The very essence of fury rose up inside his skull,
Awakening the genies of his catastrophic power.
In an ambush,
Njokè shattered, his spine broken;
Njokè sewn up inside a sack stuffed with stones
Before he was thrown into the Sanaga from the top of the great waterfall.
Let us sing of Njokè, let us praise him.
He has become more of a Lôs than Dimalè,
Whose fatal power he snuffed out,
For Njokè lives, oh sons of the Bassa people:
A pair of White men picked up a loaded sack,
The stuffed sack that washed up on the Pygmies’ beach;
The Pygmies swore they’d look after Njokè, the chosen one among the strong;
His father came home holding his hand,
Having offered three rams to be sacrificed to the Pygmy masters. . . .
Song, myth, epic poem. What could be more fitting to remember forevermore the daily facts, embellish and purify them, give them breadth and immortality.
All your daughters, Father, were made to learn the song by heart at the ceremony of your return. Women and children sang and danced. The young and old came together in their exhilaration. Yet, your parents seemed drained and distant. The faces of your closest family members seemed covered by a veil—and perhaps their hearts as well—while their short and furtive smiles alternated with equally short and furtive scowls.
No, really, Father, your parents were not happy.
• • •
Hearing that you had been officially recognized as the third Lôs of your generation and that you would soon be home again, my mother came back on her own so she wouldn’t miss the celebration of your new status. But she was not happy, undoubtedly because she could well imagine what her new life as the wife of a myth would be. And what a myth: ultra-powerful and an inveterate seducer besides. First of all, what should she do to rid herself of the unwanted rival who had entered the myth together with you, Father? But then, on second thought, this—the anonymous number, the “eighth” wife of Dimalè—would not be her greatest worry. Celebrity chasers posed a more serious problem, the entire swarm of curious females that would prowl around day and night from here on in. All the foolhardy, adventure-seeking minors who would arrive without delay, baskets on their backs and infants in their arms, claiming to have been seduced, invited, or deserted—and in her role as the first wife, mother, or stepmother of all the others, she would have to take them in.
She would never tolerate it. Perhaps she ought to leave right now with what still remained of those memories that were good, before the coming hell would erase everything from her recollection, including the happiness of a past when mad passion had bound you to one another.
Aunt Roz was not happy either, thinking of the waste.
Of the ten children born from Great Madja Halla’s womb, only two survived. As a woman and the eldest, Father, Aunt Roz had been raised to be your second mother, to do everything for the two of you. It was also because of you that she hadn’t been able to marry the man she loved, because he had never understood why she’d asked him to come and live with her at her father’s house.
Nothing like that had ever been done in Bassa country! A man who, rather than bringing his wives back to his village, would go and live with the family of one of them, even if she was his favorite? It would mean relinquishing his masculinity, his honor, his freedom. And wasn’t the woman who dared suggest such a thing to a man trying to be a man herself, thereby insinuating that he was not a real man? Wasn’t that an insult to be taken to the court of Ngué, where it could be punishable by death? For truly it was a crime, and the court of Ngué had to be heedful that no crime go unpunished.
Fortunately, the man had loved her very much and hoped to be loved in return, so that their devotion had wrought the miracle of sympathy: He did not take her to court. Nevertheless, love wasn’t blind enough to let them forget their respective responsibilities: He had to think of his male rights and she of her duties as the older sister-mother. They each thought the other’s love wasn’t strong enough but, swayed by their own deep feelings, they decided to understand and forgive one another.
In the end, Aunt Roz saw that if she wanted to remain true to her education as a woman of honor, she would always have to abstain from loving a man. And what is a sense of honor if not respect for one’s commitments, carrying out one’s share of the responsibilities through one’s own actions, no matter what the cost?
Thus she had to make do with a man who couldn’t be bothered with these kinds of considerations and who based his life on personal pleasure. His name was Ratez—the failed one—what a joke! She married him, and never had any children—what was the point? Her son-like brother was sowing his seed in all directions; not a year went by that one or two women wouldn’t come to deposit a child Njokè had left in their belly, not counting the ones my mother had every other year, regular as clockwork. Aunt Roz was married and the mother of this whole brood. She felt she had sealed her woman’s destiny.
So Aunt Roz could see the mess these new offspring would create, a brood that would fall on infertile ground; that would succumb to abandonment and abuse. The previous year, one of the women my father had deserted was thrown out by her own father after he’d badly beaten her just a month before she gave birth. She came to the village with her bundle on her head, her skirt wet from the waters of a premature delivery of stillborn twins. Aunt Roz wept and wept for a week. She started to drink palm wine and snort powdered tobacco, which flushed the pale skin she had inherited from Grand Pa Helly. Even her eyes turned red. Her husband Ratez took advantage of it by having her twice as much at night and every morning, too. Aunt Roz washed the sheets.
Grand Pa Helly wasn’t happy either. He was thinking of the sleepless nights he would have to devote to comforting my namesake in her anguish, the anguish you were causing her, Father. Whole nights in which he would have to come up with funny stories about children who were just as awful as you, but who saved themselves thanks to some miraculous feat because at the last moment they’d remember a piece of advice their mother, their father, or their grandparents had given them.
“There was Nzinga, mischievous to the point of silliness, but when a monstrous leper tied her up in a burlap bag and forced her to lick his wounds, she became aware of her flaws and learned such a hard lesson in obedience and respect for her elders that she turned into a model for the others. Barely had the monster ordered her to lick his wounds when she set to it, gently and seriously, humming a lovely song that cured him in the end. Then she discovered that he was actually a very handsome prince, bewitched by a sorceress, for which the only cure was to meet someone who would love him just the way he was. The prince married Nzinga, brought her back to his kingdom, and invited her parents so he could pay them homage. No doubt your son, too, one day will . . .”
“Yes, but Nzinga was a woman, and women always end up growing wiser, while men . . .” Grand Madja replied.
So Grand Pa Helly had to come up with other tales about male heroes who rediscovered the equilibrium they’d lost through their actions. How many stories would he have to invent, and for how many nights in a row? Would he manage to turn some of these anguished nights into nights of love, during the risky performance where imaginary tales merge with the storyteller’s wishes, and in the end turn his own head inside out? Perhaps an old man like him was filled with hatred for his last and only legitimate son, and wished him dead—something Grand Madja bitterly accused him of, Father, on days that he exploded with anger toward you. On the day of your glory, for which he sacrificed three huge rams, Grand Pa Helly was thinking of all the trouble you were bound to make for him in