The Death of Comrade President

by Alain Mabanckou

  Inside I was thinking that the problem is when some food is really good, you can’t just tell your stomach to wait for the next lot, because if that turns out not to be very nice, you’ll wish you’d finished your plate with the family before …

  At The Bandas, Maman Pauline always has a big meeting with all the suppliers, in the middle of the village. Each of them tells her how many bunches of bananas they want to sell and the chief of the village fixes a common price by talking to my mother, at a distance from everyone. When they come back to the group, it’s all settled, Maman Pauline has slipped the money secretly to the chief, who’s all smiles now, and he will hand the money on to the suppliers once my mother’s gone. But if you watch carefully, my mother gives a little extra to the chief too, and the peasants don’t know about the little extra. That’s what puts the smile on the old man’s face, why he won’t let anyone else come and compete with my mother in the village. The chief is a Vili, and last year he even gave my mother a huge piece of land, just inside the village. Maman Pauline promised him that one day she’d build a big house on the land, and we’d live there, so my mother would be actually on the spot for her merchandise and she could grow her own bananas. For now, though, she’s just planted some fruit trees on this sizeable piece of land, and she pays some young villagers to cut back the weeds, otherwise the whole place will turn into bush and we won’t be able to find our plot of land.

  So today I’m not surprised that no bananas have arrived from The Bandas: to get there you have to take the Micheline, which hasn’t been running since the curfew ordered by the Military Committee of the Party, who think bandits often hide out in the villages …

  In the taxi

  Maman Pauline didn’t speak after we got in the yellow taxi, except when we went round the Kassai roundabout, when I clearly heard her muttering to herself:

  ‘I’ll show that northern woman what Pauline Kengué’s made of!’

  I pretended not to understand.

  ‘What did you say, Maman?’

  ‘Nothing …’

  ‘You said something about the northern woman, and you—’

  ‘If you heard what I said why are you asking me again?’

  She looked out of the window at the military truck overtaking us and added:

  ‘God’s strange … how can He accept that a nice man like Kimbouala-Nkaya goes, and we’re left with his murderers, who are now celebrating their victory?’

  The taxi was travelling slowly, as the town of Pointe-Noire gradually woke up, with passers-by looking like they hadn’t slept for three days. I saw Zairian rickshaw boys carrying bricks, beds or fridges, sweating even though the sun hadn’t come out yet. There were police at every roundabout but the police seemed to be hanging around doing nothing, not like when they’re overrun with traffic jams and keep blowing their whistles. They couldn’t complain now that their job’s the hardest in the world, in a town with too many second-hand cars and Mobylettes with no brakes or horns.

  A lot of the National Popular Army’s trucks were leaving the poor neighbourhoods and heading off to the military base near Bloc-55. The soldiers had their guns trained on passers-by, but what people were more afraid of was their dark glasses. I said to myself: The curfew’s over, they’re going to go and rest for a bit at the military base, then they’ll come back to the neighbourhoods after 7 o’clock feeling lively again, to intimidate us some more. I also thought how these soldiers probably had dark glasses because they smoke too much dope and when they’ve run out they break open the cartridges of their rifles, take out the powder and put it in their coffee, to make it extra strong, so they get really hyped up, as if they’d been drinking Johnnie Walker Red Label, which the black capitalists give their bulldogs to wipe out the pity from their hearts. So the dark glasses are to stop anyone discovering that they’re dope heads who execute people just like the animals that got dropped off at the Grand Marché this morning, to be eaten with foufou, manioc and red chilli pepper. Except that the animal killers at the Pointe-Noire slaughter-house don’t have to smoke dope like the soldiers, because unfortunately everyone agrees that the life of an animal has zero value, it doesn’t count, you can kill an animal without being sent to prison.

