by Edem Awumey
***
In the evening, “at home” in our cell, Koli would take a book out from underneath the pallet and hand it to me. In the middle of the night, the guards were asleep, knocked out by alcohol. There were only two sentries at the entrance, and because they couldn’t see into our cell in the thickets, Koli could take out the oil lamp he had gotten from the kitchen and strike a match in the darkness. I would open the book at the turned-down page that served as a bookmark and we would continue our story where we had left off.
Koli had always had those books. In his hut in the village. After years as a prisoner, he was granted the right to a few visits annually. And when his nephew brought him the books he asked for, his jailers said nothing, the head guard just smiled, not seeing what Koli could do with books since his eyes were dead. And in fact, in the first weeks, before I became his cellmate, he spent his time stroking the covers of those volumes, which the nephew had chosen mainly for their large size. The nephew had put in each book something that would permit Koli to recognize it, such as a match, a square of cardboard, or a feather, and when it was a book Koli had already read, his fingers would go back and forth in the pages as he tried to rediscover the characters, an activity he quite seriously called worship. Together we read Bulgakov, with the meeting of the Master and Margarita, and the cat that jumps up and hangs on to the back of the tramcar; García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude, with the unforgettable passage about the large underpants Úrsula Iguarán wore to protect her virginity; Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, with the terrible scene of the sacrifice of the child Ikemefuna; and many other books, such as Les Misérables, The Sound and the Fury, The Tin Drum, Hopscotch, Ulysses, Masters of the Dew. And when I myself started writing, creating plays of my own, those books, characters, and worlds continued to haunt me. What I have written, I owe to Koli Lem and our evenings in our cell, our conspiratorial closeness within our four walls and our frustration when there was no oil left in the lamp and we couldn’t continue our reading of a Saramago.
However, we didn’t have all that many books, a couple of dozen at most, and because his nephew, for some obscure reason, no longer came to visit Koli, we very quickly exhausted our supply. We even repeated a few titles. We began to find our evenings long and hopeless, but despite that, I must say we were able to hold out during the day with all its bullying because in the evening we had an appointment around a Nabokov.
26
Then the day came when I underwent that interrogation, the last one, the one when I sold out my friends. It was early in the morning, I was barely awake and I almost didn’t feel the huge arms that pushed me towards the confession room. The interrogator was waiting for me, his hands folded on a white wooden table, a new element in the generally spare decor. The cigarette he had started smoking was resting against the edge of a metal ashtray, a detail I saw better once the mists of dawn had faded. I was sat down on a chair facing the man, who had the elegant manners of a pretentious aristocrat. I wasn’t shackled, and the guards left us alone, closing the door behind them. The man, instead of looking directly at me as he was quite capable of doing, gazed up at the ceiling beams and said softly, “You stated that you did not belong to any organized group. Well, I can tell you I have obtained information to the contrary.” I trembled and tried to regain control by thinking of the exact words of Koli, who had warned me, “Be careful. Very often, those scoundrels will say things that are false in order to find out the truth. Stay calm, and never contradict yourself!”
After his introductory words, the man took his time finishing his cigarette. Then, from a small box at his feet, he took out a pair of pliers, which he laid on the table. Several prisoners had told me that the pliers meant things were getting complicated and you shouldn’t continue to toy with the nerves of the torturer. It was best to give him any old story to avoid getting your fingernails torn out. The man continued, “The pliers are made for pulling nails from boards. Don’t make me use them for something else. Tell me about your friends. I’m asking you to confirm what I already know. What were you planning and who manipulated you?” In spite of Koli’s warning, it was hard to keep believing the guy was bluffing, and besides, my friend had forgotten to mention the pliers and other instruments in the box. And I recalled something another prisoner had whispered to me, “That devil doesn’t leave you alone until you’ve confessed. To him, it’s obvious we were all involved in a conspiracy against the authorities.” I glimpsed the possibility of not having to come back before the interrogator and I tried to make my aims seem innocuous.
“I’m not part of any organization. Like all students, I had my group of friends.”
“You had. Why are you speaking in the past tense? Aren’t they your friends anymore?”
