A side note: With each passing year, Castaneda had the feeling that he was more alone, and, I also believe, more vulnerable, despite the extent of his powers. He thought he was surrounded by plotters, and more importantly mockers—which for an “African” like him was humiliating. For example, it was more prudent to speak French in his presence because he imagined that he was being denigrated in the other languages of the country.
In any event, I did not see myself doing harm to Kaveena’s grandfather. Nikiema agreed with me, and everything went back to normal in the end.
N’Fumbang was an unusual man. He lived in poverty. He could have said, “It’s true, my granddaughter is dead and perhaps what I’m going to do is not good. But it is God’s will. His ways are inscrutable, and in my situation I cannot help but accept their money.”
The fact that N’Fumbang had the strength to resist the temptation did away with all of N’Zo Nikiema’s excuses. The reader will allow me to put it in simple terms: Shortly before our independence, two paths were open to N’Zo Nikiema. He took in all consciousness the one that led to treason. He knew very well what he was doing. And we both well deserve whatever happens today.
The disappearance of the Kamber family—Arnold, Verena, and their two children—caused a big stir in Belvedere. The Kambers had gone camping, as usual, in the Nyambwue Forest. Not seeing them return late that Sunday afternoon, their boys sounded an alert. It was not possible to look for them in the evening. A big search was organized the next day. I must say that the Nyambwue Forest was a dangerous place. To camp there was to risk being attacked by lions or leopards. There was also talk of a gorilla—one in particular—that attacked unaccompanied women. He paraded before them showing off his manhood with somewhat ambiguous grunts. They didn’t understand his advances at all, and he ended up raping them. I don’t really believe this tale but such anecdotes at least go to show that the Nyambwue Forest was not a resort.
The four bodies that were found after a week of anxious waiting were not a pretty sight.
A group that called itself Commando Prieto da Souza had just signed off on their first violent political act. We had entered a new era. The days of gently dropping leaflets onto Belvedere’s tennis court or of slightly disruptive demonstrations around the mine were over. It was war now.
For Nikiema, this quadruple murder was almost a family tragedy. The Kambers were the only people in Belvedere with whom he had succeeded in having more or less normal human interactions, apart from Castaneda, obviously. Arnold was a brilliant geologist in his fifties, a willing comedian and totally unprejudiced. He and his wife, Verena, were simple folk and they did not live with that sort of intellectual tension that so often ends up corrupting the soul. N’Zo Nikiema could not help thinking that if Commando Prieto da Souza had struck another family, he probably would have rejoiced in secret.
Two days after the funeral ceremony at the Ndunga Church, Pierre Castaneda brought Nikiema into his office and told him bluntly, “You are going to stop, Niko.”
“Stop . . . stop what?”
“You heard me.”
N’Zo Nikiema could not understand what he was talking about. Such a sentence could mean a thousand different things. He just stared at Castaneda in silence.
“You’re going to leave the company. There is too much talk here and it’s not good for you.”
“I don’t know what you mean, Pierre.”
“You’re the only black officer in the company and those people are saying you’re a spy.”
“And you? What do you think?” Nikiema said, surprised by his own spirited question. He wasn’t in the habit of speaking to Castaneda this way. He felt an anger rising within him, as well as anxiety mingled with shame. You betrayed your people and at the first opportunity they are throwing you in the trash, he thought. Now you’re all alone.
The word “scum” began to spin all around his head. At that moment, in a flash, he realized that his whole life had been built around Castaneda. The latter had held his destiny in his hands for a long time without him really realizing it.
Anticipating his concerns, Castaneda leaned forward and spoke in a low voice. “Listen to me, Niko. You and me, we’ll remain friends. But let’s get this straight: the day I stop trusting you, you’re a dead man. There are some excited folks in Belvedere who want us to play Fort Alamo—they are shitting in their pants right now, and are talking about organizing patrols. There have never been so many firearms circulating in our housing complex. This is serious.”
