The directors of the union had set up their headquarters in the office of the works inspector, a single room in which the confusion was now so great that it frightened them a little. Everyone was there – at least everyone who had not been too badly injured in the clash with the soldiers. Samba N’Doulougou was recounting his own version of the troops’ assault and demonstrating graphically how he had seized a tear-gas grenade from one of the soldiers and hurled it back at the same man a moment later. A ribbon of slowly congealing blood trickled around Boubacar’s right ear and ran down his neck, but he was watching his friend’s performance delightedly. Old Bakary, the eldest of them all, was there, too, and he was completely exhausted. His eyes were bruised and swollen, he coughed constantly, and with each new spasm tears mingled in the film of sweat that masked his face.
Doudou, the secretary-general, was talking distractedly with his assistant, Lahbib. Doudou was uneasy. His wide-set, deep brown eyes wandered over the faces before him, and then his attention passed to the scene outside the window; the courtyard and roofs of the workshops, the great chimneys, the silvery gleam of the railroad tracks, the miserable huts, and the groups of workers arguing in the shade of the trees. Doudou knew that he should speak to them, but nothing in the landscape or the sight of the men themselves encouraged him. Fear slumbered in his breast, like a tightly coiled serpent, and he was afraid of awakening it.
His thoughts carried him away from the little room and the hubbub of voices, back to the time several years ago, just after the war, when everything was rationed and hunger was everywhere. It was at that time that the employees of the company put forth their first demands, and there was talk of forming a union. Doudou, Lahbib, and Bakayoko, who was the most popular of the trainmen, were the founders of the movement, and because his work as a fitter and lathe operator kept him always in one place Doudou had been named secretary-general. From the very first the directors of the company had opposed the formation of the union, and when the unanimous pressure of the workers had brought it into being they refused to recognize it. Doudou remembered all of this very clearly. He also remembered that there had never been any money in the treasury, because no one ever paid his dues … At last, though, all of the work of organization had been completed, and the machinery for operation of the union had been set up. Now it only remained to be seen how it would function. And it was precisely this of which Doudou was afraid.
Coming out of his reverie, he glanced at Lahbib, who was standing beside him, chewing thoughtfully at his moustache. In the first row of the men before him, motionless as a block of coal, was the enormous smith, Boubacar, and next to him Samba, who was still talking.
‘Yes, my friends, the ninth of October, 1947, is a day that will be celebrated in the history of the movement…’
‘The tenth of October,’ Bachirou interrupted.
Samba N’Doulougou studied the ‘bureaucrat’s’ bandaged forehead. ‘Have you had a meeting with Monsieur le directeur, Bachirou, or are you just coming back from Mecca?’
‘We have better things to do than listen to your jabbering,’ Bachirou said.
‘Yes, and stop jumping around like a bean in a stew pot,’ said Gaye, whose right arm was in a sling.
‘The men are waiting,’ Lahbib said, nudging Doudou.
The latter rose slowly to his feet. ‘I think it would be best to hold a meeting tomorrow, as we originally planned,’ he said. ‘For today at least it is clear that the management is not ready to give in …’ He paused for a moment. ‘And tonight the men must go to their homes peacefully. I can see soldiers and watchmen from here, and there are others. Stay away from them. And by the way – how many were wounded or killed?’
It was Gaye who answered, unfolding a sheet of paper. ‘The dead? There is Badara, the smelter, and …’
‘No, Gaye, no names,’ Doudou interrupted, frowning.
‘Well, then, there are eight dead, and a quantity of wounded – men, women, and some of the apprentices.’
‘Tomorrow, after the funeral services,’ Doudou said, ‘we will hold a general meeting. Tonight, you, Lahbib, and the elders will come with me to see the widows. Is there any news from the other stations?’
‘Nothing, except that there was also some fighting at Dakar.’
‘Papa Bakary, have you had any news from your nephew?’
‘Before leaving Bamako he wrote that he was coming here, but the other day a kinsman who arrived from down there told me that he was no longer there. And now that there are no more trains only God knows when we will see Ibrahim Bakayoko!’
‘We will wait for him,’ Doudou said. ‘But, for the time being, we must organize a permanent watch, beginning tonight. Samba, you and Boubacar will be on guard, with Lahbib. The strike committee will meet here tomorrow morning at six o’clock. Now let me pass, so I can make the announcement to the men.’
