Impressions of Africa (French Literature Series)

by Roussel, Raymond

  Long months passed without bringing any variation to the poor recluse’s routine.

  One day, Velbar heard some distant wails cutting through the normally still silence of his vast domain. Nearing the spot from where the noise originated, he discovered Sirdah, whom Mossem had recently abandoned there; he scooped the poor child up in his arms, at which her crying immediately ceased. A few days earlier, he had trapped a pair of wild buffalo, keeping them tethered with strong vines wrapped around their horns and attached to a tree trunk. With the milk from the female he was able to feed his adoptive daughter, and his life, so solitary until then, was now imbued with interest and purpose.

  As she grew up, Sirdah, full of grace and charm despite her wall-eye, repaid in affection all the kindnesses her protector showered on her daily. Velbar taught her French and urged her never to set foot outside the Vorrh, fearing she would fall back into the clutches of the fiendish enemies who had so cruelly exposed her to certain death, and who would surely recognize her by the mark on her forehead.

  The years passed, and the child was already becoming a woman when a violent forest fire, decimating the Vorrh, expelled the two recluses who, up to the last moment, had hidden under the ever-shrinking canopy of tall trees.

  Once outside the retreat where he had hidden for so long, Velbar expected to fall prey once again to the cannibals of Mihu. Fortunately, the emperor’s presence preserved him from that horrible fate.

  Talou, when Seil-kor had translated Velbar’s tale for him, promised to richly reward the man who had saved his daughter’s life.

  But alas, there was no time to put his generous plan into action, for Velbar did not survive the terrible blow he’d received from the fallen tree. One week after his arrival in Ejur, he breathed his last in the arms of his adoptive daughter, who until the end had bravely and lovingly attended to her devoted benefactor, the only mainstay of her childhood.

  Talou, wishing to render supreme homage to Velbar, told Seil-kor to bury the Zouave’s body with full honors in the middle of the west side of Trophy Square.

  Copying the model of French sepulchers, Seil-kor, with the help of several slaves, laid the body to rest in the designated spot, then covered him with a large funeral slab on which he placed his uniform, rifle, and cartridge belts, symmetrically arranged. The autobiographical watercolors found in one of the Zouave’s pockets served to decorate a kind of vertical panel erected behind the tomb and wrapped in dark cloth.

  After this loss, which left her in a grief-stricken stupor, Sirdah, a gentle, loving soul, transferred all her affection onto the emperor. Seil-kor had revealed to her in French the secret of her birth, and she wished, through constant attentions, to compensate her father for the long years of separation that an unjust fate had imposed on the two of them.

  With Seil-kor’s help, she studied the language of her ancestors, so as to speak fluently with her future subjects.

  Each time her steps led her near Velbar’s grave, she piously pressed her lips on the stone slab commemorating the dear departed.

  Sirdah’s return did not upset Meisdehl; she still enjoyed the love of the emperor, who, despite recent events, continued to see in her the living image of the unreal phantom he so often used to evoke.

  In honor of his old love, Talou decided to spare Rul’s life, and the woman, now numbering among the slaves assigned to cultivate the Behuliphruen, had to spend her days bent low to the ground, hoeing or weeding without respite. The monarch’s vengeance did not extend to her adulterine son, whose likeness to Mossem had only increased with the years. Devastated by Sirdah’s arrival and by the discovery of the distant conspiracy perpetrated for his sake, the unfortunate young man, who had thought himself destined to reign one day under the name Talou VIII, was stricken by a languishing illness and expired after only a few weeks.

  Mossem, Nair, and Jizme were slated for grisly tortures, deferred from one day to the next by the emperor, who enjoyed imposing on the guilty trio as further atonement the anguish of a cruel, prolonged wait.

  A Negro named Rao, Mossem’s pupil, who had been schooled in his master’s complex knowledge, was appointed to succeed the disgraced minister in the important functions of adviser and overseer.

  Meanwhile, Rul, who’d suffered all the humiliation she could stand, had sworn to take her vengeance. Especially furious with Sirdah, whose return had been the cause of these misfortunes, she sought a means to assuage her hatred of the daughter whose very birth she now cursed.

