“No, no—I’d never let you do that! It’s hardly more than a lean-to where I store bags of cement. How could you possibly sleep there?”
“Let me at least see what it looks like, Auntie!”
My efforts to convince her finally worked—she handed me a flashlight and said I could go take a look. Indeed it was a lean-to, built against the wall surrounding the property and located about ten meters from the main house. Thirty or forty sacks of cement were stored there, and at first glance it seemed there was no room to spread out a mat. But if the five sacks near the door were piled up on other ones, this would solve the problem. I asked two men to help me, since a sack of cement weighs fifty kilos. It wasn’t difficult to clear a space measuring about three meters by one meter—three square meters—which was plenty for me. I still had to do something about the cement dust lying here and there on the shed floor. As the daughter of a mason and occasionally a mason’s assistant, I knew that breathing cement dust was dangerous—the stuff was as toxic and dangerous as asbestos. So I sprinkled the ground with water and swept it twice with a broom. The surface was now clean enough to sleep on.
When I got back to the house, Auntie asked what had taken me so long. I described what I’d done and told her the place suited me perfectly. Then she invited me to stay and watch the news on TV before going off to bed.
Auntie knew that I liked to keep up with current events, and she and Mama often teased me about that. Fofo might know every important soccer team in the world and be able to reel off the most obscure statistics—such as the number of goals scored in a World Cup match that had taken place ten years before he was born. But I could give you all sorts of details on what was happening in the world right now.
In fact, I knew more about events abroad than I did about what was going on in our own country, for the simple reason that our national radio and TV networks told heaps of lies, all the time. I say this because if you listened only to what those networks said, you’d think that our country had no problems at all, that it was a veritable paradise. Everything was fine; the people were happy; the president was universally loved, since the peace that prevailed in the land was due entirely to his generosity; the public schools, like the hospitals and health care services, worked smoothly; and soon the country would have a system of highways and airports to rival that of Switzerland, if one could judge from the frequency with which such projects were inaugurated. But after I’d spent some time listening to our journalists, one thing became absolutely clear to me: the country they lived in was not the country we were living in.
Mélanie and I had tuned in to the national radio station only when we wanted to listen to music, and we’d watched the national TV station only to see the lovely Tanya Toyo present the daily news. Mélanie thought TT was very beautiful and had admired her elegant clothes. She’d tried to dress like TT as best she could, but it wasn’t easy—even for Mélanie, whose parents were rich—because TT wore a different outfit for every show.
Out of necessity, we had turned to foreign radio and TV stations when we wanted to find out what was happening in our country. The news reported by the foreign media wasn’t always accurate—sometimes we got the impression they didn’t really know what they were talking about, because they often couldn’t even pronounce the names of people and places in our country. But at least they alerted us to facts that our government was trying to conceal.
So I was very happy when Auntie Tamila invited me to watch the evening news. With her satellite dish, she could get channels from all over the globe. And even if there was only a single report on what was happening here, it would be worth it—for in the entire time since we’d left home, I’d heard nothing but the exhortations to looting that were being spewed out by a certain General Giap.
Although water still flowed from the faucets, electricity was no longer flowing from the sockets. But that was nothing new in our country, and Auntie Tamila, who was familiar with the problem, had long ago found a solution: her TV worked as well on batteries as it did on the main power supply.
Almost all of the refugees staying at her place had crowded into the living room to watch TV. I counted sixteen people—eighteen if I included myself and Mama, who had stayed in the bedroom. Everyone wanted to know what the news reports would say. I found a bit of space on one of the mats spread on the floor, and sat down.
CNN and TV5 made no mention of our country in their bulletins. So Auntie Tamila switched to Euronews, which was just beginning its evening broadcast. It was a good choice, since our country was mentioned in the titles at the beginning of the program. We had to wait ten minutes for the complete report. There was a rapt silence in the living room.
The story began with a sequence of images filled with refugees—long streams of men and women, their arms, heads, and backs laden with bundles, suitcases, countless miscellaneous objects, not to mention their children. In short, a sequence that seemed like a replay of old archival footage, images I’d seen a thousand times on programs about Rwanda, Angola, Sierra Leone, Liberia, the Central African Republic, and eastern Zaire. Images that gave the impression that Africa was nothing but a vast refugee camp. And not only Africa, for I’d seen similar images from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, East Timor. But until that moment, they’d seemed not only very distant from my own life but a bit unreal, like scenes from a movie. I’d never imagined that one day I myself would be among those ragged, wandering hordes.
The voice-over informed us that the war we were experiencing on the margins—as looting, thievery, and rape—was actually much more significant, since a number of fighter jets, belonging to a foreign army allied with one of the factions, had bombed a section of the capital. The commentary stated that in view of the threat posed to citizens of the European Union—the looting of a humanitarian convoy, an ultimatum given by the armed factions—the EU had launched a rescue operation. And then came another sequence of images.
