one had witnessed his departure or his return.

During his absence, Rul had posted herself at the door of the imperial hut to forbid all access. Sirdah was dangerously ill, she said, and Mossem was remaining at the child’s side to treat her. After her accomplice’s return, she announced that poor Sirdah had succumbed, and the next day they simulated a ceremonious funeral.

Tradition demanded that a death certificate be drawn up for every deceased member of the ruling family, detailing the circumstances of the demise. Mossem, who had an in-depth knowledge of Ponukelean writing, assumed the chore and drafted on parchment an invented account of Sirdah’s last days.

Great was the emperor’s grief upon his return, when he learned of his daughter’s passing.

But nothing could make him suspect the plot against Sirdah; the two accomplices, giddy with joy, thus saw their odious machinations to bring their son to the throne succeed just as they had wished.

Two years passed during which Rul did not conceive another child. Annoyed by this sterility, Talou, without renouncing the woman whom he still believed faithful, finally decided to take other wives, in hopes of having a second daughter whose features would remind him of his beloved Sirdah. But his hopes were disappointed: he sired only sons, none of whom could make him forget the dear departed.

Only warfare distracted him from his sorrows; he launched new campaigns constantly, pushing ever farther the boundaries of his vast realm and attaching numerous spoils to the sycamores around Trophy Square.

Endowed with a poet’s sensitivity, he had begun a vast epic, each verse of which celebrated one of his great military exploits. The work was called the “Jeroukka,” a Ponukelean word that evoked triumphant heroism. Filled with ambition and pride, the emperor had vowed to eclipse in personality all other princes of his race and to transmit to future generations a poetic narrative of his reign, which he wished to portray as dominant and glorious.

Every time he finished a section of the “Jeroukka,” he taught it to his warriors, who, in unison, sang it in chorus on a kind of slow, monotonous recitative.

The years passed without bringing the slightest cloud between Mossem and Rul, who continued their love affair in secret.

One day, however, the emperor was informed of their relations by one of his younger wives.

Unable to lend credence to what he took for bald-faced slander, Talou gleefully recounted the gossip to Rul, recommending she beware the jealous hatred that her superior beauty inspired in her rivals.

Although reassured by the emperor’s jovial tone, Rul sensed danger and vowed to double her precautions.

She pleaded with Mossem to publicly take a mistress, whom he would conspicuously lavish with honors and gifts to allay whatever suspicions the monarch may have had.

Mossem agreed to the plan, which seemed to him, as to Rul, of the utmost urgency. He set his sights on a young beauty named Jizme, whose intoxicating smile revealed dazzlingly white teeth in an ebony countenance.

Jizme soon grew accustomed to the privileges of her elevated status; Mossem, intent on playing his part well, satisfied her every whim, and with a word the young woman obtained the most undeserved favors for her own sycophants.

This credit soon earned the minister’s favorite a swarm of solicitors who hastened to beg an audience. Jizme, pleased and flattered, was soon forced to regulate this onrush.

At her request, Mossem cut from several sheets of parchment a certain number of thin, supple rectangles, on each of which he finely traced the name “Jizme,” then depicted in one corner, with a rudimentary sketch, three different phases of the moon.

These were, in short, visiting cards, which, distributed in great number, indicated to interested parties the three days in each four-week period in which the all-powerful intermediary was available to receive visitors.

Jizme took great enjoyment in playing queen. Whenever one of the appointed dates occurred, she adorned herself magnificently and received the crowd of petitioners, granting her support to some and refusing it to others, confident that her decisions would be completely ratified by Mossem.

Still, there was one thing missing from Rul’s happiness. Beautiful, passionate, and full of youthful exuberance, she burned with feverish desire.

But Mossem, faithful to Rul, had never given even the slightest kiss to she who passed in everyone’s eyes for his idolized lover.

Aware of her role as front, Jizme resolved to give herself entirely and without reservations to whoever could understand and appreciate her.

During each of her audiences, she had noticed, in the front row of petitioners, a young black named Nair, who seemed never to speak to her without emotion or shyness.

Several times she thought she saw Nair hiding behind some bush, spying on her during her daily walk in hopes of catching a momentary glimpse.

Soon she had no doubts about the passion she had inspired in the young man. She took Nair into her personal service and abandoned herself unrestrainedly to her gentle suitor, whose ardent feelings she soon came to share.

A perfectly plausible pretext explained in Mossem’s mind the new page’s assiduousness vis-à-vis his favorite.

At that time, Ejur was infested by a legion of mosquitoes whose bite carried fever. As it happened, Nair knew how to make little traps that caught the dangerous insects without fail.

He had discovered a red flower he used as bait, its very sharp scent attracting the creatures from a great distance. Certain fruit husks provided him with extremely delicate filaments, with which he himself wove a tissue finer than spiders’ webs, but sufficiently resistant to stop mosquitoes cold. This latter task required great precision, and Nair could accomplish it only with the help of a long recipe that, recited by heart, reminded him step by step of each movement to make and each knot to form.

Like a child, Jizme derived an endlessly renewed pleasure from watching her lover’s fingers as they industriously wove together the strands.

Nair’s presence could thus be explained by the powerful entertainment that this highly inventive and subtle talent procured for Jizme.

An artist in several respects, Nair knew how to draw, and would relax from the painstaking production of his traps by sketching portraits and landscapes of a strange and primitive character. One day, he gave Jizme a curious white mattress, which he had patiently decorated with a quantity of small sketches depicting a wide variety of subjects. With this gift, he meant to watch over his beloved’s sleep, who from then on rested each night on the soft bedding, a constant reminder of her lover’s tender and attentive solicitude.

The young couple thus lived in peace and contentment, when an imprudence on Nair’s part suddenly lifted the scales from Mossem’s eyes.

Some of the chests the sea had washed up after the wreck of the
Sylvander
contained articles of clothing that had so far gone unclaimed. Jizme, with Mossem’s authorization, drew from that reserve an abundance of baubles that perfectly suited her light, insouciant frivolity.

A pair of long suede gloves in particular amused the gleeful child, who, at every slightly formal occasion, enjoyed imprisoning her hands and arms in these supple sheaths.

During her explorations of this plentiful, heterogeneous inventory, Jizme had discovered a bowler hat that Nair had put on with intense pleasure. From then on, the young Negro went nowhere without the stiff headgear, which made him easily recognizable from a distance.

To the southeast of Ejur, not far from the right bank of the Tez, was an immense and magnificent park called the Behuliphruen, which a host of slaves maintained in a state of unparalleled luxuriousness. Talou, like a true poet, adored flowers and composed the stanzas of his epic beneath the delightful shade trees of this grandiose garden.

In the center of the Behuliphruen stretched a kind of elevated plateau, painstakingly arranged as a terrace, which was covered in admirable vegetation. From there, one could look down on the entire vast garden, and the emperor loved spending long hours of leisure sitting near the balustrade of branches and foliage that bordered this delightfully cool spot. Often, in the evening, he went to dream alongside Rul in a certain corner of the plateau, from where the view was particularly splendid.