The Death of Comrade President

by Alain Mabanckou

  Christopher Smith is silent for a few seconds, then he repeats several times that what he has just told us is the version of the Congolese Party of Labour, who want to prove that Alphonse Massamba-Débat, the ex-president of the Republic, hatched this coup d’état, led by Captain Kikadidi, with the involvement of the presidential guard, in an attempt to get back into power, along with his fellow southerners.

  The journalist then asks him what the other explanation of the assassination is. He says the other explanation, the one he believes, comes directly from the mouth of the son of the president, Marien Ngouabi Junior, and he’s just about to tell us what it is …

  Marien Ngouabi Junior

  Marien Ngouabi Junior is present at the actual moment his father is assassinated, so he sees it all and even tries to protect our leader of the Revolution, as he can’t understand why although Okamba, his security officer, is there, he doesn’t react. But Marien Ngouabi Junior is only fourteen and doesn’t know how to handle a gun yet. He dreams of going to Cuba to train with Cuban soldiers and returning to Brazzaville to protect his father, the president.

  Marien Ngouabi Junior has been having lunch with his father, who has been describing the physics/chemistry lesson he’d given at the university that morning. The child leaves the table before the others because it is hot and he wants to have a swim in the pool like most other children of presidents the world over. On his way over to the swimming pool he notices that people are acting oddly: Ontsou, the security officer, is standing next to someone with officer stripes, a red beret and a gun. He’s not sure if this soldier is Captain Kikadidi or Captain Motando, as the Military Committee of the Party now claims, though they have no proof.

  Marien Ngouabi Junior doesn’t recognise Captain Kikadidi (or Captain Motando), this is the first time he’s seen this guy in the compound.

  He asks the three soldiers standing with the captain:

  ‘What do you want?’

  One of them answers:

  ‘We want to see your father. It’s really urgent …’

  Marien Ngouabi Junior is reassured, he now thinks they are there to prepare for the celebrations of 19 March, the anniversary of an accident Comrade President Marien Ngouabi had in a helicopter. Marien Ngouabi Junior trusts agents Okamba and Ontsou, he sees them every day, he knows they ward off enemies who are trying to assassinate his dad. But the compound is too calm today, 18 March 1977. So Marien Ngouabi Junior asks Okamba and Ontsou why there are only two of them guarding his dad, when there are usually five soldiers standing here. They reply that everything’s as usual, he mustn’t get worked up about nothing, no one can get to Comrade President Marien Ngouabi as long as they are there to protect him, even if there are only two of them, or even only one.

  Marien Ngouabi Junior turns round and sees a Peugeot 404 parked inside the compound, a short distance away. He thinks it must be part of his dad’s security, which is good, because if something bad happens to the leader of the Revolution, at least the comrade president and his family can use the vehicle to make a quick getaway and hide somewhere, maybe in the French embassy.

  Instead of going to the swimming pool as he’d intended, Marien Ngouabi Junior decides he’ll go and play on the seesaw, and when he’s been playing there for only a few minutes he hears a sound not far off, behind him, and he turns around: it’s Comrade President Marien Ngouabi, fighting with the unknown soldiers he saw earlier!

  Marien Ngouabi Junior shouts for help:

  ‘Guards! Guards! Catch them!’

  He runs over to the men who are fighting and on his way he bumps into one of the three unidentified soldiers who is trying to escape. Marien Ngouabi Junior may not know how to fire a revolver, but at least he can drive a car. So he gets into the car but agent Okamba comes dashing up to him:

  ‘Junior, leave it, I’ll take care of this for you …’

  Marien Ngouabi Junior isn’t listening, he doesn’t trust anyone now, he turns on the engine, puts the car into reverse and at that moment hears: Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

  He gets out of the car and goes back to the security post, but everyone who works at military headquarters is running away, you’d think they never got paid and it wasn’t actually their job to die for Comrade President Marien Ngouabi. In their haste to get away, some of them drop their weapons on the ground, others their uniforms, so no one will know they’re in the army once they’re out in the street.

