| Conte de fer |
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| The sea is a savanna of water. — Tchicaya U Tam’si
Ultimately it will stretch across 784 kilometers.
It will pass through deserts, plains, savannas, and high plateaus. A
condensation of history. It will span a great distance. Two parallel
lines of blood will link two countries and a thousand different landscapes.
A difficult gestation: it will take twenty years to be of use. It will
come into being one day in 1897 — at first on finely ruled graph
paper. It will destroy those whom modernity has trampled. It will leave
the land of thirst. It will climb, climb, climb all the way to an altitude
of 2,350 meters. It will climb from the flat, blue-tinted sea to the
foothills overrun by the dark green of It will cross the land of reality. It made history from the outset, piled up dates and deeds of arms, accumulated successes and failures. It built a castle in the mind, a palace of memory where every clan, every person involved — from French engineers to Swiss designers, Afar sultans, Somali workers, and Abyssinian soldiers — comes to shop at the self-service souvenir stand. Statistics were on its side, irrefutable numbers, as solid as the steel that built it: 784 kilometers in length, 2,350 meters in altitude, 1,355 bridges, 31 tunnels, 1 bankruptcy, a capital investment of several hundred million. How many human lives lost? Nobody counted. It will bear the label “Designed and built by French ingenuity.” People will examine it, photograph it, ask its advice about the psychology of the natives, about the ultimate effects of the trampoline of history: Adwa,[1] “pacification,” the thousand and one conquests of the Abyssinian ogre, and so on. Big brothers will be found for it, rich uncles brought direct from the American frontier and the Far West: It will cross the land of reality. It sprang into being one day in 1897. It terrorized more than one nomad, though they are not easily impressed. The two rails traced out a Dantean circle. It wounded the land of reality. Just one example: at the place known as Jab Issa,[2] warriors of the Issa tribe massacred railway workers who insisted that the monster’s perfidious rails must pass through the sanctuary of a venerated ancestor. The vengeance exacted by colonial troops lived up to their reputation. Three years passed before work could be resumed. It will span wadis. It will tunnel into the flanks of burnt mountains. It will count the stones that crackle under the halo of a fulminating sun. Tumefaction. It will eat the heart of the region of creation’s fourth day. Putrefaction. The Issas, stunned, will end up on their asses in the dust. Then they will lift up their heads: Ciisow Sarakaa! Ciisow Sarakaa![3] They will rouse their scattered brothers and launch attacks and raids. The monster will be vanquished for a while. A sign will caution: “Work halted.” The natives will prove to be tough. The sun will shit on the comatose monster’s organs of steel. At a snail’s pace the work will resume. Campfires will be rekindled. The solar orb will be replaced by a small, apologetic virgin moon. The natives will grow discouraged. Their caravans will frown on their competitor, the noisy, lurching metal monster. People will pray to God in all the languages of the land. Meanwhile, Ilg and Chefneux, the project’s Swiss designers, will rejoice. It will move forward. Paris will look on with a covetous eye. People will be surprised by the duration of the lull. Pacification will have taught the outlaws a lesson. Nomads who cooperate will be given sacks full of dates. It will cross the land of reality. It marked space. It pared away the earth. It branded men. It stamped their tongues. Small towns flourished along its path as if greeting it ceremoniously. The white man’s interpreter said: “Venerable assembly, the white man wishes you no harm. He wants only a corridor through your territory, just wide enough to lay down two iron rails.” The assembly said nothing. The interpreter spread his legs and said: “The white man wants only this narrow space between my legs.” The assembly was plunged into confusion. Half of them acknowledged the insignificance of the request. The other half remained suspicious, ready to take up arms. The value of the promise was dwarfed by the engine’s speed. Spores of doubt found receptive hearts in the surrounding countryside. The rapacious realism of the railway company triumphed. Distress among the elderly natives increased as the years went by: It crossed the sun-bronzed land. It will advance steadily. It will leave the tiny French colony on the shores of the Red Sea. The dynamite used to blast tunnels will trigger earthquakes: the earth will resist in the land of the Rift. The Meharis will ridicule the multi-jointed monster. It will advance steadily. It will stall in the little plain of Galilee. It will leave Aicha. It will encounter blazing emptiness at the entry to the great plain of Hadagalla. It will emerge near nests of termites. The few remaining adversaries had yet to speak their final word. Men crawling on their stomachs and clenching daggers in their teeth attacked the camps. White engineers met with death by cold steel. Menilik, emperor of Ethiopia, was displeased. His punitive expeditions showed no mercy. The corruption of decadence was in the air, as if the world were about to end. Thus . . . It crossed the sun-bronzed land. It will leave the desert. It will leave the savanna. The landscape will exchange its ochres for a palette of greens. It will build the greatest city of the region: Dire Diwa in the narrow pass between two mountains. The sky will darken. Thick clouds will shroud it in shadow. Rain will fall as usual: a tropical rain, short and violent. It will pause to catch its breath,to regain its strength. The workers will stock up on fresh supplies. It trembled at the sight of the first river: the Awash. It labored near the town of Awash; the soil is volcanic basalt, the population Afar, Issa, or Orgabo. It suffered martyrdom. People sabotaged its wheels. The sun sniggered by day, and hyenas threatened after nightfall. It was looted. They almost finished it off. It crossed the burning land. Drumrolls: it will reach the aptly named city of Nazareth. It will plow through the sinuous flanks of the mountains of the Shoa. Menilik will rejoice. Paris will sigh. Addis Ababa, the new flower of the ever-conquering Abyssinian Empire, will smile upon it. Addis Ababa, the gleaming capital, will allow the workers’ sweat to flow freely. A small white moon will open the festivities. A day without parallel: champagne, palm wine, Abyssinian mead, soda for the austere Muslims. Cannon fire from the garrison at Entoto. The line will open on June 2, 1917. Long live the Franco-Ethiopian Railway Company! It transformed the notion of time and space, the meaning of history. It imposed itself on the natives. They called it firhoun and Ibliss.[4] Unable to ignore it, they adopted it — with words of their own: The moving steel (the train);
1. Historic defeat of the Italians by the
Abyssinian emperor Menilik II. The title “Conte de fer,” literally “Tale of Iron” in English, evokes two alternate phrases: “conte de fées” (fairy tale) and “conte de faire” (story of the “making” of the railroad). Translated from the French by Arthur Goldhammer |
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