Hakim was convinced that nothing nor nobody could save him from Celanire.
And that’s why he took to drink.
And that’s why he became a regular at Njiri’s bar.
Only there did he feel safe. After having downed half a bottle of gin or absinthe, he began to reason with himself. How could he, a liberated young man, ex-philosophizer who had read the philosophers of the Age of Enlightenment, take at face value a load of superstitions good for ignoramuses? Okay, Celanire was a nutcase! Okay, she had the hots for him. But that was all. As for her scar, she was probably operated on for a goiter or some sort of hypertrophy of the thyroid.
After a few months his liking for alcohol had utterly consumed him. His regular evening visits to Njiri’s bar no longer satisfied him. He discovered a dive at Grand-Bassam, just steps from the sea, named the Fisherman’s Rendezvous. From early morning, mingling with the boozers of all sorts and chronic alcoholics, you could meet landlocked hunters of tuna, grouper, and whales who no longer set off to sea. Hakim liked the spot not because of its setting, which was somewhat sordid; not because of its alcohol, which was somewhat ordinary; but because of the conversation. The regulars never tired, in fact, of poking fun at the way the French spoke, dressed, and behaved. They would enumerate the girls who had lost their virginity to the district commissioners, the number of little boys abused by the priests. They ridiculed the orders of the governor, Thomas de Brabant, and the feats of the soldiers on campaign. And, what’s more, they could name the name of every senior civil servant, every high-ranking officer, who, before embarking at Grand-Bassam for his annual leave, stopped over at the Home, and could count up the number of nights he had spent there. According to them, two officers from Upper Senegal — Niger had almost renounced their career and become orderlies to the nurses at the Home. The Home was well and truly a bordello, and Celanire its madam. Once the treasure trove had been discovered, it would be like a volcano erupting. Just wait and see!
People noticed, however, that Hakim had changed. Those who worked under his orders were the first to smell his breath. The French merchants were horrified by his slurred voice and the mistakes in his syntax, which had once been so refined. His sudden change of look for the worse was a shock. He had never been a dandy, preferring a Muslim caftan and slippers to French-style jackets and boots. But he had always been washed, clean-shaven, and his hair oiled. At present his mop of hair was as thick and tangled as a fetish doll’s, and he bundled himself up in dubious-looking wrappers like an Ebrié laborer.
Kwame Aniedo was worried. The date of his examination was fast approaching. Alas, evening after evening, Hakim was too drunk to think about dictations, multiplication tables, and math calculations. All he could do was sigh and gaze longingly at his student with languishing eyes. He would stammer incoherently. On other occasions he cried like a child. Kwame Aniedo arrived at the conclusion therefore that someone wanted to harm Hakim. Out of respect for Hakim, who had made a “man of letters” out of him by teaching him his alphabet, he got into the habit of joining him at Njiri’s. Once alcohol had done its damage and Hakim was too far gone, he would prop him up to prevent him from collapsing into a heap and bring him home. There he would splash his face with water, then help him lie down on his straw mattress.
On that particular evening, many of the regulars could testify that Kwame Aniedo and Hakim had left the bar arm in arm well before ten. Hakim was sober and walking straight. A full moon was sailing in the sky. The buffalo frogs were croaking. Kwame Aniedo was counting on Hakim to teach him more about civics, which was his weak point. Instead of this, the schoolmaster started confiding in him. Once again Kwame Aniedo had to put up with hearing the old story of the great white colonial papa, the Tukolor princess maman, and the snubs Hakim had suffered as an illegitimate child. And yet, protested Hakim, the mixed bloods are the future of the world, which is in a state of miscegenation. Yes, multiculturalism would conquer all. Exasperated, Kwame Aniedo was about to withdraw to his room when Hakim started on a new chapter — the one about how he had been propositioned by Celanire. Kwame Aniedo couldn’t believe his ears. He had every reason to hate the oblate who had been the cause of the quarrel with his father. But no man normally equipped could reject such a creature. He plied Hakim with questions. What had he seen exactly?
“Go on, describe her dovelike breasts, the palace of her navel, the garden of her pubis, and the fountain of her delights. Did you drink your fill?”
Crimes between Africans arouse little interest. Genocide, pogroms, tribal warfare, ethnic cleansing — those people kill themselves and nobody says a word.
But this murder was an exception, for Hakim was of mixed blood, the illegitimate son of a distinguished colonial administrator who had served with distinction in Upper Senegal. The press had little trouble tracing the father: Robert Delafalaise, author of a remarkable anthropological study, the first of its kind in any case, Les Bambara de Ségou et du Kaarta. The incident was hotly debated. For those who opposed France’s colonial endeavors — and there were quite a few, to tell the truth — it was proof, one more, of the crimes committed by the “gods of the bush,” as the governors-general, governors, and district commissioners were called. When they were on a tour of inspection, they showed no respect for the local chiefs and demanded a droit du seigneur over the local beauties. If they got them pregnant, they would heartlessly pack their offspring off to a Home for Half-Castes. Hakim was a victim, nothing but a victim. For the defenders of colonization, however, this crime illustrated the dangers of crossbreeding, the savagery of those half-castes capable of exterminating both the African and the European race, if you didn’t watch out.
What exactly had happened that evening?
Only the mabouyat lizards clinging to the beams, the bats hanging upside down in the straw on the roof, and the toad squatting as usual on the threshold would, if they could talk, have been able to describe the approaching cortege of death. Kwame Aniedo had nothing to say, and for good reason. The dead are never asked to speak. Betti Bouah testified that after having reread a few pages of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Confessions, he had gone to bed early. Around midnight he had been woken by the noise of a violent quarrel. He was on the point of putting an end to the din when his third wife, who had just been importuned by a nightmare and was sharing his bed that very night, prevented him from doing so. There would be enough time in the morning to tell Hakim what he thought of him. He had therefore gone back to bed. Not for long. Half an hour later, the shriek of an animal having its throat slashed put the house in pandemonium. Terrified, the infants who were sleeping in their mother’s beds began to scream in unison. He had mustered four servants and, armed with a flintlock gun, had gone downstairs. The door to Hakim’s room was wide open. On the ground Kwame Aniedo was lying in a pool of blood, a Sheffield switchblade stuck in his belly. Stunned, Hakim was sitting on the bed, soaked in blood. Betti Bouah and the servants had grabbed him without meeting any resistance and called the militia.
After having rotted for two months in the jail at Grand-Bassam, Hakim was transferred to the prison in Dakar, where in a state of stupefaction he was unable to reason his defense. He merely repeated he was a harbinger of death. Mr. Rozier, the astute young attorney who had been requisitioned for the case, guessed his sexual orientation. Unable to get any information out of Hakim, he came to his own conclusion. Overexcited at the idea of Celanire’s nudity, Kwame Aniedo had probably got closer to Hakim and demanded a better description. Worked up by his proximity, his smell, and an excess of alcohol, Hakim had lost his head and hurled himself onto Kwame Aniedo. Horrified, the latter had drawn his Sheffield switchblade to ward off his advances. During the struggle Hakim had grabbed the knife and defended himself.