Impressions of Africa (French Literature Series) Page 13

  Fogar, still lifting his green clot, soon reached the animal, which regularly pursued its descent.

  Only the upper suction cups remained affixed, while the lower ones, detaching themselves from the pole, avidly seized upon the clot that the adolescent abandoned to it.

  With a greedy sucking action, the animal’s ingesting mouths, working in concert, quickly devoured the sanguine treat of which it seemed inordinately fond.

  The meal over, the suction cups adhered once more to the pole, and the creature, immobile once more, resumed its initial appearance as a stiff flag sporting unfamiliar colors.

  Fogar put his second clot near the fragile portico rising to the left of the blue flagpole on the edge of the bed.

  Immediately, the fringe hanging from the horizontal lintel began to stir feverishly, as if attracted by a powerful lure.

  Its upper spine was composed of a system of suction cups similar to the ones on the triangular animal.

  Various acrobatics allowed it to reach one of the stiles and descend along it toward the proferred delicacy.

  Floating tentacles, possessing life and strength, delicately gripped the clot and carried it to some of the suction cups, which, detached from the stile, feasted on it without further ado.

  When the prey had been entirely absorbed, the fringe hoisted itself by the same path back to the upper lintel, where it regained its customary position.

  The last clot Fogar placed in the container occupied by the white cake of soap.

  At once, we saw movement in the thick foam spread over the top of the solid, slippery block.

  A third animal had just revealed its presence, heretofore concealed by absolute stillness joined with its misleading appearance.

  A certain snowlike carapace covered the body of the strange creature, which, crawling slowly, let out at regular intervals a dry, plaintive hiccup.

  The reflections from the bed canopy took on particular vigor as they hit the immaculate tegument, giving it especially bright hues.

  Having reached the edge of the soap, the animal descended the sheer vertical slope to reach the flat base of the container; there, filled with impatient gluttony, it gobbled down the blood clot, then settled in heavy silence to begin its calm, leisurely digestion.

  Fogar knelt on his cot to more easily reach the objects placed farther from him.

  With his fingertips, he moved a thin lever attached outside the metal recess that immediately followed the cake of soap.

  At that very instant, a brilliant burst of light inflamed the sponge before everyone’s eyes. Several glass tubes, shot through by a luminous current, were aligned horizontally along the inner walls of the recess, which was suddenly inundated with brightness.

  Made translucent in the glare, the sponge revealed, in the middle of its quasi-diaphanous tissue, a veritable miniature human heart attached to a highly complex circulatory system. The well-defined aorta transported a host of red globules, which, through a series of infinitely ramified branch arteries, distributed life even to the farthest reaches of the organism.

  Fogar took up the amphora standing beside the recess and slowly poured several pints of pure, fresh water on the sponge.

  This sudden shower seemed to displease the astounding specimen, which contracted vigorously to expel the unwelcome liquid.

  A central opening, cut in the floor of the recess, provided drainage for the rejected water, which leaked onto the ground in a thin trickle.

  Several times the adolescent repeated the same exercise. Amid the electric irradiation, the droplets sometimes harbored glints like diamonds, owing to the perpetually renewed multicolored projections.

  Fogar replaced the amphora and picked up the cylinder with propeller lying next to it.

  This new object, entirely made of metal and of very small dimensions, contained a powerful battery that the young man activated by pressing a switch.

  As if obeying an order, the propeller, attached to the end of the cylinder as if to the stern of a ship, began spinning rapidly with a light whirring sound.

  Soon the instrument in Fogar’s hand hovered over the horizontal zinc plate, which was still balancing at the top of its column.

  Held downward, the propeller constantly fanned the grayish surface, whose appearance gradually began to change; the zephyr, successively caressing all points of the circumference, caused the strange disk to shrink in diameter and bulge like a dome; it was like the membrane of a giant oyster contracting under the effects of something acidic.

  Fogar, without prolonging the experiment, shut off the fan, which he put back next to the amphora.

  Deprived of wind, the edges of the dome slowly relaxed, and in just a few moments the disk regained its former rigidity, losing, through its deceptive appearance, all traces of the animal life it had just manifested.

  Turning to the left toward the other side of his bed, Fogar lifted the gelatinous block and placed it carefully onto the hundred jade needles planted vertically in the layer of cement; released by the young Negro, the inert mass of flesh sank slowly under its own weight.

  Suddenly, owing to the sharp pains caused by pricks from a hundred dark-colored points, a tentacle, placed toward the rear of the block, stood erect in a sign of distress, unfurling at its tip three divergent branches, each of which ended in a narrow suction cup facing frontward.

  Fogar took from the basket the three sleepy cats. As he moved, the shadow of his body no longer fell upon the block, which now showed part of the enormous silhouette of the wolf, appearing for at least the tenth time in the fibers of the vegetable screen.

  One by one the cats were attached by their backs to the three suction cups that held their prey with irresistible force, like the arms of an octopus.

  Meanwhile, the hundred jade tips were sinking ever deeper into the flesh of the amorphous animal, whose increased suffering was expressed in a rotation of the three branches, which began spinning like a pinwheel.

