Black Moses

by Alain Mabanckou

  ‘What about the injections?’

  ‘What injections?’

  ‘You see, doctor, I only have to look at a syringe and I’m finished, I’m out like a kite.’

  ‘What do you mean, out like a kite?’

  ‘Isn’t that the expression?’

  ‘Mister Little Pepper, there will be no injections, not today, at any rate, and with me you won’t be out like a kite, as you put it.’

  ‘What about next time?’

  ‘Sufficient unto the day…’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘That will depend on the results of the tests I give you.’

  I began to feel he was making fun of me when he stopped smiling and stared at me as though I was from a different planet. When a doctor looks at you even for a few seconds without speaking, it’s like he’s been looking at you for an hour and is hiding some alarming diagnosis from you. So you feel obliged to say something. Yes, I expect that was his technique for getting patients to confess.

  ‘I’m aware I’ve been a little slower than usual. I’ll try to speed up a bit…’

  He showed me two objects sitting on a little table behind me.

  ‘Do these two objects mean anything to you?’

  I turned round and glanced briefly at them:

  ‘No, nothing!’

  ‘Mister Little Pepper, I must ask you to adopt a more co-operative attitude, and to take your time…’

  ‘They’re still useless objects!’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘Who put them on that table anyway? Do you really think they belong here, in an office?’

  ‘Listen, I’ll be frank with you: I’m not here to amuse myself! I studied in France, let me remind you, just in case you didn’t read it on the plaque outside my door! Just give me the names of these two objects and we’ll move on!’

  I didn’t let his change of tone intimidate me:

  ‘I don’t know what they are…’

  ‘Look at them carefully one more time!’

  ‘No, no idea.’

  ‘Everyone has these, you must have them in your own home! You must remember!’

  ‘No, I can’t!’

  ‘You can’t or you won’t?’

  I straightened up and adjusted my shirt collar:

  ‘If you’re going to be like that, I’m leaving!’

  ‘Mister Little Pepper, what I want to hear is: “That’s a spoon, it’s for eating soup and liquid food; and that’s a pot, it’s for cooking food in!” It’s not exactly difficult to say the name of an object and explain what it’s for!’

  ‘Shall I tell you what my real problem is, doctor?’

  I could tell he was thrown by that, then he went on:

  ‘Go on then, I’m here to listen.’

  ‘My illness goes back a long, long way…’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘I’m ill because of my adverbials…’

  He burst out laughing:

  ‘That’s the first time I’ve heard that one! Where did you get that one from?’

  ‘A friend said it, his name’s Strong-as-Death…’

  ‘All right, but what have your psychic problems to do with adverbials?’

  ‘Well, let me ask you, doctor, what is the role of adverbials in a sentence?’ Embarrassed by this question, he looked down, stifling another shout of laughter:

  ‘I must admit, you’ve got me there, I’ve never really thought about it…’

  ‘My friend Strong-as-Death told me that the purpose of the adverbial is to complete the action expressed by the verb, according to the circumstances in which it is undertaken. Which means, if I’m not mistaken, that without it, the verb is fucked, it can’t express cause, means or comparison etc. with any degree of precision. Perhaps my memory is no longer reliable because I’ve lost most of my adverbials! Or maybe I don’t know where to put them in my sentences! If my adverbials aren’t there when I need them, I won’t be able to remember the time, place or manner etc., and my verbs will be all alone, they’ll be orphans like me, which means I’m getting no information about the circumstances of the actions I perform. Strong-as-Death thinks I could pick up some adverbials in the street, because some people just throw them away when they’ve used them, but I’d need to pick up some that correspond to the ones I’ve lost. Which would be difficult, because I’m not the only person looking for them in this town and even when I find one, it never seems to be the same as I had before, so I…’

  ‘All right, that’s enough!’

  ‘Because…’

  ‘I said that’s enough! I’m a doctor, not a French teacher.’

  ‘I was honestly trying to help you, doctor…’

  ‘Let’s try something simpler. What is the most recent memory in your head right now?’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Yes, right now.’