  The reason I’m thinking this about animals is mainly because I’m thinking about Mboua Mabé. How could I have forgotten him, when we bought him here in this market, out of pity, when the wretched dog looked me in the eyes saying, Michel, you’re the one I’ve been waiting for, can I be in your family, you’re a good person, with a papa who isn’t a huge guy, so isn’t scary, and who loves animals as much as human beings? Here, too, is where Mboua Mabé whispered to me that if I let him go with someone else that would be the end of him, and he promised to be really good, he wouldn’t bite anyone nice, he wouldn’t eat much, and would guard our house as if it was his own kennel and a cat was trying to steal it. I have to remind myself of this, and I don’t care if I have to do it a thousand times. Yes, I’m cross with Mboua Mabé because the truth is everything he made me feel, with his doleful look, was just empty words, because when he heard on the radio that Comrade President Marien Ngouabi had been murdered, he ran off like a coward …

  At the Grand Marché

  We walk to the centre of the tables in the Grand Marché. At every step, traders greet Maman Pauline respectfully and ask her who died in our family, why she’s dressed all in black. Then when they see me just behind her, they have to stifle their laughter, because you can’t be sad for someone in mourning and at the same time make fun of their child for what he’s wearing.

  ‘Pauline, who’s died in your family?’

  It’s the question on everyone’s lips. My mother replies that she’s in mourning, that for now she doesn’t want to talk about it, because she’s here for a different reason.

  Madame Boudzouna, who’s a Bembé like us, starts crying even though she hasn’t seen who’s dead yet.

  ‘So sad, Pauline! So so sad! Why does the good Lord punish you? You’re a good woman, after all!’

  Madame Missamou-Miaboumabou, Madame Boudzouna’s twin sister, is crying too.

  ‘Pauline, who’s died? At least tell us when the burial is, where the funeral’s happening! Who’s in charge of donations, so my sister and I can pay our dues?’

  Madame Augustine Zonza-Tawa, a Lari trader, takes out three crumpled, one-thousand-franc CFA notes and holds them out to me.

  ‘Here, my child, keep that; that’s my contribution.’

  Maman Pauline gives her back the three crumpled one-thousand-franc notes that I was hoping to stuff into the pocket of my trousers.

  She says to Madame Augustine Zonza-Tawa:

  ‘It’s all right, Augustine, there’s no need for contributions …’

  Mama Nsona-Ndemboukila, another Lari, starts wiping off her lipstick and make-up to make herself less pretty and show that she’s sad, like Maman Pauline.

  ‘Pauline, I’ll come round to your place this evening, you mustn’t be alone, like you’ve got no friends in this market, or this town! There’s more to life than business and money, it’s at difficult times like this that you see who’s who and who your friends are!’

  Within only a few minutes, the word’s gone round the Grand Marché that my mother is in mourning, and the group of traders around us starts to grow. I count them, there are now thirty-two of them, all asking questions; no one’s taking any notice of me now. Some of them are paying her back money they’ve owed her for months. Sometimes Maman Pauline takes the money, sometimes she flatly refuses:

  ‘No, Ma Milébé, you’ve already got four children to feed, your husband died less than two months ago; you can pay something when the time’s right, there’s no rush …’

  ‘Pauline, honestly, I can pay you back a hundred per cent, I know you have to buy a coffin, food for the wake, coffee for the whole neighbourhood, etc. Then there’s the Pointe-Noire morgue; it costs a lot to keep a body there, all because they make their profit out of other people’s misf
ortunes, and the government doesn’t—’

  ‘Don’t worry, Ma Milébé, I’ll manage …’

  Ma Yvonne Kouloutou-Yabassi roughly shoves aside the other women to get to my mother.

  ‘Come on, out of my way! Let me talk to Pauline! You’re tiring her out, twittering like a load of sparrows, and not deciding anything …’

  The tradeswomen move respectfully aside. No one dares contradict Ma Yvonne Kouloutou-Yabassi, she acts like this because she’s the oldest and is known as ‘Maman la Doyenne’. I’ve no idea how old she is because she’s never changed; I’ve seen her in the market since I was two years old. Her hair is quite grey, but her face is completely unlined, only her voice reveals that she’s perhaps seventy, or more, or less, because at the time she was born birth certificates didn’t exist, and when they started doing birth certificates you had to give an age based on how tall you were, or how young, or worn-out you looked. So Maman la Doyenne is one of those people who has ‘Born around …’ written on her birth certificate.

