So I am not a dëmm, am not a devourer of souls. That’s what the people who are afraid of me think. I am also not a savage. It’s my Toubab sergeant and my blue-eyed enemies who think that. The thinking that is mine, the thinking that belongs to me, is that my mockery, my hurtful words about his totem, are the true cause of Mademba’s death. It’s because of my big mouth that he leapt shrieking from the belly of the earth to show me what I already knew, that he was brave. The question to answer is why I laughed at the totem of my more-than-brother. The question to answer is why my mind hatched words as sharp as a locust’s bite on the day of an attack.
Because I loved Mademba, my more-than-brother. God’s truth, I loved him so. I was so afraid he would die, I wanted so badly for the two of us to return safe and sound to Gandiol. I would have done anything to keep him alive. I followed him everywhere on the battlefield. As soon as Captain Armand would whistle for the attack so as to fully warn the enemy from the other side that we were about to come out shrieking from the belly of the earth, so as to warn the enemy to prepare to spray us with bullets, I would glue myself to Mademba so the bullet that hurt him would hurt me, or the bullet that killed him would kill me, or the bullet that missed him would miss me. God’s truth, on attack days we were elbow to elbow on the battlefield, shoulder to shoulder. We ran shrieking toward the enemy on the other side in the same rhythm, we fired our guns at the same time, we were like twin brothers who come out the same day or the same night from their mother’s womb.
And so, God’s truth, I don’t understand. No, I don’t understand why one fine day I insinuated to Mademba Diop that he wasn’t brave, that he wasn’t a real warrior. To think for oneself doesn’t necessarily mean to understand everything. God’s truth, I don’t understand why one fine day of bloody battle, without rhyme or reason, when I hoped we would return safe and sound, he and I, to Gandiol after the war, I killed Mademba Diop with my words. I do not understand at all.
IX
AFTER THE SEVENTH SEVERED HAND, they’d had enough. They’d all had enough, the Toubab soldiers and the Chocolat soldiers. The sergeants and the not-sergeants. Captain Armand said that I must be tired, that I must rest. To tell me this, he called me to his dugout. It happened in the presence of a Chocolat, much older than me, higher ranked. A Chocolat with a Croix de Guerre and his heart in his boots, a Croix de Guerre Chocolat who translated whatever the captain wanted into Wolof. A poor old Croix de Guerre Chocolat who thought, as did the others, that I was a dëmm, a devourer of souls, and who trembled like a little leaf in the wind without daring to look at me, his left hand gripping a talisman in his pocket.
Like the others, he was afraid that I would devour the insides of his body, that I would bring him to his death. Like the others, white or black, the infantryman Ibrahima Seck trembled when our eyes met. That night, he prayed silently for a long time. That night, he fingered his worry beads for a long time to protect himself from me and from my contamination. That night, he purified himself. As he stood listening, the elder Ibrahima Seck was terrified to have to translate the captain’s words for me. God’s truth, he was terrified to inform me that I was being given exceptional permission to spend an entire month at the Rear! Because, in Ibrahima Seck’s mind, what the captain ordered couldn’t come as good news to me. Because my elder, the Croix de Guerre Chocolat, believed I wouldn’t be happy to learn that I was being separated from my larder, from my prey, from my hunting ground. In Ibrahima Seck’s mind, a sorcerer like me would certainly be very, very angry at the bearer of this bad news. God’s truth, it would be no easy thing to escape a soldier sorcerer you’ve deprived of an entire month of prey, whom you’ve deprived of souls, friend or foe, to devour on the battlefield. In Ibrahima Seck’s mind, I must be holding him responsible for the loss of all the insides of soldiers, friend or foe, I could have eaten. And so, to distance himself from my evil eye, to shield himself from the consequences of my anger, to be able to show his grandchildren, one day, his Croix de Guerre, the elder Ibrahima Seck began each of his sentences with the same words: “The captain says…”
“The captain says that you need to rest. The captain says that you are really very, very brave, but also very, very tired. The captain says that he salutes your courage, your very, very profound courage. The captain says that you are going to be given the Croix de Guerre like me … Ah! You already have one?… The captain says maybe you’re going to get another one.”
So yes, I know, I understand that Captain Armand no longer wanted me on the battlefield. Behind the words reported by the elder Croix de Guerre Chocolat Ibrahima Seck, I knew, I understood, that they’d had enough after the seven severed hands I brought home. Yes, I understood, God’s truth, that on the battlefield they wanted only fleeting madness. Madmen of rage, madmen of pain, furious madmen, but temporary ones. No continuous madmen. As soon as the fighting ends, we’re to file away our rage, our pain, and our fury. Pain is tolerated, we can bring our pain home on the condition that we keep it to ourselves. But rage and fury cannot be brought back to the trench. Before returning home, we must denude ourselves of rage and fury, we must strip ourselves of it, and if we don’t we are no longer playing the game of war. Madness, after the captain blows the whistle to retreat, is taboo.
I knew, I understood that the captain and Ibrahima Seck, the Chocolat infantryman with the Croix de Guerre, didn’t want any warrior’s rage in our midst. God’s truth, I understood that for them, with my seven severed hands, it was as if I had brought back screams and moans into a place of calm. It was impossible for them, seeing the severed hand of an enemy from the other side, to keep from thinking, And if it were mine? It was impossible for them to keep themselves from thinking, I’ve had enough of this war. God’s truth, after battle we became human again for the enemy. We can’t celebrate the fear of the enemy from the other side for long, when we ourselves are afraid. The severed hands are our fear, brought inside from outside the trench.
“The captain says that he thanks you again for your bravery. The captain says that you have been granted a month of leave. The captain says that he would like to know where you have … hidden, uh … put the severed hands.”
And so, without hesitating, I heard myself reply:
“I no longer have the hands.”
X
GOD’S TRUTH, the captain and my elder Ibrahima Seck took me for an idiot. I may be a little strange, but I’m no idiot. I will never reveal where I hid my severed hands. They are my hands, I know which blue-eyes they belonged to. I know the provenance of each one. They had had blond or red hair on their backs, rarely black. Some were fleshy, others flaky. Their nails turned black after I separated them from their arms. One hand is smaller than the others, as if it were a woman’s or a large child’s. Little by little, they became stiff before rotting. So, to preserve them, after the second one, I slipped into the kitchen of the trench we called home, I sprinkled them very, very heavily with coarse salt, and I placed them in the cooling oven beneath the still-warm ash. I left them there for an entire night. In the morning, very, very early, I went to retrieve them. Then, the next day, I put them in the same place after having salted them again. And again and again, until they became like dried fish. I dried the hands of the blue-eyes the way at home we dry fish we want to preserve.