  After much reflection, this is what the perfidious mother devised:

  A certain illness was ravaging the land in epidemic proportions, manifested by the occurrence of two white and highly contagious blotches that spread over the eyes and grew thicker by the day.

  Only the sorcerer Bashkou, a taciturn, solitary old man, knew how to cure the dangerous infection by means of a secret unguent. But the rapid cure could only be effected at a sacred spot in the very bed of the Tez. Immersed with the patient in a certain specific eddy, Bashkou, applying his balm, could then detach the two stigmata, which would immediately follow the current out to sea where their terrible contamination was no longer a threat. Many sufferers immediately recovered their sight after this operation; others, less fortunate, remained forever blind, because the illness, spreading too far, had gradually covered the entire eyeball.

  Rul knew how contagious these blotches were. One evening, slipping past the guards dotted throughout the Behuliphruen, she reached the seashore and sailed a dugout to the mouth of the Tez. She knew that Bashkou always worked at nightfall, to offer his newly cured patients a soft and restful twilight. Protected by the crepuscular veil, Rul awaited unseen the arrival of the blotches the sorcerer had removed; she caught one in passing as it drifted by on the current, then regained the shore at her departure point.

  In the middle of the night, she stole into Sirdah’s hut, which juxtaposed the emperor’s. Creeping forward cautiously, guided by the light of a single moonbeam, she softly rubbed her sleeping daughter’s eyelids with the hazardous blotches squeezed between her fingers.

  But Talou, awakened by Rul’s furtive footfalls, rushed into Sirdah’s hut just in time to witness the heinous act. He immediately grasped the intent of the unnatural mother, whom he brutally dragged outside and put in the hands of three slaves ordered to keep watch over her.

  The emperor then returned to Sirdah, who had been wrested from her deep sleep by the noise. The evil was already taking effect, and a veil began spreading over the poor child’s eyes.

  By order of Talou, drunk with rage, Rul, condemned to an excruciating death, was imprisoned alongside Mossem, Nair, and Jizme.

  By the next day, Sirdah’s illness had made stunning progress; two opaque leucoma, which had formed in mere hours, had left her completely blind.

  Wishing to operate immediately, the emperor crossed the Tez with his daughter that very evening and approached the large hut where Bashkou lived.

  But the eddy devoted to the magic treatment was located on the right bank of the river, and because of this fact belonged to Drelchkaff.

  Now, King Yaour IX, having learned of Rul’s crime and predicting the father’s and daughter’s next move, had hastened to give Bashkou hard and fast instructions.

  Accordingly, the sorcerer refused to treat Sirdah by order of Yaour, who, he added, demanded the young girl’s hand in exchange for a cure only he could authorize.

  Were there to be such a marriage, Yaour would then be in line to share Talou’s succession with Sirdah, and therefore would one day reunite Ponukele and Drelchkaff under his sole dominion.

  Revolted by these terms and by the idea of seeing his estates pass to the enemy bloodline, Talou brought his daughter back to Ejur without deigning to answer.

  Since that event, which had occurred only several weeks earlier, the situation remained unchanged and Sirdah was still blind.

  XII

  STILL LYING IN THE FINE SAND in the shade of the tall cliff, we had followed the
ins and outs of Seil-kor’s long, dramatic tale without a single interruption.

  Meanwhile, the Negroes had extracted from the bowels of the Lynceus a mass of objects and crates, which at an order from Seil-kor they suddenly hoisted onto their shoulders; his clear voice, after the end of his story, had just sounded the signal for departure. Several more trips would complete the unloading of the vessel, whose entire cargo would gradually be transported to Ejur.

  Several instants later, forming a column amid the Negroes bent under their various burdens, our group, led by Seil-kor, headed in a straight line toward the announced capital. The midget Philippo was carried like an infant by his impresario Jenn, while Tancrède Boucharessas, with a family of trained cats, rode on a small cripple’s trolley pushed by his son Hector. At the head, Olga Chervonenkhov, followed by Sladki and Milenkaya, walked near the equestrian Urbain, who proudly dominated the group on his horse Romulus.

