Blue White Red

by Alain Mabanckou

  “In fact the outfit was reversible.”

  On that last note, Moki was applauded.

  Dupond and Dupont retrieved the photo albums from the tables. They kept a watchful eye to make sure that not a single photograph was stolen by the audience or the girls. Apparently, Moki had not accomplished his return through the past that the audience believed in. He had not yet recounted his odyssey, Paris, which was, to their mind, a sacrilege. This second part of his discussion took the form of an epic. The details that he described in his discourse gave the audience an idea of the adversities one had to overcome to find safe harbor.

  “You know, a Parisian has to move. He can’t stay idle. He has to know Paris, the Métro, the suburban rail, the buses, the streets, the avenues, the squares, the monuments: he can’t have difficulty with any of that. But there’s an entire history behind us. Don’t you see that well-lit side of the mountain, what’s called the south facing slope in good French. Am I being pretentious to say that we’re practically heroes?

  “I had left the country by way of Angola after failing my bac in literature twice. It was pure adventure: a youth who takes a risk like that today is rare. My family was not aware of my plans. Indeed, back in those days, one presented parents with a fait accompli. What could they do for us? They couldn’t help in any way—least of all financially, which is what we worried about. We came up with all sorts of plans. Departures were certainly rare, but failed attempts didn’t count anymore. If a youth were missing from the neighborhood for a long time, it meant that he had gone to France. And then nobody was alarmed by that. On the contrary, the family was proud of it, especially when they received, a few months later, a photo of their son in winter clothing.

  “Those days were a long time ago. I also disappeared one fine day from my parents’ house to head to the Angola border. I had developed my plan. From that moment on, it was impossible for me to wait, all the more so since several of my friends had been successful in their adventures—Préfet, to cite but one, who was the first to leave by way of Angola. Before him, our daredevil predecessors, if I dare say so, took the maritime route from the port in Pointe-Noire, with all the risks that went along with that. First of all, they had to penetrate the maritime world. So they worked as warehousemen at the port for months. Later, when they had acclimated to that universe, they picked an opportune moment to infiltrate themselves in the hold, not caring whether the ship flew a French flag or not. That’s how some of them found themselves in Portugal, in Greece, or even in Latin America, thinking that they were heading to France. As you can see, this was a dangerous route. And that’s leaving aside that there was nothing to prevent them from suffering the worst duties a perverse mind could imagine or, for that matter, getting thrown overboard in the middle of the ocean.

  “I was stuck in Angola for several months. My pockets were empty. Nothing to pay for a ticket to France. Nothing to eat. But moving closer to that country compelled me to carry out my plan. I wasn’t alone in that Portuguese-speaking country. Lots of other daredevils hung around Luanda and took advantage of that available connection. All you needed was a little money in your pockets and France was within reach.

  “I acted like them to pull myself up and hope to get to Paris one day. I sold salted fish, sole, dorade, and cakes in a big working-class market in Luanda. I pulled together a large sum of money, thanks to this business, which allowed me to bribe the guys at the airport. They lived off this trade and got the daredevils who offered the most on a plane after providing the necessary travel documents. And that’s how I disembarked one morning at Roissy airport in Paris . . .

  “I was met in France by my loyal friend Préfet. He didn’t come to wait for me at the airport. I knew Paris before I even got on the plane for the first time in Luanda. All the Aristocrats knew Paris. As soon as I got off the airplane, I confidently took a taxi and told the driver which way to go. He was dumbfounded. To him, I was not a foreigner. I was home.

  “I lived for more than a month with idiots who slept all day long and lined up at the family benefits office. Those were phony Parisians. Is that the way to get a pair of Westons?”

  Someone coughed.

  Moki served himself another glass of beer. Dupond and Dupont were chomping at the bit and waving their fists to remind their brother that he had another appointment and he had to leave right away. The Parisian calmed them down. His movements were measured.

  The chauffeur was no longer waiting outside in the street. He was in the car, head lowered, getting some shut-eye, one leg hanging outside the car.

  Moki got up, his jacket over his arm, and continued speaking, standing up: “I can’t imagine another country like France. I don’t see it. So it’s an unpardonable sin not to go there. To go there means to accept from that moment on never living without France again.

  “What I’m telling you is that all of this can’t be improvised. You need ambition, talent, faith, and love for what you’re doing . . . I’m going to leave you; I’ll spare you the tales of my trips back to the country. You know them all. Are there any more questions?”

  Nobody else asked a question.

  The Parisian had officiated his annual mass. He would do it again next year. With the same audience and some newcomers. He would omit a detail here, add another anecdote there. Silence was the sign that the crowd was with him. People lowered their eyes. Especially the girls. They would listen to Moki for days on end. He drank his last swallow and opened his agenda to make appointments with each one of the girls. He proposed that they come to his house to see for themselves the latest trends in Parisian fashion. He left the buvette, made his way through the middle of the crowd, preceded by his brothers. The car was idling. The door was opened for him. The girls hugged him, touching him one by one as if seeking his benediction. The car pulled out. The Parisian waved a hand out the window. The vehicle moved away.

  I remember. I was there . . .

