‘You can thank Comrade President Marien Ngouabi; it’s only because he’s died you get to fill your bellies today!’
I heard my mother say we were having cod in peanut sauce with manioc and that tomorrow she’d go and buy some real pork meat at the Grand Marché to make the meal we missed today, part of which is now in Mboua Mabé’s stomach. But promises like that don’t comfort me; I’m not going to get excited about that. I want to find my dog, and I need to leave this house, even if no one’s allowed outside after 7 o’clock because of the curfew.
Papa Roger’s dozing!
God truly is great, He’s one great big God, He’s heard my prayer! I can leave the yard now, and go and yell Mboua Mabé’s name in the streets, find him and bring him back home again. He’s out there somewhere, hiding because he’s ashamed, but he just needs to explain to Papa Roger and Maman Pauline and me why he was so naughty. It’s also possible, since he never leaves our yard, that Mboua Mabé can’t find his way home …
Papa Roger’s snoring. That’s what happens when he’s emptied his bottle of red and had too much tobacco up his nose. I take one step, then two, then a third. I get further and further away.
I’m halfway across the yard now. My heart’s beating really fast, I’m afraid my dad will stop snoring and realise I’ve vanished into the night when there’s a curfew.
I can hear a clattering from the kitchen: Maman Pauline’s still busy making the dish of cod in peanut sauce; she won’t see me leave …
Just as I get to the front gate and try to slip through the barbed wire, because if I push the wooden gate it will creak and everyone will know I’m leaving, a car stops outside our house, its headlights shining right into my eyes.
I put my right hand up to my forehead so I can see what make the car is. It’s nothing special, not like the cars of the black capitalists. It’s a red Renault 5. I recognise it, I’m sure of it; I’ve already ridden in it thousands of times, usually sitting next to the driver, which is good, because you can prop up your elbow on the door like some smart guy, so everyone can see.
Yep, I know this red Renault 5: my cousins and I have even sometimes washed it by hand, with Omo.
It’s Uncle René’s car.
Immediately I turn back into the yard. If my uncle sees me outside, he might say: Michel, where are you off to after curfew?
Two strange men
Uncle René’s not alone tonight; he’s got two men with him, who I’ve never set eyes on before. I don’t like them already, I don’t like the way they’re dressed in black suits, as if they’d just come from Mont-Kamba cemetery, or from a family wake in the Chic neighbourhood. Their white ties make me think of them as two lost penguins, frightened of getting separated. One is really tiny and, though I don’t like to boast, I’m taller than him even though he’s wearing Salamanders with three- or four-storey elevator heels. The other guy looks OK, he’s average, his only problem is he’s having real trouble getting out of the car, as if his back’s been in spasm for years but he’s too scared to go to the Congo-Malembé hospital to get treated by the magic Chinese doctors who cure sick people by sticking needles into their bodies.
They’re entering the yard now, one behind the other. My uncle’s first, followed by the average-size man with the stoop, and then the little fellow with a black briefcase in his hand. I recognise that briefcase: it’s Uncle René’s. I always admired the way my uncle opened it at his house by pressing on a button, taking out really important papers, correcting lots of things with his red Biro like our French teacher at the Three-Glorious-Days, even though he sells cars in the town centre and talking’s more important than writing for selling cars.
Papa Roger is standing to attention before them. This is mostly out of respect for Uncle René, who, by becoming too rich, is now a black capitalist, the only one in our family, even though his car, which he changes three or four times a year, is no nicer than the ones driven by the black capitalists I meet when I go to buy things at Case by Case or from Nanga Dèf, the Senegalese.
No, Maman Pauline isn’t standing to attention like my father, she’s on her knees in the middle of our yard. Anyone watching this scene would find my mother ridiculous, in this praying position, but among our people, the Babembe, it’s what younger sisters or brothers do to show respect to their big sisters or brothers.
The three visitors all want to be the one to help my mother to her feet. Her tears are running right down her neck. Does she suspect that the news they’re going to give us is worse even than the death of Comrade President Marien Ngouabi, or Mboua Mabé’s disappearance?