“Now I’m here.”
“But does that change the fact that they’re your friends?”
“Uh, no . . . ”
“Very well. How many were you in your group?”
“Four or five.”
“Be more precise. Unless there’s someone you’re hesitating to count as belonging to your circle? Why is that?”
“No, no one. Four. There are four of us.”
“Who’s the fifth person?”
“A cousin who sometimes joined our group.”
“His name?”
“He didn’t do anything, sir.”
“Who said he did anything? What’s your cousin’s name?”
“Billy.”
“Good. We’ll check that. Are you sure he doesn’t have another first name?”
“Uh, yes . . . Sefa.”
“Good. And what did you do in your group?”
“We reviewed our course work.”
“All the time?”
“Yes.”
“You expect me to believe that you spent all your time working? You must have had some fun once in a while?”
“A few times, yes.”
“Interesting. And the rest of the time, you were focused and studious? Do you take me for an idiot?”
“No, sir.”
“So tell me what you did in your free time.”
“Nothing much, sir. Walks.”
“Where? What neighbourhoods? And what did you talk about in the street?”
“About our exams, about the future, sir.”
“You talked about the future? Why?”
“We wondered what it would be like.”
“Interesting. So you were afraid.”
“A little.”
“Why? When you’re young, you’re not afraid of the future. Had you forgotten that the youth of the Revolution and the Nouvelle Marche must have faith in the future?”
“No, sir.”
“So why were you worried?”
“We didn’t know if we would pass our exams.”
“But if, as you said, you were working all the time, you had no reason to be concerned, did you?”
“Some professors are hard to convince. They don’t cut us any slack.”
“Slack?”
“I mean they’re very demanding.”
“And that’s a bad thing, in your opinion?”
“No, sir.”
“Okay, let’s move on. Besides your walks and discussions, what did you do?”
“Nothing else.”
“That’s not what I learned.”
“Uh... We tried a few months ago to do some theatre.”
“Now that’s much more interesting.”
“It was just to have some fun, sir.”
“Theatre is serious. What plays did you do?”
“Classics.”
“Such as?”
“We never managed to put on a whole play.”
“Why?”
“We didn’t have time.”
> “Ah! You would have had to cut down on your walks?”
“Yes.”
“What was the last play you were involved in?”
“Césaire. A Tempest.”
“Why that one?”
“It was about slavery and colonialism.”
“You know very well, don’t you, that the Revolution has overcome imperialism? And that it’s pointless to celebrate the past, that this should be a time of optimism and nation building?”
“That’s correct, sir.”
“A tempest is a maelstrom. The exact opposite of the peace we have achieved.”
“That’s true.”
“What are the names of your friends? I mean the other three members of your group.”
“Uh . . . ”
“You’re hesitating. Do you know what’s happening right now in the capital?”
“No, sir.”
“No? They’re burning houses. You wouldn’t want that to happen to you, would you? You’d like to find your parents and your brothers and sisters safe and sound, wouldn’t you? You know, when there’s a fire in a house at night, the people often don’t have time to get out before it falls down. So, what are the names of your friends? If you haven’t done anything, I don’t see why you’re hesitating. So?”
“Beno, Sika, Wali.”
The man suddenly leaned across the table, and his slap jerked my neck around. “You wretch, you’re giving me first names. I want full names!” I wiped the blood from the corner of my mouth with the back of my hand and I gave the names of my friends. The man concluded with a smile, “I hope they were good actors, at least.”
27
A slight noise at the door. Ito Baraka stops writing. He hopes it’s Kimi Blue coming home earlier than usual. He remembers their first meeting. A spring day. On a nasty, rainy afternoon, he had gone to buy a few necessities second hand at Emmaus in Old Hull, where she worked. Out in front of the store, she was putting used clothing into two big garbage cans. He said to her, “I hope you’re not going to stuff yourself into those garbage cans with the rags. I think you could still be useful for something.” She smiled and asked him if he could help her carry the garbage cans to the back of the store. Ito remembers answering that he once lived in a garbage can, and that when he finally managed to get out, his limbs, naturally, were completely stiff.
