Blue White Red

by Alain Mabanckou

  Meanwhile, Moki’s car was parked in front of the buvette with the zealous driver inside. He pretended to kill time flipping through a Tex Willer comic book, which he kept hidden in the glove compartment. From time to time he would get out of the car and lean back on the automobile, fancying himself the star of the day, too. He waited. He waited. He was happy, in his way. He didn’t ask himself a lot of questions, confining himself to gathering the crumbs thrown on the floor for him. His motto was simple, sharp, and clear: “The king’s dog is the king of dogs.”

  His boss didn’t push him into the limelight. All you had to do was look at him closely to realize that. The tie he wore didn’t come from Paris. He must have bought it from a Senegalese street peddler in the marketplace. It hung in a coil like a small intestine cut to pieces with a table knife. It was buckled as if he had washed it in soap and cold water and ironed it before it had dried. As for the knot, it was as big as a fist and gave sufficient information about the fight he had had in front of his mirror to put it on. And the rest of his outfit? The chauffeur was stuffed into a jacket whose sleeves barely encompassed his hairy fore-arms. Yellow stains from ironing marked the underside of the garment. He must have only ironed it in those spots. He wore a short-sleeved shirt, so it didn’t extend beyond the sleeves of his jacket. It was white in name only. His right shoe was more worn than his left. It was easy to see that this was the foot that titillated his favorite object every day: that little button, the car’s accelerator. This was also the foot he used to keep the beat when he listened to music outside in front of the taxi, while waiting for a client to request his service.

  He was there. He waited. He would wait. A brother of the Parisian thought of him from time to time and brought him a bottle of Primus beer. The chauffeur quenched his thirst. But under no circumstances was he to move away from the automobile . . .

  A conversation started up between Moki and the girls around one of the tables in the buvette. Paris was the subject of the meeting. After nonsensical explanations about the division of arrondissements in Paris, Moki faced perplexed looks. Nobody understood what he had said. He summoned one of his brothers. The latter bent down, agreed with every word his boss, the Parisian, said, and then went toward the taxi. He came back with a stack of photo albums in his arms and placed the heavy pile in front of his elder brother. He resumed his place, two tables away, where, with his other brother, he followed the events unfolding step by step. The photographs of Moki in Paris were passed from hand to hand while he continued to tell tales rendered less dubious by these images.

  He went on to explain that you could eat dinner on the Eiffel Tower, that he himself went there on weekends with friends, that he used to have a big apartment with a view of this monument built by Gustave Eiffel, that every morning, while brushing his teeth, he had to put up with that view, that he became sick of it, that he moved to a new apartment and since then lived in the fourteenth arrondissement, near the Tour Montparnasse. He revealed that there were several unoccupied rooms in his apartment and he had gone to look for compatriots at the Gare du Nord railway station to offer them housing, homeless compatriots who hadn’t had a permanent address in years, but they bitterly deceived him. They urinated in his sink and hid food in his closet . . .

  The captivated audience laughed heartily. Moki was encouraged by heads nodding approval. He didn’t pause again. The throngs in front of the buvette confirmed the relevance of his words. Curious passersby stopped, listened for a few minutes, and took seats without being invited. Dupond and Dupont pushed them toward the back of the buvette. Questions flew from all sides, like at a press conference. One question that had become a classic was asked: “Have you already slept with a real white woman?”

  “What’s a real white woman?” Of course, the imperturbable Parisian bounced back into action. “Moreover, I’ll tell you that it’s nothing like women here; over there, they’re ready to wash your feet, to run your bath, and to feed you like a baby. At first, I only went out with white women to snub our colored sisters who, from the moment they arrive in Paris, act as if they were god knows who. With a white person, whether it’s yes or no . . .”

  This words instigated muttering. The Parisian polished his sunglasses before responding to the next question:

  “So, you know everything about Paris?”