She’s back on her feet. She brushes the dust off her by flapping a bit of cloth about her knees and anywhere else where they show her there’s still some left. Then they all embrace, talking in Bembé. Uncle René’s Bembé is easy to understand: he mixes up so much French with it that you’d think French was copying words from our language, when in fact it’s the other way round.
I’m standing behind them. Maman Pauline turns around, points at me and says to the two strangers:
‘This is Michel … Your nephew …’
The man who is afraid of the Chinese doctors at the Congo-Malembé hospital is amazed:
‘What? This strapping young man is Michel? No! It’s not true, Pauline! How he’s grown! The boy’s going to be taller than General de Gaulle! When I think how I held him in my lap and he messed all over me! I guess I could have made an effort to see him more often, but with my responsibilities …’
The little man carrying my uncle’s briefcase takes two steps back and takes stock of me:
‘Well I never! How very rude! He’s bigger than I am! What do they feed you on, I wonder! My oh my!’
Uncle René is dressed all in white. He has a shiny badge on the left lapel of his jacket, which he’s worn ever since he joined the Congolese Party of Labour. He dresses in white so that even now with the curfew, even at a distance, people will notice his round red badge that reminds me of Father Weyler’s biscuits at the church of Saint-Jean-Bosco during catechism, when I was still in reception class. Back then Father Weyler would warn us, brandishing a whip above our heads:
‘Only one holy wafer each, children!’
Now, the wafers were so sweet that the more you ate the more you wanted. So we’d do three rounds, slipping behind the priest, who wore heavy glasses and never noticed he was giving a wafer to the same child three times over.
Uncle René’s badge shows two green palms, one on the left, one on the right. Above the palms, as on our country’s flag, is a yellow star and underneath, also in yellow, are a hammer and a hoe, crossed in an ‘X’. If people see this badge, even on a second-hand shirt, they tremble; they’re afraid because they think it means you’re known to members of the government and you’ll end up as a minister one day. Also, with this badge, you can travel for free on the Micheline, in first class, with air conditioning, and in town, if your car gets stuck in mud because of heavy rain, people will give you a push. And that’s not all – if you shop at the Grand Marché, you’ll have several people arguing over who’ll carry your shopping to your car, even if you don’t give them any money for it …
In fact, I’m a bit worried about this little man, with his mouth like a suction cup. As Maman Pauline has made us another meal, after the one we lost, he’s bound to stuff himself silly, like someone with no manners. I know what my mother’s like; she’ll keep serving him over and over till there’s nothing left in the pot. I can just see those pieces of manioc disappearing into his mouth four or five at a time, then hurtling down four or five at a time into his stomach, which is no small distance, as the little man in question has the biggest belly I ever saw. Perhaps I’m getting too worked up, and he actually ate before coming here, because his belly is all swollen. Perhaps the death of Comrade President Marien Ngouabi will have made him lose his appetite, though not the disappearance of Mboua Mabé, or maybe the real greedy guts is the man who’s afraid of the Chinese doctors at th
e Congo-Malembé hospital who’ll turn into a normal man once the food’s been put on the table. Anything’s possible, so I’m going to keep a careful watch on both of them, even if in The Lion and the Gnat by Jean de La Fontaine we’re told that the enemies most to be feared are the little ones …
Maman Pauline asks me to bring out the chairs and put them under the mango tree.
Uncle René disagrees:
‘Pauline, we have important things to talk about. We can’t do it outside, you’ll see why …’
I don’t let on that I’m quite happy to stay outside while they discuss their secret, which has nothing to do with me, and can’t be discussed outside. While they’re doing that, Michel – that’s me – will sneak off and look for Mboua Mabé.
