18
The Enchanting Colonel’s Village Sojourn
In due time, yes, in due time! Yet, my dear history books, this is what you will never know—not even much later—and that I, novelist that I am, can now tell you without hesitation: It was in Edéa that Colonel Leclerc learned of Hitler’s suicide, more than four years before the date that you know so well. Ah, the enchanter had met his match in the forests of Edéa. Our man knew everything about forging documents and handling weapons, but he was no more than a child when faced with Bassa witchcraft. He arrived in a military vehicle, just a day after his men had flown over the village and announced his coming. He immediately demanded that the population gather in the town center. He wanted to repeat to them in person the words written on the leaflets that had flooded their courtyards. Simple words: de Gaulle, de Gaulle, and so on.
Happily the forest had been called to attention by the singing of his soldiers who came marching along behind Captain Dio.
We were in the heart of Africa
Jealous guardians of our colors,
When, under a magnificent sun
Resounded this victory cry:
Forward! Forward! Forward!
These soldiers had put themselves under Leclerc’s command in Douala, and he had told them that the path back to Fort-Lamy went through Yaoundé. That meant there would be a fight, to force out those faithful to Vichy. These tirailleurs had enough songs in their arsenal to keep them marching in time all the way to the Cameroonian capital, and enough bullets in their rifles to shoot a hole through the gut of anyone who stood in their way. They marched in formation, standing straight as arrows, stomping their bare feet on the ground and swinging their arms. Their rifles pointed up behind them, over their heads. Their chechias were as red as flames. But many here thought they looked too much like the German askaris, the only ones to have come through the region before, marching in formation and singing at the top of their lungs.
Leclerc and his men stopped in front of Mininga’s Bar. Their trek through the forest had turned them into zombies, but it was news of their arrival in the village that made time stand still. The hour of their arrival was badly chosen, however, since almost everyone was in the fields. Maybe that’s why the first villagers they met on their way in gave them a very strange impression of the place: they were the bar’s regulars, sitting in front of Mininga’s door, and even at this early hour, their eyes were bleary from the arki. The first official act of the future governor of Cameroon was to chase them away with a quick swing of his cane. Mininga, for her part, walked toward the new arrivals, thinking they were her first real customers of the day. She offered her bar’s few chairs to the white men, gave some quick orders to her serving girls, who disappeared into the back of the bar, and with a smile turned toward Colonel Leclerc, who had taken a seat.
“Welcome to Edéa,” she said with a broad wave of her arms, adding, “the most hospitable town in all of Cameroon!”
Leclerc expected no less. He quietly tapped his cane on the ground—a nervous tic.
“Where is everyone?” he asked.
Without answering, Mininga gave a discreet signal to the plantain vendor—Bring over your plantains—and winked at her girls—Serve some beer fast. Then Father Jean suddenly appeared. The only white man in the area, he had been the first to hear the news and had come running. He explained to Leclerc why “no responsible adult” had come to greet him and his men; he offered his excuses on behalf of the village and then suggested the troops set up camp in the courtyard of his church. He scowled as his eyes fell on the beer crates in Mininga’s Bar. When Nguet, preceded by her perfume, came over to serve some beer, he waved her away with disdain, sending her back behind the bar. Only the one civilian of the group, Pleven, agreed to spend the night at the church.
“What are you doing there?” the priest snapped at Pouka when he spied him among his fantastical troupe. And when Pouka left his motley group, Father Jean introduced him: “Here is a clerk from the French administration.”
He gave him a pat on the shoulder and pushed him in front of Colonel Leclerc, who sized him up.
“Step forward, Pouka. He’s an écrivain-interprète in Yaoundé,” the priest added.
It just so happened that Leclerc was in need of an interpreter. He looked him over twice. Pouka bowed his head politely.
“Welcome, boss.”
“Colonel,” Father Jean corrected, having noticed his epaulets. “He came back to visit his family. Go on, speak up, Pouka.”
But Pouka stood there silently, staring at the ground and holding his wide, multicolored cap in his hands, as if the white man were talking to someone else, as if he had suddenly stopped being the maestro and reverted to the native stereotype.
“He’s teaching French poetry to the villagers.”
The Frenchmen in the expedition exchanged glances, then turned their eyes toward Pouka. Father Jean wasn’t the sort to hold his tongue. It almost seemed as if it were he who had organized the little poetry circle. Had set up its rules and regulations. And came every morning to Mininga’s Bar to teach peasants the rules of French poetry. Then the priest asked one of the circle’s members to step forward. By chance he called on Philothée, just by chance. Ah, if Pouka had been able to choose the one who could best represent the work he’d done these past two months, he would had chosen someone else … But who? Not Philothée, in any event.
“Recite a poem,” Father Jean prompted. “One poem.”
