Impressions of Africa (French Literature Series) (17 page)

Unable to appreciate this serene contemplation, which to her seemed rather tedious, Rul one day invited Mossem to come enliven the imperial tête-à-tête. Blind and trusting as ever, Talou had no objections to granting this whim; the presence of Jizme, moreover, would remove any unwelcome suspicions from his mind.

Nair, who every evening had a rendezvous with his love, was vexed to hear of the event that would keep them from enjoying each other’s company. Resolved to be near Jizme all the same, he conceived a bold exploit that would make him the unseen fifth member of the Behuliphruen party.

But since Jizme was granting audience to the usual flood of solicitors that day, and had already begun receiving, Nair could not have with her the long private conversation needed in order to explain his complicated plan.

A writer as well as an artist, Nair knew Ponukelean script, which he had taught to Jizme during their long and frequent hours together. He decided to set down for his paramour all the urgent recommendations he could not detail for her face to face.

The letter was written out on parchment, then, in the midst of the tumult, handed nimbly from Nair to Jizme, who slid it deftly into her wrap.

But Mossem, who was wandering among the crowd, had noticed the clandestine maneuver. Moments later, putting his arm around Jizme, who was used to receiving such displays of affection from him in public, he made away with the epistle, which he went off to decipher in private.

As a header, Nair had drawn the five principal actors in that evening’s scenario arranged in single file: to the right, Talou walked alone; behind him, making mocking gestures, were Mossem and Rul, themselves ridiculed by Nair and Jizme who were next in line.

The text contained the following instructions:

Once she was sitting in the corner of the cool terrace, Jizme would look out for Nair, who would come up silently by a certain predetermined path. In the shadows, the young Negro’s silhouette would be easily recognizable thanks to the bowler hat he’d be sure to wear. The spot Talou chose for his absorbing reveries was surrounded by almost sheer drops; nonetheless, by clinging to the roots and shrubs with all his might, Nair could hoist himself cautiously to the level of the casual group. Jizme would let her hand dangle over the flowered balustrade; then, having ascertained the visitor’s identity by carefully touching his hat, she would extend this hand for a kiss from her lover, who could remain suspended for a moment by the strength of his arms.

After committing to memory all the details he’d just intercepted, Mossem went back to Jizme and, under pretext of more caresses, slipped the note back into the favorite’s wrap.

Wounded in his pride and furious at the thought of having long become a public laughingstock, Mossem sought a way to obtain flagrant proof against the two accomplices, whom he vowed to punish severely.

He devised a plan and went to see Seil-kor, who at that time had already been serving the emperor for several years and could, at night, look like Nair thanks to their similar age and bearing.

This was Mossem’s plan:

Wearing the bowler hat that was meant to allay suspicion, Seil-kor would go to Jizme along the path clearly designated in the note. Before starting his ascent, the false Nair would inscribe on the hat, with a fresh, sticky substance, certain predetermined letters. Jizme, following her compulsive habit, would surely be wearing her gloves for an evening with the emperor; by making the prudent gesture that, as the letter instructed, should precede the kiss, the favorite would give herself away by imprinting on the suede one of the revelatory characters.

Seil-kor accepted the mission. In any case, it was impossible to refuse, for the all-powerful Mossem could have made this request into an order.

The first crucial step was to intercept Nair on his nocturnal expedition. Fearing an indiscretion that could spell the failure of his plot, Mossem wished to avoid using any outside help.

Forced to act alone, Seil-kor remembered the nooselike collars with which hunters captured game animals in the forests of the Pyrenees. Using ropes gathered from the distant wreck of the
Sylvander
, he went to set his snare in the middle of Nair’s intended path. With this ruse, Seil-kor was sure to overcome an adversary half paralyzed by insidious fetters.

This task accomplished, Seil-kor placed at the foot of the cliff he was later to scale a certain mixture, rapidly composed, of chalkstones and water.

When evening fell, he went to hide not far from the snare he’d set.

Nair appeared and his foot was soon caught in the adroitly placed trap. A moment later, the imprudent one was bound and gagged by Seil-kor, who had leapt upon him in one bound.

