No, Grand Pa Helly was not happy at all.
The worst of it was that Grand Madja Halla wasn’t happy either, and with good reason, for the mother of a Lôs is like the mother of a boxing champion. The blows that were bound to pour down on her son’s head prevented her from giving free rein to her pride in his victories. Mothers would rather see their sons happy and cheerful, even at their apron strings, than dead and buried, covered by the national flag.
What greater Lôs would come and depose you, the way you had just deposed Dimalè? What affront, what shame, what dishonor would he make you suffer? She would be better off dying now while you were idolized and at the peak of your fame, even if it was disastrous. What would she do with her heart when the inevitable fall into the abyss ensued? She put her head in my mother’s lap and exhaled, keeping her lungs empty, determined to stop breathing, but my mother was not paying her any mind and didn’t notice. This indifference triggered Grand Madja’s lungs, and she told herself that if she were to depart here and now it would be the end of you, Father: No one else would devote such complete attention to her miracle of a son.
“My God!” she exclaimed.
She was shaking with horror, stood up, and went to her bedroom—where, Father, she began to pray for you.
In spite of the unspeakable agony, the ceremony was really lovely, and everyone had something to contribute.
So as not to blame himself later on, should things turn out badly, for giving blessings without believing in them himself, Grand Pa Helly delegated the task to his cousin and initiation partner, the Mbombock Tonyè Nuk. This man was dying with admiration for your daring and good luck (which he called insolence), although he considered them arrogant, Father. Uttering his blessings upon you, he asked that the power you had just snatched from the esoteric forces of nature be productive for you and for the entire tribe. He recited a series of highly symbolic proverbs, and concluded that, no matter what, you alone were responsible for deciding what to place in your bag, riches or rags.
Grand Madja forced herself not to meet her son’s gaze so that she wouldn’t cast a shadow over his happiness. She moved from a group of Mbombock initiates to a group of Kindak initiates, serving them kola nuts, kola bitters, flavored bark, and Guinea pepper—ingredients that, when measured in a particular way, are supposed to wrap the spoken word in very special power. People chewed them while uttering incantations.
In spite of the huge number of guests, Aunt Roz went out of her way to cook beautifully prepared dishes, as if she were merely making dinner for her husband Ratez. She took special care with the presentation, and every time she served a new dish the crowd gave her an ovation.
Even my mother joined the party! She smiled at all her known or presumed rivals, seating them affably and showing personal concern for each. She’d chat with one and laugh loudly with another. She exuded charm, and was so attractive that many of the guests couldn’t hide the fact they were mesmerized and captivated by her.
In the end, the sorry sight was you, Father! It happened when you saw my mother chatting warmly with your cousin Gwét; he was telling her how incomparable she was, assuring her she’d always be the queen of this family if not the tribe, that the men of your clan would never abandon her if you were to be foolish enough to neglect her. Had it not been for the presence of mind of Great-Aunt Kèl Lam, who immediately began to hum the praise song of your superiority, we might have seen you run after Uncle Gwét the way you once went after Uncle Ngan, bat in hand. Aunt Roz burst out laughing, took my mother by the hand, and led her away, saying: “Bravo, Naja, well done! Now that you’ve decided to listen to me nothing will throw you off anymore, you’ll see. Let’s go and have a drink.”
They went off together serenely, supreme in their complicity; and you left, peeved, forced to follow your man’s destiny. My apathy in the face of this male status, which had once impressed me so, came as a big surprise to me. I began to think that perhaps this status was no more than appearances. Might Grand Pa, my super husband, be right? Maybe I was in the throes of acquiring something finer than what a man had.
Perhaps it was because that day I was the only one to watch you without fear, without any specific attitude toward you, that you came to me and addressed me for the first time as one human being to another, honestly and openly. Or so it seemed to me, at least.
You asked about the school I’d just begun. You talked to me about White women and the Yellow women of the People’s Republic of China, who were involved in the same things as men: warfare, politics, trade, and technology. Some of them actually commanded battalions and flew airplanes. You told me that only the school of the White people would liberate Black women, because then they wouldn’t be compelled to marry and become submissive to a man out of habit.
“Take your mother, for example. She shouldn’t be in a position to need me; she is much too intelligent for that. But she believes the contrary out of habit, because that’s how she was raised. If you continue to be serious about your studies at the White school, you’ll acquire new habits and won’t need to slither around like a snake, the way she’s doing right now for no good reason.”
I didn’t understand what you were alluding to, but I remember that you said you would help me study at the White and Yellow universities as long as I passed all my exams without failing. You told me you’d be going away for a while, but that you’d come back in time to keep your promise.
I was so thrilled that I danced the Nding behind Great-Aunt Kèl Lam for the first time, copying her steps and her mysterious cries. She announced she had found her replacement, and everyone congratulated me. I don’t know why, but at the end of the ceremony I had the impression that it was actually I who had been honored more than my father, for my bliss was greater than that of all the others put together.
• • •
Because I wanted to know so much more about the Lôs, I still remember that you, Father, told me this by way of explanation the next day: “A Lôs is someone who, without any special training, seizes enough power and strength from the forces of nature to change the course of his life. He can speed up the evolution of things and people in time and space, and he can impose his will on human beings and on the elements. He can also slow them down, impose his own rhythm on time and people. For example, Dimalè, or ‘Catastrophe,’ as his name implies, really is a disaster for the ordinary man who runs up against him, because for the ordinary man the unexpected is always catastrophic. The ordinary man loves his habits, his tranquility, and his routine. The relatively exceptional man, however, who sees all of life as a pathway of initiation, is always interested in coming up against the unexpected. Catastrophe is the sign that renewal is underway. And the Lôs, the ‘Ultra-powerful’ who is necessarily exceptional, greets catastrophe gladly, for it will allow him to evolve.”
I then remembered that they said Dimalè had a genie inside him that gave him the power to impose his will on people ten times stronger than he. He would even put the village chief to work to carry out every one of his new desires: a piece of land he liked on which he wanted to establish new plantations, a new woman he’d seen somewhere whom he wanted to marry, a new friend with whom he wanted to join forces, even if he lived more than ten villages away. All the men who lived along that route would have to congregate, along with their wives and children, to install roads, lay out and dam up new paths, build bridges, work his new lands and those of his new allies. Obviously this was catastrophic, and turned everyone’s life upside down.
But Dimalè was generous enough to let the land of those he forced to work for him be cultivated by the collective members of these new communities. As a result, and in spite of the fear and humiliation of forced labor, everyone ended up by having a share in the interest; everyone wound up with large plantations, while the bridges and roads were beneficial to all. A whole new way of life was thus born from the actions of an ultra-powerful man named Catastrophe. It was the reason why, in spite