Broken Glass

by Alain Mabanckou

  I set out to talk about my mother, but then the fugitive shade of my father appeared, so to get back to the point, I was saying how my mother’s death was also a mystery, she rose from her bed at midnight, in the clutches of a dreadful dream, walked down to the river Tchinouka, and there reenacted in every last detail a scene from the Bible, she walked on the dirty water of the river Tchinouka, as though she might cross over to my father in the other world, and then the dirty water of the river Tchinouka gulped her down into its belly, then spat her back out again like a piece of flotsam on the bank, saying it didn’t want her skeletal body in its watery belly, and the local cleaning workers came across her disfigured corpse, nibbled here and there by the small fry in the river and by other fish with no sense of decency, who were hanging around getting bored on the tide of the slimy wave, and the funeral wake was held at our place, on our lot, my mother’s body was laid out in the open air, according to the custom of Louboulou, and for this I must thank Diabolica, she looked after my mother very properly, and it was she who sent the contributions card around the neighborhood so that people could support us in our time of grief, and it was she who went to the morgue to identify the body because I don’t like looking at corpses, and it was she who led the chorus of women beneath the shelter made of palm leaves, and while they vied in their weeping and their wailing for the dead, Diabolica chased away the nasty flies with their worm-eaten feet, hoping for a look in at my mother’s remains, and it was she who supervised the washing of the body, because not just anybody knows how to wash a stiff, and it was she, as well, who sent an obituary notice to the radio station, to announce my mother’s death, and it was she who sent out a second communication, thanking everyone who had assisted us during this difficult time, and throughout these days of sadness, Diabolica dressed in black and daubed her face with white clay, and insisted on fasting throughout the funeral time, walking barefoot, leaving her hair uncombed, not looking at men, not talking to me, not saying hello, because that was the custom, and I can only conclude, in all honesty, that from this point of view, she was a woman I have nothing to reproach for, to this day

  but it turns out Diabolica always thought that being an only son, who had already lost his father, I took refuge in drink, hoping somehow to get even by drinking red wine, since I’d never be able to save my mother’s memory by drinking all the dirty water of the river Tchinouka, and I swear, I wanted to build my life again, fit back together the broken pieces, and mend the holes, and stop spending all my time with the bottle of Sovinco red, but it wasn’t my fault, was it, that I’d been fired from my teaching post, I swear I loved teaching, I swear I loved having all my little pupils around me, I swear I loved teaching them their times tables, I swear, too, that I loved teaching them their past participles conjugated with avoir, and whether you have to make them agree or not, depending on the time of day and the weather, and the poor little things, dazed, confused, sometimes even angry, would ask me why the past participle does agree today at four o’clock, but didn’t yesterday at midday, just before lunch break, and I would tell them that what mattered in the French language was not the rules, but the exceptions to the rules, I would tell them that if they could understand, and memorize all the exceptions in this language, which was as changeable as the weather, then the rules would automatically become apparent, they would be obvious from first principles, and when they were grown up they could forget all about the rules and the sentence structure, because by then they would see that the French language isn’t a long, quiet river, but rather a river to be diverted

