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 enti
re 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.
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 nam
ed 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.
Impressions of Africa (French Literature Series) Page 17