A few minutes later the workers began to disperse and go home, each one carrying within himself an echo of the tumult that had risen from the black dust of Thiès.
*
As soon as calm had returned to the market place, Maïmouna, the blind woman, began groping her way about in search of her child, not knowing that the little body had been carried away when the dead and wounded were gathered up. She had been beaten, pushed, and trampled until her body was bruised and stiff in every joint. Her clothes were in shreds: the cotton blouse, ripped in two, was held together only at the neck; from her naked breast little drops of red trickled down to the knot which fastened the cloth around her waist, and the cloth itself was split up the front above her knees. The handkerchief was gone from her head, and her short-cut hair was as tangled as a grain field after a storm. She clutched the second twin close against her breast and bent her head from time to time to listen for its irregular breathing. As she tried to make her way forward, she stumbled constantly over the wreckage of the market stalls. She could hear the soldiers talking, and from their accent she knew that they had been brought in from another district. Staggering as though she were drunk, she managed at last to get out of the market place and took the road to Thivaouane. Quite suddenly then, she sensed that someone was watching her.
‘It’s all right – you can come out!’ cried a young, strong voice. ‘It’s not one of the soldiers!’ It was Magatte, the apprentice, who had just seen the blind woman. The apprentices were playing at being soldiers, along the sides of the ravine, and Magatte was their chief.
‘Where are you going, Maïmouna?’ he demanded, in the tone of his role in the game.
‘Ah, it’s you – I recognize your voice! You are from the workshops.’
‘That’s right. I’m the apprentice of Doudou, the secretary-general of the strike,’ Magatte replied, surveying his comrades proudly.
‘I want to go to Dieynaba’s house … Do you know Dieynaba?’
‘Do I know Dieynaba? Everyone knows Dieynaba! Corporal Gorgui!’ Magatte called.
One of the youngsters came forward. ‘Yes, seneral ?’
‘Don’t say seneral! The word is general!’
‘Yes, general,’ Gorgui said, detaching the syllables carefully. He was standing at attention, holding back his head. The top of it had been painted blue, because of a bad case of ringworm.
‘I have a mission for you. You are to conduct Maïmouna to your mother’s house. And don’t fall into the hands of the enemy! Understood? In two hours we are going to attack!’ Magatte tapped at his wrist, as if he had been wearing a watch.
‘Very well, seneral,’ Gorgui said.
‘General!’ Magatte repeated.
‘Please, my children, hurry,’ Maïmouna pleaded. And to herself she added, ‘I no longer know even where I am.’
‘Don’t attack before I get back,’ Gorgui said, tugging at a strip of the blind woman’s blouse.
*
Dieynaba lived just outside of the city, in a cabin hidden at the edge of the woods. From a distance it could not be seen, since it was completely surrounded by a hedge of millet stalks. As soon as she returned from the market, Dieynaba had transformed the house into an infirmary. She had torn up every piece of material she could lay her hands on and was bathing the wounded with salted water. Mariame Sonko was helping her.
‘Go empty this water in the sump,’ Dieynaba said, ‘and bring back some fresh. Fetch some plantain leaves, too, but put lots of salt in the water before you soak the leaves.’
It was just as she was saying this that Gorgui appeared on the summit of the little ridge that sheltered the house, leading the blind woman.
‘What am I seeing?’ Dieynaba cried. ‘God forgive me, I had forgotten Maïmouna! Come here! Everyone come here!’ Even as the words came out she was running toward the blind woman. ‘What have I done? How could I have deserted you down there? Gorgui! Go back to your friends!’
With infinite gentleness, almost ceremonially, she helped the blind woman into the house; and from Maïmouna’s ceaseless, disjointed murmurings she learned that the other twin had been left in the market place. Dumbfounded, the others simply stared at the blind woman, as though she had been the solitary victim of the battle. Dieynaba finally made her sit down, on the blackened bottom of an old stone cooking vessel.
‘Give me the child,’ she said.
Tears welled in the blind woman’s eyes. ‘I cannot,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to.’
‘I know you don’t want to, Maïmouna, but give her to me just the same. Can’t you see that you are bleeding … Oh God, I don’t even know what I am saying! You are bleeding, do you hear me? I have to wash off the dirt, and I have to see if the child is injured.’