  by rights I should never have been a teacher, I haven’t got a secondary-teaching certificate, I never went to teacher-training college, but diplomas can often distort the business of living, a true vocation arises from a combination of circumstances, it’s not usually the ones who wear out the seat of their pants at school who become good teachers, and in my case, I was forced into the profession, when I’ d only just completed my second year of study at Kengué-Pauline, and the government decreed that since there was a national shortage of teachers, all the poor sods who’d got their elementary-education certificate should go off and teach, and that’s how I fell flat-footed into teaching, that’s how I came to learn on the job, but in actual fact I taught myself, even though some egghead wearing spectacles came from the political capital to give us intensive training in pedagogy, he fancied himself as an intellectual, said I had no talent, that I didn’t speak or pronounce French properly, and the government had made a real blunder, letting ignoramuses like me set our children on the path of life, ever since then I’ve always hated intellectuals of all kinds, because it’s always like that with intellectuals, they talk and talk, but nothing concrete ever comes out of it, only more and more discussions about discussions, then they quote some other intellectuals who said this, that, or the next thing, and who saw it all coming, and then they have a good scratch of their own navels, and they think everyone else is stupid, and blind, as though no one could get through life without philosophizing, and the problem is, these pseudo-intellectuals, they philosophize without actually living, they know nothing about life, and life goes on anyway, following its own course, countering all their second-rate Nostradamus predictions, and they all go round congratulating each other, but what you notice is, pseudo-intellectuals all love suits, and little round glasses, and ties, because an intellectual without a tie is basically stark naked, incapable of proper thought, but I’m proud of how I got here, I did things myself, I’m a self-made man, I don’t even know how to tie a tie, but I’ve read whatever I’ve been able to get my hands on, and it’s obvious no one person could ever read everything, life’s not long enough for that, and I’ve also noticed that there are far more people who talk about bad books than there are people who actually read and talk about real ones, and the people who talk about bad books are merciless about the other ones, well they can just go and get lost, there’s more to this world than their little navels, that’s not my problem, this book isn’t about teaching anyone anything, each of us must cultivate his garden as best he can

  I could see why they wanted to fire me from my teaching job, the pretext was alcohol, so, just two months after they did fire me, Diabolica started sleeping at her parents’ place, which meant our house was left empty, as we had never had children, and the local thieves and bandits dropped by and looted everything, my TV, my radio, my dining table, my bed, and my books, including my San-Antonio novels, which meant much more to me than the books those people detached from real life told us were the unit of intellectual measurement, and the thieves looted everything, they even took the last book I’d been reading, Diary of a Thief, I’m sure they thought there would be stuff in it about learning to steal without getting caught by the police, and Diabolica said the whole thing was my fault, she said it was my drunken friends who stole our things, and I said my friends were drunks but they weren’t thieves, and she said I was covering for them, I was their accomplice, and then she left for good, leaving me a scrap of paper on which she’d written, possibly at midnight, “I’m off” and when I turned the paper over, I saw she’d added, possibly also at midnight, “finding an ending,” neither of these telegrams meant anything to me, and I looked for her everywhere, in all the backstreets of the district Trois-Cents, in the town center, at funeral wakes, and then one day I saw her walking past Credit Gone West, I thought I was dreaming, and I ran after her and pleaded with her, I said “we were happy,” and I also said “I can’t live without you, if you leave me I’m fucked, come back home” but she wouldn’t change her mind, she looked me up and down and said “you’re already fucked, you’re not going to change, leave me in peace, you old tramp”

  I turned into one of Credit Gone West’s most loyal customers the year I got thrown out of teaching, I consolidated my friendship with the Stubborn Snail, and became so much part of the fittings and furnishings that the boss said to me “you know, Broken Glass, if you’d been a bit more together, I’d have taken yo
u on as a bartender here” and I replied that I was together and if he doubted the clarity of my mind he could test me on my times tables and he said “no, Broken Glass, business isn’t about times tables, it’s about clarity of mind” and I said I was perfectly clearheaded and he laughed and we had a drink together and then we laughed some more, there was one tree I would always go and piss under, and tell it my wanderer’s tale, and the tree would weep to hear me, because, don’t let them tell you otherwise, trees also weep, and sometimes I would shout insults at Diabolica under this tree, and at her mother too, with her one eye smaller than the other, and her father, with his clubfoot and his hernia hanging down between his legs, and when it was really tough, only the tree understood me, and moved its branches, to show that it cared and whispered low that I was a loser, but a nice one, and that society just didn’t understand me, and the tree and I would have these long conversations, as the negro would say to his admiral when bringing the water for his coffee, and I promised my leafy friend that when God called me back the next time I would choose to be a tree

  I was by now a real regular, and spent my entire time at Credit Gone West, I sat through the hours, come rain or shine, I never left my adopted home, I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else, so there I’d be, in the middle of the night, dozing on my stool after eating kebabs sold by an old Benin woman at the entrance to the bar, long before the reign of our dear bald soprano, Mama Mfoa, it was a fine life, and I must make sure to write it down legibly, that I’m proud of those moments of yore, never let it be said I was having a hard time, that I was bored, that I was sad about Diabolica leaving, that I was nursing a grievance, or was planning to write a letter to the friend who did not save my life or to claim a compassion protocol for my trouble