  1. SAPE: Society for Ambiancers and Persons of Elegance.

  So what was my place in this race of aficionados? Taking his place was not even a question. I calmly observed everything.

  I watched from the shadows. I was there. Not far away. Quite close. I waited for the courtesans to leave. When it was my turn, I went to talk to the Parisian. I was as much a fanatic as the neighborhood youth. I wanted to know everything about life in France. But especially Paris. France was neither Marseille, nor Lyon, and certainly not cities unknown to us like Pau, Aix, or Chambéry. France was Paris, there, in the north of the country . . .

  This harsh verdict drove us to raise a hue and cry against compatriots who returned from French provinces. The provinces? We didn’t want to hear anything about it. No, no, and no. We called compatriots who lived there “the Peasants.” No neighborhood youth were infatuated with that lot. They were exactly the opposite of Parisians. The Peasant’s younger brothers had better watch it. Better to have not been in France than to come back from a province. The clever Peasants traveled to Paris first, where they stayed a few weeks, long enough to get themselves photographed in front of the capital’s historic monuments, to cause confusion, when the time was right, in the minds of the population back home.

  Truth exploded. Information got around from mouth to ear. The real Parisians forewarned the locals. They advised us to distrust false prophets who would speak in their name.

  We had to sort the wheat from the chaff. On this occasion, they drew the typical profile of a Peasant: a sourpuss, an austere doctoral student. He returns home from the sidelines of what’s happening. A homecoming with no echo, or drum, or trumpet. We didn’t even realize he was back. Nobody except his own family would visit him. He isn’t elegant. He doesn’t know what elegance is. He doesn’t know how to knot a tie in a few seconds. He has very dark skin. He doesn’t cut his hair regularly and wears a “bouki” tuft on his head. He’s bearded, mustached. His brothers keep their distance from him. If his homecoming coincides with a Parisian’s, we compare them. We confront them. We
want them to meet each other. The Peasant has no regard for the Parisian. The latter changes his clothes three times a day. The other comes back home with three pairs of jeans and a few T-shirts. At the very least a tight-fitting jacket just in case he might have to go to a ministry to request a document for editing his thesis. The Peasant goes around on foot and even has the nerve to take public transportation with the natives. The Parisian couldn’t do that. The Peasant is a loner. He melts easily into the crowd. He writes, scrawls every day. He doesn’t go to buvettes. The girls don’t run after him. They ignore him. They make fun of him in the street when he passes by. There’s nothing to be done but resort to his childhood girlfriends or women, the unhappy women who married beneath themselves. These spare tires make concessions discreetly. They divulge nothing about this relationship. It all happens at night . . .

  The Peasant eats manioc and foufou. He eats on the ground with his brothers. He plays ball in the streets in rags with a few old-young. He helps his parents do their shopping at the big market. We hear him complain that life is difficult in France. Liar! Lying all the time. He lies like he breathes. And vice versa. He’s nothing but a sourpuss, a good-for-nothing. Nobody listens to him. Nonetheless, he insists. He pretends that it’s not easy to make it in France. Especially not in Paris. He wouldn’t want to live there for all the gold in the world. He says that even French people dread life in that city. A cubic meter is not within the means of every pocketbook. Rents are high. France? You’re going to France? “Why?” he exclaims. The streets aren’t paved with gold. From the time we began listening to him, this is all that he would say. So how do the others do it, the Parisians?

  The Peasant lies. He’s a big liar. He won’t change. His frustration is the same way. He likes it easy. He’s always complaining. Advising his emulators to think twice before going to France if they’ve got nothing going there. Be careful, you’ll roll around Paris like lost balls. I know what I’m talking about; don’t go there if you have nothing to do there.

  It’s a timeworn refrain.

  A refrain we pay no heed to. Thankfully, the Parisian is there to tell us the contrary. To bring us light. To talk to us of the City of Light. The Paris that we love. He’s the one who tells the truth: come to France, you’ll see, they’ve got everything there, you’ll be overwhelmed, you won’t believe your eyes, the city is beautiful, there are lots of small jobs, don’t waste your time at home, age won’t wait for you, come, come, there are apartments, if you’re easygoing, you’ll receive benefits, come, come, one day you will have the same Mercedes as members of the government, don’t listen to these Peasants, they are exiled in the provinces, they’re blind, forty-year-olds who are still hanging out on school benches with lower-class Whites who could be their grandsons. Don’t listen to them, those types, don’t listen to them!

  And that’s how Moki spoke, too. Charles Moki . . .

  I had been listening to him for a long time.

  I could practically recite his stories down to the last comma. I went to their house whenever I wanted. His brothers couldn’t stand in the way. We had gone to school together. Moki thought well of me. If I climb a little further up the path of my memories, this admiration was the spark that lit the fire. Indeed, one day he made a statement that yanked me out of my somnolence. He told me that I had the right kind of face, like a true Parisian, and it was really too bad I couldn’t take advantage of it. There were those who would never have it and those who always had it. The latter would end up leaving one day or another. Moki said that. They were the words of an evangelist.