  Maman la Doyenne is also very well known because she is president of the Association of Women of the Grande Marché. This means she’s in charge of the tradeswomen’s monthly subscriptions. Out of this money, if one of the tradeswomen loses a family member, they give her something. This is why, having pushed all the other women out of the way, she says proudly to my mother:

  ‘Pauline, the AWGM will pay for all the funeral costs, and when I say all the funeral costs, I mean every last one of them.’

  ‘No, Maman la Doyenne, that’s kind of you, but it’s OK …’

  And my mother takes Maman la Doyenne to one side. They move two or three metres away from the other tradeswomen, who all peer at them inquisitively, wanting to know what they are saying and why they’re not saying it in front of everyone …’

  I want to know too, so I follow them to listen to what they’re going to murmur to each other.

  My mother goes first:

  ‘Maman la Doyenne, do you know where Antoinette Ebaka is?’

  Maman la Doyenne is surprised:

  ‘Is there a problem? Usually on Mondays she comes around nine o’clock because she has a meeting with her colleagues from the Revolutionary Union of Congolese Women.’

  Maman Pauline quickly opens her bag and plunges her hand in. She starts rummaging around and I wonder what she’s about to do. She’s looking for her watch, to see what the time is. She never wears it at the market because there are thieves here with fetishes that allow them to steal watches without their owners noticing.

  I’m peering at Maman Pauline’s watch too: it’s exactly ten past eight and my mother still has to wait almost an hour. It’s too much for her, she won’t hold out. She turns back and yells at the women who are staring at her back there:

  ‘Listen to me, I’m going to go and wait opposite, at Chez Gaspard’s. If anyone sees Antoinette Ebaka, tell her I’m waiting for her there and I’ve got better things to do!’

  The tradeswomen all start talking then they scatter. Each one goes back to her own table; they probably don’t want their names mixed up in this business.

  Maman la Doyenne says to my mother:

  ‘Don’t go to the café now, Pauline …’

  ‘Why not? Is there a rule against it?’

  ‘I’m older than you; I could be your mother too. It’s a word of advice, Pauline, just listen to me. Looking at you, you don’t seem like the Pauline Kengué I know …’

  Maman Pauline isn’t listening to her. She tightens her black scarf round her head, adjusts her wrap round her waist, looks at me as if to say it’s time to leave the market, it’s filling up steadily, as if people are just leading their normal lives and have forgotten that the body of Comrade President Marien Ngouabi hasn’t been buried yet. I was convinced that the soldiers went back to their base in the morning, then returned to keep watch during the curfew from seven o’clock onwards, so I’m amazed to see hundreds of other fresh-looking troops getting out of trucks and mingling with the crowd in the market. Some people stand aside for them to pass, others run off like thieves. The soldiers are armed to the teeth, with dark glasses just like the ones I saw earlier when I was in the yellow taxi. They move about in groups, pointing at the crowds, stopping people at random, saying it’s a check for the market’s security. Sometimes they ask for identity cards and call people by their first names when they ask questions.

  ‘It’s a routine check … Do you have family in Brazzaville? Do you have a family member in the army? What ethnic group are you?’

  I think to myself that my mother isn’t going to be able to get too cross with this Antoinette Ebaka woman, because of her title as ‘leader of the Revolutionary Union of Congolese Women of the Grand Marché’; if there’s a problem the soldiers will say the northern woman’s right and my mother’s a bad woman, because she’s a southerner.

  This is the moment to put a stop to it.

  ‘Let’s go home, Maman.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘We’d better go home, Maman.’

  She takes out a ten-thousand-franc CFA note from her bag. Her face is shut off, her eyes all red.

  ‘Take this money! You’re about as brave as a wet turkey. Get a yellow taxi, go home to Voungou; Captain Kimbouala-Nkaya will be really proud of you in the world beyond!’

  ‘But, Maman, I—’

  ‘Just go! I can deal with this on my own!’

