In the morning we drove south, to the great forest. First, however, was the Kadeï River, which runs through the jungle (it is a tributary of the Sangha River, which flows into the Congo River north of Yumbi and Bolobo). In keeping with the operative local principle that a thing broken will never be repaired, our ferry looked like something fit only for the scrap heap. But the three little boys scampering around it knew exactly how to compel the monster into motion. The ferry: a huge, rectangular, flat metal box. Above it, a metal wire stretching across the river. Turning a squeaky crank, alternately tightening and releasing the wire, the boys move the ferry (with us and the car on board) — slowly, ever so slowly — from one bank to the other. Of course, this operation can succeed only when the current is sluggish and somnolent. Were it to twitch, to come alive, suddenly we would end up, carried off by the Kadeï, the Sangha, and the Congo, somewhere in the Atlantic.
After that — driving, plunging into the forest — sinking, slipping, into the labyrinths, tunnels, and underworlds of some alien, green, dusky, impenetrable realm. One cannot compare the tropical forest with any European forest or with any equatorial jungle. Europe’s forests are beautiful and rich, but they are of average scale and their trees are of moderate height: we can imagine ourselves climbing to the top of even the highest ash or oak. And the jungle is a vortex, a giant knot of tangled branches, roots, shrubs, and vines, a heated and compressed nature endlessly proliferating, a green cosmos.
This forest is different. It is monumental, its trees — thirty, fifty, and more meters high — are gigantic, perfectly straight, loosely positioned, maintaining clearly delineated distances between one another and growing out of the ground with virtually no undercover. Driving into the forest, in between these sky-high sequoias, mahogany trees, and others I do not recognize, I have the sensation of stepping across the threshold of a great cathedral, squeezing into the interior of an Egyptian pyramid, or standing suddenly amid the skyscrapers of Fifth Avenue.
The journey here is often a torment. There are stretches of road so pitted and rough that for all intents and purposes one cannot drive, and the car is flung about like a boat on a stormy sea. The only vehicles that can deal with these surfaces are the gigantic machines with engines like the underbellies of steam locomotives, which the French, Italians, Greeks, and Dutch use to export timber from here to Europe. For the forest is being cut down day and night, its surface shrinking, its trees disappearing. You constantly come across large, empty clearings, with huge fresh stumps sticking out of the earth. The screech of saws, their whistling, penetrating echo, carries for kilometers.
Somewhere in this forest, in which we all appear so small, live others smaller still — its permanent inhabitants. It is rare to see them. We pass their straw huts along the way. But there is no one around. The owners are somewhere deep in the forest. They are hunting birds, gathering berries, chasing lizards, searching for honey. In front of each house, hanging on a stick or stretched out on a line, are owl’s feathers, the claws of an anteater, the corpse of a scorpion, or the tooth of a snake. The message is in the manner in which these trifles are arranged: they probably tell of the owners’ whereabouts.
At nightfall we spotted a simple country church and beside it a humble house, the rectory. We had arrived at our destination. Somewhere, in one of the rooms, an oil lamp was burning, and a small, wavering glow fell through the open door onto the porch. We entered. It was dark and quiet inside. After a moment, a tall, thin man in a light habit came out to greet us: Father Jan, from southern Poland. He had an emaciated, sweaty face with large, blazing eyes. He had malaria, was clearly running a fever, his body probably wracked by chills and cramps. Suffering, weak and listless, he spoke in a quiet voice. He wanted to play the host somehow, to offer us something, but from his embarrassed gestures and aimless puttering about it was plain he didn’t have the means, and didn’t know how. An old woman arrived from the village and began to warm up some rice for us. We drank water, then a boy brought a bottle of banana beer. “Why do you stay here, Father?” I asked. “Why don’t you leave?” He gave the impression of a man in whom some small part had already died. There was already something missing. “I cannot,” he answered. “Someone has to guard the church.” And he gestured with his hand toward the black shape visible through the window.
I went to lie down in the adjoining room. I couldn’t sleep. Suddenly, the words of an old altar boy’s response started to play in my head: Pater noster, qui es in caeli… Fiat voluntas tua… sed libera nos a malo…
In the morning, the boy whom I had seen the previous evening beat with a hammer on a dented metal wheel rim hanging on a wire. This served as the bell. Stanislaw and Jan were celebrating morning mass in the church, a mass in which the boy and I were the sole participants.
Madame Diuf Is Coming Home
At first, nothing portends what is to come. At dawn, the train station in Dakar is empty. There is only one train on the tracks, which will leave for Bamako before noon. Trains rarely arrive or depart from here. In all of Senegal, there is only one international rail connection, to Bamako, the capital of Mali, and only one short internal one, to St. Louis, with a train running once every twenty-four hours. Most frequently, therefore, there is no one at the station. It is difficult even to find the cashier, who, reportedly, is also the stationmaster.
Only when the sun is already high in the sky do the first passengers appear. They take their places in the compartments unhurriedly. The cars here are smaller than in Europe, the tracks narrower, the compartments more cramped. At first, however, there is no shortage of seats. I met a young couple on the platform, Scots from Glasgow, who were traveling through western Africa from Casablanca to Niamey. “Why from Casablanca to Niamey?” They have difficulty answering. That’s just what they decided. They are together, and that, it seems, is enough for them. What did they see in Casablanca? Nothing, really. And in Dakar? Nothing much either. They are not interested in sightseeing. They want only to travel. Travel and travel. What is important for them is an exotic route, and experiencing this route together. They look very much alike: pale complexions, which in Africa look almost transparent, light brown hair, many freckles. Their English is very Scottish, meaning that I understand little of it. For a while, it’s just the three of us in the compartment, but right before departure we are joined by a heavy, energetic woman in an ample, puffy, brightly colored bou-bou (the local ankle-length dress). “Madame Diuf!” she introduces herself, and settles herself comfortably on the bench.