The King of Kahel

The King of Kahel

TIERNO MONÉNEMBO

Translated by

NICHOLAS ELLIOTT

This is not a biography but a novel,

freely inspired by the life of Olivier de Sanderval.

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious.

Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Text copyright © 2008 Editions du Seuil

English translation copyright © 2010 Amazon Content Services LLC

Map illustration copyright © 2010 Dave Stevenson

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

Published by AmazonCrossing

P.O. Box 400818

Las Vegas, NV 89140

Produced by Melcher Media, Inc.

124 West 13th Street

New York, NY 10011

www.melcher.com

Library of Congress Control Number:

2010909000

ISBN: 978-0-9825550-7-1

The King of Kahel by Tierno Monénembo was first published in 2008 by Éditions du Seuil as Le Roi de Kahel.

Translated from French by Nicholas Elliott.

First published in English in 2010 by AmazonCrossing.

Cover design by Ben Gibson

Map illustration by Dave Stevenson

Author photo by Getty Images

Translator photo by Sophia Chai

For Jean-Louis Langeron.

In memoriam

Alpha Ibrahima Sow and Saïdou Kane.

“The Creator made them black so the bruises couldn’t be seen.”

OLIVIER DE SANDERVAL

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

{ PART ONE }

{ PART TWO }

{ PART THREE }

{ EPILOGUE }

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I WOULD LIKE TO THANK Mr. and Mrs. Bruno Olivier de Sanderval for graciously opening their archives to me.

Mr. Rov’H Morgère, Mr. Philippe Abriol, and the entire staff of the Archives départementales de Caen for their warm reception and availability.

My headmaster, Djibril Tamsir Niane, for giving me the idea for this book, and Professor Ismaël Barry for providing invaluable information.

The Centre National du Livre for its equally invaluable grant.

Area of Olivier de Sanderval’s expeditions in West Africa, circa 1890

{ PART ONE }

HE WAS ON THE STAIRS, leaving home to catch his boat, when his wife’s shrill voice stopped Olivier de Sanderval[*] in his tracks: “My poor dear Aimé, look what you’ve forgotten!”

He touched his hot ears and his trembling back, then cast an imploring glance at the gentle little monster who had just chastised him.

“What is it, my dear Rose? You yourself helped me to pack my bags!”

“What about this?”

She produced the object of controversy from behind her back.

“Oh! This is really no time to joke, my dear! Must I remind you that I am on the verge of leaving for Africa? For Timbo?”

“Exactly!” she interrupted, cutting ahead of him into the courtyard, where the servants were finishing loading his trunks and hitching up the horses.

“Don’t tell me you’re going to reopen my suitcase just for that!”

“Indeed!”

“But what possible use could I have for that among the Negroes?”

“You’ll wear it to act in their opera.”

“In other circumstances, I would happily agree, my dear. After all, I did marry you for your colorful dresses and exotic necklaces, the flowers in your hair, and those impromptu singing exercises you sometimes launch into in churches and tearooms. But playing Mephistopheles for the Negroes is something else entirely.”

But his beloved torturer had already closed the trunk again. He kissed her goodbye and climbed into his buggy thinking, I’ll throw that disguise away at the port…or once I’m on the boat…That’s it, I’ll throw it overboard. I’m going to Africa to become a king, not a buffoon! But the costume was soon forgotten and stayed with him throughout the trip.

A few months later, that oversight would save his life—when the Fulas threatened to behead him.

He took a last look at his farmhouse, admired its saddleback roof, its ocher walls, and the olive green of its many shutters. It was still hard for him to believe that Napoleon had slept here the day after the siege of Toulon and dreamed of marrying Désirée Clary, the household’s eldest daughter. He chuckled to himself and wondered what would have become of France if she had chosen Napoleon rather than Bernadotte, whom she would marry shortly before he was crowned Charles XIV, king of Sweden. Then the first Republic collapsed, and then the first Empire, and then the Pastrés—you know, the famous shipowners—happened along and bought the farmhouse, and then he happened along and married Pastré’s daughter.

Now, some eighty-six years after Bernadotte, he was stepping across the same threshold on his way to claim his own crown. Could that really be attributed to happenstance? And he wasn’t going just anywhere—he was headed for Fouta Djallon!

The date was November 29, 1879, and it was snowing in Marseille. The mere sight of the port de la Madrague and the avenue du Prado, barely recognizable under their ridiculous coat of white, sent shivers up his spine. He imagined this was exactly what Norway must look like.

As he reached the port, he rubbed his hands together and told himself he couldn’t have found a better time to go to Africa.

An agent of the Compagnie des Messageries maritimes led his coachman to the pier where the Niger was docked among the ships bound for Constantinople and the Far East. He waited with the ship’s captain while his cabin was prepared, half-listening to the captain prattle on about his steamer’s attributes and the landscapes of Madera and Piscis Island. He felt nervous. The only thing he liked about traveling was the pleasure of arriving. Trains and boats made him nauseous; horseback riding and bicycling made his head spin. He was sorry to think he would be dust in the wind by that faraway time when inexorable progress made it possible to travel to Africa in a fraction of a second.

“Breakfast is at seven. Please relax, sir, we are only at the beginning of our adventure.”

“That may be true for you, Captain,” he grumbled. “In my case, the adventure started nearly forty years ago.”

Forty years: an entire lifetime with his feet on French soil and his mind far, far away, lost in the nebula of the Tropics. A man born in the heart of the nineteenth century could only become a poet, a scholar, or an explorer. He had resolved the question early on. He would be an explorer—in other words a poet and a scholar too. At that time, school-yard discussions of the colonies were as popular as hopscotch or marbles. Children’s tales weren’t about ogres and fairies, but sorcerers and cannibals brandishing assegais as they dashed through the jungle, chasing after a brand-new kind of prey: white priests and colonists.

He had caught the colonies bug listening to his great-uncle Simonet’s stories. Every night, wild adventures of pioneers of civilization lost among the cannibals, saved from the boiling pots of the Zulus and Papuans at the last moment by the goodness of Christ, sent shivers up and down his spine after long and tedious family dinners. Afterward he would rejoice to huddle up under the covers, delighted that the walls of his room were thick, the roof solid and the doors safely locked against those scarred bandits who prowled the parks of Lyon in the snowy night, searching for tasty little blond boys.

Old Simonet was a real case, the bohemian of the clan, the family wild man. He knocked around Java and Anatolia for years and came back with countless tall tales, strange words, and jaw-dropping novelties. He even introduced France to the marvels of muslin, a major contribution to feminine elegance that made the city of Tarare’s prosperity. Strangers took off their hats as he passed and greeted “the king of muslin.” Which was no small thing—even among the Oliviers, where everyone had to invent something before procreating.

When he was about seven, his tutor, Father Garnier, took his colorful forebear’s place. And thus he passed from words to action. A Pacific atoll soon landed on the banks of the Azergues, the river irrigating Chessy, the village where he spent part of his childhood. The atoll was peopled with mandrills made of rags and imaginary coconut trees. Wearing his helmet and boots, little Aimé played the brave ethnologist the Geography Society had sent to discover Zaratusthania, a jungle land still unknown to cartographers and possibly even soothsayers. Father Garnier painted tattoos on his forearms and scarifications on his face to become Guénolé, the bloodthirsty savage who ambushed the white man after his ship was capsized. They spent the day playing hide-and-seek, pretending to strike down wild beasts and jump over canyons. Cunning and sidestepping would eventually get the best of Guénolé. The good savage surrendered at the feet of the master, swore off fetishes and human sacrifices, kissed the cross, and promised to behave like a good Christian forevermore. Then they set up camp nearby for the Latin lesson and a dinner of canned sardines.

By the time he was eight, it was clear that being an explorer wouldn’t be enough. He had to be king of the savages. He would carve out a colony for himself by draining the marshes and educating the tribes. He would turn it into a kingdom adhering to his ideas and radiating the genius of France. But where: in Tonkin or in Fouta Djallon? After many months of reflection, he decided on the latter. In his child’s mind, “Tonkin” sounded like a tocsin, but Fouta Djallon! That was something else entirely. Besides, Marco Polo hadn’t left much of Asia to be discovered. Its cities and laws reached deep into the furthest ends of the Taklimakan Desert. But Africa remained obscure, extravagant, and perfectly unpredictable.

At ten, he began tearing through narratives by explorers and writing to geographic societies. He took out subscriptions to L’Illustrateur and the Joanne and Murray guides. He kept up his secret education and let time race on. His life was rooted in the Rhône Valley, but he was surrounded by the rivers, plants, and tribes of the Sudan.

Then came the baccalaureate and the engineering diploma, marriage and children—he had to make his contribution to society before going roaming. He found time to cut his teeth on ascending Mont Blanc, inventing the sprung-hub wheel and building the first velocipede factory. At forty, he could finally turn to the essential: Africa!

Africa had always been his whole life, but it was still only words—sketches, pictures, and maps, all buried in words. The serious business had only started a few months earlier, as he led his childhood obsession beyond dreams and illusions and boarded a train at Austerlitz to set off for Lisbon.

In those days, the best way to reach the shores of the Dark Continent was to start by crossing the Tagus. As the pioneers of African exploration, the Portuguese had the strongest foothold. Their archives were the most abundant; their maps, the most reliable. Most important, their trading posts in Bolama and Bissau were strategically placed near the foothills of Fouta Djallon, on the estuaries connecting to the region’s streams and rivers.

His friends had recommended he meet Francisco da Costa e Silva, the director general of the Department of Overseas Territories, and the leading merchants. He had had no trouble obtaining visas, recommendations, the most recent maps, and detailed information about the peculiarities of the climate and the ways of the natives.

The evening before his departure he purchased a cyanide capsule, then mailed his last will and testament to his friend Jules Charles-Roux, the president of the Marseille Geography Society. Perhaps it was gauche to do so, but how in good conscience could he leave for Africa without writing his will? Perhaps he should have given the will to Jules when he said goodbye to him, but surely it was bad manners to look your friend in the eye and hand him your will.

The trip to Africa is entirely different from the return journey. In one direction, you have the dinners and formal balls, the ladies in their wide-brimmed hats and tarlatan dresses, the merchants’ card games, and the naval officers’ riotous laughter. In the other, a gloomy atmosphere settles over dismissed civil servants, ruined adventurers, and widows crying over husbands lost to malaria or the Negroes’ poisoned arrows.

Dinners on the Niger were tedious, despite the oompah-pah of the orchestra—no one had heard of Fouta Djallon and only a single passenger had a decent chess game. He was a young graduate of the École Polytechnique headed to Senegal to draw a road to the interior. His name was Souvignet, and he displayed the wild enthusiasm of his twenty-three years with disarming naïveté. The night the ship sailed, he came into the tearoom and saw Olivier de Sanderval killing time with his ubiquitous bar of chocolate and solo chess games. He headed straight for his table, pulled up a chair, and sat down:

“May I?”

“Careful, I only play with masters!”

“With masters! Well, let’s go, old man, you won’t find any greater master than me at chess or anything else. If you beat me, I’ll give you this…What are you going to do in Africa, old man?”

“I’m going to carve out a kingdom for myself.”

“King of Africa! Yes, you look the part. Please don’t eat me once you’ve become a Negro, old man!”

“It seems you’re more insipid than pretentious, my dear young friend. And to tell you the truth, I’m going to Africa to put an end to cannibalism.”

“What, are you going to kill all the cannibals?”

“No, I’m going to convert them and turn them all into scholars.”

“Oh, that will be just dandy—Pygmies quoting Gay-Lussac. You’re a genius, old man. Not only are you beating me at chess, but you’re even more eccentric than I am. I’m not sure I care for that, old man.”

“And you? How do you plan to make your mark?”

“Bridges, ports, and monuments. So many that the authorities will grovel at my feet and beg me to accept the position of governor of Senegal. Africa is my generation’s golden opportunity. And you can tell from a mile away that I’m ambitious.”

“Well, I wish you the best, my dear future General Faidherbe.”

Madera, the Canary Islands, Cap Blanc. Here, finally, was Gorée!

Of the thirty games they played during the crossing, the young engineer won at least a dozen, but insisted—over his adversary’s protests—on leaving him a beautiful gold watch bearing his initials:

“What’s due is due. That’s life, old man!”

A few miles out of the harbor, the first Negroes appeared. Their flimsy boats darted in and out of the ship’s wake. They gestured wildly on the water, practically naked, their figures reminding the white passengers of the mysterious, fiery forms of their statues. Some yelped with enthusiasm and paddled to keep up, others dove headfirst into the water and pirouetted with the waves.

“Ma’am Pretty-Pretty, throw-a me some coins!”

The new colonists were all on deck now, amused by the spectacle. They bustled about like restless cattle. The Negroes were exultant, racing to catch the pretty little projectiles, the lucky ones showing their thanks with outsize smiles and a burst of song.

“Sir Nice-Nice-Hat, throw-a me some coins!”

The passengers pulled out their binoculars and marveled at the Negroes’ biceps and astonishing agility.

Others on the ship rushed from one end of the deck to the other, gasping and pointing at the Negroes, the birds, the plants. But nothing surprised him. This was exactly what he expected. Everything was as it was supposed to be: the dark, warm earth, the scrawny, tousled palm trees, the constant noise of the tom-toms and the gulls. He was simply amazed that the sun was so white and the birds so dazzlingly colorful.

Gorée was now within reach. He could see its slave forts and balconied villas surrounded by acacias, rosebushes, and paradise flowers.

An intense shiver traveled up his spine as he took hold of the ship’s rail, dispelled all fear of ridicule, and proclaimed:

“Here I am, my dear old Africa! Here I am!”

It was nothing but soil, sand, flowers, and waves. But in Africa!

“Here, the most ordinary thing takes on a significance and an intensity unimaginable elsewhere.”

Despite the jostling of the gawking crowd, he managed to get his notebook out. A broad smile appeared on his face as he wrote: “Here, all is sun, all is joy!” It was dull, banal, perfectly ridiculous, but exactly what he felt at that very moment. He readjusted his hat and set foot on land without removing his frock coat and gloves, even casting a mocking glance at his unhappy companions panting like beasts of burden and mopping their sweaty brows, attacked on two fronts by the heat and the feeling of utter disorientation.

He had been born an insomniac and sensitive to the cold—in other words, made for Africa. In fact, the coast was already practically like home to him. As a proper spoiled child, he had had a house built for himself in Bolama long before his arrival. He owned most of the trading posts in town and the Jean-Baptiste, a brand-new yacht, was anchored nearby, waiting to take him on his African expeditions.

He went through customs and crossed a clamoring pack of beggars, impervious to their pleas. His man Bonnard and his pistachiers[*] were waiting for him near a cluster of saleswomen. The women swarmed about on the dusty sidewalk that was covered in rotten fruit and donkey and fly droppings. Most were bare-chested, their hair covered in pearls, their grass skirts barely reaching to their knees. They smoked from short earthen pipes and ran after the toubabs[†] offering statuettes, papaya, and coconuts. Their men squatted on the ground beside them, shaving or playing checkers with pebbles.

Bonnard had prepared a waterfront villa for him with a vast garden overlooking the beach. But the next day, instead of going swimming or visiting his trading posts, he disguised himself as a colonist (leather boots, gabardine jacket, helmet) and, leaving poor old Bonnard in the dust, lost himself in the city’s alleyways in search of slave forts and the penetrating odor of spices and fruits. But he soon found himself in the path of a mad bull. A gang of kids surrounded him and pushed him into a small house in the nick of time.

“You go in here! Him bad, bad!”

Soaked in sweat, shaking like a leaf, he watched the animal continue its rampage and gore another bystander. “There’s undoubtedly a lesson in this,” he muttered to himself as he tried to regain his calm. That night after dinner a mystical impulse drove him to isolate himself in a remote corner of the garden. His unrecognizable voice rose up to blend with the terrifying sound of the African night:

“A few hours ago you saved my life, my dear old Africa. Thank you! Now please, I beg of you, grant me Fouta Djallon so I can make it my kingdom!”

IN THREE SEDAN TOURS he had seen all of Dakar. The city was still slowly extracting itself from the grip of the jungle. Its only attractions were the windswept coast road lined with wild roses; the beach, port, and train station; and a brand-new hospital hurriedly thrown up to take pressure off the one in Gorée, overwhelmed by the ravages of malaria and yellow fever. These places reeked of what he thought he had left behind: blond heads of hair, poorly tanned bosoms spilling out of their brassieres, helmets, gaiters, Basque berets, Catalan and Provençal accents, ostentatious perfume, fetid breath stinking of red table wine and aniseed.

Luckily, deepest Africa—the real one, the Africa that cast its spell on him—had not yet fled the coasts. He could get a taste of it (its smiles and scarifications, its dialects and tribes, its colored patterns and stenches) just a few steps from the bars, belote rooms, and caravansaries. His initiation was to let himself be sucked into the boundlessly exotic market, native quarter, and fishermen’s village. Here were the tastes of sweat and salt, ginger and kola, an amalgam of violence and joy, and even more than that—Africa, an overabundance of thunder, heat and wind, a constant explosion. He was overcome by a sense of delight and death, a permanent drunken giddiness.

Only one regret upon discovering the ferment of this brand-new world: he wasn’t the first one here! No matter. He knew that deep in Fouta Djallon, there had to be one cave, one termites’ nest, one hillock, one stretch of undergrowth where a white man had never set foot. Long ago, so long ago, he would have imagined himself in this whirlwind of sweat, sap, leaves, and larvae in Émilie’s arms. Émilie, his first love, his very own Juliet when he was the Romeo of the banks of the Azergues. She was his cousin, older by three years, the one for whom he had jumped off a bridge, wanting to offer her his life as a sign of love and faithfulness. He was ten, twelve at most, but already as stubborn as a mule, with the soul of a knight. Émilie had been the only one to share his secret. Only she knew that somewhere deep in the most remote part of darkest Africa, a virgin land was patiently waiting for him to grow up to lie beneath his feet. His brothers were too dull and his friends too vulgar to understand. At bedtime, those fools went to their rooms while he entered his own private universe. They could never be the same.

Time passed and Émilie was carried away by a plague epidemic. Time passed again and she was resurrected as Rose.

He had awaited this miracle. He only wrote, “The Absolute is not the stable, unstable, or indifferent balance associated with the established idea of symmetry; it is ONE, everywhere itself, imposing its absoluteness anywhere…it possesses ubiquity.”

His understanding of what lay ahead crystallized after a quick tour of Rufisque, with its lepers, former slave market, deposed old kings, piles of dead rats, and gigantic peanut silos. This black land, this sensual, wild she-devil, so exciting beneath the rustle of its palm trees and creepers, could only surrender to what was more monstrous than itself—wild beasts, calamities, bandits, and tyrants. To possess it, he would have to find something other than regrets, prayers, and incantations.

He wasted no time in raising a small column of Senegalese infantrymen and a crew of fifteen men. Then he recruited an interpreter and a cook. In a region where anything—women, cattle, gold, land, boredom, or susceptibility—could spark long and bloody tribal conflicts, he was careful to hire a Fula (Mâly) and a Serer, or kinsman to the Fula people (Mâ-Yacine).

In the colonies, a man’s cook and interpreter were essential. The white man’s life depended on their art. He lived or died by the cook’s pot and the interpreter’s mouth. A little pinch of salt—sorceress’s salt, of course—and your heart stopped beating after a two-day cold. A poorly translated word whispered into the ear of the Negro kings and you were condemned to the snake hut or strangulation, depending on local custom. These two had to be carefully selected, complimented morning, noon, and night, and rewarded at the drop of a hat—particularly the interpreter, for poisonous words were often more dangerous than poisoned food in these parts.

On December 7, everything was ready—the men, their mounts, the yacht, and the supplies. He set sail for Bolama.

Had he really crossed the Mediterranean? Did he really come from Europe? He felt as though he had not, that he had traveled directly from the teeming mangrove of his childhood to the splendid real one now unfolding before his eyes. He wanted to discover Africa slowly, traveling along its coast the way one feels a woman’s curves before penetrating her. Stretched out on a folding chair on the sunniest part of the deck, he took notes on the locations of the rios[*] and the incredible variety of birds and plants. The foamy fringe of the coast was like a dazzling string of jewels strewn between the ocean blue and the chaos of the jungle. He understood everything—the dense silence of the plants and the endless chirping of the birds.

The mystery of this land spoke to his heart.

He discovered the strange shape of the African fan palm and considered making it the emblem of his future kingdom. When the sun was at its zenith, he would have a partition attached to the boat’s hull to protect himself from the sharks and take a sea bath, dreaming of the fortifications of Timbo.

The elements were kind throughout the crossing, the men not so much. The crew was a difficult, contentious mix of Gascon sailors and African tribesmen. Yet by the time they landed in Bolama on the 15th of the month, he had succeeded in taming these wild animals—with smiles and pats on the back for the sailors, and the riding crop and the occasional coral beads and chocolate for the men.

Bolama, the door to Fouta Djallon! Now he just had to find the key.

He was greeted by the English consul, a young lord preparing to overcome his dainty manners to join Stanley at Yolala Falls. They had a brief discussion over a fine bottle of Bordeaux aboard the Jean-Baptiste:

“Only a Frenchman would think of going to Fouta Djallon! Europeans have been on the coast four centuries and less than a dozen have returned from Timbo alive. But I suppose what you Frenchmen need isn’t history, but heroes.”

“We happen to have the makings for the job, my dear consul, that’s all there is to it.”

“It will be even harder to play hero in Fouta Djallon than it was at Waterloo. If something were to happen to you there, the world would never know.”

“At least I would die with the satisfaction of having preceded you somewhere. You British are everywhere; you spread like the plague. You’ll tell me it’s no challenge with the narrow minds running the French ministries. The only consular agent we had in the region was recently called back to France. I have no choice but to request the services of the Portuguese…and the British!”

“If you were a little friendlier, I would have given you a hand. It’s difficult to penetrate Fouta Djallon without any support. And more difficult yet to get back out.”

“What? Do you know someone?”

“Maybe I would, if you were willing to get off that high horse you feel you’re entitled to as a descendant of Louis XIV.”

The Englishman emptied his glass and delicately wiped his lips with a handkerchief that was startlingly white for these parts.

“Well, nonetheless, I’ll try to help you. Not because of your fine character, that would be asking too much of a Frenchman, but in return for this superior bottle of Bordeaux. Once you’ve rested up in Bolama and visited the coast, go to the Cassini to visit my friend Lawrence.”

“Are there Englishmen all the way into the Cassini?”

“Nearly.”

Lawrence, the king of the Nalus and an ally of the Fulas, had both black and white blood. He had inherited his name from a distant American forebear, a slave trader who had come here in the late eighteenth century and, like most of his fellow traders, protected his interests by marrying the daughter of a Negro kinglet. The practice had spread like wildfire, to the point that most of the tribal chiefs from Bolama to Sierra Leone now had European names. While colonization struggled on by conquest in the interior, it had long been established in bed on the coasts. The jungle now had as many Curtises, McCauleys, Harolds, Da Silvas, Da Costas, Wilkinsons, and McCarthys as breadfruit trees.

“All they need is a few French names,” the consul added with biting irony. “You should hurry up!”

Olivier de Sanderval wrinkled his brow and looked far into the distance:

“In a way, these are the buds of colonization. Europe’s spirit is infiltrating Africa’s body. My childhood dreams are coming true. I’ve arrived at the right moment. Only the fanatical Fulas of Fouta Djallon haven’t given in yet. Yet!”

“And now,” the consul replied, “if you’re done dreaming, I’ll take you to your abode. You can flatter your Gallic ego—it’s the most beautiful home in the colony. You Frenchmen need your Versailles even for a stopover among the Papuans. When your Bonnard first showed me the plans, I thought he was pulling my leg.”

It was no Versailles, but in contrast to the bamboo and creepers surrounding it, the splendid colonial house had a certain grandeur. It was cluttered with staircases and balustrades and had a vast garden gently sloping to the rippling sea. He had wanted to build something worthy of the king he would soon become. The Carrara marble, granite, oak, and slate were imported from the most highly reputed suppliers in France. Rose, who was never short on imagination and inspired ideas, soon had the house’s color scheme, basic shape, and decorative flourishes on paper:

“What about the corkscrew staircase and the archway leading into the living room? And don’t forget the ballroom and the gardenias outside!”

He took at least a half hour to tour all its alcoves and rooms. The consul looked on with a mocking half smile, his eyes glowing with satisfaction. Olivier leaned over the balustrade on the second floor and pointed:

“What’s that over there, near the tall trees?”

“Those little mounds with crosses? Beaver’s colony. In the eighteenth century, my compatriot Beaver came here to found a fifteen-person colony. Ten died, the other five were brought back to England twenty years later half crazy and covered in scabs, on a boat that had gotten lost in the area. You’re right—we beat you everywhere, except we never take ourselves for heroes.”

“We don’t ask you to! If only you would play fair!”

“Do you recall what Lord Chatham said? ‘If England treated France in good faith, it wouldn’t last twenty-five years.’ But you’re not here for France, are you? You’re here for yourself. Strange fellow, you are. What is it that draws you to Africa?”

“Exactly that taste for History, my British friend. Europe is blasé. This is where History has a chance to start fresh. So long as we pull the Negro out of his animal state.”

“That’s why you’re here, to pull the Negro out of his animal state?”

“I do believe the time has come to pass on the torch we received from Athens and Rome.”

“I wonder if I did well to meet you, Monsieur Olivier. I hope you’re not mocking me?”

No, he was not trying to mock anyone, nor to show off. He was as serious as could be. He swallowed hard and took a deep breath to regain his countenance. He looked at the consul like an exasperated tutor and began to speak. For more than a half hour, he told the Englishman what he had tried to explain to Marseille’s top brass on dozens of occasions: Europe’s genes were worn thin by two thousand years of formulas and cathedrals and it was up to him to pass on the torch handed down from Athens and Rome. At the Geography Society, Jules Charles-Roux had listened out of friendship and tried to bring him back to reason, knowing full well his efforts were in vain. The Chamber of Commerce only continued to receive him because of his august name. Only his gentle little Rose supported him. She drank up every one of his words, her blue eyes staring intently, her body wrapped around his like a vine around an oak tree so she could thrill with him to the magical sound of the Fulas and Mandingos, Dakar and Timbuktu. He was right, the law of progress came first and went everywhere—into ideas, habits, climates, even Africa. Lex mea lux, darkness had to be banished both from the far north of the Laplanders and the land of the Negroes. After the wheel and the steam engine, Africa was the new challenge of the mind. The man to face the challenge would naturally be the master builder of humanity’s new era.

“Who will do the job? Who?”

He continued to a thundering crescendo, ignoring the disconcerted questions of the Englishman—who, for once, had utterly lost his composure. Who? The Negro, of course! Who else could it be? The Asians had worn themselves out long before the Europeans. As for the Indians, the poor souls had been destroyed by the conquistadors’ sword and the Spanish influenza. But the Negro!

“This is absurd. Must I really continue listening to this?”

“The Negro is the materiality of the world!” he declared emphatically, overriding the consul’s lamentations. A virgin spirit, energy for at least ten thousand years! Only he could pass on the teachings of Plato and Michelangelo and ensure they bore fruit. He was ready to receive them. The white man in these regions could no longer satisfy himself with collecting palm nuts and wax, he had to educate, to civilize. Cultivate the bush, of course, but also—mostly—the minds.

“I wouldn’t be so worried if you were a genuine madman. Isn’t your idealism hiding something? Everyone says you’ve come to get yourself a kingdom.”

“Why hide it? I need a place to try out my ideas, after all.”

“If I’ve understood correctly, you’re going to introduce yourself to the Fulas and say, ‘My name is Aimé Olivier, give me your kingdom so I can try out my ideas.’”

“Not exactly. First I’ll ask for their authorization to trade and build a railroad, then—”

“A railroad!”

“The Romans civilized the tribes of Europe with aqueducts, we’ll civilize the tribes of Africa with the railroad.”

“Yes, but why Fouta Djallon?”

“First because of the name, and second because of the geography.”

He sketched an imaginary map in the air between them and explained the strategic importance of the tallest mountains in West Africa, equidistant from the sea and the inland kingdoms, the source of all the great rivers.

“According to the French explorer Lambert, Fouta Djallon is the most powerful and best-organized kingdom in the highlands. I’ll establish my base there and deploy tribes along the railroad. First Fouta, then Dinguiraye, Sakatou, and Timbuktu…all the way to Oubangui-Chari and Limpopo! My dream is to found a new nation, the first nation of blacks and whites, the boundless Empire of Sudan…”

At this stage, the consul seriously considered walking out. But ever the skillful diplomat, he changed the subject to poetry and opera, which enabled them to prolong the evening with a fine meal accompanied by another bottle of Bordeaux.

Next, he visited the Portuguese governor, who received him with a banquet and offered him his guides. He roamed the Bissagos Islands, but carefully avoided Orango, which was said to be ruled by the diabolical Outpace, notorious for having robbed and devoured Austrian castaways on his land. He enjoyed exploring Bubaque and getting a taste of the Africa he would find deeper inland, so unlike the cities in that here the white man was still a mysterious phantom. He got his first glimpse of the scenes that would reoccur time and again throughout his long career in the bush: women and children fleeing at the sight of him; endless palaver; witch hunts; rituals; and hours of exchanging gifts with Negro kings. Yet he was pleased to realize that even the jungle-dwellers were not hostile—stunned, delighted, disdainful, or terrified, but never hostile! He admired the daring appearance of the women, covered in shells and wearing skirts of braided straw. He played with the children, who sported a single tuft of hair in the center of their shaved heads and wore braided headbands, trading pieces of sugar with them for rare insects. This is a good start, he told himself. The landscape is as incredible as I thought and the people are intelligent, cautious, industrious, and often elegant.

The king of Bubaque and his hundred wives treated him to a week of festivities. Astonishing: in this remote part of the jungle, the king lived in a one-story palace with a courtyard paved with shells.

Along with the gifts his agents in Gorée had suggested, Olivier presented the king with a crystal dish. He was so pleased with it that he added his twelve-year-old son to the customary bull, two pigs, and four hens he offered Olivier. Olivier followed tradition and thanked him over the course of several days, then turned his mind to finding a way to get rid of this troublesome gift. The interpreter tried to smooth things over as best he could:

“The white man asks that you keep his child until he returns from inside the territory.”

“And where is the white man going?”

“To Fouta Djallon.”

Crash! Anger tore the ruler right out of his seat. He threatened to seize their goods, shatter their limbs, then throw them in the snake hut. Mâly knew he had blundered, but took a long time to realize exactly what he had done. No matter how hard he listened, the poor interpreter could barely understand the rumbling salvos of anger now shaking the entire palace:

“Fouta Djallon, oh no! Never, no, no, Fouta Djallon, no! Fouta Djallon, bad, bad! Fulas, bastards!”

With the words pouring out like a torrent of lava, the interpreter struggled to keep up:

“…Fulas, children of treachery whose spear is bent! During the night, they sleep but their left hand does not slumber. Though they possess beauty, they are forbidden fine character…Bastard Fulas!…Bastard Fulas, bastards! You, do you know the Fula? Huh, you don’t know?…So take an enigma, sew it into the skin of a cat, give it to a boa, then give the boa to a crocodile. Now bury the crocodile under the ashes on a foggy night, and you’ll have yourself a Fula!”

The monarch couldn’t stop himself. Finally, Mâly understood: constant attacks from the Fulas had chased the king’s ancestors off their territory on solid ground and into the islands. “And this monster thinks we’re spies for his enemies in Fouta! We’re in a mess, white man, a fine mess, wallahi!”

The palaver stretched on for several days and nights. Eventually they had to surrender half their eau-de-vie to save their lives and a magnifying mirror to avoid being detained on the island. But even once he’d returned to a better disposition, the monarch wouldn’t budge regarding his royal gift—the white man had to take the child with him, it would be an insult to do otherwise. After two more nights of arguing and drinking, he finally relented in exchange for a pair of pajamas and the white man’s promise that he wouldn’t go to Fouta Djallon, but would merely explore the coast before returning to claim his gift.

Upon his unhoped-for return to Bolama, Olivier de Sanderval opened his journal and wrote:

“My devoted clerks in Gorée may not agree, but I was right to foray into the Bissagos. I’ve got my sea legs now. Nothing can scare me now, not even the Fulas of Fouta Djallon!”

The following week he carried out a strange ceremony in the middle of his garden. He threw the letters he had carried from France into a bonfire and raised his arms to the heavens to speak to Africa again: “To you, these ashes brought from France! May I never leave you mine!”

On January 13, he set off to travel three days up the Cassini in a pirogue. He found Lawrence surrounded by his ministers, discussing the kingdom’s affairs. Lawrence’s palace really looked the part. It was a wood house—granted, already lopsided—but if you could see beyond the chaos and mold, its ramps and balustrades were reminiscent of the venerable homes of Bahia and Louisiana. In Marseille, it would have been a simple shack, he thought, but in these parts, where the only architecture to be found outside of thatched huts was in the fanciful shapes of the plants, this old-fashioned edifice had to be admired.

Lawrence introduced him to his subjects and spoke to him without an interpreter. Aside from Nalu, Susu, and Fula, he spoke perfect English and had a decent grasp of French and Portuguese. He had received the English consul’s message and had very good news—the almami[*] authorized him to set foot on his territory, and at first glance did not seem hostile to his project for a railroad.

Miracle of miracles! In just a few seconds, he had become the guest of Fouta Djallon: Fouta, the very area reputed to be totally closed to strangers and so forbidding! The guest of the almami himself—so long as he didn’t steal, kill, or profane Islam, as per the customary expression. Aguibou, the prince of Labé, would come to meet him in Buba, the border town, to give him his passport. A miracle, oh yes, simply a miracle! He was expecting flat-out refusal, or at the very least a drawn-out procedure. He had thought it would take weeks or months to eventually be told no. He had even devised an alternate plan for sneaking in over the southern mountains, at the risk of being decapitated. Thank you, Lawrence; thank you, Nalus! And yes, thank you to the English, for the first and last time!

“It’s the almami you’ll have to thank. My dear Aimé, not everyone has the privilege of being the Fulas’ guest!”

“That’s certainly true…I’m eager to leave!”

“First I must find you some interpreters.”

“I already have one.”

“You’ll never have too many interpreters to deal with the Fulas.”

He would not answer. To say no would be an offense (yet another, in these parts where the sovereigns were impulsive and the penalty was often death). To say yes would be to take on an additional risk as he prepared to enter mysterious and inaccessible Fouta Djallon, already said to be teeming with marauders and spies.

HE TOOK LEAVE of his friend Lawrence, after having buried him in gifts and obtained numerous treaties, to continue exploring the coast and searching out upstream rapids and its countless rios. He filled his journals with sketches and notes about the nature of the soil and the variety of insects and monkeys. He studied the local languages, preparing lexicons of Nalu and Fula. He ventured deep into the mangrove swamps to wonder at the shape of their trees, sample the unknown tastes of their hundreds of fruits, and negotiate with the tribes to open his trading posts and win the right to travel through with his caravans.

He mapped the whole area, providing the first credible outline of the coast and the course of the rivers. After exploring the Kouchala, Cabacera, Koubak, Comedia, and Compony, he pushed far up the twists and turns of the rio Nunez and saw the horrifying Vikaria post used for executions. The condemned were tied to the post after having their limbs broken and left to wait for high tide or hungry crocodiles.

As planned, he reached Boké and immediately presented himself at the French fort.

“What do you mean you’re going to Fouta Djallon?” Captain Dehous, the local commander, reproached him. “You must understand that we will not be of any assistance to you if anything should happen while you were there. You don’t just go off to Fouta Djallon the way you’d take a little trip to Auvergne. One of our compatriots disappeared up that way nearly a year ago and hasn’t been heard of since.”

“You mean they ate him alive?”

“What else could have happened?”

“What was his name?”

“Montet or Moutet—I can’t remember anymore. A madman who had gotten it into his head to teach viticulture to the Fula people. Teaching wine-growing to Mohammedan Negroes! I thought he was the worst case I could possibly encounter. And now I find you!”

Nonetheless, the captain had a room prepared for him and offered him a copious dinner. But their meal was interrupted by violent cries. They rushed outside to find the guards beating a man in chains.

“This happens every couple of weeks,” the captain explained. “These savages swallow their filth to go into some kind of trance, then they come to steal from our storerooms claiming they are acting under the influence of the spirits. Albert, throw this monkey into the oubliette. Tomorrow I’ll take him to the village chief.”

“What will the chief do?” asked Olivier de Sanderval.

“He’ll probably condemn him to the Vikaria post. The savages’ laws are even more cruel than those of the pirates and the inquisitors.”

“I saw that horrible thing on the way here. What can I do to save this poor man?”

“Nothing. We don’t make it a habit to meddle in their customs.”

“I’ll go see the chief tomorrow. Maybe with a little amber…”

“Listen, Monsieur Olivier, our lives as white men are complicated enough as it is. I’m warning you: if you cause us any trouble, I will have you shot on the spot.”

But the next day, there was no need to go implore the chief’s mercy. When they opened the basement where the prisoner was confined, only his bones remained. The bag-bag ants had eaten him alive.

Only in Africa could you witness something so horrific. He was despondent all day, unable to swallow anything other than his own saliva. Then he remembered his childhood reading. It was from this small port, sheltered from the pirates and the winds and then known as Kakandy, that René Caillié had embarked on his expedition to Timbuktu. He built a small memorial to him and had the fort’s detachment sound the bugle and raise the flag.

René Caillié loomed large among the myths that fueled his childhood dreams. Now that maturity had set in, he wondered whether Caillié wasn’t even greater than Ulysses and Attila. To him, the name still resonated with the same biblical intensity as those of the great patriarchs and Timbuktu. Why, it was as magical a name as Java or Samarqand. He stood on the threshold of the land of the impenetrable Fulas, wading through mangrove swamps, beset with problems, and feeling the first effects of malaria for no other reason. He was doing it all so that one day their names would appear side by side on the glorious family tree that began with Robinson Crusoe and constantly grew through the extravaganza of modern times. Caillié the father, and he the son! All this was sheer utopia, of course, for reality, always crueler, had created them as unlike one another as clay and emeralds.

René Caillié had come into this world poor in a small village in the Deux-Sèvres. His father, a baker, was sent to the Rochefort labor camp for having stolen some trifle and died there in 1808, some twenty-five years before Jean Valjean. Young Aimé Victor Olivier was a pure product of Lyon—meaning rich, meaning born with a refined palate, meaning inventive, meaning cold and secretly eccentric.

The Oliviers were born without fear of the future and grew up in sprawling, quiet homes surrounded by high walls and hidden among lush plants. The city’s industrial development owed a great deal to the family’s genius.[*] Both on the Olivier and the Perret side, little Aimé was descended from a long line of engineers. His father was considered a scientist. His uncle Théodore was one of the founders of the Central School of Arts and Manufacturing in Paris, where Aimé would be a brilliant student. The world owed industrial sulfuric acid to his maternal grandfather. And Aimé owed everything to chemistry, beginning with his birth! One fine day, Claude-Marius Perret, father of Lyon’s chemical industries, hired a young engineer who was such a perfect fit that he gave him his daughter’s hand in marriage. The couple had six children, of which Olivier de Sanderval was the second.

“That boy worries me,” his congenitally anxious mother would say to his self-assured, optimistic father. “It seems like he isn’t from here. He always seems to be looking at something other than what’s around him.” No, he was like any other child, just a little melancholy. Like everyone else, he obeyed his father and loved his mother—with an ardent yet modest love, beyond suspicion but undoubtedly ardent. Of the entire brood, he was by far the most attached to her. Yet he was not one of those effeminate, fussy children whose laces had to be tied for them and who had to be forced to eat their steak and mashies. Early on, he proved to be intelligent, energetic, and unusually resourceful. This gentle dreamer loved sports and dangerous games.

At four, he was already barging in to adults’ conversations with such carefully considered statements that no one thought of rebuffing him. At seven, he had eclipsed his older brother and imposed his cool authority over his younger siblings. He was strange for a tough guy—hard on the outside, but soft inside, like a sea urchin. This athletic boy with a fragile heart and stomach was full of tenderness and sensitivity. His knees went weak at the slightest thing: his mother’s voice, a young girl’s smile, a stanza by Villon, or a rhyme by Sully-Prudhomme. And though his eyes always appeared to be dry, his heart never stopped crying. He was a dreamer, a dreamer in action, permanently dissatisfied. Reality was never enough for him. He always wanted things to be bigger, stronger, more beautiful.

He had a way of irritating people, but also of charming them. No matter the circumstance, there was something majestic, superior, even Roman about him.

Women were attracted to his virile figure, his straight nose, and his gray eyes bathed in a soft white light. Even his adversaries were impressed by his piercing gaze, high forehead—his hairline slightly receding to the left and swept in a long strand to the right—and his carefully sculpted black beard. When he walked down the street, everyone turned to look at him—yes, there’s no doubt about it, he had the look of his era. Passersby imagined he was another Jules Verne or Victor Hugo.

“I come from a family where banality is unacceptable.” He would say no more about his people, but perhaps that was already too much for the Lyon bourgeoisie, which was Latin and Catholic, but as discreet and humble as the great Lutheran families of Northern Europe. Neither the Oliviers nor the Perrets came into the world with bold arrogance, proclaiming their high birth, but with the nerve-racking obligation to rival their fathers’ accomplishments. Yet these fanatics of hard work and discipline always let delightful follies gaily flirt with their reliance on science and passion for industry. Take Claude-Marius Perret. In winter, the venerable old man appeared on Place Bellecour in a dog sled; in summer, in a cabriolet pulled by horses frenzied with alcohol. The prefect was forced to draft a decree to put a stop to this travesty. But after his wife’s death, the old fox found another way to break with tradition and the law: he had her clandestinely embalmed and kept her by his side until it was his turn to die. Not to mention the uncle who spent fifty years of his life restoring the catacombs of Rome merely to use them as the basis for a sumptuous lithograph graciously offered to the Vatican.

Yet work always came first. Fun only followed when you had earned your rest. The rules set by these hotheaded progenitors were as inflexible as their laboratory formulas: “One isn’t born to have a good time but to do what one has to do.” One day when he was about nine, Aimé ran away from his sinister boarding school in Oullins to escape the ferule and a god-awful chickpea puree. He stole onto one of the family barges transporting acids and ores up and down the Rhône to join his parents, then living in Avignon. But as he was about to cross the threshold into the family home, he encountered his father: “You know very well you shouldn’t be here at this hour, Aimé.” His father spoke without making a move or raising his voice. The boy immediately got back on the boat, not daring to go up the stairs to kiss his mother, whom he hadn’t seen in nearly a year.

Our future king of Africa happened to be a perfect illustration of the Bantu proverb: “One is more the son of one’s era than of one’s father.” He was the spitting image of the nineteenth century. Ordem et progresso! Beginning with his education and temperament, everything had prepared him to live for the passions of his time—ideas, science, and the great expeditions. He had been molded with the mind of a pioneer in a century of pioneers. From an early age, he thought of his life as a steep slope leading to daring exploits. Every hero had his legend; his own dogged quest for grandeur and fulfillment would have a book. It would be titled The Absolute and encompass the sum total of his thinking, the point where all the parallels came together: idea and life, reality and the void, being and the good Lord. Embarked upon when he was twelve years old, this Metaphysics of modern times was now in its twentieth version.

René Caillié had left travel journals; he would leave both an expedition journal and a system of thought, a lyrical work and an encyclopedia.

There was another thing that distinguished him from his illustrious model: Caillié had worked himself to the bone all the way to Guadeloupe to pay for his trip to Timbuktu. His greeting committee was made up of mosquitoes and bad luck. For his part, Aimé had recently inherited most of the trading posts from Rufisque to Bolama and Ziguinchor from his stepfather, the shipping magnate Pastré. Yet it was understood that none of his agents would accompany him to Fouta Djallon. He had to go alone with his Negroes, without maid or manservant, or his expedition would not be a veritable exploit.

Though he scoured the villages and flooded the markets with his smooth-talking recruiters, he had tremendous difficulty finding porters. The coastal people didn’t like venturing into Fouta Djallon. “You don’t come back alive from Timbo,” they answered him with a shudder, “and if you do come back alive, you don’t come back free.”

It took him three days of palaver and a mountain of gifts to put together a column to accompany him.

Ten valleys, three plains, five hills, six rivers…Then, one fine morning, Mâly turned into Moses setting foot in the Promised Land. He pointed to wooded highlands lost in the fog:

“You see over there? Beyond the termites’ nests? That is Fouta Djallon! Finally, the land of rushing water and fruit, pure milk and wise men! The land that quenches your thirst! Don’t be surprised, toubab, that’s the griots talking.”

But even with his binoculars, the distance was still too great, visibility too poor. He could only catch sight of the glint of a rock face and had to feverishly imagine the rest: the bôwé, the touldé[*], stunningly bejeweled shepherdesses guarding oxen with the softest down and the many other images filling Mollien’s, Caillié’s, Hecquart’s, and Lambert’s narratives.

He led his column forward whistling a happy tune. But events in Buba soon put an end to his euphoria. The very night of his arrival, the rebel lord Alpha Gaoussou attacked the city and carried away sixty of his porters.

Aguibou, who was meant to give him his passport, had been held up by business a few days’ journey away. His wife, Princess Taïbou, received him instead. Olivier’s memoirs describe her as follows: “Balls of amber as fat as eggs hang from her tightly braided hair. Five-franc coins cover her bosom, their chiming setting off her childish pride. Her arms are loaded down with silver bracelets as thick as my thumb, and she wears rings of braided silver twine around her ankles.”

He greeted her by giving her a piece of white merino with silver lamé. She sparkled with pleasure and invited him to stay and talk:

“So you’re the white man my husband told me about. You want to walk all the way to Timbo, right?”

“That’s right, Princess.”

“My husband told me so. He also told me something so bizarre I’ve almost put it out of my mind. I’ve heard that over there, where you’re from, you have a strange machine you want to bring here, to Fouta.”

“A railroad, Princess, something that can travel from here to Labé in the time it takes you to make a meal.”

“That may be true over there, but not in Fouta.”

“It’s true everywhere, Princess.”

“Well, even if I see it, I won’t believe it.”

She was relaxed and lighthearted. It amused her to learn that in France the rain was like salt, powdery and white; that people prayed before a cross and ate pig; and that men, who were all uncircumcised, were only allowed to marry one woman. She took a long look at him and laughed at his pale skin and smooth, long hair, the hair of a newborn. Then her face froze as she realized that she didn’t even know his name:

“You must take me for a fool—we’ve been talking for some time now and I haven’t even asked your name. I suppose they must give you a name, over there in the land of the whites.”

“They certainly do, Princess. Even our streets have names. Mine is Aimé.”

“Yémé? That’s not a bad name. But you are quite astonishing, Yémé, to want to bring that machine to us. Do you think the Fulas will want it?”

“I fully intend to win over the almami. You’ll help me, Princess, won’t you? You’re the wife of the future king of Labé and everyone on the coast says the almami holds your husband in high regard.”

“Yes, for the time being, but who knows what will happen when it will be the Alphayas’ turn to rule.”

Lawrence had spent an entire night trying to make him understand the situation between the Soryas and the Alphayas. But a short history lesson in Taïbou’s soft, steady voice finally succeeded where Lawrence had failed. He learned that the Soryas and the Alphayas made up the two branches of the almamis’ family. Power alternated between them every two years. At least, that was how it stood on paper. What were the real determining factors? Poison, daggers, and civil war!

To rule this land one day, he had to understand that Fouta Djallon was a theocratic federal kingdom comprising nine provinces. Each province had a king. Based in Timbo, the almami ruled over all the provincial kings. The almami, or rather the two almamis—the reigning one and the one impatiently waiting in the wings, lying “dormant” in his capital, waiting to capture the throne!

The ferocious, touchy, and mistrustful Fula people were governed by a subtle balance of power. Ultimate power resided in Timbo, but Fogoumba, the religious capital, crowned the almami, voted on legislation, and declared war.

“You have a very complicated system.”

“Everything is complicated here, Yémé, that’s why we’re Fulas!”

She taught him the thousand and one ways of approaching the prickly Fula race, reputed to be cunning, suspicious, fanatical, and treacherous, always on its guard and never genuinely friendly. He listened to her for nearly three hours, as overwhelmed by her advice as by her well-defined lips and wildflower smell. He bade her farewell in a casual, nearly intimate tone:

“I put myself in your hands, Taïbou. The road is blocked and I’ve lost sixty of my men. I’m stuck here at the edge of Fouta. Each passing day costs me energy and men. But I know I can count on you, can’t I, my princess?”

“The road was opened this morning, Yémé. My husband sent me a message just before you arrived. He is waiting for you in Guidali, where I will join him in a few days. An emissary will soon arrive to lead you to him. I’ve given orders that your men be found or that you are provided with captives. If you have any trouble, don’t hesitate, call on Taïbou. Now go in peace, Yémé. I bless you and pray for you.”

The moment he got back to his tent, he opened his journal:

“Honey, flowers, natural springs, and a princess said to be cruel but in actuality courteous and pleasant to look at. If that’s what Fouta is like, well, give me more!”

FROM BUBA, YOU COULD SEE the first foothills of Fouta Djallon. O the rapids and blossoming hollows, the gold around the neck of a beautiful woman in Buba! The women were as miraculously splendid as the landscape. He was in seventh heaven. Writing after a stroll, he could not contain his enthusiasm: “How could you avoid dreaming of claiming a little piece of a land where laurels stand fifty feet tall? Which of life’s vanities offer a better semblance of reality than to conquer a kingdom and organize a state?”