  I don’t take the note, and I don’t move. She puts the money back in her bag and starts walking out of the market.

  I don’t know what to do, so I stay put, then I start moving, with my eyes on Maman Pauline, who is still walking.

  As I’m walking, I run into an old man selling dogs. There are twenty or more of them, and they’re fighting over the food the seller’s giving them. I go up very close; one of them looks really like Mboua Mabé.

  ‘Mboua Mabé! Mboua Mabé! Mboua Mabé!’ I yell.

  The dog in question pricks up his ears and wags his tail. He has those eyes, the ones that stared at me, and I remember too it was exactly here that Papa Roger and I bought Mboua Mabé! Yes, it’s him. There’s no mistaking him. When he looks straight at me it sends shivers down my spine and my hair stands on end. Mboua Mabé is here! He’s come back to where he started! But it’s too late, I’m over him already. Anyway, I have no money to buy him off the old man. Even if Papa Roger had been with me and I’d begged him to buy Mboua Mabé, he’d say that’s enough, he’d already done his bit. So I carry on walking, I turn my back on the dog, who’s now howling like a coyote.

  A man jostles me and cackles:

  ‘Hey, little one, your armband there cracks me up! Who are you, the secret son of Comrade President Marien Ngouabi, or what?’

  Several people join him, surrounding me and laughing loudly. Down the far end I can even see some soldiers, who should be looking sad, laughing at me, instead of congratulating me for being a true fanatic for our leader of the Revolution.

  I run off like a papaya thief. My Angry Chinas help a lot, as my feet are light and I jump, pivoting to the left, then to the right. I don’t care that people are still laughing at me, they move out of the way anyway because they actually think there’s something not right in my head.

  I keep going straight, and arrive at the last tables in the market. From here I can see Maman Pauline, who has just arrived at the drink stand, Chez Gaspard …

  Chez Gaspard

  I’m standing panting behind Maman Pauline, who’s looking into the interior of Chez Gaspard. There are over a hundred women in there and they’re all dressed in bright red wrappers, the colour of our national flag, and on their wrappers it says ‘Revolutionary Union of Congolese Women’, with the head of Comrade President Marien Ngouabi and his black wife Céline Ngouabi. I’m glad what I’m wearing isn’t this colour, or people would think I’m a woman who wants to join the group too.

  So this is where they hold the meeting Maman la Doyenne was talking about. She knew Antoinette E
baka was in the bar, but she didn’t want to tell my mother, because she didn’t want to get involved in other people’s problems. It’s her age that has brought her this wisdom, and I think she’s a hundred per cent right, because old mamas are never wrong, they can sniff out trouble from a distance, or even further …

  Maman Pauline yells at the top of her voice:

  ‘Where are you hiding, Antoinette? Show yourself if you’re brave enough!’

  The women of the Revolutionary Union all turn round and look over at the entrance to the bar. They are all struck at once by my mother’s black outfit, which is even more noticeable against all this red. The silence lasts at most thirty seconds, but it feels like no one here has spoken for an hour or more, till suddenly something falls to the ground, it sounds like several glasses breaking. The waitress has dropped the tray and is staring open mouthed at Maman Pauline, swinging her head back and forth between my mother and a woman sitting right at the back, surrounded by other women. I realise at once this must be the famous Antoinette Ebaka. She’s very muscly; she looks like she spends her days unloading sacks of cement at Pointe-Noire docks. Her jaws look like the fuel tank on a Vélo-SoleX and her hair is cut very short, like those men who ask the barber to use a Gillette razor to trace a line from their brow to the middle of the head …

  The woman answers:

  ‘I’m here, Pauline. We’re holding a very important meeting, as you can see. If it’s about the money I owe you I can—’

  Maman Pauline doesn’t wait for her to finish her sentence, she strides over to Antoinette Ebaka, her hand raised high above her head. And when the other women see the blade of the long knife glinting in the sunlight they all start screaming, crying for help and running in all directions, while I try to catch hold of Maman Pauline. It’s too late, though, I’m too late – she has already dealt the first blow, another one’s coming now …