Forest of the Pygmies(49)
At a gesture from Mbembelé, the musicians pounded their drums to announce the start of the event. At the far end of the plaza, the two guards were brought in who had been assigned to watch the foreigners' building but had let Nadia and Alexander escape right beneath their noses. They were pushed into the outlined square where they dropped to their knees, trembling, heads hanging. Kate calculated that they were about her grandson's age, maybe seventeen or eighteen. A woman, perhaps one of their mothers, screamed and ran toward the ring but immediately was held back by other women, who put their arms around her and led her away, trying to console her.
Mbembelé rose to his feet and took a pose: legs apart, fists on his hips, jaw protruding, sweat gleaming on his shaved head and naked athletic torso. In that posture and with the dark sunglasses hiding his eyes, he looked exactly like an action film villain. He barked a few phrases in his language, which the visitors did not understand, and immediately threw himself back into his chair. A soldier handed a knife to each of the young men inside the square.
The rules of the game were quickly apparent to Kate and her party. The two guards' sentence was to fight for their lives; their companions, along with their family and friends, were sentenced to witness that inhuman penalty. Ezenji, the sacred dance, which the Pygmies had once performed before going out on the hunt to invoke the great spirit of the forest, had degenerated in Ngoubé to become a tourney of death.
The contest between the two guards was brief. For a few minutes, they seemed to dance in circles, daggers in hand, watching for a careless move from their opponent that would allow them to strike a blow. While Mbembelé and his soldiers egged them on with yells and whistles, the remaining spectators were ominously silent. The Bantus were terrorized; they realized that any one of them could be the next to be sentenced. The people of Ngoubé, impotent and furious, silently said their good-byes. Only their fear of Mbembelé and intoxication from the palm wine prevented a revolt. Families were united through multiple blood ties; everyone watching the horrible tournament was a relative of the two young men with the daggers.
When at last the combatants attacked, their blades glinted an instant in the light of the torches before flashing downward. Two simultaneous screams rent the night. Both fell; one rolled about on the ground and the other landed on all fours, still clutching his weapon. The moon seemed to stop in the sky as Ngoubé held its breath. Long minutes passed. The youth on the ground shuddered a few times then lay motionless. The other contestant dropped his knife and huddled with his forehead touching the ground and his arms around his head, convulsed with tears.
Mbembelé stood, and with conscious deliberation walked to the ring. With the tip of his boot he turned over the body of the youth on the ground, then unsheathed the pistol he wore at his waist and aimed at the head of the other combatant. In that instant Angie Ninderera threw herself into the center of the plaza and grabbed the commandant so swiftly and so forcefully that she caught him off guard. The bullet buried itself in the ground a few inches from the head of the "victor." An exhalation of horror ran through the crowd: It was absolutely forbidden to touch the commandant. No one, ever, had dared oppose him that way. Mbembelé was so stunned by what Angie had done that it was several seconds before he could recover, which gave her time to position herself in front of the pistol, blocking a second shot.
"Tell King Kosongo that I agree to be his wife, and that I want the lives of these men as a wedding present," she said in a firm voice.
Mbembelé and Angie stared into each other's eyes, taking one another's measure like a pair of boxers before a match. The commandant was half a head taller and much stronger than she. In addition, he had a pistol, but Angie was one of those persons who have indestructible self-confidence. She thought of herself as beautiful, clever, and irresistible; and she had a bold way about her that helped her get anything her heart desired. She placed her hands on the naked chest of the despised commandant—touching him for the second time—and gave him a gentle shove, obliging him to step back. Then she dazzled him with a smile that would undo the most ferocious of men.
"Come on, Commandant. Now I will accept a drink of your whisky," she said cheerfully, as if she had witnessed a circus act and not a duel to the death.
In the meantime, Brother Fernando, followed by Kate and Joel, had gone to the ring and picked up the two young men. One was covered in blood and unsteady on his feet; the other was unconscious. They put both men's arms around their shoulders and literally dragged them to the hut where they were sequestered, while the entire population of Ngoubé, the Bantu guards, and the Brotherhood of the Leopard observed the scene with unparalleled astonishment.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
David and Goliath
QUEEN NANA-ASANTE ACCOMPANIED NADIA and Alexander along the narrow trail through the jungle that joined the village of the ancestors with the altar where Beyé-Dokou was waiting. The sun wasn't yet up, and the moon had disappeared. It was the blackest hour of the night, but Alexander had his flashlight and Nana-Asante knew the path by heart; she had traveled it many times to pick up the offerings of food left by the Pygmies.
Alexander and Nadia were transformed by their experience in the world of the spirits. For a few hours they had ceased to be individuals and had melded into the absolute of existence. They felt strong, secure, clearheaded: They saw reality from a richer and more luminous perspective. They had left fear behind, including fear of death; now they understood that, happen what may, they would not be swallowed up by darkness. They would never be separated; they were part of a single spirit.