I recognized the HCR compound, the helicopters, the tanks . . . and I saw Mélanie. Oh, not for long—just a fraction of a second—hut long enough to recognize her standing next to Katelijne. And there was Tanisha flanked by two soldiers, Tanisha boarding a helicopter. It was amazing! Television gave another dimension to reality, even though it was a reality I’d already lived. TV created a distance from the events, enabling me to see things I hadn’t noticed or realized at the time—in particular, the chaotic and irrational way people behaved in an emergency situation.
For a moment the camera ceased roving about and remained focused on the scene as a whole. A tank entered the frame, backing up at top speed . . . The people were pushing and shoving to get out of the way . . . to avoid being crushed . . . A young man stood there, watching the tank come closer . . . I could see only his hack—he was wearing jeans and a baseball cap . . . The tank was heading straight toward him . . . “Move, you idiot!” I shouted, as if he could hear me through the screen and as if I could alter the course of an action that, even if I didn’t yet know its outcome, was already over and done with, irreversible, since it was on film . . . Move, you idiot! Throw away that bandolier bag and save yourself! . . . But he just stood there, hypnotized, frozen in place like an animal caught in the headlights . . . The tank was almost upon him . . . A woman standing behind him grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him toward her. The two of them fell out of the way just in time. The tank thundered by them a fraction of a second later. His cap flew off—and lo and behold, he wasn’t a young man but a young woman. She immediately got to her feet, shot an angry glance at the person who’d caused her to fall, and then turned to look at the tank. But . . . but . . . that young woman was me! That idiot, that blockhead who stood there so stupidly, like a cow watching a train go by—that was me, and I hadn’t even recognized myself!
It was the weirdest feeling. I was simultaneously behind the screen and in front of it; I was shouting insults at myself; I was both actor and spectator in the life-or-death situation unfolding before my eyes; I was real yet at the sa
me time imaginary, as in a painting that shows the artist himself in the act of painting. It was enough to make me schizophrenic!
Auntie Tamila called out my name. The others in the room did likewise. The entire incident hadn’t lasted more than a minute, and the camera was once again panning across the scene, focusing on the white refugees, with many close-ups of their haggard faces, while a colonel boasted of his country’s ability to deploy troops on the ground rapidly and effectively in a crisis.
“Were there any casualties during the operation?”
“No,” he replied. “No one was killed, or even wounded. We even managed to save a dog,” he said with a smile, as the camera panned to a woman cradling her precious poodle in her arms.
“No one was killed!” I exclaimed to myself. What about Mélanie?
“Mm-hmm! Well!” said all the women in the room, in a tone somewhere between approving and questioning.
I was surprised that the operation was considered so important. The eyewitness account was followed by two interviews—one with a European scholar from an International Center of African Studies at some French university, and the other with an African political analyst.
The interview with the European came first.
“Do you think,” asked the journalist, “that this ethnic conflict—”
“Let me stop you right there, sir. We have to get beyond the distorted and stereotyped view that reduces all conflicts in Africa to tribal warfare, to a settling of scores between clans bent on avenging secular hatreds. Ethnic tensions are perhaps instrumental for the politicians—in fact, this is surely the case. But on the level of the ordinary person, of the poor farmer, there are no such conflicts, because everyone is living in the same poverty. In all those conflicts, if you look carefully, you’ll find first of all the large petroleum companies and diamond producers, who manipulate the local politicians, and these in turn . . .”
The rest of his words were drowned out by a hubbub of voices in the room, retorting, commenting, protesting.
“What do you know about it? You’re a white man! Just this morning I had to flee from the Manga district, hiding behind bushes the whole way, because gangs of youths were out to hunt down and kill all the Mayi-Dogos. And you say it isn’t a tribal conflict!”
“Two blocks from here, they killed a schoolteacher. Why? Simply because he was a Mayi-Dogo. Isn’t that tribal?”
“I saw something worse!” said another woman, outdoing everyone else. “When we came to this district yesterday morning, we saw that young Chechens had set up a roadblock where they were systematically shooting everyone who wasn’t from their own ethnic group! They couldn’t tell who was who just by looking, since we all have black skin, two arms, two legs, two eyes, and two ears—so they invented a language test. Anyone who couldn’t speak the tribal tongue was automatically shot, as if all children in this modern world could still speak their tribal tongue. Isn’t that tribalism?”
“When a Tutsi kills a Hutu just because he’s a Hutu, and vice versa; when a Yoruba kills a Hausa just because he’s a Hausa, and vice versa—”
“And when a Pashtun kills an Uzbek just because he’s an Uzbek, and vice versa,” I added—to show that, thanks to my keen interest in current events, I was up on what was happening in places other than Africa . . .
“Yes, that’s right!” said Auntie Tamila quickly, continuing in the same vein. “And when a Sara kills a Yakoma just because he’s a Yakoma, I don’t give a damn for all your reasons and theories! I say that, manipulated or not, they’re two tribes or ethnic groups that are killing each other!” She threw this remark directly at the European scholar, who was trying to camouflage the reality we knew firsthand.
Then, abruptly, as if someone had cast a spell, the people in the room fell silent. The young political expert had appeared on the screen.
“You know the country well. Can you explain to us what’s happening? Is it true that the large oil companies and diamond producers bear some responsibility for this war?”