Mariame Sonko came into the room, carrying a bowl of water in which leaves were floating.
‘Gorgui!’ Dieynaba called. ‘Gorgui! Where is that little devil? There’s a strike on … no one is working. He should be here!’
‘But you told him yourself to go back to his friends,’ Mariame said.
‘Men!’ Dieynaba said. ‘Whenever you need them they are nowhere around. Put that down here, and go into my room and bring me my old red and yellow blouse, and the checked waistcloth.’
‘Don’t get so excited, Dieynaba,’ Mariame said. ‘If you had stayed calm, everything would already be done.’
‘Me, excited? You don’t know what you’re talking about, Mariame. Now come and help me, all of you; and you, Maïmouna, give me the child, or I will take her from you.’
Maïmouna knew that this time Dieynaba meant what she said and allowed her to take the child. Dieynaba handed the baby to one of the other women and began herself to bathe the cuts and bruises of the blind woman.
*
The office of Monsieur Dejean, the regional director of the railway company, was on the second floor of the company’s administration building. It was a spacious room, with cream-colored walls hung with large framed photographs. The six windows opened out to a view of the warehouse and the workshops. From the ceiling hung a big-bladed, slowly turning fan, and in one corner of the room, on a table, there was a scale model of the whole railway network, complete to a miniature train.
Dejean was walking aimlessly from one end of the office to the other, first clasping his hands behind his back and then digging them into his pockets. He was a stocky little man, completely bald, with a sloping, sharp-featured skull. Thick-lensed, concave glasses sat firmly astride his stubby nose. On his left lapel was the thin, red ribbon of the Legion of Honor.
Twenty years before, Dejean had been an ambitious clerk, who arrived in the colony with the intention of making his fortune in the shortest possible time. He had climbed the first rungs of the ladder very quickly, and there had even been a time when he dreamed of founding his own company. At that time there were few Europeans who remained long in the colony, but Dejean had returned home only twice, and his longest absence – it was for his wedding – was less than two months. In addition to all this, he was reliable, and he didn’t drink. In 1938, when he was deputy chief clerk, the metalworkers in the shops had made their first attempt at a strike. Dejean had crushed the disturbance almost immediately and as a reward he had been named chief clerk. Then the Second World War had come, and the German occupation of France, and the colony, like France itself, was divided into two camps. When the representatives of the Vichy government took control of the railway, the regional director had simply disappeared. He was not a Pétainist. Dejean had replaced him, and he had held the position ever since.
An unreasoning anger stirred in him now, as he walked back and forth, like a bear in a cage. That very morning he had refused to see the representatives of the workers. He knew that among them were the sons of the same men whose movement he had crushed nine years before, and he had no intention of yielding now. It was not a question of agreement or disagreement. First they must go back to work; that was all there was to it.
The sound of the telephone rang out in the empty office, and Dejean ran to his desk, sank into the leather armchair, and took up the receiver.
‘Hello, hello … yes, speaking … No, they haven’t gone back yet … No, I won’t see them today, or tomorrow either … What are they asking? A raise in the pay scale, four thousand auxiliary workmen, family allowances, and a pension plan! … I’m sorry, I don’t think I heard you … Give family allowances to these people? The minute they have some money they go out and buy themselves another wife, and the children multiply like flies! … Oh no, I assure you …’
Dejean’s voice was deferential. It was obvious that he was talking to someone of importance. ‘The soldiers? Yes, they are here … Wounded? There are some, but at the moment I can’t tell you exactly how many … Dead? No, there are no dead. The soldiers have been ordered just to frighten them … Reinforce the troop? Yes, that’s a good idea – thank you … I’ll take care of the natives … Thank you, I’m grateful for your confidence; and don’t worry, it will be just like the last time … If they persist? In that case, we have a powerful ally – hunger … I’m waiting for my assistants now. I sent them out to see what is happening, and then we will make our plans … I beg your pardon? … But I know them, I assure you, they are children. Twenty years out here – I’ve had experience with them … Yes, you are right, there must be a few fanatics behind it – men who have worked them up and are using them for their own purposes. But they are all alike; they’re more interested in titles than in money. I know my Africans; they’re all rotten with pride … Right, I’ll call you tomorrow at the same time. And don’t worry, it won’t go beyond this district … Yes, of course, and thanks again for your confidence … Remember me to Madame. As soon as this is over we must get together and go tuna fishing again … Thanks again.’