Reassured by Pierre Castaneda’s tone, N’Zo Nikiema just nodded. He was also confused about having been so quick to doubt his friend.
“Go and wait in Nimba,” Castaneda continued.
In the end, Nikiema was not upset about getting away from Belvedere. He told himself it would give him time to get his thoughts in order. After all, maybe he still had a chance to recover.
They arranged all the practical details. He enjoyed a long-term leave and kept his salary and benefits. But a few days later, at the Blue Lizard, he told Castaneda, “My life is here. I don’t want to go bury myself in Nimba.”
Castaneda was silent for several minutes before replying to him in a definitive tone, with a sort of brotherly irritation. “You need a plan? Well, you’re going to get one.”
He then spoke to him frankly. Nikiema noted that Castaneda’s voice, almost reluctantly, became more and more complicit.
“Furthermore,” Castaneda said, “I’ll accompany you to Nimba.”
“When should we leave?”
Castaneda thought for a few seconds. “Look, I have to go home in three weeks. First to Alsace to offer condolences to the Kamber family, then Paris. The Kamber deaths were a terrible shock there. They already see us all as little squares of meat in the boiling pots of cannibals. Everyone wants to understand. I must go explain everything. Arrange for our departure in six days, will you? That will give me time then to return to Ndunga and prepare for my trip to France.”
“That’s fine,” Nikiema said.
“One more thing, my man: people may try to provoke you—you have to stay calm.”
N’Zo Nikiema was already up and ready to start his holiday. He nodded in agreement before saying, “If I understand this clearly, Paris wants to respond to this?”
“Seems like it worries you,” Castaneda said.
“You’re a friend, Pierre, and I’m not going to lie. I didn’t want to get caught in the crossfire. It’s already complicated enough.”
“I hear you, Niko, but these people have gone crazy. They want to make an example—they always say that in these situations.”
“I know what that means.”
“Yes, burning down two or three cities, poisoning the livestock, shooting the leaders, et cetera. I will try to reason with them. What was done to the Kambers is hateful, it’s incredibly cowardly. On the other hand, this is the price to be paid once in a while if we are to remain here. Trust me, I am going to speak to these politicians.”
At this point in my narrative, the reader will allow me to slip in an observation, and he can perhaps gauge its importance later.
N’Zo Nikiema’s return to Nimba fueled a controversy that has not died down since our independence. The three years he spent there were decisive in his rise to power, as everyone knows. It is tempting to think, as some do, that he knew it was time to move back so that he could make the leap. It was indeed in Nimba that N’Zo Nikiema established the people’s Convergence Party and began to criticize, with unusual virulence, the foreign stranglehold on our economy. Nikiema’s supporters like to describe this period of his life as one of open revolt against colonial oppression. According to them, N’Zo Nikiema had until then been working for Cogemin—there he had studied his enemy up close, and then from his stronghold in Nimba he delivered unstoppable blows.
I am convinced, as indeed are the majority of our citizens, that this is just absurd and dishonest gossip. The truth is much simpler. This was the era of big moves, an
d these two friends—Nikiema and Castaneda, his mentor—had devised a fairly effective tactic: shout out hymns about black freedom just a little more forcefully than the other jackals did. I am not one who will blame them for having been more cunning than their opponents. However, as Nikiema further suggests in one of his letters to Mumbi, you’ve always got to tempt fate a little. He might have played a much more important role than we can admit today. With the passing years, we all tend to believe that politicians are far more subtle—or cynical—than they actually were.
