THE CLASSIC QUARTERLY, VOLUME TWO, NUMBER TWO. 1966 . PRICE 35 CENTS

FlUsSSCII AFlUlkXSS WIUTIS6I; THE CLASSIC

VOLUME TWO, NUMBER TWO, 1966

EDITOR: Barney Simon.

TRUSTEES AND EDITORIAL ADVISERS: Ian Bernhardt, Nimrod Mkele, Nadine Gordimer, Philip Stein, Dorothy Blair, Barney Simon.

THE CLASSIC IS PUBLISHED BY THE CLASSIC MAGAZINE TRUST FUND, P.O. BOX 23643, JOUBERT PARK, JOHANNESBURG. The Trust is financed mainly by Farfield Foundation, Inc., New York. Price in South Africa; 35c. Subscriptions: South Africa (four issues), R1.50; United Kingdom and Europe, 16/6; United States, $3. Writers are invited to send their manuscripts to the Editor, The Classic, P.O. Box 23643, Joubert Park, Johannesburg.

Printed for the Proprietors, The Classic Trust Fund, by Excelsior Printers (Pty.) Limited. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Works which have already appeared elsewhere are reprinted here in English translation with the following acknowledgements: To Fasquelle Editeurs (Paris) for Sarzan by Birago Diop. To Presence Africaine for Vanite by Birago Diop. To Oxford University Press for John Reed and Clive Wake’s translation of Senghor’s Nuit de Sine. To Edition Seghers for Je vous remercie mon Dieu by Bernard Dadie. To Oxford University Press (An Anthology of African and Malagasy Poetry in French, ed.: Clive Wake) for Un Jour, tu apprendras by Francis Debey. To Driss Chra'ibi for Quatre Malles. To Edition Caracteres for A Travers temps et fleuves by Tchicaya U Tam’si.

^iiifiuiiiiiiniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiniiiiiiiiiiimiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinimminiiiiiiimiiiiiiii|| I THE WORLD OF NAT NAKASA | I ^ 1 Copies are still available (40 cents, postage paid) of f § Classic, Vol. 2, No. I. ‘ The World of Nat Nakasa,’ con- 1 S taining the best of his brilliant ‘ Rand Daily Mail ’ essays H 1 and comments by William Plomer, Nadine Gordimer and 1 1 Athol Fugard. The preface by Can Themba has been § 1 removed since his banning. 1 1 Write to; § 1 Classic Magazine, § I P.O. Box 23643, | 1 Joubert Park, 1 1 Johannesburg. | CONTENTS

Whither Negritude, Dorothy Blair ...... 5

Sarzan, Birago Diop ...... 11

One Day You Will Learn, Francis Bebey .... 21

Badalos, Edouard Maroun ...... 22

Vanity, Birago Diop ...... 33

The Gramophone, Joseph Zobel...... 34

I Thank You O Lord, Bernard Dadie...... 44

Four Trunks, Driss Chra'ibi ...... 46

Across Time and Rivers, Tchicaya U Tam’si 61

African Painters in Paris, Irmalin Lebeer .... 63

Art Section

Beaufort Delaney, James Baldwin .... 68

Nult De Sine, Leopold Sidar Senghor .. 70

Book Reviews, Lionel Abrahams 72

Biographical Notes ...... |!iiiiiiim im m iitiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiim niiiiiiiiiiiiiim iiiiiiiiniiiiiiiiiiiitiiiiiiiiiniiiiiniiiiiiiiiiiininiii| I CLASSIC REGRETS I

I PRESENT RULES EXISTING, THAT WRITERS | I OF THE CALIBRE OF EZEKIEL MPHAHLELE, | I LEWIS NKOSI, CAN THEM BA, TODD MAT- | I SHAKIZA, BLOKE MODISANE, ARE ADDED TO | I THE LIST OF TALENTS THAT CAN NO LONGER | I BE READ IN THIS MAGAZINE OR COUNTRY. | I ALSO THAT WE WILL NOT READ NADINE | I GORDIMER’S ‘THE LATE BOURGEOIS WORLD,’ | I IN MANY WAYS THE MOST EXTRAORDINARY | I WORK OF A SIGNIFICANT ARTIST. | siiiiim m iiiim m iim nim iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitir; WHITHER HEGRITUDE DOROTHY S. BLAIR Guest Editor

