Blue White Red

by Alain Mabanckou

  I calmed my father, who thought that Moki had opposed my departure for France. In any case, I didn’t have my ticket, even if my uncle had led us to believe, in his convoluted manner of speaking, that he was “favorably disposed to contribute to this very courageous initiative, but it was still necessary to discuss, at least the basics, without however putting the entire construct in question.” My father grasped nothing and returned without understanding my uncle’s position, as his prose had so clouded his clarity. As a condition of administrative work, my uncle was the victim of this high-falutin jargon. With words like that, someone could refuse to grant you a favor without you even realizing it, you were so taken in by the polite and musical formulations. This way, they could also treat you like tramps—and you would agree.

  I explained to my father that we had put the cart before the horse. That we needed to go step-by-step, and that one didn’t travel to France without certain formalities.

  I even went to see the Parisian to talk to him about it.

  I met Moki the next day.

  He explained the impossible situation he found himself in. He seemed remorseful. I saw nothing but sincerity in him. I would get it in the future, he said. I had made a good decision. He congratulated me. He declared that when he returned to the country next year at the end of the dry season, I would fly back to Paris with him and that as soon as he arrived in France, he would provide me with a housing certificate so I could get my visa.

  At the end of our meeting, joking around, he tossed out an expression that I now use for myself:

  “It’s another world over there, Paris est un grand garcon / Paris is a big boy . . .” Five months after he left, Moki wrote me a letter that reassured me. He asked me to start the process as soon as possible to obtain a tourist visa. “We’ll see when you get here how to prolong your stay; the important thing is that you get into France.” In due form, a housing certificate accompanied the note. There was nothing for me to do but wait for his return to hope that my uncle’s prose would be more lucid.

  Things clarified themselves on their own.

  I didn’t try to understand anymore. Like my uncle’s surprising attitude. He turned up one morning. His car was parked in front of our house. He went to drop off his children at school. My father went to meet him, his arms wide open as if he were about to embrace an ancient baobab tree. I was embarrassed by this self-serving enthusiasm. The uncle still hadn’t said anything, and we weren’t protected from his verbal circumlocutions.

  My father suggested that he accompany him behind the house to talk man to man. My uncle replied that he didn’t have time and that he was already late to drive the kids to their school. He shook my father’s hand vigorously.

  “Banco!” he said.

  “What Banco?” asked my father, nervously.

  “For the little one’s ticket. I’ll pay for the whole thing, and we’ll work things out between us later.”

  My father turned toward me, incredulous, and took me in his arms.

  My uncle sped away and waved from the gate.

  The housing certificate in my possession brought me closer and closer to Paris. The doubters and other miscreants who poked fun at the futility of my travel plan suddenly took me seriously. This document was a lover. It had powers of attraction. People wanted to see it, palpate it, smell it. Many among us dreamed of getting one.

  I lived in permanent terror of losing it. This anguish dwelled in my unconscious to the point that it tossed the landscape of my dreams upside down. My nights no longer passed without nightmares. The themes of these haunted dreams did not vary. I dreamed that a big whirlwind swept through the neighborhood, taking only my document in its wake. In fact, I feared that a lout would steal it away from me. My precautions rose to the level of my anxiety: I kept this paper with me all the time. It had become a substitute for my identity card. I read it every second. I verified that it was really still there, in the little black cardboard holder I had specially purchased just to protect it.

  The document was wrinkled as a result of too much handling, showing it off, and wearing it around. It was soiled with grease stains. Which almost cost me dearly because when I went to submit it to the emigration office, the woman responsible for pulling together the files had a moment of doubt and looked me over from head to foot, asked me to take a seat in a cane chair facing her, and told me to wait. She roamed from office to office, knocked on one door without success, opened another without knocking, found nobody, climbed the stairs, rushed back down the stairs all the way to her office, rummaged through a large dusty register with cockled pages, the house reference, which in principle should provide information on everything and nothing, she furiously chomped on her pencil, spit out bits of eraser on the table, made a few squiggles in the overly scrawled margin of the register and put it back to gather dust beneath an ancient piece of furniture that was sagging under the weight of files that hadn’t been put away for a decade.

  That was when a second woman, round as a barrel, appeared. She seemed to turn white under her coat of armor, seeing how the first woman barked in desperation around her, shoving my housing certificate under her nose. This second woman was cool as a cucumber. A matter of proving, as much to the first woman as to me, that she was the undisputed authority in the house. She breathed saliva several times over her myopic glasses, wiped them with the hem of her woven jacket, and proceeded to inspect the document with an air of distaste that aroused my fears. She pretended to cough, to scratch her braided hair, and to ram back the silver wedding ring even further on her chubby little finger. Then she put her elbows on the desk, exhaled deeply, lifted her glasses, put them back on, and looked me over summarily before concluding that the document was authentic . . .

  After that, I had my passport and my visa. I could have died of relief. I was bursting with joy. I didn’t listen to anyone else. I spoke out loud, me the shy one. I pushed aside the flatterers. Those Johnny-come-latelies who try to make you believe they’re your friends. It was a friendship of convenience. I didn’t deceive myself. I chased them all away. People didn’t look at me in the same way anymore. I was no longer a native. I was a Parisian.

