The Death of Comrade President

by Alain Mabanckou

  He stops for a few seconds, looks at Maman Pauline, then at me.

  ‘You see, Michel, perseverance pays sooner or later! I have a great deal of time for Jean-Pierre. And another thing is, from primary school through to university, he never had to repeat a year! And he finished top of his year in the USSR! You could go a long way in life too, if you concentrated instead of daydreaming all the time …’

  Uncle Jean-Pierre Kinana’s bobbing his head about like a lizard. Does that mean he agrees with Uncle René saying I look like a ‘daydreamer’, or is he flattered to have it mentioned that he never repeated a single year, from primary school through to university?

  If he knew what I know about the USSR, he’d calm down a bit and not put on that face, as if he’s got a lot to be proud of. He doesn’t know Papa Roger has told me that studies in the USSR are really easy, because Africans who go there never have to repeat a year; the Soviets want lots of people to be able to speak their language, especially Africans. So they’re all very nice to us, and we come home with a big fat diploma, when in fact real diplomas are really small and hard to get, like in fishing, where it’s easy to catch a big fish, but you have to struggle a thousand times harder to catch a little one that tastes better. Does Uncle René mean that I should go and do really easy studies later on at the Lumumba University in the USSR so I can come top of my year like this uncle?

  When I heard Uncle René say the name Lumumba I looked across at my father, and he winked at me, which meant yes, that was the same Patrice Lumumba he told me about one day under the mango tree, along with all the mayhem that went on back when Zaire was still called the Belgian Congo. He’d talked to me about this hero because I’d asked him why there were primary schools, colleges and lycées all over the place named after Patrice Lumumba instead of the current president of Zaire, Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu Wa Za Banga, which actually means ‘Mobutu, the warrior who goes unstoppably from victory to victory’. True, the name is a bit long for a school, a college or a lycée, you couldn’t possibly find enough room on a sign to write it all on one line and also draw in the face of Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu Wa Za Banga, with his big glasses and his leopard-skin hat. Papa Roger revealed to me that the Zairian president had plotted with the Americans and the Belgians to kill Patrice Lumumba. A Belgian militiaman dragged him up to a tree, another gave the order to four Africans from the Belgian Congo to take aim and shoot at Lumumba and his two friends, all in the presence of the soldiers and black ministers from the Belgian Congo who were all watching as if it was a show put on for their entertainment, with actors to be applauded by them at the end. After that the Belgians said the three bodies had to be got rid of quickly, or there would be problems, because Africa and the whole of the rest of the world knew that Lumumba had fought for the Belgian Congo to become independent. So they got out their knives – Chop! Chop! – and carved the bodies up into pieces of meat and threw them in a drum of acid to dissolve them. Which is why, to this day, no one knows exactly where the bodies of Lumumba and his friends are. I said to Papa Roger that I didn’t understand why they accused President Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu Wa Za Banga of having been involved in this butchery, when he wasn’t the butcher. My father was pleased with this remark, and had expected it, and he began to unfold the history of Zaire, which is more complicated than a spider’s web.

  ‘Michel, when the Belgian Congo became independent in June 1960, Joseph Kasa-Vubu was made president of the Republic and Lumumba was made prime minister, which was now free and no longer run by the Belgians. You can’t imagine what that moment meant to us. Even in our country, which was still called the French Congo, we danced the rumba to “Independence Cha Cha”, which Grand Kallé, one of their great musicians, sang to celebrate this tremendous victory. But misery always hides behind the door marked “joy”: a few months after independence, the man who then still went by the name of Joseph Désiré Mobutu, a journalist, head of general staff and a member of Lumumba’s government, took power by force! No one understood what was going on because Lumumba and Mobutu were thought to be friends. Alas, with the connivance of the Belgian ambassador, this Mobutu first put Patrice Lumumba under house arrest in Kinshasa, then transferred him to the Katanga region. They put him there, where he was hated by the cronies of Moïse Tshombe, President of the State of Katanga, a territory of the Belgian Congo with separatist tendencies, so he could be eliminated without trace and—’

  At this point I interrupted my father, even though he hates that and always asks me to let him finish his sentence:

  ‘Why didn’t they kill him in Kinshasa?’

