‘I’ll explain tomorrow, for now just follow me, we need to find something to take back home. We can cross the river now, we’ve got permission…’
We went on deeper and deeper into the forest and when I turned around, Uncle Matété whispered:
‘Never look over your shoulder in the bush…’
‘But we’ll get lost, we won’t know how to get home again,’ I worried.
‘Have you ever seen anyone get lost in his own home?’
‘But what if it was a big house, like the white people’s castles?’
‘Well, the difference is, this is our castle, we know it, it doesn’t just belong to one family like it does in the white people’s land, it belongs to all the villagers.’
We came out into a clearing and heard a noise coming from the top of a palm tree. My uncle swung his torch towards it. It was a pair of squirrels, one on top of the other, absorbed in a courtship ritual which was shaking the leaves of the tree. The bang from my uncle’s gun made my ears pop. Both animals had been hit with a single bullet. Uncle Matété picked them up from the bottom of the tree and put them in his game bag.
A bit farther on, an anteater was curled up in a ball in the middle of the path. This species is renowned for its poor eyesight, but as soon as the torchlight caught him, he lifted his snout and tried to make a run for it. Too late: my uncle had already taken aim and squeezed the trigger. The bullet blew out the creature’s brains.
‘Right, we can go back now, that’s enough for this evening,’ he decided.
It seemed a long way home. It felt as though the weeds were slashing at my legs, and leaving my uncle’s untouched. I could hardly keep upright, and complained now of mosquitoes and other insects flying into my eyes. Some of these seemed to flash and then zoom in on me so fast I thought they must be shooting stars falling out of the sky. Uncle Matété told me to walk in front of him. After a few metres he noticed I was slowing us down. At this speed it would take us five or six hours to get back to the village. At first he teased me, calling me a town boy, then he lifted me over his head while I slipped my legs round his neck. My right foot rubbed against his well-stocked game bag, which he wore like a shoulder bag. Even in this more comfortable position I sometimes had to bend low to avoid the branches sticking out from the trees, and the little fluorescent creatures who must know I was just a town boy, the way they picked on me.
Back in the village I lay awake the rest of the night. I was in a sweat, haunted by visions of the hind and stag. I saw them standing there, the male with a human head, crowned with branched horns whose tips just touched the clouds, the female a little apart. The two of them spoke our language, and said my name. The pair had a fawn following after them now, and the little animal’s head looked exactly like mine! What’s more, he kept giggling for no reason, and his parents didn’t stop him.
I was up early next morning, at dawn: I ran into my uncle’s bedroom, while he was still snoring. He awoke with a start, and didn’t seem in the least surprised at my bursting in so early:
‘You’ve come to tell me about the hind and the stag! You want to tell me you saw them in a dream?’
‘Yes…’
‘Well then! Now they know you! How did they appear to you?’
‘They were with their child, and the child had my face! He was laughing like a mad thing, I don’t laugh like that…’
‘I’d expect that, the child was happy to see you, because you and he are one body. The hind and the stag weren’t just ordinary animals. The male is the double of your grandfather, Moukila Grégoire, and the female is the double of your grandmother, Henriette N’Soko. If I had killed those creatures when we were out hunting yesterday, your grandparents would be dead by now. Before you enter the bush you have to go and say good evening to the doubles, then they help us find our game. People who don’t respect this ritual always come home empty-handed, or get lost in the forest. Or not lost exactly, but they get turned into trees or into stones by the spirits of the bush. When you’re grown up, whatever bush you go into, remind yourself that spirits live there, and be respectful of the fauna and the flora, including objects that seem unimportant to you, like mushrooms, or the lowly little earthworm trying to climb back on to the riverbank. In our family we only hunt squirrels and anteaters, those are the prey given us by our ancestors, because the other animals, unless we are expressly told otherwise in our dreams, are members of our family who’ve left this world, but are still living in the next. Would you eat your mother, your father or your brother? I think not. I know these things sound strange to you, you’ve grown up in the city, but they are simple truths that make us who we are. Now, you mustn’t eat hind or stag meat, because even if it didn’t kill you, a part of you would disappear, the part we call luck or, rather, blessing.’
I gave a little cough behind Uncle Matété, as he stood there looking out at the Adolphe-Sicé hospital. He turned round and asked me very seriously:
‘Tell me truthfully: have you ever eaten hind or stag meat?’
‘No!’
‘That is a relief, nephew, you did listen to me, then! You can’t imagine how I worried about you!’
We go back into the living room. Since he arrived unannounced, I’ve nothing to offer him. In the kitchen I find three eggs, which I break and throw into a pan. I break off three bananas from the bunch he gave me. While I’m busy making the food, I feel his presence behind me.
‘Nephew, what are you doing?’
‘I’m making you something to eat.’
‘No, no, don’t do that… In any case, I don’t eat eggs, and you can’t serve me the bananas I gave you!’
At a loss, I suggest we go and eat out in the Rex neighbourhood. He turns down my offer:
‘I didn’t come here for that, nephew. I simply wanted to make sure you were all right, that you hadn’t eaten stag or hind meat in all these years. I introduced you to your animal double, the fawn you saw in your dreams when you were only ten years old. That little creature is still out there in the bush, he’ll live as long as you, or you’ll live as long as he does…’