  My father advised me to be extra vigilant. He believed in evil spirits. According to him, they could ambush me at night and take my passport off me while I slept, or worse, erase the annotations on my visa.

  I protected myself against all that. I had gotten used to it. Under my pants, I hid my passport in my underwear. I slept with those pants and that underwear after checking that the evil spirits my father spoke of had not ripped off my visa . . .

  Waiting for Moki’s return was a heavy cross to bear for me. The nights were interminable. I slept quite late. I went dancing with friends. My father kept watch over my every move. He scolded me when I crept home at dawn on silent cat’s feet.

  It was at this time that I found myself mixed up in an incredible story, to say the least, one that remains etched in my memory. As was our custom, my father led me behind the house to have a talk with me. He scratched his beard in silence and had an uncertain gaze. That was his way of expressing puzzlement.

  “I told you to always look out for yourself, to be vigilant—now look what’s happened to us all!”

  He spoke obliquely, not going into the heart of the matter, moralizing in a tone imbued with sadness and fatality. I held myself back from pressing him to get to the point. Not because I didn’t know what lay in store for me but because he was touchy. Besides, I didn’t want to precipitate my own suffering. He was the type who was easily annoyed and wouldn’t bring up the reason for his discontent until a problem put me squarely before my responsibilities and finally demanded his intervention. He waited for me in this roundabout way and then announced his optimal solution:

  “You have behaved like a crocodile who plunges into the river to avoid getting wet in the rain on the bank . . .”

  So far as I could remember, he had never hit us—my sister and me. He believed in the power of
words. His anger and tirades were sufficiently convincing arguments to make us dread the worst.

  What kind of mistake had I made to make him take me behind the house? I indicated my impatience. I cracked the knuckles of my fingers. I bit my nails and drew I don’t know what with my foot on the ground. He said that he was not happy with what was being said in the neighborhood.

  “Do you know Adeline?” he asked.

  I took a while to answer. He took my silence as affirmation. He explained to me that a young girl named Adeline had come with her parents and presented herself at the house. She claimed to be pregnant by me. My shock amused him and made his feigned mask of anger more severe.

  “Don’t play games with me. I know this game. I’m your father and you must speak frankly with me. Yes or no?”

  I complained mightily.

  “I knew the girl,” I replied to my father. “But she went out with most of the guys in the neighborhood. Her nickname was ‘garbage can.’ She chased after all the future Parisians. Yes, I’d had sexual relations with her. That was some thirteen or fourteen months ago. After that, I didn’t see her anymore. I couldn’t be the one responsible. No. Impossible.” It was a plot. I was not going to let myself get nailed by that girl who didn’t have a good reputation.

  That was not my father’s view.

  “Stop acting like an idiot. That child will be yours, ours, because the young girl said so. She knows her body and who she sleeps with better than anyone. I couldn’t care less what the infamous village says. Think of your mother, who can’t bring more children into the world. Why do you want to deny your own blood, the blood that we have given you, the blood of my father, your grandfather, your mother, your grandmother? Faced with this situation, you should get out in front of it. I made a compromise with the girl’s parents. We will avoid bringing this business before the village council. I acknowledged the pregnancy, and we will take care of the child even during your absence. The child will carry our family name. Adeline will come live with us until she gives birth . . .”

  That’s how I became the father of a child. A little boy. He was raised by my parents. They remained indifferent to the rumors and lies flying around the neighborhood. I wasn’t so quick to adapt to paternity. I felt embarrassed when I looked the brat in the eye. I felt like I was cheating, lying to myself. Taking the place of a vile father. At least the mother of the child had preferred me by saying nothing about her condition to the real father. A hypothesis that held up, in my opinion. The baby’s innocence fueled my permanent embarrassment, which paralyzed my joy for this little creature that, according to my mother, looked like me. All mothers are alike. They see resemblances everywhere, going as far back as a twelfth cousin.

  Was he my son? Was I his father? What is a father? Is it the progenitor or rather the one who takes on the burden of blazing trails for the child, leveling the ground for his path to assure him the opportunity of building an existence? And what if the real father of the child lived just an alley away from our house?

  I hadn’t said another word to Adeline. She used my father as an intermediary to speak to me. Her kindness and the time she devoted to my parents earned her stock of incomparable respect, which I had to acknowledge. She helped my mother sell peanuts in the big market. My mother lavished attention on the one she had now taken as her own daughter. My sister rallied to their side. She accompanied Adeline to town for food shopping for the baby and to the clinic for his weigh-ins and care. I was isolated. I’d find them all together, chitchatting, laughing full-throated. I sulked in my corner, which did not change their behavior one iota. They imposed Adeline’s presence on me indirectly. If I accidently happened to reply to her, it was to offer harsh words regarding her morals. I was having none of this child. In front of the family and Adeline, my mother asked me to take him in my arms and rock the baby.

  Little by little my resistance softened. Monotony beat it down. My resentment withered. I was surprised to find myself talking with Adeline, the child snoozing on my legs . . .

  Moki finally came back . . .