They go inside the house, Papa Roger last, carrying the Grundig. I go back to the foot of the tree. I sit on the basket-work chair as though I’d actually turned into Papa Roger. I think about how the curfew’s intimidated people because if they hang around out of doors the police will accuse them of having plotted against Comrade President Marien Ngouabi. It’s like in a different Jean de la Fontaine poem we had to recite, ‘The Hare’s Ears’, where an animal with horns has wounded the lion and the lion gets really angry with all animals with horns. When the hare sees the shadow of his own long ears he thinks the lion might think he’s got horns too, and that the king of the animals might eat him up without listening to what he has to say! It’s the same with the curfew: when you’re outside you looked like an animal with horns, and the lions will eat you without listening to what you have to say. So, when I’m in the street later, if I’m unlucky enough to see a truck full of soldiers, all sad and angry because of the death of Comrade President Marien Ngouabi, I’ll go and hide either behind a tree or in one of those deserted houses where the madmen of Voungou live. Michel – that’s me – knows the neighbourhood better than the soldiers. For example, I know how to get to the Avenue of Independence by going through the neighbours’ yards, but the soldiers will have to ask for directions and if no one tells them right they’ll carry straight on and end up in the River Tchinouka, where the poor fish swim around in bacteria and die before they get the chance to be fished out and eaten at midday with foufou, manioc and red pepper. On the other hand, who are the soldiers going to ask for directions when they’re lost because they said on the radio that everyone has to stay in their houses? They’re not exactly going to go knocking on every door saying, ‘’Scuse me, we are brave soldiers from the National People’s Army, we’re looking for the murderers of Comrade President Marien Ngouabi and we want to get to Mbota without going via Voungou, where there’s too much witchcraft, but we’re lost, can you help us please?’ At military school our soldiers don’t learn that you’re not allowed to joke in the Voungou neighbourhood, which, as I’ve already said, used to be a Vili cemetery, that’s the southern tribe that eats sharks, as if there weren’t plenty of other smaller fish in the sea. So the devils and ghosts that still live below ground don’t care about the curfew because everyone knows they only go out at night because if they go out in the day the light’s going to hurt their eyes, they won’t be able to be scary any more, so what would the point be then of being devils and ghosts? So, as soon as the spirits hear the sound of big military trucks driving about there’ll be total chaos and mayhem underground, they’ll all come out and no one will know who’s human and who’s a ghost, and who’s a devil, because some of the devils and some of the ghosts will be wearing military uniform so they can mingle with the trucks carrying soldiers of the National People’s Army!
But I don’t need to worry about that. If the soldiers bump into me are they really going to think I’m part of a plot, when in fact I’m alone and, if you think about it carefully, you need at least two people, one person on their own can’t plot with themselves! So they’ll say to themselves: ‘Listen, lads, let him go through, he hasn’t got a beard yet, not like those Lari rebels being hunted and bombed down in the Pool region. He’s just a poor young boy who maybe hasn’t eaten yet and is on his way home; people his age don’t kill the president of the Republic, not in this country.’ And they’ll snicker while I go on my way, looking for Mboua Mabé. But then if their leader, who wants to prove to the other military that he’s in charge of making sure people respect the curfew rules, insists that they take me to be whipped with the drive chain of a Motobécane AV42 moped, well then I’ll have to explain to this leader that Michel – that’s me – is looking for Mboua Mabé, who’s run away from home because he felt really sick when he heard the terrible news on the radio, while other dogs are loafing around at home, especially the dogs that belong to black capitalists who don’t care about the death of Comrade President Marien Ngouabi, those are the dogs who need whipping with a Motobécane AV42 drive chain. And if my explanation doesn’t work I’ll just find another one that the leader of the military will have no choice but to accept otherwise he’ll have problems with the leaders above him: I will tell him that Michel – that’s me – loves Comrade President Marien Ngouabi as I love Papa Roger, that I became a white crane of the Congolese Revolution in primary school, that our comrade president relied on my comrades and me because it was thanks to us he was going to be able to develop this country, this continent and other continents as well, including the countries of Europe, even if they’re developed already, they change presidents too often over there and unfortunately it’s their people who choose their presidents, instead of leaving that difficult and complicated task to the brave militia, or to their own Congolese Party of Labour …
I raise my right leg to slip through the barbed wire without hurting myself, but just as I’m about to do the same thing with my left leg and step out into the street, I hear Uncle René inside the house, shouting: ‘Michel! Michel! Michel! Where’ve you got to?’