  I heard it said, not long ago, that Diabolica was living with a good husband, and they had children, I don’t care, there’s no such thing as a good husband, I was the man she needed, the rest are just wretched freeloaders and liars who’ll exploit her till they’ve used her up, I’m not jealous, even if I haven’t had sex since then, I’m aware that my sex life is a bit like the desert of the Tartars, nothing in front, nothing behind, only the shadows of women talk to me, in truth I’m a man who longs for a distant love, don’t expect me to speak to you of love and other demons, fortunately at this unhappy period of my life I still had my love of the bottle, the bottles understood me, they stretched out their arms to me, and whenever I found myself sitting in the bar, which I still love dearly, and always will, I would watch, and observe, and register the doings of the people around me, that’s why it’s important to explain more exactly why I’m writing this book, to be clear about how and why the Stubborn Snail compelled me to record, witness and pass on the history of this place

  in fact the Stubborn Snail took me aside one day and said with a confidential air, “Broken Glass, I want to talk to you about something that’s been bothering me, in fact I’ve been thinking about this for a long time, it’s important, I think you should write, I mean, I think you should write a book,” and I was rather taken aback and I said “a book on what,” and he pointed at the terrace of Credit Gone West and murmured “a book about us, a book about this place, there’s no other place like it on earth, except The Cathedral in New-Bell, Cameroon,” and I laughed, I thought he must have some other reason, that this was some kind of snare without end, and he said “don’t laugh, now, I really mean it, you ought to write, you know you can,” and the look on his face told me this was no two-Congolese-franc joke, and I answered “but you’re the boss, you’re the one who knows what goes on here, I wouldn’t know where to start,” and he poured me a drink before bouncing back with “believe me, I’ve tried it a few times myself, but it never works out, I just don’t have that little bug that writers have, you have, it shows when you talk about literature, your eyes light up and you look all wistful, but I don’t think it’s frustration, or bitterness either, because I know you’re not at all a frustrated man, or a bitter man, you have no cause for regrets, my friend,” and I said nothing, so he went on, “you know, I remember once you told me about a famous writer who drank like a fish, what was his name again,” and I didn’t answer and he continued “well anyway, since we had that talk, I’ve been wondering whether you didn’t start drinking in imitation of the writer whose name I’ve forgotten, and come to look at you, you do actually look like a writer, and the reason you don’t care much about your life is because you know you can invent all sorts of other lives and you’re just one character in the great book of life, of shit and tears, you’re a writer, I know, that’s why you drink, you are not of this world, some days I get the feeling you’re deep in conversation with those guys like Proust or Hemingway, guys like Labou Tansi or Mongo Beti, I can tell you are, so you should just let yourself go, you’re never too old to write,” and for the first time ever I saw him knock back his drink in one gulp, whereas normally he only ever drinks half a glass, and he said with a military air “Broken Glass, I want your inner anger out from inside you, go on, explode, vomit, spit, cough, or ejaculate, I don’t care how you do it, just turn out something about this bar for me, about some of the guys who hang out here, and especially about yourself,” for a moment his words stopped the words in my mouth, I felt like crying, I couldn’t remember which drunken writer it was we’d talked about, in any case, quite a lot of them drank, and some writers today drink lethal amounts, what had got into the Stubborn Snail that day, needling down deep inside me, huh, so in my own defense I said over and over, “I’m not a writer, and besides, who’d want to read about these people’s lives, or mine, there’s no interest in that, you’d never fill a whole book,” and he came straight back saying, “who cares, Broken Glass, you’ve got to write, it’s interesting to me, for a start,” and I felt proud that he’d asked me, and actually the idea began to take shape in my head from that point on, fueled by one glass of red after another, I outlined my real thoughts about writing to the Stubborn Snail, and it was simple to express myself, because it is easy to talk about writing when, like me, you’ve written nothing, and I told him that in this crappy country everyone thinks he can turn his hand to writing, even when there’s no life behind the words, and I told him that sometimes on the TV in a bar on the Avenue of Independence I’d see some of those writers who wear jackets and ties, bright