  ‘You mean, apart from my adverbials, which you’ve just crossed out, so my verbs are left all alone?’

  ‘Don’t you worry about that, if you answer my question your adverbials will be back in no time.’

  I thought for a moment, then I said:

  ‘All right, I remember that the day before yesterday, in the late afternoon, I saw some gnomes trampling the poor little spinach plants in my garden. And what do you think I did? I chased them away, because, if you can put yourself in my shoes for a moment, my poor little spinach plants hadn’t harmed them, all they’d done was grow, and it’s me that waters them morning and evening. That reminds me, I mustn’t forget to water them tonight…’

  ‘Gnomes in your garden, you say?’

  ‘Yes, real garden gnomes. They were talking, like you and me! There were even some twin gnomes, and I can assure you, you don’t get that very often these days!’

  ‘You wouldn’t by any chance be mistaking your friends from the Tchinouka or the Côte Sauvage for garden gnomes?’

  ‘No, they were real gnomes! They had mouths, arms, noses, ears and something dangling down between their legs, if you know what I mean. There were lots of them. One of them, the oldest, I think, was dressed as a customs officer and was talking about having to feed his ten children and nephews.’

  ‘And how did you get rid of them?’

  ‘I threw hot pepper water at them, and they escaped in a Maritime Company lorry.’

  ‘Your neighbour tells me you used to work at the Maritime Company…’

  ‘I wasn’t just anyone!’

  ‘And these gnomes, did you see them when you were working at the port too?’

  ‘I’ll say! I was their boss, their immediate superior! No gnomes in charge of Little Pepper!’

  ‘What about you, Little Pepper, are you a gnome too?’

  ‘Some days yes, some days no. And if I compare myself to a dinosaur, then yes, I’m a gnome…’

  ‘Let me get this right – you’ve seen a dinosaur?’

  ‘Honestly, doctor! Who hasn’t seen a dinosaur? There are loads of them in the Tchinouka! And contrary to what most people think, dinosaurs are sweet and lovely if you don’t provoke them…’

  ‘You smell of alcohol… do you drink a lot?’

  ‘About average…’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘A case of beer a day. Hang on though, I don’t mean on my own! I’ll give you names if you want!’

  ‘No, it’s OK…’

  ‘Because I wouldn’t like you to think that I’m the only person in this town who likes to have a drink now and then. There are lots of us down on the Côte Sauvage, especially by the Tchinouka, you can check if you like, everyone brings his own case of beer. Except maybe Mokila Ngonga, the carpenter, he’s older than the rest of us, he doesn’t drink beer, only whisky, he says beer gives you a belly and when you have a big belly you can’t see your organ to get hold of it for a pee. And also…’

  ‘And have you been drinking today?’

  ‘Yes, but I didn’t drink it all, I hid two beers in the sand when I saw my neighbour coming to get me to bring me h
ere, and I’m hoping those two bottles will make lots and lots of baby beers!’

  I paused for thought, then added:

  ‘No, I didn’t drink it all, but it doesn’t matter, even when I haven’t had a drink, I feel as if I have: I’m lucky that way, it’s as if my body stores the alcohol. My friends often compliment me on it, they say I’m a one-man brasserie!’

  I was laughing to myself, when the doctor murmured:

  ‘I think I can see what may be wrong with you…’

  ‘Wait a minute doctor, it isn’t just the gnomes that bother me…’

  ‘What is it now? An army of giants?’

  ‘Just the last few moments I’ve had an image in my head of this big black cat we ate…’

  ‘What? You ate a black cat?’

  ‘I didn’t want to hurt him, it was the Bembés who caught him and ate him like it was just normal meat, when it really wasn’t!’

  ‘Well one thing’s certain, you’ve a vivid imagination, Mr Little Pepper!’

  ‘I swear it’s the truth, doctor!’