h e awakening of indigenous literary activity in what were the T French colonial territories of West Africa dates from approximately half a century ago. There also, indirectly, Negritude was born a couple of decades later. During the first World War Africans, particularly Senegalese, troops fought side by side with French soldiers on European soil. For some like Birago Diop’s Sarzan^ this was their first contact with European “ civilization.” Others born at the turn of the century had already sat beside French children on the benches of Primary and Secondary Schools, where they had benefitted from the high standards of the French educational system. The best pupils went on with bursaries to higher studies in France, either in scientific and technical subjects, like Birago Diop who became a veterinary surgeon, or in the humanities, like L. S. Senghor the present President of the Republic of Senegal, who became a lecturer in Classics. The first writings by Africans, published in France soon after the war, were inspired by a deep regard for French as a medium of literary expression (the indigenous tongues were as yet in­ capable of anything but oral expression) together with a proud desire to preserve what was best in their own history and heritage. They were critical of European culture but not yet to the point of aggressivity. The African writers’ pride in their own past was expressed creatively in different ways: Paul Hazoume, a Dahomean schoolteacher, already the author of an important historical and ethnological study on the “ Blood Pact of Dahomey,” com­ posed the epic novel Doguicimi, exalting a proud heroine of his country’s history. Doguicimi can be considered the first major contribution to an African humanism. Birago Diop, a Senegalese, devoted his literary talents to perpetuating the oral tradition of folk-tales and fable, to which he added his personal contribution of sophisticated irony. The story Sarzan, of which we publish here the English translation, while being a-typical of the subject matter and themes of the rest of Diop’s tales, is wholly characteris­ tic of his racial and cultural attitudes. He sets out to expose the dangers of a too naive and uncritical embracing of Western European values and the rejection of traditional indigenous belief. His Sarzan, fanatically embued with his mission to “ civilize ” his native village, and root out all traditional customs as expressions of “ savagery,” loses his wits as the spirits of the ancestors take vengeance on him. Diop, as does Hazoume to a lesser extent, presents that curious mixture of European modernism and African tradi­ tionalism, characteristic of their generation of writers. Using the French language with consummate professionalism, they infuse into it the personal rhythms and poetic imagery born of Africa; having accepted the best of Western education, and sometimes reaching the top in a scientific or academic field, they maintain a deep respect for the rites, worships and beliefs of their fore­ fathers. The problems posed for the African, at the crossroads of two cultures, were stated directly in a steady stream of novels, mostly with a broad autobiographical basis. Some of these are motivated by a polemical intention—to state the position of the Black man as the victim either of colonialism or of capitalism. Others, of which the best are possibly Camara Laye’s “ Black Child ” and Cheikh Hamidou Kane’s “ Ambiguous Adventure ” (Paris 1961, recently translated into English and published by Mbari Press) include both a movingly authentic account of a traditional African childhood and the anguish of the African, drawn to the West, but finding himself an eternal alien. Meanwhile, in the ’30’s, a group of West African and West Indian students in Paris were sinking their differences of geo­ graphic and perhaps ethnological origin in the unity of their common colour. The word “ Nigritude ” was coined and the revue “ The Black Student ” was founded to give expression to a new literary doctrine and as the organ for the creative writings produced. The promotors of negritude were Senghor from Senegal and Aime Cesaire from Martinique. They and their disciples expressed deep faith in the destiny of Africa. They wrote much poetry exalting the values of “ blackness,” both as the external characteristic of a man most easily perceived, and the symbol most easily exploited of a social and anthropological situation; Black vis-a-vis White. As the numbers of black writers increased, so did their interpretations of nigritude. Sartre has defined it as “ the Annun- ciation of quintessential blackness.” Thomas Malone states in 1962 of the thirty-year-old phenomenon: “ Negritude supplies an answer to the negro world in its anguished search for its own image ” and “ Negritude can be summarily defined as the message of a race,” or again “ Negritude is the language of the Negro- African consciousness.” In theory, Negritude in literature could amount to nothing more than a deliberate use of Negro-African themes imagery and inspirations—with the rejection of white as the traditional, European-accepted symbol of light, purity and beauty. In practice, in the hands of its most vehement exponents, it became a political war-cry, the expression of the demand for liberation of a race dominated by other races. At its best, for example in Senghor’s poetry, it is not so much racialistic as cultural and artistic: his style, his imagery, his rhythms as well as his themes being purely African in origin. As we progress towards the last quarter of the decade, some thirty years after the birth of Negritude, definitions, analyses, colloquia and conferences on this literary and political pheno­ menon abound. But is the literary movement as such still alive? Polemical writing in itself has a self-destructive element. Unless it has inherent, vital, original literary qualities it cannot survive the amelioration of the social and political evils that gave it birth. With most of Black Africa having achieved independent status, the need to express political demands through a literary doctrine of commitment has waned. A few writers of lesser talent flog the moribund steed in its now failing course. Tlie truly creative writers of inspiration and originality seem now to belong to two schools. There are those who, like the poet Tchicaya U Tam’si and the novelists Hamidou Kane and Camara Laye, who only acci­ dentally betray their African origins, just as an Australian writer of English will unconsciously reveal a different set of memories and personal impressions from a writer reared in Britain. These express their negritude as it were like M. Jourdain speaks prose, without realising it. Then there are the writers, often, but not exclusively, of the older generation, who still express consciously their differences of culture, colour and race, but who now claim to speak in the name of a common humanity and not purely for the black people alone. This wider concept of negritude—the belief that African culture has an universal value and can contribute to world civilization—is the subject of an important publication by Senghor Negritude et Humanisme (Paris 1964) in which he states: “ Negritude is . . . the sum of cultural values of the Black world, as these are expressed in the life, the institutions and the work of Negroes .... Our sole preoccupation since 1932-1934 has been to assume this negritude by living it and, having lived it, to seek for its deeper meaning, to present it to the world as the cornerstone in the construction of the ‘ Civilization of the Universal,’ which will either be the work of all races, or will never exist at all . . . . “ In this respect, this open negritude is an humanism. It has enriched European civilization and has been enriched by it. Humanism, in this twentieth century of ‘ panhuman conver­ gence,’ consists of nothing but this intercourse of heart and mind, in this ‘ give and take In this respect Senghor, claiming Negritude as the new humanism, indicating the important contribution that Africa has to offer to the sum total of twentieth century cultural values, is still the leader of the movement. If it is true that negritude began as the expression of a racial inferiority complex, developing into a war-cry and an instrument of political liberation, it has now clearly passed from the stage of self-affirmation to that of self-confirmation. We illustrate different aspects of this evolution in the works that we present here in translation. Birago Diop’s Sarzan is, as we have already noted, a con­ scious statement of the values of traditional beliefs. But it is not the theme that gives the real interest to the tale, but Diop’s art as a short-story writer, which is evident even in translation. His French is economical, clear and unselfconscious, but redolent of Africa, tinged with a natural exoticism. And as with all genuine African tellers of tales, the border-line is faint and often imper­ ceptible, between prose and poetry. If Diop needs only a brief introduction to English-speaking readers, because of the obvious literary merits of his writing, the case is somewhat different for his young compatriot, Edouard Maroun. Maroun, who works as a clerk in a government agricul­ tural department, is obviously not an experienced writer. His style is often laboured and clumsy, particularly in descriptive passages, where in striving after effects he achieves such literary mon­ strosities as the “ olfactory sensation emanating from the earth impregnated by the nocturnal shower.” As if proud of his erudition in an European language he has mastered but imper­ fectly absorbed, he puts words like ‘ supererogatory ’ and ‘ magma ’ into the mouths of his simple peasants. Nevertheless, in spite of these defects, his story Badolos makes an interesting pendant to Diop’s Sarzan. Maroun gives a sincere and sensitive thumb-nail sketch of the life-long hardships and meagre joys that are the lot of the poor Senegalese peasant. He touches too. though lightly, on the age-old conflict between two generations, the one wedded to the old traditions, beliefs and ‘ superstitions ’ and the other, succumbing to the demands of a new technology, seeing its responsibility to make up the leeway in technical development of the backward continent. This simple story is set against the backdrop of the coming of Independence, which unites the two generations by the new hopes it brings. Yet basically this story is not an affirmation of the themes of negritude, but a statement of universal values and emotions. In spite of its obvious faults of style, we have thought it worth including here, both as an illustration of Senghor’s conception of the new African Humanism, and as an encouragement to other young, inex­ perienced African writers. The two other stories presented take us into quite different realms of geography and literature. In “ The Gramophone ” Joseph Zobel from the West Indies (where French Negro litera­ ture was born some generations before its African counterpart) tells a comic, realistic tale of life in a West Indian village in the period between the wars. For his economy of effects, from the incisive opening to the ironic climax, Zobel shows himself the inheritor of the literary tradition of Guy de Maupassant, the master of the French short story. Driss Chraibi, from Morocco, brings us ironic humour too, combined with a nice line in vividly observed portraiture (note particularly his customs officer, his ships’ captain, and Jojo the cafe keeper). But in his “ Four Trunks ” we have a new in­ gredient mixed with the perspicacious realism: there is here a deep symbolism, a mysticism penetrating the situation (basically again the confrontation of Africa and Europe, African innocence and French sophistication) that brings us into the domain of the myth. Let us make no mistake about it: this is not a picture of the simple savage at the mercy of a superior civilization. Disarmingly naive as is Chraibi’s Coulibaly from the Ivory Coast, he symbo­ lizes the indefinable spiritual qualities that belong uniquely to Africa, and as in Diop’s “ Sarzan,” defy the “ civilizing ” in­ fluences of Western culture. The poetry should need no commentary, for poetry that is not self-explanatory is nothing. The biographical notes will show to which generation each of the poets belongs, ranging from Diop, through Dadie and Bebey to U Tam’si. The most interesting is undoubtedly the young Gerald Tchicaya U Tam’si, although the short extract given here from his “ Bush Fires ” hardly does him justice. His poetry almost defies translation, as his highly nuanced imagery and symbolism and his subtle rhythms do not transpose satisfactorily from the original French. His poetic heritage embraces the symbolism of Rimbaud as well as the surrealism of Paul Eluard and Aime Cesaire. There is often an angry cynicism in his use of symbols, particularly those that signify suffering, betrayal and passion. A prolific writer, he is considered the most significant poet to have come out of Africa since Senghor. Lastly, because it is the tradition of CLASSIC to include articles on art, we present here, with examples of their work, some of the African artists, mostly from French-speaking territories, who are making their mark in Paris, and contributing to France-African culture. SARZAN BIRAGO DIOP {Translated by Dorothy S. Blair)

u in s lay piled up indistinguishable from ant-heaps, and R only an ostrich egg-shell stuck on the point of a stake, cracked and yellowed from exposure to the weather, still indicated the site of the mirab, the mosque built by El Hadj Omar’s warriors. The Toucouleur conqueror had cut off the long hair and shaven the heads of the fathers of those who are now the elders of the village. He had cut off the heads of all those who would not submit to the law of the Koran. The elders of the village now wear their hair long once more. The sacred wood that the fanatical talibes^ burnt down long ago, has grown again and once more shelters the ritual vessels, blanched with millet porridge, or stained brown with the clotted blood of the sacrificial dogs and chickens. Like branches felled by a chance blow from the flail, like ripe fruit falling from sap-filled boughs, whole families had left Dougouba. The young men left to seek work at Segou, at Bamako, at Kayes, at Dakar; others went off to plough the groundnut fields of Senegal, only to return when the harvest was done and there was an end of the trading. All knew that the roots of their life were in Dougouba, which had now wiped out all trace of the Islamic hordes and resumed the teachings of its ancestors. One child of Dougouba had gone further afield and stayed longer away than the others: he was Thiemokho Keita. From Dougouba he had gone to the district headquarters, from there to Kati, from Kati to Dakar, from Dakar to Casa­ blanca, from Casablanca to Frejus, and thence to Damascus. Having left the Sudan as a private Thiemokho Keita had trained

