Nebu didn’t answer.
Bertha refused to remember the tirailleurs’ whipping hands, or Lieutenant Prestat’s vengeance, for that matter. For her, it was only the logical consequence of a chain of events that began with Ngungure. Had her son looked the other way when that bitch called him, he would have avoided the anger of the Frenchman and his soldiers—that’s what she told herself. Her mother’s heart was categorical. It beat with a systematic hatred for all girls, a hatred that was nothing more than the other side of her limitless love for Nebu, a hatred that would later transform into another sort of love. For the moment, the only thought in her head was, That whore!
Bertha’s face was a mask of disgust because, when she looked at her son’s suffering, she saw Ngungure’s face. Her lips trembled when she thought of her grandson whom “that girl” had torn away from her, and she spit. To think that all the market women had come together to help birth the child! Bertha’s hatred was as focused as Nji Mama’s rage at the French, whom he blamed for the bad weather. For the master, his apprentice’s woes, even his beating, were just the start of a litany of complaints he kept to himself, grievances that were sure to be followed by more misfortunes, all originating in Paris. With the methodical focus of the man of science that he was, he counted out one by one the atrocities committed by the French against the Bamum, and his mouth twisted open, as if trying to set off a cry for justice in his soul.
Of course Ibrahim had also been shocked by Prestat’s bestial violence, but he had put his hopes in the new face of the French administration, Captain Ripert—especially since he had aligned himself with Madame Dugast. If women—white or black, German, French, or Bamum—had had a voice at the table in those days, maybe colonialism would have worn a different face. Maybe it would never even have existed at all. That’s what Ibrahim thought: love, not war, would rule the world. And women were a calabash filled with love, etc. To his mind, it was possible to take a moment of dreadful suffering as a promise of future happiness, and maybe that’s why he paid several visits to Nebu and spoke to him of conciliation. No, Ibrahim wasn’t a fatalist, but hadn’t the time come to look for paths toward peace, especially after the episode where that boy had almost lost his life? Was Ibrahim a wet rag? Far from it! Nor was he a coward. But he had lived long enough, and in the company of whites, to know that there are fights worth avoiding because they aren’t necessary. “They are like women, you know,” he said. “Always jealous.”
The voices of Bertha, Nji Mama, and Ibrahim summarized the differing opinions that crossed paths in Njoya’s ears, in some sense canceling each other out. The sultan didn’t complain to the French administration about Prestat’s violence, no. Maybe the group around Ibrahim convinced him of what he needed to do. The monarch accepted the suffering of one of his artists with a father’s stoicism; yes, he accepted it, and took responsibility for the sculptor’s care. Nor did he intervene when the French administration decided to replace Monlipèr as the head of the Artists’ Alley. Then, as well, his authority had been publicly called into question, but Njoya politely ignored the provocation: “I’m not that crazy.”
After all, Mose Yeyap was “his son,” as he said. And after all, it was he, Njoya, who had taught Mose to write in Foumban’s first Shümum school. And again, it was Njoya who had advised Fräulein Wuhrmann to take Mose under her wing when he was just an adolescent, who had allowed him to marry a slave and had let him continue the work of the Christian church after the Germans had been chased from the sultanate. Yes, Njoya had closed his eyes when, in his zeal, Mose had begun to convert the palace slaves—including the slave of his mother Njapdunke—to Christianity!
It wasn’t a big deal if Mose Yeyap had become the Man of the French. After all, Njoya himself had sent his own children, including his daughter, to European schools. No one had forced him. “Losing a son” had never worried Njoya. Each child is a unique adventure. On the contrary, he was convinced that he had given “his son” the best opportunities life could offer. So he wasn’t afraid of losing power when the Artists’ Alley was put under Mose’s control, even if the French administration saw it as a weakening of his prerogatives. The son in question, Mose, came from a very influential family, and in any event, he was destined to take his father’s place among the palace councillors. “Time will resolve all misunderstandings,” Njoya believed. “Common sense will prevail.”
After the whipping, he sent two of his personal doctors to Bertha’s house and ordered his wives to cook their best meals for the wounded man and his mother. As for Monlipèr, Njoya found a new position for the deposed master. He had always wanted to give other duties to this amazing blacksmith who had once built him a machine to grind corn. This time he gave him the task of building a printing press. From then on, they spent their nights working on plans and imagining shapes and figures. In fact, Njoya was convinced that work, and work alone, could wrest him from the chaos that was spreading its stench over the territory. More than ever, his workshops became his refuge.
The sultanate’s largest worksite, and the one that meant the most to Njoya, was still the Palace of All Dreams. The monarch put all his remaining energy into it. Alone in the ruins of his emerging dreams, he found the silence that life’s cacophony deprived him of. And it was the only place where he could retreat with his masters away from the arrogance of the new colonial administration. His dream was to silence the world, and especially the French, with his works, with the grandeur of his building projects. He hoped in that way to triumph over their small-mindedness, to shut their treacherous mouths for good. “The largest building in Africa,” that’s what he called his new castle, then under construction, and he was impatient to see the look of surprise on the faces of the colonizers, who had made his life so difficult, when they saw the extent of his talents.
