The midday heat became implacable. My back screamed, despite my efforts to "strike from the pelvis". The movement remained a choreographic disaster. I watched Daba: each hoe stroke was regular and powerful. Mine, jerky and urban, only grazed the surface, leaving behind triumphant weeds.
Suddenly, a soft and musical voice rose: "Daba! Bakari! It is time for rest". A woman approached. It was Sali, Bakari's mother. She carried a large clay dish on her head under a woven straw lid, and an extra calabash of fresh water. She was dressed in a simple indigo wrap, her round face expressing a sweetness tinged with worry as she looked at me.
Daba set down his hoe, a look of obvious relief on his hard face. "You are welcome, Sali. Look at your son. He strikes the earth like a man who wears suits and makes limited gestures. I believe the city has stolen more than just his manners".
Sali smiled at me. "Your father is too severe, my son. Come, eat. Work can wait". We sat in the shade of a shrub. Sali uncovered the dish: a thick millet porridge cooked with milk, sprinkled with a few roasted peanuts. The smell was strong and earthy, lacking the aromatics I was used to using. "Eat, Bakari," Daba said, plunging his hand directly into the dish.
I hesitated. In my mind as Amadou, millet was diet food. Now, it was my only source of energy. I took a small portion. The texture was pasty, without salt, without the slightest bit of sugar. "It is excellent, mother," I said, attempting a polite formula for Bakari, but the tone was too forced.
Sali looked at me closely. "Your eyes are full of lies, my son. What is the matter?".
I could not lie. Frankness was commanded of me. "I... I cannot eat this, Father, Mother. Frankly, it is too bland. My stomach is not used to this... rusticity. I feel uneasy just thinking about it".
Daba dropped his portion back into the dish. A stony silence settled.
"Rusticity?" Daba hissed, the word nearly spat out. "It is the strength of the Manding, Bakari. It is what gives us the courage to work. Your dreams have poisoned your mind to the point that you spit on the food the earth gives us".
Sali, however, was the mother. "Your insides have shrunken, my child. It is nothing. Drink plenty of water. Tonight, I will bring you a herbal tea to relax your belly. But you must try. A man cannot work sorghum on an empty stomach".
She handed me a hard biscuit made of fermented and dried millet. I accepted it with gratitude. Chewing this biscuit would take me hours, but it was better than immediate failure. Amadou, the architect, was making compromises for his survival.
The afternoon was long. I continued to imitate the work. Fatigue was a heavy blanket over my shoulders. At sunset, the work stopped. My body was bruised. Daba no longer spoke to me. Dinner was silent. Sali prepared the promised tea and offered maternal comfort.
Around midnight, I woke up with a dry throat. I left the hut. As I headed toward the well, I caught sight of my new father's silhouette near the great baobab tree.
He was on his knees, facing East, in an attitude of deep prayer. It was not an Islamic prayer. It was an older rite. There were no words, only absolute silence and the sound of insects. Daba had placed simple offerings on the ground: a small pile of millet, a few kola nuts, a drop of fresh water.
I stepped back into the shadows. Amadou, the man of stone, watched. Suddenly, without a sound, the offerings began to glow. The light was soft and ethereal, a pale yellow-green. It radiated from the millet and the water, slowly enveloping Daba's figure.
Then, something even more extraordinary happened. Semi-transparent forms that seemed made of the same light rose from the earth and leaned toward Daba. One of them, larger than the others, had the indistinct shape of an old man with a hunched back, but the head was that of a lion.
The silence was broken by a voice that was not his—a deep voice that seemed to come from the earth itself. "Daba, son of Tuma, your offerings are received. The doubt and the novelty of the cities have stolen from your son the memory of the land. Bakari is lost in his own dream. He no longer recognizes food, no longer knows how to hold the hoe, for his heart has been filled with a foreign intelligence that is useless for this world".
"The lineage of the Djimé blacksmiths must return to him the memory that Bakari has lost. He must learn what cannot be drawn on a blueprint. Go. The time of Soundiata is near, and the Manding will need the hoe and the knowledge, not the pride of the cities".
The luminous forms flickered and vanished. The light around Daba went out. My body, as Amadou, froze. The skeptic was totally laid bare at the bedside of the myth he used to deny.
Daba rose slowly. He did not see me. Daba could not conceive that the spirits were speaking of another man inside his son's body. For Daba, the mystery was a sickness of Bakari's soul, a wound inflicted by the city. He will never know that Bakari is Amadou, the architect of the future.
Daba was certain of only one thing: his son had to be repaired. He had to go to the blacksmith Djimé.