1. Talibes: devout disciples of a “ Marabout ” or Moslem dignitary, who e,\ercises a great influence over the community. in Senegal, fought in Morocco, mounted guard in France and patrolled in Lebanon. With the rank of sergeant he travelled back with me to Dougouba. During my rounds in this district, which is in the heart of Senegal, I had found Keita in the Administrator’s office; he had just been demobilised and wanted to enlist in the corps of local guards or of interpreters. “ No,” the District Admini­ strator had said to him. “ You will be of greater service to the administration by going back to your village. You have travelled much and seen many things, you must teach the others some­ thing of how the white people live. You must ‘ civilize ’ them a bit. Look,” he went on, turning to me, “ as you are going that way, take Keita with you; you will save him some time and spare him a tiring journey. It’s twenty years since he left his hole.” And so we set off. In the van, in which he and I shared the front seat with the driver, while the relief driver, the local guard, cooks and male nurses were piled in the back with the field kitchen, the camp-bed and the crates of vaccine and serum. Sergeant Keita told me of his life as a soldier, both in the ranks and later when he got his stripes; he told me about the Riff war, from the point of view of a black rifleman; he told me about Marseilles, Toulon, Frejus, Beyrout. He did not seem to see the corrugated road, made with cut branches covered with a layer of clay, which stretched out in front of us in the torrid heat, and which in the extreme drought turned to a fine greasy dust, plastering our faces like a yellow mask, grating between our teeth, hiding in our wake the dog­ faced baboons and the frightened leaping buck. He seemed to see, in the chalky panting mist, the minarets of Fez, the teeming crowds of Marseilles, the tall dwellings of France, the impossible blue of the sea.

By mid-day we had reached the village of Madougou; the marked road finished here, so we took ponies and bearers so as to reach Dougouba by nightfall. “ When you come back this way again,” Keita said, “ you will be able to get as far as Dougouba by car, for from tomorrow I am going to get them to work on the road.” The muffled beating of a tom-tom announced the approach to the village; then the grey mass of the huts could be seen, topped by the darker grey of three palm-trees against the light grey of the sky. The tom-toms thrummed on three notes now, accompanying the shrill voice of a flute. The tops of the palm trees were licked by gleams of light. We had reached Dougouba. I dismounted first and asked for the village chief, saying: “ Dougou-tigui (village chief), here is your son. Sergeant Keita.” Thiemokho K6ita leapt from his horse. As if the noise of his shoes on the ground had been a signal, the tom-toms ceased and the flutes were silent. The old chief took Keita’s two hands, while other old men touched his arms, his shoulders and his medals. Old women gathered and knelt down to touch his puttees; and on the grey faces tears shone among the wrinkles, criss-crossed by scars, and all said: “ Keita! Keita! Keita!” “ Those people,” quavered the old chief at last, “ those people who led your steps back to your village this day, are kind and good.” It was in fact a day that was different from other days in Dougouba. It was the day of Koteba, the day of Testing. The tom-tom had resumed its thrumming, pierced by the shrill note of the flute. The women, children and grown men formed a circle within which the young men, naked to the waist, moved round to the rhythm of the tom-tom, holding long stripped wands of the balazon tree. In the centre of the moving circle crouched the flute player, with elbows and knees on the ground, keeping up the same three notes. A youth had just taken up his position, standing over him with his legs apart, his arms out­ stretched, like a cross, and as each of the others passed him their whips swished down; the blows fell across his shoulders leaving a weal as thick as a thumb, sometimes breaking the skin. The shrill voice of the flute was raised a tone, the tom-toms became more muffled, the whips swished, the blood flowed. On the black-brown skin was reflected the gleam of the burning branches and the dried millet-stalks, whose flames mounted to the tops of the palm-trees, groaning faintly in the light breeze. Kotebal The test of endurance, the test of insensibility to pain. The child who cries when he hursts himself is still only a child; the child who weeps when others hurt him will never make a man. Koteba! Offer your back, receive the blow, turn around and give it back. Koteba] “ They still behave like savages! ” I turned round; it was Sergeant Keita who had just joined me at the tom-tom. Behaviour of savages? This test which made them, among other things, tough men, hardened men! Which had enabled the elders of these young men to march for days on end with enormous loads on their heads; which had enabled Thiemokho Keita and those like him, to fight valiantly in that far country, under the grey skies where the sun itself is often sick, to labour with knapsack on back, to endure cold, thirst and hunger. Behaviour of savages? Perhaps so. But I thought that elsewhere in our land we had given up the first initiation, except for young conscripts; the “ men’s h u t” no longer existed, in which the body, the mind and the character were tempered; where the passines (riddles with double meanings) were implanted in the mind by means of blows on the back or the fingers and the kassaks (the memory-training songs) whose words come back to us from dark nights, were burnt into our brains by means of red-hot coals that scorched the palms of our hands. I thought that perhaps we might have gained nothing by so doing, and that maybe we had gone too far in the wrong direction. The tom-tom was still thrumming in time with the shrill voice of the flute. The fires died down and sprang up again. I went back to the hut that had been prepared for me. Mingled with the thick smell of the banco^ there floated a more subtle smell, that of the dead. There were three of them, indicated by horns fixed to the wall at the height of a man. For in Dougouba the cemetery had also disappeared and the dead continued to live with the living; they were buried in the huts. The sun was already hot, but Dougouba was still asleep, drunk with fatigue and dolo^, when I started on my way back. “ Good bye,” said Keita, “ when you come back this way again the road will be made. That’s a promise.” « ♦ * Work in other sectors and other districts prevented me from returning to Dougouba for a year. * * * It was the end of the afternoon of a sultry day, the air was like a thick mass through which we cut our way with difficulty. Sergeant Keita had kept his word; the road went as far as Dougouba. At the noise of the car, as in all villages, a swarm of

1. Banco: clay neaded with chopped rotten straw which becomes water­ proof when dry. 2. Dolo: millet bwr. naked children, their bodies grey-white with dust, appeared at the side of the road, followed by russet-coloured dogs, with docked ears and protruding ribs. In the midst of the children stood a man who gesticulated and waved a cow’s tail attached to his right wrist. When the car stopped I saw that it was Sergeant Thiemokho Keita, surrounded by children and dogs. Under his now faded army jacket, which had lost its buttons and stripes, he wore a boubou^ and breeches made of strips of yellowish-brown cotton, as did the other elders of the village. The breeches reached his knees and were held in place by string. He still had his puttees, which were in rags. He was bare-foot and wore his peaked army cap. I held out my hand and said: “ Keita! ” The children scattered, like a swarm of millet-eating spar­ rows, chirping, “ Ayi\ (No! No!)” Theimokho Keita did not take my hand. He looked at me, but without seeming to see me. His gaze was so distant that I could not help turning round to see what his eyes were staring at, through mine. Suddenly waving his cow’s tail, he began to shout in a hoarse voice: “ Listen more often To things than to creatures, The voice o f the fire can be heard. Listen to the voice o f the water. Listen to the wind. To the sobbing o f the bushes: 'Tis the breath o f the ancestors." “ He’s completely/a/o (mad),” said my driver, whom I bade be silent. Sergeant Keita still shouted: “ Those who have died have not departed They are in the shadow that lightens They are in the shadow that deepens. The dead are not beneath the ground They are in the tree that quivers. They are in the moaning forest. They are in the flowing water. They are in the sleeping water, They are in the dwelling, they are in the crowd The dead are not dead.