Dejean hung up and leaned back in his chair, staring up at a rectangle of sky visible through one of the windows. He could hear the pacing of the sentinels on guard outside the building, their heavy tread muffled by distance and the murmur of the fan. In the garden a watchman was watering the lawn. A miniature rainbow floated above the spray from the hose. The sun was descending toward the horizon, slowly, as if it regretted being forced to leave the peaceful spectacle of the white villas and flower gardens of the residential quarter, and the pink-cheeked children playing on the steps of the verandas.
Dejean wiped off his glasses and was reaching across his desk to take up a file when someone knocked on the door.
‘Come in,’ he called, adopting once again the sharp tone of a man who is completely sure of himself.
Three men came in, one behind the other: Victor, Dejean’s chief assistant, Isnard, the director of the repair shop, an ‘old hand’ in the colonies, and Leblanc.
‘Sit down, gentlemen,’ Dejean said, playing with a penholder, ‘and tell me the news.’
‘There’s nothing really new,’ said Victor, ‘except that we are sure now that Doudou is the one who is behind it. But they don’t seem to be paying him.’
‘Whether they pay him or not is their business; I don’t give a damn!’ Dejean said sharply.
Victor went on as though he hadn’t heard him. ‘They have installed their headquarters in the inspection office. There is a second ring-leader – the most important one, perhaps – Bakayoko, the conductor. He is their orator. He travels up and down the line, making speeches to the men. Right now he is at Kayes …’
‘Gentlemen, I had Dakar on the phone just a few minutes ago. They will support us in whatever we do, but we must make sure that this business doesn’t drag on. I need every bit of information possible. I know the natives here. In just a few days there will be some who want to go back to work. Perhaps even sooner. But we have to start planning right now the measures to be taken if it should go on. The first is simple: cutting off the most necessary provisions – rice, millet, maize. The shopkeepers must be told. As for you, gentlemen, I want information; I want every scrap of information you can get.’
It was Leblanc, the youngest of them, who answered. ‘I was told that a good many of the natives didn’t approve of this strike, but that this Doudou and Lahbib and Bakayoko are honest men, and they trust them.’
At these words Dejean was seized by a fit of anger so intense that his face turned a bright purple. ‘Honest! Leblanc, you make me laugh! You’re just a youngster out here. You can buy every one of these Negroes! Do you hear me? Any of them, and all of them!’
Leblanc slid down in his chair, like a child who is caught in a mistake and hopes that the storm will pass if he can make himself small enough.
‘And you, Isnard?’ Dejean demanded, still angrily. ‘You know something about them – what do you think?’
Isnard squared his shoulders. His bush jacket, left open at the front, exposed a neck reddened by the sun to the color of brick, and on his chest and forearms was a thick matting of reddish hair. Isnard was the subject of a legend in the colony, and he nourished it carefully. In the first place he was one of the few of the ‘old hands’, but in addition to this he had had an experience which every newcomer learned about almost before he was off the ship. One night someone had knocked at his door, and when he opened it he found a Negro woman on the point of giving birth on his threshold. There was no doctor available at that time for such a case – the thing was usually handled by native midwives – and the woman had not enough time left even to return to her own home. Isnard had taken her in and helped her: he had cut the umbilical cord with his teeth and then had bathed the baby and cared for the woman. He invariably concluded his account of this experience with the statement that ‘both mother and child are doing well!’
‘To my way of thinking,’ he said, uncrossing his legs and leaning forward deliberately, ‘we can’t reason now the way we did in ’38. There’s a good deal in what they are saying – and moreover, the line is very long, and they have a good start on us. We must act carefully …’
‘And give in to their demands?’ Dejean said dryly.
‘No, of course not, but avoid any rough stuff. We can either buy off the most important leaders – for a price, in return, of course – or work on some of the others and try to build up a rival union.’
‘Buying off the leaders would be simpler,’ Victor said.
‘I don’t think so,’ Dejean said. ‘The second plan is better – and it also has the big advantage of looking to the future. Isnard, do you know anyone you could contact about this second union?’
‘I’ve already been working on two of them. It wouldn’t surprise me if they went along with us.’
‘Good, get on with it. Now, one other thing: how many wounded were there, among the troops and the watchmen?’