  Marien Ngouabi Junior wants to save his dad, so he picks up an SMG. Christopher Smith swears that if you start shooting that kind of gun it’s like the start of World War Three.

  Marien Ngouabi Junior walks all the way round the compound with his gun in his hand. He comes to the space where he often plays football with his brothers and their friends. And there he sees three bodies lying on the ground in front of him! One of them isn’t dead yet. Marien Ngouabi Junior finishes him off – Bang! Bang! Bang!

  He keeps moving forward, still holding his gun. He’s looking for his father, but he can’t find him anywhere, even though he knows the compound like the back of his hand.

  He goes back up to agent Ontsou, who’s also still holding his gun, and asks him where his dad the president is.

  Ontsou says:

  ‘Your dad’s over there …’

  Ontsou points towards the flight of steps going up into the residence. From a distance Marien Ngouabi Junior can see a body lying near the steps. He thinks it’s one of the unknown soldiers who’s been shot by his father. He comes up close to the body and leans over as though to examine it. Straight away he recognises his father, who is no longer in the land of the living, though no one else in the whole country knows it yet, except for the people who assassinated him and have now vanished in the back streets of Brazzaville, some of them already drinking bottled beer in bars and celebrating their victory.

  Marien Ngouabi Junior tries to lift his father’s corpse, but even though Comrade President Marien Ngouabi was on the small side, he’s heavy, as if there are now three or four other people inside his body.

  When Marien Ngouabi Junior looks at the corpse he can’t believe it’s his father, the same man who was eating lunch with him less than thirty minutes ago. He leans over again: the mouth and jaw of Comrade President Marien Ngouabi are all mashed up and his teeth are all knocked out, mixed with bright red blood, the colour of the flag of the Congolese Revolution he created …

  The photo of the comrade president

  Papa Roger asks me to go to Case by Case and, as usual, to buy him a bottle of red and some tobacco. The death of Comrade President Marien Ngouabi and Uncle Kimbouala-Nkaya haven’t changed his routine, then.

  As soon as he woke up this morning, Sunday, he went and sat out under the mango tree, and I went to join him, and we just listened to the radio, though I thought he was going to have a lot to say about yesterday’s visit from Uncle René, Uncle Kinana and Uncle Moubéri. Is it because we’re not meant to talk about all that when we’re outside, because there are spies everywhere, like ants, who might go telling everyone we belong to the family of Uncle Kimbouala-Nkaya?

  Case by Case is empty, except for me and Ma Moubobi. She’s knitting a red pullover that’s too small for her. It’s not for her, I think, so it must be for Olivier.

  The photo of Comrade President Marien Ngouabi is still there behind Ma Moubobi. It’s tilted forward slightly now, and when I look up close it’s as if the leader of our revolution was very sad because he knows that soon it won’t be him up on the wall of the shop but another president, one of the eleven members of the Military Committee of the Party. So this is nearly the end of the road for this photo, and it doesn’t want to be taken down, it would a million times rather fall off the wall by itself and not have to see itself being replaced. Ma Moubobi will also have to change her expressions, especially the name of the president when she says to the customers who promise to pay later:

  ‘You’d better pay by the date you’ve promised; Comrade President Marien Ngouabi up there is m
y witness, he’s looking at you … Go on, take a look at him too, before I give you your goods.’

  If she carries on saying that, the customers will answer:

  ‘Who cares? Comrade President Marien Ngouabi is dead; in the future he won’t be around to check if we pay or not!’

  I bet she’ll change the name of the president and I hope for her sake that the new name will be easy to say, because yesterday when I heard Uncle René listing all the names of the members of the Military Committee of the Party, like Joachim Yhombi-Opango or Denis Sassou-Nguesso, I noticed they were much harder to remember and pronounce than Marien Ngouabi. In fact, on the Military Committee of the Party the easiest names are Pierre Anga, Nicolas Okongo, Pascal Bima and Jean-Michel Ebaka, but none of them will ever be presidents of the Republic, not just because their names are too simple, but also because no one’s frightened of them, they’re only there for show, as Papa Roger says, because the most important members are Colonel Joachim Yhombi-Opango and Commander Denis Sassou-Nguesso, the president and vice-president of said Military Committee of the Party, who swore that the murderers of Comrade President Marien Ngouabi and their accomplices would be severely punished. Now from north to south and east to west, and even on the Americans’ radio, everyone knows the assassins aren’t a million miles away, because they’ve seized power and some of them are among the eleven members of the Military Committee of the Party.