The arrival of Aguibou’s emissary was finally announced. On March 3, Olivier’s column set off, leaving at six in the evening to avoid the sun, which even at those altitudes could be lethal at midday. He had intended the trip from Bolama to Buba to serve as a practice run, an opportunity to evaluate the best load for his porters, set the pace, determine the length of each stage and study his men’s behavior—distinguish the thieves from the merely greedy, the cowards from the recalcitrant, the profiteers from the spies.

Now they were getting down to serious business. He was heading for the mountains, to those fierce and unpredictable Fulas, so slow to open their hearts and so quick to pull out their knives. The first steep trails began near Sambafil. His men got off their horses and mounted the donkeys. He was already on foot—horseback riding never suited this rugged man who felt most comfortable on the peaks of Mont Blanc and the volcanoes of Iceland. He used his mount only to cross ditches and backwaters and led it by the reins or left it to an attendant the rest of the time. They began counting the first waterfalls and cliffs, the first sprains and snakebites. For every flower there seemed to be a natural fountain. Everywhere they turned, there were birds sweeping out of the trees, stunning them with their extravagant colors, and packs of monkeys pulling off hilarious stunts.

Some of the porters took advantage of the curves in the trail to run off with their loads; others embraced freedom and threw their burden away at the first detour.

As promised, Aguibou was waiting when the column reached Guidali, three days after it left Buba. The reception took place in a vast gravel courtyard decorated with citronella, surrounded by large huts with terraced roofs and verandas on which shaggy-haired, snotty kids frolicked with young goats and chickens

“Welcome to the land of the almami! Are you well? Is the place you came from free of trouble?”

His weeks among the Fula and Nalu had taught him all he needed to know about local customs. Or so he thought.

“I have come from Buba. There is no trouble there, only good things. My trip went well, without any problems.”

“To your wishes, white man, to your wishes! I have heard your name. Fouta Djallon says your name is good. Timbo is ready to welcome you, the court has examined your request. It is said you want a road to make the steam come all the way to Timbo.”

“That’s exactly it. I intend to discuss it with the almami, as soon as…”

He did not need Mâly’s assistance to realize he had just made a blunder potentially more grievous than his memorable misadventure on Bubaque. All he needed to see was how his hosts’ faces suddenly turned hostile and their hands tightened around their clubs and knives. Aguibou motioned to calm the crowd, but the look in his eyes was far from reassuring. He winked at his griot, who immediately berated the stunned toubab:

“You, discuss with almami! Fulas, do you hear this?”

Whispering, Mâ-Yacine told Olivier he had committed an unforgivable crime of lèse-majesté. The almami was a sacred symbol, second only to the Good Lord and the Prophet. He did not ask, he demanded; he did not receive, he summoned. And though he was known to talk, he only did so with princes and kings.

“Are you a king or a prince? Answer, you ungrateful guest, you dishonorable, ignorant man!” the griot proclaimed, while other voices stirred to demand that he be beaten, that his men and goods be seized, that he be expelled to the coast or thrown to the crocodiles.

Mâly, frantically blinking as he racked his brains to find a solution, now calmly cleared his throat. In this Fula world where everything was bowing and whispering, allusion and suggestion, this meant he requested the court’s authorization to speak.

“Forgive this thoughtless white man, Prince Aguibou! He should have begun by conveying his uncle’s highest regards to Fouta…”

The bold interpreter humbly asked that they look beyond appearances: this unfortunate toubab, ugly with diarrhea, filthy from the trail, bloodied by thorns, was no less than the nephew of the king of France—understand, the son of the brother of his land’s almami, same mother, same father. There were four people in line for the French throne: the king, his son, his brother and then him, Olivier de Sanderval, despite the dust plastering his hair and the thick coat of mud on his soles. Fouta would bring honor upon itself by receiving him as is his due, wallahi! This, good people of the court, was what he, Mâly, wanted to say, this was what he had finished saying.

Naturally, the toubab immediately tried to deny this shameful lie. But his two servants winked and elbowed him into silence.

A long muffled murmur spread through the crowd before the griot turned to the strangers:

“Does the white man have a letter from his most venerated uncle?”

“Don’t you know the customs of France, you foolish and mule-headed bush people?”

Mâ-Yacine had spoken. As a Serer, he had the right to insult the Fulas through the ancestral custom of joking kinship. But the executioner drew his sword. Mâly barely had time to stop him:

“What are you doing, unhappy man! Aguibou, Fula prince, will you allow a Serer’s throat to be slit under your own roof? Will you?”

A growl of reprobation rose against the executioner:

“Why are you looking at me like that? I didn’t know he was a Serer, wallahi, I didn’t know!”

The prince turned to Mâ-Yacine, who was aglow at having saved himself but still trying to catch his breath and nervously smoothing out his boubou:

“You won, Serer, the fault is ours. We deserve to pay the penalty. Will you accept a sheep?”

“Shame upon your race! A sheep is far too little for a Serer. A bull or nothing at all!”

Custom had it that a Serer had the right to heckle a Fula, even if he was a king or a prince. If the Fula didn’t react well, he had to pay a penalty.

“Give him a rope. Let him go to the pens and tie up the animal of his choice.”

“The incident is now closed,” barked the griot. “But what about those French customs?”

In his most serious manner, the Serer explained that the kings of France only wrote to their menial subordinates and exclusively communicated with their equals through the mouths of their nephews. And the current king of France had only one nephew, this poor toubab, roasted by the sun and devoured by mosquitoes. The poor man was so very far away from his orchards and palaces.

“So be it,” Aguibou decided. “The nephew of the king of France will be treated according to his rank. Let us slaughter an ox in his name and offer him the best huts in the village.”

The poor prince of France felt obliged to open one of his trunks: eight yards of cotton madras, twenty cubits of guinée cloth, eight butcher knives, five balls of Swedish amber, two pieces of white merino with silver lamé, two chassepot rifles, and three thousand francs went to thank his counterpart for his magnanimity.

A costly mistake!

Throughout the night, crooks and sycophants lined up at his hut. One said he was Aguibou’s cousin and wanted amber to guarantee him the prince’s favors. Another claimed to be the almami’s marabout and asked for pearls to ensure he would have protectors in Timbo. Yet another introduced himself as a customs agent for the princes of Timbi and requested a rifle to guard the trail. He quickly learned his lesson: among these jealous, greedy, and deceptive Fulas, it was best to distribute gifts at night, when only the stars and the Good Lord could see his riches.

Once he had finally gotten rid of these tedious interlopers, he decided to set things straight with his two subordinates:

“I am not a prince of France, is that understood? I pay you to serve as my interpreter and to provide me with food, not to tell tall tales.”

“You are here among the Fula people, white man,” Mâ-Yacine answered. “You have to be a prince here to make things go more smoothly.”

“Anyhow the damage is done. We are all wearing the same noose now,” added Mâly. “You are a prince of France whether you like it or not. If you say otherwise, we will have made a laughingstock of Fouta and our heads will roll.”

“And if they don’t roll, we’ll leave you right here and return to Dakar, is that understood, you stubborn white man?” Mâ-Yacine exploded.

He spent the night crushing cockroaches, too exhausted to look through his notebooks, too damaged by nature to sleep. He only wrote a few sentences on a piece of cardboard: “I suspected I would find strange customs in this land, but I never imagined joking kinship. I wonder what next: fairground ancestors? Strange Africa! Mischievous Mâly and Mâ-Yacine! Swindling Fula princes! So be it, I’ll be the prince of France, but only to save my head. To think that back home, the same lie would send me straight to the guillotine!”

He met with Aguibou again, but this time face-to-face, meaning he was accompanied only by his cook and interpreter. Aguibou still had the affected air of a negus, confident in the privileges of his birth and throne. Yet he also seemed worried or, rather, on his guard.

“Maybe you really are the nephew of the king of France, maybe you aren’t—he who comes from abroad is the only one to know what kind of woman his mother is. You can lie to me, that is not so serious, but in Timbo, it would be three times more serious. Believe me, my poor toubab, heads roll quickly in Timbo!”

“That is…Listen, my prince, I have to tell you—”

“I give you my word, Prince Aguibou,” Mâly cut in, “this man is as noble in the court of France as you are in the court of Labé.”

“Very well, very well!” Aguibou was growing impatient. “We’ve said enough about this!”

“What about the trail?” asked Mâly.

“The village chiefs are under obligation to ensure your security and provide you with porters and huts to rest in. For the rest, each one of them will do as it suits him. Welcome to our land, stranger!”

“Thank you, Prince, thank you.”

“Don’t thank me, toubab. It is only my duty as a Fula. How long do you intend to stay in Timbo?”

“A week, maybe two. Then I’ll go to Dinguiraye.”

He did not notice that the prince’s face grew somber again.

“To Dinguiraye?”

“And then Siguiri, Sakatou, Kayes. I want to explore the Sudan after seeing your magnificent Fouta.”

“That’s the white man for you! You give him your thumb, he tears off the whole arm! Dinguiraye! And what next? The throne of Fouta, Mecca, and Medina? You would do better to stop at Timbo, I tell you that you would do better.”

With that, he brought the meeting to an abrupt end.

The next day he received a visit from Taïbou. She walked in with that carefully studied slowness that denotes nobility and rank among the Fula, looking even more stunning than the last time he had seen her—more braids and jewels, more sparkle and grace. Her shoulders were covered with a thin lace shawl revealing a glimpse of her luscious, firm breasts and honey-colored nipples, against which a dense tangle of bangles and pearls rested. Her face’s even features glowed like copper in the light of the rising sun. Seen in profile, she looked like a little girl, despite her willowy figure and round breasts. But her beautiful pod-shaped eyes had the intensity of those born to scold and command. She was only twenty-four—twenty-eight at most—no one knew exactly in this isolated country where only a few Arabized families had ever heard of a civil registry. Yet she was the most powerful woman in Fouta, reputed to be rich, independent, and aggressive. She owned as much land and gold as her princely husband. Her lovers numbered in the dozens and her slaves in the thousands. An unrivaled rider, she personally led her six thousand warriors into battle. The wildest legends circulated about her. It was said she mutilated her slaves and ordered the throats slit of the young men who no longer pleased her. Anyone she set her heart upon would eventually face a terrible dilemma: Aguibou’s knife or her own poison.

She was sitting sideways in a corner of the hut. Everything was sideways among the Fulas: sitting, eating, talking, making alliances, going to war, and reconciling. Approaching things head-on indicated a lack of refinement; looking someone straight in the eye was unforgivably vulgar. Among the coastal people, directness was considered man’s greatest quality; in Fouta, duplicity was a sign of nobility and refinement.

He had now been among the Fulas for over a week. He knew that a person’s upbringing could be gauged by the length of his greeting and his ability to mask his feelings, to remain discreet and reserved in the most extreme situations.

She was sitting sideways and spoke in that same soft, steady voice. From time to time she glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. He didn’t understand everything she said, but in this kind of situation there was no need for an interpreter—smiles, gestures, and the two hundred words of Fula he had absorbed would do the trick.

“Is Yémé truly comfortable among us? Has he fallen ill? Has anyone insulted him? Has he been refused water?”

He answered that no, everything was going well, he had never felt as good as since he got to Fouta. Thank you, Labé thank you, Timbo; thank you, almami! Even if he had been beaten, mutilated, and robbed, propriety demanded he express his gratitude.

When she was done speaking, Taïbou covered her face with a corner of her shawl and chuckled:

“Why does Yémé look at me like that?”

“You know very well why,” the white man said as he drew closer to her.

“Of course I know,” she sighed. “A man and a woman all alone in a hut…”

“I’ve only met you once, but it’s as if I’ve always known you. And yet I know it isn’t true.”

He tried to take hold of her hand, but she pushed him away:

“You know who I am. Fouta speaks about me the way other places speak about rain. Foreigners know my secrets as soon as they cross the border. You must have heard that I don’t love my husband and that I’m rather eccentric for a Fula woman.”

The white man couldn’t take his eyes off her neck, lips, and breasts. He could feel his eyes blazing, his blood pulsing, his heart on the verge of leaping out of his chest. Usually, it was matters of the mind that brought him to the edge of panic; he had always managed to keep his cool in matters of the flesh. But now, staring into the eyes of this young girl, he felt his good Christian principles melting like candle wax. His reason was faltering, his senses escaping him, the gates of his virtue bursting open one after the other. This, too, was Africa’s magic.

He wiped his brow and took a deep breath.

“So you don’t love your husband. Which of your lovers do you like best?”

“If I ever told, all of Fouta would go up in flames.”

“It’s hard to believe there are Fula women like you!”

“We have a tree here called the kourahi. A single one of its many fruits always grows without a pit.”

He spoke again after a long silence.

“I like you, you know.”

“I know. All the men I meet like me, alas.”

She rearranged her braids and was lost in thought for a moment. Then she added:

“I like you too.”

The white man started, his mouth gaping as if her words were suffocating him:

“You’re a beautiful man. And I’ve never known the bed of the white man. But I won’t give myself to you.”

“Why not?”

“My life is already too complicated without a white lover.”

“I see. You want to test me and choose the moment yourself. But I could refuse you, my dear, don’t you think?”

She adjusted her shawl and signaled to a captive waiting on the veranda that she was ready to leave. Then she answered:

“You couldn’t. There are three things that no man can resist: gold, power, and a woman. And I’m all three. Ha, ha, ha!”

“If you won’t give me your body, at least grant me your protection. Your Fouta is a worrying place.”

“I’ve told you before, I bless your path.”

“Thank you, Princess, thank you!” he said, his breath coming quickly as he took hold of her shoulders.

But she pushed him away and turned on him with the face of a tyrant:

“Take care, stranger, I am the wife of the future king of Labé. Let me go or I’ll scream!”

As she crossed the hut, she added:

“After Dabalâré, take a detour to greet the prince of Kâdé on my behalf. You’ll see, he’s a great prince, his name will resonate throughout Fouta.”

Before leading his caravan onward, he went to take leave of Aguibou. The honorable husband’s recommendations clashed with his wife’s and filled Olivier with foreboding:

“In Dabalâré, don’t stray from your path, white man. Go straight to Timbo or you’ll regret it.”

ONCE AGAIN IT WAS time to do battle with the bush, the rapids, the perilous mountain passes and the unruly porters. Yet his real ordeal was not in the ups and downs of the journey but in the eternal handicap to which nature had condemned him: his inability to sleep.

Back in France, he had determined that his essential assets would be cunning and patience. Here you had to be cunning with everything: the weather, nature, and especially the men.

He had calculated that it would take five weeks to reach Timbo, which was perfectly feasible by covering fifteen miles a day with each porter carrying forty-five to fifty-five pounds at most. His calculations allowed for all the unknown quantities: devious locals, impulsive princes, trouble getting supplies, being abandoned by porters (who were best replaced at each stage of the journey), diarrhea, and malaria attacks.

The rugged terrain didn’t help matters much. Sometimes men were swept away by the rapids or their mounts vanished over a precipice. It was relatively cool up here, but still they had to wait for the midday sun to dip before they could tackle the most arduous summits. Waiting in the middle of the bush was the worst thing for a caravan. That was always when things went wrong—thefts, revolts, fights, flagging willpower and numbness in the legs, viper and scorpion bites. But he could handle all that. He was physically well equipped and had trained himself mentally for this for years.

In the Olivier family, babies were born sturdy, tall as bamboo and powerful as a steam engine, with bones like a horse. A taste for effort was instilled early on. At the Oullins boarding school, the Dominicans had taught him the rigors of mathematics and the golden rules of austerity and privation. In his long hikes with Father Garnier, he had taken all the risks a child his age could take.

As far back as he could remember, he had always run right to the edge of the cliff and felt death blowing in his face. In fact, he hadn’t grown up—each passage from one stage of his life to the next had required a resurrection. And it had started when he was barely out of his crib. He was only eight on that accursed day when he and his father were crossing the Pont Saint-Jean and the revolutionaries of 1848 threw his father into the Saône. His child’s eyes saw his father disappear underwater along with the foundations of the world and his sense of existence. The moment lasted an eternity. But once the guards had gone, the man who had given him life reemerged on the other side of the bridge without saying a word or even bothering to tell the tale to his family over dinner that night.

From this silent lesson what he retained was that there was nothing extraordinary about dying, or about rising from one’s ashes. So from that day he never stopped emulating the phoenix. At twenty, he shattered his femur while testing a parachute of his own invention. At twenty-two, he single-handedly saved a ship in danger of capsizing. At twenty-five, he was nearly decapitated by bandits while exploring channels that might join France’s two seas. At thirty, he was condemned to death four times in one week while commanding an artillery unit on the front at Sedan. He escaped four times and eventually regained Paris, where the Communards were preparing to put up their barricades. At thirty-two, his father sent him to Marennes to build factories and he nearly blew up with his laboratory while attempting to prove that matter could be dissociated.

Despite it all, his factories kept producing. The family sulfuric acid made the citizens so prosperous that they elected him mayor of the city. Being mayor was all right, but he rebuffed his friends Gambetta and the Marquis de Chasseloup-Laubat’s recommendations to become a deputy or a minister—never, it simply wasn’t dangerous enough!

Hunger, fatigue, diarrhea, pshaw! Before embarking for Africa, he had trained himself to survive three days without eating. But he was powerless against the insomnia that clung to him like some shameful illness. Night was when normal people dreamed, but for him it was the beginning of torment. He had developed a bitter hatred for this vicious tormenter he now called Lucifer.

He hadn’t brought many books, for the weight of even the slightest object couldn’t be discounted on this kind of expedition. Just La Bruyère’s Characters, Bossuet’s Funeral Orations, Sully-Prudhomme’s Épreuves, and Plutarch’s On Tranquility of Mind. Aside from those four volumes, all he had to occupy himself while he waited for the others to rise were the manuscript of The Absolute, his travel journals, and his endless solo chess games. His dishware had been specially ordered from the Manufacture de Sèvres—it was blackened to keep the envious away and thinned down to avoid excess weight. A nickel plate with a tall pot for steaming rice, knives, forks, spoons, and a silverware goblet—he could eat anything, but he wouldn’t eat it out of just anything!

For a change, he would wander out and marvel at the brightness of the sky. In the dry season, it was as sparkling as a fireworks display—the will-o’-the-wisp of the polar star, the inferno of the Great Bear. The unforgettable sounds of slumbering Fouta sounded like a gentle music—fervent chants, couples making love, and suddenly the inconsolable cries of a child waking from a nightmare: “Save me, mother! Porto[*], Porto, white man, white man! The white man is going to eat me!”

“Go straight to Timbo or you’ll regret it.” He had already reached Tchikampil, but still Aguibou’s voice resonated in his mind. Was it a threat? A suggestion? He would never really know what was and wasn’t forbidden with these Fula princes, what could get you beheaded and what deserved a simple upbraiding. He had never suspected that every sigh or pillow secret eventually found its way to the princes’ ears here in Fouta Djallon, a land apparently so gentle and calm, but in which, as he would soon learn, every wall had ears, and every executioner a job.

Taïbou’s idea was dangerous but exciting, very exciting. Kâdé sounded well worth seeing. The city was situated at an extraordinary confluence of rivers and tribes, caravans and rare goods. Setting up a trading post there would ensure control over the thriving trade route between the coast and the powerful interior kingdoms—especially if he could develop ties with some brilliant and ambitious prince of Fouta Djallon, where everything was decided by an aristocracy whose blood ties weighed heavily in the constant clashes of strategic rivalries. As they left Tchikampil, he made his decision: I’ll go to Kâdé, come what may.

Yet the next day an apparently insignificant incident ruined his plan—a man appeared out of nowhere and began showering his porters with insults and hitting them with a club:

“Aren’t you ashamed to carry the burden of a white man and miscreant, a Christian swine, you filthy dogs? You’ll all go to hell, you servile creatures, you damned souls!”

Olivier de Sanderval grabbed a rifle from one of his Wolof guards and repeatedly fired into the air to drive the man away. But he only retreated a few feet before charging Olivier and threatening him with his club. The white man tried to frighten him off by shooting between his feet. The man wriggled and skipped with each shot, but kept returning, more menacing than ever, the moment the rifle was silent:

“I’m not afraid of you, white man, I’m afraid of your rifle!” He followed the column all the way to Saala, tirelessly repeating: “Throw aside your rifle, white man, and come fight like a man!”

This farcical incident—for that is what it was, and a rather welcome one on these harsh bush trails where one was clearly more likely to run into bandits and wild beasts than burlesque dancers—lasted until they reached the outskirts of Saala. Here things took a bad turn.

The bush’s sacred silence was suddenly interrupted by sounds of coughing and whinnying. Armed men on horseback surrounded the column as it crossed the mountain pass overlooking the city. Swords were drawn, rifles crackled. With a quick glance, Olivier de Sanderval estimated the number of assailants—five hundred, maybe even a thousand! “There’s no point in resisting,” he muttered to himself. “Either Aguibou set a trap for me or the almami wants to get rid of me before I discover his kingdom’s secrets. If by chance these are bandits, I’ll negotiate to keep half my amber to continue on to Dinguiraye. I’ll give them a letter of intention so they can get paid on the coast.”

Once again, that smell as paralyzing as it was familiar—the sudden stench of death. It was scandalous in Montredon, Perrache, and Montmartre, absurd everywhere else; here in Fouta it was sadistic, sordid, and nauseating, particularly in his case—he was the only white man in the land, lost among the brambles, the wild dogs, and the Fulas.

His life had come to resemble a siege: everywhere he turned there were traps, reptiles, spies, swords! He had the painful, despairing feeling that rather than going deeper into a country he was slipping into a labyrinth of fog and furtive shadow figures, intrigue and rumor, friendly words and drawn daggers—the disquieting hushed world of the Fula people. The further he went, the thicker the bush grew, the steeper the slopes, the more devious and unpredictable the men. Phlegmatic, susceptible, and legendarily unbearable, these Fulas were true Englishmen (the race he had always detested without ever asking himself why). And this was only the beginning—something even more horrible must have been awaiting him in Timbo. Only he could no longer turn back; he no longer had anywhere to turn back to. Or more specifically, everything—his past, the forests, the caves, the valleys, the world—was closing in behind him as he advanced, just like the bushes lining the trail. But he would not back down, not on the honor of an Olivier. His burning curiosity to reach the far end of terror would prevail. He looked at the assailants, his twenty soldiers and hundred porters, unbuttoned his frock coat to get some air, and sadly shook his head: “Come what may, though I hate to die without seeing Timbo!”

As if in answer to his pathetic monologue, the voice of a rider sounded from the top of the mountain, grotesquely amplified by the echo:

“Are you the white man they call Yémé?”

“That’s correct. But I beg of you to tell me at once who you are and what you intend to do with me.”

“Show your passport to my men…All right, I just wanted to be sure.”

He was a handsome young man, slender like most young people in the region, but with a kind of haughtiness the white man had not witnessed since he had landed. He wore a handsome blue boubou, with a sword and a rifle slung over his shoulder. The young man dashed down the mountain, headed straight for Olivier, his horse whinnying as he brought it to an abrupt stop a few feet from the white man:

“Alpha Yaya, prince of Kâdé. We were alerted by the gunfire. Are you the one who fired?”

“This man started hitting my men…”

“That’s a relief. I thought it was that bandit Alpha Gaoussou. My sister-in-law’s messenger told me you intended to pay me a visit. Alas, a messenger from my brother arrived at the same time asking me to join him to fight off the rebels.”

He made his horse whinny again, then turned to the man with the club:

“And you, where do you come from?”

“From Lèye-Féto, near the Jackal Butte.”

“Take him to Lèye-Féto and have him give over a cow and five baskets of rice straw, that will teach him to disrespect a guest of the almami.”

“That isn’t necessary, my prince. A cow and five baskets of rice straw for a mere trifle!”

“This does not please me, stranger! I apply the law and you observe. Can we agree on that?”

The embarrassed white man mumbled something.

“So now, if you don’t mind, let’s go to the river and share the milk of friendship,” Alpha Yaya continued.

They crossed the river to the heart of a nguérou, the large circle of gravel and sand Fulas traced and marked off with pickets at the edge of their villages or along trails to hold consultations, mourning ceremonies, and war preparations. The white man sneezed. A covey of partridges flew out of the branches.

“Well, well, toubab!” Alpha Yaya exclaimed. “You sneeze, the partridges fly away—that can only be a good omen. May your presence benefit Fouta.”

“May my presence benefit Fouta, and for its part, may Fouta do me no harm!”

Then Alpha Yaya sneezed. He stared at his guest, keeping his scepter well planted in the ground:

“By Allah, this is the morning for good omens! Come”—he extended his hand to him—“be my friend, stranger!”

“Taïbou was so insistent that I come through Kâdé.”

“Then it’s natural that her dear husband was against it.”

“But I didn’t understand why he was so aggressive about it.”

“That is my brother’s way—he is generous but hot-tempered, like all spoiled children. Sometimes I tell myself our father loved him too much. That’s never good for a prince.”

They drank the milk of friendship, talking as if they had known each other forever. The young prince’s elegance and quick wit fascinated the white man. Had he been born in Timbo, he would already be the almami, he told himself. Behind the slow pace and slight singsong of Alpha Yaya’s voice, he could hear a man as lucid as he was determined. Everything about him—his gaze, gestures, diction, and bearing—bespoke his breeding, taste, nobility, and distinction. A prince, a real prince, the kind that still existed in that part of Africa, combining the fine features, sharp mind, feline grace, and slender body of his Fula father with the dark skin, luminous smile, imposing bearing, and fiery character of his Mandingo mother.

All the princesses in Fouta must dream of marrying him, Sanderval told himself.

Then the prince abruptly leaped to his feet and extended his hand again:

“Now I must go. It is a shame we had to speak so briefly. But we’ll surely cross paths again. God put us on each other’s path, God won’t separate us again. If misfortune lays a hand on you, do not hesitate to call Alpha Yaya.”

He rode on for a moment, then turned back to hail the white man:

“In Timbo, seek Bôcar-Biro’s protection. He is the almami’s nephew and my best friend.”

“Goodbye, Prince! Thank you for everything!”

“Go in peace, Yémé! And beware of the people of Timbo, especially the one called Diogo Môdy Macka—he is the almami’s prime minister and the most dangerous of all.”

BEYOND THE CLIFFS OF TCHIKAMPIL and the slave markets of Saala, they had to forge a path between cliffs and boulders, hacking blindly through the creepers and manchineels. Luckily, the sun did not beat down on them as before and the air was less stifling than on the coast. They passed villages, each one like the last, whether perched on a hill or buried in a hollow, surrounded by a hedge of citrus fruits and wild roses in full blossom. In Parawali a fight broke out and somewhere near Cantabanie a panther attacked them. Alpha Yaya’s porters abandoned Olivier at the entrance to Dabalâré, taking all the grain and the animals. All this sowed discord in the column. His Wolofs had to draw their guns, while Mâly and Mâ-Yacine spent the afternoon in tense negotiations. He dined on a handful of rice with lard and was up all night using his supply of camphor to battle the army of bag-bag ants storming his hut. By morning, there was nothing left of his wool belt and watch cord. His parasol, lacerated! His leather bags, pierced by holes one inch across!

In Dabalâré cane roofing gave way to straw. They had reached the real Fouta. He noticed that here people kept their curiosity somewhat in check. Here, they did not let out mocking cries or poke at him with disgusted faces. Instead, they might turn away and shake in terror or throw their bundles aside and run off screaming that the devil had come. He was full of praise for the local women and plant life. On Tuesday, March 9, in a burst of condescending delight, he noted: “Saw a very pretty girl: beautiful mysterious eyes; adequate nose, hooked but slender; lips nearly thin. What a shame all that is black!”

He felt as though he had walked straight out of the land of his dreams into the real one now unfolding before him. This Fouta was as fascinating as the one he had imagined when he had been poring over atlases and maps: “Hills everywhere, orchards everywhere, prairies and flowers everywhere! Natural springs, rivers, torrents everywhere!” On March 11, he crossed the Tominé and lingered in the valley, studying its flora and fauna, calculating the river’s slope and measuring its rate of flow.

The time of abundance was giving way to the dry season. He had figured out that by marching from dawn to midday and from midafternoon to nightfall they could avoid the worst of the sun’s devastating effects. When the sun was high, the men drowned in their own sweat; when it sank, they were sucked up into the abyss. He ate what the bush offered and treated his stomach pains with botane fruit. His Wolofs carried him when illness laid him low. Mâly and Mâ-Yacine did what they could to protect him from the village chiefs’ intrigues and the porters’ treachery.

Orders had come down from Timbo that he be received with the honors due a guest of Fouta. But the village chiefs had different ways of complying. Some came to greet him, gave him their best huts, and occasionally went beyond the call of duty and supplied him with milk, grains, and meat. Yet others sent their captives to meet him and housed him in a shed, or even a chicken shack, making no provisions for his men, who had to sleep under the stars.

It was a pleasant country—pleasant but not particularly safe. The bush was full of panthers and asps, the land rugged, the men unreadable. He had to be wary of everything, day and night, and stay on his guard. With every step, he could slip into a chasm or be bitten by a snake. With each meal, he risked being poisoned. He forced himself to drink large quantities of milk to clean any toxins from his body. His men—particularly those from the coast—had to stay grouped and not stray too far from their white man. Once isolated, they could be robbed, beaten, or enslaved.

Luckily, the bush was often more generous than man. It started to feel like a home and a sanctuary. Certainly cruel and wild, but it sheltered and fed them. He turned to the bush to escape the greed of the village chiefs or rediscover the pleasures of camping, which Father Garnier had taught him on the banks of the Azergues. He discovered the doûki, a mango tree with delicious pear-shaped fruit. He tasted the bread tree’s tart fruit and the rubber tree’s sweet fruit, the fruits of the mampata medlar tree and the sangala, and bunches of tchingali, which reminded him of the finest Beaujolais grapes. He hunted wild birds and learned to drink flower liqueur, whose refined taste of alcohol reminded him of mirabelle plum brandy.

All of Fouta lined up to watch him forge deeper into the interior. Locals gathered at the edge of paths and on marketplaces to admire his black beard and white gloves. They pointed at his helmet, steel-tipped boots, and the sunshade from which he was inseparable. They cooed over his tent, “A hut, kinsmen, a real hut that you fold and unfold as easily as our grass skirts!” Kids scrambled around his table in hopes he would toss them some biscuits or chocolate. They watched him eat his poorly cooked tubers and wild berry purees served in porcelain dishes with the finest French wines. Wallahi, that man was strange! Strange to eat with pieces of metal instead of eating with his hands like everyone else! Strange to blow his nose in a clean, well-ironed piece of cloth, then put his snot in his pocket, like his gold, his cowries or his jewels. Yow, kinsmen, yow! Strange never to step out from under the sunshade or take off his gloves, strange to remain impeccably clean surrounded by all this mud. Strange with his helmet, strange without his helmet. Strange to be white, strange not to sleep, strange not to belch, strange not to speak Fula properly, strange under the sun, strange in the bush…

On the way to Guélé, he visited the Diourney Falls, whose roar could be heard from a mile away, and considered bringing back to France some loukous, elongated pods whose long silk filaments had heretofore never been used.

In Waltoundé, something truly unusual happened—he was able to sleep. That afternoon, he walked in circles in the lougans[*] for several hours, worked on his notes, and played a few games of chess, then stretched out under a mango tree to listen to the whisper of the bush. It may only have lasted five minutes, but to him it was a delightful eternity, unfortunately interrupted by a cacophony unlike any he had heard before, including during the bloodiest incidents of the Commune. The village’s inhabitants were bolting out of their huts, screaming in fright:

“The devil! The devil! The devil!”

He tried to find out what was going on, but everyone was scrambling. Finally, amidst the chaos, he caught sight of Mâ-Yacine and Mâly trembling at the top of a kapok tree. It was hard to convince them to come down and still harder to make sense of what they were saying with frantic eyes and halting breath: they had seen the devil! Everyone had seen the devil. He had been seen coming out of nowhere, crossing the village, picking up a rotten papaya, then loitering near the well.

“The devil is white!” concluded Mâ-Yacine, by far the more coherent of the two. “He has blue eyes and blond hair that hangs down to his knees,” he added reproachfully. “What do you say about that?”

“I always knew the devil lived naked,” whimpered Mâly. “He just has a few leaves to cover his penis.”

Over a dozen witnesses confirmed what he was hearing: “The devil exists and he just came through Waltoundé!” The accounts matched so well that Olivier de Sanderval couldn’t resist asking:

“So is it true that he smells like brimstone?”

“According to those who got close, he smells more like dung,” they answered, dead serious.

“And where is he now?”

“How should we know where the devil goes to hide?” another villager exploded.

“He jumped over a fence and disappeared in that direction, in the gallery forest.”

He took off in the direction indicated.

“What are you going to do, madman?” Mâ-Yacine asked, his voice still quavering.

“Why, I’m going to shake hands with the devil.”

A small group separated from the crowd and followed him at a distance. Some begged him to turn back, others just wanted to see what would happen.

He searched the thorny groves and clumps of bamboo and looked behind the rocks and at the bottom of the embankment.

These people have eaten some kind of mushroom, he told himself as he nervously started back. Just then, his gaze fell upon a tree trunk and he nearly passed out. The devil was astride a branch, his back to him as he bit into a ripe mango.

He took hold of a liana to avoid falling over. But suddenly he touched his forehead and came to his senses. A sardonic smile appeared on his face:

“Do come down from that tree, Mister Devil!” he ordered in the voice of a commanding officer.

The devil whipped around:

“What, you speak French?”

He nimbly slid down the tree and came closer:

“Now, listen to my sad story. I am not the devil; don’t believe what these stupid Negroes say. I am as French as they come. I wanted to see unknown lands, so I ventured to Timbo. But I hadn’t considered these Fulas’ cruelty, dear sir. The almami kept me prisoner for six months. Then he took my clothes and belongings and gave me five weeks to get back to the coast.”

“I know, Monsieur Moutet. I assumed as much!”

“What? You know me?”

“Not personally. But I did imagine you would be better dressed. Surely you could have found some rags to wear along the way?”

“But how, my dear sir? That monkey threatened to decapitate any subject of his kingdom who put a stitch of clothing on my back. I walk along the rivers to avoid being seen and eat wild berries. But what about you, what are you doing here?”

“I’m going to Timbo!”

“You’re crazy! You’ll wind up in Saroudia Plain, where they behead the unhappy men they sentence to death. You would do better to follow me and get back to the coast as soon as possible.”

“What can I do for you?”

“Absolutely nothing!”

“I can’t leave you like this!”

“Yes you can! Come with me or run! So that at least one of us has a chance to see sweet France again.”

“Wait!”

He pulled a few coins and coral beads out of his pocket. But Moutet only looked at them with disgust and threw them in the river.

“What do you want me to do with these? They’ll say I stole them. Go on—run. Run, I tell you!”

They could hear some Fulas approaching.

“You’re the one who should run! They ran from you the first time, but they might stone you to death the second time.”

“So did you finally catch a glimpse of that devil?”

“Of course not, my poor Mâly, I didn’t see anything at all. I was just looking for the path back to the village.”

The pains he had been experiencing in his greater omentum were becoming increasingly acute. To put them out of his mind, he devoted body and soul to exploring untamed nature, redolent of the sweet perfume of roses, four-o’clocks, caro-caroundés, and gardenias.

In Missidé-Goungourou, he wrote: “This nation, so rich with farmable land, water and sunlight, would be marvelous if it was inhabited by white men.” Standing on the hills of Missidé-Goungourou the next day, he took himself for Moses: “In the distance, I can see the Promised Land where I’ll have oranges, bananas, and fresh fruit. I may be there tomorrow.” At night, he burned with fever and dosed himself with quinine while listening to Muslim prayers that reminded him of The Song of the African Woman: “To the banks of the Tagus,” etc.

Once again, steep slopes and climbing trails, pirogues, liana bridges, and ropes stretched over thundering rapids. Once again, dirt paths and brush fires, migrating shepherds and caravans carrying wax and slaves. They passed villages tucked into the hillsides like jewels in their settings, with bursts of jasmine and evocative names: Dounguédâbi, Télikoné, Diountou, Bouroumba, Simpéting. He felt exhausted but constantly amazed.

In Simpéting, he returned to his notebooks: “Everywhere I look I see flowering trees: jasmines, oleanders, yellow acacias.” An old man told him he remembered that a white man had come through some twenty or thirty years ago. That must have been Lambert, who had been sent by France to establish trading relations with the king of Fouta of the time, almami Oumarou. He spent a few days in Missidé-Dindéra to explore the courses of the Sâla and the Kakrima: “European colonists could enjoy great prosperity here without working more than a few hours a day. This is heaven on earth, heaven during the original sin, with beautiful iron-bearing clear water, fruit, sweet-smelling flowers, and boundless pastures to feed thousands of horses, oxen, and sheep.”

In Dindéyah, he wrote: “Tonight I dined with Mâly, starting with quinine, then rice with peanut sauce—a very fine dish that should be introduced to French cuisine—and finally young goat with millet.” In Dâra-Labé, the mountain air briefly helped him overcome his stomach pain and fatigue, and he allowed himself a moment of reverie: “The country continues to be charming, a succession of delightful hills and dales. All it lacks to be superior to the most seductive parts of Europe are farms, villas, and châteaux. The orange tree heavy with fruit, the savory odors, the cool shade of the trees, everything here makes one dream of the land of Aida…Europeans can settle in this country and have a good life. Its masters will dominate trade with Central Africa and Niger.”

On Friday, April 2, he was so impressed with the landscape offering itself up to him that he decided to camp on the spot, though they had only put in a meager half-day’s walk. An old shepherd came to tell him the same story he had heard in Simpéting:

“Long ago a white man came through this high plateau. He had a rifle and traveled in a sedan. He wasn’t as tall as you are, but he also wore a helmet.”

“And what was his name?”

“How should I know? It was so long ago! Anyhow, white men are like birds in the sky: no one would think to remember their names. Don’t you have anything to treat my dizzy spells, white man?”

“Yes, I have Vichy lozenges.”

“Let me have them, I’ll give you a goat in exchange.”

“No.”

“I offer you a goat for some lozenges and you dare to balk, white man?”

“I won’t give them to you until you tell me the name of this place.”

“This place? I believe they call it Kahel.”

“Kahel? That’s a fine name!”

He looked over the neighboring hamlets, the golden plain deep in the bottom of the valley bordered by téli and eucalyptus forests, and the dramatic wall of mountain peaks that sealed off the valley’s north end. A giddy feeling of exhilaration swept over him. He felt as if he could fly; he felt light and careless as a bird in the sky. The bellowing of oxen echoed through the gorges. Parakeets and monkeys frolicked in the woods. A herd of antelopes cautiously crossed the plain and beat back in a panic when it reached the point where the river snaked away in a burst of silver. He stood up without saying a word. As his men looked on with eyes full of pity, he tore down the slope to the ribbon of greenery encircling the plain, grabbing on to shrubs as he went. He reached the bottom with his face, arms, and legs covered in bloody scratches, but his heart was pounding with the excitement of a child. He forged on to the heart of the forest and struck the ground with his walking stick, exclaiming:

“Here, I will build my kingdom!”

The sound of his voice shot through the branches, bounced back against the cliff faces, and reverberated throughout the valley with a cavernous, inextinguishable echo.

He was Moses on Mount Sinai, Alexander the Great reaching the Indus, Caesar savoring his victory in the steaming plains of Alesia!

For a fraction of a second, the song of the birds and the rumble of the animals ceased to let him speak. Then the bush returned to its obscure symphony as if it were a hymn to his glory.

Everywhere he looked, monkey heads peered out of the branches at him. He couldn’t tell whether they were admiring or mocking him.

“This does not concern monkeys!” he said, trying to imitate their grimacing faces. “This concerns men, real men, white men!”

He had had a premonition the moment they reached this place: it would be here and nowhere else! But that was only a premonition. Then that man had pronounced the word Kahel and suddenly everything had revealed itself with the miraculous clarity of a woman removing her grass skirt. Now it only remained for him to draw his fortresses, gardens, and garrisons and make his small contribution to the perpetual glory of the world.

“Maharaja of the Indies, emperor of China, master of the two Egypts, king of Kahel!”

But he hadn’t reached that point yet. For the moment, he had to push on to Timbo, win the favors of those hard Fula lords, and secure a few concessions in that aromatic, undulating land they protected as ferociously as a lioness watching her cubs. And then, yes, he wouldn’t even have to cheat or wage war—science, technology, the railroad, and trading would take care of deposing these fanatically arrogant shepherds and louts. These forces would be exercised not to triumph, surpass, terrorize, or bully, but merely according to the natural law by which the autumn wind sweeps away dead leaves. One season would come to an end; another would start, newer, more promising, bursting with the juices of life and power—his very own season!

Then, his power and glory would slowly spread from his palaces in Kahel, like leprosy coming over the body, thatched hut by thatched hut, savanna by savanna, forest by forest, until it covered the entire continent. First the Fula people, then the Bambaras, Songhais, Mossis, Hausas, Beri Beris, and Bantus, all the Negroes on earth—with or without scarifications, with or without turbans, with or without a bone through their noses. Torn from their jungles and backward ideas, the savages would develop sufficient taste for algebra, refined cooking, architecture, and Plato’s theories by the time unstoppable evolution turned the climate upside down and the glaciers of Lapland invaded the Languedoc, sending poor little white men to warm themselves on the equator. Africa would become the center of the world, the heart of civilization, the new Thebes, Athens, Rome, and Florence wrapped into one. This would be the new age of Humanity he had predicted long before the rest; its foundations would be laid thanks to his genius.

He saw Kébali and wrote: “A most gracious valley, bordered by precipitous hills on the southeast side. Its picturesque rolling fields’ beautiful vegetation, its clusters of orange, papaya, mampata medlar, and nitta trees, fresh pastures, and shaded woods would make the reputation of any European state.” He crossed the Téné and prudently avoided the mystical city of Fogoumba. As far back as the coast, the locals had told him this was where it had all started. Here, the Fulas had launched the jihad that allowed them to take control of the country. It had since become the austere religious capital, home of the most fanatical princes, those most devotedly hostile to Christians. It was probably best to win Timbo’s support before he ventured there. He bypassed Fogoumba via Mount Kourou, marveling at its bluish peaks and vibrant flowers. In Poredaka, he sketched a king followed by his dignitaries, some of whom were on horseback, armed with parasols and wearing colorful boubous. Below the drawing, he noted: “Standing in the glittering sun, this vast cortege makes a powerful impact.”

In Bhouria, though starving and tormented by stomach cramps, pimples, and scabs, he was able to fall asleep but was soon assailed by nightmares—he dreamed that his son was dying.

On Tuesday, April 7, after three days of boils and fever, he finally arrived in Timbo.

THE LITTLE TOWN STOOD at the peak of a mound of ferns and lantana rising from the depths of a hollow. The mosque’s rattan palisades and conical roof looked just as they did in Hecquart and Lambert’s sketches. To the west, the legendary wooded ridges blended with the horizon. To the south was Koudéko hill, to the southwest the plateau of Niâli. That distant outline in the east had to be Mount Helaya, where the mystic Karamoko Alpha had retreated for seven years, seven months, and seven days before founding the kingdom. And that flamboyant gallery forest must have grown along the Bâdio-Dori River, which crossed the Saroudia Plain where the condemned were taken to be executed.

He put his binoculars away and came down from a granite boulder thinking about what Taïbou had told him: “Take care of yourself, stranger! In Timbo, there are no half measures—either you move up in rank or your head comes off.”

Now he was in the heart of Fula power—a veritable viper’s nest. Everything would depend on him, on his ability to use his mind and control his impulses. He knew he was preparing to play the most decisive chess game of his life. He knew he would come out of it with a crown or no head at all. To save his skin, he would have to be noble without seeming arrogant, shrewd without proving inflexible, and humble without appearing cowardly. Taïbou had made it crystal clear: the Fulas tested you before they opened the doors of their hearts and homes to you. Only accomplished men were worthy of becoming their friends. But what was an accomplished man in the eyes of the perverse Fulas? Someone who saw without being shown and understood without being told. Someone who could set a trap and turn the traps set for him into nooses for his enemies.

Time and again, she had told him: “Discernment, that’s the key to poulâkou, the legendary Fula ethic.”

But he no longer needed Taïbou to realize that. In five weeks of walking, he had had time to open his eyes and see through the many masks of the Fula people. He had grasped their Florentine art of conspiracy and sidestepping. He had understood that they considered cunning a noble sport. To live was first and foremost to dupe your fellow man. The man who hatched the most ingenious plots earned the praise of the griots and his place at court. Commoners and the dull-witted did not deserve any compassion. Here you were born crafty or cursed; king or no one at all.

Timbo lay before his eyes, inert and impenetrable like a diabolical chess game. He could win the game if he played wisely. Then he would have a country of his own—with gold and cattle, power and glory. But the slightest misstep would land him in prison—or on the executioner’s block.

He crossed the river, staked his tent in the middle of the plain, and sent his two faithful servants to announce his arrival to the court. He waited all day, playing chess and eating chocolate to ease his nerves. But a long day of waiting at the gates of Timbo felt like a day in the antechamber to Nero’s gallows. What had become of his two emissaries? Perhaps those treacherous Fula kings had arrested them, slit their throats, hanged them, or sold them as slaves. The idea had forced its way into his mind early that morning. By the end of the day it was a full-blown obsession. Despite the chess, the chocolate, and his stoic, imperturbable Olivier blood, he was finding it hard to hide his concern. His men sat a few feet away grilling tubers and broad beans to assuage their hunger. They no longer sang. Their resounding, grating laughter no longer shot across the plain. Now they merely grumbled in their dialects, looking at him with an evil eye. Of course this was all his fault. No matter what dialect they used, he could sense their wrath and their desire to flee as soon as night fell, leaving him—white, Catholic, and starving—alone among the Fulas. What would he do then? He would start by trying to liberate his two companions (honor demanded it), then turn his mind to his precious cyanide capsule (his fear of pointless suffering recommended it).

About five in the afternoon, the distant voice of the muezzin calling to the alansara prayer—marking the exact moment when the shadow stretches longer than the man—drew him out of his macabre ruminations. He looked up to the river and saw Mâly and Mâ-Yacine surrounded by a few notables wearing bright boubous. He let them draw closer, discreetly holding his rifle at the ready. But when he could no longer question whether those were smiles illuminating the Senegalese men’s faces, he happily dropped his weapon.

Soon a man whose brilliant burnoose and multicolored parasol set him apart as the most important in the group moved ahead to offer him a gourd of milk and a kola shell. The sign that he was welcome!

Mâ-Yacine told him that the man was Saïdou, secretary to the court. The almami had sent Saïdou to greet him. Their unfortunate delay had only been due to slow protocol and the almami’s hairsplitting.

As they entered the city, a woman with a calabash on her head stared at him and said:

“This is the first time I have seen a white man. I was told that the heathens all smelled charred, but now I see it isn’t true!”

His hut looked like a real house. Like all the other homes in Fouta, it had banco walls and straw thatching, but it also had blinds, doors, and several rooms—admittedly infested with roaches and flies, but well ventilated. His men piled into five neighboring straw huts. A large mango tree stood in the center of the courtyard, and a bamboo fence with a rattan and liana gate surrounded the whole compound.

Saïdou ordered dinner and water for a bath to be brought, then took his leave. As Olivier left the straw shanty behind his hut that served as a lavatory, he found the woman he had seen earlier waiting for him in the courtyard, at her side a pretty young girl with sparkling, intelligent eyes and a magnificent bronze-colored body. He gave the girl a new name on the spot: “Rest for the eyes.”

“This is my daughter Fatou,” the woman told him. “She will come sweep your home. You will also have clothes to wash and she will wash them. My hut is on the other side of the fence after the lougan. You’ll recognize it by the squash vines covering the roof.”

The next day he wanted to go out to stretch his legs but was stopped at the gate by men armed with rifles and swords.

No one else came to see him, not to say hello nor to bring him any food or drink.

On the third day, he came to the end of his supplies. There were twice as many guards in front of the gate now, and they no longer held their weapons concealed under their boubous, but in their hands.

On the fifth day, alarming speculations began to circulate among his men. The almami must be unhappy! They imagined him locked in a wing of his palace deciding on their fate—expel the white man or decapitate him? Seize his goods or sell his men in Sierra Leone?

On the seventh day, he began to seriously consider taking the cyanide capsule he had hidden in one of his molars. He would do anything to avoid the fate of white prisoners at the mercy of the king of Dahomey, who were forced to mutilate and behead their companions before they too were mutilated and beheaded.

On that seventh day, he filled himself with quinine and camphor water to assuage his hunger and scrawled in his journal: “I understand: these Fula jackals don’t want to soil their hands! They want me to die without their help. Malaria or starvation. And of course they think they can kill one bird with two stones and negotiate a fat ransom from Saint-Louis in the meantime! That would be typically Fula!” He put down his pencil and slapped his forehead: “Of course! The English! I should have known…Their friend Lawrence…Fouta’s guest…the border opening so quickly…My God, the trap was set all the way back in Bolama!” He went out and called to the guards: “My men haven’t done anything wrong, let them eat!” But only the weaver finches in the leaves of the mango tree seemed willing to answer him. Despondent, he turned back to his hut, thinking, So it will be tonight, at the twelve strokes of midnight! He stretched out on his cot and wrote a long letter to his wife, then gave Mâly and Mâ-Yacine instructions in the event that they survived. He set his alarm clock and returned to bed, his hands joined on his chest.

The sounds of a pestle striking the mortar, shepherdesses hailing their cows, the call of the muezzin…Barking, footsteps in the courtyard…Before he could lift his head, Mâly was standing at his bedside:

“What are you waiting for white man? Go out and greet the prince!”

A handsome young man of fifteen was waiting for him on a sheepskin under the mango tree, looking like a bronze statue in the darkening night.

“My name is Diaïla and my father the almami has sent me. He will receive you tomorrow after the dawn prayer. Môdy Saïdou will come lead you to the palace.”