Common sense will prevail, he thought.
In secret, Njoya hoped that the French would finally bow down before him, full of respect, as had the Germans, who used to shout “Donnerwetter!” at each of his projects. He hoped they would recognize the strength of his vision, and when his Palace of All Dreams rose up to the setting sun, they’d simply say, “Fran Njoya.”
“Alareni.”
“Master.”
“Master.”
Again and again: “Master.”
11
The Awakening of the Artist in Pain
1922. A woman’s body appeared to Nebu in all the perfection of its shapes, in the full harmony of its features and the poetry of its song. It appeared to him in the bliss of an equation. Was it the body of his dreams? Yes. Was it Ngungure’s body? How to know? He never again saw the face of the woman who inhabited his dreams, since his dreams were now composed of disjointed shapes that he reconstructed when he awoke. Night after night the faceless woman returned to his ailing soul. She appeared so often that finally he began to wait for her on the borders of sleep, impatient, even in his trepidation, to dream his dreams.
Art is an elixir for an ailing soul. Bertha’s son began to sculpt again because the faceless woman appeared less and less as his health improved; because, as he healed, the shapes that led him to ecstasy began to vanish. He wanted to keep dreaming of her. The less he suffered, the less the woman of his dreams filled his nights and the more he felt the need to bring her to life with the power of his hands. When Nebu began his statue, he couldn’t even get up from his mat. That’s why he started with the feet that he had observed so carefully.
Instead of using wood or bronze or stone, as he had been taught in Monlipèr’s workshop and as he had done in his workshop in the palace, the sculptor used clay. The softness of the earth is a balm for a wounded body. He sculpted the woman’s feet with precision, applying the techniques he had learned from his masters and the art he had devised while following and observing the slave woman and others in the street. Beginning with the feet was also the most prudent way to proceed because his mother wouldn’t wonder if they belonged to a man or a woman but would simply be overjoy
ed that her son had found the strength to work again.
Nebu began to sculpt again because he had discovered that pride is an antidote for defeat.
“They didn’t defeat you,” his mother swore when she saw him working. “They didn’t defeat you.”
Her eyes were shining.
“They don’t have that power,” her son replied, a smile on his lips. “On the contrary, they just made me stronger.”
He paused.
“Suffering has given me even more inspiration.”
Nebu finished the feet of the statue with all the love he had amassed in his dreams and with all the love that his mother spread over his body. It was apparent to him that the statue he was working on would be a testament to love. His mother was happy to see his work because she didn’t yet know he was sculpting a girl’s feet. It amused her to pretend that her son was sculpting himself legs so he could walk again, as he did in his dreams. For Nebu, the faceless woman could only be Ngungure.
Bertha was saddened when he announced that he was returning to his workshop in the palace. The mother was saddened, but the artist knew that there is no worse censor than a mother. In the palace under construction, amidst the community of artists working to bring their visions to life and whose compositions were all blended together in the Palace of All Dreams, Nebu could let his statue’s legs grow according to his spirit.
He needed to work on the sculpture lying down, for his body was still too weak to stand for long. Even in this position he was able to give the body of his sculpture the behind of his dreams, “as round as two calabashes.” When he finished the back of the woman, he noted the voluptuous reaction of the artists, and he paused. If only his colleagues could polish their language as well as they polished their materials! From his years in the Artists’ Alley, in Monlipèr’s workshop, and especially from Muluam and Ngbatu, the sculptor knew how foul a goldsmith’s language can be.
“Djo,” one of the artists said, “you still want some?”
Everyone burst out laughing.
“You haven’t had enough clit?”
“Enough pussy?”
“And we all thought the French had cut off your penis!”
“So you still have your balls?”
“Leave him alone,” a friendly voice piped up.
Dirty jokes were the only way these souls, so focused on material beauty, could have fun while they worked. It was their way of keeping their dreams alive amidst life’s garbage. A way to remember that their work aimed to make life’s ugliness bearable.
“He’s sculpting a girl to avoid masturbating,” said a miniaturist.
“What do you mean?”
“That he’s going to screw his statue?”
“God is great!”
“Have you ever heard of such a thing?”
“What?”
“A sculptor screwing his own statue.”
“Djo, djo, djo,” a voice continued, “masturbating next to his statue, that’s understandable, but screwing it…”
“He is crazy.”
The man who kept talking about “screwing his statue” was a middle-aged weaver. Was it Nebu’s lying-down position that inflamed his mind? His own rugs were more traditional, only symbols in elaborate patterns. Nebu smiled; the weaver was from the old school, Monlipèr’s school. He didn’t even bother to answer the insult.
“Another girl?” a calligrapher said in surprise. “Are you looking for bad luck?”
“Why don’t you forget about girls?”
“Haven’t they made you suffer enough?”
Some artists defended Nebu.
“Do you want him to make only animals, like you?”
“Spiders?”
“Two-headed snakes?”
“Leopards?”
“Horses?”
“Men on horseback?”
“And that’s all?”
“Leave him alone!”