  He had gained weight. Even more Parisian than ever. He had bleached his skin so much we could see his veins. He wore contacts. His eyes were blue. He smoked a pipe. He said it was the bourgeois look. I accompanied him everywhere he went. I had become a valet. Mute, I waited in the background while he talked with friends or young girls. I was beginning to get irritated with this situation. The Parisian was obsessive about leaving me behind. He introduced me when it was convenient to do so. He said that I was a future Parisian and that I was in training for the big day. At those times, my chest swelled. I imagined myself to be just like him already. In my head, I would top the priority list as soon as I was in Paris.

  What would I do about the family?

  First of all, send money to my father so he could pay back my uncle. Then demolish our house made of old boards and build a permanent home. A big one. A magnificent villa. Deep down, I dreamed of a villa more beautiful than Moki’s. I would also buy cars. My parents would use them for business. My mother would stop humiliating herself behind a stall at the big market, selling peanuts, retail. She would devote herself solely to depositing the daily taxi receipts. She would give the car keys to the chauffeur every morning. I would also need a general store. Moki had never thought of that. This store would be managed by my father. My sister would be the cashier. I knew that they would include Adeline.

  I wouldn’t forget a water pump. Electricity, too. We lived with hurricane lamps and candles. We didn’t do our home-work assignments because at night we didn’t have light, no money to buy a candle or a liter of oil for the lamp.

  We abandoned our studies—my sister in secondary school, me, in the first year of high school. My sister wanted to become a midwife. Me, I would have liked to study law. To be a judge or a lawyer. For that, you had to earn a baccalaureate, go to university in Brazzaville, more than five hundred kilometers from our home. To achieve that, it was advised that starting in high school, you read and reread, and buy the books—which were no longer provided as they had been in grade school by IPAM (Institute of Pedagogy for Africa and Madagascar). In primary school, we didn’t read at home. Our memories were so receptive that we retained forever what the teacher said or wrote on the blackboard. I’ve never been able to understand that miracle. As you grow up, that capacity diminishes. The brain aroused and occupied with a multitude of discoveries demands exercise, training, and lasting endurance. Reading and reevaluating become imperative. We didn’t have light. When we got it, the light was not supposed to be left on a long time in order to save oil for the days ahead. Turn them all off when going to sleep at seven o’clock in the evening.

  This time we would have electricity, current, circuit breakers, bulbs—we would have all of that. I made it a promise. Water would run like a torrent in the courtyard. And the neighborhood would come to our house to buy casks of water . . .

  I calculated my success in comparison with Moki. He had already started and was well on his way toward reaching his goals. For me, everything lay ahead. I had to prove my capacity to succeed. To go like Moki, if not better. The disciple lives with this idea. Surpass his master. Set the bar even higher. I was ready for anything. I had made up my mind to knock myself out. To work in France twenty-four hours a day.

  Like a negro . . .

  The departure date had arrived.

  We were going to get a flight toward the end of the dry season. It was the month of October. A Sunday . . .

  Sunday, October 14th.

  The day of rest demanded by the Lord. My parents were there. My mother dressed in a new outfit of multicolored cloth printed with a picture of the smiling president of the Republic, blessing children in a hospital deep in the bush.

  My father, he was dressed in a West African grand boubou with sparkling embroidery on the chest and shoulders. He must have struggled to find those clothes. A week earlier, he scoured downtown Pointe-Noire and got my mother’s outfit and his own on c
redit from a Lebanese guy he knew. An old friend. Despite their friendship, the shopkeeper expressed reservations. The favor being asked was, according to him, beyond my father’s credit rating. One outfit, sure. Two, that was too much. My father convinced him that this was an exceptional circumstance: the departure of his first-born son, his only son, for France. For Paris.

  His eyes sparkled with admiration. In a heavy accent, he exclaimed: “Paris? But we must celebrate this, my friend!”

  He took my father to the back of the store. “Please, my friend, follow me.”

  They went into a dark room where the shopkeeper kept his stock of new deliveries. The strong odor of mothballs dissuaded termites and other pests of their ilk from launching an offensive on the Lebanese man’s merchandise. The man was well prepared. On one shelf, an assortment of Fly-tox and other similar insecticides—his armada in the little war that he waged particularly against cockroaches overly inclined to deposit their progeny in the inside pockets of jackets.

  My father and the shopkeeper were surrounded by clothing that the Lebanese pushed aside to create a passageway. He had turned on the light in the room and told my father to make himself at home.

  “Choose whatever you like. Come back to me to sign the receipt after you’ve made your selection.”

  My father reappeared with two outfits. He had chosen one for my mother. That evening, they both tried on their outfits in front of the mirror.

  The couple was ready . . .

  My sister was dressed conservatively. A white T-shirt with a blue cloth tied in a knot around her waist. My uncle didn’t give a damn about the occasion. He had been in France at the end of the 1950s for his studies. Back then, he recalled for us, to find a negro, you had to cover the city with a fine-toothed comb for an entire day or wait at the exit for workers from a Renault or Simca factory. He emphasized, however, that the country had changed since then. He wouldn’t even recognize where he had lived.