  The effect was immediate. My head swelled. I looked at myself, proud as Artaban. I took care of that mug so it would remain intact and true to the image of a Parisian. I cut my hair Parisian-style, short, with a part down the middle. I learned how to walk like Moki, that slender look and those practiced gestures. But I was a realist: I was not a real Parisian. I had a hard time acting. I was nothing but myself. The pilgrimage to Mecca was my default setting. A Parisian, according to what people say, is above all someone who has lived in Paris. If I had the look of a Parisian, then duty called for me to discover that world . . .

  I had succumbed to the charm, the enchantment. I nurtured my reflection. I didn’t dare speak directly to Moki or to my father about it.

  One day, I made the decision to take the plunge. How could I talk about it? Where to begin? Of course, I had the right look going for me. But would that be enough? Could I go to the emigration office or a travel agency with an argument like that? And what if Moki doled out the same compliments to everyone? Lots of youth my age had the same look. But they hadn’t been seen boarding airplanes for Paris. They hung out in the neighborhood, telling the girls that before long they would have it made, that a face like that didn’t belong anywhere except Paris. I felt the birth pangs of determination. The wings of hope would carry me far. Very far away from the heap of illusions that all of a sudden seemed realizable. My reason for being in the country was called into question.

  I felt useless, lost.

  That’s probably what made me rush ahead and speak to my father about this. I should have been tactful. Start speaking in generalities. Talk about France, its grandeur, its influence in the world, then recite for him the detailed list of riches Moki had brought back to his family since he had become a Parisian. My father was not the type that allowed himself to be stroked with flattery. He was not expansive. Discreet, a good provider for his family, he taught us, my sister and me, to be content with what we had instead of looking to see what our neighbors had on their plates.

  He listened to me closely that day. He added nothing to what he took to be a passing fancy. His silence bespoke his inability to help me financially. But no option was foreclosed.

  To my great surprise, he encouraged me. “If this is what you have decided, what do you want me to tell you? It’s just that to go to France, there’s a minor detail to iron out. It would be good to mend the holes in your pockets, unless you want to go there on foot, in which case, get going today to have a head start . . .”

  For once, he spoke a little more. He recounted his youth. He had done everything for our happiness. When he met our mother, she was often sick. She had chronic stomachaches. She couldn’t give birth. He didn’t want to leave her like that. His conscience wouldn’t have allowed that. He spent all of his savings earned as an office boy to have children. He went from hospital to hospital, from sorcerer to sorcerer, until fate allowed her to become pregnant. Alas, she had a stillborn child, which once again threw a veil of sadness on their home. They had to wait for years for me to come into the world, then two years later, the birth of my little sister—whose delivery nearly took our mother away. They tied her tubes; she couldn’t have any more children . . .

  My father had tears in his eyes. He justified never having built a proper house nor having installed a water pump. He was exhausted and certain that the Lord wouldn’t allow it. He asked himself if it wasn’t the Lord who had inspired me with the idea to go to France? He was convinced that this would be for the good of the family.

  “I have always thought that you would leave one day. Far away. Far away from here. Far away from this misery. But I’m sorry, my son, with the pension I get, I can’t help you. I’m not promising you anything. I’ll go and try to speak with your uncle. He’s a clerk, and perhaps he could loan me something.”

  He also promised to speak with my mother. She sold peanuts in the big market. Even if her contribution were modest, he concluded, “it’s the little streams that make big rivers.”

  So he would speak to my mother about it. According to him, she wouldn’t see anything wrong with this. Instead, she would be happy. I would bring honor to the family. He himself could walk down the street holding his head high. He would be respected by the population and would carry weight in the decisions of the village council where Moki’s father now ruled like a blind monarch. He would get even with everyone who denounced his poverty. He would be merciless. He wo
uld run the taxis that I would send them.

  That’s how he talked to me that day.

  Through tears we had rediscovered good humor. We laughed. We had no reason to simper anymore. No misfortune had befallen us. We had to laugh to bring me luck . . .

  My father got ahead of me by revealing the plan to Moki’s father, whom he waited for, impatiently, on the way out of a meeting of the village council.

  He gave him a bottle of red wine from France to grease the skids. Flattered, the president of the council took the bottle, not without putting on airs to extend the homage my father paid him, thereby raising the stakes. Nonetheless, he assured my father that he would take care of this and that from this point forward, I must consider myself completely Parisian.

  He would speak with his son . . .

  A few days passed.

  My father came home one evening, saddened.

  He had the face of a man who had weathered a hurricane. His features were deeply creased, his head lowered. He avoided my eyes. I rushed to his side. He had aged. I had never seen him so affected. One would have thought that he was suffering internally and stoically covering up his pangs of suffering. I needed to know the cause of his troubles. I had some idea. Someone had let him down.

  He took me by the hand; we walked away behind the house. He informed me that he had contacted Moki’s father a second time. At first, although he had indicated that everything would be taken care of, now he says that it’s too late to get the administrative paperwork underway. Moki only had a few days left in the country. There were a lot of papers to fill out to get a permit for a sojourn in France, and these take a lot of time. I was missing a lot of documents, including the housing certificate, without which no exit visa is issued.