On the morning of their departure, they saddled the horses and decided to start before daybreak. They hoped to reach Nimba the same night or maybe the next day. At the beginning of their trip, it was so dark that they walked for nearly two hours in silence. They were also a little worried because it had been a long time since either one of them had been on horseback. They were too busy with Cogemin to find the time to go riding in Belvedere. Because of the way the hooves sounded on the ground—dry, almost metallic or stifled—they knew they were on a path covered with gravel or an otherwise grassy surface. In Ndiben, the first large village in the west, the sky began to clear. Everyone was still asleep. Shortly before Ndze-Ndze, they stopped under a banyan tree. Once the horses were tied, they went to pee behind the bushes, then moved around to stretch their whole bodies. Castaneda held his butt, rotated from left to right, and deliberately let out some comical groans. Making fun of him, N’Zo Nikiema punched his fists in the air, like a boxer warming up. He then rubbed each shoulder and knelt down to stretch. They laid out two mats on the floor and set up their rather modest breakfast. They had coffee in tall thermoses but it was already lukewarm. While Castaneda placed a pan on the oil stove, Nikiema delightedly inspected the large ham and Emmental cheese sandwiches that Pierre’s wife, Hortense Dupaquier, had made for them.
Well before the next village—it had to be Tinko, the site of a famous battle between the Kingdom of Nimba and a coalition of its southern neighbors—they started crossing the paths of farmers going to their fields or women returning from the well. The two travelers were not strangers. Soon the rumor spread that Prince N’Zo Nikiema, heir to the throne of Nimba, and his foreign brother were riding on horseback to the kingdom’s capital.
“We were stupid to think we could surprise my old man!” N’Zo Nikiema said.
Castaneda sensed the pride in his friend’s voice. “It’s the African drum!” he said with a laugh.
N’Zo Nikiema knew that Castaneda didn’t mean any harm when he said this but he didn’t like this way of speaking. He couldn’t articulate why, but these kinds of jokes irritated him.
He pretended he hadn’t heard, and gestured toward the landscape with his hand. “So beautiful here! I had forgotten about this world,” he said dreamily. “I didn’t even remember anymore that I was Prince N’Zo Nikiema. All my adult life spent crunching numbers . . .”
“We still need accountants today,” grumbled Castaneda.
At Tinko, the chief sent horsemen to meet them. It was eleven o’clock in the morning and you would have thought it was market day in the village square. Young girls held out calabashes and knelt in front of them. The water was clear and pure and the two friends quenched their thirst. In his residence, the chief held out a spear to N’Zo Nikiema, then kissed his feet as a sign of allegiance. Then there were very long speeches. Usually the leader spoke in a low voice to a griot who then repeated his remarks to the audience. But this time, only N’Zo Nikiema, future king of Nimba, had such a privilege. He was not prepared for this exercise. He managed quite well, though.
The leader then said, “Your houses are ready.”
When this was translated to him, Castaneda barked, “Our houses are ready! What does that mean?”
“That means we will spend the night in Tinko.”
“Thank you, I understood that! Only, that isn’t going to happen.”
The people of Tinko listened without saying anything and N’Zo Nikiema wondered, embarrassed, if any of them understood French. Anyway, it wasn’t necessary to know French to understand that he and Pierre were fighting. He looked at Castaneda as if he were seeing him for the first time in his life. Castaneda’s brusque manner clashed almost unbearably with the silent and reserved notables of Tinko.
“Look, Pierre,” he said, “we don’t have a choice. The chief has had a hundred oxen, a hundred goats killed—”
“He’s also had one hundred guineas killed and there will be at least a hundred liters of palm wine!” Castaneda interrupted sharply. “The chief is really great!”
“Absolutely. The chief is really great,” N’Zo Nikiema said icily. He saw quite clearly the kind of comments that Castaneda had in mind but he did not want to prolong the discussion.
“We’ll stay here tonight,” said Castaneda. “After that you’re going to figure something out so we don’t have to deal with any more of this shit.” Seeing that he had offended Nikiema, he then added gently, “You have to understand, Niko. If we carry on like this, it will be a month before we arrive in Nimba. I came along with you because of our friendship but I can’t be away for too long. I also have to take a trip to my country.”