  The question came from the back of the buvette. The person who posed the question was tucked in a dark corner. He was pinpointed immediately, thanks to someone at a neighboring table batting her eyes and nodding insistently in the direction of Dupond and Dupont. Moki made a forced laugh. His sincerity and trust had just been questioned. At least that’s how he understood the question. He made light of the impudent effrontery. The audience concurred that it was an idiotic question. Only an imbecile could have asked that.

  Reaction wasn’t long in coming. Moki’s brothers split the crowd in two, stepping on a few fingers and toes, hoisting themselves on the shoulders and legs of others, and flung themselves on the imposter, knocking over several tables in the process. They ignored the bottles and glasses that crashed to the floor, having only one objective: to throw out the troublemaker.

  That’s when Moki intervened. “Leave it be,” he said, in a falsely pacified voice. “I’m going to answer him to shut his trap for good. I have nothing to hide from you. All of you here know, I suppose, what a village is, right? Well, that’s it! Everyone in Paris knows me, and everyone calls me by my name when I pass by in the street: Charles Moki. Himself. I was one of the best sapeurs1 in the capital, the city of elegance. I made my mark at the Rex Club in Paris. I silenced all my competitors. So ask me real questions. Moreover, I defy any one of you here: if God gives you the chance to see Paris someday, that magnificent city, I’m warning you that you will not get anywhere without my help, I guarantee you that. Paris is in my pocket. I know that city, and nobody knows it better than me. The little fool who was moaning in the back over there has no chance of seeing Paris, I’ll tell you that!” . . .

  Derisive laughter.

  Evidently, the imbecile had split the scene by himself, on tiptoes, seeing that Moki had raised his voice. What followed were questions the Parisian deemed interesting. He whole-heartedly congratulated those who posed the questions. Someone had asked him, “How do you become Parisian?”

  “Good question! What’s your name?”

  The young man stammered his first name. Moki took his time before satisfying his sycophants. “I’m going to give you an honest answer. People have a tendency to get everything mixed up. You don’t become a Parisian overnight or because you live in Paris. Don’t hold your breath. It requires patience, time, but also talent. First, you have to win over people back home and then take on the City of Light, Paris. Me, that’s how I started. I grew up with my group of friends, Benos, Préfet, and Boulou, who are still in Paris with me, real fighters. Back then, we formed a club that was headquartered here in the neighborhood, just behind the meeting hall of the village council headed by my father. Our club was called the Aristocrats, and back then I was the president . . .

  Moki interrupted himself to assess the effect of his story. He allowed the murmuring to go on so that he could catch his breath and swallow a few mouthfuls of beer. He shot a glance in the direction of his car. The chauffeur was smiling. A sign that his patience had no limits. He was surrounded by bottles of beer. He was bug-eyed drunk. He belched loudly.

  Moki recovered his strength and chased the cats purring in his throat.

  In a didactic tone, he continued: “Our club, the Aristocrats, was the most prestigious club in this country. Do the math—that’s where the real Parisians came from. We knew how to organize. We knew everything about Paris, fashion, the attitudes, everyday life. I was the one who spoke about French culture. I’m not boasting, I had no credentials because, don’t forget, I went as far as high school in my studies, even though I failed my baccalaureate in literature twice. I read a lot of French authors that you don’t know: Guy de Maupassan
t and his tales that evoke the life of peasants in Normandy, love stories and adventure tales; André Gide and his Travels in the Congo; Albert Camus and The Plague; Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables. I amazed the girls by reciting verses of Lamartine’s Poetic Meditations and Alfred de Vigny’s Death of a Wolf, which is, in my opinion, one of the most beautiful poems in French literature. My father worked in a hotel run by French people and visited by conscripts and aid workers, the Victory Palace. He brought books, newspapers, and magazines back to the house that the French had thrown in the garbage after reading them. Me, thanks to that, I taught myself. I paid attention to everything having to do with the City of Light. We learned to speak slang through the San Antonio detective stories. My father was opposed to me reading them, he who would have liked to have been a teacher. We passed them around secretly. That language elevated us above other youth who were in fact nothing but old-young.

