Who Slashed Celanire's Throat? Read Free Page B

except for a group of officials’ wives feigning affliction. The widow was sobbing noisily on the breast of a young stranger who was very black of skin and whose hair was not crinkled but straight, brushed into a chignon and twisted into a long braid as thick as your arm. Dressed in the European manner, a black silk polka-dot scarf was wrapped around her neck. Her full lips were painted mauve, her eyelids blue. Yet all this makeup was too garish, as if it had been smeared on by the hand of a novice. Thomas was wondering who she could be when she introduced herself: Celanire Pinceau, arrived the day before. He wasn’t expecting anything like this. The oblate, who was the talk of Adjame-Santey, looked like a hetaera. She simpered in a French, perfumed here and there with an exotic accent and punctuated with unusual expressions. Anybody would have been struck by her color. For she came from a remote French colony, Guadeloupe. She had lost both her parents, maman and papa, when she was small. So she had been taken in by the Sisters of Charity and raised under their care in Paris. She owed her entire education to them: certificate of higher education; diploma for general and religious instruction. And so on. And so on. She had always been at a loss to understand why for three centuries the missionaries had passed Africa by, sailing around the continent, hardly stopping, on their way to the Indies, China, and Japan. Fortunately, the African Missionary Society had been founded and set up a women’s branch. She had thus been able to fulfill her dream: to spread the Holy Name of God on this destitute continent. Thomas, doubting bynature, wondered immediately what she could be hiding behind this inane speech. Her eyes, which were burning into him, contradicted the platitudes coming out of her mouth. She couldn’t care less about Africa, evangelism, and her vocation! She had everything she needed to obtain whatever she wanted. Her voice turned beseeching: what was to become of her, now that her director had passed on so unfortunately? Was she going to be sent back to Paris? No, of course not, no, no, Thomas hastened to add. She would take over from Monsieur Desrussie. His mind was made up. He had not seen her references, but apparently they were impeccable. He would speak to the governor as soon as he got back. She could put her mind to rest!
    Meanwhile, summoned by the king, Hakim was entering Koffi Ndizi’s compound. Locked away in his private quarters, the latter was conversing through an interpreter with a man draped in a burnoose, a dress seldom seen in this coastal region: Diamagaram, a Muslim fetish priest, come down from Kong. When Hakim entered, Koffi Ndizi dismissed the interpreter, since the schoolteacher spoke perfect Malinke. Seated with the Holy Book open in front of him, Diamagaram had also made a cabalistic drawing in a tray filled with sand and was deep in concentration. He could see that evil spirits had recently set foot in Adjame-Santey, terribly malevolent spirits who had crossed over from the other side of the ocean. This was particularly surprising, since spirits never travel over water. They are frightened by this moving expanse inhabited by cold-blooded creatures, and you can hear their roars of anger and helplessness from the shore as they watch their prey escaping them. If they had set foot in Adjame-Santey, this meant they had mounted a “horse.” That’s the word for a human who obeys their every wish and who can be recognized by a sign. The aim therefore is to discover this sign, to find this “horse” and stop it from causing any harm, not an easy task. Diamagaram confessed that he had chased a “horse” in Bondoukou for months bearing a tiny sign on the body: two toes joined together. Getting the better of a “horse” requires extraordinary sacrifices. Not your ordinary chickens. Neither sheep nor even oxen. No, we’re talking albinos. Children