  Slow at first, the spinning accelerated feverishly, to the great distress of the cats that struggled helplessly with claws bared.

  Soon everything blended into a frantic whirl punctuated by a furious chorus of yowls.

  The phenomenon caused no movement in the ever-stable tentacle, which acted as support. Thanks to some subtle and mysterious hub, this sight was more powerful and interesting than the illusory spectacle offered by the Rotifera.

  The speed of the gyrations accentuated still further under the influence of the hundred jabs, more and more painful as they sank deeper; the violently fanned air produced a constant hum of continually rising pitch; the cats, blending into each other, formed an uninterrupted disk streaked with green, from which escaped their fierce complaints.

  Fogar lifted the block again and put it back in its original place.

  With the suppression of the pain, the remarkable spinning quickly slowed, then stopped altogether.

  With three violent shakes, Fogar liberated the cats, which he placed dizzy and moaning in their basket, while the tentacle with its three branches again fell inert amid the constantly varying reflections.

  Shifting to the right, the adolescent picked up the amphora again and poured on the white soap a certain quantity of water, which soon dripped in a shower from beneath via small openings drilled in the bottom of the container.

  Completely empty, the amphora was put back next to the cylinder with its propeller, and the young Negro firmly gripped the wet soap by the six flat surfaces of the slightly flattened cube.

  Then, backing as far as possible toward the head of the bed, Fogar, his left eye shut, carefully took aim at the three gold ingots, which he saw one behind the other in perfect alignment between the basket of cats and the carpet with its hundred dark points.

  At once, the young man’s arm uncoiled fluidly.

  The soap, seeming to execute a complete series of perilous jumps, described a slender arc, then fell onto the first ingot; from there it rebounded, still doing cartwheels, to the second gold ing
ot, which it skimmed for but an instant; a third trajectory, accompanied only by two much slower somersaults, made it land on the third massive cylinder, on which it remained balanced, upright and immobile.

  The viscosity of the object, added to the upper roundness of the three ingots, made the success of this feat of dexterity even more remarkable.

  After replacing the soap in its special container, Fogar continued his exploration and carefully picked up the delicate object built like a cage door in his left hand.

  Then, with three fingers of his right hand first wiped on his loincloth, he lifted the half-twig cut lengthwise.

  This latter object, used as a bow, allowed him to stroke, as if it were a violin string, one of the black horsehairs stretched between the two pillars of the small rectangular harp.

  The twig rubbed the string with its inner surface, on which a resistant coating, due to some natural secretion, made an excellent substitute for rosin.

  The horsehair vibrated powerfully, simultaneously producing, thanks to the effect of certain very curious nodes along its length, two perfectly distinct notes separated by an interval of a fifth; looking up and down the hair, we could see two well defined and clearly uneven zones of vibration.

  Fogar, changing place, ran his bow over another horsehair, which entirely unaccompanied produced a pitch-perfect major third.

  One by one, each resonant string, tested independently with the bowing twig, simultaneously rendered two sounds of the same amplitude. Harmonious or dissonant, the intervals all differed, giving the experiment an entertaining variety.

  The adolescent, putting away the harp and bow, grabbed up the two dark pebbles, which he struck forcefully against each other above the fat candle placed against the corner of the bed; some of the sparks generated by that initial friction fell onto the highly combustible wick, which caught immediately.

  The substance of the candle, its peculiarity suddenly revealed by the light near the calm, upright flame, looked like the porous and appetizing pulp of some delicately veined fruit.

  Within seconds, the atmosphere was rent by a formidable clamor coming from the candle itself, which, as it melted, imitated the sound of thunder.

  A short silence separated this first roar from a second, even more violent noise, itself followed by several low rumbles marking a moment of calm.

  The candle burned down fairly quickly, and soon the evocation of the storm acquired a marvelous perfection. Certain terribly loud claps of thunder alternated with the distant voice of the dying, prolonged echoes.

  The full moonlight contrasted with this convincing racket, which needed only howling wind and flashes of lightning to complete the illusion.

  When the candle, growing shorter and shorter, had almost entirely disappeared, Fogar blew out the wick, and peaceful silence was immediately restored.

  At once, the black porters, who had returned several instants earlier, lifted the narrow cot, on which the adolescent reclined nonchalantly.

  The group moved away noiselessly to the still changing lights emitted by the polychromatic projections.

  Now came the solemn moment to award the prizes.

  Juillard removed from his pocket a pendant cut from a thin sheet of tin, in the shape of an equilateral triangle representing a capital Greek delta; one of its angles bore a small ring, carefully twisted to sit perpendicular to the ornament.

  This trinket, apparently nickel-plated and hanging from a wide, circular blue ribbon slipped through the ring, constituted the Great Sash of the Order of the Delta, whose wearer would enrich the wise investors who had put their faith in him.

  Choosing as sole criterion the reactions of the Negro public to each of the exhibitions, Juillard unhesitatingly called on Marius Boucharessas, whose young cats, with their game of prisoner’s base, had consistently earned the Ponukeleans’ enthusiasm.