I want to keep quiet, but if I do that my uncle might get annoyed and think I’ve been badly brought up. I wait for a moment then for a moment more. If he doesn’t hear me he’ll think I’ve gone. That will be even worse, because they’ll set out to look for me, while I’m trying to look for Mboua Mabé. Now it’s difficult to go looking for someone who’s also looking for someone else, especially if the someone else is an animal who can get through places a human being can’t. The result being that no one ever finds anyone.
I don’t want my family to worry. I don’t want Uncle René to get really cross with me and say I can’t visit his fine, solidly built house in the Comapon neighbourhood, where I’ve sometimes admired his black briefcase, the one he opens at the press of a button to take out extremely important papers and correct them with a red Biro, like our French teacher at the Three-Glorious-Days, when in fact he just sells cars in the centre of town and to sell cars you need to be able to talk rather than write.
I come back inside our plot and now I’m back in the house again. Everyone’s looking at me in silence, as though it was my fault someone had just killed Comrade President Marien Ngouabi.
Is there any more manioc left?
Maman Pauline’s put an old cloth with holes in on the table; she only does that for really important guests. It’s got old wine stains on it that won’t wash out, even though my mother cleans it with hot water and Monganga soap, which is made in Pointe-Noire and is better than soap from Marseilles, which everyone in this town adores. Monganga soap from Pointe-Noire is stronger than savon de Marseille because as well as washing your plates clean it can also cure mange.
Maman Pauline has a good technique for hiding the wine stains and holes in the cloth: she covers them with plates. If someone moves their plate, she puts it back where it was as fast as a chameleon catching a fly with its tongue, and smiles at the guest, while Papa Roger pulls a long face because whenever he tells my mother he’s going to buy a new cloth she says:
‘Why? What’s the problem? My own mother, Henriette Nsoko, used this cloth back in Louboulou, do you not want it in your house?’
The glasses on our table don’t match, but they
are very pretty because they were given to my father by the boss of the Victory Palace Hotel.
‘What were you getting up to outside, Michel?’ Uncle René asks me. ‘I want you to stay indoors with us! Sit down, I’m going to introduce you to two uncles you don’t know …’
Uncle René sits facing Papa Roger and the two men. As I step forward to sit down next to my father and the two strangers, Uncle René blocks my path:
‘No, Michel, come and sit here next to me …’
I like this; all of a sudden I’m more important than the two men. I sit beside my uncle and I can already smell his nice perfume. He’s the only person who has perfume like this, the ones I smell in the street are rubbish; they smell like Mananas, which they use on dead bodies so they won’t smell bad when they arrive in the land of the dead.
I’m admiring Uncle René’s badge, which lets him go out even after curfew. One day I’ll have one too, I’ll be a member of the Congolese Party of Labour, I’ll wear a white suit and hold meetings with weird men like the two here this evening.
Papa Roger gives me a look. He doesn’t like me being impressed by my uncle. But Uncle René is, after all, my mother’s brother, they both came out of the belly of the late Henriette Nsoko, who’s dead now, and who Maman Pauline wept for for a whole month in this house after the corpse had been buried back in the village, where she went with Uncle René. Uncle Mompéro went too, he actually made the coffin, which was so beautiful that the other people buried that day all got the sulks.
‘Michel,’ my uncle continues, ‘allow me to present your uncle Jean-Pierre Kinana, he’s got a few back problems, he had a car accident when he was young, on his way to the careers guidance and grants centre to pick up the original of his Baccalaureate diploma and plan his trip abroad, where he was to continue his studies. He was hit by a bus near the Revolution roundabout, and spent nearly two months in the general hospital in Brazzaville. To me Jean-Pierre is a great example of courage, because he got back on his feet, took his destiny in his own hands and continued his studies. During his convalescence, since he wasn’t able to travel, he did a second Baccalaureate, with good marks, and went off to study economics at the Lumumba University in Moscow! Today Jean-Pierre is advisor to the Minister for Rural Economy.’
The Death of Comrade President Page 6