Chapter VI: Part II: I (3)

Jean was conscious of a certain emotion as the country of sand and the white town came into sight; he had an affection for them, such as one always feels for places where one has lived and endured a long time. And then, in the first moments, he took a kind of pleasure in revisiting what was almost a town, almost civilisation, and resuming former habits and friendships. It was only by virtue of his prolonged deprivation of all these things that they acquired the slightest importance in his eyes on his return to them.

There is small demand for lodgings in Senegal. Samba-Hamet’s house had no new occupants. Coura n’diaye witnessed the return of Jean and Fatou, and opened the door of their former dwelling to them.

For the spahi, the days relapsed again into their former monotonous routine.

XXXII

Nothing had changed in St Louis. In their quarter the same tranquillity prevailed. The tame marabouts that lived on their roof clacked their beaks, as they sunned themselves, with the same sound of dry wood, such as is made by the cogged wheels of a windmill.

The negresses still pounded their everlasting kouss-kouss. Everywhere the same familiar sounds, the same monotonous stillness, the same calm of prostrate nature.

But Jean was growing more and more weary of it all.

Day by day he drew further away from Fatou; he was utterly out of conceit with his black mistress.

She had grown more exacting and also more malicious, more especially since she had realised her power over Jean—ever since he had stayed behind on her account.

Scenes were frequent between them. At times she would exasperate him from sheer perversity and spitefulness.

Latterly he had acquired a habit of striking her with his riding whip, not very hard at first, but as time went on with increasing violence. His blows sometimes left marks like parallel scorings on Fatou’s bare back—black on black. Afterwards he would be sorry and ashamed.

One day, as he was returning to his dwelling, he had seen from a distance a Khassonké, a big, black gorilla of a man, beating a hasty retreat through the window.

On this occasion he did not so much as say one word. After all, he was indifferent to anything that she might do.

He had come to the end of any sentiment of pity, or tenderness even, that at moments he might have felt. He had had enough of her; he was tired of her; disgusted with her. He kept her, simply because he was too lazy to get rid of her.

He had entered upon his last year; everything pointed to the end, to his departure. He began to count the months.

Sleep had abandoned him, a common sequence to a long sojourn in these enervating countries. At night he would spend hours leaning on his elbow at the window, breathing in with rapture the cool air of his last winter season—and above all, dreaming of his return.

The moon, in her quiet course over this desert land, generally found him there at his window. He loved these beautiful, tropic nights, the rosy glow upon the sand; the trails of silver on the gloomy waters of the river. Each night the wind wafted to him from the plains of Sorr the distant cry of the jackals—and even this doleful cry had come to be a familiar sound.

When he reflected that soon he would be leaving all this for ever, the thought seemed to cast a vague gloom upon the joy of his return.

XXXIII

It was several days since Jean had opened his box of treasures and looked at his old watch.

He was on duty in barracks, when he suddenly thought of it with a feeling of uneasiness.

He returned home, walking more rapidly than was his wont, and on his arrival he opened his box.

His heart felt a sudden shock. The watch was nowhere to be seen.... In feverish anxiety he ransacked the contents of the box.... No, it was no longer there!...

Fatou was humming a tune with an air of indifference, watching him all the time out of the corner of her eye. She was threading beads; arranging colour effects for her necklaces; busy with great preparations for the next day’s festivals, the bamboulas of Tabaski, at which one had to look one’s best.

“You have put it somewhere else? Quick, Fatou, tell me.... I had forbidden you to touch it. Where have you put it?...”

“_Ram!_” ... (I don’t know), answered Fatou unconcernedly.

A cold sweat broke out on Jean’s forehead, distracted as he was with anxiety and rage. He took Fatou by the arm and shook her roughly.

“Where have you put it?... Come, tell me at once.”

“_Ram!_”

Suddenly a light dawned upon him. He had caught sight of a new _pagne_, with a pink and blue zig-zag pattern, carefully folded, hidden away in a corner in readiness for the next day’s festivities....

He understood. Snatching up the pagne he unfolded it and flung it on the ground.

“You have sold the watch,” he cried. “Come, Fatou, be quick, tell me the truth.” ...

He threw her on her knees on the floor in a furious rage and seized his whip.

Fatou knew perfectly well that she had touched a precious fetish, and that it was a serious matter. But she possessed the audacity that comes of impunity. She had already offended so many times, and Jean had so many times forgiven her.

Yet she had never before seen Jean like this; she uttered a cry; she was afraid. She began to kiss his feet.

“Pardon, Tjean!... Pardon!”

* * * * *

In such moments of fury Jean did not realise his own strength. He was subject to these fits of almost savage passion common to children who have grown up in the woods. He rained blows upon Fatou’s bare back, inflicting stripes from which the blood gushed, and with the falling of the blows his rage increased.