Boubou: a full Gotten garment; draping the whole figure, worn by men and women in West Africa. Listen more often To things than to creatures. Listen to the voice of the water. Listen to the wind To the sobbing of the bushes: 'Tis the breath o f the ancestors. The breath of the dead ancestors Who have not departed. Who are not beneath the ground. Who are not dead. Those who have died have never departed. They are in the breasts of a woman. They are in the wailing infant And in the freshly blazing firebrand. The dead are not beneath the ground. They are in the dying embers. They are in the echoing rock-face. They are in the weeping grasses. They are in the forest, they are in the dwelling. The dead are not dead. Listen more often To things than to creatures. The voice of fire can be heard. Listen to the voice of the water. Listen to the wind To the sobbing o f the bushes: ’Tis the breath o f the ancestors. It repeats each day the pact. The great pact which binds. Which binds our fate to the law; To the acts of the strongest breaths The fate of our dead who are not dead; The heavy pact that links us to life. The heavy law that binds us to the acts Of the breaths that die. On the banks and in the river-bed. Breaths that move In the rock that groans, in the grass that weeps. Breaths which dwell In the shadow that lightens, in the shadow grown longer 16 In the tree that groans, in the wood that moans. In the water that runs and the water that sleeps. Breaths that are stronger. Breaths which have taken The breath of the dead who are not dead. O f the dead who have not departed. Of the dead who are not underground. Listen more often To things than to creatures . . . . ” The children returned to surround the old village chief and his headmen. After the customary greetings I asked them what had happened to Sergeant Keita. “ Ayi\ Ayi\ " said the old man. “ Ayi\ Ayi\ ” squeaked the children. “ No, not Keita!” said the old father. “ Sarzan! just Sarzan! (Sergeant). One must not anger those who have de­ parted. Sarzan is no longer a Keita. The dead and the spirits have avenged themselves for his insults.”

It had begun the very next day after his arrival, the very day of my departure from Dougouba. Sergeant Thiemokho Keita had tried to prevent his father from sacrificing a white chicken to the shades of his ancestors, to thank them for having brought him back safe and sound. He had declared that if he had returned it was simply because he had to return, and the ancestors had had nothing to do with it. “ Leave the dead in peace,” he had said; “ they can do nothing more for the living.” The old village chief had insisted and the chicken had been sacrificed. At the ploughing season Thiemokho had thought it useless and even stupid to kill black chickens and to sprinkle their blood in one corner of the fields. “ Work is all one needs,” he had said, “ and the rain will fall if it is to fall. The millet, maize, ground­ nuts, sweet-potatoes and beans will grow by themselves and will grow all the better if you use the ploughs that the district com­ mandant has sent.” He cut down and burnt the branches of the Dassiri, the sacred tree that protected the village and the plough­ lands, and at whose foot dogs had been sacrificed. On the day when young boys were circumcised and the little girls excised Sergeant Keita had leapt upon the Gangourang (the master of the children) as he danced and sang. He had snatched away the bundle of porcupine quills and the net that veiled his body. From Mama Djomba, the master of the girls, he had torn off the cone of yellow stuff that he wore, surmounted by a tuft of magic charms and ribbons. Sergeant Keita had declared that this was the “ behaviour of savages ”—and yet he had seen the Carnaval at Nice with its hilarious or terrifying masks. Of course it is true that the White men wore their masks simply to amuse people and not to teach their children the rudiments of the wisdom of the ancestors. Sergeant Keita had taken down the little bag hanging in his hut, which contained the Nyana-boli, the Spirit of old Keita’s family, and had thrown it out into the courtyard, where the hungry dogs were about to snatch it from the little children just as the old chief arrived. One morning he had gone into the sacred wood and had broken the vessels containing millet porridge and sour milk. He had overturned the statuettes and the forked stakes to which hens’ feathers were stuck with clotted blood. “ The behaviour of savages,” he had decreed. Yet Sergeant Keita had been into churches, he had seen statuettes of the Holy Virgin, with candles burning before them. It is true that those statuettes were covered with gilding and bright colours, blues, reds and yellows, and were certainly more beautiful than the blackened dwarfs with long arms and short, bandy legs, carved out of mahogany or ebony, which peopled the sacred wood. The District Administrator had said, “ You must ‘ civilize ’ them a bit,” and Sergeant Thiemokho Keita was going to “ civi­ lize ” his people. They must break with tradition, kill the beliefs on which the life of the village had always rested and which were the basis of family life and people’s actions. Superstition had to be rooted out. The behaviour of savages, such was the harsh treatment inflicted on the young circumcised boys in order to open their minds and train their characters, and teach them that nowhere, at any time of their lives, could they, must they be alone. The behaviour of savages, the Koteha, which forges true men, on whom pain can have no hold .... The behaviour of savages, the sacrifices, blood offered to the ancestors and to the earth .... The behaviour of savages, the millet porridge and the curdled milk offered to the wandering spirits and the protecting genii .... That is what Sergeant Keita had said in the shade of the palaver-tree to the young men and the elders of the village.

It was at the approach of twilight that Sergeant Thiemokho Keita lost his wits. Leaning against the palaver-tree he talked and talked—against the witch-doctor who had sacrificed dogs that very morning, against the elders who did not want to listen to him, against the young men who still listened to the elders. He was still talking when he felt something like a sting on his left shoulder and he turned around. When he looked at his audience again his eyes had a peculiar look in them. A white froth ap­ peared at the corners of his lips. He spoke and the words that his mouth uttered were no longer the same. The ghosts had taken his wits and now they were crying out their fears. “ Black night \ Black night I ” he cried at nightfall, and women and children trembled in the huts. “ Black night! Black night! ” he shouted at daybreak. “ Black night I Black nightl” he screamed at high noon. Night and day he talked and shouted and sang with the voices of the spirits and the genii and the ancestors ...... It was not till dawn that I was able to doze off in the hut where the dead dwelt, and the whole night through I heard Sergeant Keita coming and going, screaming, singing, weeping, In the dim and darkened wood Tu-whit, tu-whoo hoot the hunting horns To the frenzied beat of the tom-toms damned Black night! Black night! The milk has soured In the hanging gourds The porridge grown hard In the pots And in the huts Fear goes by, and again goes by. Black night! Black night! The torches are lit And cast on the air Their bodiless beam Without flash, without gleam; The torches smoke. Black night! Black night! The spirits roam. Surprised, they moan Murmuring long-forgotten words. Shuddering, trembling words they groan. Black night\ Black night] From the cold bodies o f the birds From the still-warm, moving corpse No drop has flowed O f blood that is black, o f blood that is red, Black night! Black night! Tu-whit, tu-whoo hoot the hunting horns To the frenzied beat of the tom-toms damned. Fearfully the orphan stream Weeps as it calls to appear again The folk who have vanished from its shores To wander without aim, to wander in vain. Black night] Black night] And in the savannah that has no soul Deserted by the ancients' ghosts Tu-whit, tu-whoo hoot the hunting horns To the frenzied beat of the tom-toms damned. Black night! Black night! The troubled trees Whose sap congeals In the trunks and in the leaves Can no longer pray To the elders of days gone by. Black night! Black night! In the hut where fear goes by In the air where the torch goes out On the river bereft of kin In the forest soul-less weary Under the troubled pallid trees In the dim and darkened woods Tu-whit, tu-whoo hoot the hunting horns To the frenzied beat of the tom-toms damned. Black night! Black night!

No-one dared to call him by his own name any more, for the spirits and the ancestors had made another man of him. Thie- mokho Keita had departed as far as the village was concerned, and there only remained Sarzan, Sarzan-the-Madman. ONE DAY, YOU WILL LEARN FRANCIS BEBEY (Translated by Dorothy Blair) To Marcel Bebey-eyidi, jr.