The next day, they were too tired to leave at dawn after a night of drinking. As soon as they were out of Tinko, Prince N’Zo Nikiema ordered the horsemen responsible for escorting them to turn around. He spoke to them more harshly than he would have liked and read the fear in their eyes. It was as if they were afraid of being killed on the spot by Prince Nikiema. He felt a drunkenness he hadn’t known before. Gazing out at Mount Nimba, which could be seen from everywhere, he thought, this is my kingdom . . .
Villages filed past them. Tigri. Zara. Mindanewo. N’Zo Nikiema kept his promise, and each time someone wished to host them, he spoke to the chief who, a little fearful, came to kiss his feet. It was the same in Kitenge, and when they were alone, Castaneda exclaimed, “Well, Your Majesty . . .”
N’Zo Nikiema, suddenly annoyed, refused to let him go on. “You cannot joke about this, Pierre.”
Pierre Castaneda immediately realized he had made a blunder. He paused and after a moment said, “You’re right, Niko, one doesn’t joke about this. But there’s a question I can’t ask anyone but you.”
“What’s that?” Nikiema said, surprised by Castaneda’s seriousness.
“Well, I want to know, why do people empty their cellars and slaughter all their cattle just for two people passing by?”
N’Zo Nikiema almost said that he was the heir to the throne of Nimba and not just a passerby. Naturally, it would have made no sense to offer that as a response to Castaneda.
“I don’t know why.” Then he paused and said emphatically, “No damn idea why, Pierre.” He felt the anger rising in him.
“The year’s provisions! Of course they’re going to starve after that,” Pierre Castaneda continued, as if to himself.
They walked in silence along the Nemeni River. Each was lost in thought. After a quarter of an hour, they passed a group of women burning dry grass near a large pit. One of them left the group. To N’Zo Nikiema she seemed young and old at once.
She said a name and asked them if they knew him. Nikiema translated for Pierre, who said immediately with conviction, “Tell her that her son is well and that he’s the bravest miner in Ndunga.”
“So you know her son?”
“No,” Castaneda said. “But it will make her so happy—it’s obvious that she only lives for her child. Why would you want to deprive her of that joy?”
The woman said that she never forgot the Cogemin chief in her prayers. Thanks to Castaneda, her son sent her money at the end of each month. It was also not the first time that a villager spoke to the two travelers about Cogemin. The company had a presence in the land of the Nimba kingdom and Pierre Castaneda had hired most of the youth in the area.
Sometimes at the Blue Lizard, Castaneda would mock N’Zo Nikiema too. “You’re part of the local recruitment, my man!”
To which Nik
iema would reply, “That’s my father’s fault, that old jerk! I have no idea why he gave you all these lands.”
“Well, we asked him!” Castaneda laughed heartily.
N’Zo Nikiema then thought, a little bitterly, you bought it with a little popcorn, yes. Some popcorn . . . Well! Oh well!
He couldn’t believe it.
At the entrance to Nimba, the king had a group of dignitaries greet them. Prince Nikiema had always seen them around him during his adolescence. They were as dignified and stiff as before. However, he noticed their greedy and suspicious eyes. There was a vulgarity in their gestures that he had never perceived before. No doubt he had left Nimba too young: only adults could have this perspective. Mansare, who had died a few years before, was not with them. He had been his mentor. How he would have liked to see him again! Mansare was a righteous and proud man, one of Nimba’s best.
The two travelers passed through a line of griots emphatically singing the praises of the prince. Young girls waved palm leaves in their faces. Several people shouted, rolling on the ground and throwing handfuls of sand all over their bodies.
The king received them seated on his throne. His pagne had big green and red squares and came up to his ankles. On his bare chest one could see dozens of amulets, and he wore a large hat of ostrich feathers on his head. N’Zo Nikiema remembered his childhood. He used to be fascinated by all the colors that made the king look like a giant butterfly. During elementary school in Nimba, he would often try to count them with his fingers in that new language he was learning: red, blue, green, orange, violet. . . . After a few seconds, the colors would blend into one another. He would count again but they would always blur as they seemed to be dancing on his father’s half-naked bust.
Kaveena Page 15
