Forest of the Pygmies(37)

Alexander and Nadia had heard loud trumpeting and felt the thundering of enormous feet on the ground. But now the final act had begun; the nets had immobilized the elephant and the first spears had been driven into its side.





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Nadia's cry stopped the hunters with spears uplifted as the elephant thrashed about furiously, fighting with its last forces.

"Don't kill it! Don't kill it!" Nadia screamed.

The girl stepped between the men and the animal, holding her arms high. The Pygmies rapidly recovered from their surprise and tried to push her aside, but by then Alexander had taken over.

"Enough! Stop! Don't do that!" he yelled, waving the amulet before their eyes.

"Ipemba-Afua!" they exclaimed, falling to the ground before the sacred symbol of their tribe, which had been in Kosongo's hands for so long.

Alexander realized that the carved bone was more valuable than the powder it contained; even had it been empty, the Pygmies' reaction would have been the same. That object had passed down through many generations, and to them it had magical powers. The debt they owed Alexander and Nadia for having returned Ipemba-Afua was enormous; they could not deny anything to the young foreigners who had brought back the soul of their tribe.

Before he handed them the amulet, Alexander outlined the reasons for not killing the animal they had already trapped in their nets.

"There are very few elephants in the jungle; soon there will be none. What will you do then? There won't be any ivory to buy your children out of slavery. The solution isn't more ivory; the solution is to eliminate Kosongo and free your families once and for all."

He added that Kosongo was an ordinary man, that the earth didn't tremble when his feet touched it, that he could not kill with his gaze or his voice. The only power he had was the power others gave him. If no one was afraid of him, Kosongo would be reduced to normal size.

"And Mbembelé? And the soldiers?" the Pygmies asked.

Alexander had to admit that he hadn't seen the commandant, and that it was true that the men of the Brotherhood of the Leopard seemed dangerous.

"But if you are brave enough to hunt elephants with spears, you can defy Mbembelé and his men," he added.

"Let's go to the village. With Ipemba-Afua and our women, we can defeat the king and the commandant," Beyé-Dokou proposed.

In his role as tuma—greatest hunter—Beyé-Dokou could count on the respect of his companions, but he didn't have the authority to force them to do anything. The hunters began arguing among themselves, but as serious as the subject was, they still burst out laughing from time to time. Alexander felt that his new friends were losing precious time.

"We will liberate your women so they can fight alongside us. My friends will help, too. I'm sure my grandmother will think of something; she's very clever," Alexander promised.

Beyé-Dokou translated his words but was not able to convince the other Pygmies. They believed that this pathetic handful of foreigners would not be very helpful when the moment came to fight. They had not been impressed by the grandmother; she was just an old woman with spiked hair and crazy eyes. As for them, they could be counted on the fingers of two hands, and they had no weapons but spears and nets, while their enemies were numerous and very powerful.

"The women told me that during the reign of Queen Nana-Asante, the Pygmies and the Bantus were friends," Nadia reminded them.

"That's true," said Beyé-Dokou.

"The Bantus in Ngoubé are terrorized as well. Mbembelé tortures them and kills them if they disobey. They would do anything to be free of Kosongo and the commandant. Maybe they'll come over to our side," the girl suggested.

"Even if the Bantus help us and we defeat the soldiers, there's still Sombe, the sorcerer," Beyé-Dokou argued.

"We can beat him, too!" Alexander exclaimed.

But the hunters emphatically rejected the idea of challenging Sombe and listed some of his awesome powers: He swallowed fire; he walked on air and over glowing coals, he could turn into a toad; and his saliva was lethal. They got tangled in the limitations of mime, and all Alexander could make of that was that the wizard would get down on all fours and vomit, which didn't seem to have much connection with the powers of the other world.

"Don't worry, friends, we'll take care of Sombe," Alex promised, with an excess of confidence.

He handed them the magic amulet, which the Pygmies received with emotion and joy. They had awaited this moment for years.





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While Alexander was discussing tactics with the Pygmies, Nadia had gone over to the wounded elephant and was trying to calm it, using the language she'd learned from Kobi, the safari elephant. The enormous beast was at the limit of its strength: It was bleeding from the ribs, where two of the hunters' spears had pierced the flesh, and from its trunk, which it was pounding against the ground. The voice of the girl speaking in the elephant's tongue came from very far away, as if in a dream. It was the first time the elephant had confronted humans, and it hadn't expected them to speak as they did. It listened, finally, from pure fatigue. Slowly, but surely, the sound of that voice penetrated the dense barriers of desperation, pain, and terror and reached its brain. Gradually it grew calmer and stopped thrashing about in the nets. Soon it was standing quietly, sides heaving, its eyes fixed on Nadia and fanning its large ears. The smell of fear was so strong that it hit Nadia like a blow, but she kept on talking, sure now that the beast was understanding her. To the Pygmies' astonishment, the elephant began to answer, and soon there was no doubt that the girl and the animal were communicating.