BARELY AWAKE, HE FOUND HIMSELF STANDING before the entrance to the palace, facing an imposing line of men holding swords and rifles. One could only cross the line with special authorization, under pain of death. The turrets, walls, and roof were nothing but a pitiful assemblage of dry straw and banco. Nonetheless, he was impressed by the place’s solemnity—and this was a man who had seen the court of the czar of all Russia, when the czar had dispatched a general to convince him to come build the chemical factories in Odessa. No laughing, no whispering! You were only allowed to cough or sneeze.

As soon as he entered the palace, he was brought to the mbatirdou, the pavilion in the middle of the courtyard where the almami granted his public audiences. After a moment, a day griot with a high-pitched voice, wearing a red boubou and turban, sang the song traditionally used to announce the arrival of a guest. The almami entered the room and took his seat without anyone in the audience rising: Sanderval was to his left, his ministers and brothers to his right, a significant distance away from the high dignitaries, who were seated in rows according to their importance. The interpreters stood between him and the high dignitaries.

A tall man with a rough beard and an austere burnoose stood and looked out at the audience with blazingly ferocious eyes. This had to be the one Alpha Yaya warned him about, Diogo Môdy Macka. He announced the order of the day and asked Saïdou to let in the visitors waiting in the vestibule one by one. These were mostly caravan drivers who had come to request the right to travel to the coast, emissaries of provincial chiefs and various plaintiffs. The almami, who never spoke in public, listened to the appeals and expressed his decisions by moving his head. Some were restored their rights, others sentenced to hand over cattle or gold. His decisions were effective immediately, including banishments and death sentences. Cases were heard all morning, until the toubab was struggling to repress his yawns.

The palace was a maze of alleyways, courtyards, and huts barely more imposing than those of the regular citizens. The crowd of court officials huddled around their ruler, remaining impressively silent and dignified. Sanderval admired their majestic bearing and noble features, but was struck by the plainness of the setting and the modesty of the furniture. He was brought a chair.

“A chair among the Negroes! Probably the only one in the kingdom,” he chuckled to himself.

Diogo Môdy Macka’s telluric voice shot through the crowd:

“What did the white man say?”

“He says that even back home, in France, the chairs are not so beautiful,” Mâly quickly interjected.

“Palaver, palaver, palaver, there’s no doubt I’ve landed among the Negroes!” he wrote that evening to recap the long and tedious hearing.

The morning had drawn to a close by the time the griot turned to Mâly and, with theatrical gestures and rhetorical flourishes, asked him to introduce the white man.

Following his introduction, he was asked to provide the passport Aguibou had issued him. The almami glanced over it and Môdy Saïdou read it out loud. Now the griot could speak directly to the stranger:

“We understand that you left from Bolama. We understand that you passed through Buba. We also understand that this is the passport Aguibou issued you. What we don’t understand, white man, is the object of your visit here.”

“Yes,” the court burst into a cacophony of voices, “alone from France and why all the way to Timbo?”

“So that we can be friends and so I can ask your authorization to trade,” he struggled in answer, straining his voice.

“What could he want to give us and what does he want from us?” the crowd asked, growing even noisier.

The almami cleared his throat.

“Silence,” yelled the griot.

“Trading is on the coast,” someone said.

“You’re right,” someone else agreed, “the white men never bring anything good. Let them stay on the coast!”

“Silence!” repeated the griot.

“Let him start by telling us who he is!”

“Silence!” yelled the griot once again. “Very well. I think you have understood, white man. First tell us who you are.”

“My name is Olivier, Aimé Olivier. I came here as a friend, I want nothing but peace. I only want to visit your land, make trade agreements, and receive your authorization to build a railroad.”

“What kind of road?” the griot exclaimed.

“I told you! He wants to imprison Fouta with rails,” an old man moaned.

The almami cleared his throat again. The griot translated with a single gesture of his hand, imposing silence:

“What is a railroad?”

“Wait,” said Olivier, rising. “I’ll be right back!”

He took off for his hut, leaving the court in stunned silence. Mâly chased after him but could get no explanation for his rash behavior. Olivier tore through his canteens and trunks and soon reappeared at the palace carrying a large package. He opened the parcel, muttering words incomprehensible to the court.

“This is what a railroad is!”

With Fouta Djallon’s dumbfounded dignitaries looking on, he put together the rails, placed the ties, set up the locomotive, and coupled the cars.

“We’re just missing the sound, but I can do that,” he said, serious as can be. And sure enough, he imitated the din of the engine, the whistle of the smokestack, the patter of gravel against the sides of the cars, the whacking of the branches, and the melodic song of the wind.

“With this,” he added, “you can go from Bolama to Timbo between sunrise and sunset.”

Then he respectfully approached the almami and handed him the machine:

“And this is for you, your Majesty. Admire this marvel, it is my gift to you.”

The whole thing seemed unreal. Onlookers scratched their heads, their eyes bulging out of their sockets and their mouths hanging open in stupefaction. Only the stunned look on their faces could adequately express their response to such an incredible sight—or possibly the silence and humility with which the Fulas greeted eclipses, earthquakes, and every one of the good Lord’s wonders. An eternity passed before anyone could pronounce a single word.

“This white man is a liar!”

The exclamation came from the left-hand rows, from a notable of a far-off province, his brow glistening with sweat, exhausted and disgusted by what he had just witnessed.

“You’re right. I don’t see how rails could run at a speed a horse could never reach.”

“Yes,” one of his neighbors agreed, “this white man is mocking us. We should cut off his head!”

“And even if it were true, why would we need a railroad when we each have two feet and our markets are brimming with horses?”

The almami motioned with his head and the griot’s high-pitched voice was heard again:

“And you’ll build this with your own hands, white man?”

“No, not with my hands, with my mind,” he answered deceptively. “You will give me the hands.”

A murmur of discontent swept through the crowd. The assembly knew how many slaves were needed to work on the royal digs or take a thousand heads of cattle to Bolama; they did not want to think what it would cost to put their hands to work building an entire road made of rails!

“Well, griot?” a one-eyed man timidly asked.

“Well what?”

“Are we going to let him get away with this or are we going to cut off his head?”

The almami cleared his throat and the griot translated:

“Beware, nobleman! This is not your jurisdiction, but the almami’s…That is all for this morning. The sun is high, we must separate. Go in peace, nobles of Timbo, see to your orchards and cattle.”

The griot winked, and Mâly told the white man he should stay. The almami vanished behind the palace walls, trailed by his suite and the resounding praise of the griot. Only then did the crowd scatter. Olivier waited in the courtyard, alone with Mâ-Yacine and Mâly, until a guard came for him:

“Hey you, white man, is it true that you are the nephew of the king of France?”

“Um, yes…it’s true…”

“Then come with me. The almami will see you.”

He was led beneath the arbor the almami and his closest advisers used as a royal lounge. Now the monarch had him sit beside him and spoke to him without the griot as an intermediary. He brought out the miniature train and had Olivier explain the system to him in detail. The white man showed him the location of the engine and boiler, simulated the wheels’ motivity, and explained why there were gaps between the rails. He praised his machine and vaunted the benefits of trade.

“So be it, white man, so be it! So long as it is for trade, you will be my friend and will remain the guest of Fouta. You may open trading posts and import what you wish.”

“And what of the railroad?”

“Ah yes, your railroad. I don’t think it is a bad thing, but I must ask the nobles.”

“When?”

“When God wants it to be done. Diango, fab’i diango, tomorrow, the day after tomorrow. Wait until we renew the kings’ mandates, I will ask them then.”

On his way out of the arbor, a young man sporting a goatee and a thick amber necklace stopped him:

“I am Pâthé, the almami’s nephew. Your train is a good thing. I am sure it will give Fouta strength. I will come to see you. We have a lot to talk about.”

A rugged young man with smallpox scars on his face interrupted Pâthé and held out his hand:

“And I am Bôcar-Biro, the almami’s other nephew and his warlord.”

Pâthé, Bôcar-Biro, Aguibou, Alpha Yaya! He could not suspect the tragic twist of fate that would soon link him to these four Fouta princes.

He offered the almami a horse from the Camargue, saddles, bridles, holsters by Walker, weapons, amber, coral, pearls, and a mountain of beautiful fabric. News of this outpouring of luxury goods was soon all over the palace. He had to put all his Gallic cunning to work to avoid handing over his shoes, clock, and tent.

Two days passed before—miracle of miracles—the guards disappeared from in front of the gate. In half an hour he had discovered all of Timbo. Once back in his hut, he noted: “So this is the Versailles of Fouta! Our chickens live better than this!”

He locked himself in his hut for the next few days, intending to work on The Absolute and his travel journals. But cockroaches, flies, and a constant crowd of curious visitors—the greatest nuisance of all—made it impossible. Some locals touched his skin. Others leaned in to sniff at him. They checked to see how soft his hair was and counted the number of buttons on his frock coat. They lost themselves in conjecture about his skin color and his way of life. Did he ever eat? Was he sensitive to fire? Did he drink water or melted metal? They tracked him when he went hunting, followed him when he took a stroll, and spied on him when he wandered off the path to relieve himself. There was nowhere to move freely, never any privacy! The most brazen ventured onto the veranda, then right to the edge of his bed. He fended them off with the clanging of his alarm clock, but they came right back. He tried using reflections from his mirror, the smell of camphor, and finally the threat of his rifle, but it was no use. The circus lasted for days until finally it dawned on him: those scoundrels Mâly and Mâ-Yacine! His Senegalese servants were inviting people to gawk at him in return for poultry, corn, and milk. In a rage, he grabbed his rifle and found the louts in Mâly’s hut, sitting surrounded by their booty.

“I’ve come to claim my share,” he yelled. “From now on, it will be fifty-fifty. After all, I’m the one in the zoo!”

But when he returned to his room, he found little Fatou waiting for him in his bed, as naked as the day she was born.

“No way, my little Fatou,” he said, forcing her to get dressed, “this bed is too small for the two of us. Go do that with someone else. Go on, go on!”

He shoved her back into the courtyard and gave her a ball of amber to get her to stop crying. Her mother emerged from the undergrowth around the lougan and came straight at him:

“Marry her! Don’t you see how beautiful she is? Hurry, marry her! Do as I say, you heartless white man! Go on, do as I say!”

Mâly and Mâ-Yacine finally proved he hadn’t hired them in vain: they charged out of their huts to fend off the two hens and save their master from their hysterical clucking.

As promised, Pâthé came to see him. He was the image of the Fula prince as they imagined him in the best salons of Paris and Marseille. Tall and thin, with fine dark features, he spoke softly and moved slowly. Something chivalrous and mysterious blazed in his eyes. He wore a beautiful white bazin boubou with blue embroidery over the pocket and one of those arabesque-covered conical bonnets the Fulas call a poûto. And of course his elegant goatee and that necklace from which he never parted. He held out a book and made no attempt to conceal his pride:

“A Turk from Istanbul wrote down the entire history of my family.”

He spoke at length about Islam and Fouta. The white man listened to him politely, then steered the conversation to the only subject he cared about: Fouta, but not the Fouta of the ancestors. He was interested in Fouta right now. From the moment he had arrived in Buba, it was clear to him that he was traveling through a complex, contradictory land. It was like a baobab forest, with solid foundations, but frail branches and trunks. Too many provinces, too many jurisdictions. Too many dynasties, too many princes. It was an enlightened system, a flexible edifice, but far too exposed to the ill winds of jealousy and ambition. He interrupted the prince before he could finish his tirade about the Church’s errors and the Christians’ hypocrisy:

“How old is the almami?”

“There are two things we never count here: the number of cows and the number of years we’ve lived. It brings bad luck.”

“One thing is certain: he is no longer a young man.”

He looked deep into the young prince’s eyes, watching for his reaction, and added:

“And he will soon have to be replaced.”

“Fouta has thought of everything, white man. As soon as he is buried, he will be replaced according to the rules.”

“Is the name of his successor known?”

“He is standing before you, inquisitive stranger.”

“Ah, the crown prince! You told me you were the first counselor when we met in the palace the other day.”

“That is the Fula’s weakness, my friend. We are obsessively modest. If I had told you I was crown prince, everyone would have laughed in my face—yet it is true. I am the crown prince of Fouta.”

“So, I have the future almami of Fouta under my roof,” he said as he handed him a piece of chocolate.

“Do I look the part?” chuckled the prince.

“You all look the part here. One begins to wonder where you hide your commoners! Tell me, good prince, what will you do about my railroad when you accede to the throne?”

“I will support it. All the young people want it. It is the old ones who don’t.”

“The old ones will never want it. And here, without the old ones…If I understood correctly, that Bôcar-Biro is your brother?”

“Yes, the same father.”

“Hmm, that’s never a good thing, brothers by the same father, especially among the Fula people.”

“That is not our case. We get along well.”

“I didn’t say a word, good prince, I didn’t say a word!”

That night, tired of listening to the song of the frogs, he started a new page of The Absolute: “We cannot define the void as Relative or Absolute because we are far from knowing all of the Relative, everything potentially contained within the Absolute, and all that will still be born into existence in the future…”

ONE DAY AS HE WAS RETURNING from the spring he visited to while away the time, he was brought to a halt by a fascinating sight. Behind a hedge of gladiolas and mampata medlar trees, a young woman hummed a tune and ground fonio, oblivious to his presence. He was still hypnotized when he described her in his journal that night: “This dark princess is magnificent: bewitching eyes so vast you could drown in them, a perfect bosom as plain as day, apt to fuel Phidias’s dreams and send Anacreon and the poets of his school into raptures of ecstasy. What ankles, what wrists!” He would have given all of Apollo’s treasures to make this delightful spectacle last forever. But after a mere ten minutes disaster struck—a rotten mango fell right next to where he was standing. The beautiful creature turned and saw him, leaped to her feet and ran off, crying that she had seen the devil. He bounded over the hedge and chased after her: “Daro! Daro, yandi! Stop, please stop, I swear I don’t mean you any harm!” He used every Fula word he could think of, but the young woman only ran faster. They tore through lougans and weaved between huts. Dogs barked, chickens and goats panicked as they streaked by. The mad chase lasted several minutes, until the young woman pushed open the door of a fringed fence. Olivier only had time to see a group of women covered in soap bubbles scrubbing each other’s backs before the door slammed shut behind her. The guards arrived within a few seconds, wielding swords and sticks:

“That’s white people for you—no sense of modesty, no manners! They should be banned from Fouta, wallahi, they should be! What do you want from this woman, huh? Answer us, you bad seed.”

Yes, what was he doing? He didn’t even know himself. He nervously twisted the kerchief the young woman had lost in the chase.

“If there is a hell, it must be just like this,” he muttered, convinced that this time he would not escape the executioner, or at the very least the jail guard.

Then he heard someone say:

“Can’t you fools see he just wanted to return her kerchief?”

He turned to recognize Diaïla, the young prince from the other night, sitting astride his horse. He was saved!

The incident was soon forgotten, but alas, so was he. For several days, he received no news from the outside world. Pâthé did not make good on his promise to visit again and Bôcar-Biro was nowhere to be found. But these were mere trifles. Disease took advantage of this dark time of solitude, melancholy, and anxiety to strike again. This time it was serious. Nothing like his occasional bouts of malaria or the chronic stomach pain he had first experienced at seven in the austere boarding school in Oullins, where the Dominicans had filled him with Latin, pea puree, and elevated principles. Ordinarily, illness was an insignificant bother, hardly making a dent in his solid constitution. Not this time. He remained unconscious so long that his men began planning to dig him a hole. But where? And following what rite, good God? Apart from an English adventurer who had come to be converted a hundred years ago, no white man had ever died in Timbo.

He alternated between a comatose state and bouts of vomiting. Soon his arteries were visible beneath his skin as clearly as his bones. His hair began to fall out and his skin turned yellow. His mind was muddled; he thought he already stank of death. Tired of stuffing himself with quinine, Vichy lozenges, camphor water, and morphine, he called for young prince Diaïla and told him his last wishes: “I told my men that if I die they are to burn my body and carry my ashes to Saint-Louis. I beg you, don’t let your rigid Muslim principles put a stop to that.” He went on in a delirious frenzy: “And don’t forget, no one is to touch my belongings! I leave you five centimes, my soap, and a magnifying glass.”

They say that a man on the threshold of death revisits his life’s main events as if they were unfolding in a film. Sure enough, as soon as he closed his eyes, his past was crystal clear before him.

Here he was at Oullins in Father Lacordaire’s Latin class. There was Father Bourgeat holding forth on Plato, and Father Mermet writing out his physics formulas. This image was replaced by the sight of the blacksmith Michaux, with whom he had built the first velocipede factory in 1863, later burned to the ground by the Communards in a fit of revolutionary fervor. Next he saw the medal he received for saving that sailboat in the bay of Marseille. Here he was at thirty, bearded, married, and already mayor of Marennes, where he would be the first in France to provide postmen with bicycles. After Marennes, Marseille, where he spent years in the lab trying to dissociate matter and invent a flying machine. Then there was that memorable lunch at the peak of the Verryère. People around the Vieux-Port still talk about it some hundred and fifty years later—three hundred illustrious guests carried to the peak in sedans and on donkeys specially brought from the Pyrenees; Manufacture de Sèvres place settings with engravings of the guests’ names, commissioned for the occasion; a philharmonic orchestra; and the poet Jean Aicard reciting his poems.

But what they say is wrong: a dying man’s visions go far beyond his own experience, ranging over his entire genealogy. Forgotten figures who had vanished with the short pants of his youth took advantage of his feverish state to come back to life and taunt him. That decrepit old man in a Tyrolean hat was obviously a Simonet, probably the great-uncle, the legendary high priest of muslin. To his right, that general with the cocked hat was undoubtedly his grandfather who had served as an intendant to Napoleon on the Italian campaign. The one on the left was his other grandfather, the formidable Claude-Marius Perret.

The people of Timbo couldn’t make anything of the disjointed pieces of the saga he mumbled in the throes of delirium. Anyhow, the Fulas considered anything relating to whites bizarre, artificial, and inexplicable. The life of the white people was delirium, which needed no shivers and fevers to distort and poison common sense.

“But my God, this white man here is no longer like any other white man; this white man here is one of ours now, wallahi, and this white man is going to die!”

Soon his condition was so desperate that the almami organized a prayer vigil at the mosque to ask Allah to cure him. The enigmatic Pâthé came to his hut with a kettle full of magic philters made by steeping plant resins with nassi, pieces of paper inscribed with verses of the Koran.

“Drink this,” Pâthé told him.

He swallowed it right away, convinced this concoction glowing with sludge and stinking of public lavatories would kill him before the second sip. He closed his eyes and waited to die, thinking this was the best thing that could happen to him. But after three days of a deep sleep, he woke without any headache or dizziness and immediately ordered a dish of mafé rice. He ate heartily and belched as loud as a real Fula expressing his satisfaction after a good meal. He was able to take the few steps to the outdoors without any assistance. Once in the middle of the courtyard, he asked for a folding chair and stretched out under the hot sun to begin his long, pleasant convalescence. When Pâthé learned of his recovery, he came to crow about his part in it:

“You see that our marabouts are the best! You should convert, my friend. Wallahi, you are too good a man to remain a vile Christian.”

“I admit it, my Fula friend, you saved my life. How can I thank you?”

“Aha! Give me munitions!”

“Munitions?”

“Otherwise I will turn to my Turkish friends.”

He understood that he would have to act quickly if he wanted Fula.

The next day, the elusive Bôcar-Biro appeared with some game, a bowl of honey, and a basket of pineapple.

“You promised to come to see me, but you never did,” the white man complained.

“I was at war!”

“Which unhappy nation has Fouta declared war on?”

The young prince explained that he had had to lead his troops to the depths of Sierra Leone. He was not battling that country, but trying once again to crush the Hubus, a sect of Muslim Fulas and fanatical warriors who had been attempting to subvert the rule of the almamis since the reign of his father, the much regretted and very great almami Oumarou.

“This war is wearing us down,” he added. “It would be different if I had enough rifles.”

“Rifles?” the white man murmured as he smoothed his beard.

“Could you get us some rifles?”

“That is conceivable.”

“Tell me, white man, are you serious? You know we could become friends!”

Bursting with enthusiasm, he stood to take his leave, but the white man held on to a corner of his boubou and cleared his throat:

“But listen—I have one condition. You must back me with the almami.”

“Done! Now, here is mine: you won’t talk about the rifles.”

“To the almami?”

“No, to my brother.”

Once Bôcar-Biro left, Fatou could finally approach him to offer oranges and start her spurned-lover routine again:

“Marry me or I’ll throw myself in the well!”

She continued nearly all morning. Then suddenly she lifted her head, as if struck by inspiration, rushed into the hut, and slipped into the white man’s bed.

Her instincts were good—it soon started to rain. Mâly put the folding chair away and helped Olivier to shelter. But the young girl wouldn’t leave. The Senegalese soldiers had to be called in to remove her.

“If that’s how it is, Yémé, I’ll walk you all the way to hell, as the Fulas say. I’ll denounce you to the almami. You’re a spy, you’ve come to kill him, and you will steal his ancestors’ Fouta!”

Olivier paid little attention to her childlike babble, particularly since Bôcar-Biro returned with good news that night:

“The provincial kings are coming in ten days—you’re going to get your railroad!”

Yet the next day he returned from the butterfly hunt to find his home in upheaval. Guards were thrashing about in the courtyard. Captives trailed out of his hut in a long line carrying his baggage on their heads. Mâly and Mâ-Yacine could do nothing to stop them. He found Saïdou and the palace retinue waiting for him under the orange tree. He grabbed Saïdou by the collar:

“What’s going on here? Are you standing by and letting this happen or are you the one robbing me?”

“Calm down,” Saïdou advised in a gruff voice. “I can promise you this is no time to make matters worse.”

He went to cock his rifle, but was stopped by the guards pulling out their swords. He had no choice but to follow the line of prisoners, cursing all the way. As he strode ahead attempting to contain his anger, Mâly and Mâ-Yacine rushed after him, breathlessly trying to explain:

“It’s Fatou! That brainless little fool did what she threatened!”

“But worse yet, they believed her madness!” Mâly whined. “They’re threatening to decapitate you and make slaves of us!”

Soon they reached the weavers’ quarter at the other end of the city and stopped before some decrepit straw huts surrounded by a tall rattan fence covered in vines. A thorny patch of undergrowth separated them from the nearest concessions and a narrow path lined by wayfaring trees and wild roses led back to the main track. The white man looked around despondently and said:

“If I understand correctly, I am a prisoner.”

“Prisoner? Oh no,” protested Saïdou. “How could Fouta’s guest be a prisoner? You white people! Always exaggerating!”

“Is this coming from you, or is it the almami’s decision?”

“It is not up to me. Only the almami can decide where to house his guests.”

Olivier ordered his men to settle in and move his belongings inside, then ran to the palace followed by his frantic companions. In a fit of madness, he picked up a handful of gravel and rushed toward the monarch.

“Yémé!” cried Mâly, his voice exploding with fear.

With tremendous effort, Olivier slowed down, gathered his senses and calmly bent over to place the gravel at the almami’s feet.

“What do you mean by this, white man?” Diogo Môdy Macka demanded.

“It’s—it’s a custom of his homeland,” Mâly stammered, shaking with fear. “A sign of deference…Over there, when you want to show someone your respect you…put gravel at his feet…This white man is not here to disrespect you, almami, but to humbly submit to your decision…It is my fault, I didn’t think to tell him that we do not do things that way here.”

The crowd laughed, and Mâly and Mâ-Yacine breathed a sigh of relief.

“Well then, please stand, my good man,” said the griot, touched by Mâly’s explanation.

“These whites may be respectful,” said the court marabout, “but they certainly have strange customs!”

Was he a prisoner? Every authoritative voice in Timbo assured him he wasn’t. He had been transferred here for his own security. He had nothing to fear—he remained and would always be the guest of the almami and the friend of the Fula people.

But the next day, when he took his sunshade and net to go butterfly hunting, the palace staff were blocking the gate, softly chatting without paying him the slightest attention.

Furious, he scrawled a reminiscence of his Latin lessons in thick red letters on a banner and hung it from the roof of his shack: “Constituenda est Timbo!” Timbo was outraged—some saw it as an insult, others as a declaration of war.

Pâthé had to step in to save the white man from a constant shower of projectiles and hateful catcalling. But peace only truly returned when he consented to take the banner down and burn it in public view. It was a short-lived peace; the next Thursday, he saw Fatou arrive with a laundry basket and a small wood chest.

“What are you doing here, you harebrained fool? Haven’t you done enough damage as it is?”

“What do you mean, what is she doing here?” Mâ-Yacine asked. “Haven’t you heard that one of your Wolofs just married her?”

The kings and princes of Fouta finally gathered in their general assembly.

Guards came to lead him to the palace. He had become familiar with the Fulas’ fastidious protocol. The almami appeared in his dazzling boubou and the entire city fell silent. His suite was far more imposing than the first time, and the griot’s praise boomed twice as loud. The preliminaries lasted until midday. The dignitaries read from the Koran, congratulated each other, and blessed Fouta while the crowd’s ugly curiosity bore down on Olivier. He recognized the griot and the palace marabout. Yet he had to look hard to identify Bôcar-Biro and Pâthé, both of whom were now nearly as regal in bearing as the almami. Then, slowly, lips closed on the civilities and nervous confidences and silence spread through the palace as a drop of perfume fills space. Diogo Môdy Macka waved his hand and the griot stood to read the order of the day:

“To begin with, noblemen of Fouta gathered here, the almami asks us to examine a case that has become important in the kingdom. You are all aware that for several weeks a white man has been among us. This white man says he has come from Bolama. He says he is from a rich family descended from the kings of France. He says his hand is without a knife and his mind is without hate. He says he only wants a road to make the steam come through. He says he is the almami’s friend and Fouta’s benefactor. The almami received him as a friend; he opened his home to him as a benefactor. That is when doubt crept into our minds. Many mouths opened and we heard many things. It appears that his lineage is not certain, his path not straight, and his intentions not clear. All of this troubles our minds, all of this complicates the almami’s business.”

Whispers and coughs were quickly followed by the audience’s first question:

“Tell us, Diogo Môdy Macka, did this man come with a paper from his uncle, the king of France?”

The redoubtable prime minister raised his stentorian voice to explain that the man had set foot on Timbo’s soil with nothing in his hands but his white gloves. He explained what all of Timbo already knew: in the country of the white man, where everything is backward and twisted, kings don’t write, they speak to their nephews.

“If that’s the case, any stable boy can arrive from Sokoto or Timbuktu and claim he is the king of Mecca’s nephew,” shouted a skeptic.

“Let us begin by shedding light on this question,” Diogo Môdy Macka growled as he turned to the white man. “Yes or no, are you the nephew of the king of France?”

The same scene that had taken place in Prince Aguibou’s court in Guidali now played out in Timbo. Acting in good faith, the white man tried to clear up the situation. But Mâly and Mâ-Yacine promptly shushed him, driving their elbows into his ribs and winking insistently. Their obsequious, persuasive circumlocutions made even the most skeptical Fulas swallow their unlikely tale.

The griot restored silence and turned back to the crowd:

“Does anyone else have something to say?”

“Let’s get back to this Dinguiraye business. It is said that the white man standing among us came with riches and guns he intends to give to the king of Dinguiraye, our sworn enemy. Is this true?”

“The white man has been asked a question,” the griot said impatiently.

Yes, he would like to go to Dinguiraye, Olivier said. No, for nothing in the world would he go to Dinguiraye, Mâly translated.

But Mâly was so busy concocting lies, he did not recognize the man with the burnoose about to speak from the second row:

“Can the white man look me in the eye and swear he never told me he would go to Dinguiraye?”

It was Aguibou, who had replaced his father, the king of Labé, now too old for the assembly. Mâly recoiled with surprise. His stammer was as eloquent as a full confession.

“You see!” someone cried out. “No, Fatou did not lie!”

This time the griot struggled to bring the room to silence. Voices rose up from the back rows, defying convention:

“The white man says one thing one minute and the opposite the next! Decapitate him!”

Diogo Môdy Macka whispered something in the almami’s ear. The almami cleared his throat and once again the griot’s voice resounded:

“Is there anyone among the assembled noblemen who opposes the decapitation of the white man?”

A long silence followed, broken only by murmurs and coughs. Finally, the feeble voice of the king of Kankalabé was heard:

“We are Fulas, kinsmen. Our ethic, poulâkou, instructs us to behave like the chameleon: we must be sure that the world won’t collapse under our first step before we take the second. We are angry this man lied to us. But despite that, let us remain cautious. We kill him, and then we realize he truly is the nephew of the king of France. Have you considered that?”

The audience was baffled. The levelheaded acquiesced. Those who had been calling for blood a moment earlier were seized with doubt. A glimmer of hope appeared in Mâly’s eyes. The poor interpreter lifted his head and tried his luck again:

“Wallahi, this man is a nephew of the king of France! Why would I lie to you?”

“So let him hurry up and prove it before I call the executioner back in,” Diogo Môdy Macka roared.

“Him, a prince?” someone exclaimed in indignation. “If he’s a prince, why are his clothes so drab and too tight? Was he short on fabric?”

Driven by despair, the white man was struck with a brilliant flash of inspiration. Instead of seeing him collapse, Fouta was stunned to see him burst into laughter:

“Give me a few minutes and I will prove to you that I truly am the king of France’s nephew!”

The griot turned to the almami, who nodded his head in approval.

“All right,” said the griot. “We will grant the white man a few minutes. But the guards will fire at him if he tries to escape.”

He ran to his hut, rummaged through each of his trunks, and finally came upon the Mephistopheles costume he had wanted to throw overboard. He was surprised to see it had made it this far. As he pulled it out of the trunk and unfolded it, he still wasn’t sure he would actually wear it. And even if he had the courage to put the thing on, what would they take him for—the dauphin of France or the king of the clowns? He looked at its crimson fabric, cork buttons, silk ribbons, and horned hood with fur fringes and laughed hysterically, alone in his hut. Then he got dressed with the studied grace of a king preparing to go to the ball.

“They didn’t accept me as a human being, maybe they will accept me as Mephistopheles.”

He had left the palace as a prisoner; he returned as an emperor.

“Louis XVI must have had the same effect on the bumpkins in Saône-et-Loire,” he muttered into his beard, feeling rather proud of his appearance.

Even Diogo Môdy Macka’s eyes glowed with admiration and respect. Olivier listened to the whispers spreading around him and realized he had won.

“In general, white men are ugly, but this one has become really beautiful,” someone ventured.

“Well, he still has the same chameleon eyes and sticky hair, but that outfit, that really is something, yes it is!”

“Even the kings of Mecca don’t wear such ample, colorful clothing!”

Then the voice of the griot was heard rising above the others.

“Let’s have some silence, kinsmen! Ibrahima, the king of Fogoumba, has something to say.”

“This man is the son of a king, so be it,” he began. “Does this mean we must make him the friend of the Fula people? Is this the time for the Fulas to trust the first person to come along?”

The Alphayas couldn’t have wished for a better opening to expose their grievances:

“Yes, almami, why do you let this stranger roam our mountains? Why do you receive him with friendship? White men are our enemy; they come to trouble our rest, steal our women, and maybe reduce us to captivity. We don’t want them here.”

“And what about this Dinguiraye business? We haven’t settled that yet! We need to shed light on this white man’s intentions,” someone shouted from the first row.

Allusions, murmurs, sulking, altercations, consultations—it continued like any other meeting of the Fulas and lasted until evening prayer. Finally the almami whispered something in the griot’s ear and he bellowed:

“The white man who is here is the friend of the almami and the guest of Fouta! The almami grants him what he has requested. He will have the road to make the steam come through, but he is forbidden to go to Dinguiraye. Anyone who helps him to do so will be decapitated.”

Back home, he found the guards leaving his hut with his canteens and trunks again.

“What’s going on now!” he yelled. “Am I being taken to the execution post or exiled from the city?”

Saïdou arrived to reassure him:

“Neither one nor the other. We are bringing you back to your former residence. You see, you really are Fouta’s guest!”

It was like night and day. They helped him settle back in and brought him a big dish of rice with chicken in peanut sauce straight from the almami’s palace.

He was able to return to the markets. People no longer seemed so threatening when they looked at him. His guards grew more discreet and his neighbors more friendly. The waves of curious onlookers returned to his veranda and courtyard and princes from every faction vied for his friendship. Everyone wanted to win over this stranger said to be rich, powerful, and—since that fateful afternoon—a true friend of the almami. They all counted on him for something: the provinces to counterbalance Timbo’s suffocating power; the Alphayas to force the almami to respect alternation; and each Sorya prince for help supplanting his half brothers and acceding to the throne when the time came. Their visits, generally nocturnal, were accompanied by gifts and malicious comments about the enemy camp.

Late on May 10, after he had given up fighting to fall asleep, he wrote out a prophecy: “My instinct tells me this country is on the verge of restaging two of the sorriest episodes in French history in a single scene. On one side, the Armagnacs; on the other, the Bourguignons. On one side, Timbo; on the other, Labé. Each of these gulfs has its Henri III and its duke of Guise. Here, Pâthé and Bôcar-Biro; over there, Aguibou and Alpha Yaya. Strange Fouta! These Fulas are clever, perhaps too clever. Fouta has turned into a trap, a paradoxical trap. It is as easy to make the Fulas fall into it as it is to fall in yourself.”

He roamed the surrounding area locating caves and springs, taking soil and plant samples, and hunting elephants. He survived one bad fall, a poisoning, and a snakebite. Diarrhea and malaria often left him on the edge of unconsciousness. Then one day he was told the king of Koïn had come to see him:

“I am known as Dion-Koïn. You can probably guess that means the master of Koïn,” he chuckled. “Like everyone else, I applauded your performance at the palace the other day. I had been hearing about you for a long time. If you agree, we will become friends. Come through Koïn before you return home. We have fine game and the best milk in the land—as for the women…”

Three insistent coughs were heard from outside. The king leaned forward, eagerly waving someone in:

“Go on! Come in!…Come in!…What are you waiting for?”

A figure hesitated in the distance, crossed over the gravel courtyard, and crouched on the veranda.

“This is my wife…Come in, come in!…Come on, hurry up!…You don’t mind if she comes in, do you? She would be very disappointed. You understand, she has never seen a white man.”

The young woman hesitated a moment longer, then entered with a single stride and lit up the whole room with her presence. She was the young woman he had seen on his way back from the spring, over whom he had nearly gotten himself lynched. The white man no longer paid the slightest attention to what his guest said. She was beautiful, so beautiful, even more beautiful now that he could see her up close! He devoured her with wild eyes, his mouth hanging open and his breath coming quickly. He knew he looked like a madman and did not care. He looked her over from head to foot, dwelling on the curve of her neck, her earlobes, her nose, and the corners of her mouth—she was flawless. Her Fula complexion and her jewels glowing in the darkness of the hut reminded him of the way the most beautiful stained glass windows at Chartres glimmered in the sunlight.

Dion-Koïn started to worry:

“Hey, what’s come over you, white man? By Allah, what’s happening to you?”

Olivier did not know what was happening to him; he did not know if he was falling in love or going insane.

He stood up. He took Dion-Koïn by the shoulders and spoke directly:

“Give me your wife! I beg you, give her to me!”

Thinking it was a joke, Dion-Koïn burst out laughing and ran out to his attendants, who had remained in the courtyard:

“The white man is completely crazy! He wants me to give him my wife. I’ve never heard of such a thing! What a funny story! You should sing that, griots!”

He wiped his eyes and returned to the hut, where he found the white man exactly how he had left him, looking like a hypnotized child.

“Please, give me your wife,” Olivier de Sanderval repeated, his face clear of irony.

“But I can’t give you my wife—she is the daughter of a great king and furthermore that king is a friend. You see that I can’t give her to you. Why don’t you go to Kébou? You’ll find far more beautiful women there.”

“Then tell me her name.”

“Her name is Dalanda. But that name is too complicated for you, I’m sure you’ll forget it right away.”

He took his wife’s hand and led her outside. Once he reached the veranda, he turned and said:

“And forget her too. That will be better for all three of us.”

HE FELL PREY TO A TERRIBLE SICKNESS, more serious and unbearable than diarrhea and malaria and without even a name to identify it. An undefined pain burned through his body, poisoned his blood, and clouded his mind. Mâly thought he had gone crazy, Mâ-Yacine that he had been poisoned again, and his Senegalese soldiers that one of those fearsome Fula marabouts had worked on him with his beads. He became solitary and irascible. He refused everything they offered him to eat, whether curd cheese or millet couscous, taro puree or lamb meatballs. He spent entire days sprawled in a corner of his hut. Then he wandered the alleys of Timbo, oblivious to the hordes of sticklike women and children who laughed behind his back, cruelly mocking his bird eyes and skin the color of embers. He went from one hut to the next, searching the verandas and every inch of the lougans. He risked staring at the women grinding fonio and returning from the well. She wasn’t anywhere to be found. He no longer cared how reckless he was being by ignoring the proverb the Nalus in Cassini had told him over and over: “If you want to avoid the Fula knife, avoid his throne, his cattle, and his wife.” He searched all of Timbo and the neighboring hamlets, improvised long soliloquies on the riverbanks, but could not drown his sorrow. Every night, he dragged himself back to his den like an old defeated lion.

Then one fine afternoon a young girl came to lift him out of his stupor.

“What does she want from me?” he barked at Mâly.

“She wants you to follow her.”

“To go where, good God?”

“Maybe to the almami.”

Throughout this long period of sorrow and wandering, he had never followed the path she led him on. They set off behind his hut, over the fallow lougan. They passed the bamboo hut where he washed, crossed a hedge, and followed a grassy path endlessly twisting between raised vegetable beds to a tiny banana plantation next to a stream. The girl stopped without saying a word and pointed to the plantation. He strained his eyes, which were weakened by sleepless nights and malaria.

He saw.

She was there, standing between the banana trees and the stream, wearing a short grass skirt, her breasts bare, her hair covered in coral and pearls. She wore large gold earrings and a dense tangle of coralline necklaces, some barely wider than her neck, some hanging down to the ends of her breast. A gourd and a wooden spoon stood at her feet.

“Dalanda!”

She smiled. Then time came to a standstill. They remained facing each other, silent and unreal, like the stone etchings in the cliffs of Hélaya. She whispered something he could not understand. He turned to the little girl to beg for her assistance, but she shrugged her shoulders helplessly. He would have drunk Dalanda’s words with the eagerness of mountain shepherds eating their midday honey after a long morning’s hike. She spoke again, using her hands to explain herself. This time he understood:

“I saw you yesterday near the royal stables…and the day before yesterday next to the great madrassa. You’re wandering around as if you had lost a chicken.”

He poured his heart out in a quick torrent of words, telling her of his love, the long nights he had spent waiting for her, and the slow death to which her absence had fated him. She understood nothing. She turned to the little girl, laughing:

“Good God, how could someone come into this world without speaking a word of Fula?”

She leaned down and dipped the wooden spoon into the gourd:

“Drink, it’s milk.”

He drank breathlessly, like a puppy lapping up water after a long race. He caught his breath and threw himself at her feet. But she uttered a short cry and firmly pushed him away. She cast an embarrassed glance at the little girl, then repeated herself until her meaning was clear:

“Tonight…when the muezzin’s voice is still, I will come see you in your home.”

That night he went to bed without opening his journals or touching his chess set. He pulled his plaid blanket over his head to protect himself from the cockroaches and mosquitoes and let the poetic rustle of Timbo sweep over him. One by one, the city’s sounds faded away: the grinding of the pestles, the barking of the dogs, the booming of the Koranic masters, the whining of the children, the voices of the storytellers, and the monotonous chants of the griots. Timbo was falling asleep. He let his mind drift with the chirping of the crickets, the croaking of the frogs, and the terrifying howl of the wild dogs and hyenas. He thought the muezzin’s high-pitched lament would never come; he waited for that supernatural sound that reaches out to anyone awake in the night, even an infidel.

Finally, the muezzin’s song! All his senses came alert. He stared at the entrance to the hut, but nothing brushed against his door save for cats, roaming dogs, and the usual filthy rats. Perhaps overcome by anxiety, he fell into a light sleep. He was dreaming he was in a theater when something touched his hand. For a moment, he stayed asleep, thinking it was only a rat, then suddenly threw back the cover and dashed for his rifle, afraid it was an assassin or a thief.

“Don’t be scared, it’s me,” she whispered, her nude body glowing in the candlelight.

The next day Bôcar-Biro returned to tell him he hadn’t given up hope of securing authorization for him to push on to Dinguiraye. He had broached the subject to the almami, who, all things considered, no longer saw it as a serious nuisance. The monarch had told him:

“Work it out with Diogo Môdy Macka and the other palace attendants.”

“It won’t be complicated to convince Diogo Môdy Macka and his vultures,” Bôcar-Biro concluded, “you’ll just have to cover them in amber and coral.”

Shortly thereafter, he was felled by terrible diarrhea that violently twisted his guts for two days before starting to recede. Fortunately, he had bought a large plastic pot before boarding his ship, and his men took turns emptying it.

The next week he felt strong enough to reach the bamboo hut that served as his bathroom. As he was about to go in, he saw a shadow move behind the tall mango tree. She approached him with something that looked like a meal on her head. He was too surprised and angry to return her greeting and broad smile. He grabbed her by the arm, ran with her to the back door of his hut, and pushed her inside.

He came back out and locked himself in the bathroom hut for a few minutes. Then he lingered in the courtyard, chatting with his men to avoid arousing suspicion.

“Make sure no one disturbs me, I’m going to rest for a while,” he ordered before joining her inside.

A moment ago, he had wanted to reprimand her, but now he could only take her in his arms. She had brought honey cakes and fonio with a folléré sauce. He feasted and listened to her lament over him—the sick man, the poor white man lost among the Fulas, the lover who lacked the honor to settle things by challenging his rival to a knifepoint duel on the plain.

When she was finished feeding him the delicious little treats she had lovingly kneaded, she gently washed his hands and feet and dragged him to the bed, laughing like a little girl.

“You’re not a man, Yémé, wallahi!” she said as she undressed. “I thought you would have stabbed Dion-Koïn and run off with Dalanda by now!”

Now they were sitting on the ground, the white man lost in his notebooks, the young woman leaning on his shoulder, pouring soumbala syrup for him while humming an old shepherdess’s tune.

“Who do you like better, Fatou or me?”

“I love only you.”

He patted her cheek. She delicately ran her finger over the small of his back.

“You can’t love only me, that’s impossible!”

“Only you, only you, only you!”

She managed to make him admit that he had a wife in France, a white woman, of course, and that he loved her just as much. She asked him why he was here in Fouta, and was filled with wonder to learn that he had come to carve out a kingdom for himself.

“Allah is great,” she exclaimed. “That way you will have two queens: a white one and a black one.”

“Alas,” he sighed, “things are never so simple for white people.”

“Why aren’t things ever—”

She was interrupted by a terrible racket. He grabbed his rifle and went to see what was happening. Over a hundred men armed with swords and sticks were racing down the paths, across the lougans and over the fences, bearing down on his hut while hysterically shouting:

“Kill the white man! Kill the white man! Kill the white man!”

His first reaction was to run back inside to protect Dalanda.

“What is it,” she asked innocently, with the adorable smile of an angel. “Are they chasing a thief?”

He took hold of her, steering her to the back door, then reconsidered, thinking of the bed. “Come on,” he said, pushing her down. “Stay under there! No moving, coughing, or sneezing!”

He dropped to the ground in front of the entrance and pointed his rifle at the courtyard. The first men to arrive stopped dead at the sight of his gun barrel. He was not surprised to see Dion-Koïn among them. He watched Dalanda’s husband leap over the fence at full speed and tear his sword out of its scabbard as he reached the orange tree in the courtyard. Olivier’s mind was moving faster than lightning. There were too many men; he didn’t have enough bullets. He was done for—he could blow the bastard away and get lynched by the others or let him hack his head off without putting up a fight. He thought of a third solution—suicide. But that wasn’t his way. You have to save your life no matter what. His father had taught him that on the awful day when the revolutionaries tried to drown him by throwing him in the Saône. And then he thought of Dalanda. If he died, who would defend her? He had to stay right where he was, his finger on the trigger, but no matter what happened he could not be the one to set off the hostilities—he would only fire if they were about to cross the veranda. Then come what may.

But something incredible happened. Dion-Koïn was not brandishing his sword at him, but at the others. He placed his giant frame as a barricade between the white man and his assailants and bellowed:

“I’ll chop off the head of the first one to come any closer! Put your sticks and swords away and go home! Go on, go on! Hurry up!”

One by one, they put their weapons away and reluctantly turned back to the fence.

Then Dion-Koïn crossed the veranda, gently helped the white man to his feet, and led him inside the hut. Olivier collapsed on the edge of one of his trunks and stretched his arms and legs to catch his breath. He had to do everything in his power to avoid looking at the bed.

“Fate is strange, white man,” Dion-Koïn laughed as he sat down on another trunk. “I should have killed you, but I saved your life.”

“Thank you, thank you,” he replied, mopping his brow. “But please tell me what is going on.”

“The Portuguese killed a Fula on the coast, so these idiots want to take revenge.”

He looked around the room and asked the white man if he had obtained his document for the railroad. He answered that he hadn’t, but that he had no reason to doubt the almami’s promise.

“I know why he is making you wait around. It’s because he’s still unsure about your relationship with his enemy in Dinguiraye. People at court say you are hiding piles of riches and rifles for him.”

“Where would I be hiding them?”

Dion-Koïn stood and looked at the bed:

“Under your bed, of course!”

“Go on, take a look,” said the white man, sucking air into his lungs to hold down the feeling of panic coming over him. “You’ll see there isn’t anything there. Just a little hooch!”

Dion-Koïn retched and stumbled back:

“Hooch? Ugh!”

He spit on the ground and walked out. As he crossed the veranda, he whipped around:

“You’re sure you still don’t want to convert?”

The next day, he noticed an ugly bump on her head when he met her at the banana plantation by the stream.

“Who did this to you? Who? It was him, wasn’t it? Well, come what may, this time I’m going to kill him!”

“No! It wasn’t him, Yémé! It was…it was Fatou. Your favorite!” she sobbed and ran off to hide behind the banana trees.

He tore into the Wolof’s hut like a hurricane. Fatou was alone, sitting near the hearth grinding peanuts. He was about to grab her by the neck when he noticed her belly. There was no doubt about it—she was pregnant. At least three months pregnant!

Poor Wolof husband! Now I understood why that woman was so eager to marry her daughter off to me!

He left disgusted, while Fatou’s bone-chilling cries resounded behind him:

“I’ll kill the bitch! I’ll kill her, I’ll kill her, I’ll kill her!”

Over the next few days there was no news from Dalanda.

“I can’t take it anymore, I have to find her,” he told himself as he hastily pulled on his helmet, shoes, and gloves. “Let her husband kill me, I don’t give a damn!”

But when he reached the fence, he was stopped dead in his tracks by an emissary from the palace:

“Is the white man ready? The almami is waiting for him.”

“But why?”

“Why? Why? To leave!…For Donghol-Féla, of course, the almami’s country house! They’re just waiting for the white man, the entire court is waiting, their boots strapped and the horses harnessed.”

“I see,” the white man sighed. “He’s worried that I’ll run off to Dinguiraye during his absence.”

His tedious stay in Donghol-Féla dragged on for nearly a week. When he finally got back to Timbo, he received the devastating news that Dion-Koïn had left the city. He had returned to his fief with his weapons, baggage, innermost circle, and cavalry.

The departure sapped the last of his strength. He went back to his hut overcome by a horrible feeling of emptiness. He drew a thick guipure curtain between himself and the wicked turmoil of Timbo and sank into obscurity, tired of counting the days, the diarrhea attacks, and the migraines. His existence was reduced to the shackles of insomnia and the searing intensity of his memories of her. That accursed day the revolutionaries had thrown his father in the water, he had been taught that you need to find something to hang on to, that there is no other way to escape the abyss. He was now in the heart of danger—all the more reason to hold on, hold on, and still hold on. Behind him were the muffled intrigues of the court and the hardships of travel—the falls, the comas, the countless attempts to poison him, the dizzying beauty of this cruel and fascinating country. Before him, the bottomless chasm of utopia and dreams. The slightest misstep and he would be set adrift.

When reality becomes so squalid, so suffocating, the wise man owes it to himself to look upon it with scorn and take the high road. And so he took shelter in Dalanda’s soothing eyes and wild fruit smell, and stubbornly refused any entreaties from the outside world. He rejected Mâ-Yacine’s dishes and survived by chewing his last pieces of chocolate and drinking bland tea—for he was down to a single sugar cube. Once again, he thought of suicide and madness, realizing that after what he had been through he could face still more starvation, sickness, heartache, and death threats.

Outcomes are insignificant; what gives life meaning is the effort you put into it! Never set your sights in the distance, but on each step. Once you’ve successfully taken one step, turn your attention to the next. His father’s infallible voice had stirred his frail eight-year-old self: once upon a time in Greece, there was a man called Sisyphus…Everyone is here on earth to do what he has to do. Each man is fated to push the boulder that is his to push, without worrying whether it will roll back down once he’s gotten it to the top.

For now, his boulder was to survive, to survive no matter what—in other words to preserve that minimum soundness of mind and body, without which tomorrow nothing would be possible. He would have to wait to attend to his potential return, his railroad, his projects for plantations and trading posts, and his dreams of glory and empire. To do that, he needed to find the strength in the velvety sound of her voice, which he thought he could still hear, and in the vapor of perfumed herbs rising from her body, of which his hands were still fragrant, as if he had just left her. How trivial the venal and shifty Fula princes’ conspiracies, his neighbors’ suspicious glances, the passersby’s morbid curiosity, and the bugs swarming his hut seemed after having experienced that.

It made no difference to him if all this lasted for a month or an eternity.