  ‘I could sit here listening to you for hours, but we need to get back to reality…’

  The neuropsychologist launched into a series of convoluted explanations, which I listened to without reacting. I heard terms which were every bit as complicated as the ones I’d read in the waiting room, each more amphigorical than the last: Alzheimer’s, agnosia, anterograde amnesia, retrograde amnesia, antero-retrograde amnesia, lacunar amnesia or selective amnesia…

  At the end of this string of gobbledy-gook, he concluded:

  ‘I wouldn’t be surprised to find we’re looking at Korsakoff syndrome…’

  I almost leaped out of my seat:

  ‘Who’s this Korsakoff?’

  He remained calm and said:

  ‘Sergei Korsakoff was a 19th-century neuropsychiatrist. One might consider it ironic that someone like him, who devoted his life to diseases of the brain, should have died at forty-six of a heart attack! Who knows, perhaps if he had been a cardiologist he would have died of the illness that bears his name today!’

  Seeing me looking a little lost, he went on:

  ‘To put it simply, you probably have some complications arising from Wernike’s encephalopathy… I will however need to carry out a more detailed diagnosis. Some preliminary signs lead me to believe that this is what we’re looking at: you have been drinking excessively for many years, you find it difficult to remember things from the past and to assimilate new ones, if your story of the gnomes that haunt you, or the black cat you ate with your friends are anything to go by, you have a marked tendency to fantasise…’

  ‘So doctor, you’re saying I’m just a liar…’

  ‘I’m not accusing you of anything, Mr Little Pepper, I’m looking for a diagnosis and at this stage it’s just conjecture. Having said that, I’m rarely wrong about this syndrome, it was the subject of my doctoral thesis in France, which I obtained, incidentally, with distinction. Let us say that after I’ve run some tests on you, we will have to consider a long course of treatment, a very long course of treatment indeed…’

  Accompanied each time by Kolo Loupangou, who, when he wasn’t snoring on the couch with his feet up on the coffee table, sat waiting for me in the lobby and stuffing himself with sweets, I went back for several weeks for further consultation and analysis, after which the doctor confirmed that my ‘neuropsychological assessment’ was ‘serious’, and I had ‘advanced cerebral lesions’.

  He was looking shifty, which made me anxious, and I felt my heart sink into my stomach when he concluded:

  ‘I don’t want to hold out too much hope, because your condition is irreversible… However, I am going to prescribe some medicines for you to deal with the side effects…’

  ‘I’m not ill, doctor!’

  ‘People like you who suffer from attacks of amnesia usually succumb to what we call anosognosia, a state in which they deny that they have the illness…’

  He advised me not to drink any alcohol, not one single drop, and put me on a diet which he wrote down on a piece of paper. I passed out each time he gave me a powerful injection of vitamin B1…

  Throughout the treatment, Kolo Loupangou stuck to me like a limpet, but at least he didn’t tie me to the foot of a mango tree, the favoured approach of most Pontenegrins to cure the mentally ill, before eventually dumping them in psychiatric asylums. Many a time and oft I’ve seen madmen bound hand and foot with string, which they gnawed at nervously, while barking as though they were actual canines. Faced with this humiliating spectacle, dogs would stop for a moment before the wretched captives, pricking their ears up, unable to figure it out.

  Each time I came back down to the lobby after my consultation, my neighbour said:

  ‘I’m very proud of you, Mr Little Pepper, you slept in your shack yesterday. I’m most encouraged, it means the treatment’s starting to work. I will come and fetch you again next week, now don’t disappear again, you have your health to think of now!’

  My neighbour was perhaps too optimistic. Three or four months later, we still seemed to have made no progress. Doctor Lucien Kilahou was so exasperated by my rudeness, he asked me never to set foot in his consulting room again. Again and again I called him a gnome, or even Pygmy. I talked to him about the adverbials I’d picked up in the street, but which weren’t the ones I was looking for. I told him about my desperate struggle with the gnomes of the Maritime Company, who were demolishing my spinach plants. I also mentioned the black cat we’d eaten, whose meows grew ever louder inside my head.

  ‘You are the rudest patient I’ve ever had in my consulting room. Korsakoff syndrome does not excuse everything!’