Never had a community of artists been so electrified by a work of art. The painters stopped working; they stared at Nebu’s work, their mouths gaping open. The portraitists were stunned into silence. They had made hundreds of portraits of the sultan, his family, and his lineage. They had used their best techniques to depict the potential of the human body. They knew where the shadows fell and where light should be placed to give the most realistic effect. But in the presence of this sculpted woman, they suddenly measured the imperfections of their mathematical calculations. The weavers also stood speechless before Nebu’s mastery. As for the miniaturists, who could have convinced them that their figurines were still worth anything? The calligraphers, they were as dumbstruck as the scribes.
The more the statue took shape, the more faces glowed and the more tongues loosened. Each one could clearly see a woman taking shape, and not just a woman: a woman in motion. And not just a woman in motion: a woman in harmony with her silhouette, a woman whose chest hung just as it should to heighten her beauty, a woman whose behind was “as round as two calabashes”; it was the woman all Bamum men had always dreamed of. The perfection of her body awakened the desire of the artists, who all wanted to make love to her, yes, to possess her, yes, to screw her one after the other. That’s what really made them all chatter on as they stood there around her. This woman awoke the man slumbering in each of them and made them bow down at her feet, their open mouths yapping out their adoration. Only a few artists, the eldest among them, could wrest themselves from the strength of her charms. But they, too, were stupefied.
The youngest artists were simply incapable of keeping their mouths closed as they felt the hardness growing between their legs. They didn’t care that in the very heart of their chattering, Nebu was lost in the most enigmatic of silences. The men were agitated and their language smutty because they saw in Nebu’s work the creation of a master, a new master, and because this creation took hold of their bodies and unsettled them as no work of art ever had before.
“Master,” one of the miniaturists finally said. “Master.”
He was the first to renounce the trashy talk, transforming it into an exclamation. The congregation echoed him.
“Master.”
“Master.”
The cacophony converged in this one word. Nebu hadn’t even completed his creation. He still had the woman’s head to do. He spent days and weeks working on it, for he wanted it to correspond perfectly to his vision. He didn’t want to reproduce Ngungure’s face, for he assumed that the face of a woman known to be dead, whose bloody head was still present in everyone’s mind, would have chased all the artists from the palace. He didn’t want to reproduce Njapdunke’s face, because the pain of losing her was being replaced, bit by bit, by the pain of never having seen the son she had taken away. Nor did he want everyone to burst out laughing at the sight of Njapdunke’s face, since as everyone remembered, she had been Prestat’s woman.
And his mother? She was a slave. Nebu didn’t want his statue to be looked down upon. So he decided to compose a face at the intersection of the three women he loved so much, and in such different ways. The eyes he took from Ngungure because they were the eyes that had captured him, chained him up in a House of Passion. The ears he took from his mother because Bertha was the one who had truly listened to the story of his suffering from beginning to end. The mouth he took from Njapdunke because his hands still remembered its sweetness clearly. The nose he took from his mother because Bertha’s nose was as sweet as a mango, etc.
Rather than signing his artwork with Nji Mama’s name, Nebu drew a gecko eating its tail, a tattoo he had first drawn on Ngungure’s belly. With this head, the statue of the woman became so perfect, so much a woman, so precise that you could have recognized her children if she’d had any. You would have known her social status by the sway of her hips as she walked. A woman sculpted from among all the possible Bamum women, she was the woman every man hoped to see emerge from life’s monotony and walk into his courtyard. But most of all, she was the woman Nebu had never, ever stopped dreaming about.<
br />
She was his love.
When he said “done,” the sculptor heard a clamor rise up around him. The artists were applauding. Each one showed his respect. All looked at his finished work and it was as if a silent prayer dictated the movement of their eyes. They walked around the statue, shaking their heads. Some took Nebu’s hands and smiled happily. They wanted to touch the fingers that had brought such beauty to life before their eyes. When Nji Mama came to see the work that was creating such a commotion in his workshops, he could only repeat what everyone else had already said: a new master was born.
“I knew it,” he added. “I always knew it.”
Nebu had asked his master to wait for his work to be finished. He didn’t want to be distracted by the judgment of an eye he respected so much. And now it was a triumph, it was triumph itself. Nji Mama’s joy burst forth when he welcomed the new master into the ranks of those few men, that select number in Foumban who had been ennobled because of their talent and called Nji. A man of very few words, Nji Mama didn’t intone a hymn of praise, as the other artists and masters had done. His eyes alone expressed his joy, his eyes that were usually so clouded. Then his face lit up, and the master burst out laughing. The master laughed because of the excellence before his eyes. Everyone laughed with him because everyone understood that Nji Mama’s laughter translated the enchantment each one had experienced.
Even the chief architect couldn’t wait to see the eyes of his colleague Monlipèr explode at the sight of the statue of love. Everyone knew the old master would laugh as well, the laugh of a philosopher, the laugh of an old man. No one wanted to miss his words. But everyone wanted to hear his laugh echo through the workshops. Maybe he’d raise his hand and declare that Nebu’s statue was “the crowning achievement of Bamum art.” Would those words have even sufficed, would they have been accurate enough to describe what the sculptor had done? What about “the pinnacle of the creations of all the masters”?
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