“Yes, I do know the country well, because I was born here. If you do nothing but lazily parrot the politically correct view—namely, that the war is the result of manipulation by large corporations—even if that’s partly true, you’ll never completely understand the reality of the situation here, and a fortiori you’ll never find a way to resolve the crisis. In essence, it’s a conflict between two of the country’s major ethnic groups, the Mayi-Dogos and the Dogo-Mayis, a conflict that dates back half a century to a time when the groups’ leaders began fighting for power after the colonial occupiers left. It’s an ethnic conflict that disguises itself behind all these avatars. For instance, nowadays you won’t find a single Mayi-Dogo living in a Dogo-Mayi district, and vice versa . . .”
“Ah, listen to that fellow! He’s no better than the other one. What a bunch of lies!” exclaimed the first woman.
“He’s eaten too many tinned sardines in Whitey Land and no longer knows what’s happening in his own country.”
“It isn’t sardines that makes him so fat—he’s been eating too much French butter!”
“I’m a Mayi-Dogo,” said Auntie Tamila. “My niece Lao and her mother, who are in this house with us, are not MayiDogos. But they’re right at home here in this district!”
“Apologies for pointing this out, Tamila—but I’ve seen Mayi-Dogos killing Mayi-Dogos. They were shooting one another with Kalashnikovs in front of a shop they’d looted. Is that tribal?”
“Not at all!” chimed in another woman. “It’s those politicians. They want to seize power, so they need militia fighters. But since they don’t have any money to pay the fighters, they just tell them to go ahead and steal.”
“I heard a general named Giap authorize forty-eight hours of indiscriminate looting,” I said.
“But he gets his orders from people even higher up—from the president himself.”
“Don’t believe a word that fellow says, even if he is a black African, and even if he claims to have been born here. It isn’t the tribes who are killing each other—it’s the politicians who are killing us,” concluded Auntie Tamila.
Expressions of emphatic agreement came from all sides: “That’s true!” “She’s right!” “Mm-hm!” And everyone nodded.
The newscast was over. It was followed by a program on the latest fashions—beautiful girls, beautiful dresses. We had to avoid running down the battery. Auntie switched off the TV.
I went outside for a few minutes to get some fresh air—to breathe some oxygen after the stuffy atmosphere in that living room, filled with carbon dioxide from all those lungs. I’d forgotten that outside, high in the sky, the stars were still shining. And, in turn, the stars above made me briefly forget my current situation: that of a young woman who for the past forty-eight hours had been fleeing a civil war together with her mother, and who had lost her little brother somewhere along the way. Even the peace and quiet all around—not a single gunshot could be heard at the moment—gave the impression that nothing was happening. Now it was time to go to sleep, to get some rest.
I went back into the house to tell Auntie Tamila I was turning in.
She gave me a small foam pad she had stored away, and a spray bottle of mosquito repellent. She lit a candle and asked if she could come with me. But before leaving the house, I wanted to say goodnight to Mama.
I went into the room where she was lying down. I raised the protective netting that hung down around the bed. She hadn’t yet fallen asleep, and I could tell at a glance that her infected leg was once again throbbing, despite the ointment that Auntie Tamila had rubbed on it. And all of a sudden it occurred to me that if the medication Tanisha had given me could ease menstrual cramps, then it could also ease Mama’s pain. To avoid giving Auntie the impression that I thought her ointment was useless, I assured her the doctor had told Mama to take two acetaminophen at bedtime. I made Mama swallow them. I wiped her forehead tenderly, and I hugged her with all my love. Such a brave woman, my mother! Tomorrow,
at dawn, she would again be at my side and we would continue our struggle together. We had to survive—we would survive!
Auntie accompanied me to the shed, to see what kind of lodgings I’d arranged for myself. She was quite pleasantly surprised. By the light of her candle she helped me to spread out the foam pad, and, leaving me a blanket, she wished me goodnight. I felt comfortable and safe, especially because the sacks of cement formed a protective wall around me. I tried out my improvised bed. The foam pad wasn’t much—only about five centimeters thick—and I could feel the hardness of the ground as soon as I lay down. But that was nothing—I’d soon get used to it. And it was better than sleeping on a mere woven mat or cloth. I took the insect repellent and sprayed the exposed parts of my body—hands, arms, legs. The stuff was an olfactory disaster; it stank of fish. I sprayed some on my palms and rubbed it over my face and neck. Well, at least I’d sleep soundly. Before blowing out the candle, I removed the leather bandolier bag from my shoulder, as well as the purse concealed under my pants, and tucked them away between the sacks of cement.
An hour or two later, the sound of heavy-arms fire woke me. For a second I panicked, thinking that the district was being attacked. But when I listened carefully, I realized the noise was coming from the embassy district. I wondered who could still be fighting there, now that the refugees had left and the area was abandoned. After about twenty minutes, the firing stopped as abruptly as it had begun. I listened to the silence for another half hour, and then drifted off to sleep.
So it was at dawn, just as I was coming out of the latrine, that rockets began raining down on the district.
Johnny Mad Dog Page 19