  ‘I’ve made some progress, doctor, even my neighbour says so…’

  ‘No, you always smell of alcohol, even though I ordered you to stop six months ago! I didn’t say anything when you turned up drunk, but there are limits, and you have just exceeded them!’

  ‘Give me one last chance, doctor…’

  ‘There will be no last chance, you’ve blown them all and now I am asking you to leave this consulting room! I know I took the Hippocratic oath back in Europe, but I don’t ever want to see you here again, you’re an imposter!’

  I remained in my chair, feeling my anger rise.

  ‘Get out of here or I’ll call the police! And you know where they’ll put you? In an asylum!’

  The word ‘asylum’ echoed so loud in my head, I stood up swiftly. Before I left I yelled at him exactly what I had been thinking for the last few moments:

  ‘You don’t give a shit about me, you haven’t since the very first day! Well, see if I care, you’re not the only doctor in this town!’

  Just as I was leaving his consulting room, I noticed that the utensils he’d used for my tests were still sitting on the table at the back, and I took malicious pleasure in saying to him:

  ‘Do you know why one of those utensils is called a marmite? Because marmite doesn’t just mean “cooking pot”, it’s also the old French word for a hypocrite. It’s a hypocritical container, just like you are, you don’t know what’s inside till you lift off the lid! You’re just a cooking pot, doctor! And what the hell do I care about spoons? Do you know that in the past people used a shell for a spoon, especially for eating snails? Which of us is the snail, do you think, and which the spoon?’

  ‘Get out of here!’

  When I got back to the lobby, my neighbour saw the look on my face and asked in alarm:

  ‘Did you have more injections than usual?’

  ‘I’m never coming back here anyway, he threw me out because of the cooking pot and the spoon, that’s how he catches his patients out!’

  To my great surprise, Kolo Loupangou was even harsher with the doctor than I had been.

  ‘This guy’s only any good when someone has a centipede in their head. It’s not a centipede you’ve got in there, it’s something else, only a traditional healer could rake through your memory and put everything back the
way it should be…’

  KOLO LOUPANGOU no longer escorted me, as the healer he had chosen lived by the Tchinouka. Sometimes I went to see this healer five or six times a day, and he’d say:

  ‘Little Pepper, what are you doing back here again? You were only here at midday!’

  ‘Was I?’

  ‘We ate together at midday, as usual. Don’t you remember?’

  His name was Ngampika and he only required payment if he cured you completely, which, he added in a rush of self-satisfaction, white medicine could not guarantee. The sign at the entrance to his plot probably had more writing on it than any other sign in town.

  Healer Ngampika

  Direct and legitimate descendant of King Makoko

  Former personal sorcerer to the mayor, the prefect and the

  President of the Republic

  Specialist in incurable illnesses, both known and unknown

  Guaranteed return of errant wives within 24 hours

  Complete cure for sterility, impotence and hernia

  Meals provided throughout treatment

  Payment after total and definitive cure

  I felt comfortable with Ngampika. He was an affable little old man who said ‘tu’ to me right from the start and I could have a laugh with him over a glass of palm wine, because white men’s science, according to him, was full of incomprehensible terms and devoid of effective cures. I kept saying I really mustn’t overdo the palm wine:

  ‘Doctor Kilahou said that I’ve got Korsakoff’s syndrome, and apparently that also comes from drinking…’

  ‘Little Pepper, that doctor told you a load of porkies! Kwashiorkor is a children’s illness! Everyone except him knows that! He studied in France too long, he must have left his brain behind! Do children drink alcohol? And yet they’re the ones who get kwashiorkor in this country!’

  We got so drunk, and laughed so much, that Ngampika would forget that I was there for a specific reason: to recover my memory.

  ‘Come on, just one more little one! Let’s drink to the health of our ancestors, and up yours doctor Kilahou! Come back again tomorrow and we’ll start the first consultation then. Give me a night to have a chat with the ancestors and you’ll see how we get on!’