  Promptly decorated with the supreme insignia, the child came back to us proud and delighted, admiring the effect of the blue ribbon as it crossed his chest diagonally over his pale pink leotard, while at his left hip the gleaming pendant, catching the moon’s rays, shone brightly against the black background of his velvet shorts.

  Within the group of speculators, several cries of joy had burst forth from those who held shares in Marius, among whom a prize of ten thousand francs would soon be split.

  After awarding the Great Sash, Juillard had produced six other deltas, smaller than the first but identical in shape and cut from the same metal. This time, each attached ring, parallel to the ornament itself, was threaded with a narrow blue ribbon several inches long, the two ends of which bore slightly bent pins.

  Still impartially guided by the amount of native approval be-stowed on the various candidates, Juillard called forward Skariovszki, Tancrède Boucharessas, Urbain, Lelgoualch, Ludovic, and La Billaudière-Maisonnial, to affix to each man’s chest, without speeches or congratulations, one of the six new decorations symbolizing the rank of Chevalier of the Delta.

  The rest hour had sounded.

  On the orders of Talou, who, approaching with great strides, personally gave us the signal to retire, the natives scattered into Ejur.

  Our entire group returned to the special quarters reserved for us in the heart of the strange capital, and soon we were all asleep in the shelter of our primitive huts.

  IX

  THE NEXT MORNING, Norbert Montalescot woke us at daybreak.

  Our compact group hastily assembled and followed the path to Trophy Square, sensuously relishing the relative coolness of the morning air.

  Also alerted by Norbert, the emperor and Sirdah arrived at the esplanade at the same time as we. Abandoning his costume from the day before, Talou had donned his habitual chieftain’s garb.

  Norbert summoned us to the cabin where Louise had been up all night working. Awake with the dawn, he had come for his sister’s orders; the latter, calling from inside without showing herself, had commanded him to fetch us immediately.

  Suddenly, with a sharp tearing sound, a certain gleaming blade, partially visible to us, seemed to slice through one of the cabin’s black walls of its own accord.

  The edge, forcefully sawing the thick fabric, ultimately traced a large rectangular path; it was Louise herself who manipulated the knife from within, and it was she who, ripping away the cut portion of cloth, soon leapt outside, carrying a large and tightly packed travel bag.

  “Everything is ready for the experiment!” she cried with a smile of joyful triumph.

  She was tall and charming, looking like a soldier in her baggy breeches tucked into tight riding boots.

  Through the gaping hole she’d recently made we could see, scattered on a table, a panoply of beakers, retorts, and shallow basins, which made the cabin seem an odd laboratory.

  The magpie had just escaped and flitted from one sycamore to another, giddy with freedom and fresh air.

  Norbert took the heavy bag from his sister’s hands and began walking beside her toward the south of Ejur.

  The entire retinue, Talou and Sirdah at its head, followed the siblings, who moved forward quickly in the ever-increasing daylight.

  After leaving the village limits, Louise continued on a moment, then, seduced by certain combinations of hues, she halted at the exact place from which we had contemplated the fireworks the evening before.

  Dawn, illuminating the magnificent trees of the Behuliphruen from behind, produced curious and unexpected light effects.

  Talou chose a suitable spot from which to view the tantalizing experiment, and Louise, opening the bag her brother had brought, unpacked a folded object, which once set in its correct position formed a rigorously vertical easel.

  A fresh canvas, tautly mounted on its stretcher, was placed halfway up the easel and held firmly in place by a screw clamp that Louise lowered to the desired level. Then, with great care, the young woman took from a lightproof box a previously prepared palette, which fit snugly in a certain metal frame attached to the right side of the easel. The
paints, in carefully separated dollops, were arranged in a semicircle of geometric precision on the upper half of the wooden slab; like the empty canvas, it faced the Behuliphruen.

  In addition, the bag contained a folding stand similar to a photographer’s tripod. Louise grabbed hold of it and unfolded its three extensible legs, then set it on the ground near the easel, scrupulously adjusting its height and stability.

  At that moment, obeying his sister’s command, Norbert took from the travel bag a heavy case and placed it behind the easel; its glass lid revealed that it contained several batteries placed side by side.

  Meanwhile, Louise, slowly and with infinite precaution, unpacked what was clearly a very fragile item, which looked to us like a thick, massive plate, protected by a metal lid that fit its rectangular shape tightly.

  Reminiscent of the stiff arms of a scale, the upper part of the tripod was composed of a kind of widely spread fork, abruptly terminating in two vertical tines between which Louise could cautiously fit her plate lengthwise, setting it into two deep grooves intended to take a pair of carefully placed knobs, the whole designed to allow for easy removal of the lid.

  Wishing to check the arrangement of the various items, the young woman, blinking one eye, backed toward the Behuliphruen the better to gauge their respective distances. To her right she saw the tripod, to her left the easel in front of the heavy case, and between them the palette with its supply of paints.