One day, you will learn That your skin is black, and your teeth white. And the palms of your hands are white. And your tongue is pink And your hair as frizzy As the liana creepers in the virgin forest. Say nothing. But if one day you learn That you have red blood in your veins. Then laugh aloud. Clap your hands together. Show yourself wild with joy At this unexpected news. Then, when this moment of feigned gaity has passed. Resume your serious air And ask around you: “ Red blood in my veins. Is that enough to make you believe That I am a man? My father’s goat it too Has red blood in its veins.” And then tell them you couldn’t care less. For, you see, they have understood nothing Of the farce of creation which gave Red blood to animal and to man. But completely forgot to give A man’s head to your father’s goat. Live and labour. Then you will be a man. BADOLOS EDOUARD MAROUN {Translated by Dorothy Blair)

h e sun, emerging from behind the tops of the cashew-trees T that lined the village cemetary, seemed to stop short a moment as if to look for the path it was to take, then, boring through the foliage with its rubescent darts, it continued its slow and inevitable progress, while the clouds reverently effaced themselves before its age-old appearance. Mor Sail shivered .... The fire has gone out some two hours ago; he had not even noticed .... With his bony, trembling hand, streaked with tiny veins, he pulled up the ragged pagne^ that covered him, and shivered again .... Always this cold. This icy cold that insinuated itself into his bones, paralysing him, congealing his very marrow, this passing cold that would soon give way to that other, final state—death! He had felt his presence . . . indeed he had seen him .... Now he wore the features of a comely creature, who stretched out two arms, persuasively; now he appeared in his true guise: a foul, dishevelled, ragged harpy, who stared at him with two sea- green eyes .... Death! ! ! He struggled to breath . . . weary . . . the pain, diminished by four unbroken hours of sleep, had worsened again, more throbbing, more oppressive . . . he pressed both hands on his diaphragm, coughed, coughed, coughed fit to split his sternum, and spat.

1. Badolo: a local Senegalese term for a poor peasant. 2. Pagne: a length of woven material, usually worn about the body, from the waist to the knees. It was if he had just spat out a little of his life...... Sixty-five years old .... He could not expect to get better at that age . . . . If he had been thirty years younger, he would certainly have beaten this sickness .... Thirty! The best years of one’s life! the time of the fullness, of his strength and his manliness . . . the time when it was said, of him: “ That one, he’s a diambar^ ”... and a diamhar he cer-. tainly was .... Had he not thrown all the young men of his village and the surrounding district, during the wrestling contests that preceded the ground-nut harvesting? And had not his crops always been the finest, the most profitable? They had feted him, fawned upon him .... And Absa, his wife, when she rubbed him down on his return from the fields, gazed fondly at him with looks in which love disputed with admiration .... ABSA! .... She had preceded him now by ten years into this earth to which they had been so deeply attached. She had faded away, as she had appeared: a small and humble creature, but magnificent in her devotion and proud in the love that she had borne him .... Since then, everything had suddenly seemed to Mor Sail terribly empty . . . insipid . . . . Ten years . . . ten years, during which the image of Absa had not become blurred in his memory for one moment .... How long it had seemed .... A faltering finger tapped timidly on the door made of planks nailed clumsily together. He did not reply but cleared his throat and spat again . . . and with it went another shred of his life . . .. “ Father, it’s Abdou.” “ Abdou, bismillah?" “ Father, what sort of a night have you had? ” “ Al hamdoulilaye^, my child .... Tell me, Abdou, this cold, is it really cold outside? . . . or is i t . . . .”

1. Diamhar: a champion. 2. Bismillah: a polite formula, equivalent to “ Come in! ’ 3. Al hamdoulilaye: The Lord be praised! “ This cold? .... What cold are you talking about, father? ” Mor Sail turned over on his couch and panting with pain murmured to himself: “ Ah yes! That’s what I thought . . . in mid-August .... This cold—I was sure—it’s his icy fingers already on my brow . . . his thousand-century old finger . . . his bloodless, fetid finger . . . I know . . . I know, I have been marked out.’’ He raised his voice and said to his son: “ Abdou, I think I am going to die at last.” “ Father, don’t say that.” This time Mor Sail nearly shouted: “ What do you want me to say?. . .. That I’m getting better? .... That I’m fine?. . . that . . . that . . . .” He was seized by a fit of coughing which shook him merci­ lessly. It did indeed ring like a death-knell. “ Besides,” he went on, wiping his lips with the back of his hand. “ besides . . . didn't you hear last night? .... A khar- guedj'^ come and grumbled for three quarters of an hour on the dim'h- of my millet field .... The khar-guedj never makes a mistake .... You remember the late Malick Diop, well, the night before he died . . . .” “ Oh, father, you still believe in those stupid superstitions! ” “ Supersititions? .... Oh no, (he sneered) . . . of course, you young folk, who think you’ve got to be emancipated, you snap your fingers at all these little things that nevertheless are good or bad omens . . . nevertheless . . . you’re not going to tell me that you didn’t hear the crow this morning! ” “ The crow? What crow?” “ The crow . . . the crow which . . . the cr . . . . Kakh . . . kakh . . . .” He bent double . . . and this time the fit of coughing lasted a good two minutes; when he raised his head, a little pink foam outlined his lips which were already as pale as the death which filtered in: a thousand-footed monster, whose every tentacle clutched at him, burrowed, sucked . . . slowly, ine.xorably. “ Father,” Abdou called softly.

KUar-guedj: a kind of great horned owl, whose cry, resembling a grumbling human voice, is said to portend death. Dim'b: a large tree (bot.: Cordyla pinnata) found in abundance in the Saloum region of Senegal, where this story takes place. He turned his head towards his son and tried to give him a reassuring look, but only succeeded in grimacing with pain. “ Father,” repeated Abdou, stretching out both his hands. “ Enough, Abdou, don’t carry on so! . . . . You see,” he went on, with a note of triumph in his voice, “ you see your disbelief about the khar-guedj was only on the surface .... If you think that I’m going to get better . . . tell me . . . if you think that I’m going to recover . . . why . . . then why these tears? ” He half raised himself and for a moment held Abdou's head and repeated: “ Son of Absa, I am going to die . . . .” Then, falling back on his couch, he went on, as if talking to himself: “ lam going where we must all go . . . 1 am going to leave this land of fatigue and anguish, of care and suffering .... Son of Absa . . . 1 am going to join your mother .... If 1 did not know that you are human, I should say to you: Leave off this air of commiseration and rejoice . . . rejoice that your father is finally going to escape from this cave of tears and enjoy some rest . . . a rest that is absolute and unequalled save in everlasting time, and to which he had aspired all his life through . . . in vain. But I know that you are such that it is useless to ask you to promise . . . to make promises that you could never keep .... I should like, and you know this, to be laid to rest beside Absa . . . and that no mourner, no ceremony accompany me . . . . All I shall need will be forty-one sourat al kh'lass^ to shorten my death-throes . . . for they are said to be terrifying . . . Abdou . . . terrifying . . . .” He stared for a moment into the penumbra of the hut, then looked again into his son’s eyes, as if returning to more objective reality: “ Abdou, 1 should like to ask you a favour,” his eyes shone with desire .... “ Abdou, I should like you to take my mat out under the mango-tree, and to carry me out there and sit me up . . . and then go . . . go off to the fields without bothering about me any more . . . It rained last night, I have the impres­ sion?” “ Oh, hardly at all, father, a drizzle at the most . . .” Mor Sail’s eyes lit up with happiness, which quickly gave way to sadness: “ It seems we shall have good rains this season . . . I have already glimpsed the young shoots. . . have you seen? . . . have you seen the promising green? . . . .” “ Yes, father, that’s one of the advantages of the fertiliser . . . .” “ All right! call it your fertiliser . . . but tell me . . . without the rain . . . your

1. Sourat al kh'lass: The prayer said at the bedside of the dying, to shorten the pangs of death. fertiliser . . —he flicked the nail of his right thumb against his upper incisors^—“ you could go and make bricks with it.” He smiled mischievously and scratched his beard, from which a rain of dandruff fell .... “ In the memory of a Saloum-saloum- peasant, never have such strong young shoots been seen . . . Bilaye^, the sap which runs through their stems is divine. Abdou, for pity’s sake, carry me out to the fields . . . .” “ Father, you are ill . . . you have not set foot outside for a month . . . I’m frightened that this sudden change . . . .” “ Son of Absa, I wish to see the fields.” His tone was peremptory, but quickly softened and, crescendo, became suppliant. “ Please, grant me this appeal, as one of my last requests . . . if not the last,” he added with a mutter ....