  “What we were most preoccupied with was how people dressed, la sape, and to leave for Paris one day. School became a handicap. It turned us away from our goal. We had a box, and each one of us would deposit a fixed amount we agreed upon each month. With that money, we would go to the big market at Pointe-Noire to buy flea market clothes that came from Paris. Don’t get me wrong, even in the country market, you had to have an eye and especially taste. We didn’t buy just any clothing. There was linen, alpaca, crepe. Jeans were prohibited. An Aristocrat did not wear jeans. Those things were made for mechanics and plumbers, not for people like us with a fashion aesthetic. We also bought suits made of leather and buckskin. These threads, acquired with the help of our dues, were the property of the club, of all the Aristocrats. We wore them on the weekend according to a collectively discussed distribution plan. Young people from nearby neighborhoods came to mine them. Money from this mine enabled us to buy other clothes. We owned mopeds, like my younger brothers today. A moped is associated with the image of a dandy. You radiate an allure when you ride the bike. The discrete allure and marvelous contours are made for everyone who loves elegance. A little push of the pedal and the motor hummed: Titit . . . Titit . . . Titit . . .

  “There were a lot of us walking Indian file with our Solex mopeds along Independence Avenue at Pointe-Noire. We weren’t called sapeurs yet, but fighters. This latter term unfortunately had a pejorative side. It inspired brutality, combat, while all we demanded of ourselves was refinement, elegance, and beauty. From fighters we went to being called playboys. But that all sounded too English or American. Today we are sapeurs, and so much the better. Far from putting out fires, we love ambiance, the beautiful lifestyle, and we admire beautiful creatures such as those surrounding me here. Is it because the word sapeurs is going out of style little by little that we are now called Parisians? Clothing is our passport. Our religion. France is the country of fashion because it is the only place in the world where you can judge a book by its cover. That’s the truth, believe you me.”

  Some pushing and shoving at the entrance to the buvette.

  Other passersby joined the girls and the curious crammed inside. People argued over places in the back, each one claiming that they had that stool first. An impatient sort demanded silence. Moki took another long sip of beer. His lost look projected him far back in time. Regret furrowed his brow.

  He went on, in a sad voice: “Back when we were called fighters with our Solex, we challenged other clubs in the neighborhood. These challenges were high points for our club. To succeed, the members discussed among themselves the best tactics to use and how to dress for the day of battle. No dissenting voice should make itself known. All the Aristocrats dressed impeccably. For my part, as president, I had a pipe with a gold ring. We learned together how to put on a tie, place a handkerchief in a jacket pocket, walk like a show-off, hold a cigarette, serve and drink from a glass. In short, we learned everything that made us what we are today and all that, I would think, all of you wish to become tomorrow. The club challenges allowed us to test our supremacy.

  “We challenged our adversaries on their own turf. To encourage them to answer us, we upset them a bit with our insolence. We treated them as if they were poorly dressed; we told them that they were incapable of dressing Parisian style, incapable of speaking of that city, of expressing themselves in French, of citing from memory the most famous passages from the great French authors. In this regard, if I say to you, ‘The earth teaches us more about ourselves than do all the books. Because it resists us. Man discovers himself against the obstacle. But to do so, he needs a tool . . .’ Whose thoughts are these? Saint-Exupéry! Wind, Sand and Stars. Or this verse, too:

  Folly and error, stinginess and sin

  Possess our spirits and fatigue our flesh.

  And like a pet we feed our tame remorse

  As beggars take to nourishing their lice.

