by Antonio Napoli
“No, no!” Diallo cried, stomping on the ground, scorched by the sun during the day and by caravans at night. He had seen something his young heart could not bear.
And so, with one of those caravans, he left the village nestled on the edge of the Congo River, a river that charges toward the Atlantic like a stampede of maddened elephants. He traveled far, growing up quickly, trying to erase that tragic memory. He became a man, wandering through places that never satisfied him, until he reached the forest that seals its secrets and guards them with venomous bites.
As a guest of the tribal chief in a nearby village, he heard the legend of their origins: a blind turtle, lost in its eternal journey around the sun, once stumbled upon a mountaintop and tumbled down to the earth. From the copious blood of its shattered shell, the ancestors of that tribe were born. And it was also said that, because of that primordial blood, a kind of curse—though it was merely a natural fact—befell the women of the royal lineage, though not all of them.
The village king had a daughter, Zèudi, whom no one dared approach. Her heavy, painful menstruation made her a shadow among men, a shadow that all avoided. The king suffered for her, but the girl suffered more, living in isolation.
One morning, curious as ever, Diallo pulled back a curtain, and at the sight of Zèudi, he felt faint. Falling in love is like being struck by a sudden illness. Diallo fell in love, and so did Zèudi.
Unlike the others, Diallo did not believe that menstrual blood was contaminating. He was not like those men who avoided looking at women during their period for fear of being turned into trees. To Diallo, menstrual blood was just blood, like his own—blood of pain, of life. And Zeudi’s suffering stirred tenderness in him, while in others, it provoked fear.
Though the tribal chief was pleased with their love, he wanted to be sure of Diallo’s true intentions. One evening, he told him the legend of the serpent-woman, making it clear what he expected: “It is said that a spirit appears at moonrise on the riverbank to judge travelers. If their heart is pure, she lets them pass; if they are guilty, she drags them into the whirlpools of madness.”
That night, to prove his sincerity, Diallo walked along the river with a burning torch. The moon was already high, and the forest shivered with secret whispers. Soon, he saw something.
From the river emerged a tall, sinuous figure, with eyes that reflected the moonlight like two obsidian stones. Diallo felt paralyzed, unable to look away. The figure advanced in silence, and when she spoke, her voice was a hiss: “What burden do you carry in your heart, traveler?”
Diallo lowered his gaze, and in the glow of the flame, he saw a trickle of blood touch his shadow. Then the secret he had buried leaped to his lips like a lion.
“I saw my shadow kill my father. And I ran. My shadow is stained with blood—my own blood. And wherever I go, it follows me like a dark current, condemning me to the bleakest dissatisfaction.”
The serpent-woman tilted her head slightly before dissolving into the river’s liquid darkness.
Diallo found himself alone, his heart pounding in his chest. He had not dreamed it: the spirit had truly peered into his soul. Diallo was not pure, and now he would go mad. In a single stroke, he would lose himself and the woman he loved.
The next morning, in the village, the silence was as heavy as a low-hanging sky. Then someone laughed. It was Zèudi.
“How can a shadow kill a body?” she asked. “Do I wound myself when I bleed? You are not guilty of anything. You are as pure as I am.”
“Then… you were the serpent-woman?” Diallo asked in amazement.
“Yes,” said Zèudi. “By day, men avoid me, but at night, I become the shadow and the voice that reveals their innocence or their guilt. Tell me exactly what troubled you. Do not surrender your words to fear, which makes us see what is not there.”
Diallo recounted what had happened on that fateful day with his father: the sun was setting when the man returned from hunting, anxiously awaited by his son, who wanted to ask for forgiveness after their morning quarrel. In his anger, Diallo had even wished his father would not return. As his shadow stretched across the sand, reaching for his father’s weary figure, the man suddenly collapsed and died.
With her wisdom, Zèudi found the words to convince Diallo that it was not his shadow, but exhaustion from the hunt, that had killed his father.
Diallo felt the ancient knot of guilt in his chest begin to unravel. He turned to Zèudi and took her hands. “Then I am not condemned?”
She smiled—a smile warm and full, like the sun after the rain.
“No, Diallo. You are free. You always have been.”
And for the first time, Diallo believed it to be true.
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