At Night All Blood Is Black Read online

  The first time he almost caught her, she threw her nurse’s egg over her left shoulder and it became an immense river. The fickle princess believed she had saved herself, but the lion-sorcerer drank all the water in the river. The second time he was on the point of capturing her, she threw the nurse’s little stick over her left shoulder. It turned into an impenetrable forest, but the lion-sorcerer managed to cut it down, to uproot it. When the lion-sorcerer was, for the third time, at the point of catching her, the fickle princess could almost see the village of her father and her nurse. She threw the last talisman over her left shoulder, the small pebble, which transformed into a high mountain that the lion-sorcerer scaled and descended in giant leaps. Despite this final obstacle, the lion-sorcerer was still on the princess’s trail. She didn’t dare turn around, for fear of bringing the image of a far-off danger near. She could hear the rhythm of his steps beating the ground. Did the man-animal run on two legs or on four paws? She thought she could hear him pant. She could still smell his scent—of river, of forest, and of mountain, of a beast or a man who has survived the impossible. A hunter carrying a bow and arrows emerged from nowhere. The lion-sorcerer leapt on the fickle princess and was killed by an arrow straight to his heart. It was the first and the last wound for the lion-sorcerer. It’s the reason we can tell his story.

  When the lion-sorcerer fell in a cloud of yellow dust, you could hear a terrible sound growling from the depths of the brush. The ground trembled, daylight flickered. The cave-kingdom, kingdom of the inside of the earth, rose into the sunlight. Tall cliffs crashed into the heart of the lion-sorcerer’s unnameable kingdom. Everyone could see the cliffs that rose into the sky from the brush. The cave-kingdom could thereafter be located by these giant raised scars in the earth. They are why we can now tell the kingdom’s story.

  The hunter-savior was the only son of the nurse who had offered the three talismans. The hunter-savior was ugly, the hunter-savior was poor, but he had saved the fickle princess. In compensation for his bravery, the vain king married his fickle daughter to this hunter-savior who was covered with scars. He was a man with stories.

  * * *

  I SWEAR TO you that I heard the story of the lion-sorcerer just before leaving for the war. This story, like all interesting stories, is full of clever innuendo. Whoever tells a well-known story like the one about the lion-sorcerer and the fickle princess might always be hiding another story beneath it. To be seen, the story hidden beneath the well-known story has to peek out a little bit. If the hidden story hides too well beneath the well-known story, it stays invisible. The hidden story has to be there without being there, it has to let itself be guessed at, the way a tight saffron-yellow dress lets the beautiful figure of a young girl be guessed at. It has to be transparent. When it’s understood by those for whom it is intended, the story hidden beneath the well-known story can change the course of their lives, can push them to transform a diffuse desire into a concrete act. It can heal them from the sickness of hesitation, no matter the expectations of an ill-intentioned storyteller.

  I swear to you that I heard the story of the lion-sorcerer at night, seated on a mat spread out on white sand, in the company of the young boys and girls in my age set, beneath the protection of the low branches of a mango tree.

  I swear to you that, like all of us who heard the story of the scarless lion-sorcerer that night, I knew, I understood that Fary Thiam had taken him for herself. I knew, I understood when Fary Thiam took her leave of us. I knew, I understood that Fary was daring anyone to think of her as a fickle princess. I knew, I understood that she wanted the lion-sorcerer. When Alfa Ndiaye, my more-than-brother, the man with the lion as a totem, got up too, so soon after Fary, I knew, I understood that he was going to join her in the brush. I knew, I understood that Alfa and Fary would find each other in the small ebony forest not far from the river of fire. There, Fary gave herself to Alfa before the two of us left the next morning for war in France. I know it because I was there without being there.

  But now that I think deeply about it, now that I take on God’s truth as my own, I know, I understand that Alfa left me a place in his wrestler’s body out of friendship, out of compassion. I know, I understand that Alfa heard the first supplication I uttered in the depths of no-man’s-land on the night of my death. Because I didn’t want to be left alone in the middle of nowhere, in a land without a name. God’s truth, I swear to you that now, whenever I think of us, he is me and I am him.

  A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  David Diop was born in Paris and raised in Senegal. He is a professor at the University of Pau and Pays de l’Adour, where his research includes such topics as eighteenth-century French literature and European representations of Africa in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. At Night All Blood Is Black is his second novel. You can sign up for email updates here.

  A NOTE ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

  Anna Moschovakis has translated books by Albert Cossery, Annie Ernaux, Robert Bresson, and Marcelle Sauvageot, among others. Her novel Eleanor, or The Rejection of the Progress of Love was published in 2018.

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  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Epigraphs

  Chapter I

  Chapter II

  Chapter III

  Chapter IV

  Chapter V

  Chapter VI

  Chapter VII

  Chapter VIII

  Chapter IX

  Chapter X

  Chapter XI

  Chapter XII

  Chapter XIII

  Chapter XIV

  Chapter XV

  Chapter XVI

  Chapter XVII

  Chapter XVIII

  Chapter XIX

  Chapter XX

  Chapter XXI

  Chapter XXII

  Chapter XXIII

  Chapter XXIV

  Chapter XXV

  A Note About the Author and Translator

  Copyright

  Farrar, Straus and Giroux

  120 Broadway, New York 10271

  Copyright © 2018 by David Diop

  Translation copyright © 2020 by Anna Moschovakis

  All rights reserved

  Originally published in French in 2018 by Éditions du Seuil, France, as Frère d’âme

  English translation published in the United States by Farrar, Straus and Giroux

  First American edition, 2020

  E-book ISBN: 978-0-374-72047-6

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  This work received support from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the United States through their publishing assistance program.