Against the royal-blue backdrop of the sky, flecked only with a few scanty cumulus, the purple foliage at the top of the mango-trees blended so well with the yellow-gold reflections of the dazzling sunlight, that it would have been difficult to imagine the one without the other. In the upper branches of one of the thickest mango-trees a pair of turtle-doves cooed their love-song. Raising his head, Mor Sail could make them out quite distinctly: the female, sitting in the nest that she had lovingly prepared, patiently awaiting the finest miracle, the arrival of her little ones .... The male, perched some way off, preening him­ self . . . indifferent, arrogant. “ Absa and Mor Sail,” he surprised himself, thinking aloud. And as if this memory was decidedly too painful, he turned to look again at the sea of emerald, which stretched for several acres before him .... A cool but pleasant breeze rippled the surface imperceptibly. Never, oh, never indeed, had a sight seemed as wonderful to him as that offered by a field of ground-nuts, never had an olfactory sensation seemed as delightful to him as that emanating from the earth impregnated by the nocturnal shower .... Magnificent copulation . . . divine coition .... He crumbled a little sand in the palm of his hand and sniffed it long . . . with pleasure . . . religiously ....

1. A traditional gesture to indicate “ nothing.” 2. Saloum-saloum: familiar expression for an inhabitant of Saloum. 3. Bilaye: by God's will. Over yonder, beyond what had been Absa’s field, there sprawled stunted bushes of n'guer and rat/h There as an adolescent he had trailed the mischievous francolin, had run it down, cut off its head, and brought it home in triumph, amidst the squeaks of his young nephews, with their rachitic legs and swollen bellies, who slavered with delight at the sight of fresh meat, at this season of the year, when bare subsistence was an almost insoluble problem. And on this side was his own field! He had cleared it this year with so much zeal . . . so much attack, just like every time that he settled down to the work in the fields .... Not a stump remained standing . . . not a bush, not a weed. He had just started husking the seed that was to be sown, while waiting for the rains . . . when this cunning sickness

In the middle of this field stood the ancestral baobab . . . between its buttresses, Absa used every morning to place his breakfast and the morning’s supply of water .... Breakfast? .... Gut-bilge at the best, that sort of millet- gruel to which she would add, according to available supplies, tamarind-juice, palm-oil . . . or simply salt . . . for sugar there was none . . . and no money to buy any .... Nevertheless he used to swallow the whole contents of the bowl without turning a hair, in spite of the unpalatable appearance of the stuff .... And what else could one do, when one’s innards rumbled reprovingly with hunger? .... “ Dieredieuf Sall.”^ She always greeted him in this way, whilst he did not even look up to grunt a reply. That was his way .... Although he loved her, he had never expressed his feelings openly, in order that, according to an axiom dear to his father, “ woman shall respect you more than she loves you.” Only under these conditions could conjugal love survive. The sokh-sokh^ pulled and pushed by an indefatigable hand, went indefatigably to and fro, slipping in between the young shoots, ferretting about in search of weeds.

N'guer: (Bot.; Cuierra Senegalensis); ratt: (hot.: Combrelum gliitino- sum) shrubs which grow profusely in Saloum. Dieredieuf: literally, “ thank you.” According to Senegalese tradition, it is good manners to thank a worker, before engaging him in conversa­ tion. Sokh-sokh: An agricultural instrument, with a very short handle, which one is obliged to stoop down to use, thus making it very tiring. “ Sail, stop a moment, and come and eat . . . . You’ve been working for three good hours . . . give yourself a little respite . . . Sail . . .” she insisted, maternally, “ Sail, come and eat . . . .” Naturally, he took a few minutes before complying . . . to show her clearly that it was not at her behest . . . another of the precepts of his father .... Then she took off her camisole, tied a ragged scarf around her loins and took up the work where her husband left off . . . (so she said!) Oh, of course, there was no question of her doing as much as he . . . no-one could do as much as Mor Sail . . . nor as well.... But there it was, she had shown him, when streaming with sweat, she took the path back home, with the empty cala­ bashes on her head, her desire to share everything with him . . . everything ....

Ihoo ... oo ... 00 . . . . That was his nephew Ibrahima frantically chasing away the horde of ravaging monkeys .... Oh, the monkeys! . . . what pillagers! . . . descendants of Chaitan^ himself .... They plundered for the pleasure of plundering . . . a pleasure inspired by the devil, if one was to believe certain of the ancients, who assert that they have seen monkeys cock a snook as they make off. after their depredations

Yet right now, Mor Sail bore them no grudge .... Was he not leaving them soon . . . and besides, the monkeys belonged to the universe which was so dear to him: his universe

This was perhaps the reason why death had something salutary about it, making you love a thing that you had hated your whole life .... Ihoo . . . 00 . . . . Oo . . . 00. « « * He pulled up a handful of grass, collected in the palm of his hand the earth that was attached to the roots, crumbled it, made it into a ball, crumbled it again .... “ Earth . . . earth . . . how 1 love you .... Earth, mame^

Chaitan: Satan. Marne: Grandmother. But don’t you go thinking that I love you even partially because I’m grateful to you . . . you have fed me—oh, so little— no, no. I’m not reproaching you for anything; the little that you have given me is still supererogatory,^ Earth . . . mame . . . no . . . I simply love you dearly . . . with all the fervour of my heart . . . why? .... Upon my word, I can’t really say . . . just as I could not explain the blind love that linked me to Absa .... Well, in the first place, there is Absa . . . Absa who has been at rest in your bosom for 10 years . . . Absa is now earth . . . and Earth, you are Absa .... And then there is . . . there is . . . Oh, well, I can’t even try to explain any more . . . I just want you to know, mame, my earth, just to know that I have loved you dearly all my life . . . my life . . . my life woven with a warp of poverty and a thread of suffering . . . the life of a Senegalese peasant . . . .” He wiped away the sweat that trickled down from his temples and suppressed a shiver .... Now, yes, he was sure; death had laid claim to his poor carcass .... The fact that he was perspiring and shivering at the same time showed that the old harridan was not far away . . . the harridan that he wished for . . . the only one who could beget such paradoxes; to per­ spire with cold .... Yet a touch of regret blended with his desire to see death finally close his eyelids, now too wearied of opening: He would have liked to be present at the harvest. . . to see his peasant’s lot, which up to now had been that of the pariah of a society under­ mined by the colonising power, hoisted to the rightful place that should long ago have been his. For there was no longer any doubt about it; encouragement was streaming in from all sides, help was pouring in. At last the government was deigning to pay some attention to them .... Now that they were going to see, if not happier days, at least better days .... Now was the time that the old harridan had chosen to carry him off. . . . Now that they were going to see better days! could it be . . .. Yet he had been sceptical; first of all, under the palaver tree, when Oumar the pedlar, who always knew everything that was going on, had announced in a knowing voice; “ Soon Senegal will be independent .... Our brothers will take over from the Toubabs^. . . . We are going to have a President of the Republic . . . .”

1. The author does favour such pedantic vocabulary, and the use of such technical words as “ magma,” “ commissure ” etc. (Translator). 2. Toubab: a familiar word in French-speaking Africa for a White man. Mor Sail had got up, had shaken his ash-grey serwal^ and had exclaimed, almost contemptuously: “ Enough of this nonsense, Oumar! Don’t you know that our lot is eternal .... Were it not for my faith in God, I would say it were our curse . . . Out brothers take over from the Touhahsl . . . in the next world, yes . . . .” And then, one day, the cannon had thundered .... A rejoicing crowd, a crowd as on gala occasions, in an uproar shimmering with the colours of a new flag, had saluted Inde­ pendence ! Scarcely credible .... Since then, Mor Sail had become optimistic about the future of the black peasant, about his own future . . . the fact that this brothers were going to rule, there was no more doubt about i t . . . The peasants were at last going to see a certain improvement in their lot. . . . Since then, he shook off the fatalism which had made him bend his back when he was lashed by a feeling of revolt.. . .