  ‘Why not indeed? The problem was that everyone who loved him in Kinshasa had taken up arms to free him! It was chaos, even the other prisoners were angry and backing the hero of independence. They wanted to free Lumumba, put him back in power in place of Mobutu. So killing him in Kinshasa meant risking a whole heap of trouble. By transferring him to Katanga State, where they hated him because his men were giving the regime down there a hard time, they were as good as sending him to his grave, and they let suspicion hover over Moïse Tshombe …’

  After Papa Roger had explained all this I began to really like Lumumba. He didn’t want the two Congos to be split into two countries; that was a decision taken for us by the whites and their black accomplices. If they’d asked us what we really felt about it, we’d have spoken up and said that we wanted to stay one single country, one single people, with a single comrade president of the Republic and no plots from the Belgians, the Americans, and their African accomplices who were only too keen to murder black heroes and dissolve their bodies in acid.

  ‘What’s going on in your head, Michel? Were you daydreaming again, while I was talking?’

  Uncle René’s just given me a shove with his elbow. Now he goes on with his introductions:

  ‘The man sitting next to your uncle Jean-Pierre Kinana is your uncle too, his name’s Martin Moubéri. His mother is the ninth wife of my father Grégoire Massengo, your maternal grandfather. Martin Moubéri is the chief of staff of the National Social Savings Bank, based in Brazzaville. He is the younger brother of Luc Kimbouala-Nkaya, your other uncle, who’s a captain in the National Popular Army in Brazzaville.’

  I pretend to be pleased: I nod my head all the way through these explanations. Uncle Martin Moubéri stares right into my eyes, to see if I’m impressed. I ask him:

  ‘So what, exactly, does the chief of staff of the National Social Savings Bank do?’

  He rubs his hands together and pulls his tie tighter, so he’s looking good.

  ‘Very good question, nephew! But I wouldn’t wish to monopolise the conversation with panegyrics to my most modest self here in the presence of elders as illustrious as René and Jean-Pierre not to mention brother-in-law Roger …’

  Uncle Kinana presses him to speak:

  ‘Go on, Martin, you are a model for all our family, I’ve often told you: your modesty will be the death of you!’

  ‘All right then, if you insist, I’ve got no choice! Well, I’ll be brief …’

  He leans over to me.

  ‘Well, Michel, I hire, fire and sort out personnel problems.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘What do you mean, is that all?’

  ‘Well, to hire or fire people, Papa Roger told me you just send a letter and—’

  ‘Do you have any idea what you’re saying, nephew? Really, children these days! How rude!’

  Uncle Kinana calms him down:

  ‘It doesn’t matter, Martin …’

  Uncle Moubéri pushes his face towards me again.

  ‘You think it’s easy, do you, a job like mine? Well, not just anyone can do it! My profession’s not easy, my boy! Everything is political, and every decision I take has to be perfectly thought through, I might say beyond perfect. Every time I fire someone, I get a phone call the next day from a minister who won’t say clearly what he wants, but who asks me very quietly how long I’ve been working in the pu
blic sector, he pretends to congratulate me and asks me to say hello to someone who works under me. Now, do you know who it is I’m supposed to say hello to? I’ll tell you, it’s his nephew! And it’s the same guy I fired yesterday. So what do I do? I get the person I fired back in my office again, and I apologise, and explain that I made a mistake and that his uncle, the minister, says to say hello! It’s not at all straightforward, my boy … What I mean is that my job is strategic, and to keep it you have to be strategic too. My strategy is to be a snail: I give the impression I’m floundering in my own slime, but somehow I manage to make progress … Anyway, I’m getting worked up, I apologise … Let me try to explain another way … I’m actually one of the most respected people at the National Social Savings Bank. People feel intimidated when they arrive at my office, maybe because of the red carpet I personally chose and had fitted. The walls are painted sky blue – which relaxes me because it’s not an easy job hiring the right people to the right job, or being the one who has to tell women and men with children that they’re no longer on board. In both those cases, the head of personnel isn’t going to be popular. In the first case people will say he should have hired such and such a person, who was better; in the second they’ll bear a grudge against him for firing so-and-so who’s got six wives, twenty-four children to feed and school, funeral costs to pay, a mortgage to pay off, and all the rest …’

  I’m only half listening because I can tell now this uncle’s just a boaster.

