It was the beginning of June, the time for the final school exams as well as the competitive regional ones. Already for weeks now the students had been writing letters to their parents; their desire to pass the rapidly approaching competitive exams made them nervous.
The post-office employees had no reason to love this month of June with its flood of mail. They brutally date-stamped these letters, without any respect for the ideas, the dreams, the illusions, and the courage they contained.
The students no longer knew what lessons to revise, what books to consult. During frequent question-and-answer periods, the teachers tried to fill in the gaps, for their honour was at stake. The results of the competitive exams between the eight territories of French West Africa tested the professional abilities of the teachers themselves.
Since the month of April, when the final list of candidates had been determined after three preliminary exams, school had become as busy as a beehive. Everywhere, during the evening hours, one met the candidates determined to enter Ponty - in the garden, in the classrooms, in the dormitories, on neighbouring plantations, in the streets, on trails bordering the lagoon, nestled in the high grass. The Headmaster himself, very ill-tempered on the subject of 'discipline', confessed to being satisfied with the conduct of his students.
It was in such an atmosphere of strenuous work, of dreams and apprehensions, that the exams to enter the Ecole Normale William Ponty de Gorée began one Monday morning, with an essay in French. The dictation exam came on the following day, an event which prompted much discussion.
The School Inspector had decided to give the dictation himself. Unfolding the thin piece of paper which had been placed in a sealed envelope, he read it through once, twice, reread it, and then shouted: 'Attenshun. Take your pensh in your handsh. I am going to shtart. Write!' The students lowered their heads, dipped their pens in ink, and aimed them towards their paper. The pens raced on, then hesitated and stopped, stumbled and stopped again. Several students batted their eyelids and knotted their eyebrows together, while others scratched their temples. Some passed their thumbnails between their teeth, but most of them just raised their eyes towards the platform. They seemed to be calling the gods to their aid. One by one the heads rose. The Inspector kept dictating. The students stared at their teachers, and their expressions seemed to cry out: 'We don't understand!' At first there was only a slight murmur, vague and imprecise, but it gradually gained form and strength, and soon filled the classroom. All that made the Inspector nervous, and he shouted even louder, to make sure everyone could hear him: 'All thoshe who, like egshaushted horsesh, balk at even the shmall obshtacle, will not inshpire shympathy from a shingle pershun.'
The erasers worked harder than the pens. And the inspector continued to dictate, walking from one corner of the classroom to the other, his nose glued to the paper, his voice getting louder and louder.
More than one student shook his head as he saw the work of the eraser on his paper. His dreams flew away, and the Ecole William Ponty faded farther and farther into the distance. To fail, after so many long months of hard work, of willing refusals to go out and have fun! To fail, just because the Inspector had a provincial accent that no one was used to!
During break, the students got together and agreed to void the dictation test by refusing to take the other exams.
That afternoon the students dispersed themselves around the garden and refused to sit for the mathematics exam. Their teachers came to look for them and kept saying, without any real conviction: 'Be reasonable! You will pass. The students in the other colonies make more mistakes than you do. The Inspector speaks very well. You aren't used to his accent, that's all.... Come on now, let's go inside!'
Those who were strong in maths entered the classroom first, dragging their feet a little. The others were obliged to follow. But that evening, all the students in the school took off to find the Governor.
Imagine an excited, disorderly crowd of one hundred boys, their chosen delegates in the lead, climbing up the hill leading to the Governor's palace! The noise became louder and louder despite the shouts of 'Silence!' by several boys.
Looking out of their office windows, standing on their doorsteps, the Europeans and the Africans watched them go by. The boys were off to see the Governor - as if powerful men were easily seen! The Governor of their very own children's festival would surely see them! They walked on. The pebbles kicked along by their feet rolled into gutters. The birds in the mango trees, playing safe, flew away. You could go and see the Governor with a catapult in your pocket....
The Governor's private secretary met them. He smiled at the boys' request to nullify the exam, and replied: 'We'll see. I will speak to the Governor.' He did speak to the Governor, but the exam was not annulled.
Climbié had the good fortune to pass. His name appeared at the bottom of the list, but nonetheless, among the chosen few.
There he was, on the Port-Bouet wharf, ready to board a ship, a dream that had been his for a long time. People had told him such fabulous stories about ships! When travelling on a steamer you had to be clean; if not, the motor would stop, for the motor, like a genie, does not like dirty people. When travelling on a steamer you could not eat, for you would get seasick. When travelling on a steamer.... What had people not told him? At last, he was going to examine one with his very own eyes.
To climb aboard a ship was already like a dream! In Grand-Bassam, Climbié had many times tried to fool the customs officers, wanting only to reach the end of the wharf where he could see the ships up close. But a sleepy officer would always open one eye and ask: 'Your papers, please?'
Retracing his steps, he would say to himself: 'One day I'll get my revenge, and I too will travel on a big steamship.' With fresh determination he would bend over his books and notebooks and immerse himself in his work. He would not even stop to chat with his friends. He flipped through his geography book, absorbed in the pictures, and the maps. There was France with its provinces: Maine, Anjou, Normandie - the land of apple and pear trees which looked like young mango trees - Sologne, Limousin.... He looked at the names of cities: Paris, Lyon, Reims, Toulouse, Mâcon - a woman's name in the Apollonian tribe - and still other names which were written in big black letters on all the crates unloaded from cargo ships: Bordeaux, Marseille, Le Havre, Hambourg, London, Portsmouth, and New York! There were pictures of Papeete and Honolulu, with palm trees reflected in calm lakes, and young men and charming girls with flowers in their hair and unchanging smiles on their faces.
All of a sudden Climbié remembered the day a garde-cercle had kicked him, and his books too, because he was beating some mango trees with a pole, to make the fruit fall. Over there, with skies just as blue, countrysides just as restful, lakes just as quiet, surely people must treat one another more humanely.
He looked at the map of France again, with its multicoloured divisions, its jagged, sandy coastline. There was Paris, with its Arc de Triomphe, the Louvre, the Panthéon, the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, Place de la Bastille, Place de la Nation. The last two names meant very little to Climbié. He did not see all the history in them, the continuous struggle, the slow but sure march of the French people towards the fulfilment of their destiny. For him they were only nice-sounding names. He could not imagine all the tears, the misery, and bloodshed represented by these last two names. Place de la Bastille! Place de la Nation! The entire history of France is contained in these two names.
And always there were imaginary ships, on a vast ocean, ships very like those anchored beside the wharf. And each one carried some of Climbié's dreams - in the storerooms, in the cabins, right up the masts, clinging to the chains and ropes, in the creases of the flags. His dreams, like the wind, rushed into the sails, to give the motors more power, more energy. And the ships, throughout their voyages, in all the ports visited by Climbié in his geography book, swarmed with his dreams, binding him to all other dreamers in the world whose hearts beat in unison and who seek each other in the false dark. He was one with all those who face life with a smile....