Brrr, this cold! and then this sudden, incoercible numbness . . .. He suddenly felt like sleeping. . . for a long, long time . . . “ Death, deliver the poor, worn-out rag that I have become .... Stop . . . oh stop this stupid game of cat and mouse and then . . . leave off that triumphant look .... Of course, I know that you are terrible and terrifying, but Death, I am not asking for a reprieve . . .. What? .... You thought that I was hesitant? .... Oh, no! ... . Naturally I would have liked, I would have preferred to witness the day of our deliverance .... But did you give Absa more time? .... No! I say it again . . . take me entirely . . . I don’t want .... I can’t, without Absa .... Death, deliver me and let me sleep .... Sleep .... Ah, sleep .... To sleep like a log . . . . The log of a ronier^ . roniers that stand up straight. untwisted .... Roniers whose tops sweep the sky at the slightest breath of wind

1. Serwal: a garment consistiug of loose trousers such as worn by Berbers. 2. Ronier: local Wolof term for a type of palm tree (bot.: Borassus flabeUifer) known as the Palmyra Palm by the Hindoos. ro The sky where the clouds frolic . . . clouds that play catch with each other . . . embrace . . . pile up . . . and pour down . . . clouds, father of the rain .... The rain, bride of the earth .... Of the earth our progenitor . . . the earth from which I come . . . to which I return . . . slowly . . . too slowly, death, for my liking .... Ah, to sleep .... Beneath a mango tree .... A mango tree that shelters turtle-doves . . . huddled in a nest .... A nest woven from a thousand golden twigs .... Twigs that fray and crumble .... Twigs that were fresh and young . . . as I was fresh and young . . . as I am sere and yellow . . . as I shall crumble, soon, Death .... And you, O lord? . . . you whose mercy is without limit .... Can you not at last . . . close for ever .... Deliver . . . oh deliver, lord, your servant. . . have I not suffered enough . . . wept enough? .... Have I not.... Oh, to sleep . . . .”

Abdou came back from the fields, with the sokh-sokh under his arm, humming one of those old tunes, which his father said had the gift of removing all traces of fatigue .... Dear father . . . how right he had been to dissuade him from leaving, to try his luck elsewhere, to practise a more lucrative trade .... The earth. He belonged to it now . . . entirely . . . as he belonged to the rain which had begun to fall . . . why! . . . . The sun was still shining brilliantly . . . and it was raining? Only a drizzle, to be true, but it pierced you like myriads of tiny needles . . . it got into your hair, glued it together, and then trickled down your cheeks in two abundant streams that you did not even try to wipe away . . . the type of rain that according to his father, always announced a death .... Dear father .... Always so superstitious .... He, Abdou, didn’t believe in these old wives’ tales .... Besides, his father .... “ Father! ” Under the mango-tree, whose foliage seemed to have grown darker, a smile of beatitude on his lips, his eyeballs staring quite clearly in the approximate direction of Absa’s tomb, his face streaming with a magma of sweat, earth, rain . . . and tears . . . Mor Sail was sleeping his last sleep .... “ Father,” groaned Abdou. “ Ihoo . . . OO . . . oo,” shouted Ibrahima, some way off, in his indefatigable pursuit of the monkeys .... “ Roocoo-coo-coo,” cooed the turtle-dove in the tree-tops, as her eggs hatched out. VANITY BIRAGO DIOP {Translated by Florence Louie Friedman)

If we murmur meekly, meekly, All that we shall, one day, proclaim. Who, without mocking, will hear the claim Of beggars’ voices whining weakly— Who, without mocking, will hear their claim? If we, in our torment, harshly groan Of wrongs, wave on wave, that surge like a tide. Whose eyes will perceive our mouths thick and wide Meant for huge laughter of children full-grown— Whose eyes will perceive our mouths thick and wide? Whose heart will heed our echoing clamours. Whose ears our pitiable rage and distress Which gnaw and expand like virulent tumours Down in our throats’ deep tragic darkness ? Yet, when our Dead have come with their Dead And called us, called in sepulchral tones. How deaf were our ears, how deaf to their groans. That vast lamentation, that dirge of the dead— How deaf were our ears, how deaf to their groans! All over the earth their cries resound. They haunt the waters and the wind. Yet we, their sons, unhearing, blind. Unworthy, heed no sign, no sound Bequeathed to the waters and the wind. And since our dead cry out in vain. Since we reject their timeless pain. If we weep, O weakly, weakly. If we groan, in torment, wildly— Whose heart will heed our groans, our torment. Whose ears our hearts’ long long lament? THE GRAMOPHONE JOSEPH ZOBEL {Translated by P. Gering and J. Nicholas)

a d a m e DELEUZE, the lawyer’s wife, had a machine Mwhich talked, sang and made music as if there were a man, a beautiful white woman, and a whole orchestra inside it. And yet the machine wasn’t very big. It was a mahogany box which could not even have held a poor negro’s change of clothing, and the words and music came out of a huge green flower made of cardboard or metal. At first everyone went nearly crazy trying to guess the trickery or magic that made invisible beings heard in that sur­ prise box. One theory after another was expressed, each one contradicting and cancelling out the last one with a greater or lesser degree of violence. One result of this was that people like Cius and Joachim were no longer on speaking terms. “ Just because he’s had a bit of schooling,” Cius declared, “ he thinks he’s a learned Doctor.” And Joachim: “ If you told him that the sun wouldn't rise tomorrow he wouldn’t be above laying in a stock of lamps and paraffin immediately.” Then gradually, people stopped racking their brains. They thought that they had found the solution. “ Look, don’t you see ? ” said Ferjus, who knew what he was talking about, having taken part in the battle of Verdun in France, and could play the bugle. “ The music is hidden in the little grooves of the record. The handle gives the machine’s motor the strength to make the music come out of the horn. Those old white folk over there are always inventing things, as if they had nothing else to do. . . . If you’d been in the war you would have seen how clever they are . . . .” Thus Madame Deleuze’s gramophone (the personality of this mulatto woman was such that people hardly ever mentioned her husband) ceased to intrigue the inhabitants of Gomare. It was now a familiar wonder and although it was no less sacred, it no longer gave rise to questions. From then onwards, in fact, the whole town had the benefit of the gramophone. On Sunday afternoons, on holidays, or when she had “ company,” Madame Deleuze opened her windows wide. The children stormed the window-sills and although many people gathered in the street opposite to listen, most didn’t even have to leave their doorsteps. It is true that Madame Deleuze made it a pleasure and a duty to turn up the volume of the machine so that the sound carried as far as possible. In this way the gramophone became part of the town’s heritage, almost ranking with the church harmonium, the covered market, and the two street fountains that the new municipality (of which Monsieur Deleuze was a member) had very recently installed to replace the pipe which gave out a thin trickle of water in the middle of a quagmire, where the bare feet of women and children squelched from morning to night. The gramophone had become a luxury belonging to the whole town. It was an object which earned Madame Deleuze unanimous gratitude as well as adding to her prestige. Fortunately this craze for the gramophone had not harmed in any way the well- established reputation of Tatave, the accordionist. Tatave’s music was still as necessary as paraffin for the lamps or bells in the church.

