Forest of the Pygmies(60)
About them an unexplainable wind blew through the village like a typhoon and, with one blast, lifted the straw from the huts, the food from the banquet table, the drums, the palm arches, and half the hens. The night was bright with a lightning storm, and from the forest came a horrible chorus of moans. Hundreds of rats scurried through the square like a plague and immediately disappeared, leaving a lethal stench in their wake.
Suddenly Sombe leaped into one of the bonfires where meat had been roasting for the feast and began to dance on the burning coals, picking them up with his bare hands to throw into the frightened crowd. From the flames and smoke surged hundreds of demonic figures, legions of evil that accompanied the witch man in his sinister dance. From the buffalo-horned leopard's head thundered a cavernous voice shouting the names of the deposed king and vanquished commandant. The people, hysterical, hypnotized, chorused in return: Kosongo, Mbembelé, Kosongo, Mbembelé, Kosongo, Mbembelé…
Then, just when the sorcerer had the entire village in the palm of his hand and was triumphantly emerging from the bonfire where flames had been licking his legs—miraculously without burning him—a large white bird appeared in the south and circled the square several times. Alexander shouted with relief as he recognized Nadia.
The eagle had convoked forces that streamed into Ngoubé from the four cardinal points. The gorillas of the jungle led the parade, black and magnificent, great bulls in the lead, followed by the females with their young. Then came Queen Nana-Asante, glorious in the rags barely covering her nakedness, her white hair standing up like a halo of silver. She was riding an enormous elephant as ancient as she, its ribs striped with spear scars. Tensing was there, the lama from the Himalayas who had answered Nadia's call in his astral body, along with his band of fearsome Yetis in war attire. Walimai and the delicate spirit of his wife had brought thirteen fabled mythological beasts with them from the Amazon. Walimai had reverted to his youth, and was once again an impressive warrior arrayed in war paint and feather ornaments. And finally into the village trooped the vast shining throng of the jungle: the ancestors, and spirits of animals and plants, thousands and thousands of souls that lit up the village with the sun of midday and cooled the air with a clean, fresh breeze.
That fantastic light obliterated the evil legions of demons and the sorcerer was reduced to his true size. His bloody hides, his necklaces of human fingers, his fetishes, his claws and teeth, no longer seemed chilling, only a ridiculous disguise. The great elephant Queen Nana-Asante was riding swung its trunk at Sombe's head, sending the buffalo-horned leopard mask flying: The sorcerer was revealed. Everyone recognized that face! Kosongo, Mbembelé, and Sombe were the same man: the three heads of the same ogre.
The reaction was as unexpected as everything else that happened that strange night. A long, hoarse roar resounded through the tightly packed crowd. Those who had been convulsing, those who had been turned to statues, those who were bleeding, emerged from their trances, and those who lay prostrate got up from the ground, and they all moved as one, with terrifying determination, upon the man who had tyrannized them. Kosongo-Mbembelé-Sombe retreated, but in less than a minute he was surrounded. A hundred hands grasped him, raised him high, and bore him off toward the well of the executions. A bone-tingling howl shook the jungle as the heavy body of the three-headed monster fell into the jaws of the crocodiles.
?
For Alexander it would be very difficult to remember the details of that night; he couldn't write about them as easily as he had his earlier adventures. Did he dream everything? Was he caught up in the same hysteria that had entrapped all the villagers? Or had he seen with his own eyes the beings Nadia had assembled? He didn't have an answer for those questions. Later, when he compared his version of events with Nadia's, she listened quietly, then gave him a light kiss on the cheek and told him that each person has his own truth, and that all are valid.
Nadia's words were prophetic, because when he tried to get the true story from other members of the group, each one told him something different. For example, Brother Fernando remembered nothing but the gorillas and an elephant ridden by an ancient woman. Kate seemed to have perceived the glowing bodies in the air, among which she recognized the lama Tensing, although, she said, that was impossible. Joel said he would wait until he could develop his rolls of film before giving an opinion; if it didn't show up in the photographs, it didn't happen. The Pygmies and the Bantus described more or less what he had seen, from the witch man dancing amid the flames to the ancestors flying around Nana-Asante.
Angie captured much more than Alexander had: She saw angels with translucent wings and flocks of bright birds; she heard the music of drums; smelled the perfume of a rain of flowers; and witnessed a number of other miracles. And that was what she told Michael Mushaha when he arrived the next day in a motor launch, looking for them.
One of Angie's radio transmissions had been picked up in his camp, and Michael had immediately set wheels in motion to come after them. He couldn't find a pilot brave enough to fly into the swampy forest in which his friends had been lost; he'd had to take a commercial flight to the capital, rent a launch, and come upriver looking for them with nothing but instinct as a guide. He was accompanied by an official of the national government and four police officers who had been charged with investigating the illegal trade in ivory, diamonds, and slaves.
No one had questioned Nana-Asante's authority, and within a few hours she had restored order to the village. She began by effecting reconciliation between the Bantu population and the Pygmies and reminding them of the importance of cooperation. The Bantus needed the meat the hunters provided, and the little people couldn't live without the products they obtained in Ngoubé. That would force the Bantus to respect their former slaves and be reason for the Pygmies to forgive the mistreatment they had suffered.