  Maman Pauline’s already left the table.

  When did she disappear? Probably when my thoughts were somewhere away with my hero, Patrice Lumumba.

  Maybe she’s outside, or in the kitchen. Or perhaps instead of sending me on an errand she’s gone to buy drinks from our neighbours at the back, the Boko Songos, who have an emergency drinks stand. If she’d asked me to go, I’d have jumped at the chance to go and look for Mboua Mabé.

  The Boko Songos don’t have a real drinks stand, it’s just a cooler in their living room and people go there when they’ve run out and don’t want to walk all the way to Case by Case. Every time I go over there, Monsieur Boko Songo teases me because once, from our tree, I was spying on what was going on in their plot. But it was a long time ago, when I was only six or seven. Papa Roger had forbidden me to climb the tree; he knew I was peeping at Pélagie, the only girl of the three Boko Songo children, when she went to the toilet, which, like ours, has no roof, so it’s easy to see what people look like without their clothes on. One day Pélagie realised what I was up to, because she looked up when a mango fell as I swapped branches to get a better look, because the leaves were in the way. She cried out, as though she’d been stung by a bee, then she quietly went and told her father, and he went straight to tell Maman Pauline and she went straight to tell Papa Roger. It ended badly for me, because I got no dinner that evening, though my father did secretly give me a big piece of meat and some manioc, which I ate under the bedclothes …

  My mother comes back into the room with two bottles of wine and a grapefruit juice. This all comes from the Boko Songos’, I know that, because I can see the pips floating in my drink, and it’s always like that at their stand, they want to show their grapefruit juice isn’t like the ones out of a tin or bottle, that they make it themselves.

  Maman Pauline passes behind Uncle René, she puts the plates down in the right places, to hide the holes and wine stains on the cloth. It’s almost time to eat, and I haven’t forgotten I need to keep a close eye on Uncle Moubéri’s suction-cup mouth.

  ‘Pauline, don’t trouble yourself; we’ve already eaten, we haven’t come for that,’ Uncle René says.

  I’m thrilled to hear this, but I stay calm and try to look really disappointed that the two uncles and especially Uncle Martin Moubéri won’t be eating with us.

  Maman Pauline’s upset.

  ‘I’m sorry, René, but you are going to eat here! And where did you eat already, if I may ask?’

  Uncle René looks at each of the uncles in turn.

  ‘Your two brothers arrived in a plane that took off from Brazzaville four hours ago. Luckily your brother Jean-Pierre Kinana can twist a few arms, or they’d never have got two places, because since yesterday everyone’s been trying to get out of the capital. So as soon as I picked them up at the airport we went to get something to eat …’

  Uncle Martin Moubéri confirms this:

  ‘Oh yes, sister, and René certainly did us proud, at the Atlantic Palace Hotel! We had caviar and salmon, not to mention rounding it all off with a whole turkey!’

  Uncle René gives him an angry look, almost as though the uncle had been about to reveal something that was meant to stay a secret between the three of them, because in our house we don’t eat caviar or salmon, that’s food for whites and black capitalists who don’t realise that a dish of pork with plantains is a thousand times more delicious and gives you better burps than fish, which just makes you hungry two hours later because it’s only tickled your palate.

  Uncle Moubéri, as I’ve said, is obviously a boaster, because we’ve heard about the red carpet and the sky-blue walls in his office, and now it’s caviar and salmon followed by a whole turkey, as though turkey was for dessert.

  He strokes his big belly, the kind you get if you eat too much salmon and caviar.

