Free Allah is Not Obliged by Ahmadou Kourouma Page B

is a law thatforbids you from doing something). Yacouba set himself up as a shaman. He made prophecies, tracing lines in the sand that revealed Colonel Papa le Bon’s future. He told the colonel he had to sacrifice two oxen. Two big bulls.
    ‘But there are no bulls in Zorzor,’ answered Colonel Papa le Bon.
    ‘You must do this; it is a necessary sacrifice. It is written in your future. But it’s not really, really urgent,’ said Yacouba.
    Yacouba made grigris for all the child-soldiers and all the grown-up soldiers. He sold the grigris for lots of money. I got the most powerful grigris and Yacouba gave me mine free! All the grigris had to be renewed, so Yacouba was never short of work. Never! Yacouba was as rich as Moro-naba. Moro-naba was the name of the rich chief of the Mossis of Burkina-Faso. Yacouba sent money back to his village, to Togobala, to his parents, to the
griots
and the
almami
(a ‘
griot
’ is a traditional historian, a praise singer, and an ‘
almami
’ is a religious leader, according to the
Glossary
) on account of how he had so much money to spare.
    Daytime only lasts about twelve hours. It was a shame, a terrible shame, twelve hours just weren’t enough for Colonel Papa le Bon. There was always work left over for tomorrow. Allah should have been merciful and made fifty-hour days for Colonel Papa le Bon. Fifty whole hours.
Walahé!
    Every morning Colonel Papa le Bon woke up at cockcrow—except on the mornings after he’d drunk too much good palm wine before going to bed. But I can tell you that he never smoked hash. Never, ever. Every morning he changedhis grigris, put on his white soutane and his kalash. Then he took the papal staff with the crucifix on top, a crucifix decorated with a rosary and started by inspecting the battle stations. The watchtowers inside the camp manned by child-soldiers and the watchtowers outside manned by real soldiers.
    Every morning he went into the temple and officiated. (‘Officiate’ is a big word that means ‘to conduct a religious ceremony’, that’s what it says in my
Larousse
.) He officiated with altar boys who were child-soldiers. Afterwards he had breakfast, but no alcohol. Alcohol wasn’t good for Colonel Papa le Bon early in the morning. It fucked up his whole day.
    Afterwards, still wearing his soutane, Colonel Papa le Bon would hand out the day’s ration of grain to the soldiers’ wives. He had a set of mechanical scales. He’d talk to each soldier’s wife, and sometimes he’d burst out laughing and if she was really pretty he’d give her a slap on the arse. That was Colonel Papa le Bon’s fixed schedule, the schedule of things he had to do no matter what, even if he was laid up with malaria, even if he’d been drinking good palm wine. Only after he had distributed the grain to the soldiers’ wives and the child-soldiers’ cooks could he do other stuff depending on what day it was.
    If he had to give a ruling or if there was a trial, he would stay in the temple until noon. The temple was also the courthouse on account of how the accused had to swear by God and by the grigris. It was trial by ordeal, which means ‘a barbarous, medieval method of justice’. Justice took place once a week, usually on Saturdays.
    If Colonel Papa le Bon had no ruling to make, then rightafter he had distributed the grain, he went straight to the infirmary. After their medicine, the doctor brought all the sick and the lame and the other fucked-up patients into one room where Colonel Papa le Bon preached to them, and he preached hard. It wasn’t unusual to see a sick person throw away his crutches and shout ‘I’m cured!’ and start walking around just like a normal person.
Walahé!
Colonel Papa le Bon was a seriously good and expert preacher.
    After the infirmary Colonel Papa le Bon supervised the military training of the child-soldiers and the real soldiers. Military training was a bit like religious training or civic training and all of them were