That brainless little Fatou still wouldn’t leave him alone. Tired of waiting for him by the folding chair outdoors, she came to find him in his hut, searched his trunks, tried on his hat, gloves and boots, and strutted around his bed muttering senselessly. But she could not succeed in shaking him out of his torpor. She stayed through the nights to keep warm, curled up near the hearth, whispering to herself until dawn. She only left once her poor husband implored Mâly and Mâ-Yacine to carry her out of there.

But in fact he no longer even saw her. It was Dalanda who haunted him. Dalanda and her silky hair! Dalanda and her body tasting of papaya, so tender and fresh and golden brown!

If only she were the one hanging around and bothering him like this!

Finally, the tolling of reality got the better of him. He dragged himself to the folding chair and wrote a message for Mâly and Mâ-Yacine to deliver to the court:

“What is it that you want? That I slowly shrivel up and die or that I go crazy? I must warn you that if you don’t give me what I demand immediately, the railroad will start in Saint-Louis and go directly to your enemies in Dinguiraye, then to Ségou, home of the Bambaras!”

His stratagem was so successful that he regretted not using it from the beginning: Môdy Pâthé came to see him right away. Then Bôcar-Biro arrived followed by a crowd of marabouts, advisers, princes, and barons. They all begged him to forgive them and be patient:

“Diango, fab’i diango! Tomorrow, the day after tomorrow! The almami accepts…His advisers are in favor…All the marabouts are having a meeting…Diango, fab’i diango!”

Diango, fab’i diango. The next Friday he saw Môdy Pâthé come over the fence and for the first time in a long time his heart glowed with a genuine glimmer of hope:

“Come, my friend!…No need to get your helmet and gloves. Come right away, before the almami changes his mind! You’ll see, it will be quick!”

Môdy Pâthé had spoken the truth. The almami asked for the document to be read before the assembled court and then personally handed it to Olivier:

“Bismillahi!…I give grace to Allah!…To Allah alone, salam!

“The man who presents himself with this document comes on behalf of the head of the marabouts, the king named Sory, son of Abdoul Kadiri.

“Let all those who look upon this document know that this man who comes from the land of the white men came here and said to the almami: ‘I am your guest…I ask you to give me a road to let the steam through to the place I choose.’ This is what he told the almami. The almami answered: ‘These, of course, are your words. I give you the road to let the steam through. May Allah’s protection extend to you!’

“Written on June 1, 1880, by marabout Saliou Doukayanké under dictation from almami Sory. Interpreter: he who is called Mâly.”

He was also given another document, which was not deemed necessary to divulge to the court: an authorization to cross Fouta to Boké on the road of his choice to buy supplies and recruit porters.

After which the griot addressed him:

“You are no longer a white man like the others. You have become one of us, a brother to the almami, a friend to all of Fouta. We hope that what you are saying is true and that you will return. The problem with you white men is that we never see you twice. Lambert also said he would return and Lambert never returned. We are ashamed that we didn’t always treat you well. To make up for it, the almami will have gold and tiger skins and one hundred porters brought to you. The almami has decided that you will leave tomorrow. Go now, white man, be happy, and most important, think of us!”

There followed a flurry of tears, embraces, best wishes, and endless apologies. The court of the almami had turned into a family reunion. Except that Diogo Mâdy Macka was among them. The monster wove through the crowd and pretended to embrace him so he could whisper:

“Of course, I will keep the gold and the tiger skins. You will be satisfied with the railroad. The English and the Portuguese are jealous enough as it is.”

ON JUNE 2, 1880, Olivier de Sanderval left Timbo with his faithful Mâly and Mâ-Yacine, about twenty Senegalese infantrymen, and one hundred porters. The ebullient citizens watched from their verandas, from behind fences and from the top of mango trees, as he left. Some brought gifts, others held back tears. A crowd of notables including Pâthé and Bôcar-Biro walked with him for the first half day. The almami had included his secretary Saïdou in the escort, along with several captives and griots and the court marabout. Even their kings aren’t treated so well, Olivier rejoiced as he looked over the luminaries riding on his behalf. I think I’ve managed to get a foothold in this country of hypocrisy and fog. On your guard, Fouta!

Inactivity had done more to wear him down than starvation and illness. He was a strapping man accustomed to going swimming and taking long hikes. He needed to move to still his mind. In his two months in Timbo, he hadn’t touched an oar or climbed a mountain. His exercise had been limited to a few walks in the alleys and his butterfly hunts, always trailed by the ill-bred and the spies. And now the wide open field of freedom. The long walk to the coast and the inexhaustible marvels of Fouta lay before him.

Here were the waterfall at Gongoré, the cliffs of Doubbel, the monkey forests of Poukou! The wind was soft, the sun radiant. The bush smelled of jasmine and pepper…He could finally breathe properly…The rivers and their fragrant lianas…Another waterfall, a moor, a small valley…Now the splendid plain of Bhouria was underfoot, with its tall grasses in full bloom, dancing in the wind. Before reaching the city, he took out his journal and wrote: “Seen from here, the succession of valleys and hills on which Timbo rests has a lovely outline. It is reminiscent of the road from Paris to Versailles. A soothing green grass covers the whole area.”

Yet he did not stay long. He was greeted with disdain by Tierno Cîta, the local lord. “These small-time Negro potentates are shockingly arrogant,” he noted. He was served a meal of rotten food. His hut was flooded during the night. He packed up and left as soon as he woke up.

In Fogoumba, he learned that Aguibou was also in town. He had no desire to see him again after what had happened in Timbo. He decided to repeat what he had done in Bhouria, and leave in the morning. But that evening, after his frugal bowl of fonio with milk, a captive came to tell him that Princess Taïbou would come see him.

She was the same glorious panther he had met in Buba and Guidali—the same big eyes glowing with malice, the same slender, feline, and unbowed figure, the same imperturbable calm unique to those born to choose and command. She was at least as beautiful as Dalanda, but her beauty was intimidating, chilled by the habit of power and the taste for authority.

She sat on the earthen bed. He opted for the safety of one of his trunks.

She looked up at the braided vines, bamboo rings, and spider-webs lining the ceiling and said:

“You could have found a better hut.”

“The princess knows very well that the choice isn’t mine.”

“In Labé I would have put you up in the palace.”

“You only say that because I don’t intend to come through Labé!”

She flashed her cold, luminous smile, then continued in a softer tone:

“You’ve lost weight, wallahi! Didn’t they feed you in Timbo?”

“On days I was their friend, yes. On days I was their prisoner, no.”

“Yes, yes, we know about everything, even about your amorous misadventures. Caravanners from Labé witnessed two women fight each other for your attentions at the market.”

“For my part, I heard a lot about you and Alpha Yaya. Is there something between you?”

“If I told you, all of Fouta would burn. What about your sorcery machine? Are you really going to bring it to us?”

“Is that what you came here for?”

“Don’t play stupid, white man,” she answered, taking off her camisole. “I came here to spend the night.”

He did not wait for dawn to break. He left the princess in the warm bed and went out under the stars to get his caravan moving. Fouta was in the middle of the rain season. It was not unusual to have an entire week of constant downpour. Lightning and hail were as common as a rain of oranges during a storm. The air was pleasantly cooler, but the tracks were thick with mud and the rivers roared with the floods while their banks teemed with crocodiles.

He was given a warmer reception in Timbi Touni. The king was away at war, but his brother Tierno provided his best huts and an ample supply of grain, and slaughtered a bull for the white man. He had his griots sing his praises, treated him to a magnificent fantasia, and had a suite of fifty people help him cross the Kokoulo, which was three times its usual width, and accompany him to Ninguilandé.

Yet hardship was just around the corner. In Télibôfin—only five more days to Boké!—he collapsed at the entrance to the village, struck down by hunger and fatigue. He agonized there for two days, lying in his own vomit. But Télibôfin was not safe and his soldiers finally decided to forge on, taking turns carrying him.

In Missidé-Téliko, his pulse became so weak and his temperature so high that once again he dictated his last wishes: “My body will have to be incinerated and my ashes scattered in the river of your choice—the Cogon, the Konkouré, or the Kakrima. As for my riches, do what you will. Only please, make sure that my papers are safely returned to France!” Nothing could be more infuriating than to die so close to Boké, alone among the Negroes, deprived of his family’s affection and extreme unction! It was even more distressing to die without having met a civilized soul to whom he could pass on the orgy of images and sensations Fouta had left him with after four months of passion and misadventure!

Come on, one last push! he told himself. Be stronger than the void! You have to make it to Boké! Once in Boké, come what may! Once your journals are in safety there, you can surrender to the soothing death so near at hand. With a little luck maybe Dehous will bury you near that little monument you built for René Caillié. Short of claiming glory for yourself, it’s worth resting next to it, especially for eternity.

In Tinguilinta, he paid a guide to help them cross the rio Nunez and lead them to Boké. But the scoundrel abandoned them in the middle of the forest. They wandered for two days before chancing upon a caravan of Sarakoles headed for the coast.

France was no longer far off. Just a dozen miles. As dusk fell, they saw the straw huts, port and granite fort with a white tower flying a brilliant tricolor flag: Boké. His eyes shot open, but he began to falter. The first houses were only a few steps away, but it took him an eternity to reach them.

Dehous was away—he had had to travel inland to negotiate with the tribes. But luckily, Bonnard was in town. He was waiting for him in the home of a certain Moustier.

“I can’t believe my eyes!…Thank God!…We thought you were dead, Monsieur Olivier!”

Bonnard—big, strapping Bonnard—could not help bursting into tears as he greeted him on the stoop.

“Oh, here is my countryman! Thank you, my good Bonnard, thank you for having come to me!”

Olivier melted. Bonnard’s strength tripled with the intensity of his feelings; he swept his employer into his arms as easily as if he were a baby or a ball of cotton. He was going to take him upstairs, but stopped to think for a moment and said:

“Let me put you in your bed while I prepare a remedy. You’ll be much more comfortable there. But first swear to me you won’t pass out.”

Olivier de Sanderval hacked out a painful cough and managed to utter, “Oh no, first I have to taste real food again…I don’t care what happens after that…My journals are in trunk number eight. I told Mâly everything…” A gasping wheeze distorted the rest of his words.

Moustier brought him a bottle of water and, with a few strokes of his riding crop, set his dozen boys to work preparing a bath and lighting the stoves.

They dined on those French delicacies his long stay in the bush had made nearly unimaginable: foie gras, terrine de lapin, Rosette de Lyon, Breton pickles, flageolets, asparagus, lentils, leg of lamb with chives, and quail with raisins. They drank wine, champagne, and Armagnac. The feast ended with a dozen cheeses and a delicious apple pie. His mouth sour and his body trembling with fever, he could only taste a spoonful of each dish. But later, when his wife would ask him, he would always respond that it was thanks to that meal that he had survived Africa. The orderly, clean table and the color of the food were all he needed to regain his force of will and the sense of things.

Before collapsing into bed, he gathered the strength to take out his journal: “Finally, bread, wine, prepared eggs! One has to have eaten, written, and lived on the ground to understand the meaning of these things that distinguish the man at the table from the beast in the stable.”

Yet he was surprised to find he was still alive the next morning; surprised, but also filled with wonder. He opened the window and took a hungry whiff of the scent of papaya and wildflowers. He listened to the song of the calaos and drew strength from the sun’s caress. He was able to get to the living room by himself and found Moustier and Bonnard waiting for him. He drank some tea and triumphantly learned to give orders again:

“I need a boat to take me to Gorée.”

At noon, having downed several spoonfuls of broth and a cinchona brew, he stood to go pay his respects to René Caillié, overriding Bonnard and Moustier’s protestations.

As he started down the stairs, Bonnard made a last attempt to stall him.

“Um…”

“Um what, Bonnard?”

“What about this Fouta Djallon, Monsieur Olivier?”

“I’m living proof that people come back alive, my dear old Bonnard, you can see that!”

He disappeared around the corner. But he hadn’t gotten to the rose bed in the courtyard before he collapsed and Bonnard heard him cry out in pain. Bonnard helped him back upstairs and, despite his protests, settled him back in bed. He lit the coal stove to ease Olivier’s violent trembling.

It was now July 8. He had had ten days to nurse himself back to health and regain his appetite. Dehous returned from his expedition to the bush and paid him a visit.

“You’re in a far better state than I was told to expect, Monsieur Olivier.”

Two weeks earlier, Dehous had been relieved to learn from the caravans that Olivier was not only alive but a short distance from Boké. Unfortunately, the French officer had had to travel upriver to quell tension among agitated local tribes. In Balarandé, he and his men had nearly lost their lives. Their proud bearing had been their saving grace.

“You are on the front lines of France’s civilizing struggle, Captain Dehous! Ah, if only those layabouts at the Ministry of the Navy would leave their cozy offices to come see us at work!”

He sounded like a general decorating his subordinates in the courtyard of the Invalides.

“You’re dreaming, Monsieur Olivier! Them here, with the Negroes, the bugs, the panthers, and the snakes?”

“Yet Africa would do them good. A fine lesson in humility.”

“You can say it again. Africa humbles everything that comes in contact with it, aside from lions and elephants.”

“What do you fear most, here in Africa?”

“The diseases.”

“More than the Negroes?”

“You can fight the Negroes, but you can never fight the diseases. So, what about these Fulas?”

“The English of Africa! Every flaw and every quality known to man—greedy, perfidious, touchy, intelligent, refined, and innately noble!”

“How did they receive you?”

“In true Fula style—I never knew if I was an honored guest or a prisoner of war.”

“And what did you obtain?”

“Everything I wanted—authorization to open trading posts and build a railroad.”

“So in your opinion Fouta can become French?”

“Without those fools in Saint-Louis, it already would be.”

“Is the country as beautiful as the caravans say it is?”

He told Dehous that it was, asking him to imagine the breathtaking landscape of a part of Africa where the volcanoes of Auvergne, the Norman bocage, the torrents of the Jura, and the valleys of Switzerland had been brought together.

“The land of Aida! We must conquer it! And soon! Do you understand, Dehous?”

“Forget it, Olivier. Fouta Djallon is inaccessible as it is and the Fulas far too complicated.”

“Without Fouta Djallon, it’s impossible to seize the Sudan.”

“General Faidherbe has created outposts deep into the Sudan.”

“We’ll lose them as soon as the English take control of Fouta Djallon, which is very likely to happen—the Fulas love Manchester cotton cloth and have started counting in shillings.”

“I appreciate the admirable lesson in geopolitics, Monsieur Olivier, but for the moment France has officials to define its African policy.”

“Officials who sadly lack imagination!”

“What?”

“It doesn’t take a geological survey map to realize that we should start by Fouta Djallon. But given the number of fools in our ministries—”

“Do not speak of France that way in the presence of a French officer! That is an insult!”

“An insult? I only—”

“Be silent! First of all, who are you? Nobody! You came here driven by your own fantasies. And we still have no idea who you’re working for—yourself, France, or an enemy power?”

Dehous was pacing around the room, angrily pounding the floor with his boots. He sat back down, pulled the boots off, swearing the whole time, and then knocked back several glasses of Pernod. He burped loudly and grumbled furiously for several minutes before his words finally became coherent:

“I should have had you shot right away…Yes, that’s what I should have done…the firing squad…because we’re not here to mess around, this is a war zone!…The Negroes, the panthers, the bugs…We’re not here to clown around…”

Surprised by this sudden outburst, Olivier de Sanderval watched Dehous rattle off his morbid soliloquy without knowing whether he should be on his guard or take pity on the man.

“I promise you, you would be better off leaving!…No, I do not like you, Monsieur Olivier!…Not even a little, if you must know!”

He did not speak another word. He only hiccuped and burped until the last bottle of Pernod was empty. Finally, he took his helmet, rifle, and boots:

“You’d do better to stay over there, Monsieur Olivier! You’ll never understand anything about Africa, and even if you could, Africa would never understand you! Farewell, Monsieur Olivier, farewell forever!”

Then he disappeared into the night, just as the din of thunder and hyenas was starting to resonate through the bush.

On August 31 at eight p.m., he landed in Gorée after a violent storm. Health services immediately quarantined him in a lazaretto for five days.

He hadn’t even finished unpacking when someone knocked at the door. It was a smooth-faced, trim young man, who looked athletic and attractive despite pale skin and an emaciated body.

“What, you didn’t get your scarifications, old man? They didn’t give you your kingdom? Don’t you recognize me, old man?”

“Souvignet! My word! What are you doing here, my friend?”

“I’m a patient, the same as you, old man! Except that you’re under observation and I’m already sick—tapeworm, yellow fever, and a litany of diseases not yet identified. I don’t give a damn so long as I can stand on my own two legs. I tell myself I feel better than that.”

He indicated some lemon trees visible between the blinds and three little cemeteries separated by low walls. They were full of white graves and wooden crosses held together with rope: dysentery to the left, yellow fever to the right, and bilharzia in the middle.

“They’ll have a hard time deciding where to put me when my time comes. Maybe in all three!” he laughed. “But you should be as optimistic as I am and tell yourself that I’m still young and that it will take more than a few trifling African diseases to put an end to Jean-Marie Souvignet, right? Well, you’re perfectly correct, old man…Say, the crossing was so quick I forgot to ask you your name.”

“Olivier! Aimé Olivier!”

“Can you swear to me that you really made it to Fouta Djallon, old man Olivier? Hmm?”

“Oh, I know what you’re going to tell me, that only four Frenchmen have ever set foot there: Mollien, René Caillié, Hecquart, and Lambert. Well, now you can add a fifth name to the list: mine, Aimé Olivier. Don’t laugh, young man. On the contrary, if you have a medal for me, I wouldn’t say no.”

“You don’t seem too badly off for someone who just came back from Fouta Djallon. I only made it to Rufisque and I’m a wreck.”

“But you haven’t seen my guts.”

“So, what about the kingdom?”

“I don’t have it yet, but I have the name!”

“What is it?”

“Oh no, that’s my very first state secret. All I have to do now is find my grand vizier.”

“Have you thought of anyone yet?”

“You!”

“Me? Really? Why, that’s fantastic!”

“Would you really accept?”

“And how! I can’t live without the bush anymore.”

“You’ll build my palaces, my roads, and my monuments.”

“It’s agreed, your majesty.”

“Be careful—I’m very demanding!”

“I’ll follow your every instruction, your majesty. But let me return the warning, old man. I have one condition—and it’s a significant one.”

“What is it?”

“That you come by to pick up a letter for my family before you sail out. To let them know I’ll be there for Christmas, so I can tell them the good news—the most beautiful of their sons has just been promoted to grand vizier of Africa! Anyhow, you’ll agree this is no place to spend Christmas.”

When he was released from the lazaretto, one of his agents was waiting for him in an old mule-drawn delivery tricycle—there wouldn’t be any ships for a long while. He killed time by taking walks and going fishing and took his meals with a couple of German biologists who claimed to have found a seashell unclassifiable according to Linné’s theory. When the Pointe-Noire–Bordeaux steamship was finally announced, he stopped by to pick up Souvignet’s mail as promised. But the woman guarding the entrance to the lazaretto gave him a strange look:

“Who? Monsieur Souvignet? You’re looking for Monsieur Jean-Marie Souvignet?…I’m sorry, my dear sir, but that’s him over there.”

She pointed to the other side of the alley, where a small group of black men was carrying a coarse cashew coffin.

A tear rolled down his cheek as the grave diggers dropped the first shovelfuls of earth into the grave. He hummed the “Marseillaise” and threw a branch of acacia blossom onto the coffin. Then his voice rose up of its own volition, shaky and unrecognizable:

“Goodbye, my future General Faidherbe!”

He returned to the official and handed her the gold watch Souvignet had lost to him on the ship:

“You’ll be sending his belongings back to his family?”

“Those are the regulations, sir.”

“Well, please put this with them!”

“But—”

“Do as I ask, madam, please,” he implored, a sob catching in his throat.

“Very well, sir, very well,” she said, rolling her eyes in stupefaction as she watched him walk away.

The boat was called Le Congo and was the kind of magnificent Compagnie des Messageries ocean liner regularly produced by Marseille’s La Couronne shipyards.

He watched Africa getting smaller in the wake of the ship and addressed the laptots and trees fading into the distance in a mystical tone: “Oh no, my poor Africa, you are no more than a stranger now!”

He landed in Bordeaux on October 11, 1880. He had left France exactly ten months and nineteen days earlier.

{ PART TWO }

THE TELEGRAPH HAD WORKED; his coachman was waiting for him when he got off the train. But was he stepping down from a train or from the bottomless hole of nothingness? Marseille sparkled in the brilliance of a magnificent Indian summer. Yet he felt nothing, neither the touch of the sun nor the flesh of the city, for which he had pined for long months.

His body felt insubstantial, his gait unstable. Had Africa held on to him and only released his ghost?

He shielded his eyes from the fiery sunlight. He met his coachman’s greeting by swaying unsteadily, grasping the coach’s door just in time to regain his balance while his vision cleared. He marveled at the car’s varnished black flanks and glittering wheels with coral-encrusted spokes.

He settled into the car, grumbling, “Go via the old port, Marcel.”

He leaned against the open window. Blurry outlines of buildings and spectral silhouettes of trees and passersby flickered past his tired eyes. The car sped along the avenue d’Athènes and the Canebière. When they reached the quai des Belges, he signaled for Marcel to slow down. Refreshed by the sea air, he raised his head to see the teeming piers and the picturesque tangle of masts. Only then did he finally take in the presence of the city.

Marseille unfolded like a fresco—the same fanlike assortment of hills and creeks, country houses, and little gardens that had so often haunted his thoughts when he was in the bush. It pleased him to see its covered markets, arsenals, oil mills, and soap factories again; greedily he breathed in the odor of lavender, the sea, sulfur, and burning fat. He closed his eyes and rocked with the movement of the horses and the music of his surroundings—quai de Rive-Neuve, bassin de Carénage, promenade de la Corniche, avenue du Prado, avenue de la Pointe-Rouge, avenue de la Madrague-de-Montredon.

The car shot across the traverse de Carthage, pulled into the park, drove past the stables and the Clary farmhouse, and stopped in front of the château. He had decided to settle in the château built against the embankment after his father-in-law’s death, dedicating the farmhouse to his library and laboratory. He left the car and plunged back into family life with the same agitated relief he had felt when malaria sent him plunging into his bed in Timbo.

Rose, his dear little Rose, was as delicate and perfumed as when he had left her. She covered him in kisses for several days, racked by tears, before entrusting him to the doctors and the cooks. But she waited until the children recognized their father and were able to get close to him without quivering to ask the question that had been on her lips since the moment of his departure:

“So tell me, Aimé, did those Negroes give you a part in their Mephistopheles?”

“It happens that they did, my love. In fact, that’s why I’m still alive.”

Within a month, he had stopped trembling and vomiting and his body no longer seemed adrift inside his clothes. The bush animal he had become slowly settled into family life and adjusted to the sounds of the city. But Fouta Djallon was still in his blood. As soon as he was strong enough to hold a pencil, he pulled his notebooks out of the trunks and returned to his writing. His tone was mocking and prophetic: “Europe will certainly make the trip and civilization will follow. In three years, the king of Timbo will eat cherries from Montmorency like the Romans used to eat figs from Carthage.” Then he remembered the Herculean task before him in achieving that goal. After the perils of the bush, another struggle lay ahead: facing the jungle of the Paris bureaucracy and selling it on his discovery.

Naturally, he dropped in to greet his old friend Jules Charles-Roux before going up to Paris.

Both chemists and sons of chemists, they had been born in the same year. The Charles-Roux family was to soap in Marseille what the Oliviers were to sulfuric acid in Lyon. Devoted to Darwin and fascinated with colonial adventures, both men believed more deeply in the glory of science and the unlimited resources of progress than in God. They were the twin sons of a feverish, all-conquering, and inventive era, which had no time to waste, particularly on self-doubt.

Jules hadn’t yet succumbed to the fashionable temptations of travel and exploration, but was a close friend of Gallieni and an ardent supporter of French settlement in Tunisia, Dahomey, and Madagascar. Despite their markedly different personalities, both men believed that from now on France’s genius would be exercised from Africa, and that from there, it would radiate beyond the Indus and the Mediterranean, along every meridian, on each pole, and to every corner of the planet. And so they fell into each other’s arms with unconcealed emotion.

“It’s no small thing to shake a hand that has come straight out of Fouta Djallon! Were you on this morning’s boat or last night’s?”

“Um…not exactly,” Olivier de Sanderval mumbled. “I preferred sparing you the sight of what I looked like straight off the ship. I put myself in quarantine out of, um, decency, let’s say. The whole city would have fled if I had shown myself to her right away.”

After a long outpouring of heartfelt emotion and the occasional sigh, they took their seats in the living room. The butler’s slender figure appeared beside them; the guest opted for a Dutch gin and the master of the house for a cassis. Olivier de Sanderval savored the delicious liqueur and closed his eyes, sighing:

“Can this be possible? Me, in France, in a real home, eating real food, drinking out of real glasses, conversing with real human beings!”

Jules made no answer. This was a sign of deference, but also of a burning desire merely to listen. A single word from him would have shattered the moment’s solemnity, the narrative’s authenticity, and the hero’s depth. Silence settled over them like a hymn and stretched suitably long, interrupted only by the chirping of birds in the park and a few notes of music escaping from a piano in some distant home.

Olivier de Sanderval finally gave in:

“Only, where do I start?”

And with the relief of a suspect who has lost all resolve, he told Jules everything, everything he had so long and so painfully kept to himself, never daring to reveal it to Rose: the beggars of Gorée, the king of Bubaque, the British consul, the chasms, the snakes, the panthers, the scorpions, the chimpanzees, the comas, the stomach cramps, the death threats, and the poisonings; the country’s staggering beauty, the mysterious world of the Fulas—so sly, so twisted, so noble, so valorous, and, in the long run, so fascinating that one would pay them just for their faults.

“As I told you, my dear Jules, I had intended to travel all the way to the Sudan. But those Fula kings had other plans. They forbade me from going on and showed their gratitude for my visit by holding me captive a good two months.”

“Two months a prisoner of the Negroes and…”

“Don’t worry, my dear Jules, these Negroes don’t eat white men. It’s much worse—they eat their souls!”

For a moment, Jules Charles-Roux was lost in a daydream, then jovially raised his glass:

“To our great explorer! René Caillié had Timbuktu, Dupuis had Tonkin, and now you have Fouta Djallon!”

“I couldn’t live with myself if I were only an explorer. The age of exploration is over, my poor Jules! The age of colonization is upon us!”

“Now that you’ve seen these Negroes up close, do you think it’s possible to extract them from the jungle to which genetics has confined them?”

“I recognize that it is a primitive race, far closer to the monkey than we are, but it is also a young race. The heart is just emerging, the mind will come later. Evolution, my dear Jules, evolution!”

“Would you agree to hold a conference here to expand on this and allow us to dream of the marvels of Fouta Djallon?”

“I would be happy to, my friend! It would be an opportunity for me to thank the Geography Society for its invaluable support.”

“Will you be in the city for some time?”

“I’m preparing a trip to Paris to inform the gentlemen of the Ministry of the Navy. I haven’t finished with the saurians yet—after the crocodiles of Africa, the caimans of the ministries!”

“What will you ask them?”

“To support my treaties with the Fulas!”

“For you or for France?”

“In my mind, it’s the same thing. In Timbo, I am France.”

“I see. I’ll write you a letter of recommendation to the new president of the Geography Society. His name is…Ferdinand de Lesseps. Do you know Vice Admiral Cloué?”

“When he was alive, the Marquis de Chasseloup-Laubat told me a lot about him.”

“Go see him on my behalf. He’s the new Minister of the Navy.”

Olivier de Sanderval finished his Dutch gin, stood, and asked for his coat.

IN PARIS, HE TOOK QUARTERS at the Terminus Saint-Lazare and started with the most enjoyable of his chores: a long dinner at the Grand Véfour with the father of the Suez Canal, then still at the height of his glory. The Paris elite was in the habit of gathering in this sumptuous eighteenth-century setting nestled under the arcades of the Palais-Royal. Grévy or Gambetta could frequently be seen in the crowd. If you listened carefully, you could hear Edmond de Goncourt or Alexandre Dumas, fils holding forth about their latest work. The chicken marengo fricassee melted in your mouth, and the chicken salad was even better than the gourmets in the foyer of the Comédie-Française and the boxes of the Opéra would have you believe. Ferdinand de Lesseps proved to be jovial and witty—an utterly charming dinner companion. Commonly known as the Great Frenchman, he was a rather small old man, dressed entirely in black, with graying but thick sideburns. Though he was seventy-five years old, he spoke directly and with tremendous energy. He was still a staunch believer in his Panama Canal. Certainly, the project appeared to be a lot more costly than he had originally intended. But this hardly discouraged him; on the contrary, it proved that it would be more interesting than the Suez Canal. He would eventually find the money, there was no doubt about that, even if for the time being the shareholders were dragging their feet. He had just launched a major bond subscription and it was getting off to a good start.

“It worked in Suez, it will work in Panama. But in fact, my young friend, we’re not here to talk about Panama, but that new country you have succeeded in putting within France’s reach. Fu…remind me of its name?”

“Fouta Djallon.”

“That’s what I thought: Futita Djallon. It’s a land of plenty, I’m told?”

“Unfortunately, it isn’t for you—there’s no place to dig a canal.”

“Oh, yes, Charles-Roux told me about your idea to build a railroad. I plan to give a paper about it at the next session of the Academy of Sciences. The railroad is the canal of the new age.”

“The artery that will help us reinvigorate Africa’s slumbering body.”

“You talk like Dumas—he is our permanent secretary, you see. You should drop in on him. Dumas is like everyone else: he pretends to detest honors, but nothing pleases him more than when others make a show of how important he is. Go see him, thank him for everything he’s already done for you—even if he hasn’t done anything yet. That will certainly give him the impetus to start doing something; for instance, to schedule my paper as soon as possible. You should also see Ganthiot; he’s the permanent secretary of the Paris Society of Commercial Geography. You’ve just accomplished a colossal task, young man, now you have to have it recognized. We’re in Paris, you know—whether it’s an unknown planet or a new disease, it doesn’t exist here until high society has approved.”

“I can assure you I have no interest in fame.”

“That’s what I told myself when I broke ground in Suez. But when everyone started calling me the Great Frenchman, I found it rather pleasant. And what about the Negroes?”

“Animals, for the time being. Progress will surely come to them.”

“Ah, you reassure me about the magic of progress! In a few years, the Negroes—how long for the monkeys?”

Since no proper dinner in Parisian social circles could come to a close without a few digressions on politics and opera, they briefly discussed F. Poise’s L’Amour médecin, which had recently opened at the Théâtre de l’Opéra-Comique, as well as two leading figures who shared a first name: Jules Ferry and Jules Guesde.

Then the man from Suez stood to put on his top hat and cloak.

“Promise me you’ll go see Dumas!…And then Ganthiot too!”

Olivier de Sanderval accompanied him to his carriage. He remained frozen with respect until the living legend of France faded in the distance. Then he turned and climbed into his own carriage.

The Proceedings of the sessions of the Académie française published long extracts from Lesseps’s paper. Fashionable salons and cafés were instantly enthralled with this intrepid explorer from Lyon, already well-known for having invented the sprung-hub wheel and for his exploits on the front at Sedan, and who, in his splendid isolation, now undertook to present France with a new colony redolent of pastures and honey, whose exotic name already tickled schoolchildren and cabaret songwriters. Le Petit Marseillais, Le Figaro, Le Journal des débats, La Revue des deux mondes, Le Bulletin de la Société de Géographie and La Dépêche coloniale devoted entire pages to his journey. His renown soon extended beyond the borders of France: the Geographical Society of London discussed his exploits, and the German press heaped praise upon him. In an age when explorers enjoyed the same celebrity astronauts do today, it was thrilling to see his name appear beside those of Stanley, Major Laing, Mungo Park, and René Caillié.

He was rather pleased with himself. In just a few weeks, he had managed to seduce the scholars, the financiers, and the academicians. But now he had to face Paris’s most cruel beasts: the politicians.

Thanks to the reputation he now enjoyed from the humblest abodes to the most luxurious salons, he was ready to present himself at the Ministry of the Navy. But Admiral Cloué did not seem as impressed with him as did the newspapers. He let him wait a few days before opening the doors to his office:

“Dear old Charles-Roux tells me you’re bringing us a brand-new country.”

Olivier de Sanderval expounded on his journey, describing the beauty of the landscapes, Fouta Djallon’s touristic and agricultural potential, the Fula aristocracy, and his tiresome detention in Timbo.

“What did you request from these Fulas?”

“Authorization to build a railroad and to trade.”

“You’re sure you didn’t want something else? Like clearing some land and proclaiming yourself king?”

“I see the gossips have done their damage all the way into the corridors of the Republic. My only ambition is to serve France.”

“Ah, France! Nowadays, any cobbler boasts he is contributing to her glory. You left without us—without orders, without even asking our advice.”

“You know as well as I do that you would have tried to dissuade me.”

“Tell me, what exactly do you expect from us?”

“That you support my treaties. That you send an official delegation to Timbo—I’m ready to head it.”

“Perhaps you’re expecting France to set you up as king of Timbo.”

“I’m simply expecting you to endorse my treaties before enemy powers walk off with everything.”

“France has no legal power to protect your treaties, supposing there are any treaties. Our colonies are Senegal and Sudan.”

“Holding Africa by Senegal and Sudan is like holding the sword by the blade! Without Fouta Djallon, we run the risk of losing all our possessions in Africa.”

He stopped for a moment and walked to a world map pinned to the wall:

“If you don’t mind, sir, let us take another look at the map of the world. What do we have around our poor France?”

He pointed to the map and dourly indicated Spain, England, and Germany—nothing but enemies. How could France survive in this hornet’s nest? Africa! There was no other solution. “It must be the body and we’ll be the mind!” he insisted. As soon as he had arrived in Gorée, he had understood that it could no longer be a mere stockroom for slaves and oleaginous plants but had to be meticulously refined by the teachings of Athens and Rome and turned into a friend, an ally, a French province. France could raise a massive army there; with this army she would easily conquer Italy and cross the Brenner Pass into Austria. Germany would be left without a choice: everlasting peace and possibly even union with France in the face of England, Europe’s enemy. And how would we turn Africa into a French province? It was plain as day: by making Fouta Djallon France’s base.

He didn’t realize he had been speaking for twenty minutes, in a tone combining the exalted pitch of his deliriums in Timbo and the more metaphysical concerns of The Absolute. The minister considered him, wondering whether he should throw him out immediately or enjoy the show for a few minutes more.

“Believe me, sir, Africa is the key to our future. Today we can make it our shield and tomorrow our refuge. Yes, you must realize that glaciation is increasing, that in a few decades Languedoc will be as frozen as the North Pole. The Inuit and the Laplanders will immigrate to France. And we’ll run to take refuge in the cooled climates of the equator. So long as we’ve made room for ourselves ahead of time.”

The minister stared at him, grumbled into his beard, and took a long look at his watch.

“Well, well, glaciation. Of course, my young friend, glaciation. And how many battalions do you intend to use to occupy the equator before glaciation sets in?”

“You don’t need one hundred thousand men to conquer Africa, you just need one—the one who will be able to win its trust.”

“And of course that man will be you.”

“Me or you. If not, it will be the English!”

“You truly are obsessed with the English,” the minister sighed as he led him to the door.

He looked at Olivier with a mixture of worry and condescension and shook his hand.

“Goodbye, sir. And please take good care of yourself. The last I heard, Africa was still free of glaciation, but you might want to be wary of its fevers.”

Leaving the office, Olivier found himself face-to-face with a man in an officer’s uniform. He had been listening at the door.

“Good God,” he cursed, “you listen at doors? Aren’t you ashamed, a grown man, and wearing that uniform?”

“Um…no. No, no!”

“Then what are you doing here?”

“Um…I—I just wanted to walk you out.”

He left feeling profoundly unsettled. Clearly, Cloué didn’t believe in him or in his project. It had been a difficult day. He needed to clear his mind. He walked to the Café de Paris, ignoring the rain, and soothed his nerves by playing chess until nightfall. He did not feel like showing his face at the Grand Véfour or Foyot for dinner. His foul mood would not stand for the Paris rumor mill. Yet eating alone in his room would only aggravate his anxiety. He decided to walk toward les Halles, where he could eat cheaply and be left alone.

But as he walked, he had the impression that a stealthy shadow followed him from a distance, that footsteps echoed behind him but mysteriously vanished whenever he came to a halt.

“Have they already started to have me followed?” he muttered as he reached the Saint-Eustache Cathedral. “Well, if they’re spying on me it must mean that despite appearances I remain important to them.”

He hesitated for a moment between various cheap restaurants serving escargot soup, mussels à la Provençale, or tripe à l’auvergnate. He opted for the one offering sheep’s feet with a copious stew, lured not by the menu, but by the fact that the place looked less dirty and smoky than the others, although it was as fully packed. But thankfully the tables were not pushed close together and there was a corner where people could dance to accordion music.

This was exactly what he needed. Nothing better than blending into a crowd to calm the mind. At least here he could gorge himself on good country cooking and drink as much as he wanted without being seen by the gossip columnists.

He finished his sheep’s feet and stew and started in on the cheese. As he was about to raise his hand to ask the waiter for another half liter of red wine, a man pulled out a chair and sat down next to him.

“May I?” the stranger muttered, putting his hands on the table.

It was the officer from that morning, the one he had caught listening at the door. He had traded in his uniform for an undistinguished suit, but Olivier recognized his sparkling shifty eyes and long snoopy nose right away.

“So you are the one who was following me?”

“Following is a big word. I just wanted to catch you in a quiet place so we could talk a little.”

“And what could you want to talk to me about?”

“About Fouta Djallon, of course. But courtesy demands that I begin by introducing myself: Doctor Bayol.”

Bayol, the Navy doctor, the one who had been on the Gallieni expedition to the Sudan. Incredible! He had thought he would run into him in Ségou or Kayes after Timbo and Dinguiraye, but instead he found him in this dive after catching him listening at doors. A Navy officer, a real French soldier who had distinguished himself in the Congo before going to war in the Sudan. He considered his determined brow, haughty mouth, and small eyes brimming with malice and intelligence. No, he couldn’t bring himself to admire him; he had to make a serious effort to keep himself from slapping him.

“So you have an interest in Fouta Djallon? Why didn’t you ever take a trip over there?”

“My superiors didn’t ask me to.”

“The Navy does frown upon anyone taking a crap without consulting his superiors.”

“Yet my trip wouldn’t have been an extravagance. We’re soldiers at the service of the nation, not exotic adventurers.”

“Did your superiors tell you to come say that to me?”

“No, I came on my own behalf. The two of us have nothing in common: ideas, profile, character. Except one thing: Fouta Djallon. Like you, I believe it must be the cornerstone of our strategy in Sudan. But it seems the British want to checkmate us. I learned this morning that they have just sent a mission to Fouta headed by none other than Goldsburry, their governor in the Gambia.”

“The bastards! Goldsburry in Fouta Djallon is important. If that’s why you came, you did well.”

“No, it wasn’t just for that.”

“What else?”

“It’s also to tell you that I like your idea of an official mission to Timbo. A lot.”

“Finally someone who understands me! What are you waiting for to convince Cloué? You have real influence since you traveled with Gallieni.”

“Not enough to make that old bear of a man give in. But you…”

“Me?”

“Yes. Mention it to Gambetta. I know you have connections to the President of the Chamber. If Gambetta gets involved, Cloué will have no choice but to obey.”

“So be it! I might tempt him with my treaties.”

“Just hurry, before the English reduce your treaties to ashes. Now goodbye. We’ll keep each other posted.”

As Bayol offered him his hand, Olivier de Sanderval sneezed.

“Ah,” Bayol said, “the effects of glaciation are already being felt. Keep warm, Olivier, keep warm!” And with a snicker, he headed for the door.

As soon as he woke up, he wrote to the President of the Chamber. A messenger soon delivered an answer: “I’m eager to hear what you have to say about Fouta Djallon. What would you say to dinner at Chez Drouant? It will be quieter there than at Le Bœuf à la Mode or the Grand Véfour.”

Chez Drouant was the newcomer on the short list of restaurants frequented by Paris celebrities. He followed etiquette and arrived early, but found Gambetta already waiting for him with a drink, reading the latest edition of Le Figaro.

Gambetta was characteristically impulsive and frank, driving straight to the point:

“I saw Cloué this morning. To be honest, you did not convince him with your new ideas. I hope you’ll have more luck with me.”

“I expect two things from you—and by you I mean both the friend and the president of the Chamber: the founding of a genuine Ministry of the Colonies, and the immediate dispatch of an official mission to the almamis of Timbo.”

“Impossible, my friend! We’re experiencing an unprecedented budget crisis. As for sending a mission to Fouta Djallon—”

“It’s indispensable, Gambetta!”

“In your mind, it all seems simple. Cloué did say your imagination is quite fertile. So, tell me about this glaciation,” he chuckled.

“I see it makes you laugh, too. Yet there is nothing funny about it. Monsieur President, the mind only evolves if it inscribes itself in movement. Yes, the world is not static, it is in perpetual motion—the earth, the weather, the races. Nothing stands still!”

“Even the races?”

“Especially the races, Monsieur President! The evolution of humanity does not stop with the white race. Understand that we are not all of humanity, but only one branch of it.”

“If I understand you correctly, the monkeys of Africa will carry on the work of Plato, Descartes, Voltaire, and Gay-Lussac? Is that it?”

“I didn’t say the monkeys, I said the blacks.”

“Am I to understand that their genius will awake with glaciation?”

“In a way, yes.”

“My dear Olivier, you’re lucky you’re sitting across from someone who shares your love of fantasy. Unlike Cloué, I don’t think you’re mad. But it would still take me a century or two to get used to ideas like yours.”

He stood up to ask for his coat and his walking stick. Then he added:

“Very well. I’ll discuss all this with my cabinet. And I beg of you, please don’t hold it against me if the answer is no.”

He immediately returned to Marseille and sent a telegram to his trading post in Gorée:

My dear Bonnard,

The reason I haven’t given you any news since telegraphing you upon disembarking in Bordeaux is simple: I had no news to give. My family’s life in Montredon is as ordinary as can be. As for the life of France, to tell the truth, aside from the raised voices one hears in Parliament, it is the peaceful and dull life of an old woman of independent means who feels quite comfortable as she waits for death. Only I have just come from Paris, where, having worn myself out scaling the echelons trying to convince our bureaucrats it is in our country’s best interest to subjugate Fouta Djallon, I finally came across some news: it appears the English have sent a mission to Timbo under Goldsburry, their governor in the Gambia. I don’t need to go any further for you to know this is bad news for us. You know better than I do how shifty the English are, and how greedy and fickle the Fulas. The meeting of these two treacherous races threatens to wipe out our treaties and swallow up all the treasures we invested as gifts and in trading posts. Therefore I order you to immediately go to Timbo to ensure that we—rather than those English scoundrels—are the friends of the almami, and that our treaties still stand. You know the vile ways of the Negro kings. For them, friendship goes to the highest bidder. So don’t hesitate: cover those petty Fula lords in presents (especially Pâthé, Aguibou, Bôcar-Biro, and Alpha Yaya). Let each of them have a mirror or a ball of amber. As for the English, denigrate them! Sabotage poor old Goldsburry! Make the Fulas understand that the English only want one thing: to behead the almami and take control of his country. Tug at the Fula’s heartstrings: his legendary pride, his attachment to Islam and to his country’s independence, everything the villainous English want to destroy while we, the French…Remind them a million times over how I am and will always remain their most faithful and devoted friend. Do as I say and keep me informed.

In the meantime, I have to stay here to harass the ministries. For the moment everything is going against me. But you know me!

I will return to Fouta as soon as I can.

Say hello to all the Portôbés on my behalf!

WINTER PASSED WITHOUT ANY new developments—nothing from Gambetta, and nothing from Timbo. And so he dedicated himself completely to the two poles of his new existence: in his nocturnal life, during which others dreamed and the private nightmare of his insomnia reigned supreme, he worked on his travel journals and the arduous theories of The Absolute; in his daytime life, he attended to the Marseille routine of sports, business, banquets, and family. Georges, ten, and Marie-Thérèse, eight, enjoyed his presence as perhaps never before. They used the slightest excuse to escape from the conscientious grip of servants and tutors and seek shelter in his arms. He scolded them for various trifles—elbows on the table during dinner, sloppy attire, a botched Latin or math exercise—while his hand gently patted their cheeks and his paternal heart secretly exuded tenderness and affection.

It stopped snowing; the storks dispelled the last southern fogs with a single flap of their wings. Still nothing.

Splendid spring days rich in sunlight, birdsong, and jasmine left Rose, his treasure, swooning with love and romanticism. The thoughtful presence of her man and the daily presentations of Mephistopheles were soon no longer enough for her. Her wet eyes turned to the heights of Marseille, she sniffled and wrapped herself around him: “Aimé, if you really loved me, you would give me another lunch on the peak of La Verryère, only with the Teatro alla Scala this time.” He went to great pains to convince her that it wasn’t particularly exciting to indulge in the same extravagance twice. A second lunch at the peak of La Verryère would have no effect. The man in the street and the press would ignore it, and for the two of them, it would be one glass of champagne too many. The Teatro alla Scala was a brilliant idea, but really, not on La Verryère—the Kahel plateau would be so much better!

It would just require a little patience. Once he brought those proud Fula princes to heel, built a palace and a train station, and established trade and industry, they would surely find some grove to clear for an opera house based on the one in Paris, Milan, Florence, or London—it would be up to her. And the Teatro alla Scala would certainly be the best choice for the inauguration. The country required double civilizing: the railroad for the economy, opera for the culture.

“Tell me under what name you will reign, Aimé?”

He hadn’t thought about that yet. He would study the Merovingians or the giants of the Nile—something like Merovech or Ramses. Maybe he could combine them: Meramvech, Egypt’s peak and France’s flourishing beginnings! Meramvech was nearly like a Negro name. Just Meramvech, plain and simple—the founder of a dynasty has no need for numbers.

“And what would you call me?”

“Rose! The name of a flower, the most beautiful flower of all! Thorns and a sweet fragrance. You’ll be both loved and feared.”

He hadn’t thought about Dalanda when he answered. He hadn’t thought about her since he had arrived in France. In fact, Émilie, Rose, and Dalanda were not three different women, three separate entities likely to meet and rival one another. They represented the various states of a single person: snow here, water there. The metamorphosis must take place somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic. It was only natural that he didn’t feel anything like guilt, wrenching emotion, doubt, or torment, none of the futile feelings or pathetic moral doctrines that might make one shudder in this kind of situation. He had never asked anyone how to say “rose” in Fula; it was surely dalanda.

“Ah, Kahel! Try for next year, Aimé, it’s so boring here in Marseille!”

He decided to rent a boat and take her on a cruise to Sicily.

Shortly after their return, a stranger appeared at the gate of the property. Olivier told the butler he wasn’t home for anyone. But the good man insisted that his visitor had come from abroad expressly to see him.

“From England, sir, judging by his accent!”

He received the stranger in the farmhouse library to make it clear the interview would be brief. The man handed over his cloak and walking stick, and came forward as he pulled off his gloves with a typically English sense of elegance:

“Sir Gladstone Jr. And it is a genuine pleasure to meet you, Monsieur Olivier.”

“Sir Gladstone Jr.? You mean to say you’re the brother of the prime minister?”

“Not the brother. The son, Monsieur Olivier, the son.”

“My God, the son of Her Majesty’s prime minister. What interest could your empire have in a poor Frenchman like me?”

“We’ve always been highly interested in the French, Monsieur Olivier.”

“Especially Joan of Arc and the burghers of Calais.”

“Come now, Monsieur Olivier, all that is in the past. We’re friends now. In any case, it’s as a friend that I’ve come to see you.”

“Then please accept a glass of wine. That’s how we treat our friends in France—with wine.”

“If you see it as a punishment, Monsieur Olivier, I’ll gladly accept the maximum sentence,” the Englishman said, loudly clinking his glass.

“Did your honorable father send you?”

“Let’s say I came on my own initiative, though he is of course aware of my visit.”

Naturally, he had come to discuss the only subject they were both interested in: Fouta Djallon. London was aware of Olivier’s stay in Timbo and his fruitless efforts in Paris.

“Cloué is right, Monsieur Olivier, the French belong in the clearings of the Sudan. You’re the people of the Enlightenment, after all. Why don’t you leave these forests to us miserable English?”

He based his argument on the fact that the English had long preceded the French in that part of the world: “Watt and Winterbottom in 1794 and Campbell in 1817, years before your Mollien. If one applies the rule of the first occupant, Fouta Djallon is ours.”

Olivier de Sanderval answered that Fouta Djallon belonged to no one, particularly not the English—the almamis hadn’t signed any agreements with Campbell or Major Laing.

“The Fulas are even slyer than you are—they always pretend to sign and then they never do. Except with me. And do you know why they signed with me, Mr. Gladstone? Because I am neither a state, nor an army, nor a bank. I am a friend.”

“Hmm, a friend? What would you say to giving us all your treaties in exchange for the title of Lord and—this.” He opened his bag, which was stuffed with banknotes.

Olivier de Sanderval’s face contracted into an angry grimace. He stormed across the room and grabbed his rifle:

“Get out of here, Mr. Gladstone, or I will commit a crime against England!”

“One moment, please,” Gladstone said, picking up his glass as if to prove British composure was no myth.

He finished his drink in one swallow, calmly closed his bag, took his coat and walking stick, and politely saluted before getting into his hackney. Olivier de Sanderval chased him to the exit, spat in disdain, and furiously slammed the gate shut.