‘Six, including two officers and two native ratings. A third officer is dead.’
‘The savages! Victor, I want you to telephone to the other stations and tell them they are to do nothing at all until they receive further orders. As for you, Isnard, see those two contacts again as soon as possible, and get them to work! Now, gentlemen, if you will excuse me, I have work to do myself.’
As soon as the door had closed behind the three men, Dejean picked up the telephone. ‘Get me Dakar,’ he said.
*
Slowly, the sun went down, and blue-black shadows lengthened across the motionless locomotives and railway cars, the silent workshops and yards, the white villas and the mud-walled houses, the sheds and the hovels. From somewhere in the watchmen’s barracks came the call of a bugle.
And so the strike came to Thiès. An unlimited strike, which, for many, along the whole length of the railroad, was a time for suffering, but for many was also a time for thought. When the smoke from the trains no longer drifted above the savanna, they realized that an age had ended – an age their elders had told them about, when all of Africa was just a garden for food. Now the machine ruled over their lands, and when they forced every machine within a thousand miles to halt they became conscious of their strength, but conscious also of their dependence. They began to understand that the machine was making of them a whole new breed of men. It did not belong to them; it was they who belonged to it. When it stopped, it taught them that lesson.
The days passed, and the nights. There was no news, except what every passing hour brought to every home, and that was always the same: the foodstuffs were gone, the meager savings eaten up, and there was no money in the house. They could go and ask for credit, but they knew what the storekeeper would say. ‘You already owe me this much, and as it is I won’t have enough to pay my own bills. Why don’t you do as they say? Why don’t you go back to work?’
Then they would have to fall back once more on the machine and carry off the motor scooters and the bicycles and the watches to a moneylender. After that it was the turn of whatever jewelry there was, and of any clothing of value, the ceremonial tunics that were worn only on important occasions. Hunger set in; and men, women, and children grew thinner. But they held on. Meetings were held more frequently, the directors of the union intensified their activities, and everyone swore not to give in.
The days passed, and the nights. And then, to everyone’s surprise, the trains began to run again. The locomotives were driven by mechanics brought from Europe, and soldiers and sailors became station masters and trainmen. The big, gardenlike squares before the stations became fortresses, surrounded by barbed wire and guarded by sentinels, night and day. And after the hunger, fear set in.
Among the strikers, it was a formless thing; a further astonishment at the forces they had set in motion, and an uncertainty as to how they should be nourished – with hope, or with resignation. Among the whites, it was a simple obsession with numbers. How could such a small minority feel safe in the midst of these sullen masses? Those few members of the two races who had had relations based on friendship avoided seeing each other. The white women went to the market only if there was a policeman at their side; and there had even been cases when the black women refused to sell to them.
The days passed, and the nights. In this country, the men often had several wives, and it was perhaps because of this that, at the beginning, they were scarcely conscious of the help the women gave them. But soon they began to understand that, here, too, the age to come would have a different countenance. When a man came back from a meeting, with bowed head and empty pockets, the first things he saw were always the unfired stove, the useless cooking vessels, the bowls and gourds ranged in a corner, empty. Then he would seek the arms of his wife, without thinking, or caring, whether she was the first or the third. And seeing the burdened shoulders, the listless walk, the women became conscious that a change was coming for them as well.
But if they were beginning to feel closer to the lives of their men, what was happening to the children? In this country, they were many, so many that they were seldom counted. But now they were there, idling in the courtyards or clinging to the women’s waistcloths, their bones seeming naked, their eyes deep-sunk, and on their lips a constant, heart-bruising question: ‘Mother, will there be something to eat today?’ Then the mothers would gather together, by fours perhaps, or tens, the infants slung across their backs, the brood of older children following; and the wandering from house to house began. Someone would say, ‘Let’s go to see so-and-so. Perhaps she still has a little millet.’ But most of the time so-and-so could only answer, ‘No, I have nothing more. Wait, and I’ll come with you.’ Then, carrying a baby against a flaccid breast, she would join the procession.
The days were mournful, and the nights were mournful, and the simple mewing of a cat set people trembling.
One morning a woman rose and wrapped her cloth firmly around her waist and said, ‘Today, I will bring back something to eat.’
And the men began to understand that if the times were bringing forth a new breed of men, they were also bringing forth a new breed of women.