Mount Pleasant: A Novel by Patrice Nganang

Author:Patrice Nganang [Patrice Nganang]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780374713089
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2016-04-12T04:00:00+00:00

9

The Sultan’s Soul Is an Open Book, Written in a Mysterious Alphabet

Very little of note happened in Mount Pleasant. The arrival of Ibrahim, Nji Mama’s younger brother, shifted Njoya’s perimeter somewhat. Although not part of the princely nobility, the Nguri, that man had, as he put it, abandoned the plebes and their foolishness. In short, that man, who broadcast his aristocracy through the tilt of his hat and his catlike eyes, infused new life into Ngutane’s veins. It seemed that she chose her wardrobe just to garner one of his winks. Besides, the doyenne told me, the dance had returned to her steps, just as when she was in her glory back in Foumban. If until then she had found no partner who could keep up with her, in Ibrahim she suddenly had a man whose sense of style revealed a vanity beyond compare. And the master calligrapher was her childhood love, too. Sometimes, when the two of them entered Njoya’s bedchamber, it was as if they were staging a play.

“Wow!” everyone exclaimed.

Of course rumors began to fly. After all, Ngutane was married to one of her father’s ministers, who had stayed behind in Foumban. But Njoya had other things to worry about. With help from Ibrahim, Nji Mama, or anyone else, he began to move about, one step after the other, in the rooms where he was confined. Father Vogt’s wheelchair had made a big difference, yes. Everyone, including Ngutane, raved about its practicality. All the sultan had to do was get out of bed. She’d push him along Mount Pleasant’s corridors. The master artists had studied that chair until they were exhausted. Monlipèr had used all his talent as a blacksmith; Nji Shua had called on the spirits of his carpentry; even Nji Mama had joined in the artists’ conspiracy. The seat the three of them had built together, however, proved dangerous for someone who was learning to walk again. The easy simplicity of the prelate’s chair was far better than the magnificence of their rolling version of the legendary throne, the Mandu Yenu.

The three men weren’t used to defeat, and tears ran from Monlipèr’s eyes when Njoya finally chose the wheelchair that, according to the master, was an insult to the Bamum and their genius. It was a moment of triumph for Father Vogt, who spoke of God’s will and paid more frequent visits to the sultan.

“God’s grace is infinite,” said Father Vogt, “for He is love.”

He came to Mount Pleasant not only to check on the patient’s health, but especially because the two had begun a conversation on faith and the washing away of sin, which the priest wanted to continue. If you’d told him that his arguments were just awkward reiterations of the same theses, antitheses, and syntheses of Christian conversion that the missionary Göhring had already exchanged with Njoya, he wouldn’t have believed you. Father Vogt’s hopes of converting Njoya burned all the brighter since the sultan, his interlocutor, was no longer the thirty-year-old

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