He spent the next weeks writing his travel narrative and giving interviews and conferences all over France. Newspapers in the most remote provinces sent journalists to meet him. Some even came from Belgium and Germany. The halls of geographical societies were crowded with young men in gaudy vests and frock coats with wide lapels and society ladies in tulle dresses, mantillas, and wide-brimmed hats who had come to listen to him. In Bordeaux, Montélimar, Dijon, and Angoulême, he received a hero’s welcome; strangers threw their arms around him and offered him flowers while crowds chanted “Bravo!” People vied to be photographed with him. In Toulouse, a group of young romantics received him with cries of “French Fouta Djallon! French Fouta Djallon!” At the end of his conference, a young boy handed him a small chest:

“What’s this, young man?” he asked.

“Why, it’s for your railroad of course!”

He was so moved he had difficulty hiding his tears.

“Ah, if only they were all like you in the ministries of Paris, my boy,” he cried as he lifted the child in his arms, “France would be saved!” But his visits to Paris continued to prove utterly fruitless and his constant barrage of increasingly agitated letters remained unanswered.

In late April, he recognized Gambetta’s handwriting in the imposing pile of mail he received from his admirers every day and let out a cry of joy. The letter read: “I’ve finally convinced the government to send a mission to Timbo. You see that I haven’t forgotten about you!…My dear Aimé Olivier, please be assured of my most faithful and sincere friendship. Signed: Gambetta.” In a postscript, he added: “Incredibly, your nebulous Fouta Djallon tale is starting to take hold here.”

He ran to kiss his wife and children and uncorked a bottle of champagne. Then he returned to the library and wrote a feverish response. He devoted several sentences to the usual expressions of gratitude, and closed on an enthusiastic note: “This is the best news that you could have given me. I am ready to leave for Timbo immediately and to hold talks—officially this time—with my Fula friends. I leave it to the government to appoint the team that will follow me and to set the date for the expedition. However, in my opinion, it would be better for us to go before the beginning of the rainy season. As of June, the plains are flooded and the roads impassable in Fouta Djallon.”

After so much hesitation, it seemed as though luck was finally turning his way. The same week he received a letter from the court of Portugal announcing that in appreciation for his treaties and the information he had provided about the Cassini and the Foreyah, King Louis I was bestowing on him the title of Viscount de Sanderval and that he would soon be invited to Lisbon to receive his trading license and decoration.

Suddenly the gods were smiling upon no one but him!

Less than a week later, a sailor knocked at his door to bring news of Bonnard, who had safely returned to Gorée from Timbo. Almami Ahmadou, who in the meantime had replaced Sory according to laws of alternation too Fula to be comprehended, confirmed all the treaties Fouta had signed with him and reiterated the Fula people’s unshakable friendship. Bonnard hadn’t had much trouble convincing the almami—that numskull Goldsburry had done most of his work for him. With his military sense of discernment, Goldsburry had foolishly ordered his entire troop to march in front of the palace in honor of the almami. The suspicious and susceptible Fula people had seen this courtesy as a threat, a sign that the Englishman had come with hostile intentions and that what Olivier de Sanderval had told the almami was true: “The English are aggressors. They only have one thing in mind: to decapitate the almami and enslave Fouta. While I, Olivier de Sanderval, only want your friendship.”

“Which means,” the sailor concluded, magisterially giving the finger to those faraway English troops, “that they booted the Englishman the moment his military parade came to a close, Monsieur Olivier, and that the road to Timbo is still wide open to you!”

The news had the same effect on him as those nice little Burgundy wines one savors over an alfresco lunch to the sound of an accordion. He took up boating again and began hosting balls and banquets. He dedicated his endless sleepless nights to revising The Absolute and his mornings to organizing his travel narrative. He spent the afternoons near Cassis, tracking hares through the scrub and climbing in the rocky Mediterranean inlets. On weekends he took his family on picnics by Lake Berre or in the Château-Combert forest. He relaxed under the pines in the garden, reading Le Petit Marseillais, filling his notebooks, and planning his next expedition to Timbo down to every ration.

Yet spring flashed by and summer (the rainy season over there, with its constant downpours and fiery lightning) was looking him in the face, and still there was no news from the Ministry of the Navy. In mid-May, he expressed his concern to Charles-Roux, who said: “Write them! Maybe they forgot!”

“But to whom, my dear Jules? Cloué or Gambetta?”

“To Cloué, of course! Gambetta already did what he could!”

He did so and, to his great surprise, quickly received an answer: the mission in question had embarked for Fouta Djallon at the beginning of May. The author of the letter, an obscure civil servant with the Bureau for Native Affairs, plunged the knife even deeper by naming the man leading the mission—Doctor Bayol, saddled with a former Folies Bergère comedian turned draftsman-photographer turned Navy officer by the name of Noirot. They were bearing a letter from President Jules Grévy, inviting the almami of Timbo to make an official visit to Paris. Olivier’s heart nearly leaped out of his throat. He ordered his butler to pack his bags immediately and the coachman to find out what time the next train left for Paris. Frightened by his rage, his wife ran to get Charles-Roux. Knowing Olivier’s explosive temper, he dissuaded him from going to Paris:

“That would only make things worse. For now, just calm down. First and foremost, calm down!”

“This is the syndicate’s doing, those mobsters poisoning our ministries!”

“Calm down. Let’s wait for the end of the mission.”

“The bastards! They want to take my Fouta Djallon. Well, they won’t get it! You won’t let me go to Paris? Then I’ll go to Timbo, to put the crooks out of commission!”

But fate had something else in store for him: this time Olivier did not make it to Paris or Timbo. Indeed, another message arrived bidding him to come to Lisbon immediately to be ennobled.

By the time he returned from Portugal, the land of the Fulas had become Europe’s favorite subject of discussion and the Clary farmhouse was like a train station at rush hour. He received in rapid succession an emissary from Leopold II; a Swedish geographer; a Swiss traveler who, after a recent expedition to the Sahara, wanted to continue his African adventure by following in Mungo Park’s footsteps; and a half-mad Alsatian who claimed to be an explorer and had come to suggest they travel up the Congo River together in a pirogue—from Fouta Djallon to the heart of Abyssinia. Then came a more serious caller, an Austrian journalist who had come all the way from Vienna to ask for a detailed description of Olivier’s adventures. He could no longer keep count of the gentlemen from scholarly societies, the admiring ladies, the merely curious and the Sunday serial writers who came to him seeking inspiration in tales of his exploits. Despite his staff’s vigilance, he was bombarded with visits night and day. At his wit’s end, he discreetly gathered up his family and went to spend the summer at the family home in Avignon. There, between an escapade in the woods and a dive into the Rhône, he found the calm he needed to finish From the Atlantic to the Niger, a digest of his travel notes.

The printer Ducroq immediately offered to publish it. Olivier was correcting the proofs one morning when Charles-Roux burst into the library to shove an issue of L’Illustration under his nose. The newspaper devoted two pages to the return of the Bayol and Noirot mission. The French government’s two envoys had disembarked from the Congo, the prestigious Messageries Maritimes ship sailing the Pointe-Noire–Bordeaux route via Dakar, on January 4. Every thrill-seeker and journalist in town had rushed to the harbor. For the two navy officers had not returned alone, but with a significant detachment of Fulas, led by the famous Saïdou, the almami’s secretary.

The newspaper recounted the Fulas’ colorful stay in the capital of Aquitaine over five front-page columns. After a banquet at the local Geography Society, they had been invited to visit the cathedral, then treated to a concert of military music and an evening of ballet. “At the theater,” the newspaper added maliciously, “the prima ballerina sparked a glint in the eyes of Saïdou, the head of our Negro delegation. It was delightful to watch these savages, freshly plucked from the bush, with their shapeless boubous and strange hats, gawking at the beauties of our city—by which I mean our monuments and our leading ladies. The spectacle would have been even more picturesque had their sovereign been willing to make the trip over, but among these people the monarch only leaves his capital to go to war or to Mecca. That’s the way of the Negro!” the article concluded.

This time Charles-Roux could do nothing to stop him. Olivier de Sanderval packed his suitcases immediately and took a train to Paris. But Auguste Gougeard, the new minister of the Navy, refused to see him, and Bayol and Noirot were nowhere to be found. He had to cool his heels for a few weeks, cloistered in a room at the Terminus Saint-Lazare, and satisfy himself with hearing about the Fulas’ boisterous nights in Paris society from press reports and incredulous concierges. The delegation was successively received by Jules Grévy; Gambetta, now President of the Council; Gougeard; and even General Faidherbe, who, after having distinguished himself in Senegal, now held the honorary position of Grand Chancellor of the Legion of Honor. They were put up at the Hotel du Louvre, honored in the courtyard of the Invalides, and taken to see Hamlet at the Opéra. The newspapers were full of juicy anecdotes about their exotic appearance and amusing misadventures in the streets of Paris. The Fulas would clean out the luxury boutiques and when presented with the bill, would say:

“Send that to Tierno Balêdio.[*] We’re his guests, we don’t have to pay for anything.”

When Olivier finally managed to catch Bayol in his office, the doctor ignored his greeting and handed him a piece of paper. It was the treaty he had brought back from Timbo, with one version in French and another in Fula. Olivier managed to overcome his anger long enough to read it:

“Fouta Djallon, which has long been connected to France by ties of friendship, knowing that the French people are not seeking to expand their possessions in Africa but rather to develop friendly relations in order to favor commercial exchanges, and that the French never interfere in the affairs of their allies and that they absolutely respect the laws, mores, customs, and religions of others…” This was followed by a series of trade agreements and treaties ratifying the friendship between the two countries. Fouta Djallon agreed to reroute some of its caravans from the Gambia and Sierra Leone to the French outpost in Boké.

Bayol watched him read with the glimmering eye of a man who has just stabbed his mortal enemy:

“You see? Fouta Djallon has become a French protectorate, Aimé Olivier. Your treaties no longer have any value!”

“You call this a protectorate treaty?”

“What else could it be than a treaty? Look at the signatures: that of the almami and that of the French state, represented by me.”

“You think these are agreements? With their convoluted language, these Fulas aren’t doing anything more than offering you their friendship. You’ve obtained less than what I already have. You’re lucky I’m not the one responsible for ranks in the Navy, Bayol.”

“Be careful, Olivier!”

“As for my treaties, my Fula friends recently reiterated that they stand intact.”

“That was before I arrived.”

“Your trip doesn’t change anything.”

“You no longer mean anything in Timbo. If you go back there, you’ll probably be assassinated.”

“We’ll see about that, Bayol, because I’m preparing to go back, and this time it will be to settle there.”

“Goodbye, Aimé Olivier.”

“Call me Viscount de Sanderval!”

He slammed the door behind him and rushed to the Hotel du Louvre. Saïdou and his suite had come to the end of their formal meetings. Now it was his turn to visit, gauge their states of mind, and gather their confidences. He took them to see the Figaro’s printing press and to visit boutiques and workshops, including a currier, a saddler, and a manufacturer of soft furnishings. He invited them to the circus and to the Folies-Dramatiques, dined with them at the Grand Véfour and the Vignes de Bourgogne. They all welcomed him with open arms. Saïdou was happy to be reunited with him and passed along the almami’s friendly greetings: “I learned the king of Portugal gave you a title. That confirms your noble origins. I will report this as soon as I return to Timbo. You deserve our friendship; you no longer have to worry.” The man called Alpha Médina showed him the journal he had been keeping in Fula about his stay in Paris, which, he said, “people over there in Fouta will rediscover long after I’m dead.” He parted with them knowing not only that his treaties remained valid but that Fouta was eagerly awaiting his return to welcome and celebrate him.

From the Atlantic to the Niger was released in 1883 to triumphant reviews. He was in the good graces of the most prestigious salons and newspapers. He inspired caricaturists and novelists. One overexcited young serial writer was even reported to have written: “Exhausted by this long journey, the explorer put up his hammock to rest in the shade of the giant pineapples.”

He spent the year responding to solicitations—a banquet offered by a scholarly society here, a conference in a salon or a university there. His essays on the beauties of Africa and the virtues of colonization did not prevent him from keeping a close eye on his affairs in Fouta Djallon. After his envoys Gaboriaud and Ansaldi, he sent another mission to Timbo to confirm his treaties and attempt an expedition into the Sudan. In order not to offend the Fulas, he chose an entirely black mission, led by a former Senegalese infantryman named Ahmadou Boubou. The expedition left from Buba, crossed Fouta, received confirmation that the treaties were valid, and made contact with the Mandingo chiefs of Upper Niger and the Toucouleur kings of Dinguiraye.

His relations with the Ministry of the Navy remained frigid, but at the Berlin Conference in 1885, France was forced to recognize him as negotiorum gestor and claim his treaties for herself in order to thwart the English.

That same year, he sent Cardonnet, the captain of the Jean-Baptiste, on a mission to reconnoiter the estuary of the rio Compony and had his agents Pelage and Bonnard set up trading posts in Nalu country, in Bassia and Kandiafara—in other words, deep into the interior.

The bureaucracy in Paris remained resolutely hostile toward him. But he found consolation in his wife, his children, his friend Charles-Roux, and in news he received from Fouta. In 1885, Alpha Yaya sent word that he was granting him a concession in Kâdé. He immediately ordered a trading post built there.

His very first possession in Fula country.

IN DECEMBER 1887, weary of the administration’s pettiness and the industrious bustle of Marseille, Olivier de Sanderval embarked on his second trip to Fouta Djallon. He needed to put his treaties into effect before that contemptible Navy “syndicate” torpedoed them, or the shifty Fula lords changed their minds. Things had become more complicated since his previous visit. He would now have to do battle on two fronts, the most perilous of which was no longer in the courtyards of the palace in Timbo, however thick with crooks and conspirators, but in the alcoves of the Ministry of the Navy. Shame on those Paris pencil pushers, a plague on that insolent Bayol, who was becoming a serious obstacle; he would have to be neutralized—and soon. He did not need one of the countless Timbo proverbs—“Slaughter the monster before its claws grow”—to realize that.

He hastened to Gorée to board the Jean-Baptiste and immediately set sail for Bolama, where he took time to think through his return engagement in Fouta.

His first trip had allowed him to set foot in this paradoxical, fascinating country populated with the valiant and the deceitful, hypocrites and petty nobility. This time, his ambitions were different: he wanted to penetrate the workings of power. The moment had come to shed the costumes of the tourist and explorer and plunge body and soul into the murky world of the Fulas, to deal with the nuances and subtleties of this unfathomable, sublime, and fearsome people. This time, he was coming to take part in the perilous whir of the court. He was coming to shape Fouta’s destiny!

To begin with, he needed some land—he could never be king without it. He would talk to the almami about the Kahel plateau. He needed to acquire it now, right away. It was written that the advent of his reign, the grandiose saga of modern Africa, would be launched from this magnificent landscape, this genuine West African minaret. First the Kahel plateau, soon Timbuktu and the Limpopo!

He knew it wouldn’t be easy. But fortunately, he was an Olivier! Courage and perseverance would do the trick. He just had to do as the Fulas did and be patient and cunning, and especially to place his pawns judiciously.

He now had a relatively clear understanding of each of the five princes fate had placed in his path. He had dismissed Aguibou and Pâthé from the start. They were both handsome—too handsome—intelligent—too intelligent—fierce, enigmatic. In short too Fula, too high and mighty. Bôcar and Alpha Yaya seemed more ordinary, accessible, practical, and malleable. And they were friends—but for how much longer?

His informers had told him that the simmering provincial wars and underhanded rivalries between princes had gotten worse. Timbo’s authority was weakening by the day. Labé was no longer hiding its desire for supremacy and possibly independence. Labé was half of Fouta—half its territory, half its population, half its livestock, half its warriors, half its marabouts, half its gold—but all its schemers, added the tongue waggers.

In Timbo, two aging monarchs alternated on the throne. In Labé, a dying king was holding on for as long as he could. In both courts, two rival princes, two enemy brothers, were waiting in the wings with knives behind their backs.

He sighed deeply and smoothed his beard, muttering: “I’d give anything to know how this will all come out, but alas I don’t have Shakespeare’s talent.”

He traveled inland between the reefs and islets of the rio Compony. His agent Bonnard met him on the riverbank, overcome with joy. He was on his way back from Fouta Djallon, where he had just set up a trading post in Kâdé, with excellent news. Olivier’s treaties remained valid and his caravans were traveling across Fouta unharmed. In Labé, the old king had finally died and his son Aguibou had succeeded him. In Timbo, his friend almami Sory was preparing to return to power through the now legendary and still inexplicable Fula law of alternation. To top it all off, fate had placed Tierno, his other friend, on the throne of Timbi Touni to replace his brother, who had recently been killed in a war with the idolaters.

“The sun in Fouta is shining just for you, Viscount! You can now start climbing to the peaks!”

But before the pastures and the waterfalls, the mountains and the Fulas, he needed to carry out an indispensable ritual: to stop by Boké and pay tribute to his dear René Caillié. The trip to carry out this quasi-religious act was a real calvary.

It took him three days of hell to hack his way through the wall of jungle. Ten strapping men armed with machetes and paid their weight in gold took the head of the column. It was the same routine as in 1880, but one never gets used to the cramps and diarrhea, the sinking into mud, or the falls. Worse yet were the capricious village chiefs who demanded cotton and amber because the column had trampled a field, picked some fruit, or violated a sanctuary.

He reached Boké half dead, burning with fever. The port with its dry dock and warehouses was still there, but there was no one to welcome him. No sign of Moustier. No one even knew what had become of him. Olivier was shown the grave of Commander Dehous, who had died of yellow fever two years earlier, and told how his second-in-command had been sent back to France blind and half mad. The new commander refused to let him in to the fort, yelling down at him from the turret, while his Senegalese infantrymen looked on delighted at this unexpected opportunity to scoff at a foolish toubab.

“I am Olivier de Sanderval!” he insisted.

“Exactly!” the commander answered.

“I am French! I have a right to be rescued.”

“Without official orders, we have no obligation toward you.”

“I’m going to force the door.”

“And I am going to have the cannon fired.”

“Open up, goddamn it! I need to see a doctor!”

“The doctor is not here!”

He dragged himself to the memorial he had dedicated to René Caillié and left a flower:

“Now I understand what you endured, O hero of Timbuktu. How many wars you had to wage to return to your homeland. I’m already battered and the second assault hasn’t even begun!”

Feeling sorry for him, some boatmen and women selling fish nearby helped him to his feet and brought him back to his column. They gave him sorrel soup and cinchona bark to soothe his headaches and reduce the fever. Then they led him a few miles away to Balarandé. The fort’s doctor was there, in the home of a certain Mattou, a Compagnie du Sénégal agent who had just settled there.

Mattou received him with open arms. Though he knew what had happened at the fort, Doctor Roberty took out his syringes and cupping glasses and treated him.

Five days of convalescence before he could return to the trail! He crossed the rio Nunez and cautiously ventured into the mangrove. Nalu country was in turmoil. King Lawrence had died and one of his many nephews, Dinah Salifou, had usurped the throne after a horrendous bloodbath. Countless discontented Nalus scattered throughout the country were seeking to assassinate him.

The closer they drew to Fouta, the more the places and the men seemed familiar to him. He had camped in this forest, drunk water from that spring. But some rivers had forged new beds; new paths had appeared and villages had vanished, victims of fire, plague, or the curses of devils and sorcerers.

The news he received in Tinguilinta finally set him back on his feet: an emissary of the almami was waiting for him with a most kind letter and several welcoming presents. This was marvelous—Timbo remained faithful despite that blowhard Bayol’s visit. After salutations befitting his rank—in other words, endless and full of praise—the emissary told him the almami requested that he travel straight to Fogoumba, where the almami himself was headed for his coronation.

The wonders of Fouta unfolded before him again. He thought that no matter how many times he crossed it, the country would always roll out some unknown landscape or a hidden waterfall for his beauty-starved eyes.

The locals were less hostile than the first time around. Some recognized him and warmly asked how he was and gave him a gourd of milk or a basket of oranges. The crowd of gawking bystanders was thinner; people no longer ran from him on sight. They rarely touched his skin and no longer spit when he passed. As he had become accustomed to the climate and the constant attention he attracted during his first trip, so this toubab had become less strange, less of a stranger. Those who had never seen him had heard tales of him. The legend of the man-with-the-white-gloves now rivaled that of the man-with-the-four-eyes—the Fula name for Faidherbe—in mystery and renown.

He was in friendly country, practically at home. Yet he remained on his guard. He watched what he said and was careful about what he ate. This may have been friendly country, but more significantly it was Fula country: though it was theoretically unacceptable to betray friends, it was common practice to spy on them and not unknown to sprinkle a bit of poison in their meal or turn a friendly slap on the back into a dagger thrust between the shoulder blades. This was a country whose inhabitants were so ambiguous, so full of schemes, that one almost had to admire them for it. He knew this country now and he wanted it; he needed it. It had become his drug. He understood the enchantment of its light and the mysterious secret of its woods. He drank in its odor of fonio and jasmine, was dizzy with pleasure at the sight of its rivers and rugged valleys. His wildest dreams now depended on its luminescent horizons and bluish peaks.

He walked with the same lighthearted cheer he felt on the volcanoes of Auvergne and the high plateaus of the Jura. He wrote poetic fragments and occasionally let loose a little ditty. He noted the rate of flow of the rivers and the angle of incline of the slopes, and collected rocks, petrified ashes from the ancient volcanoes. He gathered roots and flowers, téli and linguéhi bark, and sangala and doubhé fruits. He would take all this to the laboratory when he got back to France, to see what could be made of it. He suspected the subsoil to be full of treasures and these adorable little forests to be a bottomless resource of natural remedies and perfumes.

Sometimes he went miles out of his way to avoid bandits, flooded rivers, or villages stricken with smallpox or plague.

In the evening he listened to the song of the grasshoppers and the crickets and wrote in his notebooks: “These vast woods would be so pleasant to travel through on well-traced roads in the shade of the orange trees with intelligent company; it wouldn’t cost more than three hundred thousand francs to organize the promenade de Longchamp from the ocean to the Niger via these Fouta mountains.” He had the delightful impression that his natural surroundings had sprouted in his dreams before appearing before his eyes. “Eight years ago,” he noted in all seriousness, “my legs pushed me along. Today they follow me. Next time I’ll have to carry them.” Yet despite the heat and the chaotic trail, he found the walking enjoyable. At every stop, something unusual and amusing would take place. Here, giants in loincloths faced off in a fratricidal wrestling match; elsewhere families celebrated the marriage of the youngest daughter or the circumcision of the youngest boy. These gatherings involved great feasts with mutton fonio or corn couscous with curdled milk and successive nights of dancing to the sound of the calabash and the flute.

In Lémani, an old man pulled a penny out of his pocket and greeted him in English. At age ten, he said, he had seen ten Englishmen arrive with rifles and merchandise. They wanted to settle there and survive by farming. In eight months, six of them were dead. Sick and distraught, the survivors had returned to the coast, leaving behind their goods—to the villagers’ delight. Olivier realized that this must have been the ill-fated Puddie and Campbell expedition that had shortly preceded Mollien’s in 1817.

The touldé in Parâdji sublime! The Paniata Valley fertile and well cultivated! He brought the column to a halt, set up his tripod, and took several photographs. He stopped in Lokouta to study the Kakrima rapids. In Débéa, he was felled by another virulent attack of diarrhea.

In Timbi Touni, his friend Tierno, the area’s new king, offered him three days of feasting and dancing complete with fantasias and acrobatics. The white man gave him a beautiful Lefaucheux rifle and in return received a sword with a magnificent goatskin scabbard and a manuscript tracing the lineage of the Bas of Timbi Touni. In no time they were bantering like old friends:

“What did you come to ask us for this time?”

“For land, my friend Tierno, land! I am sick and tired of being a stranger to the Fulas. I want to become a Fula.”

“That’s the first time I’ve heard such a request. Ask and the almami will give you land. There is no shortage in Timbo.”

“Well, you see, I prefer the Kahel plateau, in your own kingdom. The view is splendid and it is in the heart of Fouta. And it’s so close to you.”

“You’re flattering me.”

“Does that mean you would be ready to grant it to me?”

“You white men! One really has to have a good head on his shoulders to follow everything going through your mind. A Fula has never been known to give up the land of his ancestors.”

“I am asking you as a friend.”

“As a friend?”

“It would permanently seal our friendship, of course, but also our mutual interests.”

“Explain yourself!”

He offered Tierno a ten-thousand-hectare plantation and a generous number of shares in his future railroad company. Watching the prince’s reactions closely, he was pleased to note that his gaze expressed more embarrassment than anger.

“Let’s suppose for a moment that I agree, Yémé—it would be more of a problem than a solution.”

The conversation was getting serious. Yémé opened his eyes wide; Tierno started thinking hard.

“A generous stack of shares in a railroad company doesn’t make problems for anyone, Tierno, my friend!”

Among the Fulas, there is always a problem, Tierno retorted. Kahel didn’t belong to him alone—the high plateau was at the border of the provinces of Labé and Timbi Touni. His own agreement wouldn’t be sufficient; they would also need Labé’s, and of course that of the almami—who was the master of Fouta after God and the Prophet, after all. Also, the white man must realize that to own land in Fouta one had to be Fula—better yet, Fula and noble!

“How will you become Fula and noble?”

“I’ll find a way. Would you sign if I had the agreement of Labé and Timbo?”

“If that were the case, perhaps. But beware, white man—if Fouta learns what we’ve said before the almami has declared himself, I’ll have your head cut off!”

“Don’t worry, Tierno. I may not be Fula yet, but I already know how to lie and steal.”

He returned to his hut feeling rather optimistic. Tierno had proved suspicious, like any good Fula, but he didn’t seem scandalized at the idea of having to give up a piece of his kingdom. Olivier had expected him to be outraged. And so he had a good night—in other words, a solid quarter hour of sleep. But his host knocked at his door at dawn and he immediately sensed that the news was no longer good.

“A Frenchman has just been arrested in Labé!”

“A priest, a soldier, or an explorer?”

“I have no idea. I don’t even know what his name is or whether he is alone or with a group.”

“This is a bad sign, a very bad sign.”

Strange, strange—Olivier de Sanderval hadn’t heard a single word of a mission heading for Fouta, not in Gorée, nor in Bolama or Boké.

“Do you think I should be on my guard?”

“No. You are the almami’s friend and that is a real shield here. But despite that, you are now in a brand-new situation.”

He didn’t need to go any further. Yémé understood immediately from the way he scratched his head:

“Tell me frankly, Tierno, are you scared for yourself or for me?”

“Fouta is complicated, Yémé. Nothing is ever certain here.”

“I understand. When do you want me to leave?”

“Today is Saturday. Saturday is a good day to embark on a long journey.”

“Very well. Just do me one last favor, then. Can you lend me about twenty soldiers to cross the Kokoulo?”

“Your request is granted. I am still your friend, Yémé. There is no need to doubt it.”

His worries were soon confirmed: an armed guard came to meet him and took him out of his way to Digui, a hamlet of some twenty huts, at least two hours’ walk from Fogoumba.

Here we go, he told himself. They’re pulling the same stunt as last time, only then I was in Timbo and now I’m in some forgotten backwater in the bush. If I died of hunger here, or of a snakebite or some lethal poison, no one would know about it in Boké, let alone in Saint-Louis. These perverts would swear with their hands on their hearts that they had waited for me in Fogoumba but that I never arrived. Poor Olivier de Sanderval, he was so gentle, so convivial. Probably some wild animal or bandits got him. No one from Saint-Louis or Paris would ever suspect that the bandits were acting on behalf of the throne of Timbo.

He was told that he was being housed in Digui because Fogoumba’s population had quadrupled for the coronation ceremony. “But don’t worry,” he was told. “The almami will send for you as soon as he has found a place for you.”

He was skeptical of everything they told him, but when he settled in Digui, he found that in fact the granaries were empty and the markets poorly supplied. Whenever someone found some chicken or eggs, they thought first of feeding their children, not the white man. So he had to make do with dining on an orange or a wild berry puree. He distracted himself by reading Sully-Prudhomme or watching the stars shine.

Finally, Arabia, an old woman living nearby, took pity on him. When her stooped body and rheumatic legs permitted, she would bring him a bowl of fonio, a handful of peanuts, or a honey wafer. Her eyes welled up with tears when she saw him throw himself on the food. She stroked his hair as he ate and would only leave once she was sure he had eaten every last bit.

“Go on, eat everything! Don’t leave anything for the others, you’re the unhappiest of all. Is your mother still alive?”

It was a waste of breath telling her that he was forty-eight years old, that he got along very well without his mother, and that she did not need to exhaust herself for him.

“Come, I’m going to wash your socks. I’ll bring your blankets back tonight; I put them out to dry on the roof of my hut.”

“Leave that to my men, Arabia, and rest a little. Anyhow I can do it myself, I’m not a child anymore.”

“Eat. They are so mean to you because you are not from around here. My son is in Saint-Louis. What we’re doing to you here must be what they’re doing to him there.”

After two weeks of depression under the maternal protection of old Arabia, turning over bitter memories, and using camphor water and bismuth to try and forget about his hunger, deliverance finally came in the voice of a young soldier:

“The almami has sent me to bring you to him.”

“Ah, finally! When?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow, the day after tomorrow! Diango, fab’i diango! I know that tune! Let him tell me right away if I am his prisoner!”

“What do you mean, prisoner? Oh, I understand, the white man is angry because he wasn’t received right away. That was because of the coronation!”

Upon his arrival in Fogoumba, he was greeted by a beautiful fantasia. The royal guard opened a path for him through a blinding sea of gold jewels and dazzling boubous, leading him past the rows of soldiers, griots, and turbaned notables, and seated him two or three chairs away from the almami. The almami gently turned his head to watch him sit down. He was relieved to recognize a friendly glow in the monarch’s eyes. It was a pleasant afternoon, devoted to relaxing and festivities, but in a typically Fula atmosphere—heavy with sighs and whispers, side-glances and insinuations.

When the almami finally received him, he had the unpleasant surprise of realizing that the sour old men of Fogoumba were dominant among the notables surrounding the king and were closest to the throne. His friends Tierno, Bôcar-Biro, Pâthé, and Alpha Yaya were there, but scattered in the crowd, well behaved on their goatskin chairs. Once again, he sat through the inexorable ceremonial he had seen so many times in the court of Timbo: the almami grunted and the griot’s powerful, metallic voice rang out through the building to express the king’s thoughts:

“This is the first time that I have seen a white man twice. In general, the people of your race come to Fouta, they tell one or two lies, then they go back home, never to return. You returned, you do not lie, you are a friend. You are at home here. We know your work on the coasts, in Bassaya, Kandiafara, and Kâdé. What you have done over there is what you want to do here: trading posts and plantations. We have full confidence in you for that.”

The white man told them how flattered he was. He thanked the almami for his welcome and his trust and took advantage of his good mood to evoke the fate of that poor Frenchman held in Labé.

“That white man is a spy! The king of Labé asked for him to be decapitated. I refused. For you!”

The griot paused for a moment to turn to an adviser, then spoke to the white man again:

“You should know that Gallieni is sending a mission as we speak. But the man who was leading it died in Siguiri, carried away by yellow fever. The almami has just learned that the survivors are in the vicinity of Timbo. They will be here tomorrow or the day after tomorrow.”

As he was leaving, he came face-to-face with Dion-Koïn, the husband of Dalanda:

“Allah is great: Yémé, standing before me again, alive and on both feet!”

He watched the white man look around, then burst out laughing.

“There’s no use looking, Yémé! I left Dalanda in Koïn to avoid any misunderstandings.”

Damn Dion-Koïn! His insomnia that night was the most unbearable of all.

Another attack of malaria—a week of quinine and ipecac, with the help of old Arabia, who came to wipe up his vomit and feed him a few sips of herb tea or folléré.

The old woman came only during the day. As soon as night fell, she shut herself into her home and could be heard talking to herself until dawn, her trembling, shrill voice going on about the devil’s misdeeds and the innumerable sins that sullied life on earth. But one night, under a beautiful full moon and a smattering of stars, she knocked at his door, her strange little voice sending him into a panic.

“Come, come quickly!” she whispered.

“First tell me what’s going on!”

But as soon as he opened the door, she slapped her hand over his mouth and dragged him outside. When he realized she intended to lead him far into the bush, he insisted on putting on his frock coat and boots.

“Good Lord, what’s going on? They want to take me to the firing squad and you’re helping me get away, is that it?”

They walked through the woods for a good quarter of an hour before reaching an abandoned hut.

“Go in!” she commanded. “Go in!”

Dismissing his hesitation, she shoved him as hard as she could, and there he was in the middle of the shack. He had no idea whether he was stepping into a shelter or a den of wild beasts. The glimmering red glow of the fire in the hearth didn’t illuminate more than a third of the earthen bed on which she was sitting, but he recognized her as soon as he saw her.

“Dalanda!” he cried, and they rolled on the ground in a frantic embrace, gasping and sobbing uncontrollably.

“Explain this to me, my dear one!”

“I came without telling Dion-Koïn, by cutting through the bush. I couldn’t stand still once I knew you were here.”

“And her?”

“Arabia is the aunt of one of my servants. They thought up this scheme.”

“All by yourself with the wild animals, out here in the dead of night?”

“In the village, we would have been seen. But eat first, my man, we’ll talk later.”

She turned to the bowls and gourds at her feet. There was honey and milk and a copious portion of rice with a succulent ginger chicken. He feasted while she heated up a kinkeliba tea for him.

As he was leaving her in the early morning, she put a leather amulet in his hand and clasped it tightly:

“If you don’t lose it, we will be protected! The marabout said so.”

He came back the next night and all the ones that followed.

But one morning, he returned to the village to find a group of soldiers gathered in front of his hut.

“Where were you, white man, huh, where?”

He searched his cluttered mind for some sort of lie and could only come up with:

“I’m ashamed to say!”

“If I were you, I would say anyhow!” the fat guard with amulets who appeared to be the leader advised in a fearsome voice.

“I got so hungry that I couldn’t stop myself; I had to go into the bush and pick wild fruits.”

“Ha ha ha! Wild fruits at this hour! You whites have the strangest stomachs! Go on and get ready—the almami is waiting for us!”

THE ALMAMI FINISHED APPOINTING the provincial chiefs. The joy of the newly crowned and the lamentations of the discontented echoed throughout the city. Its alleys were thick with the aura of intrigue: the bowing, scraping, backbiting, conspiring, and toadying found in churches and palaces where a man’s fate hangs on a thread. The deposed kings dejectedly returned to their provinces, while the new ones lingered in Timbo to consolidate their positions with presents and flattery. The alternation of the almami brought Fouta renewal, like the change of seasons; old heads fell and new ones flourished.

This time, at least, his own head had not been put on the chopping block. The almami received him a second time, flanked only by his marabout and his griot:

“I gave you your railroad and the right to establish trading posts. What do you want from me now, Yémé?”

“You know very well, almami!”

“I remember the railroad, but I’ve forgotten the rest. It was so long ago!”

“The railroad, your authorization to set up trading posts, to have my caravans travel through, to—”

“Fine, fine, fine! Here, I’ll lend you my marabout! He’ll help you write up all your requests, then I’ll submit them to the great council. Aren’t you happy? You see, my friend Yémé is never happy!”

Olivier’s face remained tight, but it was a ploy.

“After putting in so much effort, I expected to see my requests satisfied on the spot, almami!” he complained. In truth, he was glowing with a secret joy. Alone with the marabout—he couldn’t dream of a better stroke of luck.

He proved more cunning than the Fulas he always criticized, taking advantage of this unhoped-for opportunity to surreptitiously slip the Kahel plateau into his demands. The marabout did not immediately perceive his trick. But as he reread the document, he started and looked at the white man with the panicked eyes of those mountain people—and there were many around here—strangled by goiter:

“The Kahel plateau? I could never dare to write that!”

He took his reed quill to cross the section out, but Olivier reached out to stop him:

“Don’t worry! He has already agreed to it, or I wouldn’t have dictated that to you.”

The marabout nearly choked:

“And the king of Timbi Touni agrees?”

“He offered it to me,” he lied, watching the marabout out of the corner of his eye.

“Does the king of Labé know about this?”

“I promise you that everything is approved, you don’t need to worry.”

The marabout looked around with stupefied eyes to ensure the world hadn’t turned upside down. Then he resigned himself and handed over the piece of paper:

“If that’s how it is, sign here!”

Then in turn the marabout signed and gave the document to the almami, who sent for the white man the moment he had read it:

“The Kahel plateau! Do you realize what you’re asking for Yémé?”

“Just twelve miles of moors.”

“You need so much land just to trade?”

“I need a base for my railroad, almami. You have no shortage of land. You rule from the coast to the Niger and from Sierra Leone to Niokolo-Koba.”

“These lands belong to the Fulas. I am only their humble guardian. Ceding Fouta land to a stranger is unheard of. Are you sure that Timbi Touni and Labé have already agreed?”

Faced with the white man’s pregnant silence, the marabout rushed to hammer the point home:

“That is what this foreigner alleges!”

“Anyhow,” the almami continued, “it’s not up to me to decide. I have to refer this to the great council. Now, go back to Digui. I will send for you as soon as I convene the council.”

“What about my hut in Fogoumba?”

“Stay in Digui! The king of Fogoumba doesn’t want you in his city.”

He managed to hold a secret meeting with Alpha Yaya before returning to Digui.

“I spoke to the almami about Kahel. He doesn’t have any problem with it so long as it comes from you.”

“From us? I am not the king of Labé, I’m only the crown prince.”

“Oh, your brother Aguibou will never risk going against you for a few miles of brush.”

“What will you give me in return?”

Alpha Yaya’s question was brutally direct, but Olivier didn’t mind; he admired the man’s practical side.

“Stores, plantations, and shares in my railroad company.”

“What else?”

“What else do you want?”

“Your house in Bolama.”

“My house in Bolama? You’re a lot greedier than Tierno. Very well, you’ll have my house in Bolama.”

“What else?”

“I might be able to help you to the throne of Labé.”

At that very moment, a partridge lifted off from the top of a tree. Olivier de Sanderval watched it glide for a moment, then turned back to his acolyte:

“Do you remember what you told me the first time we met?”

“‘This is the morning for good omens. Be my friend, stranger.’ That is what I told you.”

Olivier took his hand and, watching the partridge disappear into the clouds, spoke to him in an intentionally mystical tone:

“Do you realize everything the two of us could do, if we extended a hand to one another?”

Despite the dry season, Digui was not short of water. The village had several wells and a river flowing past it. He decided to do some gardening; it would be an excellent way to calm his nerves, keep his men busy, and distract himself from hunger. He had them clear the riverbanks, dig a little canal, and irrigate hundreds of hectares. He grew watercress, garden cress, lettuce, and radishes. He planted fruit trees and successfully tried his hand at cherry trees and a vineyard. Enchanted with his fine work, he sent a letter to the coast to boast of his Garden of Eden and list the many advantages there would be to having whites settle in Fouta.

After the incident with the guards, he preferred to avoid Dalanda despite the pressing messages old Arabia relayed to him. He would have been a fool not to realize the Fulas would be keeping an eye on him to learn the truth about his nocturnal escapade: was he really sneaking off to eat berries, or was he going to hide weapons? But one day as he was walking a short distance ahead of his Wolofs on the way back from the garden, he heard a voice call to him from the depths of the bushes.

“Tomorrow,” it whispered, “by the swan-stream. During the midday prayer.”

It was a clever plan. No one ever went to the swan-stream, because of its dense gallery forest and high embankment. And it was only separated from his garden by a short stretch of scrubland covered in couch grass and bamboo. During prayer, no one could spy on them. He only had to throw his tools over his shoulder and pretend he was going to hoe. The swan-stream became their love nest—they no longer had to risk going to the abandoned hut at night. She brought him his gourd of fonio or rice and watched him eat, moved to tears as she repeated the words she had said hundreds of time:

“Take me away from here, Yémé, take me away from here!”

Then one fine day, for no apparent reason, he was forbidden to stray more than a mile from the village or to buy anything from the markets. The great council refused to grant him Kahel and the king of Fogoumba wanted to chase him off his land. Though old Arabia gave him all her affection and brought him her precious bowls of fonio, he sank into a depression even more morbid than the one he had experienced in Timbo.

He was starting to think about the cyanide capsule when, after a frugal lunch of fonio with curdled milk, a visitor was announced. He pulled on his frock coat and his gloves and dragged himself outside, worn down by hunger and worry. A handsome young man on horseback watched him coming:

“You don’t recognize me?” he asked, amused.

“Uh…no. Perhaps you could help me.”

“I was fifteen when you came through Timbo.”

“Don’t tell me that’s you, Diaïla. Where have you been hiding?”

“I arrived yesterday from Bhundu where I spent several years getting an education. I learned you were here and I immediately came to say hello.”

“I’m touched, Diaïla, truly touched.”

“And if there’s anything I can do for you, don’t hesitate.”

“I’m afraid that in my case no one can do anything anymore.”

“Oh, you’re having problems?”

“Problems? As it stands, my prince, I no longer have the right to travel at will or buy anything to eat. I live off old Arabia’s generosity and the carrots in my garden.”

“I’ll talk to my father about this.”

After Diaïla left, he wrote the following curious digression below a sketch of flooding on the Téné: “This Negro Diaïla is quite a pretty boy, with his thin nose and floating nostrils, his pink lip rising over beautiful white teeth, big curious eyes, an intelligent, lively gaze, elegant and supple hands, manicured feet. Sylla perhaps? Or rather Henri III. A hero of debauchery. I’ll bet he’s debauchering right and left, this handsome guy. If he showed up on the boulevard, all eyes would be on him.”

Despite the prince’s promise, there was nothing new over the following days. The king of Fogoumba was no longer satisfied with opposing his ownership of Kahel; he now wanted the railroad authorization withdrawn. He demanded that Olivier’s goods be confiscated and that he be expelled from Fouta. The desire to flee overtook him a good hundred times, but he remembered poor Moutet’s misadventure and fell back on his cot dejected.

Another week or two passed before Prince Diaïla’s message finally arrived: the almami had decided to restore his freedom to travel and to reopen the granaries and markets of Fouta to him.

He immediately went to Gali, a village known for its teeming grain and livestock fairs. But to his surprise, the butchers refused his coral beads and the women selling milk turned away when he offered them coins. Had gentle little Diaïla lied to him?

Overwhelmed by the heat, devastated by hunger, lonely and demoralized as he had never been before, he was readying himself to ford rushing streams and negotiate vertical slopes to return to Digui when some kind of great brute brandishing a club came to his rescue:

“Give this man what he wants—and hurry!”

“I’d rather you killed me,” answered one of the merchant women. “I’ll take your club over the almami’s!”

“The almami has lifted the ban on selling to him. I was in Fogoumba yesterday. It happened before my eyes.”

“Does he have a paper with him?”

“He doesn’t need it. The paper in question was read at the mosque in front of everybody.”

“In Gali,” a poultry merchant answered, “we received instructions that we couldn’t sell to him anymore. We haven’t heard anything to the contrary yet!”

“That doesn’t surprise me. You’re all morons in Gali!”

“Say that again!”

A first-class fight was on the horizon and poor Olivier de Sanderval had neither the strength to stop it nor the heart to enjoy it. But just then the sound of horses was heard coming from Fogoumba. A trio of riders appeared. One pushed through the crowd of gawking bystanders and stood on the back of his mount to read out a document:

“It is brought to Fouta’s attention that the white man named Yémé is once again authorized to frequent the markets of the almami and to buy the foodstuffs of his choice.”

“You see?” the intruder exclaimed to the merchants.

“All right, let him ask for whatever he wants. Now we can sell to him.”

“Forgive us, white man, but in our dear Fouta, bad news always comes too soon and good news is always too late! I have a garden nearby—come and quench your thirst.”

The white man didn’t have to be asked twice. He wiped his brow with the back of his sleeve and gestured to the load of provisions being packed up by the merchants, now laughing and joking with him to brush over the unpleasant incident.

“Don’t worry about that!” the man said. He called to a group of kids wrestling nearby:

“Carry this to Digui and make sure you say it’s for the white man!”

Then he turned back to Sanderval:

“You see, it’s simple! Now give those children something for their efforts.”

His savior’s garden was about a mile away, sheltered from nosy locals by a wall of granite, a bamboo forest, and 65-foot gorges through which a furious torrent roared. There were at least ten hectares of manioc and yam, of radishes and cabbage, of okra, peppers, lettuce, and onions. He lived on a concession holding five beautiful huts, with two large sheds for his seed and tools. He invited Sanderval into one of the huts and cautiously closed the door behind them. He took out beer and wine, cheese and ham, whispering with the mischievous look of a child pillaging the family storeroom:

“What about this? And this? What do you say to that, huh?”

The white man whistled in admiration and threw himself on the victuals without waiting to be asked.

“Where did you get this, my friend? Where did you dig up these treasures?”

“On the coast, ha ha! On the coast! I know Rufisque and Saint-Louis. I lived in Bolama; I’ve even been through Boké. Isn’t this ham good?”

“Simply excellent! Pork and wine! Oh, if the Fulas could see us now!”

“That’s why I closed the door!”

“Of course! Do you have a name?”

“Call me Yéro Baldé!”

“Well, Yéro Baldé, shake the hand of a friend.”

The next week, he was told the Gallieni mission had arrived. He rushed to Fogoumba. The mission consisted of about one hundred Senegalese infantrymen and the two white men who had survived the yellow fever. It was an authentic Gallieni column: armed to the teeth and loaded down with crates of munitions and canned goods and a fine little flock of sheep and oxen. They knew of his previous expedition and had been told in Timbo that he was in Fogoumba.

“Doctor Fras,” the older of the two introduced himself. “And this is Lieutenant Plat.”

The almami had housed them in a magnificent concession in the very center of the village. So there was still room in Fogoumba after all! They had well-thatched huts and a courtyard where they had placed an immense folding table covered in bottles and canned goods. He was overcome with a profound and unusual emotion at the smell of these French products, the taste of the apple juice they served him, and the sight of the exalted, vulnerable faces of his compatriots. Lieutenant Plat reminded him of poor Souvignet—twenty-three like him and devoted body and soul to the beautiful illusions of his youth.

“We have received a message from Lieutenant Levasseur,” said the doctor.

“Lieutenant Levasseur?”

“Don’t tell me you haven’t heard of our unfortunate compatriot in Labé?”

They had received news from poor Levasseur, still in prison, starving, and sick. He had also been sent by Gallieni, who believed it was always safer to send two columns along two different itineraries. Africa was packed with traps—the white man could never be too cautious.

He asked them why they were here. It was obvious: they had come to sign a protectorate treaty, a real one.

“Bayol’s treaty is no longer good enough?”

In Gallieni’s view, it was no longer good enough. It only referred to friendship; he wanted more.

“And do you think you’ll succeed?”

“We won’t give them a choice!” Fras asserted. “They can have the protectorate today or a war tomorrow. Troops are already being prepared in Saint-Louis.”

“Hmm. Have you ever done business with the Fulas?”

“No, not really.”

“Then get to know them before you start talking like that. Have you seen the almami?”

“I read him a draft of the treaty this morning,” Fras answered. “He says he is going to consult the elders.”

“You’ve lived in this country for ten years and dealt with these people. How should we handle them?” Plat asked.

Before he could answer, his mind flooded with a wave of unhappy thoughts. What a waste! It would have never come to this if they had listened to him. France should have focused on Fouta Djallon the moment he returned from his first trip. But Cloué had taken him for a madman and Gambetta had listened to him more out of friendship than conviction. All this had opened the way for that opportunist Bayol, who only sought to hinder him and advance his own career. Gallieni wasn’t short on courage or intelligence, but he had one major drawback: a soldier’s mind. France had made the wrong diagnosis—she was sending a surgeon where a masseuse was needed. He had to admire the idealism and purity of these young men, but he couldn’t help feeling sorry for them. They weren’t being led to the battleground, they were being thrown to the wolves. All this roiled his mind as he looked at them with sympathy and suspicion.

One would have to be an idiot to send such inexperienced young men to the Fulas, he thought to himself. They will surely have tremendous difficulty obtaining anything significant. But perhaps the higher-ups merely want to make a good impression on French public opinion rather than conquer Fouta.

But I shouldn’t address my reflections to them. They’re doing what they were asked to do. There’s nothing to be said to the government, either. The French government is professionally and habitually deaf to anything but itself. It’s the nation that must be asked to pay closer attention and to be clear-sighted.

“Now then, what about these Fulas?” Lieutenant Plat insisted.

“These people are as elusive to the hand as to the mind. It’s as if they had read all Montaigne. You’ll never encounter a more slippery people—they are never in the same place twice and their word never stands.”

“They can’t escape us forever.”

“So long as we learn to be crafty. Here, deceiving your fellow man is not considered a fault, but a feat that forges your renown.”

“No matter what they do, we will tear this protectorate from them!” Lieutenant Plat exclaimed, visibly aggravated. “You were able to get treaties out of them, weren’t you?”

“Those treaties, I obtained them after two months of prison, a dozen malaria attacks, and five comatose states,” he snapped. “And you, you land here straight from Saint-Louis waving a scrap of paper around in front of the almami of Fouta, telling him, ‘Come on, sign here!’ Hats off, gentlemen, hats off!”

“We will show him the stakes are no longer what they were, that the time for child’s play has come and gone. If he doesn’t sign, he will be invaded.”

“He won’t sign, but he’ll pretend to. If only you knew how these people can pretend!”

“We’re in a hurry, you understand?”

“That’s exactly the problem. They are never in a hurry.”

Then he stopped talking, silenced by pity and exasperation. Poor French youth! He wanted to tell them: “Your presence will do more harm than good; harm to our interests, not to those of the Fulas.” But he didn’t say a word. He emptied his glass and prepared to leave. They were so young, so friendly—he didn’t want to hurt them. Plat served him another glass of apple juice and said:

“We’ll keep you for dinner.”