Pleased with his discreet and silent victory, Seil-kor donned the victim’s hat and headed to the rendezvous.

From afar he spied Jizme, who was furtively watching for him while making conversation with the royal couple and Mossem.

Fooled by the newcomer’s silhouette and especially his hat, Jizme thought she recognized Nair and draped her arm beyond the balustrade in anticipation.

Reaching the foot of the slope, Seil-kor dipped his finger into the chalky mix and, in a mischievous spirit, traced in capital letters on the black hat the word “PINCHED,” which he already imagined the unfortunate Jizme to be. After this, he began hauling himself up the cliff, grasping laboriously at any branch that might bear his weight.

Reaching the level of the plateau, he stopped and touched the overhanging hand, which, after having brushed the stiff felt hat, dropped lower to receive the promised kiss.

Seil-kor silently pressed his lips against the suede glove that Jizme, on Mossem’s recommendation, had been all too happy to put on.

His task completed, he clambered back to earth without a sound.

On the plateau, Mossem had kept a constant eye on Jizme’s movements. He saw her pull her arm back and discovered at the same time as she a
C
clearly imprinted on the gray glove, which stretched from the roots of her fingers to the heel of her palm.

Jizme quickly hid her hand, while Mossem inwardly rejoiced at the success of his ruse.

One hour later, Mossem, now alone with Jizme, ripped the stained glove from her and took from the unfortunate’s wrap the damning letter, which he shoved before her eyes.

The next day, Nair and Jizme were arrested and kept under guard by fierce sentinels.

Talou having demanded an explanation for this harsh measure, Mossem seized the occasion to buttress the emperor’s trust, as he still feared suspicions about Rul and himself. He presented as a jealous lover’s vengeance what was really mere anger, due to a ruffling of his pride. He intentionally exaggerated the depth of his resentment and lengthily recounted to the sovereign every detail of the adventure, including specifics regarding the noose, the hat, and the glove. Meanwhile, he was able to keep secret his own affair with Rul by avoiding any mention of the compromising portraits that Nair had drawn at the top of his letter.

Talou approved the punishment that Mossem meted on the guilty pair, who remained in captivity.

Seventeen years had elapsed since Sirdah’s disappearance, and Talou still pined for his daughter as if it were yesterday.

Having kept in memory a very precise image of the child he so faithfully mourned, he tried to recreate in his imagination the young woman she would now have been had death not taken her away.

The features she’d had as a barely weaned girl-child, deeply etched in his mind, served as his basis. He accentuated them while changing nothing of their shape, tending to their gradual development year after year, and thus managed to create for himself alone an eighteen-year-old Sirdah whose clearly delineated ghost accompanied him at all times.

One day, during one of his customary campaigns, Talou came upon an enchanting child named Meisdehl, the sight of whom left him dumbstruck: before him was the living portrait of Sirdah as he pictured her at the age of seven, in the uninterrupted suite of images in his mind.

It was while passing in review several families of prisoners, who had escaped from the flames of a village he’d just put to the torch, that the emperor noticed Meisdehl. He took the girl under his wing and treated her as his own daughter after his return to Ejur.

Among her adoptive brothers, Meisdehl soon noticed a certain Kalj, seven years old like her, who seemed the ideal playmate to share her games.

Kalj was in such delicate health that everyone feared for his life; he lived almost entirely in his head. Advanced for his age, he surpassed most of his brothers in intelligence and sensitivity, but his body was pitiably frail. Aware of his condition, too often he let himself wallow in a deep melancholy that Meisdehl made it her mission to overcome. Filled with mutual tenderness, the two children formed an inseparable couple; seeing the newcomer constantly at his son’s side, Talou, from the abyss of his grief, could sometimes enjoy the illusion that he really had a daughter again.

Not long after the adoption of Meisdehl, several natives arrived from Mihu, a village located near the Vorrh, to tell the citizens of Ejur that a lightning fire had been raging in the southern part of the vast primeval forest since the previous evening.

