In the beginning, my war brothers weren’t bothered by my stench of death, the stench of a butcher of human flesh, but beginning with the fourth hand they avoided smelling me. The enemy on the other side should be trembling in his boots and under his helmet. I was performing, in their place, the grotesque savage, the enlisted savage obeying orders. I saw in their eyes that they understood. They began to whisper, right after the fourth enemy hand.įor the first three hands I was a legend, they cheered me when I returned, they fed me delicacies, offered me tobacco, helped me rinse off with big buckets of water, helped me clean my uniform. They began to be very, very, very afraid of me. The Toubabs and the Chocolats, as the captain called them, continued to slap me on the shoulder, but their laughter and their smiles had changed. The white soldiers were beginning to say-I could read it in their eyes-‘This Chocolat is really strange.’ The others, Chocolat soldiers from West Africa like me, began to say-and I also read it in their eyes-‘This Alfa Ndiaye from the village of Gandiol near Saint-Louis in Senegal is strange. But after the fourth enemy hand, they no longer laughed so easily. They were so pleased with me, they even thought of giving me another medal. At first, they laughed with me heartily, they enjoyed watching me come home with a rifle and an enemy hand. My trench-mates, my war brothers, began to fear me after the fourth hand. David Diop (translated by Anna Moschovakis)
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