  It took us only half an hour to reach Ejur, where we soon met the emperor, who received us on Trophy Square surrounded by his daughter, his ten wives, and all his sons, of whom he had thirty-six.

  Seil-kor exchanged a few words with Talou and immediately translated for us his sovereign decree: each of us was to write a letter to a friend or family member, with the goal of obtaining a ransom whose amount would vary depending on the signatory’s outward appearance; once this was done, Seil-kor, walking north with a large detachment of natives, would go to Porto Novo and mail the precious correspondence to Europe; once he was in possession of the requisite amounts, the faithful envoy would purchase various supplies that his men, still led by him, would carry to Ejur. Following this, the same Seil-kor would act as our guide back to Porto Novo, from where we would have no trouble obtaining passage home.

  Each letter was to contain a special codicil to the effect that any attempt to rescue us would bring about our immediate deaths. Regardless, those who could not buy their freedom would meet with swift capital punishment.

  By a strange scruple, Talou, not wishing to look like a common thief, let us keep what money we had on us. In any case, the cash gathered from relieving us of it would have added only a pittance to the huge combined bounty of the anticipated ransoms.

  A hoard of stationery supplies was unpacked and everyone hastened to write his letter, indicating the emancipating sum, whose amount was fixed by Seil-kor at the emperor’s instigation.

  Eight days later Seil-kor headed out for Porto Novo, accompanied by the same Negroes who had appeared before us when we ran aground, and who in less than a week, through continual return trips, had transported to Ejur the entire contents of our ill-fated ship, which the passengers often revisited.

  For us this departure marked the beginning of a monotonous and tedious existence. We yearned for the hour of deliverance, sleeping at night in the huts reserved for our use and spending our days reading or speaking French with Sirdah, who was delighted to know compatriots of Velbar’s.

  To help keep us occupied and entertained, Juillard proposed the foundation of a kind of elite association or unusual club, in which each member would have to distinguish himself through either an original work or a fabulous demonstration.

  Applications immediately poured in, and Juillard, who had the credit of coming up with the idea, was drafted president of the new association, which adopted the pretentious appellation “The Incomparables Club.” Each charter member would have to rehearse for a grand gala performance intended to celebrate Seil-kor’s return and our liberation.

  As no club could do without a headquarters, Chènevillot offered to build a small structure that would also serve as the group’s emblem. Juillard agreed and, with the future exhibitions in mind, asked him to design the monument in the form of a slightly raised stage.

  But to use a plot of ground on Trophy Square required the emperor’s authorization.

  Sirdah, who entirely supported our cause, volunteered to intervene with Talou; the latter, enchanted to learn that we wished to beautify his capital, welcomed our request but nonetheless asked the purpose of this planned new building. Sirdah briefly explained about the gala, and the emperor, delighted at the prospect of this unexpected celebration, spontaneously granted us full latitude to take from the spoils of the Lynceus whatever we needed to organize our show.

  When the girl had told us the happy result of her mission, Chènevillot, aided by his workmen, who had no shortage of tools, cut down a certain number of trees in the Behuliphruen. The trunks were sliced into planks, and construction got underway on Trophy Square, at the midpoint of the side farthest from the sea.

  Wishing to inspire a sense of competition among the club members, Juillard decided to invent a new decoration, to be conferred on the most deserving of them. After a long search for a motif both original and easy to make, he settled on the Greek capital delta, which seemed to satisfy both necessary conditions. Taking apart a certain old container found among the Lynceus’s supplies gave him a sheet of tin from which he cut six triangles, each topped with a ring; each delta thus fashioned was hung from a short length of blue ribbon, destined for the chest of a chevalier of the order.

  Wishing in addition to establish a supreme and unique distinction, Juillard, without altering his model, cut a large delta made to be worn over the left hip.

  These decorations would be awarded at the conclusion of the gala performance.

  Meanwhile, everyone began preparing for the big day.

  Olga Chervonenkhov, planning to perform The Nymph’s Dance, her greatest triumph from the olden days, often exercised out of everyone’s sight in hopes of regaining her former limberness.