  ‘Sister, I’m telling you, there’s no room left here …’

  ‘Well, you’ll just have to find some room, Moubéri! Are you telling me I made all this for nothing?’

  Uncle Jean-Pierre Kinana makes signs to Uncle Moubéri to shut up, and he quickly changes his tune:

  ‘Very well, sister, if you really insist, I’ll make an effort, but I’ll only have two or three spoonfuls. A little bit of manioc and pepper, that’s all, I really couldn’t …’

  I’m still watching these two Brazzaville uncles carefully, and I understand now why they’re wearing jackets that make them look like lost penguins: because people who travel by plane have to be clean, or they’ll dirty the seats. I envy them, because I don’t know how things work up there, and whether once you’ve taken your seat you can open the window and watch the cranes flying alongside, trying to find a place where it’s warm. And I think to myself, The plane must be really fast, because Comrade President Marien Ngouabi was killed yesterday and these two uncles are in Pointe-Noire today already, whereas if they’d taken the Micheline they’d have arrived the day after tomorrow because of the derailments and the drivers with a girl in each station who have to stop all the time and have a bite to eat and lots of other things besides, which I won’t go into here or people will say that Michel, he’s always exaggerating and says rude things without meaning to. It’s still pretty magic, because if I’ve got this right, they got the plane today and they also arrived today, then Uncle René went to pick them up and they went to the restaurant at the Atlantic Palace Hotel and ordered salmon, caviar and a whole turkey for dessert, all in under four hours. Flying really is flying!

  Maman Pauline brings back a huge dish and puts it on the table. There’s cod in it, with peanut sauce, it smells really good. She brings another dish, this one with pieces of manioc in. The pepper’s so red, so gorgeous, if you’re not careful you’ll just wolf it down before mixing it in with the fish and manioc.

  Uncle René helps himself first, then Uncle Jean-Pierre Kinana, then Uncle Martin Moubéri, who just takes two spoonfuls, like he promised, with a piece of manioc and one red pepper.

  My mother says she’s not hungry, when you make the food the smell’s so strong, you don’t want to eat it; you’ve already eaten it all up with your eyes.

  It’s Papa Roger’s turn to help himself now, no problem there, he fills his plate up, his belly’s not forgotten that we had nothing to eat at lunchtime, as Mboua Mabé ate most of it.

  I help myself like Papa Roger, I get straight to it: in goes the first mouthful. It’s so good, I close my eyes. My whole body’s trembling, it’s worried there won’t be enough food for my heart, my liver, my pan
creas, my small intestine and all the other bits they taught us at primary school in natural science lessons. I tell myself to calm down, no need to worry, Uncle René and the two other uncles ate their caviar, their salmon and their one whole turkey for afters at the Atlantic Palace Hotel. They won’t eat much, they’re only trying to please Maman Pauline, but their stomachs don’t like the idea of going straight from black capitalists’ food to food for the people.

  My mother’s right next to me. I’m in between her and Uncle René, who’s only eating half as much as I have on my plate.

  Uncle Kinana’s also only taken a tiny portion, and as for Uncle Martin Moubéri, he’s hardly got more than a baby’s dribble, but all of a sudden he chucks the whole lot into his great big suction cup. There goes his jaw, chewing, chewing, chewing. He closes his eyes, like he’s just realised this food is better than the caviar and the salmon and the one whole turkey at the Atlantic Palace Hotel. So he takes two more spoonfuls, then three more, then four after that. He spears a piece of manioc and it’s gone – just like magic! After a moment or two I realise both the uncles have helped themselves several times over, and there’s no more manioc in the big dish. Uncle Martin Moubéri, who didn’t want to eat to start with, asks my mother:

  ‘Say, Pauline, is there any more manioc left?’

  The polygamous priest

  We’ve been eating for nearly an hour. Uncle René gets more and more antsy as the minutes pass. I can see he wants to say something really important, and is worried he’ll put us off our food. No one’s speaking, so you can hear the sound of forks, of spoons scraping on dishes, of Uncle Moubéri’s suckermouth going, Slap! Slap! Slap!