  ‘Hey you, Pauline Kengué’s son! Are you listening? Still dreaming? What can I get you today? Same as usual?’

  Ma Moubobi has stopped knitting and is looking straight at me. She looks like she hasn’t slept since 14:30 the day before yesterday. Her eyes are like two enormous red globules, but I also have to remind myself that Maman Pauline has told me never to make fun of people’s size because sometimes it’s because of an illness or evil spirits who are jealous of how much money someone earns in their shop.

  ‘Yes please, Ma Moubobi, same as usual, but nothing for Maman Pauline today …’

  She puts my father’s wine and the tobacco for his nose in a bag.

  ‘Don’t lose the change!’

  ‘I won’t, Ma Moubobi!’

  As I’m leaving the shop I hear her muttering behind me:

  ‘People are so stupid, they’ve stopped coming to my shop because they think there’s a curfew in the daytime too! How do they think I’m going to earn a living?’

  Troublemakers

  There are soldiers clinging to the tops and sides of the big trucks going by in long lines, with their lights on. Usually the only cars we see with their lights on in broad daylight are the hearses, when there’s a burial.

  I think to myself that the trucks are a kind of hearse too, especially as they’re black and brand new, with red hoods. People run off at the noise coming from inside them: men, women and even children screaming in pain as the soldiers beat them, shouting orders as if they were talking to Mboua Mabé:

  ‘Lie down! Lie down! I said lie down!’

  These poor people stuffed into the trucks are referred to as ‘troublemakers’ or ‘local lackeys of imperialism’. That’s what they said in the paper today: ‘troublemakers and local lackeys of imperialism will be arrested, tried and imprisoned’. But everyone can see that most of the military trucks are going towards Mont-Kamba cemetery and not towards the detention centre in Pointe-Noire. They are in completely different directions, like the back of your neck and your nose.

  Sometimes the soldiers realise they’ve got the wrong troublemakers or the wrong local lackeys of imperialism but it’s too late, they’re not going to apologise, they’ve already beaten them about the head and stamped on their toes, and the trucks do a U-turn, drive back past the plots of these wretched people and chuck them out like sacks of potatoes then drive on looking for the real troublemakers who’ve been denounced by their neighbours.

  There’s a section of the Military Committee of the Party in every neighbourhood now. You can go and denounce troublemakers and local lackeys of imperialism and that way earn a bit of money …

  Black cloth

  Since leaving Case by Case I’ve seen at least twenty-five or thirty military trucks go past.

  Instead of going straight home, I head down a street with no name, with the change squeezed tightly in my right hand and the bag in my left.

  There’s a new kind of stall everywhere: children are selling bits of black cloth in the streets, to put round your arm to show you’re in mourning. Everyone’s got one, and I decide I have to buy one, so I’ll be OK if a military truck goes past and they notice I’m not respecting Comrade President Marien Ngouabi. The cloth in question costs twenty-five francs, the same as Papa Roger’s tobacco. If I buy some my father won’t be angry; in fact, he’ll say it’s good I haven’t forgotten who I am and that I’m still a white crane of the socialist Revolution.