red scarves, sometimes round glasses, smoking pipes or cigars, trying to look good, like smart young things, the kind of writers who take photos looking as though they’ve got great works under their belts and all they want people to talk about is their own navels, the size of a clockwork orange, some of them even fancy themselves neglected writers, convinced of their own genius, when they’ve produced nothing but sparrows’ droppings, they’re paranoid, embittered, jealous, envious, always convinced there’s some great conspiracy against them, and they say that even if one day they did win the Nobel Prize for literature, they’d categorically turn it down, they don’t want to find themselves with dirty hands, the Nobel Prize for literature is a mesh, a wall, iron in the soul, the bets have already been placed, to the point where you start wondering what is literature, and yes all these crappy writers would turn down the Nobel Prize in order to preserve the road to freedom, I’ll believe that when I see it, and I also said to the Stubborn Snail that if I was a writer I would ask God to grant me the gift of humility, to give me the strength to put my own writing into perspective alongside the giants of this world who have put pen to paper, and that I would say three cheers for true genius, and would keep silent rather than speak of the mediocrity all around us, and that would be the only way you could hope to write something remotely like real life, but I’d say it in my own words, twisted words, incoherent words, nonsensical words, I’d write down words as they came to me, I’d begin awkwardly and I’d finish as awkwardly as I’d begun, and to hell with pure reason, and method, and phonetics, and prose, and in this shit-poor language of mine things would seem clear in my head but come out wrong, and the words to say it wouldn’t
come easy, so it would be a choice between writing or life, that’s right, and what I really want people to say when they read me is “what’s this jumble, this mess, this muddle, this mishmash of barbarities, this empire of signs, this chitchat, this descent to the dregs of belles lettres, what’s with this barnyard prattle, is this stuff for real, and where does it start, and where the hell does it end?” and my mischievous answer would be “this jumble of words is life, come on, come into my lair, check out the rotting garbage, here’s my take on life, your fiction’s no more than the output of a load of old has-beens designed to comfort other old has-beens, and until the day your characters start to see how the rest of us earn our nightly crust, there’ll be no such thing as literature, only intellectual masturbation, with you all rubbing up against each other like donkeys,” and to sum up I said to the Stubborn Snail that, sadly, I wasn’t a writer, I could not be a writer, all I ever did was watch the world, and talk to my bottles and to my tree, the one I like to piss under, to whom I had made a promise to come back in vegetal form, and live a new life alongside it, and because of that I would rather leave the job of writing to the intellectually gifted, the writers I so loved to read in the days when I still read in order to learn, I would leave writing, I said, to those who sing of the joy of life, who struggle, and who dream without ceasing of the extension of the domain of the struggle, those who invent fancy ways of dancing the polka, those who can astonish the gods, those who wallow in disgrace, those who walk steadfastly toward manhood, those who create a practical dream, those who sing of the land without shadows, those who live in transit in one corner of the earth, those who see the world through an attic window, those who, like my late father, listen to jazz and drink palm wine, those who can describe an African summer, those who tell tales of barbarous weddings, those who retreat to the summit of the magic rock of Tanios, and pass their time in meditation, I told him I’d leave writing to those who remind us that too much sun kills love, those who prophecy the sobbing of the white man, phantom Africa, the innocence of the black child, I told him I’d leave writing to those who can construct a town inhabited by dogs, who can put up a green house like the Printer’s or a house on the edge of tears to shelter the humble and homeless, those who sense the compassion of stones, yes, I told him, I’d leave writing to them, and rule out the nutters and the live wires, the weekend poets with their threepenny verses, and it’s just bad luck on the nostalgic Senegalese riflemen, who tear to shreds the very core of militancy, and the guys who think a black man shouldn’t speak of birch trees, of stone, of dust, of winter, of snow, of a rose, or simply of beauty for beauty’s sake, and rule out the integrationalist imitators that pop up like mushrooms, how many are their number, who congest the highway of letters, sully the purity of the universe, and pollute the true literature of our time