Talou, riding in a kind of palanquin borne by ten stout runners, traveled to the edge of the Vorrh to witness the dazzling spectacle, which appealed to his poetic soul.

He stepped onto the ground just as night was falling. A strong wind from the northeast scattered the flames nearest him, and he stood motionless, watching as the fire quickly spread.

The entire population of Mihu had gathered so as not to miss this grandiose spectacle.

Two hours after the emperor’s arrival, only about a dozen intact trees remained, forming a thick clump at which the flames began lapping.

Then they saw a young native of eighteen fleeing the thicket, accompanied by a French soldier wearing a Zouave’s uniform and armed with his rifle and cartridge belts.

By the light of the forest fire, Talou distinguished on the young woman’s brow a red birthmark with radiating yellow lines. There could be no mistake: it was his beloved Sirdah who stood before his eyes. She was very different from the imaginary portrait he’d so painstakingly crafted and that Meisdehl so perfectly incarnated, but this mattered little to the emperor who, mad with joy, ran up to his daughter to embrace her.

He then tried to talk to her, but Sirdah, recoiling in fear, did not understand his language.

During the happy father’s effusions, a tree consumed at the base suddenly toppled, violently striking the head of the Zouave, who fell unconscious. Sirdah immediately rushed to the soldier’s aid, her face contorted with anxiety.

Talou didn’t wish to abandon the injured stranger who seemed to inspire such pure affection in his daughter; plus, he was counting on the man’s eyewitness revelations to illuminate the longstanding mystery of Sirdah’s disappearance.

Several moments later, the palanquin, lifted by the runners, headed back to Ejur, carrying the emperor, Sirdah, and the unconscious Zouave.

Talou entered the capital the next day.

Brought before her daughter, Rul, terror-stricken and under threat of torture, made a complete confession to the emperor, who immediately ordered Mossem’s arrest.

While searching his minister’s hut for some proof of the abject felony, Talou discovered the love letter that Nair had written to Jizme several months before. Seeing himself ridiculed on the drawing that headed the sheet, the monarch flew into a rage, resolving to torture both Nair, for his brazenness, and Jizme, for the duplicity she’d committed by accepting such a document and not denouncing its author.

Lavished with care in a hut where they had laid him down, the Zouave came to his senses and recounted his odyssey to Seil-kor, who had been charged with learning his story.

Velbar—for so the patient was named—came from Marseille. His father, a decorative painter, had taught him his own trade early on, and the admirably talented youngster had improved his craft by taking free local classes in which he learned drawing and watercolor. At eighteen, Velbar had discovered he had a strong baritone; for days on end, while on his scaffolding painting some shop sign, he lustily belted out many fashionable romances, and passersby stopped to listen, marveling at the charm and purity of his generous voice.

When he reached the age for military service, Velbar was sent to Bougie to join the Fifth Zouaves. After a smooth crossing, the young man, delighted to see new lands, disembarked on African soil one beautiful November morning and was pointed to the military barracks amid a large detachment of conscripts.

The rookie Zouave’s beginnings were difficult and marked by a thousand daily vexations. Rotten luck had placed him under the command of one Lieutenant Lécurou, a ruthless and fastidious martinet who made a boast of his legendary harshness.

At the time, to satisfy the demands of a certain Flora Crinis, a demanding and profligate young woman who was his lover, Lécurou spent long hours in a secret gambling club where a tempting roulette wheel spun continually. As luck had so far smiled on the impetuous gambler, the richly kept Flora appeared in public dripping with jewels and strutted about in a carriage beside the lieutenant down the city’s elegant promenade.

Meanwhile, Velbar pursued his arduous apprenticeship as a soldier.

One day, as the regiment, returning to Bougie after a long march, still found itself in the middle of the countryside, the Zouaves were ordered to strike up a spirited tune to help them forget their road-weariness.

Velbar, who by now was known for his splendid voice, was assigned to sing solo the verses of an interminable lament, to which the entire regiment answered in chorus with an eternally unvarying refrain.

At dusk they crossed through a small wood, in which a lone dreamer, sitting beneath a tree, was jotting onto music paper some melody born of his solitude and reflection.