The night was almost finished and a febrile activity was taking place in one hut of the village. Muffled moans close together could be eared. Suddently, a weil ripped the veil of silence covering the village : a girl was born. When the calm was coming back, another weil bursted out. The midwife assistant went out of the hut in a hurry and came back with the marabout.

The latter evaluated the situation in one look when he entered and said sententiously :

  -   'Two girls means two fathers and I have to determine who is the cursed twin, conceived by a malefic spirit. If we let her live, she'll die soon carring along her sister or mother to the spirits' realm.'

  -   'How to recognize the wrong twin ?' asked the midwife'It's the first time it occurs to me.'

  -   'I'll buckle down to that task' he answered.

He took the twins from their mother, who was crying from both pain and shame, and put them on the ground. Then he wrote Koran suras on a piece of acacia bark with a mix of salt and ink. Touching each twin with this consecrated item made the second one cry out loud.

  -   'Demons and demons' childs can't stand the contact with sacred objects. I take her.'

Once returned to his proper hut, the marabout set down the weilling child in a large jar, before closing it and painting cabalistic figures on the perimeter. When that task was done, he declaimed these gloomy sentences with a monotone voice :

' You wanted to walk among humans.

Your gait will be the one of a beast !

You concealed yourself under the appearance of purity.

Your skin will be stained with the yellow of treason and the black of sin !

You laughed at the other's misfortune.

Only sniggers of madness will escape from your mouth !

You wanted to eat the millet from our harvests.

Your mouth will only taste rot and putrefaction !'

After the ritual, the sorcerer left the village with the jar under the armpit and moved away into the surronding savannah. Reaching an imposing baobab, he put down the container and came back to the village without giving a look back.

Twelve soltices have been celebrated since these events and Efia was now in age of helping her mother for the water chore. One day when they were going to the river, she remarked a little ball of fur near the track. She came closer, driven by curiosity.

  -   'Mom, it's a hyena baby !' she exclaimed turning towards her mother.

  -   'Efia, go away ! A sagged is always dangerous, even a small one !' she shouted strongly.

  -   'But Mom, she's weak and didn't run away. Eh, you're nice, no ?' she asked the hyena.

The animal woke up and went to crouch down at a few steps to the young girl, making little happy howls.

  -   'See, Mom, she isn't bad. I think she wants to play. Hey, come'on, don't be shy.'

She kneeled and the hyena baby came closer until huddle up on her lap. Efia's mother stayed still, both worried for her older daughter and puzzled by the unusually friendly behaviour shown by this young.

  -   'Mom, we can keep her ? Please...'

  -   'No way ! She'll eat our chicken and bite our friends if we take her with us !'

The girl made her best hurt pup look and implored again, who ended up giving up.

Two years passed. At the beginning the villagers were as Efia's mother, both mistrutsful towards the animal and curious about her almost domestical behaviour, but the presence of the little hyena became banal as the time was carried along by the wet season rainfalls.

Efia and Hissa, as the baby animal was called, ended up being unseparable : they played together as often as possible and sometimes Hissa nibbled her mistress, but only for fun and without intention to hurt. Moreover she never bit anyone or growl : without any order from Efia, the hyena stayed still and placid at her feet.

Despite being a lot more good-natured than a feral hyena, she only had in the village the place to a hyena, even less enviable than a dog's one. To content herself with vilest carbage, even not peels or bones. Sleep outside whatever the weather. Receive friendly gestures only from Efia.

One day of the dry season, the young girl's grandfather invited her to gather the shadow of an old umbrella with him.

  -   'Your young hyena is really different from those I've watched when I was enough young to chase.' he began after a while looking at Hissa.' Normally, hyenas grow old more or less as fast as dogs so we need to multiply human years by five to get right. Given this fact, she might be adult since a long time.'

  -   'You're right, she doesn't grow.' she said giving him a questionning look.

  -   'Perhaps it could be due to...' he began to answer' but it's only a silly idea which doesn't worth that we pay attention to it.' he added without delay.

  -   'But grandfather, you're wise and never say silly things.'

The little flattery had the wanted effect.

  -   'I was just wondering about the fact that you and Hissa are growing at the same rate.'

  -   'But only siblings grow at the same rate, no ?'

  -   'Not at all, remember Fouad's little sister : she just reached his knee at three but have grown in three years until reach his hips, when he only gained half a head of height.'

  -   'So, it's only the siblings born the same...'

The patriarch made her be quiet by putting a finger on her mouth while his face became closed, but he noded. Efia standed up and saluted respectfully her grandfather before leaving the hut's yard, Hissa scampering alongside.

That night, rainfalls season just started marked by fury and hubbub as nobody in the village, even the elders, could have know it. Efia was jumping at each clap of thunder and shaking with fear at each crack from the hut roof. Finally, not holding out anymore, she resolved to have Hissa nearby her.

Answering to her call, the hyena soaked with rain shook herself on the doorstep before going huddle up with her mistress on the mat. Once squeezed up one against the other, Efia closed her eyes and was beginning to taste the soothing calm of a shared sleep when she realized that something strange was occuring.

  -   'Hissa, didn't you noticed ?' she whispered into her ear.

The hyena opened a drowsy eye.

  -   'Our hearts... they are pounding in unison !' she said with a smile and Hissa returned it.

They separated with the sunshine, just before Efia's mother woke up, and the young girl helped the latter to prepare the noon dishes.

  -   'Mom... In which case the hearts of two people can beat together ?' she tried to ask as innocently as possible.

  -   'Ah, you're talking about the heart melody. It occurs mostly between siblings or lovers, but you don't have a suitor and you sleep alone.' Why this question ?' she replied looking suspectiously to her daughter.