Colonel Leclerc, who knew nothing about poetry, except for some military songs, signaled his disapproval. But as Philothée began to recite “La Marseillaise,” all his men stood at attention. The colonel, too. And then Philothée, startled by the sudden movement, started to stutter worse than ever; he lost his place, searched for it, and tried again, only to repeat the first line once more. His eyes—staring blankly, clouding over, and then staring blankly again—would have made you think he was talking to Death itself. Never had a verse taken longer, never had a song been harder to sing. Happily the boy’s voice was backed up by those of the soldiers, the whites and the tirailleurs, who supplied the words Philothée could no longer find, their voices picking up where his fell, their determination filling in for his blank stare. In the war memoirs the whites would later write, “La Marseillaise” roused the forest “as the song of the Senegalese tirailleurs had failed to do, and the people of Cameroon rose up as one to defend France.”
Alerted by the noise, the people understood something unprecedented was happening in the village. They came running from the fields and soon the courtyard was filled with their curious faces. The speech Leclerc gave was a summary in prose of the words they had heard sung from a distance. Pouka translated for him, having finally found his voice. But it failed him once again. Yes, our dear Pouka lost his French when he suddenly saw his father coming through the crowd, trembling from head to toe.
“M’bangue,” the crowd whispered, “M’bangue.”
“Now they’re all coming,” muttered Father Jean, “finally!”
Everyone there stared, hanging on M’bangue’s smallest gesture. M’bangue looked all around, as if trying to make sure everyone in the village was there. Then he slowly opened his mouth, eyes locked on Leclerc’s; the colonel had foreseen many things happening on his trek, but not that history itself would answer his call.
“Hitler committed suicide,” M’bangue said.
Father Jean gave a start.
“What?”
M’bangue repeated his words with the precision of a telegraph transmitter from the First World War. Even if he didn’t show it, Leclerc was unsettled by this Hitlerian story. Since he believed that the real war had begun on June 18, certain that France had lost only the first battle, how could he accept that it devolve into a bad farce just after his arrival in Cameroon? We know, yes, we know that this Colonel Leclerc will get to have his Second World War, oh yes! Really, that’s what he’d come to find here in the forest. From all around him he he
ard a chuckle, then another, then a cough, and a sneeze. This crowd knew the Old Man’s powers. It knew that all the chiefs of the region would gather in his courtyard to hear his predictions. Now he had come to the Frenchman, and for the first time, the village realized that age was catching up to him, blurring his vision. But let’s leave that aside for now.
19
Hunting Down the Invisible Opponent
Or rather, let’s come back to Hebga, the now-orphaned boxer. He had missed Leclerc’s entrance into Edéa, and for good reason! After his mother’s burial, Hebga had returned to the forest. His battle against his opponent had been suspended. During the funeral ceremonies, he had challenged him to meet, anytime, anyplace, but the man hadn’t shown his face. Hebga had proposed a wrestling match if necessary, but that proposal had been dead on arrival. He had shaved his hair, as tradition required, leaving just one beard-shaped tuft on the front of his head. He had shaved his eyebrows, the hair under his arms, and around his pubic area to inscribe his determination onto his body.
“The schouain!” he repeated nonstop.
And his body was covered in the sweat of his disgust. He usually sharpened his ax in the evening. He undid his pagne, folded it in quarters, and set it down beside him. He sat on the ground, with his feet around a stone on which he placed the flat head of his ax. With his right hand he moved the file across the blade, which he called its nose. He slid the file across it, gently, methodically, firmly, his ears attuned to the sound of iron on iron. Several times he held his ax up to the sky to be sure it reflected the sun’s rays. With his thumb he carefully, delicately, tested its nose, then began to sharpen it some more. His ear told him when the weapon was really sharp. Sometimes he spent an hour sharpening it, sometimes two. The next day, he’d do it all over again.
“What are you doing?” passersby would ask, as if they couldn’t see for themselves.
“I’m sharpening my ax,” he would reply simply, without pausing.
Just how long did Hebga spend sharpening his ax?
Some women noticed that he hadn’t shed any tears, but no one made an issue of it.
The forest that had opened itself up to him had also shielded the hiding place of his opponent. He couldn’t spend his life waiting for the Man who had done that. So he walked through the forest, sleeping next to a tree root or in a patch of grass. Sometimes he perched on tree branches, the better to see off into the distance, but also so he could catch his invisible opponent unawares. He had surprised naked women bathing and frolicking in the waters of the Sanaga, their carefree laughter shaking up the universe. He had managed to avoid their wrath at being discovered. His ax never left his hand. He would occasionally sharpen it by rubbing it against stones, as he did in the courtyard of his house. His body had grown hard as his nerves stayed on edge, and each time he picked up a file, his soul became as sharp as the nose of his weapon.
Edéa’s forest had never been deeper. Maybe Hebga had crossed the Man’s path several times? That was the least of his worries. He was waiting. He could have sat down under a tree, held his weapon in his hands, and waited. He could have waited forever, if that was what it took. Sometimes he heard a crackling in the branches, a dry sound. He’d jump up, fast as lightning, and find himself staring into the terrified eyes of an antelope, or he’d see a monkey flying from tree to tree. Sometimes a bird roused him with its song. Besides his ax, he had all his other weapons with him, too. He’d nock an arrow in his bow and let fly; he’d send his lance soaring, and the antelope would fall, dying before it even had a chance to move. He’d send his knife spinning through the air, and pin the porcupine to the ground. He’d shut his left eye, take aim with the sling of his ndomo ndomo, let the pebble fly, and the bird would fall in a cloud of feathers.