  There are so many people selling bits of black cloth that I don’t know who to buy mine from. I stop in front of someone with bare feet and a swollen belly. I feel sorry for him, his lips are so dry, I think he can’t have eaten since at least 14:30 hours the day before yesterday. For him it’s a bonus that Comrade President Marien Ngouabi is dead, now he can make some money, eat and maybe even buy some shoes, so he doesn’t have to walk around barefoot. I have these kind thoughts, but another part of me is also wondering how he got hold of the black cloth. In any business, it’s the trader who buys the goods in bulk and then sells them on, like Maman Pauline with her bunches of bananas. I quickly realise what’s going on when I see some guys a few metres away from the child traders, watching them. It’s the same guys who run the gangster rackets at the markets in Pointe-Noire and snatch women’s bags from them on the Voungou or the Comapon bridges. They’re the suppliers, the little skinny ones just do the selling and get paid a pittance, the price of a sparrow’s turd. Also, because these guys see everything from where they stand, if you don’t buy their stuff they’ll follow you at a distance and punch you in the face as if you were an accomplice of the murderers of Comrade President Marien Ngouabi.

  I hold out a twenty-five-franc coin to the boy with the bloated stomach. He looks at the coin and says:

  ‘No, I’m not taking that!’

  The hustlers are watching us; I have to be careful how I act. I speak nicely, and I smile, so the hustlers will think everything’s going smoothly and we know each other really well:

  ‘Why not? It’s a nice coin; it doesn’t even smell bad like the money women keep in their bras …’

  ‘I’m just not taking it, full stop!’

  ‘But, brother, it’s a twenty-five-franc coin; if you look closely you’ll see—’

  ‘No, I’m not taking it! I’m not your brother! This costs fifty francs now!’

  He’s trying to cheat me – it says on his sign on the ground that the black cloth costs twenty-five francs.

  I walk away, and go over to another child, with a normal belly. He’s wearing a shirt with only one sleeve, the other’s gone, there are just a few shreds suggesting that it was ripped off in a fight.

  I give him my twenty-five-franc piece.

  ‘No, I’m not taking that!’

  ‘Hey, brother, won’t you take it either? Why not?’

  ‘I’m not your brother! This costs sixty francs now!’

  ‘But first it cost twenty-five francs, then fifty francs, and now sixty francs!’

  ‘If you get funny with me, it’ll cost a hundred – or more!’

  ‘I’m telling you, as true as I’m Michel, son of Pauline Kengué and Kimangou Roger, I’m not buying a piece of black cloth for a hundred francs, or for more!’

  ‘OK, I don’t care; you go and tell those big guys over there, they’ll sell it to you, with a few smacks in the face thrown in!’

  I go back to the child with the rugby-ball belly, fifty francs is better than sixty. Turns out, he’s changed his mind too, and he tells me to go and buy from his friend who got his shirt ripped in a fight. And when I turn up in front of his fr
iend again the price has gone up to a hundred francs!

  I don’t want to hang around passing the time of day with them, so I buy one and carry on my way. The big guys are laughing nastily at a distance, because other people are now buying at twenty-five francs, some of them are even beating the price down, and only paying fifteen!

  I tie the black cloth round my arm and tell myself Comrade President Marien Ngouabi would be pleased with me, because I paid more for it than anyone else. He’ll also be pleased with me because even though everyone’s saying he’s well and truly dead, I think he’s learning how to fly over people’s heads like the white cranes who are Russian soldiers who gave their lives on battlefields steeped in blood …

  The Mouyondzi neighbourhood

  To get to the Mouyondzi neighbourhood I took the street with no name. It’s not the street’s fault it has no name, it’s because, like most streets of its kind, it’s not tarmacked, no one cares about it, it’s covered in dust, and when lorries go past you have to pinch your nose and close your mouth or the dirt will go straight into your lungs and make you sick. I can’t change routes or it would take me at least an hour, and once I’ve worked this out I’m happy because I’ve made up some time: it’s only taken me thirty minutes to get from Ma Moubobi’s shop to here.

  People round here chuck their bins just anywhere, which is why the dogs in Pointe-Noire are always happy, and think of this as their turf. The first bin in front of me is a real mountain with children and dogs fighting over the rubbish, and it’s not far from where my mates from school live, the Moubembés, Paul, the older one, and Placide, his younger brother. Placide is in the same class as me, and we’re the same age too; we haven’t had to repeat a year since primary, so we’re going to make sure we don’t before lycée either, and maybe before university too.