It was then that Odilbert arrived. Odilbert Faustin, of the Faustin family who lived on the outskirts of the town. He had left many years ago, to the great relief of his family, it must be remembered. This boy, who had not done too well at school, had always been too big and too strong for his age, and had caused his parents nothing but trouble. Always spoiling for a fight or seducing girls (precocious as he was!) he sometimes stayed away from home for two, three days at a time. Bad behaviour, bad company. Madame Faustin was at her wits’ end with him. Whereas her elder son, Beaubrun, was so dutiful, so quiet, a sweetie-pie. As for Denise, the baby of the family, she was a real jewel. Really, Odilbert seemed destined to keep his worthy parents from ever knowing peace. Therefore Monsieur Faustin had no hestitation in making him enlist in the Navy at the first opportunity. This opportunity soon arose, and the family was not a little proud of the creditable way in which it had got rid of him. Distance immediately focussed on him all the alfection of his family and the concern of even those to whom he had given cause for complaint. One could not speak to a member of the Faustin family without coming round to the subject of Odilbert. Conversations with the Faustins had a tone and a resonance which other con­ versations never had. The Faustins spoke of cruisers, aircraft carriers, and despatch-vessels, and of ports whose names be­ witched one’s imagination. All, even little Denise, would say: “ He’s at Toulon now, on the ‘ Estrecasteaux.’ On the 16th he’ll be sailing with the squadron on the Mediterranean cruise. They’ll be at Bizerte for ten days.” All these words and sounds were so extraordinary that everyone in the town regarded the Faustins as if they were a piece of filigree work set in a background of strange, far-away marvellous countries; as if they were creatures apart. Those to whom Madame Faustin showed the snaps of Odilbert, could not get over the fact that he had changed. He, who was already as burly as a wrestler, had grown more robust. But at the same time his features seemed more refined. And then, there was no denying it, the uniform gave him a fine presence. “ Well, children aren’t like pebbles, you know. They don’t stay the same.” We had been told that he had been in Saigon for some time. Some of us had even had the privilege of seeing the most recent photos of him taken in a rickshaw, or in front of a pagoda, or in a garden next to an Indo-Chinese girl in a long silk dress. “ And when the campaign is over,” announced Beaubrun, “ he will be entitled to home-leave. And I should think that he will already have become leading seaman.” But it hadn’t seemed as close as all that, and we had hardly given it another thought. Now suddenly, one fine day, the great news: Odilbert has arrived. The bus had dropped him the previous evening at his parents’ house, on the outskirts of the town, so that more than one person had travelled with him since the day before, and had even spoken to him during the journey. “ He has changed a lot,” some said. “ And yet he’s still the same, full of fun, not snooty.” Before the day was out the news spread like wildfire, due to a detail which had not been mentioned before: the gramo­ phone. Odilbert had brought a gramophone with him. The nearest neighbours had even heard it on the evening of his arrival. Many had seen it. It was quite different from Madame Deleuze’s gramophone. It was like a little suitcase with a lot of nickel- plating. There was no horn. And yet it played just as well, just as loudly as Madame Deleuze’s. “ You listen to it and you wonder where the music is coming from.” A suitcase; you can pick it up, you can put it down where you like, turn the handle, put on a record, and it plays. It was not so much the novelty of its shape which assured the success of Odilbert’s gramophone, but the type of music it played. Our local tunes: biguines, mazouks, either played by orchestras in which you could recognise all the popular instru­ ments, or else sung by men and women who could have been some of our own people. And yet it came from the Other Country! Almost as if over there they had machines which could hear and imitate our own music to perfection, with all its piquancy and warmth, which gained in brilliancy and intensity through the gramophone. There were also ballads sung by a voice as honeyed and as liquid as moonlight. There were tangos played by instruments which could not be imagined. And also rhumbas which made you think you had arrived in Rio at festival time. And the staccato trills of maracas ran in your veins instead of blood. We could hardly remember when the town had been so excited before. All those who had heard, and more especially all those who had actually seen Odilbert’s gramophone, were quite amazed, and their accounts of it aroused such curiosity that the Faustin house was, so to speak, besieged by prowlers, who were continually waiting for the music. It goes without saying that visitors were frequent too. Besides, there was absolutely no need to invent excuses or to wait for opportunities. You had only to turn up and say: “ I hear that Odilbert is back. It would give me so much pleasure to see him! Since . . .” This was always an honour for the family and flattered Odilbert, even when it was someone whom he had never known, or whom he did not remember. On sueh occasions it was rare for the visitor not to be honoured with a record. Odilbert and his parents did this all the more willingly since they themselves never tired of hearing the gramophone. This lively passion which he had stimulated and the great admiration which he had won for himself inspired Odilbert to arrange a dance. What could be more natural? Sooner or later this was bound to come. A dance to the music of the gram—it would be quite different from the usual rowdy hops to Tatave’s accordion. Madame Faustin was the first to agree that it would really be best to invite as many friends as possible, so that they could all at one go hear the fifteen or so records that Odilbert had brought back (Madame Deleuze did not have as many), and dance a bit so as to get the most enjoyment out of them. Monsieur Faustin was not one to disapprove, for he had immediately sensed how much such an event would increase his standing in the community.

The whole family was now enthusiastically involved in the preparations. The task of seeing to the smooth running of the evening fell to Monsieur Faustin. The reputation of his family was at stake. For Odilbert it was a challenge to assemble, to gather together somehow, the daughters of all the best families in the town. But, in spite of the undeniable attraction of the gramophone, it was not an easy undertaking. While some parents accepted with alacrity, others haggled over their assent. In fact it was quite rare that this or that family did not have some objection to the behaviour, the political leanings, or the past history of such and such a member of another family. “ If it were only for you and your parents, Monsieur Odilbert, I would say yes at once. But, you do understand, 1 can’t send my daughter to your house and have her meet Manotte Gesira, whose sister lives with a married man who isn’t even a beke^l But, actually, these obstacles only had the effect of increasing, in Odilbert’s eyes, the importance of his undertaking. In any case he had many opportunities to exercise his skill and powers of persuasion. The announcement of this dance and the resultant upheaval had already infected the town with a sort of mild fever, which was shown in the increase in business of even the least important shopkeepers. For example, on the strength of her knowledge

I. B6ke; a white inhabitant of Martinique. that Pauline Alpha had bought three metres of organdy, Ger­ maine Dafe treated herself to a dress of mosquito-netting, with a petticoat of coq de roche silk. From then on, in the stores in the town, there was a constant sale of ribbons and laces and remnants of material, boxes of face-powder and jars of perfumed vaseline, boxes of hair-pins and little bottles of scent. And Theodore, the cobbler, was swamped with work for a whole week, as were the three dressmakers whom everyone regarded as having inherited their skill as a gift from God, or like a legacy, without having served any apprenticeship, like those who foretell the future or who cure the sick. Odilbert busied himself with all the details of the organizar tion, and gave his father an account of what he had done. “ I have ordered a hundred and fifty rolls from Alcide,” he would say to his mother, “ and a woman from the Diacka district is to bring us ten francs worth of flowers to decorate the living-room.” Odilbert had sent out the invitations, made the purchases, and placed the orders with a sort of relentless enthusiasm, without calculating the number of his guests nor the cost. As far as expenses were concerned no disagreeable surprise was possible: he paid cash, and even in advance (which gives such a flavour to spending!). It was only on the Thursday before the dance that he realised that all the guests he had invited wouldn’t fit into the large room. It would be too much of a squash. “ In that case there is only one thing to do. Knock down the partition.” Knock down the wooden partition which separated the living-room from his parents’ bedroom. Really, it was a pity to mutilate, in a way, this respectable home, the object of such pious veneration. The prospect of knocking down the partition seemed a little sacriligious. But what else could they do? The honour of the family depended upon the success of the evening. It was not merely a question of just any little party, but of a proper ball, which would be especially smart because, instead of having the local accordionist whom everyone knew, there would be dancing, for the first time, to the music of a gramophone, something which, from all accounts, was then only done in the city. Therefore it was necessary to knock down the partition. This might all the more have annoyed Madame Faustin, because of the framed photographs, the illustrated calendars,

Collection Number: A2696 Collection Name: Nat Nakasa Papers, 1962-2014

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