He’d cut up his catch, cook and eat the meat. Sometimes he grabbed yellow bananas from the bunches that hung here and there. He’d gently peel them as he walked, eating hungrily the mouthfuls his teeth cut off. He didn’t waste the sharpness of his ax nose, he was saving that for the Man who had done that. Sometimes in impatience he spit and swore at the emptiness around him.
“Come out,” he’d say, “if you are a man!”
No response, save the echo of his own voice.
“Ah,” he went on, “you know what I’m gonna do to you!”
He’d hold his ax up to the sky. Only the glint of the sun on his weapon answered his challenge. And that was all.
He begged the Man who had done that to free him. His beseeching, like his threat, was met only by silence. The silence of the forest whose cutting song spoke to him of something else, of something else.
“Are you still hiding?”
He spread his empty hands out before him, exposing his chest. What drove him crazy was that the Man who had done that had caught his mother unawares. “A mama!” He hadn’t even given her a chance to defend herself. This woman who had stood up to the white man hadn’t had the chance to speak on her own behalf! In Edéa, the marketplace gossip had turned into threatening words. People knew M’bangue had spoken of a panther, that he had said it was lurking right there, invisible. But who was this panther?
“A giant of a man,” a marabout had said.
“No, he’s rather short,” another opined.
“With fat arms.”
“Skinny feet.”
“A muscular chest.”
Hebga didn’t recognize the description of the boxer he had fought long ago, the one Pouka had told him to kill and that he had let escape. That man was rather slight, more like a clown than an athlete, if truth be told, but what did it matter? When he described him to the marabout, the seer opened his eyes wide, as if struck by a revelation.
“It’s him,” he’d say, “it’s him.”
Hebga ought to have listened to Pouka when, still a child, he had stunned him by demanding he kill the bastard. After all, the child is the eye of the future.
“I should have killed him,” he murmured. “Right in front of everybody.”
He gripped his ax tight.
“Is it someone in Edéa?” people asked.
“Or from around here?”
“That’s unclear,” the first marabout had replied.
“It’s blurry,” answered the second.
“It’s not easy to see.”
“I should have killed him,” Hebga said.
And he sharpened his ax.
The woodcutter knew that the Man who had done that was hiding in the forest. Wasn’t it there that he had disappeared after the battle that still made Hebga’s hands itch, wasn’t it in the forest that he had taken revenge on our Sita? Hebga had first headed back to the clearing where he had found his mother’s body. It was as empty as an abandoned boxing ring. He had stayed there for many days. In his head, the noise of possible fights rose up in loud, rhythmic cheers, cries from invisible mouths, applause from hands hidden in the bushes. The forest was living through a battle that wasn’t taking place. Hebga waited a long time, surrounded by those who weren’t there and by the echo of their silenced songs, in agony from the stone that choked his throat; then he set out along the pathways that stretched before him.
“If you don’t want to come out,” he had said to the emptiness, “I’ll come find you myself.”
No one believed in the panther, not even him, because the Old Man’s powers of foresight were fading, everyone agreed. They didn’t say it out loud, but people looked elsewhere. The unbelievable dreams had managed to sabotage M’bangue’s image. I’d even say—and I’m sure, dear reader, that if you know Edéa, you’ll agree with me—I’d say that it was superstition that was behind Hebga’s decision—a decision shared by others—to transform whoever had done that into a man. Hebga had tied the amulets the sorcerers had given him to his arms and underarms. They had asked him to refrain from sexual relations, but that showed they really didn’t understand the rage that possessed his body and his spirit. The need for vengeance had lodged in his flesh, in his members, all of his members
.
Rage or pain. Sometimes his spirit swelled under pressure from the stabbing pain that had taken control of his gut, his heart, his mouth, and was soon transformed into a heavy ball that moved through his body, his chest, his throat, and exploded in his head like a shot of arki, turning his eyes red. He saw our Sita there before him, as if she were still alive. She was standing in some bushes, on the far side of a river, waving at him.
“What are you doing?” she shouted.
“I want revenge for you,” he answered, “to get revenge for you, Mama.”
He told her he could find no peace because she had died so violently. He told her she could help him.
“Tell me where he’s hiding, the guy who did that.”
Our Sita turned away. She gestured toward a thicket. Hebga stood up quickly, slipping on the clay of the shore. His mother kept signaling to him. He cut down all the vines, branches, and leaves around him and, quietly, built a bridge. He stepped onto it like he was dancing, at first with hesitant steps and then with more confidence, holding tightly to two vines to keep his balance, setting off again on his endless journey. On he walked, through the air and through the water, over land. The breeze covered his body with a cloak of water, washing his face. The tree branches cut at his muscles. He made a path for himself through the undergrowth with his ax. He swung it in front of him and continued moving ahead.
“I can’t find him,” he said to the emptiness, “where is he?”
“Keep looking, my son.”
Following our Sita’s voice, he was led back to the village’s main courtyards.
When the Plums Are Ripe Page 8