“I was going to ask you to. Once you’ve spent weeks stuffing yourself with wild berry purees, you lose all taste for proprieties.”

Later that night, before they would allow him to leave, they loaded him down with tea, coffee, sugar, bread, sardines, biscuits, lentils, and a thick pile of newspapers.

The next time he visited, he found Lieutenant Plat on the verge of dying. Doctor Fras put aside his syringes and compresses for a moment and discreetly drew him into a corner:

“I’m afraid he won’t live,” he whispered, mopping his brow. “Ah, I wish I were sick instead of him. He’s far too young to die, you hear me? Far too young!”

“What is your diagnosis?”

“You think it’s possible to establish a diagnosis in these parts?”

“He’ll make it, you’ll see!” Olivier de Sanderval spoke with such conviction that the doctor immediately took hold of himself.

“That would be so much simpler. Alone, I’ll never have enough strength. Saint-Louis is still too far, the Fulas too near, and that poor Levasseur is even closer to the grave than any sick man.”

He stayed with them all day, wiping sweat and vomit off the one, and trying to buoy the spirits of the other. He helped filter water, sterilize syringes, and prepare salves and lotions.

A few days later a Senegalese infantryman stopped in front of his hut without dismounting from his horse:

“Doctor Fras sent you, right? For the funeral?”

“No, for the Higginson enema syringe.”

And the good man explained that Lieutenant Plat had recovered, but Doctor Fras was now suffering (each one in turn) from constipation and had sent him to get the syringe so he could purge himself. “The mission doesn’t have an enema syringe,” he noted in his journal, more mocking than ever. “So that’s how they organize our colonial affairs on a budget of four billion. Well, enough said—but I’d like to see the minister in our shoes, withering in the sun without an enema syringe.”

The French army among the Negroes without even an enema syringe! And yet this simple instrument could produce miraculous results. When the Senegalese infantryman returned it a few days later, it was accompanied by a goodbye letter. Doctor Fras had made such a full recovery that he was already leading his whole column back to Saint-Louis to the sound of the bugle!

The next time Diaïla came to see him he was fighting off another malaria attack:

“You have to come talk to them.”

“Who now, goddamn it?”

“The elders of Fogoumba! If it weren’t for them, Kahel would already be yours. My father doesn’t have any objection to your request. Tomorrow after the midday prayer, my father will gather the great council and you will come speak. To overcome Fogoumba’s reservations, you’ll have to get the truth to come out without appearing to have my father’s support. Will you come?”

“I don’t have much choice.”

“Then good luck—and try to be convincing.”

The anxiety was worse than on the eve of an exam. He took advantage of his insomnia to sketch out his speech and gather his courage:

“Go for it, stop at nothing! Say whatever you want, but say it well! The Fulas are a race of talkers. With them, style is what counts: fine words mean more than actions.”

The almami’s griot wasted no time in addressing the question of Kahel. But Ibrahima, the catlike king of Fogoumba, reacted promptly, belying his lethargic demeanor:

“This man is not here to ask a favor; he is here because he committed an offense. Let us talk about the letter we intercepted on the coast.”

“Is it true what they say, that you want to bring white men from the coast to take our land and dominate our kingdom?” asked the king of Kebali.

“The man who translated this letter for you truncated the truth. I swear it said nothing hostile to the lords of Fouta.”

“If it was as innocent as you say, why didn’t you give it to the almami’s official courier, who goes to the coast each week?”

“I wasn’t even planning on writing a letter. Only the man named Alpha came to see me in Digui to tell me he was going to the coast, so I took advantage of that to send news to my agents. I didn’t know he was not a reliable man.”

He really meant to say: “I did not know he was one of your spies.”

“You dare to say that Alpha, a sensible man and a marabout known and respected throughout Fouta, is a liar?”

A disapproving murmur washed through the room.

“Oh no, I would never say that. I simply said he lacked discretion. You all know how highly I regard you and your country. I have never been known to disrespect one of my porters. So how could I disrespect a nobleman from Fouta?”

“Well said!” was heard from one corner of the room to the other.

“Hush!” said the chief of Fogoumba. “If what we’ve been told isn’t true, then what exactly did you say to the whites on the coast?”

“That your country is beautiful, its climate pleasant, and its inhabitants honorable and welcoming. Ah, if only a few whites came to live here to help you get rich.”

“Your plantations and trading posts are only excuses! Conquering Fouta, that’s what’s in the back of your white man’s mind!”

Gazing pathetically at the king of Fogoumba, he launched into his favorite refrain, bad-mouthing the English and, the Fulas’ favorite, flattering their pride:

“The one who read my letter is an enemy of Fouta or a man who cannot read. I knew Alpha was a spy in the pay of my English enemies—I had warned my people about him long ago—and would certainly never have entrusted my secrets to him. You know very well, Ibrahima, that I am not an invader—I am the almami’s guest. I am ready to leave tomorrow if you want me to. The chiefs of Fogoumba are mistaken, but they are intelligent. I know they will recognize that the toubab who brings prosperity is a friend. I must also mention what they know very well, that in 1880 I met twenty black Englishmen in Fouta; this year I met over six hundred. In Medina, it was an Englishman who first received me in the name of the king. Can’t you see that this Alpha is a British spy, paid by Freetown to oppose us? The English are not at war with us, you tell yourselves, they aren’t threatening us. Oh, overconfident black men! They don’t ask for anything, but they spread over your kingdom. Old chiefs welcome them, listen to them, and obey them. Have you, the descendants of the great Fula kings, surrendered your independence? Does France claim a single black man in your country, one single man sent to conquer and clear land in her name? All I see here is a single white man, alone and without weapons, who has come to speak of your interests, not of his.”

He came to a stop. As he had the last time in Timbo, he cast an anxious glance over the crowd to read their reactions. The silence that had settled over the room indicated he had done well. The king of Fogoumba remained stone-faced, but Tierno, Alpha Yaya, Bôcar-Biro, and Pâthé winked at him encouragingly, and the almami looked overjoyed. He whispered a few words and the griot’s metallic voice burst forth again:

“What the white man says is true, he is never armed with anything but his sunshade and his handkerchief. In 1880, we had doubts, but now we can trust him because we’ve seen him over time: this man is a friend.”

“The friendship France is extending to us is the friendship of oil and water: one on top, the other on bottom,” growled the king of Fogoumba.

“He does own a few rifles,” joked Pâthé, “but they are to take aim at partridges. He has never fired at a Fula.”

“He came to us as a friend!” agreed Bôcar-Biro.

“Whereas that Englishman with the unpronounceable name brought an army!” Alpha Yaya added.

“This man came as a friend,” Tierno said. “We are Fulas, poulâkou demands that we treat our friends well.”

The discussion turned in his favor. From that point on, most of those who spoke, spoke to defend him.

The Fogoumba elders backed down, taking shelter in muffled grunts. He could now savor his victory.

The almami whispered into the griot’s ear:

“The white man has spoken! Fouta has heard! Now, what says the king of Fogoumba?”

The king freely expressed his discontent, speaking as if the white man were not there:

“It is you, almami, who brought us this white man! It is up to you to decide!”

The almami let a good three minutes of silence go by before he whispered in the griot’s ear:

“Well, this is what I have decided: Fouta grants the man named Yémé the Kahel plateau and the Guémé-Sangan cliff. He will be at home there, will trade with whomever he wants, and will grow whatever he wants.”

“That is your right, almami, only this man is neither a Fula nor a lord, which he must be to own land in Fouta.”

“Then as almami of Fouta I declare this man to be a Fula and a lord.”

The almami stood and everyone followed him to the mosque. Once the prayer was over, the muezzin perched on the minaret and struck the tabala three times before his voice resounded over the city:

“From this instant, the person of white skin and great height whom the Good Lord has named Yémé Wéliyéyé Sandarawalia is declared to be a Fula, a citizen of Fouta, and is noble from head to toe. A respectable man of the kingdom and lord of Kahel, only the Good Lord and the almami are his superiors. He who disobeys him will be whipped, he who insults him will have his tongue cut out, and he who steals from him will be decapitated.”

From that moment on, things moved quickly. He was authorized to leave the bush village where he had been exiled to come settle in Fogoumba. His Wolofs accompanied him back to Digui chanting cries of victory. Old Arabia snuck over to whisper to him that Dalanda was waiting for him in her own hut. That was risky, far too risky.

“Little Dalanda,” he said as he took her in his arms, “you will never stop being naughty. Sometimes I want to punish you, but as soon as I see you, it’s something else I want.”

“So Yémé, are you going to kidnap me now that you are king?”

“Once I’m in Kahel, once I’m in Kahel.”

She made him swear to it a dozen times before she would let him leave.

In his courtyard, he found a messenger with a ram and a large basket of fruit:

“The ram is from the almami and the basket of fruit from Diaïla. The almami has decided to go back to Timbo earlier than planned. He is expecting you tomorrow in Fogoumba to sign your treaties and say his goodbyes.”

A tense atmosphere awaited him in Fogoumba. The entire city had converged on the central square. An ominous murmur came from the crowd.

“What’s happening?” he asked kid.

“We’re going to watch the decapitation.”

“But who is being decapitated?”

“His name doesn’t matter. It’s the spectacle that counts!” Whom had Fouta suddenly decided to put to death?

Good Lord, he thought, please don’t let it be that poor Levasseur! I beg of you, my Lord!

He kept asking around, but no one could answer his questions. Finally, he recognized Saïdou standing amid the rabble.

“Ah ha,” said Saïdou, “the white man has come to observe our judicial methods up close. You’ll see that we haven’t discovered the guillotine yet, we still work with the sword.”

“I suppose it’s Lieutenant Levasseur,” Olivier sighed, beads of sweat rolling down his face.

“Lieutenant Levasseur? You mean the Frenchman we arrested in Labé? Not at all, Yémé, not at all! It’s just some poor fool, a bandit for whom we’d been looking for a long time and who has just been unmasked. If it had been a Frenchman, we would have asked your opinion. You’re the King of Kahel now!”

The marabout and the executioner stood in the middle of the square surrounded by a teeming crowd.

“Well, my good Saïdou, I must say that reassures me. Isn’t the almami coming?”

“He’ll be here soon. I came ahead to welcome him.”

Saïdou led him to the makeshift stand the guards were putting up. Once they had finished, the almami appeared with his court, lavishly greeted the white man, and exchanged a few words with Saïdou before taking his seat. He signaled for the guilty man to be brought forward; he was wearing nothing but a loincloth, his head covered in a hood, and chains extending from his feet to his neck. The marabout cupped his hands around his mouth so that the sentence would be heard far and wide:

“You, Mangoné Niang, you robbed the trading posts in Rufisque, pillaged a caravan in Buba, and stole cattle in Mâci, then came to hide in Yali under a false name. But your accomplice, Doura Sow, arrested in Boké, denounced you. For all of these reasons and others unknown to us, you are sentenced to decapitation. Now I will read the Fatiha and the executioner will proceed.”

He read the Koran and took off the victim’s hood.

“No!”

Olivier de Sanderval’s cry stopped the executioner’s sword in midair. He leaped forward and tore it out of his hands.

“This man is my friend! As the King of Kahel, I request that the almami amnesty him.”

It was the man who had given him ham and wine in his plantation. He was not actually called Yéro Baldé, but Mangoné Niang, and was not even from Fouta. Born in Rufisque, he was a Wolof.

“But he robbed the trading posts in Rufisque!” Saïdou exclaimed, stunned.

“That doesn’t matter. He is still my friend.”

“Do you really want to amnesty him?” asked the almami’s griot.

“I insist, almami!”

A tremor of excitement shot through the stands. Some were surprised, others annoyed, all needed to consult with their neighbors. Then the griot spoke again:

“No Fouta lord wants this bandit on his territory!”

“Let him come to Kahel! He will be my first subject.”

HE STOPPED IN KAHEL on the way to the coast to evaluate his property: twelve miles long, barely three miles wide. He started a new notebook to inventory his goods. All in all there was one high grassland plateau, five valleys, ten hills, two natural springs, one waterfall, three streams, and three backwaters. His domain contained five villages and ten hamlets, populated by two thousand free men and five hundred captives. Fifteen donkeys, one hundred dogs, three thousand oxen, as many goats and sheep, about a hundred henhouses, and five horses. He breathed in the smell of the grass and crumbled some soil between his fingers. It was real Fula soil: no good for planting cereals and tubers, but perfect for grazing cattle and growing vegetables. He could tell just by its odor that coffee, vineyards, sisal, and potatoes would also thrive here. Up here, he felt as if he were in Auvergne; both the landscape and the climate reminded him of the region. Water flowed in abundance.

A few canalizations would suffice to carry water to the arid peaks. Elsewhere, the grasses remained high year-round. A mere drop of water and the fonio and corn would sprout; flowers, mushrooms, and fruit would be there for the picking. His gaze was immediately drawn to the colorful slopes in the north—he would breed horses there. Then he turned to the wooded plains in the south, where he would found a preserve for elephants and lions, antelopes, and baboons to coexist as innocently as in primeval times.

Three villages drew his attention: Fello-Dembi would be his capital, Diongassi his economic center, and Bourouwal-Dâra his rail junction.

He chose the site of his palace on top of the hill in Fello-Dembi and, sitting by the backwater that ran below, carefully sketched a plan—it would be a magnificent Fula hut, but with several rooms like a European house, and layered roofing made of the best straw, reaching to the ground and decorated with rattan rings and bamboo arcs. This would be a temporary dwelling, of course. Later, he would commission the best architects to design something. Something elegant and majestic—in other words, something Latin. A palace, a real palace, like the palazzo del Principe in Genoa, or the palazzo Garbello in Florence. He had always been fascinated by Italy—“Every great man is born Italian!” he declaimed in his memoirs.

As with his house in Bolama, which now belonged to Alpha Yaya, he would have Carrara marble shipped in for the facade and the staircases. He would build the roof and the walls with local materials. The country seemed to abound with slate and granite, and possibly graphite and precious stones.

It was here, in his future capital of Fello-Dembi, that he finished his famous map of Fouta Djallon and the southern river coast and sketched his railroad line. Next he settled Mangoné Niang in and ordered him to recruit three thousand able-bodied young men to contribute to his new army and clear the brush to build his plantations and trading posts.

He traveled the length and breadth of his kingdom on horseback and met most of his subjects. He hosted sumptuous feasts attended by the best griots and the most beautiful women. Game was served in bountiful portions and milk and honey flowed like water. Fonio and rice sat steaming in huge brass cauldrons. “The kingdom of Kahel has only just been founded,” they gossiped in the markets and fairs, “but of all the kingdoms in Fouta, it is the one where you can most enjoy licking your fingers while listening to the finest flutists.”

Soon he had cleared sites for the palace and the train station, erected the trading posts’ walls, and sowed the nurseries. His coat of arms hung at the entrance to the villages and three thousand soldiers were at his command. He could safely leave Kahel in the robust, steady hands of his second-in-command, the bandit Mangoné Niang.

On his way back to the coast, he briefly stopped in Timbi-Touni to say goodbye to his friend Tierno and show him the plans for his streets, factories, and palaces. Warm embraces were followed by a long festive meal.

“Thank you, Tierno, my friend, thank you!” Olivier de Sanderval exclaimed. “Though I find your lamb fonio absolutely delicious and your griots’ praise in the finest taste, still I’m not happy.”

“Why?”

“I have the feeling you’re hiding something from me.”

“I admit the news isn’t good. Gallieni has sent his troops.”

“What a fool!”

“A column led by a certain Captain Audéoud. Without the almami’s authorization. What does France want?”

“Ask Saint-Louis! You know me, you know what I want: Fouta’s friendship—don’t you believe me?”

“It isn’t easy to trust a white man!”

“I am a friend, Tierno!”

“The worst is that I have no right to doubt it. For the time being, you haven’t invaded anything. But what about Gallieni?”

“How did the almami react?”

“He banned anyone from selling supplies to Plat and Fras, and if the column doesn’t leave Fouta, Levasseur will be executed.”

“And what about me?”

“We consider you a Fula. Regarding this, our mouth has permanently been bound by our word.”

“If this was an invasion, Gallieni would have waited for Plat and Fras to be in Senegal.”

Tierno did not answer. In the Fula way, that meant he didn’t agree. Over the three days of Olivier de Sanderval’s stay, he avoided the delicate and increasingly burning question of the relations between Fouta and France. It was not appropriate to offend a friend, especially when that friend was under your roof.

The Frenchman and the Fula merely watched each other carefully, exchanging a few polite remarks and artificial smiles. They knew each other well by now—they were friends or, even better, associates. But beneath the masks of affection and camaraderie, each man could make out the calculations in the other’s mind and the muted worry that gnawed at his belly. They knew that both among the Fulas and the French, suspicion would always prevail over the most solid pacts in a case such as this and that the fruit of friendship would always hide a pit—the toxic pit of betrayal.

One man had given his father’s land to the other, who had promised him money, machines, riches, and progress. The white man claimed he was championing his country, contributing to France’s glory, but at the same time he saw himself as king of Africa. On the one hand, the call of duty; on the other, the instinctive call to power. Tierno portrayed himself as the faithful servant of Fouta and Islam, but was not deaf to the sirens of wealth and ambition. Yes, he was a good Fula and a good Muslim, but he secretly desired only one thing: to rival or even surpass the provinces of Labé and Timbo. He and the Frenchman needed each other and mistrusted each other. They were partners—not always honest partners, but they were tied to the same rope dangling over the precipice. For they both knew this much: times were not good. The almami was old and now, suddenly, Gallieni’s column was on the horizon. The sky was heavy with ill omens. Evil winds were sweeping in from every side. Heavy clouds obstructed the horizon—and men’s designs. What would become of their pledges and promises in the heart of the storm?

They pretended to put those worries aside by hunting panthers and partridges. Tierno taught the white man archery and insisted he participate in a few equestrian processionals, although he was not fond of horseback riding. In return, Olivier taught him the rudiments of mountain climbing and introduced him to chess.

On the day they parted, the king of Timbi-Touni accompanied his guest to the Kakrima River followed by his riders:

“Look at these ponds, these valleys, these blossoming hills,” he said, proudly displaying his land. “We have a beautiful country, don’t we? You see that forest over there, beyond that rock? That’s a spring. A spring only one person knows about.”

“That’s nothing,” the white man answered, more French than ever. “On my land, there is a spring nobody knows about!”

After once again narrowly escaping decapitation in Kountou for having accidentally trampled a local god, a miserable statue erected at the entrance to the village, he ended up in Ya-Fraya, dead tired and run down by dysentery, and was taken in by a Frenchman named Gaillard. Gaillard had settled in this forgotten backwater many years earlier to sell salt, fabric, and candles. He also cultivated some land, bred cattle, and traded copper for ivory and gold with passing caravans. He was married to a native, a beautiful Susu woman who had given him seven children, including two tall young girls in bare feet and flounce dresses.

A long week in bed before he could stand on his own two feet again! Madame Gaillard concocted a delicious duck with rice and wild spinach puree to help him regain his strength. Gaillard proved generous and pleasant, despite the violent coughing fits that choked him. He introduced Olivier to his children and spoke proudly of his two daughters who could read and write and even play the piano. But when dinnertime came, Olivier de Sanderval called the rest of the family to table and was stunned to hear his host respond:

“What? Negresses at my table? You can’t be serious, Monsieur Olivier de Sanderval!”

“Poor Negroes!” he wrote straightaway. “The white man feels obliged to hate Africa even when he doesn’t want to.”

“I’ve been hungry for six months!” he warned as he picked up his fork. He devoured the duck with rice and made short work of a piece of reblochon and an île flottante. The magic of wine, the aroma of coffee, Gaillard’s bonhomie, Mozart’s fugues rising from the depths of the jungle…he closed his eyes, chased the sound of frogs and wild dogs out of his ears, and felt as if he were comfortably seated in his château in Montredon. It was the first time he had been happy in months.

Another five days in the jungle and, finally, the coast!

Conakry was still barely more than a settlement, only a fragment of the size of Boké or Buba, of Bolama or Timbo. A mouth-shaped sliver of clearing in the dense face of the jungle.

You couldn’t take a step without feeling the sinister brush of a bat’s wing against your face. Tree sap and snail slime dripped onto your head, caterpillars slipped under your shirt. Chameleons spit in your eyes, vipers and hissy snakes wound around your ankles. The paths and courtyards stank of hyena feces and vulture droppings. Layers of jellyfish and otters, dead fish, and skittering crabs obscured the sand on the beaches. There were as many jackals and warthogs as flies. “Going hunting” meant sitting in your living room and aiming at gazelles and panthers through the blinds.

It was a virgin land that, for the moment, belonged to no one—in other words, to no white man. The Belgians coveted it, the Germans claimed it. From their base on the Loos Islands, the British insisted it was theirs. And the Portuguese, who had been established from Senegal to Zanzibar since the fifteenth century, felt at home everywhere. The French, who had built a telegraphic center and a small military outpost, intermittently occupied by soldiers from Boké, didn’t yet dare believe they were at home here. Their dispatch boats and whalers occasionally cruised between the islands and the mangrove to discourage anyone from attacking their positions.

The Germans called the place Boulbinet, the English Tombo, and the French Conakry. The English said it was an island, the French said it was not, and everyone was right six hours out of twelve: at high tide, Tombo was indeed an island, but at low tide it was no more than an outgrowth of the Kaloum Peninsula—they were separated by a mere 650 feet of pebbles.

This “island” on which the city was just stirring consisted of three trading posts and two tiny hamlets inhabited by two hostile tribes of warriors: Boulbinet, on the ocean side, where the fierce Temenes lived, and Tombo, on the peninsula side, where the intrepid Bagas were gathered. In Boulbinet, the German Colin’s trading post; in Tombo, the English trading post! On the other end of the island, a stone’s throw from the peninsula, was the domain of a strange Frenchman, a Robinson Crusoe type who sold animal skins and wax to passing ships. He was a plump pink man by the name of Maillart who, in this lost corner of the world, had turned his entire existence into a distant and inaccessible atoll.

His house stood surrounded by a thick fence covered in thorns and barbed wire, without any opening or gate. It could be reached only via an ingenious rotating staircase he had devised: if a visitor seemed trustworthy, he pivoted the staircase and invited him to come in; if not, he brandished his rifle and fired until the visitor disappeared.

In all, he owned five rifles, each of which bore a woman’s name: Carmen for the Negroes, Esmeralda for the Germans, Agrippine for the English, and Marie-Antoinette for the wild animals.

“And what about his one, huh, Monsieur Maillart?” the curious would ask.

“That? Why, that one’s for me, for the day I won’t have the strength to climb to the top of the ladder anymore. Better to die like a dog than fall ill here.”

“And what’s he called, Monsieur Maillart?”

“I don’t quite know. Dominique on rainy days and Monique the rest of the year.”

Apart from him, there were a total of six whites living in Conakry: Colin; his daughter and his son-in-law, Jacob; the head of the telegraph; and the two buffoons at the English trading post, who never said hello to anyone. On the one side, seven whites shaking with fear, eaten away by Pernod, and yellowed by malaria; on the other, about three hundred Negroes worn out by humidity and vermin and drunk most of the day. This was the human presence alongside the flora and the fauna on this stretch of the coast. A Noah’s ark awaiting the second coming, or the last vestiges of a world already sucked into the abyss?

This was the state of Conakry when Olivier de Sanderval first set foot there in June 1888.

He was so ragged and skinny that the whites ran at the sight of him and the blacks pointed at him and laughed. When he saw him walk into his office, the disgusted telegrapher recoiled:

“Hey now—what do you want of me, sir?”

“To send news of myself to France. I suppose that’s what everybody who comes to you wants,” shuddered the miserable wretch.

“Then show me your money!”

“I just have a little amber and coral.”

“What I need is proper currency. Fine gold louis, sir, if you know what I mean.”

“And you can’t give me credit?”

“Oh no, sir.”

“For what reason?”

“You look so strange to me!”

“Is there another white man in this jungle?”

“Go see the German Colin. Take a right on your way out, you’ll see the roof of his trading post in the middle of the tall trees.”

“A German named Colin?”

“He is of Norman stock. His father was in Napoleon’s army. After the rout in Russia, he chose to settle in Hamburg to put the humiliation behind him. There he wedded a Teuton, yes sir, and this Colin was the result. But as far as I’m concerned, Colin or no Colin, a Kraut is a dirty Kraut!”

Moving slowly, his breathing labored and his entire frame folded over, he walked toward the tall trees, using his hands to hold up his pants, now too big for his emaciated body.

“Where have you come from, sir?” Colin asked, cradling his rifle.

“From Fouta Djallon.”

“I only know one traveler who has told us of those mountains, a Monsieur de Sanderval.”

“I am Olivier de Sanderval!”

The man opened a drawer and pulled out an old issue of Le Figaro:

“Olivier de Sanderval is dead, sir! See for yourself!”

He recognized an old photograph taken at a banquet when he was still mayor of Marennes. It took him ten solid minutes to read through the page-long article, which offered a detailed description of his heroic death at the hands of a horde of Fula riders.

“And yet I promise you I am very much alive,” he said through chattering teeth. “Here, feel my pulse if you don’t believe me.”

The man looked at him for a good minute, opened his safe, and said in a voice choked with sobs:

“In that case, sir, come and help yourself.”

He hastened to telegraph before fate proved the article correct. Then, after a few days’ rest, he visited Conakry. With the imperturbable tranquility of Adam taking possession of the world, he carved out two estates for himself, one at the island’s western point, the other by the promontory.[*]

{ PART THREE }

EIGHT YEARS HE’D BEEN STUCK with this damned Fouta, its steep slopes and enigmatic Fulas—or rather, eight years in the field. If he included the days he had spent captivated by the tales of Mollien, René Caillié, Mungo Park, and Lambert, it had been a lifetime. And if he counted the nights under his blankets given over to dreaming up misty forests teeming with Negroes, prehistoric reptiles, and demons, feverishly imagining the infernal din of torrents and buffaloes, and the dark character and degenerate appearance of the Fulas, he could say he had put every last drop of his blood and being into it.

When he was a child, Africa had seemed to him like a monumental baroque opera: misshapen figures, extravagant scenes, an orgy of sound and color set to an unprecedented music; an over-the-top spectacle to shatter your mind and scorch your senses. It was all fiery extravaganza, intoxication, exotic exhilaration; thunder, hurricanes, volcanoes, and precipices delivered comic delights, while fever, boils, snakebites, and comas determined the aesthetic. He would only require a single dazzling high C to surmount the obstacles that usually stand in a hero’s way—the challenges, the intrigues, and the torments of love.

As soon as he arrived, a kingdom would spring up as fast as in a dream, with the panache of Julius Caesar in Egypt or Lorenzaccio.

It would be a brand-new country, virgin, with flowers everywhere and strange fruits, populated by animals and scattered tribes as jovial as they were peaceful. An embryonic country that was waiting for its little spark to light up and burst out of the darkness. Then it would only remain for him to mold it to his taste, with the ease of the potter handling clay. First in small doses, with music theory and the alphabet; then Archimedes, algebra, Virgil, and Ronsard; and finally Newton and scaffolding.

Naturally, his child’s mind could hardly imagine the hunger, sunstroke, wounds, and near-lethal illnesses, let alone the two terrible obstacles now facing him: the Fulas and Bayol, Bayol and the Fulas, very possibly his own Scylla and Charybdis. He had no doubt the battle would be hard, cruel, and ugly. He would win anyhow. He had to win no matter what; he would win against fire and sea, against lightning and wind, against men and gods. He would show the era what a real Lyonnais was—and an Olivier at that!

He already had resources to draw upon. He now had two shelters, two sanctuaries, two unassailable strongholds: Kahel and Conakry. The first would serve him to lull the Fulas; he would gradually imitate them and absorb their milk, guile, princely eccentricities, and country squire manners—and slyly take over their jewel of a kingdom. The second would serve to counter Bayol and those jackals in the Ministry of the Navy.

He had not chosen these two sites by accident. The Kahel plateau spoke for itself: at a high elevation and in the very heart of the country! Conakry allowed him to keep from bothering his Portuguese friends in Bolama, or to get caught up in the intrigues of the Ministry of the Navy in Boké. Protected from the sandbar by the Loos Islands and from the fierce coastal tribes by its island-like isolation, it would be a perfect terminal for his railroad. In Kahel, he could count on Mangoné Niang to build the palace and train station, open the trading posts, and plant the tree nurseries. In Conakry, he would need someone to design a port and the plans for a city. Ah, if only young Souvignet were still alive! Ah, if only!

After customs and a visit with the doctors, his first order of business was to strike the kahel, his kingdom’s official currency. Tails: a lion of Susa facing left beneath a crescent. Heads: the word Sanderval in sumptuous adjami[*] calligraphy, inside a finely in dented cartouche. He believed in his empire now more than ever; he could already see it glowing in the mist. He had only to navigate carefully—in other words, to steer clear of Scylla and Charybdis. Of course, for the time being Kahel was more like Lilliput than Eldorado or the Indies, but you had to start somewhere. Hadn’t Rome started with the modest Palatine Hill before expanding to the ramparts of Ephesus, the vineyards of the Narbonnais, and the granaries of Iberia and Numidia?

Once carefully counted and packed, this state treasure was shipped to Bonnard with strict instructions to distribute it at his trading posts and in the markets of Fouta, and to provide weapons to all those handsome Fula princes, lots of weapons so each of the boys had his very own lovely little toy.

Once the last crate had been loaded, he could put aside old grudges and go to the ministry to deliver a comprehensive report on Fouta Djallon, supported by a map, countless photos, and a minutely detailed cross-section plan of the Konkouré Valley. He told somnolent civil servants that it was unnecessary to invade Fouta Djallon, that the princes were divided, that the Fulas were growing increasingly tired of their whims and excesses, that it would only take a little more opposition to make the whole system collapse.

“As far as that goes, I’ve already done a good part of the work. Just let me take care of this and Fouta Djallon will wind up in our pocket without having cost us a single bullet. In exchange, I require ownership of a few hectares of land on which to build my residence and company headquarters.”

He would never settle for a few hectares. His tone unmasked him, his eyes betrayed him. He tried to look calmer, more reasonable, and be more convincing than he had been with Vice Admiral Cloué. But he was chagrined to realize that despite his best efforts, his agenda was obvious to everyone. Whispers, side-glances, snickers—the men he spoke to, who had not been born yesterday, seemed to read into his soul as if it were an open book. “We know perfectly well that you will never give up your harebrained idea of a kingdom. Perhaps you’re expecting France to serve as your stepping stone to the throne, ha!”

Nonetheless, he left this difficult appointment feeling slightly comforted: the importance of Fouta Djallon was no longer in doubt. It was the constant subject of discussion in the salons, pressrooms, and ministries. Gallieni, Archinard, Faidherbe, Brazza, all the icons of the colonial saga spoke of nothing else.

Thanks to whom?

He returned to Marseille feeling generally optimistic and ready to dedicate himself to Rose, who was very disappointed that shopkeepers and theater ushers declined to accept her kahels. A year passed and his children got their fill of playing and snacking with him. Rose had enjoyed her fair share of opera and society dinners and had had her every whim generously catered to in the chateaus of France and the ancient streets of Italy.

He enjoyed the rare pleasure of spending long, wonderful hours in the company of his family, devoting his endless nights of insomnia to his notebooks and the formidable manuscript of The Absolute. Then one fine day, as he was preparing to take his wife out to dinner, his friend Jules Charles-Roux, ever the bearer of ill tidings, stormed into the living room with the latest issue of La Dépêche coloniale: France had just claimed a new colony, the Southern Rivers. With Conakry as its capital and a certain Bayol as its governor!

“You know me, Jules,” he roared, flinging the newspaper across the room. “I’m leaving to kick Bayol out of Conakry this very minute!”

But a message from the State Secretariat for the Colonies (which had finally been established—on whose recommendation?) upset his plans: he was being invited to the Colonial Exhibition about to be held in Paris. Had the ministries finally come to their senses? Were his treaties finally going to be recognized and his claim to Fouta Djallon supported? Was he going to receive the protection from English ambitions any French citizen deserved? In any case, he could not afford to miss this opportunity. The Colonial Exhibition was the ideal place to meet influential people and speak his mind, even if he had to scream and shout and knock a few imbeciles’ teeth in.

He was whistling when he boarded the train, but his heart nearly stopped dead when he reached the fairgrounds. Noirot—the man who had accompanied Bayol to Timbo—was in attendance. He was as one of the masters of the exotic ceremony. The ex–Folies Bergères comedian had climbed the ranks since his adventure in Timbo; he had been thrust into the position of colonial administrator in the Senegal River valley. As such, he had been asked to organize an attraction, which quickly proved to be one of the most popular at the exhibition: a Toucouleur village of thirty people, consisting of ten huts, two tents, and six high stoves at the entrance of which he had positioned a barker: “Visit a Negro village as if you were in Africa! See their diabolical looks and shapeless clothes. Watch them pound grain, cook, and spin cotton. Only ten sous to go on the most incredible journey, to leap from the steam engine to the Stone Age!”

Olivier de Sanderval made his way through the crowd and approached the director of this exotic spectacle:

“You should have kept your first job, Noirot! I tell you, barracks humor fits you like a glove, but colonial administration really isn’t your style.”

Noirot spat out a curse and reluctantly turned away from his straw huts and Negroes:

“So, here’s the Portuguese viscount! I don’t like you either and you know it. Still, it’s a good thing you’re here: there’s someone looking for you.”

Noirot led him to the center of the fair, where a group of honorable gentlemen were talking in low voices, waving their walking sticks and shaking their top hats. He stopped before the most imposing of them and adopted the voice of an aide-de-camp to announce:

“Mr. President of the Chancellery, sir, here he is, the man known as Olivier de Sanderval. Monsieur de Sanderval, please allow me to introduce you to Général Faidherbe.”

Faidherbe, his kepi, his mustache, his little glasses, his metallic stiffness, his sharp nose, and his stripes! Faidherbe standing right there before him, even more military and austere than legend had it—and the Napoleon of the colonies wanted to see him! The officer known to the Fulas as “the man with the four eyes and the bat-wing mustache” immediately turned from the men he was speaking to, extended a hand, and smiled:

“So, here is our new René Caillié. Hats off, my dear friend, one hears of nothing but your exploits these days.”

This was so nice to hear that Olivier de Sanderval forgot the solemnity of his surroundings and the grandeur of the man standing before him. He let himself go with the innocence of a baby relieving itself: without stopping to catch his breath, he spilled everything, this time looking so natural, so true, and so convincing that the general was careful not to interrupt him. When he had finished, Faidherbe took his hand again and shook it as if he had just graduated at the head of his class:

“I will take care of Fouta. You can count on me for your treaties. And if ever France has an African Colonial Empire, its capital will be Timbo.”

On his way out, feeling light as air, he discovered that a colorful spectacle had taken hold of Paris. The newspapers were having a field day; on the sidewalks the concierges choked with emotion:

“Would you believe, my dear, that I woke up this morning and found all of Paris in black? They have brought a Negro king and his sorcerers and elephants all the way from Africa. And where have they put these good people? Maybe at a baron’s, or a marquis’s! A jungle is going to grow in Paris’s finest salons!”

He asked around and learned the following: Noirot, drawing on his undeniable comic instinct, had invited the King of the Nalus, Dinah Salifou, and his wife, Queen Philis, to Paris. They were accompanied by princes from other tribes. These strange visitors were staying near the Invalides in the luxurious home of the marquis de Maubois on rue Faubert. The concierges hadn’t lied. And the Republic had gone all out to make their stay enjoyable. It had offered them tours of the most handsome monuments and invited them to the gala dinner recently held in honor of the Shah of Persia.

He decided to drop in on them after dinner for a whiff of Africa, and especially to feel out this young Nalu king. Dozens of onlookers, journalists, caricaturists, ethnologists, tireless society hawks, and circus and opera lovers clogged the staircases to get a peek at this specimen of humankind. He forced his way through the crowd, making full use of his imposing frame and unmistakable air of baronial nobility.

Dinah Salifou, who recognized him immediately, greeted him eagerly: “You don’t know me, but I know you, Yémé. I was a young guard when you visited the court of my uncle Lawrence.” He introduced him to Queen Philis and wasted no time in reassuring him: Bayol in Conakry, that would change nothing, the Sanderval treaties with the Nalus remained valid, no unforeseen event could affect that simple fact. Then he reverted to the inimitable tact of a tribal chief to whisper the news that had been burning on his lips:

“Things are afoot in Fouta, Yémé: Alpha Yaya killed Aguibou and ran away with Taïbou!”

The news was a bolt from the blue, sudden, stupefying, absolutely unanswerable. He needed to be somewhere else to take it in, to determine its significance and measure its terrible consequences.

He hastened to say goodbye, but still shot one a last glance at the buffoon Noirot as he played tour guide to his visitors:

“Môdy Cissé and Môdy Dian, princes of Labé! Nabi Yalane Fodé, prince of Mellancoré…Mansour Kane, prince of Matam…Sérigne Guèye, prince of Rufisque, M’Bar Sène, prince of Sine-Saloum…”

Noirot was scum, but there was no denying his talent. If he had placed a ticket taker at the entrance, everyone would have thought they were at a cabaret.

HE HURRIED BACK TO HIS ROOM at the Hôtel Terminus to shower and retreated to the Café de la Paix for a glass of Dutch gin. From the moment he had arrived among the Fula, he had known it would come to a bad end between those two brothers. They were inextricably connected, yet permanently divided by too many determining factors: two mothers, co-wives and rivals; one throne, the most coveted in Fouta; and, more inexorable and tempting than anything else, that cynical and desirable woman who, with a single glance, drew everything to her—gold, horses, slaves, and princes. He had always known it would come to a bad end and that Taïbou would be at the heart of the tragic outcome, in this Fouta Djallon where the path to the throne often crossed a river of blood. But he thought it would happen in the Fula way, that is to say, gently, elegantly, subtly, with a touch of chivalry. This ambush outside a mosque during evening prayer, in front of the children and the elders was not very Fula—not discreet enough, not clever enough, not well-mannered enough. Coarse work! Sicilian bandits in the caves of Mount Etna might behave this way—kill their adversary and take off with his lunch and his wife. Petty work, the work of someone petty. He couldn’t believe this of Alpha Yaya. After much reflection, he had staked his ambitions on him. Aguibou and Pâthé seemed to him to be too complicated, too cerebral, too haughty, in other words too Fula. They would never be easily manipulated. And Bôcar was certainly more simple-minded, but was too impulsive, too patriotic, too suspicious of white men. He preferred Alpha Yaya, a proud and wily type like any self-respecting Fula, but open-minded, better yet, both a good diplomat and a good warrior. All Olivier had to do to hold him in his grip was dangle the carrot of power and gold. He was a practical man, easy to figure out—his interests came first, his feelings second, unlike that emotional brute Bôcar-Biro. Olivier knew full well that he was a Fula, a real one, that he would never be able to know how Alpha Yaya really felt about him, but that he could count on him so long as they shared a cause.

But to commit a crime and run off like a common highwayman! And where was he hiding?

And that this news—probably more significant than Bayol’s appointment—reached him through a chance conversation! What was Bonnard doing? Where was Mangoné Niang? And what about his agents in Bolama and Gorée and his spies scattered in every corner of Fouta? What was he paying them for? Damn it!

He settled his tab and left before he killed anyone.

This time, there wasn’t a second to waste. As soon as he got back to Marseille, he began nailing his trunks shut and going over his itineraries. At the harbor, they told him that the next ship would leave at the end of the month. Then the dark clouds rolled in and fate started playing games with him—he would not board that ship, nor any of the next ones. Two days before his departure, he received a letter from Paris that made him explode with joy. The new minister of the Colonies (they had just appointed a minister, a real one, by the name of de Laporte), who had often heard his exploits in Fouta Djallon extolled, expressed his admiration for him and asked him to come meet him face-to-face in order to discuss his grievances.

This de Laporte was one of those Third Republic politicians: eloquent and refined, promoted to his position more through the political scheming of the moment than for any genuine expertise. He hardly knew where Africa was and imagined the colonies were barely more complicated than the Camargue, with monkeys instead of horses.

An amateur for a minister, what a perfect opportunity! sniggered Olivier de Sanderval after asking around. He marshaled all the resources of a man from Lyon (audaciousness, tact, a sense of argumentation, seductiveness) before boarding the train. This time, his routine was a hit. The interview lasted far more than the hour that had been allotted and the minister personally walked him back to the courtyard and warmly shook his hand before repeating the decision that he had just made, and which filled Olivier with a beneficent and giddy joy:

“I will send a notice supporting all your grievances to Doctor Bayol no later than today.”

All your grievances! He had heard correctly—it wasn’t a joke! That would shut the beak of that vulture Bayol once and for all. The ministry in Conakry, he, Olivier de Sanderval, in Fouta Djallon, and France—at home everywhere! What could be a better arrangement? He would offer Rose a reprise of the La Verryère lunch after all, it was the best way to celebrate!

He found Rose bedridden. There was always a wrench in the happiness works:

“Nothing too serious,” the doctor reassured him, “a little bronchitis she probably caught during her morning strolls in the park. This fall is unusually winterlike, Viscount. At least you have nothing to worry about, you’re always warmly dressed.”

She was up and about quite soon, but in such an anxious state that Olivier de Sanderval postponed his trip for a few weeks to help with her convalescence.

It was at that time that he finally received news from Africa. His faithful Bonnard had been unable to write earlier for a very good reason: the Biafadas, the fierce people who terrorized panthers and enemy tribes in the forests of Bolama, had held him prisoner for two months—he had, as often happened to white men, accidentally profaned their highest god, a simple earthen statue planted at the entrance of the village. The most fanatical had demanded he be decapitated, but the king, who had a nose for commerce, had managed after weeks of palaver to convert this sacred sentence into pounds of glass jewelry.

He had only been able to meet the spies sent by Mangoné Niang once he had extricated himself from this hellish situation. Yes, Alpha Yaya and Taïbou had well and truly had Aguibou assassinated: stabbed a hundred times outside the mosque after evening prayer, the most sacred, highly attended service. The manner in which the attack had been carried out and the amount of blood spilled had so revolted the notables that the guilty party immediately understood he had no choice but to run away rather than try to ascend to the throne, taking with him his brother’s wife, horse, and gold. “As I write you, no one knows where the accursed lovers are hiding.” He went on to provide extensive information about the state of the trading posts and construction in Kahel.

“Fear not, Viscount,” he went on, “everything is going as planned. Now these Negroes count in kahels as often as in shillings, in the coastal trading posts as in the markets of Fouta. Mangoné is as efficient and feared as a Roman proconsul and our networks are working so well that certain provincial kinglets no longer dare to make a decision without asking our opinion.

“There is no doubt that Alpha Yaya is a difficult asset to replace…For now, let us turn to the capital. The almami is bedridden. Pâthé and Bôcar-Biro are no longer speaking. All of Fouta knows blood will soon flow in Timbo as it flowed in Labé. The only question is who will kill whom and when?

“I am on the lookout night and day and will keep you apprised.

Your devoted Bonnard.”

Shortly thereafter Rose had a relapse. She had not fully recovered from her bronchitis; she would have to stay in bed until the end of winter. But there was nothing to worry about, the doctor assured him again, they just needed to wait for this ugly little cough to pass.

In Paris, free-for-alls rattled the Parliament and cabinet crises occurred on a weekly basis. That nice de Laporte was soon ousted. Olivier de Sanderval learned that before de Laporte’s decree could be enacted in Conakry, it had to be examined by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs—and by other ministries, other offices, other old coots with their rubber stamps and their spectacles. There was no longer any question of leaving Fouta Djallon to Olivier, but simply of granting him some land and a railroad concession—as long as he was backed by additional capital, additional partners. Two or three more governments collapsed and the de Laporte decree was transformed into a proposal for legislation applicable to all analogous cases arising in the colonies.

“This will not stand!” Olivier thundered to his friend Jules Charles-Roux. “I have an idea: I’m going to contact Faidherbe and remind him of his promise.”

“What, you haven’t heard?” Charles-Roux responded, more Cassandra than ever. “Faidherbe is dead, I just read it in the paper.”

“Poor me, poor Timbo!” Olivier sighed as he collapsed into an armchair.

EARLY IN 1890, he finally learned that the government had appointed various special commissions to prepare the proposed legislation. A few months later, it was, to use the parliamentary jargon, committed, and in 1891 finally referred to the Senate. The resulting debate was so contentious that the newspapers and the public were drawn into the fray. Africa stopped being a marginal subject, of interest only to impassioned officers and crackpot adventurers. It flooded the streets and newspaper columns, sparked devastatingly fervent opinions from Paris salons to provincial dives. A colonialist current emerged from France’s collective unconscious, took possession of people’s minds, and came to dominate the political and intellectual debate. In the cafés and in the pages of the newspapers, one heard of nothing but Congo, Dahomey, Fouta Djallon, Sudan, and Madagascar. Demonstrations were organized, petitions circulated. The people demanded a colonial army, colonial currency, colonial coats of arms, colonial laws, mores, and fashions.

It was beyond his wildest hopes, as if his dreams were coming out of his head and permeating the entire nation.

His name was associated with those of Dupuis, Brazza, Faidherbe, and Gallieni. He was recognized as one of the major explorers of his era, which did not displease him. But as he had always said, the era of explorers was over. Now it was time to build—institutions, of course, but primarily roads, buildings, factories, railroads. And this was not the business of the government but of men like him, free of any fealty, imaginative and ambitious men. There was no need to complicate the idle lives of office clerks and parliamentarians before getting to work. There was no need for a law—a decree would have been more than enough.

Who had made America? The pioneers, of course, not the pencil pushers in Washington!

Then the long-awaited law got bogged down and disappeared into the swamps of debate and procedures. Lawmakers spent over a year quibbling, threatening duels and motions of no confidence, then finally grew tired of the whole thing and moved on to something else. Even Olivier gradually turned away to take care of his wife, who was becoming sicker and sicker.

In 1891, La Dépêche coloniale reported that the colony in Conakry had changed names and governors: the Southern Rivers had become French Guinea and a certain Ballay had replaced Bayol.

In the spring of the same year, Rose’s health suddenly took a turn for the worse. This time it was serious. Though she had a delicate constitution, she had always been energetic and cheerful—well, at least until now. Her recurrent migraines, her persistent bronchitis, her frequent asthma attacks had never really worried anyone. But this time everything was different. Her constant coughing was soon followed by fever, then dizzy spells and increasingly long comatose states. In summer she began spitting up blood, autumn she spent in bed. Her state got even more alarming with the arrival of winter. The doctor was called several times a day. But from the way he arrived—silently and with exaggerated slowness—Olivier de Sanderval understood that this was the end. He forgot about chess and Fouta Djallon and even his beloved Absolute, which had taken up most of his nights since he was twelve. For the first time, he thanked the heavens for having made him an insomniac. He watched over his dear Rose, shared her torment, wiped the sweat off her brow, sensed her dreams and nightmares, attended to her whenever she moaned or fainted.

After her death on January 15, 1892, he nearly gave up on everything: Rose, Bayol, Noirot, the old coots in the ministries, the Fulas—it was too much for one man. He spent his fifty-second birthday as a widower, demoralized, prematurely aged by the bush trails and illness. He shut himself in for several months but was unable to bury his sadness and pain. Mourning, remorse, regret, the thousand and one worries of existence, by the end of the year all this had worn him down beyond his years.

Rose was dead and still he felt he had only met her yesterday. Gone for good but leaving with him the sound of her voice and the lithe grace of her body. He could see her, he could hear her as if she were standing right next to him, marveling at the scent of a flower or the vault of a church during one of their many excursions, or innocently giving free rein to her incredible whims: “What if we moved into the Vatican?…Don’t you think our house in Avignon would be prettier if we moved it to Amsterdam?…Why don’t we buy the Bourgogne Canal?”

Her whims, her delightful, unforgettable little whims, were the bedrock of her personality. Their love had been sealed by her fascinatingly innocent casualness. They had met at a ball in Avignon. He had just graduated from the École Centrale, she was finishing up at the Beaux-Arts. She already wore multicolored dresses and flowers in her hair. She had Emilie’s grace, Emilie’s smell, Emilie’s eyes. He had taken her hand and led her deep into the sketches of the Fulas and the narratives of Mollien and René Caillié. She had sewn the Mephistopheles costumes so that he could be Faust one day and the devil the next, and she the virginal Marguerite and her double, the mischievous Gretchen. All this remained secret, of course, hidden from the world in that secret garden only accessible to their love and their dreams.

He had not given her the time and attention she deserved, but she had never complained. Despite it all, she knew how much he loved her, she often told him so, as if she were thanking him. There had been always something standing between them: work, sport, trips, social circles, the scholarly meetings of the Geography Society, and finally Fouta Djallon, which had taken hold of him with the charm and bewitching jealousy of a rival for his affections.

His children had grown, he was only realizing that now. He hadn’t taken much care of them, either. This was the time to make up for it, to give them the paternal affection they deserved and to compensate as much as he could for the maternal affection they had just lost. He drew closer to them, paid careful attention to their studies and their pastimes. He hired a music teacher to develop his daughter’s lyrical sensibilities and took his boy on perilous excursions in the mountains or at sea.

Discreet and devoted, Jules Charles-Roux helped him get through this bad time. Imperceptibly, he put him bit by bit back onto his notes and new projects for expeditions.

In 1893, Félix Alcan published Olivier’s second travel book under the name Sudan, Kahel, Travel Notes. He began thinking of reembarking. Life was returning to normal, the passion for Fouta Djallon once again burned within him.

Though the King of Kahel lived far from his subjects in his château in Montredon, he exercised his power over every acre of Kahel and his influence, my goodness, in every backyard in Fouta. He was in regular contact with all those who mattered in Timbo and the provinces. They consulted with him about everything they did.