At length he grew ashamed of what he had done, and throwing down the whip he cast himself on his couch....

XXXIV

A moment later Jean was running towards the market of Guet n’dar.

In the end Fatou had confessed, and had told him the name of the merchant to whom she had sold the watch. He had some hope of finding his poor old watch still there, and of being able to buy it back; he had just drawn his monthly pay, and this sum of money should be sufficient for the purpose.

He walked very rapidly; he ran; he hastened to reach the market, as if, while he was actually on his way, some black purchaser were standing there bargaining for the watch, and on the point of carrying it off.

* * * * *

On the sands at Guet n’dar tumult prevails. A confused throng, composed of every type of negro, is gathered together, uttering a babel of all the languages of the Soudan. There, throughout the year, is held a great market, crowded with people from all parts of Africa, and every imaginable article is offered for sale—precious things, absurd things, merchandise useful and fantastic, the most incongruous wares, gold and butter, meat and unguents, live sheep and manuscripts, prisoners and porridge, amulets and vegetables.

One side of the picture is framed by an arm of the river, St Louis in the background, with its straight lines, its Babylonian terraces, its white limewash splashed with brick red, and here and there the yellow crest of a palm tree, erect against the blue sky.

On the other side lies Guet n’dar, the negro ant heaps, with its thousands of pointed roofs.

Close by caravans are halting, camels lying on the sand, Moors unloading their bales of ground nuts and their fetish pouches of wrought leather.

Pedlars of both sexes are crouched on the sand, laughing and quarrelling, jostled and trodden upon, they and their wares, by their customers.

“_Hou! dièndé m’pât!_” ... (women selling sour milk out of goatskins sewn together, with the hair on the inner side).

“_Hou! dièndé nébam!_” (butter sellers—women of the Peuhle tribe, with great, three-cornered chignons, ornamented with copper discs—diving with both hands for their merchandise into vessels of hairy goatskin—rolling it between their fingers into little grimy balls, sold at a halfpenny each—then wiping their paws on their hair).

“_Hou! dièndé kheul!... dièndé khorompolé_” (women selling simples, little bundles of enchanted herbs, lizard tails, and roots with magic properties).

“_Hou! dièndé tchiakhkha!... dièndé djiareb!_” ... (women squatting on the ground selling grains of gold, fragments of jade, amber beads, silver frontlets—all spread out on the ground on pieces of dingy linen and trodden upon by the customers).

“_Hou! dièndé guerté!... dièndé khankhel! dièndé jap-nior ..._” (women selling pistachios, live ducks, absurd eatables, meat dried in the sun, sweet pastes, devoured by flies).

Women selling salt fish, pipes, things of every description; old jewels; old dirty verminous pagnes robbed from the corpse; Galam butter, used for frizzling the hair; little old tails of hair, cut or torn from the heads of dead negresses, and plaited and gummed ready for use just as they are.

Women selling grigris, amulets, old guns, gazelles’ dung, old copies of the Koran, annotated by pious Marabouts of the desert; musk, flutes, old silver-handled daggers, old iron knives that have already been plunged into men’s vitals; tom-toms, giraffes’ horns, and old guitars.

Beggars and vagabonds, the dregs of negro humanity, sit about under the gaunt, yellow cocoanut palms; old leper women stretching out hands covered with white ulcers for alms; old moribund skeletons, their legs swollen with elephantiasis, with big fat flies and maggots feeding on the open sores.

On the grounds ordure of all kinds.

And overhead, darting down its perpendicular rays, burns one of those scorching suns that seem to be almost on one’s head, the radiating heat roasting one, like a brazier too close to one.

And always, always, the desert for horizon—the infinite flatness of the desert.

* * * * *

It was there, before the wares displayed by one Bob-Bakary-Diam, that Jean halted with beating heart. Hastily he cast anxious, scrutinising glances upon the hugger-mugger of objects scattered about in front of him.

“Ah, yes, my white man,” said Bob-Bakary-Diam in Yolof, with a quiet smile, “the watch that strikes! Four days ago the girl came and sold it to me for three silver _khâliss_. Very sorry, my white man, but as it was a watch that struck, I sold it the very same day to a Trarzas chief, who left with a caravan for Timbuctoo.”

* * * * *

All was over then! He must think no more of the poor old watch. He was overwhelmed with despair, heartbroken, as if he had lost someone very dear to him, through his own fault.

If only he could have thrown himself into his old father’s arms and asked his forgiveness, it would have been some comfort. Had the watch but fallen into the sea, or into the river, or in some corner of the desert! But to have it thus sold and profaned by that miserable Fatou! It was beyond endurance. He could have wept, almost, if his heart had not been too full of rage against the creature.