  -   'I was just wondering if you and Dad... you were still...' she lied quite cleverly

  -   'Don't worry, Efia, we still love each other. And here's the proof.' she finished rubbing her belly rounded by growing life, like each year...

The hawker was coming to the village as each first thuesday of the month, when his old italian scooter overloaded with varied goodies was able to take the road. He was saying everytime' I sell everything except love and courage' but could not stop himself from telling bawdy jokes to the young women he bumped into, under the reproving look of their parents. He also loved to share the latest gossips with the scandlmongers, flattering them by calling them' The best secret agents of the country'.

Just before he set off again, Efia went to buy a mirror for her mother and made sure sure nobody else could hear them before asking him a question who was close to her heart.

  -   'You've travelled a lot and learned plenty of things, so... do you know how we can recognize those who are... born the same day ?' she said, looking behing her shoulder by caution.

  -   'You mean the true twins ? First, they look like to a man and his reflexion : same eyes, mouth, nose or ears... Then, they either love each other deeply or hate each other as two people wanting the same woman. Finally, being two identical trees, they grow up the same and have similar stature. Hope I helped, but don't tell others I answered you on this subject and I won't tell your parents you asked me that. Compris ?'

The young girl was still pondering about what she just learned while the noisy and irregular backfiring of the scooter began to vansih into the overheated air of the savannah, but she stopped before having a headache. Concerned by her appearance as every girl at her age, she looked into the mirror before coming back to the hut to give it to her mother. It is at that moment that Hissa put her paw on her mistress' shoulder and gazed at this strange window behind which another hyena identical to herself was standing still. There the trivial fact became a evidence : they have the same brown eyes with reddish inclusions on the iris.

Efia spent a sleepless night, her thoughts knocking together without real result. Progressively she lovered the pace of her thinking and focused on all the speechs since she met Hissa, especially the hawker's ones. Then ideas went ogether forming a coherent logical thread. She followed it and reached what seemed to be the obvious truth, as fool as fool as it looked like.

The marabout never left his hut for several years, when an inside lighting ravaged his head and made him unable to walk, but this even let him more time to spend in meditation and prayer. In fact he has never seen the little hyena, so he was quite surprised to see Efia and Hissa entering his home in the middle of the night. The young girl seemed to be hesitating, looking alternately at the hyena and the sorcerer, before she breathed deeply and took the plunge.

  -   'Marabout, I'm sure Hissa's my twin.'

He could not help from roaring with laughter.

  -   'Come on, young lady, what are you talking about ? You can see just as me she is a hyena, not a girl.' he finally said when he finished giggling.

  -   'I know it because I guessed it : we have the same eyes, we grow at the same rhythm and we love each other like sisters.'

  -   'You call that proofs !?'

  -   'I don't lie, Marabout, it's the truth !'

  -   'That is enough ! Stop wasting my time and get out here before I lose my temper !'

The old man just tried to hit the hyena when a short lighting burst between them, letting both two shocked as if they suffered from a powerful electric spark.

  -   'The fellowship bound... it's impossible.' he muttered, surprised and shaked.

  -   'The fellow... what ?' ask Efia, whom the curiosity was aroused.

  -   'This magical link happens because she was the target of one powerfull spell in the past and makes her unable to be hurt without suffering the consequences.' he said learnedly while rubbing his hurt hand.

  -   'You're hurt, so it's you that ... you transformed my twin sister into a hyena !  Give Hissa her normal appearance back, now !'

Efia's eyes threw lightings and she stopped herself beating him up with difficulty, while the hyena showed her sharp fangs and growled. The old bedridden marabout, overwhelmed by so much anger and unable to fight back the dangerous animal in front of him, tried to appease the minds. He took a wool square behind him and filled it with a mix of herbs and mineral powders, before rolling it up as a strip and writing a sybilline sentence all along.

  -   'Tie this collar around her neck' he said while giving the object to Efia.' Nothing will happen if she's really an innocent being. But if she is a demon, as I am thinking... the spell inserted into the object will lead her to perish by suffocation.'

  -   'But... the fellow link'll made you die if she die ?'

  -   'Only if it is me who tie the exorcism bow. But it is you who will act and it is you wh will kill her probably. So do it, if you have enough courage !'

She turned towards Hissa, dreading what will happen and made indecisive by the sorcerer speech, and the latter sat down and rose her head to look into her mistress' eyes. Efia's hands was shaking with fear when she finally gathered her willingness and tied the strip around her neck. The anxious wait only lasted a few seconds but seemed to never end., until the hyena shouted ittle happy howls.

They threw themselves into each other's arms while the old'wise' man was looking at the scene, his mind sinking into the deepest stupefaction and perplexity and his mental universe collapsing bit by bit.' This hyena's really the one I transformed years ago... She reacted to my birth test so she's the cursed twin... But my exorcism didn't work... It doesn't make sense... One of the twins is necessarily a demon's child... But my exorcism didn't work...' Finally he held his head right and spoke weakly :

  -   'What a sorcerer did, only him can undo it. Make Hissa come closer.'

After having written the inverted version of the first tranformation symbols on a large mat, he covered the hyena with it then recited the unbewitchment incantation :

' Your gait was the one of a beast.

You'll walk among humans !

Your skin was stained with the yellow of treason and the black of sin.

You'll regain the brightness and purity of ebony !

Your mouth was only releasing sniggers of madness.

You'll laugh with your fellows !

Your mouth only tasted rot and putrefaction.

You'll savour millet from our harvests !'

The silence fell bach in the hut. After another moment of anxious wait, Efia saw at last the mat move then lift : Hissa was reborn to the human life.

I would have considerable trouble depicting the emotion surronding this real reunion. The marabout offered profuse apologies again then ask the twins to gather the villagers after the sunshine : a long explanation will be needed, and changing the minds will be even longer...