His steamships and caravans regularly flooded the market with baubles and bangles. The English were no longer the masters—his cretonne had supplanted the Manchester drill and the kahel’s value had quickly surpassed the shilling’s.

Mangoné Niang, his coastal agents, his scattered spies followed his instructions to a T: isolate Timbo, gain Labé and Timbi-Touni’s confidence, arm this tribe against that, oppose one chief to another. Avoid invasion at all cost, let the country fall apart by accentuating divisions. As for France, she would eventually be faced with a fait accompli. Sooner or later, she would be forced to admit that having one of her sons as master of these African highlands could only contribute to her prestige. Hadn’t Bernadotte been king of Sweden and Baudoin king of Antioch and Jerusalem?

The following summer, on his return from Paris, where he was studying, his son Georges, racked with sobs, pushed open the door to the attic, pulling him away from his explorers’ trunks:

“What are you crying about, my boy?”

“Father, I failed my exams!”

“Bah, failing Polytechnic doesn’t mean you’ve ruined your life. Do you want to come with me?”

“Where to, Father?”

“To Fouta Djallon! It’s a far better school.”

“Oh, that’s marvelous! Will you let me visit Timbuktu?” “Very well. You’ll go to Timbuktu while I negotiate the course of my railroad with the kings of Dinguiraye. Those cretins, the Fula kings, will let me get to Dinguiraye one of these days.”

“Oh, thank you, Papa!” cried the boy, transformed by a sudden burst of happiness.

“Well, since that’s agreed, here, take a look at this map for me and find the quickest way to cross the Konkouré rapids with about one hundred men carrying a load of fifty-five pounds each.”

Two months later, he received a letter from Bolama:

Thank you, dear Viscount, for the news that you will soon return to the hot lands of Africa, and with your son this time!

Come, come quickly, but before you board the ship, celebrate this wonderful news: Bôcar-Biro killed Pâthé. That’s not all: the new almami didn’t stop at pardoning his friend Alpha Yaya—he appointed him king of Labé! You see that you must come!

“PS: We’ve had one bad surprise, however, which I’ve long hesitated to tell you about but prefer to tell you before you sail for Africa. Bayol built the governor’s palace on your land on the western point of Conakry. Only Bayol could come up with such a dirty trick. Thank God he’s no longer here to bother us!

Your most devoted, Bonnard

“All the more reason,” he muttered. “Nothing holds me back here any longer. My life is over there from now on.”

He sent his daughter to boarding school and outfitted Georges as a colonist.

BY THE MONTH OF FEBRUARY 1895, the germ of Conakry lost in the jungle had spread like lice in a hermit’s hair. The town now consisted of a good hundred permanent structures, excluding the governor’s residence, the garrison, the lazaretto, and the telegraph station.

An avenue lined with mango trees stretched more than a mile from the brand-new governor’s mansion to the island’s eastern tip, bustling with bicycles and three-wheeled vehicles. No fewer than three ships were anchored in the harbor. Countless red tile villas sparkled in the white sunlight beneath the acacia flowers. The Negroes were starting to incorporate paint and cement into their huts. The finely hewn wood facades of two-story stores displayed the bright colors of signs for Scoa or Paterson-Zochonis. Three or four thousand souls, of whom a few hundred were white, crowded beneath the city’s coconut trees.

Olivier de Sanderval had left a jungle; he came back to a picturesque little town. Ballay, the new governor, invited him to stay in his palace and did all he could to help him forget his problems with Bayol:

“And please, Monsieur Olivier de Sanderval, I hope you won’t hold it against me that my palace is on your land. I had nothing to do with that, really nothing at all!”

“Of course not, I’m not going to hold a grudge for a few acres of brush, Governor. With Bayol, I’d certainly have raised a stink—just because it was Bayol.”

“Do you like hunting?”

“I prefer hiking, but no matter…”

“That’s too bad, it is an excellent subject for conversation, hunting. It prevents unnecessary conflicts.”

Ballay invited the entire colony to a lavish banquet in Olivier’s honor and made sure he had everything he needed: fine wines and cold beer, leg of antelope and French beans; a flyswatter and a torch, a canopy bed and a mosquito net. He loaned him his Negroes to guide him around the town and his dispatch boat for sea excursions. Yet their relations soon grew acrimonious. Despite the governor’s desire to avoid what he called “unnecessary conflict,” he was eventually forced to broach unpleasant subjects:

“Please believe I am deeply sorry for your misunderstandings with my predecessor. I have nothing against you, you know. I am prepared to work with you. Everything will go well so long as you remain loyal to me and respectful of the law.”

“We are here for the same cause, Governor, that of France. You’re right, unlike Bayol, there is no disagreement between us. I will do my best to be well disposed toward you and to respect the law. And I do hope that in return the law will respect my rights.”

“Let’s be clear, Olivier de Sanderval. If you’re referring to your treaties, please understand that in our eyes, they do not exist.”

“Monsieur de Laporte, the secretary of state, had assured me…”

“Being assured is not enough, Sanderval, you need documents.”

“Documents? What else would my treaties be?”

“I’m speaking of our own documents, those of the Negroes no longer mean anything—Fouta Djallon is French.”

“You’re being unreasonable, Governor. Nothing gives us a right of access to Fouta Djallon—except for my treaties.”

“If we don’t have the right yet, we will any day now. I’ve invited the almami to come sign his allegiance. If he refuses, I will order my Sudanese infantrymen to storm his palace. At this very moment, my colleague Beckmann is in Timbo.”

“The almami won’t come.”

Adopting an intentionally learned tone, Olivier de Sanderval explained that the almami only left Timbo for one of three reasons: war, the pilgrimage to Mecca, and his coronation in Fogoumba. If he left for any other reason, he would be deposed.

“We would do better to get to know these people than to fight them.”

“Thank you for the lesson, but I served in the Congo.”

“The problem is that there are no Fulas in Congo, your honor.”

Though they had both approached the conversation full of goodwill, the mood became tense. The palace, which already smelled of furniture polish, now reeked of discord. A courteous but fierce duel that was repeated several times a day, that is, every time they sat down for a meal or drank a beer on the terrace! Their violent disagreements were always followed by the same immutable scenario: Ballay, who was in the nervous habit of always holding a ruler, would snap it in two the moment anger got the better of him.

Conakry flew the French flag, lived under French law, its Negroes were beginning to appreciate cheese and say merde, but the German Colin was still there, dazed by humidity, burned by the sun, and covered in mosquito bites, standing amidst his junk and candles. Olivier de Sanderval hastened to visit him. Maillart had just committed suicide, the Kraut told him. Having been bitten by a snake, he had not had the strength to climb to the top of the staircase, so he made good on his promise and shot himself in the head.

“With which rifle?” Sanderval asked.

“Dominique. It was raining that day.”

To forget Ballay’s temper tantrums, Olivier de Sanderval often took his son to the shore to binge on sea air and gawk at the monstrous plants and gigantic turtles.

One day as they were walking on the sand talking about Dinguiraye and Timbuktu, a stranger appeared out of the palm trees and called out to them. A white man in overalls with dirty fingernails and a long apostle’s beard. They had heard about this character. He had arrived on a boat from Saint-Louis one fine day and told anyone willing to listen a story that no one could make heads or tails of. He lived on what he fished and slept among the trees in a makeshift hammock—no one in the colony wanted to house a fellow countryman who wasn’t an officer, a merchant, a priest, or an explorer.

“I suppose you’ve also come here to seek your fortune? If so, listen to me, I’ve got a hot tip for you…”

“Don’t bother, old man, we’ve already heard about you,” Georges interrupted him.

“You’re not going to do that to me, too, are you? At least hear my story to the end and you’ll see I’m not crazy.”

This colorful individual then explained that he was searching for a massive treasure that the Tenguelas had left in the caves of Guémé-Sangan before the Fula kings swept down to conquer the Senegal valley in the sixteenth century.

“This treasure, everyone knows it exists. The Negroes think it’s under a spell and that anyone who touches it will lose his mind. Nonsense, of course…So, are you with me? It will be a fifty-fifty split: fifty for me and fifty for the two of you. That’s right, I’m the one who thought of it, after all!”

They walked away laughing, paying no attention to the man’s loud entreaties that he spoke seriously and in good faith.

When they returned to the palace, Ballay told them he had just received a letter from Saint-Louis for Bôcar-Biro—the Fouta Djallon question must be settled before the end of the year, no more beating around the bush.

The letter boiled down to “Fouta Djallon must submit to the French protectorate; Bôcar-Biro must sign or we will go to war with him.”

“And do you really think that mule Bôcar-Biro will sign, Governor?”

“If Beckmann doesn’t convince him, I’ll send him one last emissary, and after that it will be the cannon. Not only is this Bôcar-Biro arrogant, but on top of that we’ve just learned that he’s arming our enemy, Samory.”

“The cannon! Let me take care of this, Governor!”

“Let you take care of it! Listen to you! When will you finally understand that you mean nothing to us? You are nothing more than a citizen on a lark. As for your treaties…”

He snapped his ruler in two and his voice vanished in a ruckus of coughs and wheezes.

Nonetheless they spent another three full weeks together, trying against all odds to put on a brave face by playing chess or drinking cold beer after half a dozen shouting matches.

In other circumstances, they would have become the best of friends. Ballay admired Oliver de Sanderval’s courage, his sharp mind, and his touching chivalry. Sanderval respected this navy officer, who had earned his medals alongside Brazza in the Congo and who, unlike Bayol, did honor to France and the uniform he wore by his honesty and irreproachable sense of duty.

Alas, no matter how hard they tried, the situation inevitably turned them into enemies. One was fighting for a colony of administrators, the other for a colony of pioneers and captains of industry. One stood behind the use of force, the other behind cunning. Yet they agreed about one thing: Fouta Djallon had to surrender, and soon. The land of the Fulas had to become French. But how? Ballay was a strict navy officer who scrupulously respected the chain of command; the lone wolf Olivier de Sanderval believed only in the genius and liberty of the individual, never mind his fantasies. He had poured all his youth and all his fortune into an outsize dream: to conquer Fouta Djallon and found a personal colony made prosperous by his industries, flying his flag, and governed by his laws, French only by and for him. His very own kingdom, which would stretch from one end of Africa to the other.

Three months spent yelling at each other, ignoring each other, then reconciling, but when they parted ways a bramble of suspicion and misunderstanding still stood between them. They both hoped the fall of Fouta would take place as soon as possible, but beyond this simple shared idea, neither of them would have minded if the other collapsed along with Fouta.

On his way to Timbo, he encountered a caravan stopping at Correya. It was accompanied by one of Bôcar-Biro’s messengers and the famous Beckmann, whom he had yet to meet. The governor’s emissary seemed exhausted and most unhappy with the almami. Olivier de Sanderval invited him to the table he had had set up before his tent. But despite the duck confit and the Bordeaux wine, Beckmann remained tense. His behavior throughout the meal was strange—he avoided looking Sanderval in the eye and constantly shuffled his feet. He chewed with a vengeance and answered questions with a grumble. Still, Olivier de Sanderval managed to get a few words out of him:

“What in the world did Bôcar-Biro do to you to put you in such a state?”

“He’s arrogant and stubborn! He received me like a savage. He sent all the people in the palace who were favorable to France to the firing squad. It’s time we finished with him.”

“Oh, I can bring him back to reason.”

“What, you’re still willing to go on to Timbo despite everything I’ve told you?”

“Why should I be worried—after all, I come from here.”

“You can’t be serious!”

“I’m Fula, like them. I have no reason to fear them.”

He had said it as innocently as possible, without watching his tone of voice or weighing his words. Beckmann took over a minute to react. He opened his red eyes wide and leaned in to Olivier de Sanderval as if he were seeing him for the first time:

“Oh yes!” he said as if he had just understood. “Of course: you’re a Fula, I hadn’t realized. You’re even worse than all the Fulas in the world put together—even more cunning, more greedy, and more uncontrollable than your mob of ragged aristocrats. We don’t know who you are, we don’t know who you’re with. Are you working for yourself? Or are the rumors true that you’re a spy for Timbo against the interests of France?”

He leapt up and began saddling his horse:

“I’m leaving, Olivier de Sanderval. You need only look at me to know the tenor of my report to the governor.”

He traveled a few feet, then turned back:

“Honesty requires me to warn you, Olivier de Sanderval, that the day I am given orders to do so, I will happily execute you.”

“I know, Monsieur Beckmann, I know.”

Olivier immediately set to writing a message to Bôcar-Biro to ensure him of his friendship and to let him know he would soon be arriving in Timbo. Then he wrote to Ballay:

Dear Governor,

In Correya I encountered your missionary to Timbo. I found him rather cavalier for a diplomat. But never mind, I would hate to cast any aspersions on our administration’s discernment. I am writing to tell you about Bôcar-Biro and to mention that I am doing well despite the cruelty of the bush and the ravages of my usual stomach ailments—though I doubt my good health is of any great comfort to you.

The caravans tell me this is the fifth time you’ve sent a messenger to Bôcar-Biro. I beg you not to do anything more to arouse his suspicion. I don’t need to tell a skillful hunter such as yourself that to surprise your prey you have to catch it napping. This Fouta escapes you and will always escape you. Let me take care of it! The work I began so many years ago is finally bearing fruit. The weapons are ready, my friends have been put on their guard. So let’s learn to collaborate before we reach the turning point that lies ahead. We are all at the service of France, but our country’s growing presence in these lands must not come at the cost of individual contributions. Everything would be so simple if you recognized my rights. France’s interests would be so well served if you were in Conakry and I were in Fouta.

He was in Talé taking a footbath to soothe his calluses and soft corns while rereading his itineraries, when the villagers erupted in terrifying cries:

“Thief, thief! We’ve arrested a thief!”

The white man in overalls, the treasure seeker! He had just been caught stealing a sheep. The villagers gathered around to throw stones at him. His fingernails were still dirty and his long beard filthy with dust and plant detritus. He clutched a long stick at the end of which he had tied a knife to defend himself. His servant boy, whom he could no longer pay, had left him, taking along his pot and rifle as compensation. Olivier de Sanderval pulled out his gun to save the man from being stoned to death.

“Thank you, thank you, my dear countryman! These savages were going to eat me alive!”

“Don’t celebrate yet. I’ve saved your life to throw you in prison.”

“What?”

“Dishonest people disgust me, especially when they are my compatriots.”

“My word, you’re digging my grave deeper rather than defending me. You’re a strange kind of compatriot.”

“If I were the governor, I would have had you shot on the spot. But I’m going to ask the village chief to take you to Dubréka and file a complaint against you with Administrator Beckmann.”

“That’s what’s known as an act of treachery. In wartime, you would have been sent to the firing squad…At least give me a little wine!”

Olivier de Sanderval hesitated for a moment, then opened a bottle and poured half its contents into a tumbler.

“Come on, give me the whole bottle. You really are stingy!”

“You’re too cowardly to deserve the whole bottle,” Olivier hammered out, emptying the bottle before the lout’s horrified eyes.

It was all he could do to stop himself from wiping his boots on the miserable individual’s face, the very image of everything he hated in a colonist—an ignorant, petty, and greedy sewer rat who had come to the colonies only to sniff around the spices and the indigo.

Yet he drew a major lesson from this pitiful scene: once he was king, he would ban the vulgar, the ignorant, the beggars, the lazy, the convicts, and the crooks from Africa.

This was what had become of white men! Who would continue the work of Plato and Archimedes, Euclid and Parmenides?

Oh, what an era! Oh!

KAHEL WELCOMED ITS MONARCH with all its finery and acrobats, its riders and beautiful shepherdesses. Sheep and chickens were slaughtered by the dozen, a fantasia was staged, and the army held a parade. The flutists and griots, the calabash and tom-tom drummers performed late into the night. Georges was giddy with pleasure. He didn’t have to force himself—the delights of deepest Africa had the same hold on him as on his venerable father.

In Diongassi, the site of the future train station was clearly visible, delineated by a fine steel fence and stacks of bricks, barrels, wheelbarrows, and pickaxes. In Fello-Dembi, Olivier found a trading post standing several stories high and a vast rectangular hut decorated with roses and furnished in the European style.

Where there had been nothing but brush, he discovered a beautiful patchwork of rice paddies and pastures, a kingdom—the beginnings of a kingdom, but a kingdom nonetheless—with its own currency and an army of three thousand well-trained soldiers.

He and Georges walked along the lanes of mango and citrus trees and inspected the coffee, pineapple, rubber, and sisal plantations.

It was already a beautiful little colony. What would it look like once the Paris city planners, the Versailles gardeners, the Limoges porcelain makers, the Aubusson tapestry makers, and the Italian architects arrived?

“Thank you, Father, thank you!” Georges exclaimed, overcome with happiness and lyrical inspiration. “Kahel is the best place in the world to hunt, to breathe in the air of grasslands rich with the scent of jasmine and honey, to sip your aperitif in the cool evening while wondering at the lights of an abundantly starry sky!”

Olivier gave his son ten days to chase hares and frolic with the monkeys, despite increasingly pressing messages from Bôcar-Biro. But the night before they were to leave for Timbo, a spy sent by Alpha Yaya made him change his course—the king of Labé requested him to come immediately, and by night, he insisted, the sheep, by night! He was led to the outskirts of the city, to an isolated hut surrounded by whispering armed figures. Alpha Yaya was not alone: Tierno sat to his left, and to his right—O divine surprise—was the old sourpuss from Fogoumba himself, Ibrahima, Olivier’s archenemy. Tierno and Alpha Yaya’s presence was not surprising, but Ibrahima? And by night? What was this? What could the old schemer want from him? They were in Fouta, of course, where nothing could ever be taken for granted, especially when it involved blood brothers and allies. He needed no interpreters to guess what would take place here.

By now, he was as comfortable in this country as he was in his château at Montredon. He knew each river, each dale, each hillock. He could recognize each village by its smell, each man by his cough. He had become totally immersed in the Fula world—he understood each wink, each little bow, each clearing of the throat. His men were considered fellow citizens and his princes cousins, the kind of close but rival cousins you’ll find anywhere gold, power, and women are at stake.

His relations with each of these chiefs were based on their individual temperaments and circumstances. He felt genuine friendship for Tierno, despite the atmosphere polluted by schemes and power struggles that History had dragged them all into. Tierno was an intelligent man, well educated, courteous, and pleasant, whose subtle mind and ability to go against you without your noticing fascinated him. Ibrahima was the kind of Fula Olivier dreaded: red-faced, cutting, gnarled, arrogant, fanatical, and irascible. He delighted in taking his foul moods out on the most friendly people while nervously telling fat phosphorescent beads.

He did not know Alpha Yaya, the enigmatic Alpha Yaya, as well as he did Tierno, but their relationship was by far the easiest. From their first encounter he had been fascinated by this ascetic and somber young man who ate little, spoke little, seldom appeared in public, rarely got off his horse, and often dined on just a handful of fonio or three oranges. A handsome young man, slender, strong, athletic, intelligent, pragmatic, and devoted to practical ambitions. In other words, the ideal ally—determined, hard to live with, but an ideal business partner. And certainly the kind of enemy to fear. He was solitary and distant and hated effusiveness and familiarity. In short, a born king: cynical and calculating, never weighing himself down with scruples or feelings. He saw life exactly as Olivier de Sanderval saw chess: no room for mistakes; when a pawn was in the way, you swept it aside without hesitation. Energetic and clever, always on edge, Alpha Yaya knew that in the struggle for power the hits could come at any moment. He had become expert at sidestepping them and, if necessary, counterattacking at the right time and place. His mind was sharp enough and his body nimble enough to do it. That night he seemed more somber, more distant and fierce than usual:

“Yémé, it doesn’t look good between Timbo and Labé. Bôcar-Biro is preparing to neutralize the provinces, he wants to reign alone.”

“So that’s why you’re here. I understand about you and Tierno, but why Ibrahima?”

“He armed Bôcar-Biro against his brother Pâthé but received slim thanks. Bôcar-Biro makes his decisions alone, without even consulting him. Yet our tradition holds that Timbo rules and Fogoumba passes the laws. This Bôcar-Biro is a lout, he does not respect the Fula way.”

“Bôcar-Biro, your friend Bôcar-Biro?”

“My friend? Someone who wants to destroy Labé? Oh no, Yémé, oh no!”

“Fouta is a federation, white man,” growled the hoarse voice of Ibrahima. “He who wants to do away with the rule of our ancestors can be no one’s friend.”

“According to our information, he is waiting for the next council in Fogoumba to proclaim himself sole king of Fouta,” Tierno lamented.

“We sent him a delegation of marabouts and he forcibly kicked them out,” Ibrahima grumbled.

“What do you plan to do now?”

Alpha Yaya let an ominous silence settle in before he spoke:

“It’s sad to say, Yémé, but from here on out it will be me or him.”

“Give me time to sound him out. Reconciliation is still possible by God! You Fulas!”

“As you wish, Yémé, as you wish. But if you fail, by Allah, the knives will speak.”

“In that case, let me go back to Kahel to wake my son and we’ll leave for Timbo immediately.”

Before returning to the trail, he noted the following: “If, as any theory posits, the matter formed by the accumulation of the Absolute’s action consists of vibrations whose oscillation is increasingly intense, it should be possible to make an element in the series of elements move from its rank to a previous rank by opposing constitutive vibrations, contrary vibrations.”

IN TIMBO, THE BATTLE BETWEEN Pâthé and Bôcar-Biro had left scars everywhere he looked. Holes were torn through the walls, the roofs and lougans were scorched. Pâthé’s magnificent concession had been razed to the ground and his family forced into exile.

Bôcar-Biro greeted him with a broad smile and elaborate salutations. This means news of my secret trip to Labé has not gotten out, he said to himself, deeply relieved. He hasn’t lumped me in with Ballay and he still thinks of me as a barrier between him and Fogoumba and Labé.

Bôcar-Biro invited Olivier to sit next to him, cast a glance over their surroundings, and made a sweeping gesture:

“It’s changed, hasn’t it?”

He had completely rebuilt the palace that had been destroyed during the war with thicker outer walls, taller fences, and reinforced security. In almami Sory’s time, sentinels had stood only at the entrance to the mosque and near the palace. Now they watched over the alleys and the gates to the city. But that wasn’t all that had changed in Timbo: the court was no longer the splendid place it had once been, the princes, marabouts, and griots, the whole basis of Timbo’s prestige had been replaced by a dull assembly of young men, captives, and unassuming griots.

“Yes,” Olivier responded in a mocking tone, returning Bôcar-Biro’s smile, “I can barely recognize the Timbo I knew. Where did your marabouts and griots go?”

“They’re all hypocrites, hiding poison and knives behind their smiles and working for Fouta’s biggest enemies. I have no use for them.”

“A court without Fula marabouts and Mandingo griots is no court at all. You know that as well as I do, Bôcar-Biro.”

“Prestige, prestige. No prestige will ever live up to the sword.”

Then the white man’s gaze moved from the almami to inspect the surroundings. His face became pensive: “Bôcar-Biro is not the almami of Fouta. This is just a warrior here facing me. The real Fouta has abandoned Timbo. That could work in our favor.”

The almami’s resonant voice shook him out of his reverie.

“Did you have a chance to go to Labé?”

“To Labé? To do what?”

“Very well, you haven’t seen Alpha Yaya, but surely you’ve seen Ballay. Did he give you a letter?”

Olivier handed him the letter from Saint-Louis:

“Read it, it’s written in Fula.”

Bôcar-Biro read it and flew into a rage, tearing the pages to shreds:

“Bastard white men! You don’t want to trade, you don’t want friendship, you want Fouta!” He leaned over in a fury and tapped the ground with his fingers. “This is the land of my forefathers, white man. Anyone who wants to take it will first have to slit my throat, and if he misses, I won’t, whether his name is Ballay or Yémé.”

At that moment catastrophe struck and once again our friend Yémé found himself on the verge of losing his head in Timbo. The guards brought forward a sweat-drenched man who had clearly traveled a great distance. The man quickly bowed and leaned in to the almami to whisper something in his ear.

The monarch turned to the white man and it was no anger, but the calm, placid, terribly serene look of hatred that was written across his face:

“Now white man, look me in the eyes and answer without blinking: yes or no, have you seen Alpha Yaya?”

“I have not seen Alpha Yaya. Why would I lie to you?”

“I was going to offer you the path to Dinguiraye. But you won’t be going to Dinguiraye. Take this man away! I’ll decide what I must do with him tonight.”

A feeling unknown to the Oliviers took hold of him and tied his stomach in knots: fear, a violent and uncontrollable fear he did not even try to hide from his son. This wasn’t the first time he had been imprisoned in Timbo, but the circumstances were no longer the same. In 1880, he was a newcomer to Fouta, he had committed no crimes. And a real almami ruled over the palace, a wise man respectful of custom. Since then he had become Fula and a citizen of Fouta, he had gotten too involved in the country’s affairs, too tainted by its fearsome world of secrets and conspiracies, and in front of him was a brute without prestige, without legitimacy, whose only claim to power resided in his warrior’s instincts and uncontrollable impulses. And to make matters worse, he wasn’t alone but with his son.

Struggling with insomnia, he watched his son snoring away. Too bad, he told himself. I may have to kill you, my son, and swallow my cyanide capsule. You’ll have to forgive me, Georges, but it’s better than torture or humiliation.

But the next day a young rider put an end to his anguish and led him to the palace, where he was surprised by Saïdou’s warm handshake and the almami’s smiling face:

“I’ve thought long and hard, Yémé. You’re a Fula like me, I should not have treated you like that. Forgive me for having been so brutal. To repent, I’d like to offer you a present. No matter how hard I think about it, all I can come up with is Dinguiraye. That’s the only thing that could make up for my terrible behavior. What do you think?”

“What? I have your authorization to continue on to Dinguiraye?”

“Exactly.”

“When?”

“Whenever you want, Yémé.”

“Then I’ll go right away, before you change your mind.”

Olivier de Sanderval said his goodbyes. As he was about to stand to leave, the almami handed him a package:

“Here, on your way through Sokotoro, give this to my cousin Hâdy. He’s the king there. I sent him instructions to give you a fitting welcome and to show you the way to Dinguiraye. May peace be on your path, Yémé!”

Hâdy came in person with a trail of riders to meet them and lead them into Sokotoro. He had water heated for their baths, provided real wood beds with embroidered sheets and kapok-stuffed pillows, and mobilized all the women of his fief to prepare a meal worthy of his name: nineteen calabashes filled with the most delicious dishes in Fouta! The father and son ate to their hearts’ content, rocked by the flutists and the griots. It was only later that night, when their stomachs seized up in pain and they began to vomit, that they understood. They spit up blood and writhed in agony until morning. Their porters were at the other end of the village and could not hear their hiccups and their groans. Nothing would stop death’s slow progress. Through sheer force of will, the father managed to raise himself on one elbow to look at his son, lost in a coma: I hope he’s already dead and that my turn will come soon. Make it be so, O my Lord, I beg of you!

Miracle of miracles, they were still alive the next day at sunrise when their host tiptoed into their hut, whispering incomprehensible words to the three attendants following him. Witnessing this ugly little game, Olivier de Sanderval mustered what strength and lucidity he had left and mumbled:

“Thank you for dinner.”

The man gave a start. Shallow breathing and disjointed words served as his unwitting confession:

“You’re not…Um, no…yes so…Um…”

They left immediately, despite their pitiful state. The man followed them late into the morning, watching out of the corner of his eye as they staggered lethargically forward.

“That baboon wants to see us croak. Please, Georges, my son, let’s not give him that pleasure. We’ll die later. Live, Georges, whatever it costs you! Think of The Absolute! Think of Vigny’s wolf! Whatever you do, do not collapse—that would make him far too happy.”

Seeing they were still not dying, Hâdy became discouraged and turned back:

“Allahu akbar! God is on Yémé’s side. No one can harm him!”

Georges collapsed the moment he had disappeared beyond the bushes.

Three days later they were still alive, or rather more stunned than alive. Pale, yes, dazed, definitely, bones poking up beneath their skin, but alive! Though their enemies had failed to kill them, their trip was undoubtedly compromised. They could not think of continuing to Dinguiraye or Timbuktu. In their condition, they had to make haste to the closest French outpost. It took them an entire week to reach the Tinkisso, comas alternating with spasms, delirium with suffocating. Georges eventually made a full recovery, but his father’s state got worse by the minute. Poor inert Sanderval had to be lifted onto a pirogue to be taken down the river, then carried by his men until they reached the waters of the Niger.

In Siguri, Doctor Durand, the medical officer at the French garrison, gave Olivier an injection and put him to bed, then called Georges aside and solemnly whispered:

“Your father won’t make it past the third stage of the trip. I advise you to continue anyhow, that will get him closer to the railroad and our base in Kayes. Unless you want to bury him here.”

Georges thanked him without betraying any trace of emotion. He detected a hint of satisfaction in the doctor’s words, but realized he was probably right and that it was best to get closer to civilization before the worst could happen. Naturally he envisioned his father’s final resting place in Marseille, next to his mother, and nowhere else.

A week later, the sick man’s pulse remained alarming but his temperature had dropped and he was no longer shivering as much. Nonetheless, Georges remained convinced he would die before they reached the next French base. He pushed the column to travel faster and farther, dismissing fatigue, hunger, mosquitoes, boils, and the porters’ laments. He focused all his energy, his entire reason for being, on a simple yet impossible idea: to get to Kayes as quickly as possible and reach the railroad before it was too late. To bolster his courage, he sang military songs and recited passages from The Absolute. But you needed the mental fortitude of a Buddhist monk not to be shaken by the sight of dozens of graves marked by plain crosses decorated with French flags. War was raging in this corner of the world. Caught between Gallieni’s troops and Samory’s fierce warriors, Mandingo country was dying a slow death, festering with burned-out villages and starving troops. Sometimes he stopped before a random grave, lay branches and flowers before it, and sang the Marseillaise while looking desperately back at his father, unconscious in his sedan chair. In the colonies you always had an enemy somewhere—the Negroes’ poisoned darts on one side, treacherous disease on the other. Heads or tails, death always hovered over the white man.

Two weeks after Doctor Durand’s sinister prognosis, his father was still alive, though terribly gaunt and continuing to drift in and out of a comatose state. But with all the graves littering the path, all the charred homes, and all the destroyed villages, Georges was convinced they were cursed. And so he nearly fainted when one of the porters ran up one morning yelling:

“Come quick, Georges! Come quick!”

He grasped an acacia branch and stammered:

“It’s…it’s over, isn’t it?”

“Three drops, Georges! He drank three drops of milk!”

Heartened by this miracle, he immediately raised camp, thinking, Now is the time to risk it all to get as close as possible to Kayes. If he makes it there alive, he can get the treatment he needs. If not, it is God’s will and it will be easier to bring his body home.

The next day our patient left his sedan chair and continued on horseback, holding on to his son. The day after that he walked along on his own two feet with the assistance of one of his men. Then he gradually turned away from herbal teas, biscuits, and milk and asked for a real meal.

In Niagassola, they put their trunks down at a French post: a twenty-five-year-old lieutenant, an adjutant, a corporal, and a hundred or so infantrymen. Seeing that his father’s health had improved, Georges accompanied the lieutenant to the market to buy new donkeys and fresh supplies. But their appearance there was greeted by unfriendly whispers and hostile glances. A long-bearded giant with a Mandingo hunter’s boubou and a sword slung over his shoulder proved most aggressive of all. He walked up to the young lieutenant waving his sword around and furiously spit in his face. The lieutenant waited a few seconds, then, with a calm that stunned Georges, slapped the man’s face so hard the sound ricocheted throughout the bushes. The two men looked at each other with eyes full of hate. For a brief moment even the flies came to a dead halt. The market was in the grip of searing tension, as unbearable for the blacks as for the whites. Then a young boy burst into laughter and pointed a finger at the giant:

“The white man slapped Tiékoro Kélèn! The white man slapped Tiékoro Kélèn!”

The crowd looked at him, hesitated for an instant, then joined in:

“The white man slapped Tiékoro Kélèn! The white man slapped Tiékoro Kélèn!”

The man lifted his sword and went chasing off after the boy, soon followed by the crowd loudly chanting:

“The white man slapped Tiékoro Kélèn! The white man slapped Tiékoro Kélèn!”

That evening over dinner Georges told his father about the incident. Moved by this precocious act of bravery, Olivier de Sanderval stood to embrace the lieutenant. But he hadn’t noticed the color drain from the young man’s face as the fear he had kept bottled up erupted with the fury of a tidal wave ripping through sea walls:

“Do you realize, Monsieur de Sanderval, do you realize? That primate could have killed me and…”

He passed out before he could finish his sentence.

During the night, while the lucky ones lying beside him enjoyed Morpheus’s embrace, Olivier de Sanderval wrote the following in his notebook: “No need to conquer Gaul to become Julius Caesar, sometimes you just need a good smack.”

In Kayes, stunned to see him walk in on his own two feet, Governor Trintinian greeted him with these words: “Good old Sanderval! I was waiting for you with a bier, but I’ll have to offer you a glass of champagne instead.”

HE RETURNED TO KAHEL as soon as the poison cleared from his veins and his legs were no longer numb. Unable to resist the sirens of Fouta any longer, he delighted in rediscovering the melody of its springs and flutes. He hastened to breathe in the smell of fonio and lemongrass, to taste the rancid butter and hot taro. This land, he no longer saw it with his eyes, he felt it beating inside him along with his pulse.

From the mists of daydreams to the hard rocks of reality, what a journey! He, Olivier de Sanderval, spoke Fula, breathed Fula, came and went in Fula country. He lived in Fouta, or rather Fouta lived in him. This was more than a bond, it was fusion; more than a connection, a mystical communion! Yes, what a journey from hopscotch and short pants, maybe even from the void! A simple intuition, in the beginning, then a dream, then a plan. Now he was hard at work, putting on the finishing touches, the last two or three decisive moves and soon…

The prehistoric era of Father Garnier and his alter ego Guénolé was a distant memory. Zaratusthania was no longer a wild dream. Now he walked on its stones, drank its water, and savored its landscapes and fruits. He had become indigenous to this untamed land, this end-of-the-world place—a true native, and a tribal leader at that! His currency was used in his markets and his soldiers paraded on his high plateaus! He, the Fula, the lord and master of Kahel, was now an unavoidable link to Fouta. He only had to lift a finger and the entire region’s fate would be turned upside down. Soon he would lift that finger, soon Fouta’s fate would be turned upside down.

Everything had fallen into place by itself since his first trip to Timbo. The god of the Fulas clearly relished working by his side. Aguibou and Pâthé were too dangerous? Fate eliminated them without asking anything in return. Alpha Yaya or Bôcar-Biro? The diabolical meal in Sokotoro had removed any lingering doubt: Bôcar-Biro had to be eliminated and soon! The beast of Timbo, the almami with smallpox scars remained the last and only obstacle. He need only get rid of him and everything would come true, everything: the narratives, the drawings, the atlas and Guénolé, the Pacific atoll and Zaratusthania.

After a few days spent on his property overseeing progress on the foundations and scaffolds, the henhouses and plantations, the rice paddies and stables, he left Georges and Mangoné in the middle of the night and traveled to Labé. He found his three acolytes in the same isolated hut sitting before a handsome wood fire.

“Bôcar-Biro sent assassins to kill Ibrahima. Do you hear that, Yémé? Ibrahima has sought refuge on my land.”

Yes, he heard, and how reassuring it was, especially since Alpha Yaya looked like a wild animal as he spoke those words—his terrifying little eyes projected cruelty, his lower lip trembled, his face was swollen with anger and glowed an ugly red in the crackle and sizzle of the wood fire.

Something terrible and irreparable had taken place between Timbo and Labé, between the two former friends, during his absence, and naturally this did not displease him.

“Assassins, but why, good Lord?” he asked, affecting a look of tremendous concern.

“You ask me why? Why do you think he wanted you dead in Sokotoro, huh?”

“This man is a monster!” Ibrahima added, seething with rage. “He wants to eliminate the provinces, and rule over Fouta with an iron grip, alone. Madness!”

Tierno, who could keep his cool in the middle of a fire, explained the stupid, absurd, exasperating reasons “why” in a clear, levelheaded manner. Last Friday, Ibrahima, Fouta’s religious leader and guardian of the law, had pronounced a sermon in his mosque in Fogoumba, the most sacred in all Fouta, that had severely displeased Timbo. What crime had poor Ibrahima committed? Simply that of promoting common sense and reminding the Fulas of a few crucial facts: namely, that a single finger cannot spin cotton, throw a stone, or sow a seed, that a single branch does not make a tree. Besides the trunk, the branches, besides the branches, the offshoots, then the buds, the leaves…Then yes, there would be sap, fruit, and shade. Why had their ancestors, those enlightened men, conceived of Fouta with an almami, kings, princes, nobles, serfs, and so on? So that Fouta would always have sap, fruit, and shade, today, tomorrow, and forever. Alas, a thousand times alas; the light of the ancestors was beginning to fade; there were more nights than days, more thieves than honest men in these bad times. Now Ibrahima, had learned—and how he wished he hadn’t!—that someone was preparing to clip Fouta’s branches, to reduce this beautiful blossoming tree to a single piece of wood. May Allah, the all powerful, curse the propagator of such news and give the almami the power to protect the country from such a calamity!

These allusions of perfidy had hit their target, reaching the ears of you-know-who.

First Bôcar-Biro sent emissaries to the king of Fogoumba to ask him to retract his statement. Then he sent killers. This was where the situation stood. And that was why they had gathered in this sordid hovel crawling with mosquitoes and mice, but safe from Timbo’s daggers and eye. There was no longer any time for idle talk: Bôcar-Biro had to be killed or they would die at his hand. The three acolytes conspired for many nights to devise a plan. Dead or alive, Bôcar-Biro had to be off the throne within a month. It didn’t matter how—coup d’état or ambush, dagger or poison.

They parted ways, having agreed on that, and since it was already dawn, Sanderval was quartered in a wing of the palace. It was best to wait for nightfall to travel in secrecy.

Around noon, a child came to him with grilled meat and some fruit:

“It’s from the holy woman.”

“The holy woman?”

But the child retreated behind the wall. He watched him disappear and lazily let his mind give way to doubt and foreboding. How would all this end? Whom could he count on, whom couldn’t he count on? How long would this Ibrahima of Fogoumba, who hated him even more than he hated Bôcar-Biro, remain an ally? And what about Tierno, who was still friendly and pleasant but never entirely reassuring, with his enigmatic smiles and excessively cautious ways? Alpha Yaya, the cleverest and most determined of all, had a cold mind, pitiless and calculating—he would always put his interests over his friends and his power over his commitments. No one could predict what Alpha Yaya would do if things went badly. There’s no doubt about it, he told himself, tired of cogitating, I’m well and truly in the land of the Fulas!

At dusk, as he was getting ready to leave for Kahel, three discreet knocks sounded at his door. A veiled woman all dressed in white appeared in the doorframe holding phosphorescent beads.

He looked at the figure in stunned silence. Then it dawned on him:

“Taïbou!”

“I can’t believe you recognized me!”

“Explain this, please!”

“I took a vow of renunciation, Yémé. I decided to devote myself to God. I turned away from men, jewels, and horses, hoping against hope that He would forgive me, though I would not if I were Him.”

Her answer left him open-mouthed. He remained frozen like a statue, staring at her, unable to make a sound.

“Do I frighten you?”

“Um no…you…you intimidate me.”

“I only came to say good evening. Farewell, Yémé!”

He extended his hand to her, but she refused it. She stepped toward the door, then turned back to him one last time:

“He will kill me, Yémé.”

“Who?”

“Who else?”

“Good Lord, why?”

“He’s afraid I’ll do to him what I did to his brother.”

“Don’t say that, Taïbou!”

“He will kill me and it will be better that way.”

She blended into the night. The echo of her last words filled the room with the persistence of the tamarind perfume young women put on their neck before going to the dance circle.

He returned to his stores and his farms, never suspecting he would soon witness the scene that would change his life once and for all. It happened one afternoon when he was riding in the bush to please his son, an avid horseman. As they turned onto a path, he came upon a vision, a real one, like the miracle scenes in the Bible: a thousand people were sitting on the ground in a vast plain, all wearing white tunics, with their heads shaved, feverishly telling their beads. Some had their eyes closed, others stared up at the sky. Lost in their ominous psalms, they did not see the white men arrive. Or if they did see them, they paid them no attention. These strange pilgrims no longer paid attention to anything—not to the plain, nor to the river flowing below them, the monkeys, the kapok trees, the birds, or man. Nothing in this world mattered to them. They were waiting for the End. A few days earlier, it had been revealed to their guru, whose huge shepherd’s hat and patriarch’s stick distinguished him in the middle of the crowd. They had gathered here because they believed that this was the best place to wait for the end of the world.

As far back as he could remember, he had never made much of religion. He wasn’t even exactly sure whether he was a Catholic or an atheist. But the sight of this crowd entirely clothed in white, so serene and contemplative before the fulfillment of fate, could have made a marble statue shiver.

He dismounted, humbly took off his shoes, and remained among the praying figures for two days without eating or drinking. His son could tell that something of great import had just occurred. He didn’t want to disturb his father, but nor could he let him starve to death or risk madness. After countless trips between the plain and Fello-Dembi, he enlisted Mangoné’s help and succeeded in taking Olivier away from there and convincing him to have something to eat and drink:

“I’ve never seen you in this state, Father. What’s happening to you? Please speak to me.”

“The revelation, Georges, the revelation! These people don’t simply believe, they are convinced. They have no doubt of God’s existence. Fascinating, isn’t it? This must be the very first time that men keep an appointment with the Absolute. Remember that, son: Africa is better than any book. I finally understand why she attracts me so, the scamp—we’re the only two entities convinced not only of the Absolute’s existence, but that it is within our reach.”

“Yes, they are quite surprising, Father.”

“Not surprising, but blessed, rewarded, Georges. These people have attained a state of grace. Look at them carefully, they are ready—God is coming! They are already there whereas I’m still searching for my path. Do you realize, my son, that an entire chapter of my book is brought to life here in this plain.”

He withdrew into a mystical silence that lasted several days before resuming his normal existence. But from that moment until his death, he would experience long periods of abandon during which his anguished son would listen to his mysterious soliloquies, never knowing whether he was honing his ideas or in the grip of a delirious fever.

“The infinite is not the immense finite, the temperature of the Absolute, atomic weight of the Absolute…A new truth now needs to show us the rest of the path and put into action the spiritual virility that previous truths have brought to light and fortified within us.”

He had just finished writing this sentence when someone knocked at the door. It was a stormy night. A figure hidden beneath an umbrella, clothes dripping with water and mud, whispered these few words before disappearing into a chaos of lightning and thunder:

“Listen carefully, Yémé, the almami has left Timbo. He is headed for Labé. An ambush is planned in Bantignel.”

The next morning, he ordered Mangoné Niang to select his best marksmen and hide them in the bushes in Bantignel, where Tierno and Alpha Yaya’s men were already waiting for them, armed to the teeth.

According to spies, the almami was only traveling with a few hundred guards. But what was his objective: to make war on the pagans, as some claimed he had declared, or to surprise his friend Alpha Yaya and his bothersome guest from Fogoumba?

The archers and riflemen were positioned so that nothing could survive their assault—not the almami, his warriors and horses, nor even the plants.

Gunfire tore through the chasms and cliffs until nightfall. Then they patiently waited for morning to count and identify the dead. At least one thousand bodies, but not one, not one of them looked anything like the almami.

They counted and recounted: yes, yes, one thousand bodies and not one of them…He had to be rotting in some bramble, in a crevasse, or under the bamboos and vines. He had been devoured by jackals or wild dogs; or like dozens of others, simply carried away by the current. In any case, he was dead, no one could come out of such an inferno alive.

Tired of these calculations, the victors hastened to Fogoumba to crown a docile, obscure, and juvenile puppet prince named Môdy Abdoulaye.

But just a few weeks later, a caravan of Sarakolés brought news that made all of Fouta shake with fear—Bôcar-Biro had not died in Bantignel. The monster was alive, alive from head to toe. The Sarakolés had recognized him in the markets at Kébou and in the coastal villages. Yes, alive and unharmed, not even a scratch!

How could he have survived a whole afternoon with arrows and bullets raining down on him? Because of his fetishes of course! The Good Lord and the Prophet would never have sufficed to get him out of such a bind. The myth of the invincible almami, invulnerable to magic and metals, swept through the country like a tornado.

Sanderval, whose reason had not been corrupted by Africa’s demons, struggled mightily to convince his Fula allies they were wrong. “There’s nothing miraculous about cheating death, I did it four times in one week in Sedan. The best thing would be to check if he really is alive. If it’s confirmed we’ll send some killers after him.”

Confirmation came quickly. This was no tall tale: the real almami, the one whose buttocks were made to sit on the throne, walked and talked like the rest of the living. And it was not a double—the spies had recognized his smallpox scars and his unmistakably thunderous voice.

Killers were immediately sent out to poison him or strangle him, lodge a dagger in his back or unleash a swarm of bees on him. With all due respect to the lone Cartesian in the land of the Fulas, the assassins may have dispensed with a few bodyguards and tasters, but they did no damage to the almami.

“What do you say to that, white man?” the cruel Alpha Yaya challenged him.

“Let him stay alive wherever he wants so long as he never returns to Timbo,” Ibrahima said, resigning himself.

A few weeks passed before more shocking news spread panic among the Fulas—Bôcar-Biro was traveling to Timbo at the head of a powerful army of Fulas, Dialonkes, Susus, and Nalus.

This time an assassination plot or an ambush would not suffice. A full-fledged war was inevitable. It took place close to the source of the Senegal River below a hitherto unnamed rock. Bôcar-Biro scored an easy victory and returned to Timbo in triumph, leaving so many dead men behind that it was said the vultures eclipsed the sky.

The Fulas named the site Petteh Djiga, the Rock of the Vultures.

Petteh Djiga was the turning point, that sinister moment after which Fouta slipped out of the Fulas’ grasp and began its long descent into obscurity. It opened an unbridgeable sea of blood between the princes and spread terrible confusion and sadness in their subjects’ minds. The stars, rivers, dogs, the nights, dawns, ways people behaved: nothing was ever the same after that.

Alpha Yaya immediately returned to Labé to declare his province’s independence, then brought his acolytes to the palace to prepare the plan to invade Timbo.

The king of Labé wanted to lay siege to the capital and be done with it once and for all. Olivier de Sanderval wanted something less risky, subtler, an assassination attempt, a poisoning, a trap, anything that could be set in motion without arousing the brute’s suspicion. But when he saw Alpha Yaya’s somber face, his lip trembling with anger, he realized he had better handle him carefully:

“Let’s be honest, Alpha Yaya. According to my information, since Petteh Djiga, Timbo is more like a fortified camp than a city. And I won’t even mention his secret army in Nafaya or his friend Samory’s troops, which are ready to fly to his rescue at the slightest sign of danger.”

Alpha Yaya was barely listening. He wanted to have it out, to get revenge for Bantignel and Petteh Djiga. That was all he could see, all he could understand. He no longer spoke, he roared. His voice was unrecognizable.

“It’s him or me, Yémé, and the first to fire will be the one to win!”

This tense conversation had already stretched over two or three days when they received news from Timbo. Môdy Abdoulaye, the puppet prince, who had fled after Petteh Djiga, had returned to the capital. In a typically impetuous and incomprehensible gesture, the unpredictable almami had pardoned the young usurper; better yet, he had opened his court to him and offered him an attractive position as a councillor. That wasn’t all: at Friday’s great prayer, Bôcar-Biro had launched a drive for forgiveness and reconciliation. He had told Fouta—where truly nothing would ever be normal again—that he was preparing to receive Ballay, with the obligatory parade, praise, gold, and kola that Timbo had always reserved for wise men and great leaders.

“I don’t like this, Yémé, I don’t like this at all,” cursed Alpha Yaya, as he held his head in his hands. “Life is better when angels remain angels and monsters, abominable monsters.”

“For once we agree. This is all very suspicious, especially here in Fouta.”

“I see hurricanes and mourning. Allah curse this era!” Ibrahima burst out in a whine, worn down by anger and despair.

“Do you believe that someone like Bôcar-Biro can truly repent, Yémé?” Tierno asked.

“The beast needs to be let alone for a bit, that’s all. It is being hunted down. Fouta has become untenable and Saint-Louis is increasingly threatening.”

“Let alone? We must attack right away. Each moment we lose is his gain.”

“Don’t get upset—think. Let’s accept the hand he is extending to us, kiss it for the moment, and bite it when the time is right…”

“Again! Wasn’t Bantignel enough for you?”

“There will be no more Bantignels. Next time I will bring my whole army. Come, send him some oxen, gold, marabouts, and griots to ask for his forgiveness and reconciliation. You are his brother, his friend, his humble subject. Renounce the secession, say you did it in a fit of madness. Let him come to Labé and you will pledge allegiance to him on the land of your fathers, before your own subjects, to make your apology more credible, more emblematic, more spectacular.”

“We must attack!”

“While Ballay is in Timbo? Let’s wait and see what they’re plotting. Those two scoundrels in bed together is not a good thing.”

“I’m telling you we must attack before Ballay provides him with weapons.”

Late into the night, Alpha Yaya finally relented:

“As you wish, Yémé, as you wish! I will send him emissaries. But beware: if I miss him again this time, I won’t miss you.”

“What, don’t you trust me anymore?”

“I don’t trust anyone anymore, Yémé.”

The next day Olivier de Sanderval decided to take some photographs before returning to Kahel. He took photo after photo of the palace, the stables, the misshapen huts, the alleys lined with ferns and tamarind trees. It was a beautiful day. The white light on the kaolin walls and the flowering mango trees, what beautiful pictures they would be! The air was filled with the delicious scent of lemongrass and orange blossom. He felt happy and whistled as he walked. He came to the market and found it empty, the games circle, empty, the palaver square, empty. He stopped whistling. Something strange, ominous floated in the air. The paths seemed deserted and mournful. The handful of people he encountered whispered to each other in clusters of two or three, then vanished behind the walls without returning his greeting. In front of the empty mosque a beggar approached him:

“The white man should go to the Bôwoun-Loko wasteland.”