  “It’s the famous preface at the beginning of Charles Baudelaire’s The Flowers of Evil. We borrowed these books from the French cultural center to arm ourselves. The challenge had to be included in an advertisement. We pasted posters about the challenge on the facades of primary and secondary schools, putting our posters over the posters of our adversaries. In the end they took the bait and answered us. They stood up to the challenge. There was no other solution. Ridicule was no small thing. So they furiously tore down our posters and replaced them with their own. They considered us poor sports, dirty, and bugs they would squash as soon as possible. Tension mounted on both sides. The ingredients for a good challenge were assembled. The dish was going to be spicy. Very spicy. Nothing remained but to carry out the act itself.

  “Our tactic? First of all, to sound out our adversary’s forces. And so we sent our scouts into the other club’s territory. We had to be au courant of what they were going to wear in order to counter them. From their side, too, there’s no doubt that they tailed us. But for everything to come together, we reached a compromise via intermediaries about where their challenge would take place. We agreed upon the hour, preferably the evening, the better to mobilize the audience that we shared. The latter arrived before we did. They took seats in the buvette. The dance floor was reserved for the event. We proceeded with our preparations: knotting ties, waxing shoes, oiling the moped motors, synchronizing our steps, and sprinkling ourselves with Mananas perfume. We spread out along Independence Avenue. Outside, the frenzy reached fever pitch. Every table in the buvette was occupied. We were applauded on the avenue. We were encouraged by enthusiastic gestures.

  “When the time had come, we left the neighborhood for the site of the challenge in enemy territory. As I was the president, I put myself at the head of the procession . . .”

  This monologue made Moki grow hoarse. We sensed a certain joy within him. The legend of the Aristocrats, for him, was a recital. He picked it up again every year with the same emotion, the same words. Many of us had heard it several times without doubting its veracity. The audience was with him. We could hear flies batting their wings and mating on half-filled glasses of beer.

  “Where was I? Oh yes, we were in our adversary’s neighborhood. We got ourselves ready in the buvette dressing room. I gave the guys their final instructions. Who would be the first to go out in public? On the dance floor, a voice raised the crowd to fever pitch with the microphone. We chanted slogans, recited the names of those who were the most influential trendsetters in Paris: Djo Balard, Docteur Limane, Mulé Mulé, L’Enfant Mystère, Anicet Pedro, Ibrahim Tabouret, and many others. Our names and those of our adversaries were announced. We decided that I would appear last; that was the president’s perogative.

  “The battle commenced. The public was ecstatic. At bottom, they were waiting only for the grand duel between the two opposing club presidents. At the end of the first battle, the Aristocrats returned to the lodge. So did our adversaries. The two presidents were called to the dance floor. I slowed my pace. I didn’t want to be seen first. I feigned surprise. An Aristocrat in the crowd gave me a signal as to whether I should move ahead or dawdle, depending on my adversary
’s position. We met each other on the dance floor at the same time.

  “My adversary stunned me by executing an acrobatic leap that left the spectators cheering hysterically. He was dressed in a black leather outfit with boots and a black buckskin helmet. He smoked a fat cigar and turned his back on me—one way to ignore me and make a fool of me. I moved calmly toward the center of the dance floor. I was wearing a colonial helmet and a long cassock that swept the ground when I moved. I held a Bible in my right hand, and while my adversary had his back turned to me, I read aloud in an intelligible voice a passage from the Apocalypse of Saint John. The audience was euphoric, swept away by my originality. I had outwitted all predictions, arriving at the buvette with my cassock and colonial helmet hidden in a large suitcase. I had been dressed differently. We pulled a fast one on our adversaries. The president of the opposing club had fallen into the trap. When he turned around, he took note of the gap I had created between us. I was cheered. The crowd was on its feet for the first time. They chanted my name. I decided to speed things up. I had another trick up my sleeve. I took the Bible and handed it to a young girl, while my competitor looked on in astonishment. He didn’t grasp what I was about to undertake. He stayed on his feet, blinking nervously. His cigar was no longer lit. He chewed it and spat. He sweated big drops of perspiration. I suddenly took off my cassock in public, then turned it inside out. And, like in a magic trick, another cassock appeared in scotch plaid.