  Juillard outlined a brilliant lecture on the Electors of Brandenburg, with illustrative portraits.

  After agreeing to appear on the program, Balbet, whose luggage contained arms and munitions, found all his cartridges soaked by the sea, which in high tide had partially invaded the hold of the Lynceus through a wide breach opened by the wreck. Sirdah, apprised of this calamity, generously donated Velbar’s weapon and cartridge belts. The offer was accepted, and Balbet entered into possession of an excellent Gras rifle, along with twenty-four cartridges that had remained in perfect condition thanks to the arid African climate. Leaving everything in its place on the Zouave’s tomb, the illustrious champion announced for the day of the gala a prestigious exercise in marksmanship, to be followed by a sensational duel with La Billaudière-Maisonnial’s fencing machine.

  Luxo’s packages had suffered even more water damage than Balbet’s, and all of his fireworks, though fortunately insured, were irrevocably ruined. Only the final flourish, packed separately with great care, had escaped the disaster; Luxo decided to embellish our complex spectacle by shooting off this group of dazzling portraits, which at this point would not arrive in time for the wedding of Baron Ballesteros.

  The ichthyologist Martignon spent his time on the waves in a dugout that Sirdah had procured him. Armed with an immense net with long ropes retrieved from one of his trunks, he performed countless soundings, hoping to make some interesting discovery that he could display to enrich the gala’s program.

  All the other members of the club, inventors, artists, trainers, curiosities, or acrobats, rehearsed their different specialties, wishing to be at their best on the day of the grand occasion.

  In a certain part of the Lynceus especially damaged by the wreck, we had discovered twelve two-wheeled vehicles, like Roman chariots decorated with vivid paintings. During their tours, the Boucharessas and Alcott families, joining forces, used these vehicles to perform a curious musical exercise.

  Each of the chariots, once set in motion, sounded a pure, vibrant note produced by the rotation of the wheels.

  When it was showtime, Stéphane Alcott and his six sons, plus the four Boucharessas brothers and their sister, would suddenly appear in the circus and climb separately into the dozen chariots, each harnessed to a single horse that had been given some cursory training.

  Together, the music-making devic
es, aligned side by side at a given point on the circular track, produced the diatonic scale of C, from the low tonic up to high G.

  At a sign from Stéphane Alcott, a slow, melodious parade began. The chariots, advancing one by one following a determined order and rhythm, executed a host of popular tunes, carefully chosen from among refrains or choruses that didn’t have too much modulation. The alignment was soon broken by the length and frequency of the notes; a given chariot, emitting a full note, went forward four or five yards, while the neighboring vehicle, meant to emit only a sixteenth note, advanced barely a few steps. Soon dispersed over the entire stretch of track, the horses, whipped with precision, always started walking at just the right moment.

  Eleven of the chariots had been smashed when we ran aground. Talou confiscated the one intact specimen for young Kalj, who, growing weaker by the day, needed to take long and restorative outings that wouldn’t tire him out.

  A wicker armchair retrieved from the Lynceus was attached by its four feet to the floor of the vehicle, whose wheels as they turned emitted a high C.

  A slave between the two harness shafts completed the rig, which clearly enchanted Kalj. From then on we often saw the sickly boy installed in his wicker chair, the valiant Meisdehl walking beside him.

  XIII

  IN THREE WEEKS, CHÈNEVILLOT completed a small and utterly charming stage. Among his workmen, all of whom had demonstrated unflagging zeal, the house painter Toresse and the upholsterer Beaucreau deserved special praise. Toresse, highly dubious of the supplies he’d find in South America, had stocked a provision of barrels filled with various paints, and he covered the entire structure in brilliant red; on the pediment, the words “The Incomparables Club” were haloed by a cluster of rays symbolizing the glory of the brilliant association. And Beaucreau, having brought along a stock of fabrics intended for Ballesteros, employed a supple scarlet damask to hang two wide curtains that met at the middle of the platform or opened into the wings. A white Persian with fine gold arabesques served to mask the wall of planks raised as a backdrop.