Dense foliage of lianas and boughs protective of our secret ceremony.
• • •
My father does, indeed, come back, although in deep despair, and only three days after Grand Madja and Aunt Roz return.
He explains that he couldn’t keep his word to me in spite of his willingness to do so. In fact, he’s afraid he’ll never be able to keep it, because the court wants to deny him his paternity and demands that in the next few days he take us to a special institute for a blood test. If not, the police will come and get us and hand us over to our mother for good, assuming that his refusal is an implicit admission that she is right and that he has always known he is not our father.
“I swear to you, my little mother,” he says to me, “not only did I never doubt it before, but I’m still completely sure that I really am your father—yours, in any case. I won’t tolerate even the idea of any doubt, because I know it in the depths of my heart. You resemble me down to your very soul. Of all the dozens of children I’ve sired across the land, you’re the only one who awakens this feeling of certainty in me, and I find it diabolical that your mother’s family wants to destroy it.”
He explains to me that the test results can be contested if there is the slightest doubt, whereupon my mother’s family will make sure to have the scales tip in their favor.
“I don’t want to run any risk at all, not where you’re concerned, at least. You are my mother, my soul, the pride of my life, my only real hope for survival. I don’t know or feel for the other children the way I do you. I might be able to console myself if they were to separate me from them, but not from you. So I’ve found a solution: I’m going to put my blood into your body and then the test will have to be positive. Of course, this must remain a secret between the two of us.”
You knelt down before me, Father, and even so you were still taller. You asked me to swear I’d keep the secret. You seemed to be suffering, you seemed so frail, my heart was breaking to see you so unhappy, the victim of unbearable injustice. I hugged you tightly in my arms and for the first time felt really angry with my mother. At that very instant I thanked heaven that she was far away from me, for I could have been disrespectful to her and risked the wrath of God upon me, as Grand Madja Halla had taught me.
Yes, at that very instant I felt I inhabited Grand Madja’s skin; I was her namesake, after all—Halla, like her. I felt it was my duty to protect you as your mother, poor man. I told you that nothing could separate me from you and that I’d drink your blood; if necessary, I would bathe in it, or open my veins to infuse them with it, as you saw fit, provided that in the eyes of the whole world I be recognized as your daughter, unequivocally and forever.
“That’s good, my love. I knew I could count on you. Early tomorrow morning we’ll go to the river together for the transfusion before we leave for town, where the tests will be done.”
“Why not get it over with right now? We’ll avoid any possible problems in the morning: It might rain, or the authorities could come to check the number of people in the relocation camp, as they often do. I’m ready. . . .”
“You’re right. But we’d better wait. It’s a strange ceremony that might even seem unpleasant to you. First you have to be sure you’re brave enough and can withstand and truly want this transfusion. I want you to be sure you won’t regret it and, above all, that you won’t hold it against me later. If I hurt you, you must always remember that I love you very, very much and that I don’t want them to separate us. Will you remember that?”
He worries me with all this thoughtfulness. He doesn’t usually talk to me this much. The transfusion is bound to be dangerous. I recall the tales of sorcerers who drink the blood of disobedient and jealous children. I tell myself this doesn’t hold true for me and that, in any case, I’ll accept any pain so that my father and son will never have to suffer the way he is suffering now, here at my feet and before my very eyes. Still, I have one last question for him.
“So it will hurt a lot?”
“Not much. Perhaps you won’t feel any pain at all if you’ll just trust me and do exactly what I tell you to do.”
I can hardly sleep that night. I get up at the first cock’s crowing and slip outside. My father is already at the wheel of a jeep. I’ll never know what pretext he used to convince the head of the brigade to lend it to him. I wonder how he manages to have such a noble bearing even when dressed in a military uniform, although under normal circumstances these always look frightening to me. A double-barreled hunting rifle stands beside him and another very short rifle hangs from his right hip, suspended from a belt complete with bullets, just like the soldiers of the local command of our relocation camp wear around their hips. He drives off immediately. I’m happy and very proud to be by his side.
He quickly leaves the camp by the gate that comes out into the district’s main road and drives very fast. Then he veers off onto a road that has just opened, and is supposed to go to the Elephant Forest. The Caterpillar combines are parked on the side, obviously waiting for the workmen to arrive that morning. I’d heard about these machines, whose droning reaches as far as the camp, but I’d never yet seen them with my own eyes; absolute monsters they are, with gigantic blades and wheels taller than our car. Then we leave the road and enter the forest by a small path my father seems to be familiar with. He must know where we’re going. I’m careful not to ask questions or make any comments. I trust him, and I don’t want him to have any doubts about that or think I’m afraid.
The path stops at a dead end consisting of a pile of wooden logs. Apparently, an enormous, highly prized tree was chopped down and cut up into several pieces. They must be planning to use the Caterpillars to lift and transport these massive chunks. My father cuts a path around the log pile and parks behind it. We get out and continue on foot in silence. My father looks in every direction, stopping from time to time to listen. A thousand birds are singing. I’m trying very hard to distinguish the ones I know, thanks to Grand Pa Helly, Grand Madja, or Aunt Roz. Then we hear the sound of a waterfall. My father lifts me up and carries me on his back to move along faster.
He puts me down at the foot of another huge tree whose roots sink deep into the immense river and asks me to get undressed. I do. He hands me a small pagne to wear for the river bath, as is customary in Massébè. My father stands on the other side of the enormous roots and has also taken off his military garb and his belts with the ammunition. He, too, is wearing a pagne in which to bathe, as is proper. He places our clothes in a hollow of the tree and takes me by the hand, holding a small knife in his other hand. I say nothing, but, already thinking about the pain and imagining my opened veins, my heart is beating very loudly.
We go upstream along the river and reach the great waterfall. When the water is up to my neck my father lifts me up and carries me on his belly with my legs spread; they enfold him tightly. This makes our progress in the water a little more difficult because the current pushes us with great force, and I’m trembling both with fear and the water’s chill. We move forward until we reach a small waterhole between two rocks. A spray of water comes down on us like the pump that’s used to wash the cars in the military camp, but with much greater power. I’m afraid the water will carry us off, but my father plants himself like a tree in the riverbed. I feel his powerful legs gripping the rocks beneath us.
Now the water reaches up to the middle of his tall body, so that the lower part of mine is fully submerged as well. Still, the current weaves its way sharply between our two figures. I raise my eyes and look at my father, but he is gazing up at heaven as if in fervent prayer. The branches of the giant tree make zebra stripes, shadows threatening the milky white sky, the same color as the early morning clouds that whirl around softly and silently.
When my father’s eyes finally settle on me, they lock as if to close I don’t know what sacred door. He asks me to close mine and not to open them again until he tells me so.
“You must obey these orders strictly so that the blood transfusion will be successful,” he tells me somewhat breathlessly.
I’m dying with fear and cold, but never in