At Night All Blood Is Black: A Novel

Alfa asserts that he does not need to know French to know that Mademoiselle François wants him because people have always reacted strongly to his good looks, beautiful smile, white teeth, and broad, wrestler’s shoulders. Alfa reexamines his childhood dynamics with Mademba who, by contrast, had foul teeth and a scrawny chest. Mademba’s love for Alfa was always mixed with envy for his looks and strength. This envy and a desire to prove himself to Alfa helped inspire Mademba’s death.

Alfa continues to reflect on how, even in childhood, people compared the two of them and tried to warn Mademba that Alfa was a dëmm feeding on his strength. Mademba always defended Alfa from this accusation. Alfa concludes that being physically weaker like Mademba and fighting anyway made Mademba the braver of the two.

Doctor François encourages Alfa and the other patients to draw to cleanse their minds from war. Alfa completes a beautiful drawing of his mother, Penndo Ba, and recalls the story of his mother’s life and how he came to be born.

Penndo Ba was the treasured only daughter of Yoro Ba, a Fulani herder who used to bring his cows through Gandiol each dry season. Each year, he was welcomed by an old landowner, Bassirou Coumba Ndiaye, who cut a path to his wells for Yoro Ba and his cattle. In gratitude, Yoro Ba gave Penndo to Bassirou as his fourth and final wife. They loved each other, despite or because of the differences in age and culture. When Alfa was seven years old, Yoro stopped returning to Gandiol. Penndo waited two years in vain and then, pining for her family and their nomadic life, set out to look for her father and brothers. She disappeared and was likely captured and enslaved.

Next, Alfa draws Mademba for Doctor François. He recalls how, after his mother’s disappearance, Mademba engineered Alfa’s gradual adoption by Mademba’s family. The two best friends grew up together, becoming more than brothers. The two were opposites in many ways; Alfa used physical exertion to deal with his grief over Penndo’s disappearance, pouring himself into farm labor, dancing, and wrestling, while Mademba was a passionate scholar. After he knew the Koran better than the local holy man, he attended a white school, which filled his head with ideas of serving the French motherland in war, moving to the city of Saint-Louis, and becoming a businessman.

Mademba wanted Alfa to join him and said that their new status would allow them to search for Penndo. Alfa, too, allowed himself to dream of life as a Senegalese rifleman and someday enacting revenge on the men who kidnapped his mother, visiting them “with [his] regulation rifle in [his] left hand and [his] savage machete in [his] right” (95). Due to his frail physique, Mademba was initially rejected by the riflemen, but Alfa trained him for two months until he returned, unrecognizable, to the recruiters and was accepted.

Next, Alfa revisits the night he had sex with Fary Thiam. He knows that Fary chose to have sex with him because she wanted to offer him a gift before he went to war, despite the moral taboo against premarital sex and her father’s hatred of Alfa’s father. The experience was the greatest bodily pleasure that Alfa had ever known. Alfa also believes that Fary was motivated by the knowledge that the war would take Alfa from Gandiol forever, whether or not he survived.

Alfa recalls the source of Fary’s father’s hatred. Abdou Thiam, the village chief, was also a shopkeeper. He attempted to convince every farmer in the village to grow peanuts instead of a wide variety of subsistence crops. Alfa’s father spoke out against this plan, pointing out how it would drive him to rely on food from Abdou’s store and might prevent him from offering hospitality to travelers or feeding his family in the event of a drought. This family history highlights Fary’s love for Alfa and the significance of her choice to have sex with him.

The third thing Alfa draws for Doctor François is his collection of severed hands. He does so a few days after burying them during a full moon, feeling they “deserved a bit of light” (106). The moonlight may have been a poor decision, however, as Alfa noticed a shadow watching him from the hospital wing. After waiting a few days to see if he was reported, Alfa draws the hands, hoping that doing so will allow him to cleanse the inside of his head. Doctor François, however, no longer smiles so kindly at him afterward.