At first, he paid no attention, but the beggar insisted before taking off with his five kahel coin.

A powerful stench scorched his nose as he neared Bôwoun-Loko. He looked up to the sky: a cloud of vultures circled in a mournful symphony of flapping wings and screeches. Stretched out in the middle of the grass, something caught his attention: the predators converged over a mysterious form. He could make out a grass skirt, then legs, arms, braids of hair decorated with coins and cowries. He bent over to inspect the face, scrutinized the mutilated eyeballs and the nostrils infested with caterpillars and flies, and nearly passed out.

“Taïbou!” he was able to cry out, throwing his sunshade and camera aside.

When he came back to his senses, he instinctively ran to Alpha Yaya’s. He found him reading the Koran with his marabouts. Alpha Yaya looked at him with eyes full of anger and spat furiously to show he was not welcome:

“What are you doing here, white man?”

“I…I came to speak to you!”

“Then sit down on that mat and be careful what comes out of your mouth. So what do you want to talk to me about?”

“About…about…about…Bôcar-Biro!”

“Ah, I always knew you were a friend, Yémé! Would you believe that I have thought long and hard and convinced myself that you were right, absolutely right. As soon as the seeding is finished, I will send emissaries to Timbo. I’m ready to ask Bôcar-Biro’s forgiveness so long as you double my soldiers’ munitions.”

“Certainly.”

“Give a horse to my friend Yémé and have my griots accompany him back to Kahel.”

A few days later, the king of Labé took a deep breath and made a disgusted grimace:

“Fulas, don’t you think something smells rotten in our city?”

Only then did Labé dare to bury the dead woman in a secret place where no one would come to bow before her grave—aside from the spirits and the moles, the jackals and the hyenas.

The next week Olivier’s sentinels gave the alert. A column of soldiers was headed to Fello-Dembi.

“Why haven’t you fired on them?”

“There aren’t very many, and they are people like you: white men, Yémé, along with a few native infantrymen.”

“What? Has Saint-Louis invaded Fouta?”

He watched the column move toward him through his binoculars and was stunned to distinguish the governor’s kepi. He was so stunned he didn’t move an inch until the man was standing right before him. Ballay had his ever-present ruler in hand, but his smile was so broad that Olivier had trouble believing it was really him, though he recognized the voice and mustache.

“I can’t believe it, Ballay, it looks like you’re pleased to see me.”

“And how Sanderval! Fouta Djallon is French, Bôcar-Biro has signed. You’re going to come under my command, Viscount. I understand this won’t please you. But that’s History’s way—it cannot make everyone happy.”

Olivier had a great table placed in the center of the courtyard to receive his guests, though in truth he was the one most in need of a chair and a good glass of cognac. He had just received the worst news of his entire life. Fouta’s fate had just been sealed without him after all those years, all those expenses, all the colic, all the diarrhea, all the struggles through the bush, all the…He knocked back three glasses in a row, then straightened himself like a condemned man steeling himself for the bullets.

But Ballay, who knew how to savor a victory, was in no rush. He removed his kepi, his gaiters, and his boots, mopped his forehead, and had his feet massaged while making coarse jokes. No grudge stuck in his throat. The question of Fouta Djallon was settled once and for all and Olivier de Sanderval could now become a friend, just another person with whom to play chess, and pleasant company—and this above all was unbearable to the King of Kahel. The governor waited for the anisette, the leg of antelope, the fine wines, and the cognac—this was an event worth celebrating!—before rummaging through his bag:

“Here, read this, Sanderval; it’s written in French and in Fula.”

Sanderval made a point not to flinch as he reached for the paper. But he finished reading it not with a sob but a mocking laugh; an involuntary and beastly sound that echoed long and loud through the valleys and river gorges:

“You’ll obviously never understand anything about the Fulas, my poor Ballay! Bôcar-Biro didn’t sign this; he wrote bismillahi[*] instead.”

The cognac, the mountain air, the joy of knowing his Fouta hadn’t slipped out of his grasp! And how did the encounter come to a close? With a single image forever imprinted in his memory: Ballay rearing his horse on the grassy slopes of Fouta and loudly cursing the Fulas, the kings of Kahel, the almamis of Timbo, the viscounts of Portugal, and every pain in the ass on earth.

That year the rainy season brought constant deluges and harsh winds, lightning and thunder. The fanatics and the superstitious claimed this was proof that Allah, purveyor of malediction and mercy, had finally decided to pour out his wrath on this Fouta of hypocrites and miscreants and punish it once and for all for its crimes and sins.

Three months of uninterrupted downpours and rumbling isolated the villages from the provinces, the provinces from Timbo, and Fouta from the rest of the world. Alpha Yaya’s emissaries took nearly three weeks to return, more often traveling by boat than by foot, for the rivers and lakes had flooded even the highlands. Though they proceeded with extreme caution, a man was lost in the swollen Téné. But the news they brought was good: Bôcar-Biro agreed to forgive his vassal. He would come to Labé as soon as the trails dried out. It was time for the Fulas to move beyond their nomadic instincts and clan quarrels, time to turn Fouta into a house of peace, where love and friendship, trust and a spirit of sharing would reign for all time.

But while they waited, the floods did more than paralyze the caravans of Sarakolés and the shepherds stranded in summer pastures—they suspended Fouta’s history. The collapsed bridges and muddy paths put the mistrust and old grudges, honeyed promises and bad intentions on hold. Both in Labé and in Timbo, the Fulas were as prudent and calculating as ever. Each saw the long knife the other held behind a smile and smooth talk.

The fonio saved from the catastrophe sprouted and ripened, sorghum blossomed, taro grew to full height, and ears of corn hung heavy on their stalks. The fine October sun reclaimed its territory and the Fulas returned to carding and weaving, harvesting and selling, maligning and moving to new pastures.

Then one sunny afternoon Sanderval was approached by one of his spies while he was supervising the peanut harvest with Georges and Mangoné Niang.

“I have two pieces of news for you, Yémé—a good one and a bad one.”

“Start with the bad one.”

“The Beafadas.”

“What about the Beafadas?”

“They killed your agent Bonnard.”

“My God!”

“Now listen to the good news, it will surely cheer you up: Bôcar-Biro took the bait. At this very moment, he is headed for Labé.”

He wrote a long letter of condolence to Bonnard’s family and immediately left for Labé.

That old fox Ibrahima was already in place, with his troops gathered by the city’s eastern gate. He was right—they could take no chances this time. The acolytes’ armies had to lend their full weight to Kahel’s army, along with every soldier, bearer, scout, bullet, and arrow available.

The biggest trap in the history of Fouta was set around the Kahel plateau.

The almami’s noisy cortege was reported near Bhouria, then Porédaka, Sankaréla, Fogoumba…and finally in Mâci, a day’s journey from Kahel.

The almami trod this last village with the foot of bad luck, as the Fulas would say. For soon the world was turned upside down and events rushed forth in a chaotic tumult no one had anticipated. Before the next day’s evening prayer, Fouta’s fate had been changed forever.

Bôcar-Biro’s spies, who were waiting for him at the entrance to the village, told him what was afoot in Kahel. He had planned to stop there for two days, long enough to get a feel for where the notables stood and allow his troops to gather their strength, but decided to leave the next day at dawn. As a good Sorya warrior, he only needed a flash of inspiration to master the situation and decide on his riposte. He had ten times fewer men than his opponents. No matter, he had faced the same odds at Bantignel and Petteh Djiga; in the first case he had managed to escape and in the second he had roundly defeated the enemy. Here’s what he would do: divide his army in three unequal parts. The smallest would head straight to Kahel to serve as bait, the other two would swoop east and west to sideswipe the enemy. Having crafted this plan and carefully stored it away in his mind, he went to his quarters as if nothing was amiss and enjoyed a copious plate of doe meat with fonio and millet. After dinner, he said his evening prayer and fell directly to sleep.

He did not suspect death was closing in on him and that the kingdom of his ancestors was on the verge of collapse.

In the middle of the night, a messenger sent by his mother woke him to tell him the most terrifying news ever to reach the ear of an almami: the French army had just occupied Timbo.

Three columns of infantrymen had just converged on his capital—one from Dubréka, one from Siguiri, one from Kayes. His mother had fled, but all the other notables were in captivity and the French colors floated over his palace as if they had been there forever. He immediately mounted his horse and raced for Timbo. He didn’t know that the white men, furious not to have caught him in Timbo, were headed to Mâci, and that behind him the Kahel allies had quickly been made aware of the situation and were now shadowing him.

Fouta became the playing field for a curious game: the movements of three enemy armies, each one ready to make a deal with the devil to crush the other two.

The confrontation took place in the Porédaka plain: Bôcar-Biro and the French by the river; Olivier de Sanderval and most of Fouta’s army hidden in the woods at the top of the hill watching the battle without intervening.

It was over quickly—shells and cannons determined the outcome in just a few minutes. The wounded almami lost his eldest son, his horse, and most of his men. Yet he managed to escape and disappear into the gallery forest.

The echoes of war still sounded, but already someone could distinctly be heard crying:

“Catch that man! He wants to join his reserve army in Nafaya and recruit his friend Samory! Catch him, I tell you!”

Yet Bôcar-Biro contrived to get away once again. He was finally caught two days later, huddling in a blacksmith’s hovel. Beckmann claimed the honor of exhibiting his pockmarked head to the people of Timbo:

“Here is the horrible face that made Fouta tremble! And this will be the fate of anyone who contests the governor’s orders!”

SO IT WAS THAT SIMPLE.

Five minutes of war and Fouta had collapsed. On the way back to Kahel, Olivier de Sanderval surveyed the landscape around him with eyes full of sadness. He had the feeling that the same cruel bitterness that weighed on his heart was crushing the trees and the hills. The country’s picturesque beauty seemed to have melted along with his hopes—the colors of the valley were less magical, the roaring of the torrents less poetic. His Fouta had slipped out of his grasp, his Fouta would never be the same. Alone and on the verge of despair, he traveled on with his head down, in no rush to get to Kahel.

“Did you hear, good people? They decapitated the almami! The sun still shines above our heads, yet Fouta no longer exists.”

Now he was on the outskirts of Fogoumba, distractedly listening to the chorus of mourners and the lowing of the cattle. He still had to cross the Téné and pass the Kébali plain and the piles of fallen rock by Diembouria.

In Porédaka, the allies had parted without saying goodbye; each went on his way as if returning from a hunt that had gone poorly.

Olivier had wisely waited for the battle to end before leaving the woods. But a French officer, seeing him arrive, had immediately given orders to fire at him. A counterorder from Beckmann had saved him in the nick of time. All he could do now was leave the battleground, trailed by the jeers of his archenemy—Beckmann had won and, more unbearable yet, had saved his life. He had headed for Sankaréla without paying any attention to the directions his allies had taken.

He rode along dejected, holding his bridle in one hand, with only three servant boys following him with his clothing, medicine, and supplies. He had been traveling for two or three days now and still he hadn’t reached Kahel—it was as if his pace had been broken, or even that the peaks of Kahel were gradually moving farther away after the disaster at Porédaka.

“My friends, Fouta has drifted away. A pile of dust carried away by the wind. La i la i lallahou. They killed the almami and his treasure has disappeared!”

People standing at the entrance to villages watched him drag himself by without saying a word. Those he met along the trail and on the banks of rivers turned away and disappeared like shadows in the dense undergrowth. The people were most certainly not happy with him. He wasn’t happy with himself either. In fact, he wasn’t happy with anyone. Fouta was becoming a strange domain where no one was happy with anyone. Bôcar-Biro was dead. That was what everyone had wanted, yet now everyone seemed to regret something, starting with him, Olivier de Sanderval. They had reached an outcome, but the outcome led to the abyss. Yesterday things were simple; today nothing could be counted on, neither pacts nor ideas nor friends.

A morbid sense of discomfort and doubt weighed on him throughout the trip.

“And do you know what, good people? The almami’s treasure has disappeared. They killed the almami and his treasure has disappeared!”

His path teemed with ghosts, the words he heard were addressed to no one.

He lingered in Kahel a few days to pay his soldiers and farmers, speed up the construction projects, and oversee the beginning of the harvest. But mostly he took advantage of this time to clear his head and gather his thoughts. Fear of the future was becoming more unbearable than insomnia. Everything was receding, everything was turning hostile or unknown. There was no one he could trust and he was out of ideas. Taking long walks on the moors and hunting for partridges was of no help.

This time Georges and Mangoné Niang had to fight harder than ever to pull him out of these long periods of withdrawal, filled with vehement and mysterious soliloquies.

“They beheaded the almami! What did they do with Bôcar-Biro’s gold?”

Yet he was not the kind of man to let himself get demoralized—at least he had not been. He was a buffalo, physically as well as temperamentally, that never hesitated to charge when danger was on the horizon; had he been born in Timbo or Labé, the soothsayers would have linked his soul to that animal. But now everything about him was going soft. Sometimes he was tempted by death. He thought of surrendering to the euphoria of the void and answering the call of the torrents roaring in the precipices.

“Who knows what they’ve done with Bôcar-Biro’s gold? Where is the almami’s treasure?”

An obscure prince by the name of Oumarou Bademba was hoisted to the throne. Governor General Chaudier came all the way from Saint-Louis to make it official…

News of recent events was as pitifully insignificant to Olivier as the chirping of the hornbills or the buzzing of the bees.

But reality does not stand being ignored for long. One Monday morning, three young riders arrived unexpectedly from Labé and broke through his lethargy:

“Alpha Yaya, Tierno, and Ibrahima are gathered in Labé, Yémé. They told us to come get you.”

He shook himself off like a man getting out of bed after lazing around all day.

He stood, called his son, and followed the young messengers, never once suspecting he would never see Kahel again.

In Labé, they all looked like his enemies. When he arrived, Tierno turned away and Ibrahima pretended to chant. There was no hint of anything human in Alpha Yaya’s eyes:

“I’ve just learned that a certain Bonnassiès is arriving to take command of the Labé post. The Labé post! I’ll greet him with my rifle, Yémé! I haven’t ripped my land out of Timbo’s claws to give it to the white man. Who in God’s name do you people think you are?”

Tierno was uncharacteristically hotheaded:

“I’ll do the same in Timbi-Touni!”

“It’s too late, far too late, kinsmen. I had warned you,” Ibrahima’s horrible voice rasped. “Allahu akbar, the lightning bolt I feared is the very one that struck. Cursed, cursed, cursed era!”

“Your infantrymen cross my land without even asking my permission,” Tierno continued.

“‘Your’? Why ‘ your ’?” Sanderval replied, indignant.

“They are your brothers, Yémé! White men like you!”

This torture lasted for an hour before Olivier finally exploded too: “Why don’t you talk to Ballay, you dishonest and unbearable shepherds! He’s the governor! He’s the white man! I’m a Fula, a Fula just like you!”

“Oh yes? When it rains, you’re white, when it’s sunny, you’re black, and when it’s windy, you’re no one at all. I know this kind of animal, it’s called a chameleon, it’s called a chameleon. I should have crushed you with my foot the day we met,” roared Alpha Yaya.

Sensing things were becoming dangerously inflamed, Tierno returned to the cool demeanor with which the white man was familiar:

“Patience, kinsmen, patience! What good can it possibly do us to yell at each other? We’ve already descended far enough into the darkness without further closing the door. What we need is a solution and the solution is in your hands, Yémé. Go to Conakry and talk to Ballay.”

“To Ballay? What in heaven’s name do you want me to say to him?”

“Tell him, tell the people of your race to respect their commitments: friendship and trade, nothing else.”

“Otherwise we’ll pick up our guns. Tell the governor this: let him take care of his business in Conakry and we’ll take care of Fouta’s business. Let him just send us his fabrics and pearls and he’ll get cowhides and wax in exchange. Can you make him understand that?”

“I’ll try, Alpha Yaya, but in their eyes I am a Fula.”

“And are you truly?”

“You’ll never believe me, but hurtling down your hills, stuffing myself with fonio and curdled milk, cheating and lying, and breathing in the dirty ways of you skittish, petty nobles has had its effect…But that only concerns me. Don’t believe me if you wish, but I too am a Fula. And the worst is that I rather like it!”

Tierno looked away. Ibrahima stopped sniffling. Alpha Yaya sighed deeply, then cleared his throat, as if to free his voice of the grime of anger and resentment, and extended his hand to the white man:

“Do you remember what I told you near the river, Yémé?”

“You told me: ‘This is the morning for good omens. Be my friend, stranger!’”

“Well, Yémé, come what may, those words will always hold true.”

With that they parted. Our two white men were housed in an outbuilding of the palace and a sheep was slaughtered in their honor. The next morning they were escorted to the Kokolo River. But as they said their goodbyes, Alpha Yaya resumed the terrifying appearance of a king:

“Listen, Yémé, if the whites take Fouta, I will go to war with them. Never forget that, Yémé!”

He headed straight for Conakry without stopping in Kahel. Tierno was right, he had to speak to Ballay, and as soon as possible. He should have realized that the instant the battle of Porédaka came to an end. Except that at that moment his dulled mind had been unable to see the obvious. Bôcar-Biro’s death left so many things hanging. Would Fouta become a protectorate? A colony? Would it be autonomous, or integrated into French Guinea, Senegal, or Sudan? And what about his treaties? He had to hurry. He had to reach Conakry before Ballay was called to Saint-Louis or some distant province. He had to persuade him to treat the Fula princes carefully to avoid catastrophe, especially now that that fool Beckmann’s clumsiness had put the panther Alpha Yaya on the alert.

“If the whites take over Fouta, I will go to war with them!”

Alpha Yaya’s threats could never be taken lightly.

Terror reigned in Tianguel, his first stop after the cliffs of Guémé-Sangan. No one dared to go out at night. “A witch is haunting the area,” the village chief told him deadly serious.

“You Fulas with your tall tales!”

“This is no lie, Yémé. I saw her with my own eyes, with her wild hair and bloodshot eyes. You can see for yourself by the fountain-with-reeds, that’s where she’s been sighted roaming around.”

“I have better things to do; I need to check my itinerary and rest my tired old legs for tomorrow’s challenges. We need to cross the Konkouré and I’ve heard it’s flooded.”

But the next day, as he passed the fountain-with-reeds at the head of his small column, he witnessed a scene so profoundly revolting that his sunshade simply dropped out of his hands. A horde of overexcited boys was throwing stones at a poor woman dressed in rags, covered in sores, her nostrils clogged with snot.

“Get out of here, old witch!”

He tore a switch out of the brush and chased the children away, then turned to the unfortunate woman to help her up. At that moment, a terrible chill shot up his spine and froze him in place. He took a deep breath and managed to cry out:

“Dalanda!”

“Yémé!”

There was no doubt about it, it was really her. Her decline had not yet made her unrecognizable. She still had that pretty copper skin tone, the sparkling eyes, and a divine figure:

“Take me with you, Yémé! Dion-Koïn is dead. His half brother inherited everything: the throne, the cattle, the women.”

“Did he chase you out?”

“He says I’m too old; he says I never had any children. Take me with you, Yémé!”

He looked at her rags, her blood-clotted nostrils, and the big bruise in the center of her forehead.

“Take me with you, Yémé!”

He turned to his porters, opened a couple of crates, and piled amber and coral in her arms.

“Please, Yémé, take me with you!”

He did not know what to do. He went back to the crates and returned with chocolate:

“This is Marquis chocolate,” he specified, overcome by the poor woman’s shivers. “Do you still like Marquis?”

Remembering Georges was with him only added to his confusion.

“Who is that madwoman, Papa?”

“She’s…as you said, she’s a madwoman. A madwoman I knew years ago who is getting madder and madder…Let’s move!” He strode to the head of the column. He did not dare to look back at Dalanda, but her voice pursued him:

“Take me with you, Yémé, take me with you!”

He marched all day long without saying a word, trying to avoid his son’s gaze and fend off the tide of dark thoughts washing over his mind and threatening to submerge him. His barriers were being breached from every angle. Despite his best efforts to hold on to the most joyous memories of his unusual life, he couldn’t prevent his will from flagging. Dalanda’s decrepitude not only spelled out the impossibility of love, it also announced the end of a dream—the limits of the Absolute, to put it in his language.

Dusk caught up with them before they crossed the river. The Konkouré hadn’t dropped with the beginning of the dry season; it was impossible to cross with night already upon them. They camped in a clearing, protected from the riverbank sludge by a laterite embankment.

The aftereffects were as devastating as those of the poisoned dinner in Sokotoro. He sank into a deep sleep the moment he took off his boots. But he woke in the middle of the night, driven to panic by nightmares and gasping for air like a suffocating animal. He stumbled out of the tent, his hands clutching at his chest, howling as if he were going to spit out his lungs:

“I need…air! Georges…please…air!”

His son struggled to calm him and lead him back to bed. He mopped his brow, massaged his chest, and rifled through the medicine chest for lozenges and lotions. Order was restored. It must have been a day of miracles, because Olivier immediately returned to a deep sleep. The trip proceeded without a hitch, apart from the usual falls, stiff joints, and inevitable stomach ailments. The moment he reached Conakry, he made for the governor’s palace. He found Ballay in his office nervously going over his files with his ruler in hand as always. They greeted each other quickly, without warmth, and wasted no time on pleasantries:

“Ah, good old Sanderval. I don’t particularly care for your company, but I’d rather have you here, right beside me, than out there in your elusive Fouta.”

“Why, that’s nearly a sign of respect, Governor!”

“Very well, what brings you here?”

“What a question! To think I was expecting you to invite me to come by for a talk.”

“About Fouta’s future? Fouta’s future no longer concerns you.”

Everything that had happened had been for naught—the two men remained diametrically opposed to one another. The conversation soon resumed its polemical accents and passionate tone. Olivier de Sanderval tried to make Ballay comprehend that Fouta had to remain autonomous and that France could durably establish itself in the region by allying itself with men like Alpha Yaya. France should help the king of Labé get out from under Timbo’s thumb rather than drive him to resistance. Ballay, on the contrary, wanted to incorporate the country into his colony. He planned on reducing Timbo’s power. There would no longer be one almami but two: one in Timbo and one in Dabola. As for the province of Labé, he intended to break it into five pieces.

“Each of these Fulas will have his own kingdom; that way everyone will be happy.”

As for Sanderval’s treaties, they were off the table for good. Generous and eternal France would grant him five thousand hectares of land in the Kolenté Valley in Susu country.

“In exchange, you have to forget about Fouta Djallon. I forbid you to return there.”

“Fouta Djallon is my home!”

“Fouta Djallon no longer exists, Olivier de Sanderval. We are in France, and here France is me.”

Olivier let the poor man break his ruler and huff and puff for a while before he left.

When he reached the courtyard where he had left Georges with their baggage, he found his son in tears. Georges told him that their property in Kâdé had just been ransacked. Nevertheless they loaded their trunks back onto the animals and headed back for the tortuous path to Fouta, followed by their porters and servant boys. Near Gongon, they were intercepted by a column of infantrymen headed by a young French lieutenant as smooth-cheeked as he was arrogant:

“I have orders not to let you by. Don’t insist or I’ll be forced to fire.”

“Is this Beckmann’s doing or Ballay’s?”

“It’s France’s, sir!”

He looked at his son as if to say, “We’re Oliviers! Let’s use our weapons and travel on!” But Georges sadly shook his head to dissuade him:

“Let it go, Father. We’ll come back some other time.”

BACK IN CONAKRY, Olivier chose to take quarters in his own place. His property on the promontory was ready for him. A handsome four-room tile house[*] with a cement staircase leading to a terrace platform, surrounded by a low wall, it had pride of place among the palm trees and mango trees. The kitchen was a small structure with a vaulted roof reminiscent of Fula huts and cubic Arab houses. A half-mile avenue lined with flamboyants and mango trees led from his home to the governor’s palace. He had the promontory leveled so he could install a thatch-covered terrace where every night he graciously invited the colonists to have a drink and a game of chess, and play the harmonica.

Conakry had become a pretty little town, distinct from the jungle, with brand-new avenues lined with single-story houses decorated with wrought-iron balustrades. There was a post office and a community hall in Boulbinet, a prison in Coronthie, a garrison in Tombo. Tax and public works offices had just been established. The colonists were preparing to inaugurate the cemetery and the public records office.

The European city sparkled proudly between the Temen and Baga hamlets, with its well-kept paths traveled by colonists on foot, pushcart, and three-wheeler. By now there were about four or five hundred Europeans, including many women and a few children. The members of this small community kept themselves busy fishing and hunting, playing boules, having aperitifs at the caravanserai, and regularly inviting each other to dinner.

Life in Conakry was the dreary humdrum of a tiny closed world. You ran into your neighbor ten times a day. Everyone bad-mouthed everyone and slept with someone else’s wife. You consumed your boredom in games of belote and your malaria in Pernod. These were the colonies; people didn’t like each other much, but they had to stick together to survive the hostility of the outside world: the Negroes and the jungle, the vermin and the boredom. The Sandervals fit themselves into this provincial life transported to the tropics, all slyness and promiscuity, where everyone knew everything, saw everything, heard everything. Their lives as solitary squires and their old bush habits hadn’t prepared them for this narrow existence, but they were delighted to find compatriots with whom to play chess, enjoy a glass of wine, eat a real meal, and discuss opera and philosophy.

To occupy themselves, they cultivated bananas and pineapples on the land they had been granted, while waiting to reclaim what was due to them: Fouta Djallon. But despite their supporters in Paris and their countless visits to his office, Ballay proved inflexible.

Three months later, Beckmann arrived in Conakry from Timbo, where Ballay had appointed him Resident. The governor flew into a rage upon receiving his voluminous report. Olivier de Sanderval was immediately sent for:

“A caravan was pillaged in Boulléré!” the master of French Guinea erupted. “Reliable witnesses accuse your men. According to these same witnesses, you are clandestinely circulating money and weapons for your friend Alpha Yaya. What do you have to say in your defense?”

“Nothing, Governor. No man can defend himself against a cabal.”

“Careful, Sanderval! Are you accusing France’s Resident-general in Timbo of being a liar?”

“Your Beckmann is not merely a liar, he’s also a thief.”

He stepped close to Ballay and whispered something in his ear, then headed straight back home. An hour later, an infantryman found him with his hair combed and his shoes on, as if he knew he were coming for him:

“The governor has asked me to take you to him.”

Ballay was waiting for him on the terrace with a chess set and a nice cold beer:

“Sit down, Sanderval. We can talk here without arousing suspicion.”

“Is he still here?”

“He’s taking a nap.”

He shifted a few pawns around and glanced suspiciously at Sanderval before continuing:

“Very well. Can you repeat what you told me earlier? And be sure you don’t make any mistakes.”

“I repeat that your collaborator Beckmann stole Bôcar-Biro’s gold. And that there is no doubt the reason he arrived unexpectedly from Timbo is to slip it over to France.”

“Watch out, Olivier de Sanderval. If your allegations are false, you will finish your days in a penal colony.”

“You like chess as much as I do, Governor, so I’ll suggest a little game: have the man’s baggage searched. If you find Bôcar-Biro’s gold, all the accusations against me are invalidated. If not, I’ll personally put the chains on myself so you can send me to the penal colony.”

“I have two good reasons not to believe your story: first, because it is totally unlikely, and second, because it is coming from you.”

“I’m only suggesting a game, Governor, a simple game that won’t cost you anything and will have the advantage of settling all our misunderstandings.”

“Very well, Sanderval, very well. This will allow me to confound you instead of poor Beckmann. Because if your accusations are false—and I know they are, Sanderval—I’ll finally find a way to get rid of you. And forever!”

Thrilled at the idea of finally enjoying his pretty little colony without anyone to bother him, Ballay had his collaborator’s baggage discreetly searched that very night. Of his ten trunks, eight were stuffed full of shiny gold. This was not what the poor governor had wanted, but there was no arguing with the evidence. He had no choice: he arrested his faithful Beckmann on the spot and sent him home bound hand and foot on the first ship out.

Relations between the two men improved notably. They started dining together again and organized hunting parties. Sitting on the terrace covered in dead insects’ wings, they would drink cold beer and talk about the colonies’ future like two old war buddies. Sometimes the mood got so convivial that Sanderval would let loose and recite Sully Prudhomme poems or read long passages from The Absolute. They laughed together, talked about Paris and the latest inventions—you would have thought they were friends. Then Fouta Djallon would rear its ugly head, that cursed name blurted out by one or the other, and it was back to squabbles and arguments and weeks of sulking.

Actually, Beckmann’s departure hadn’t resolved anything; they had merely learned to tolerate one another. So it goes: men feel they have something in common the moment they have to defeat the same enemy. This lasted at least a year before the rift between them became so wide and so deep that it could never be closed again. Everything started with an incident neither of them could have predicted.

Ballay took advantage of Samory’s defeat in 1898 to abolish Fouta Djallon’s status as a protectorate and integrate it into his colony along with the Mandingo chief’s land. He took a piece of jungle from Liberia to complete the unwieldy semicircle that would become present-day Guinea. He reorganized the locations of mosques and markets, as well as the caravan routes, convinced—with good reason—that a colonial geography was needed to usher in a colonial history. He did away with the provinces and replaced them with cantons whose chiefs were equals reporting directly to him. The king of Labé now had the same status as the grooms he sometimes appointed to represent him in the most remote districts.

Extremely satisfied with himself, Ballay whipped up a decree to explain his actions to his subordinates:

“The Governor of French Guinea, the most honorable, most eminent Doctor Noël Ballay brings to the attention of his colonized population the following: all kings and princes are invited to present themselves in Conakry…

Signed: the most honorable, most eminent governor who personifies France in this part of the world.”

The barkers scattered across the markets and streets, repeating the words of the most honorable, most eminent to the sound of the tabala and the fife. The new Caesar of the Fulas, the Nalus, the Susus, and the Mandingos prepared to receive his subjects’ allegiance. Alpha Yaya, whose taste for pomp and ceremony was known even to the Arabs, arrived with a suite of three hundred riders and fifty Mandingo griots chanting his hymn to the sound of the balafon and the kora. The splendid cortege drew curious onlookers from the gates of the city to the palace gardens. Ballay, seething with anger, locked himself in his office and ordered the guards to bring Sanderval:

“This was a plot, wasn’t it?”

“Come now, Governor, I didn’t even know that Alpha Yaya would answer your summons.”

“I know what I have to do, Olivier de Sanderval: I have to neutralize you, you and your underhanded Fula friends. If I take away their captives, upset their trade circuits, and build our cities on the land of tribes hostile to the Fulas, your gang of Fula aristocrats will vanish like smoke out an open window. What an arrogant mob! Especially that Alpha Yaya! Who does that Negro think he is?”

“The King of Labé. But who are you?”

“Get out of here! Get out of here before I bite you!”

And he set about breaking every ruler in sight.

From that day on, an insurmountable hatred stood between them and neither man made the slightest effort to overcome it. They stopped hunting together and playing chess and even saying hello. If one turned up at the caravanserai, the other immediately slipped away. When they were unfortunate enough to run into each other in the street, they cursed through their teeth and turned their backs to each other.

Then one fine evening, the ladies on the terrace at the promontory began to whisper as someone neared the gate. One by one, the men stood up and removed their helmets.

“Ladies and gentlemen, look who’s here…The governor himself…Ballay at Sanderval’s place, but why? My God! What will happen now?”

The governor slowly crossed the threshold, tapping his ruler against the palm of his hand, and responded to his subjects’ bows with a solemn nod. As he came forward, the men spontaneously formed an honor guard: grave demeanors, worried looks! The governor now stood thirty feet from his opponent, then twenty-five, fifteen, ten. He came to a halt with a screech of his hobnailed boots and declined the glass of champagne offered by a servant boy with a terse gesture:

“I have excellent news for you, Olivier de Sanderval. I found five thousand hectares of vineyards for you in Meknès. I guarantee that Morocco will suit you very nicely.”

“I do like Africa, Governor, but without the turbans and dunes. For me, Africa means megalith-shaped clouds, impenetrable forests, steaming marshes, primitive creatures—no, they are sleeping gods waiting for a sign to create a new Rome.”

“I didn’t come to listen to a delirious concert, Sanderval, but to settle an entirely practical matter that has been put off far too long.”

“Do you mean to say you’ve come to return my treaties? I always knew you’d come back to your senses.”

“I didn’t come to return your treaties, I came to ask you to leave.”

“To leave? I was here before you were. You are here thanks to me, Ballay.”

“There isn’t room for both of us here.”

“You’re the extra man, Ballay: the land belongs to the first occupant, as the Bible will confirm.”

“You are a mythomaniac and a pain in the ass, Sanderval! As long as you’re here, I will not succeed in building my colony. Whether you want to or not, you will have to leave.”

He snapped his ruler and stormed off, leaving an unbearably tense silence in his wake. He turned back a last time before boarding his three-wheeler and said in a voice muffled by rage:

“Whatever you do, never set foot in my palace again, Ai-mé O-li-vier!”

The guests hesitated, turning from Sanderval to the governor and back again, then exited in small groups, grumbling and looking back with disapproving glances. The only man to remain was Pénelet, the French Telegraph Company’s local agent, an old bachelor who was always a little drunk but a fine fellow, open-minded and faithful to his friends.

So the Sandervals had one person left to talk to, only one, in the entire colony of French Guinea.

This was the beginning of a long period of sorrow and solitude. Though he had often proved that he was a real Olivier, Georges cracked within the first few months:

“Do you think we’ll make it, Father?”

“Let’s give these poor people a little time. They will surely come back. They’re waiting to see what Ballay will do. You must not hold it against them. They are only human: cowardly in the face of danger and servile before kings.”

But the seasons came and went and no one but Pénelet, mosquitoes, and Negroes entered their home. They were invited neither on fishing trips nor to banquets. The military parades and Bastille Day balls were held without them. The ugliest rumors began to spread:

“Viscount? Don’t you know, my dear, that he stole his title?…The son of a Lyon industrialist? Do you really believe that? He comes from a family of coopers in Auvergne, that’s the truth!…And do you know what else? He’s a bandit wanted by all of Europe’s police forces…Well, now we know why he doesn’t want to leave.”

They were chased off the boules field and the grocer no longer accepted their business. At the caravanserai, only the Negroes deigned to speak to them. They had to rely on Pénelet to obtain sardines and oil, alcohol, and candles.

The ill winds of bad luck did not diminish over the months, coming down on the Sandervals’ home harder and harder, until finally their last link to the rest of the world was torn away.

Pénelet was enjoying a cold beer on his veranda after his afternoon nap, battling mosquitoes and heat with a fan, when a panther leaped out of nowhere and ripped open his throat.

“This is a sad day, Father, we have no one left.”

“You’ll see, my little Georges, they will come back. It’s impossible to hold on to hate after such a tragedy.”

Death brings sorrow and mourning, but it also serves as a chance for renewal and catharsis, he thought. Men take advantage of it to root out the evil, briefly rid themselves of anger and pettiness, forget their slights, and forgive grudges and debts to open themselves to another cycle of delight and heartache.

Not in this case.

The death of poor Pénelet did nothing to improve matters, nothing at all. At the same time that they dug his tomb, the grave diggers dug an unbridgeable trench between the Sandervals and the rest of the city. General hostility grew and the neighbors turned twice as fierce.

On the way to the church, the Sandervals walked to the left of the coffin. Everyone else stood far to the right. When the Sandervals opened their mouths to sing the hymns, everyone else was silent.

Pénelet’s service was the baleful peak from which the Sandervals’ agitated destiny began its inexorable decline. Every passing day added to their distress and wore away at the little they held on to.

The day after the funeral, Georges was bitten by a snake. A fire devastated their plantation in Kolenté. Six months later, a skeletal old man with a swollen belly came onto their property painfully holding his hips. He crossed the courtyard and went in without stopping, pulled up a chair, and sat down:

“Hello, Yémé!”

“What do you want from me, old man? If you want some change, go to the kitchen, the servant boys will give you some. If it’s for work, too late, they burned down my plantation. And given your condition…”

“I knew you wouldn’t recognize me, either.”

“Then hurry up and tell me who you are and what you want and then leave us alone. There is already too much misfortune in this home.”

“I am your faithful old Mangoné Niang and this is what life has made of me.”

“Mangoné! My poor Mangoné, don’t tell me this is you!”

“I have been sick for more than two years, Yémé. Some say it is my stomach, others the devil.”

“Oh, my good Mangoné…” A painful fit of coughing prevented Olivier from finishing his sentence. “What about our dear Fouta?”

“It isn’t doing any better than me, Yémé. Alpha Yaya[*] kept his promise, he has started a rebellion.”

The white man mumbled something and sank into a stupor. Georges coughed twice to rouse him. Mangoné searched for something in his bundle.

“Here, these are the last mangoes from your orchard, those I was able to save from the monkeys. Eat them, Yémé, they will remind you of Kahel.”

“You should have come to see me, my poor Mangoné! But it’s not too late, I’m going to make sure you get the proper treatment.”

“No, Yémé. I am going to Rufisque to die.”

“Then you’ll be treated there. I’m going to pay you, I owe you at least two years’ salary.”

“It isn’t worth it, Yémé. Just give me the boat fare.”

“What is man’s rank in the universe?” Olivier reread the sentence several times and spent the rest of the night solilo quizing.

After Mangoné Niang had gone to Rufisque to die, the Sandervals’ home grew more and more like a mausoleum. After the whites, the blacks! One by one, the cooks left them for their neighbors and the gardeners for the governor’s palace. The only one who refused to abandon them was an old Nalu who strained to bring the pot to a boil or clean the entrance because his eyes were bad and his legs deformed by rheumatism.

This was no longer a life, but an endless cycle of suffering and humiliation.

Anonymous letters and death threats came as often as the rains.

At night, people threw stones at their windows. Insults and professions of hatred were heard from behind the blinds. Monkey waste was left on their veranda, dead cats in their garden. Pénelet was no longer around to get their supplies at the grocer’s. They subsisted as in the good old days, on roots and tubers, game and wild berries, anything nature provided.

Unable to bear it any longer, Olivier de Sanderval resorted to his rifle to force the grocer to sell him a few crates of supplies. With this they held out for two more rainy seasons, then returned to the meager diet of the bush: berries, tubers, and occasionally the bland meat of a warthog or a porcupine.

With age and the brutal challenges he had so long endured, Olivier de Sanderval’s health took a dangerous turn for the worse.

The mysterious pain that he had fallen victim to in 1896 on the banks of the Konkouré burned through his poor chest: first once a month, then once a week, then once a day, and finally every hour. It began with a choking sensation, as if he had swallowed the wrong way. He would open his mouth wide and bring his hands to his chest, writhing in pain: “Air! Air! The…the…the win…dow! Open! O…pen!” But the window was never open wide enough, the veranda big enough, nor the beach windy enough. Sometimes he remained on the ground for a good half hour, bathed in sweat, gasping like an animal on the verge of death.

This went on for another couple of seasons before Georges reached the end of his rope. He forced himself to say the words that had stuck in his throat for so long and that his lips hadn’t dared to form:

“I think it’s time to go, Father.”

“Do you think so?” Olivier de Sanderval asked with the fiery but empty look of a warrior who could go no further.

“Yes. The odds are against us, given your condition.”

“But you, you will come back!”

“I promise, Father, I will come back.”

“You will continue the fight even if it lasts one hundred years.”

“Even if it lasts one hundred years, Father.”

“Swear it to me, Georges!”

“I swear, Father!”

On November 29, 1900, twenty-one years to the day after he boarded his first ship to Africa, Olivier de Sanderval was crossing the gate into the port when he heard someone call to him:

“I bet that white man walking ahead of me is called Yémé.”

He turned around and recognized Bôcar-Biro’s cousin, the very man who had poisoned him in Sokotoro.

“Is that you, Hâdy? What are you doing here?”

“I’m waiting for a ship to Tunis. I’ve decided to make the pilgrimage to Mecca. The world has been collapsing under the weight of sin since you arrived. And you, I assume you’re going on vacation?”

“Um…yes, yes…Yes, but…not for long!”

“When you return, don’t stay in Conakry. Go back to Fouta, that is your home. You are a Fula, never forget that.”

“You don’t seem to be the king of Sokotoro anymore.”

“I am a king in here, Yémé,” the man answered, loudly thumping his chest.

With that, he opened his sunshade and turned his back on Olivier with that lazy, hieratic gait unique to the Fulas.

While father and son walked toward the gangway, a group of colonists appeared from behind the great baobab:

“Goodbye, Viscount!…And bundle up!…Beware of glaciation!”

Olivier de Sanderval stoically ignored their laughter and boarded the ship supported by his son, his hand clutching his chest.

Soon the landscape blurred before his eyes. Conakry made him think of a chalkboard covered in pictures being erased one by one by a finicky child’s hand. The treetops and roofs sparkled briefly, then were extinguished like lightning bugs.

First, the curtain of bamboo and mangroves along the back of the island, then the majestic roof of the governor’s palace, then the harbor cranes and the branches of the mango trees…

The Loos Islands: Kassa, Fotoba, Tamara…Blanchel Island, Coral Island, Ile Poulet, Ile Fousset…

Leaf by leaf, one palm tree at a time, Africa slowly closed in on her secrets.

{ EPILOGUE }

BETWEEN JANUARY 16, 1901 and March 3, 1910, Olivier de Sanderval presented himself at the Ministry of the Colonies one hundred and forty-seven times. Despite his advanced age and poor health, he arrived in Paris one evening for his one hundred and forty-eighth attempt. The next day he decided to take advantage of the fine spring sun and walk to the ministry.

As he reached the Invalides, he had no idea he was just a few minutes from experiencing the seemingly insignificant incident that would permanently put an end to his dreams of kingdoms and Fouta Djallon.

He was in front of the gates to the ministry when he received a violent blow to the head. He spun around: it was nothing, just a ball that had slipped out of a young boy’s hands. The boy left the old woman accompanying him and ran over to reclaim his toy.

“Be careful, little warrior, you nearly knocked me out,” said Olivier de Sanderval. “You’re a cute one, aren’t you! Do you want a sweet? Here’s some chocolate, some Marquis!”

But the old woman’s unpleasant voice rang out:

“Come here, Jean-René. Leave the gentleman alone.” The boy picked up his ball and returned to the woman.

“Who is that, Grandma?”

“Hurry up, I told you. Let’s not hang around here. That’s…That’s the glaciation man,” she continued, dropping her voice.

He watched them disappear in the distance, overwhelmed by sadness. His legs went wobbly and his mind got muddled. He held on to the gate and let his defeated gaze wander over the entrance hall and the courtyard. But the dim picture of the constant comings and goings of officers and civil servants was soon replaced by a chaotic mix of images from his tormented life. He was seized by a profound feeling of disgust. He spat over the gate and left as quickly as a devout person flees a den of iniquity. He hurried to return to the hotel and asked for his bill, then hailed a taxi and boarded the first train available.

He never again set foot in Paris.

Old and ruined, he gradually retreated into writing The Absolute. But he was no longer content to expound on the Absolute—he wanted to work toward its accomplishment. Man’s mind was becoming worn out, he told himself, the world felt stuck, it needed a new religion. To this end, he created a new fraternal society, The Apostles of the Absolute. To head his society, he donned a red cape and adopted the solemn manner of a high priest and piercing insights of a scholar. All of Marseille’s mystics and so-called visionaries found their way to this strange congregation: amateur spiritualists, disappointed atheists and Christians, adepts of Zen and shamanism, inveterate rationalists, and lovers of Hindu philosophy. It was no longer a matter of belief, saddled with extravagant rituals and superstitions, but a matter of proof. In the early twentieth century, science had progressed far enough to prove through A+B that God existed. There was no longer any need to imagine the Absolute—the challenge now was to realize it.

The entire group went to work in the laboratory of the Clary farmhouse. They mixed fatty substances, boiled acids, and measured the variations in the density of tin based on an endless list of parameters. After this lab work, the high priest in the red cape would gather his followers in the library, where he had posted the following motto in plain view:

“The universe is not within the Absolute like a body in the void, it is part of the Absolute. The Relative is not in the void, it is in the Absolute; it exists, it lives, it dies based on the Absolute and through the Absolute: its movement, which is being, begins and ends in the Absolute. The Absolute continues itself, transformed into the Relative, into the Being that makes it up. No point can be empty of Absolute nor be anything other than Absolute, thus established would be less than that which imposes itself on our minds, to the Absolute of which we are already able to conceive higher than the Absolute one…”

In the first months, dozens of Apostles of the Absolute flocked to Clary. But the number of followers soon began to dwindle. Some gave up, weary of the concepts’ difficulty and the master’s behavior, while others were lost to the war. By 1918, only two remained: Monsieur Louvet, a spice merchant keen on Eastern philosophy who hoped to subject the complex metaphysics of Chinese and Buddhist wisdom to the light of reason, and Madame Naxara, the widow of a navy captain who had trouble occupying her long lonely days. Then Monsieur Louvet finally grew weary too.

This wasn’t enough to discourage Olivier:

“You’ll agree with me, Madame Naxara, that not everyone can attain the Absolute.”

“Of course, Monsieur de Sanderval, of course!”

“Good, now what were we talking about yesterday?…Yes, the dialectic of Relative and Absolute…You see, the Absolute has no quantity, nor volume nor weight…Nonetheless, if we accept that the Relative comes from the Absolute and returns to it, we could suppose that these measured qualities subsist in the Absolute, we could postulate that they are dominant in it. Do you understand, Madame Naxara?”

“I understand completely, Monsieur de Sanderval,” the poor woman would answer docilely, sniffling painfully and damp with sweat.

Every day he leaned on the windowsill in the library and watched for his only pupil. That morning, he watched for her until noon, but no one but the newsboy and the milkman came.

His chest pains and shortness of breath became more severe over the following months. The entire universe no longer held enough oxygen to satisfy his need for air. “Air! Air, please! Op…the win…!” They would open the windows as wide as possible but it was even worse than if they had left them closed. “It’s because of the chateau, the walls are too thick…It’s because of the living room, it is too narrow…” He had the living room extended to the first row of plane trees, then to the well, then to the fence surrounding the garden. It was no use: the good Lord’s oxygen had deserted those places too.

On the last day that he stuck his head outside, he leaned against the window, watched the birds frolicking in the plane trees, and grumbled the following between two painful wheezes:

“Progress is here, it will unavoidably make its way, nothing will be able to stop it. Too bad all that can continue without me!”

On March 24, 1919, between a short item announcing the suicide of a desperate man and another relating Bishop Lutoslawski’s motion before the Diet asking the Polish government for systematic action against Bolshevism, the Petit Marseillais published the following announcement:

“We are sorry to have learned of the passing of Monsieur Aimé Olivier, Count of Sanderval, in his chateau of Montredon. He was the son-in-law of Monsieur Jean-Baptiste Pastré, and though his advanced age had led him to retire from society some years ago, he remained a well-known figure in Marseille high society. He was a scholar and with an E.C.P. engineering degree of the highest distinction. His explorations made him one of the most important pioneers of French influence. We owe him the peaceful conquest of Fouta Djallon, the initial drawing of treaties with indigenous chiefs, and the beginnings of the first black army…”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tierno Monénembo is the winner of France’s 2008 Prix Renaudot, which is awarded annually to the author of an outstanding original novel. He was honored with the prize for his book The King of Kahel. Born in 1947 in Guinea, Tierno Monénembo was exiled to Senegal and the Ivory Coast before moving to France in 1973 to pursue a doctorate in biochemistry. He is the author of nine books and one stage play.

ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

Nicholas Elliott is a writer and translator based in New York and anywhere he accompanies his laptop. His background is in film, and he has done everything from writing and directing to ushering, and being thrown off a medieval castle by a deranged bloodsucker in the film Shadow of a Vampire. He is currently a New York correspondent for the French film magazine Cahiers du Cinéma. As a translator, Nicholas specializes in film, photo, and art books. In 2007, he shared a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship with co-translator Elizabeth Williamson for their translation of Michel Azama’s play Vie et mort de Pier Paolo Pasolini (Life and Death of Pier Paolo Pasolini). The King of Kahel is his first translation of a work of fiction.

[*] We’ll call him thus from the start, though he was born Aimé Victor Olivier and only acquired the title Viscount de Sanderval much later.

[*] Pistachier: a clerk in a colonial trading post.

† Toubab: a Central and West African name for a person of European descent.

[*] Rios: large estuaries running deep into the mainland, formed by rivers descending from Fouta Djallon to the coasts of Guinea and Guinea Bissau.

[*] The almami: the king of kings, the monarch of Fouta Djallon.

[*] Saint-Gobain made its fortune by buying the Olivier and Perret factories.

[*] Bôwé (singular bôwal): high grassy plateaus characteristic of Fouta Djallon. Touldé: tabular-shaped granitic hillocks.

[*] Porto (plural Portôbé): the Fula name for Europeans.

[*] Lougan: the vegetable garden generally found around huts in Fouta Djallon.

[*] Tierno Balêdio: nickname given Noirot by the Fulas. Literally: His Lordship the Black.

[*] Today, the former is the seat of the presidency of the Republic of Guinea, and the latter the Conakry museum.

[*] Adjami: Fula writing in Arabic script.

[*] Translator’s Note: bismillahi means in the name of God in Arabic.

[*] Destroyed and rebuilt several times, it now houses the Conakry museum. The hut is intact and the neighborhood is still known as Sandervalia (“Sanderval’s place,” in the Susu language).

[*] The king of Labé was arrested a few years later and exiled to Dahomey, then to Mauritania, where he died in 1912.

Table of Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

{ PART ONE }

{ PART TWO }

{ PART THREE }

{ EPILOGUE }

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR