You tell yourself that, like in the book, like Pascalet and Gatzo, you have “racals” at your back, those fierce animals that linger in lonely places, prowling through the night and pounce on you with a prodigious spring, the well-known spring of the racal which surpasses that of the tiger.
While Bruce smokes and drinks and watches you having things thrust into your flesh, with his yellowed racal’s eyes, with a smile that never leaves his lips, you think about the word “prodigious” and you try to find something in your life that could be “prodigious.”
I can’t find anything.
I think about Marie and about the woman next door who didn’t like going out during the day, I think about the beach at Bandrakouni and I travel through time, it’s a time that lasts so long when boys of your own age are raping you, boys who know how to laugh and smile, who eat and shit like you, like me. And they could have lived in a place called Tahiti, a place called Poitiers, a place called Montreal and they’d certainly have been different. I travel back through time and get to that beach where a kwassa-kwassa is disembarking its sick passengers, its burn victims, its cursed child. I whisper in my mother’s ear and she slips me inside a baobab tree and I don’t weep as I’m doing here, now that everyone has left, night has fallen and the stink of shit and sweat and spunk and vomit has overwhelmed the banga, I don’t weep because I’m safe in the hollow of a baobab tree.
When I crawl outside the sky’s inscribed with strange indecipherable words, words that the stars have drawn, and the moon is moving from right to left like a laser and I know I’ve entered another world, another dimension and never again will I be as I was before.
Bruce
I know I’m a rude boy. Even here, in this dim gray place, where it’s as if night will fall at any moment, I can still feel the anger and disgust and there’s always this odd taste in my mouth like my teeth are rotting. I want to leave now, I’ve seen enough, I want to get back to the dust and smell of Gaza. One more time I want to see the fear and admiration in everyone’s eyes when I walk into Gaza. Bruce is here Bruce, Bruce and the music of it all following me in the streets, down into the gully, as I stopped to talk to the guys in the workshop, went up to my banga, or passed the old waterfall, that music gave me wings and I strode along as Bruce, head held high, handing out good marks and bad, spliffs and slaps, beers and kicks, and I told myself I was truly like Batman and I’d really like to rename Gaza Gotham City, that would’ve had some style.
I know I’m a rude boy, I know I could’ve spared you, especially when you pissed yourself, but that wasn’t happening, Mo, that’s not how you get to be king of the ghetto. Have you ever heard about Mr. T? Back in the day his word was law in the neighborhood. His name was Kaphet but soon as he started wearing thick gold chains around his neck, he got people calling him Mr. T. Word was he’d killed muzungus with his bare hands, that he was against France and the French, he always used to say It’s the Comoros Islands here, not France and he had a green-and-white flag painted on the wall of his house. They said he knew all the police on the island, the prefect, the elected members and that even the cadis, the Muslim judges, were afraid of him. He tattooed himself with needles he used to heat in the flame of a paraffin stove. He couldn’t read or write, he didn’t smoke, this motherfucker, and he didn’t drink, either, but every evening he’d tattoo designs on himself by hand which he did at an amazing speed, you’d have to see him to believe it. He’d inhale with his mouth almost closed as he made the needle turn red in the blue flame.
But it’s not enough to have a reputation and the tales they tell about you. I didn’t know him when he was young and scared everyone. I only knew him when he went around patting little girls and boys on the head and handing out milk to their mamans without asking for anything back. They used to say to me He’s the Daddy of Kaweni, and I wanted to laugh. Mr. T. used to get young people together, and talked about building them bangas, talked about cleaning up the neighborhood, going back to school. He got them to write up on the wall, “Education to stop violence.” But Mr. T. let things slide. The kids did as they liked, there were raids, they arrested illegal immigrants in their houses. The law came back into the neighborhood as if it was their turf! Imagine that! But Mr. T. went on preaching about dialogue, he had no reputation anymore, just his tattoos and his jewelry. And do you know what happened to Mr. T.? He was beaten up in his own home and strangled with his own chain from around his neck. No one came to weep for him. He’d become just another guy, he didn’t scare people anymore.
I didn’t want to end up like that. You get me, Mo, everyone watches you when you’re the Don. Everyone watches you to see if you’re going soft, if you’re smiling too much, if you’re starting to shuffle along, to drink too much, if you’re getting out of touch, and there’s always some homeboy close to you who thinks he can take your place. It could be Rico, Nasse, or La Teigne. And them youths, you know what they’ve got in their heads? When I grow up I’ll be like Bruce that’s what they’ve got in their heads, those ragamuffins.
There was this talk that I was protecting you, that I never sent you out to beg from the muzungus, or do burglaries, that I was just letting you hang out in Gaza. I’d heard this talk for some time, but I ignored it. I told myself that a day would come when you’d be useful to me, your green eye, your scar, your brown rucksack. I don’t know why I’d got that kind of idea in my head, maybe to begin with I liked you.
When you went off to Kani-Kéli for a week without asking my permission I didn’t want them to think I’d become weak and that people could do what they liked in my neighborhood and I thought again about Mr. T. going around patting children’s heads and handing out cans of milk with a smile. I thought about the way he died, beaten up in his own home, strangled with his own neck chain.
So you get me, Mo, I had to punish you and it had to stick in everyone’s memory, so my homeboys would go tell their friends about it and they’d tell their friends and the story would spread across Gaza, now, tomorrow, so that once more and for all time they’d all be afraid of me. I didn’t want to end up like Mr. T.
I showed them what to do, then I watched. I said Go ahead they went ahead. I said Stop they stopped. I said Untie him they untied. I said Wash him they washed. I said Dress him they dressed. I said Give him a drink they gave you a drink. I said Get the fuck out of here and everyone did.
It’s a fine victory. Just me and my homies, my feet and theirs tramping through the dry leaves from the tropical almond trees, people backing away in front of us, children following us at a safe distance, skipping along. I’m untouchable. I’ve become a star. For days and days until the night of the mourengué, I hear the same music in my ears and think it’ll never stop. I’ll be the king forever.
And you went nuts. You started talking to yourself, and pointing your finger at the sky, and went back to your friend Stéphane. Nutjob Mo, that’s what they started calling you. Some people told me to get rid of you but I wanted you to be there for all to see. I wanted everyone to know what’s in store for anyone who betrays Bruce.
I’d’ve done better to think of my father and remember all he told me about the djinn. I should have known I could never escape the djinn’s green eye.
Moïse
There were times when the trees would suddenly line up in rows in front of me, the earth swallowed up all the filth, the pathways became straight and luminous and the birds came down from the trees and stood to attention.
There were times when the green from the leaves came flowing down plop plop and I began running away, but then the blue from the sky started dripping down as well plop plop and the green and the blue came spilling down on me like thick tar and it was all so heavy that I remained at a standstill, smothered under its weight.
There were times when teeth and hair sprouted on the men working at the tinsmith’s workshop and as I walked by they began to bark.
There were times when Bosco appeared at my side, much bigger, much stronger. I’d talk to hi
m and he’d nod his head.
There were times when everything was as before, the smell, the heat, the noise, the dust and I remembered that Bosco was dead and I’d see Bruce and his homies and remember what they’d done to me in the banga and I wanted to die.
One day I found myself beside the clubhouse. It was a day with no sky. There were two boys I didn’t know and I stayed outside looking up at the dark space above my head. Then Stéphane appeared, waving his arms and gave me back my rucksack. You’d left it in the car he said. Then he began talking nonstop. I followed him into the clubhouse where there was a strong smell of bleach. I sat down on the ground and maybe I had a nap, maybe I had something to eat, but I know I said nothing. Maybe it was on that day or some other day that Stéphane told me about his gun. Maybe it was on that day when the sky had disappeared and the trees were following me that he told me he’d soon be going back to France and the clubhouse was going to close down and he seemed both pleased and sad and, as the trees behind him drew closer to listen, he said I’m so sorry, Mo.
Time passes, night follows day and none of it matters.
That evening, when I heard the drums, I was in the woods and Bosco had reappeared again. Now Bosco was very big, he had the same close-cropped coat with dark patches as before but people were afraid of him, I could see how they stepped aside as I walked along.
The mourengué had started and Rico had beaten a boy I didn’t know. He was dancing and Bosco began to growl. Then La Teigne came up and was beaten by Rico. Bosco squeezed up against me, I could feel his well-fleshed side pressing against me, his muscles tensing and relaxing as he breathed. The crowd was getting bigger. Then Bruce came into the arena and the drums beat faster. Stronger, faster, and when the whistle blew he toppled Rico with a kick and the crowd surged like a great wave, swelling, rising up, and then falling back at the feet of Bruce, the king. Bosco said to me Go on Moïse because my dog knew my name and his voice was firm, his serious, powerful, magic dog’s voice rang out above the shouts of the crowd and the throbbing of the goma drums. When I stepped forward Bruce laughed his barbaric laugh and my dog remarked How barbaric he is, then growled. I went up to Bruce, growling too, and the referee looked at Bruce who said OK! and smiled with his wolfish teeth and, as everyone knows, dogs don’t like wolves.
Bruce began dancing his little dance, leaping and crouching and circling around me laughing and the crowd was laughing too, I heard shouts of The nutjob! The nutjob! But then something incredible happened, Bosco came up close to me and entered me. Into one leg, then the other, into one arm, then the other, into my head, then my heart and I became very big, a big dog with close-cropped fur and dark patches and I pounced on him suddenly making a prodigious spring as he went on laughing and he toppled over and my dog arms punched his head while my dog legs held him gripped and my dog heart was barking and my dog head was yelling.
The cry that welled up from my guts awakened something within me and it struck me that it was the same thing that was awakened when I was reading my book, when I thought about my house, when I dreamed of Marie. I saw Bruce’s face and my foot on his throat and I knew I needed to disappear.
I ran, went to fetch my bag that I’d hidden beside the water meter, then remembered the gun. I’d got down the hillside before they could find me and I ran across the Kaweni road and along beside the mangrove swamp and got onto the ferry without a backward glance and even as I sat there on the wooden benches I was still running in my head, in my heart. I didn’t watch Grande-Terre receding, I didn’t look to see if Gaza was changing into a monster, I came back here, I slept on the ping-pong table and before sunrise I walked as far as Lake Dziani to remind myself of how it was in the old days when I used to go there with Marie, and then Bruce appeared among the trees and I didn’t want any more of all that, I didn’t want to be down on the ground again, I didn’t want to be mutilated again, I didn’t want to be raped again and I took out the gun and I barely squeezed the trigger.
Olivier
In the garden by my little house there are pink hibiscus with red hearts and yellow pistils, a frangipani tree with velvety white flowers, allamandas that produce flowers as yellow as the sun all through the year, and fuchsia bougainvillea climbing up one panel of the boundary wall. I spend hours here, trimming, pruning, nurturing, removing the insects one by one, nurturing, feeding, watering, protecting. I spend a part of my life here, looking, marveling at the colors, the shapes, the perfumes, like a freshly arrived tourist. I bow down in awe before the fineness of the veins in the flowers and the softness of their petals, I watch butterflies, hummingbirds, bulbuls, and many species of songbird. Every morning when I walk in after a night on duty, I stand motionless in this garden and feel as if I’m taking root here, taking on the colors of these intense, unchanging hues and every morning I contrive to feel as if I belong a little, just a very little, to this land.
But this afternoon when I finally come home after twenty hours on duty, this garden seems to me a fraud, a cliché, a picture postcard for tourists. I go into the garden and beneath the blazing metallic sunlight I wait to be moved, I wait to be washed clean, I scan the flowers with my eyes, I listen for the birds, I wait to be calmed, I wait to be comforted.
Bruce’s body has been taken to the mortuary at the Dzaoudzi hospital. It’s not really a mortuary, it’s a solid structure separate from the main buildings. Three air conditioners turned up to the maximum keep the room cold. Bacar and I did our best to avoid news of the affair spreading but when we came back down the hill with Bruce’s body wrapped in a sheet there was already a crowd around the emergency services vehicles. People were boldly calling out Who’s that? and Bacar snapped back It’s a tourist. Just now a reporter from Mayotte’s daily newspaper called the police station to ask for information about the body found near the lake. I don’t know how long we’ll be able to keep it quiet, act as if nothing had happened, act as if it were just a trivial incident.
I think about Moïse and about Bruce, and suddenly the unbearable thought hits me that they look like one another. The same build, the same shaped head, the same full lips, both with lean faces. I was once told that they’re all cousins here and that the blood that flows into the ocean passes back into the sand, the land, feeds the rivers and the plantations. My skin’s burning, my head’s about to burst and I look at my flowers. Are they so lovely because they feed on flesh? Are they so vivid because they gorge on blood? My heart begins racing and to stop myself from going mad, before the flowers change into hands, the branches into arms, the tree trunks into bodies, I grasp the spade and strike down the red, smash the velvety white, beat down the sun yellow, kill the pink, silence the fuchsia bougainvillea forever.
“Olivier! Olivier!”
It’s Bacar. He has the keys to my house, as I have his. When I go on vacation he calls every day to water my plants and to check that I haven’t been burglarized. When he’s away I go to his house.
He gives me such a sad look that it makes me want to weep. What are we going to do, Bacar? I want to ask him. What can we do to fix it all?
He hands me a sheet of paper and says, “The chief constable tried to call you several times but you didn’t pick up. The boy has to be driven to the court.”
“Now?”
“Yes, now. Hold on, take a look.”
“What’s this?”
“It’s an article that appeared on the internet an hour ago.”
The piece was several lines long and had been posted at 3:55 p.m. I read it as I followed Bacar to the car.
YOUTH KILLED BY FIREARM THIS MORNING
A youth was killed by a firearm on Petite-Terre this morning. Our sources inform us that it was a certain Bruce, a gang leader known to the inhabitants of Gaza, the shantytown on the outskirts of the capital city, Mamoudzou. This is the first crime involving firearms in France’s most recently created département. Our sources inform us that Bruce was a minor.
For several years Mayotte has experienced an alarming increase i
n violence and delinquency. France’s 101st département, known as the isle of perfumes or the lagoon island, also faces pressure from constant immigration from the Comoros Islands, Madagascar, and even some African countries. Almost 20,000 people were deported in 2014 but the kwassa-kwassas still arrive daily on the shores of Mayotte, and 597 landings were intercepted in 2014. It has been estimated that in France’s 101st département some 3000 unaccompanied minors have now been living as outlaws for a sustained period of time.
S.R.
I looked at Bacar, who was having trouble starting his car. He was shaking.
“We must get him away, this youngster. He’s just a kid.”
“Yes, the prefect recommends that he be transferred to Réunion, but first he has to be brought before the magistrate, and the court’s in Mamoudzou.”
“We’d better get there fast, before the news spreads.”
Bacar turned to me and I knew what he was about to say, I knew what my friend of twenty years was thinking. At this very moment the whole of Gaza knew about Bruce’s death and was preparing for war. I folded up the sheet of paper, the car drove off and for the second time that day I closed my eyes and prayed.
Bruce
Don’t try to get some shut-eye, Mo, don’t chill, don’t close your eyes, it’s not over yet. They’re looking for you and if they have to search every nook and cranny in this country to hunt you down they’re up for it. The noise you can hear that sounds like empty barrels rolling along, or else like thunder in January, well if you think it’s that, you’re wrong. Get ready, Mo-ïse it’s not over yet. You ran here like a scaredy-cat after gunning me down, they’ve put you in this cell nice and safe, nice and cool, but you can hear that noise, can’t you, and feel the earth shaking? Nothing’s going to save you from Gaza’s rage, not the muzungus, not the walls, not the sea, not the djinn, not the law, not the firemen, not Stéphane, not books, not your rotten old dog whose head I kicked to pieces, not your kid’s stories about boys and rivers.
Tropic of Violence Page 11