It was this Fatou who for four years had wasted his money, his dignity, his very life. In order to keep her he had sacrificed promotion; for her sake he had remained in Africa—for the sake of this ill-natured, perverse little creature, black of face and black of soul, all strung about with charms and amulets.

He worked himself up, as he strode along in the sun; her spells inspired him with a kind of superstitious horror, while her spitefulness and impudence, the audacity of her last exploit, roused him to frantic rage.

He returned home, walking rapidly, his blood boiling, his head burning, grief and anger seething within him.

XXXV

Fatou was awaiting his return in great anxiety. As soon as he entered she saw that he had not recovered his treasure—the old watch that struck the hour.

His aspect was so sombre that she thought he was probably going to kill her.

This she could understand. For if any one had taken from her a certain shrivelled amulet, the most precious one that she possessed, given her by her mother when she was a small child in Galam—she, too, would have thrown herself upon the thief and killed him if she could.

She fully realised that she had done something very terrible, driven to it by evil spirits, through her besetting sin, her inordinate love of finery. She knew perfectly well that she had been very wicked. She was sorry to have caused Jean so much pain; she would not mind if he killed her—but she would have liked to kiss him.

She was almost glad, now, when Jean beat her, because it was only on such occasions that he ever touched her and that she could touch him, pressing herself close to him as she pleaded for mercy. This time, when he should seize her in order to kill her, when she had nothing more to risk, she would gather all her strength and cling to him, striving to reach his lips. She would clasp him in her embrace until she was dead—and death was a thing of very little account to her.

* * * * *

If Jean could have interpreted all that was passing in that little gloomy heart, doubtless, to his sorrow, he would have forgiven her yet again, for it was never difficult to mollify him.

But Fatou did not speak, because she was conscious that nothing of all this could be expressed; moreover, the idea of this supreme struggle, wherein she would clasp him and embrace him and die at his hands, thus ending everything—the idea of this had a charm for her. She waited for him, fixing her great, lustrous eyes upon him, with an expression of mingled passion and terror.

But Jean had entered without one word, without one glance at her, and then she no longer understood.

He had even thrown away his whip as he entered, ashamed of the brutality he had shown towards a girl, and loath to repeat it.

He merely set to work to tear down all the amulets that were hanging on the walls, and to fling them out of the window.

Then he seized _pagnes_, necklaces, _bou-bous_, calabashes, and, still without a word, he threw them out on to the sand.

And Fatou began to realise what was in prospect; she divined that all was over, and was appalled at the thought.

When all her possessions were thrown out of the window and scattered about the square, Jean showed her the door, saying through his clenched white teeth, in a sullen voice that admitted of no reply, the one word, “Go!”

And Fatou went, with hanging head, without a word. No, she had never conceived a fate so terrible as to be thus driven away. She felt as if she would go mad—and she went, without daring to raise her head, powerless to utter a cry, say a word, or shed a tear.

XXXVI

Then Jean calmly began to put together all his own possessions, folding his clothes neatly as if he were preparing his kit bag. He packed carefully, having acquired unconsciously a habit of orderliness with the regiment. At the same time he hurried over the task, for fear lest he should be seized with regret, and waver in his resolve.

He found some small consolation in this terrible act of vengeance, this satisfaction afforded to the memory of the old watch. He was glad to have had sufficient resolution, and he told himself that soon he would be able to throw himself into his father’s arms—confessing all, and obtaining his forgiveness.

When he had finished he went down to Coura n’diaye, the woman _griot_. He saw Fatou, who had taken refuge there, cowering motionless in a corner. The little slave girls had gathered up her possessions from out-of-doors, and had placed them in calabashes by her side.

Jean would not so much as look at her. He approached Coura n’diaye, paid his month’s rent, and told her that he was not coming back. Then he threw his light baggage on his back and took his departure.

* * * * *

Poor old watch! His father had said to him, “Jean, it is rather old, but it’s a very good watch; they don’t make such good watches nowadays. Later on, when you are rich, you can buy a new-fashioned one, if you like, but then give me this one back again. I have kept it for forty years; I had it when I was with the regiment. When I am buried, if you no longer need it, do not forget to place it in my coffin. It will be company for me, where I am going.”

Coura had taken the spahi’s money without offering any comments on his sudden departure, with the indifference of an old courtesan who has outlived all interest in life.

When Jean left the house he called his Laobé dog, who followed him, his ears flat, as if he had grasped the situation and were sorry to go. Then, without turning his head, Jean went his way through the long streets of the dead-alive town in the direction of the barracks.

* * * * *