Kimi comes from the Indian reserve of Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg, near Maniwaki, north of Ottawa. After the death of her father, who one day hanged himself from the only tree in the backyard of their house, she ended up for years on her own, taking care of her mother, who was not right in the head, whose lungs were bad, and who was stuck in a wheelchair as a result of a car accident and a dissipated life. Kimi worked at the checkout of a grocery store there, and at the end of the day, she would make a detour to the cabin of a man who supplied mother and daughter with cigarettes, alcohol, and cocaine. Kimi Blue’s life consisted of the mother, who was as good-natured as a starving dog, the grocery store, which had been deserted by customers, and powder. Her time had become frozen that way. Time on the reserve was a sky of fixed patterns and an unchanging wind in the impassive maples. Tedium, sometimes with the sense of standing at the edge of the world. That was Kimi Blue’s country, her homeland. She lived, she said, in that confinement, and in the reality of a broken thread in her story. She said, “We no longer have any connection to what we were deeply, or what we wanted to be. A new way of being in the world began for us, existing through drinking binges, smuggling, crime, and cannabis. People on the reserve are often arrested for trafficking, narcotics use, or violence. Time, our time, is more and more frozen. One day in May 2007, I left. I abandoned my mother and fled. When I went back a month later, she was dead, and since then, her shadow has pursued me.”
She has often told Ito that the farce known as a smile has disappeared from the faces of her people. Their faces have become masks of powerlessness and resignation, and they are motionless actors with roles as extras on their reserve, that remote Native camp that is like a movie set. There are those who drink and those who kill themselves, a brutal death or a slow agony slumped outside their houses throughout the dark days.
Ito Baraka remembers their first evening together, and how shy she was, though she was a good thirty-five years old. He invited her to sit down on the groaning springs of his couch, and for a long time, they said nothing to each other, Ito absorbed in the colourful toes of his slippers and Kimi staring at a point in front of her. Finally, she coughed discreetly and abruptly started talking about herself. The reserve, her family, drugs, her friends, who with nothing to do were fixtures on the corner of King Edward and Murray in the centre of Ottawa, constantly stoned, seeking bread, shelter, and company at a Christian mission with the reassuring name of the Shepherds of Good Hope, masters of those sidewalks where they bought and shared grass and powder behind Christ’s back. After her workday at the thrift shop, Kimi Blue would spend time with these friends at that crossroads of the miserable before returning to her modest apartment on a street whose name made you think of salvation, Mont-Bleu. In the evening, she continued with a first smile, she would walk home, her feet light on the stairs of her building because she had just had a hit. She would throw herself still dressed on her bed and take refuge in childhood, when her father had not yet been trapped by whisky, and her mother, who still worked on the Hébert family farm, ten kilometres from Maniwaki, would whistle while she hung out the laundry on a yellow line in the yard, which was filled with hungry birds that she liked to feed. That time before what she called the gradual contamination, by the bottle and the hundred-gram packets that had little by little invaded the homes. She couldn’t say who had started selling that shit on the reserve, or why so few people were able to resist it. Ito moved closer to his new girlfriend on the couch, and for the first time she turned her face towards him, looked him straight in the eye, and asked him to open up in turn, to tell her about himself.
Later, Ito got up to offer her something to drink. She asked for coffee, and while he was busy in the kitchen, she went to the bathroom. A good quarter of an hour, he noted, and when she came out, her forehead was damp. She had taken off her big sweater and all she had on her upper body was a tiny, light T-shirt that showed her nipples. And for the first time in a long time, Ito Baraka felt the swelling of an erection between his legs. There were red spots and scratches on the girl’s arms, and the hair was clammy with sweat. She felt his desire and looked away. “The coffee’s ready,” Ito said to break the awkward silence. She sat down again and, after taking a sip from her cup, she began to ask him questions.
Half an hour later, Ito went back to the kitchen to make them omelettes. He returned with the plates, which he set down on the coffee table. He suggested turning on the TV, but she said no. They ate in silence. After the meal, she said, “I know you want to make love. We can try now that we’ve replenished our strength. The omelette was good.” Ito didn’t reply, and when he went to return the plates to the kitchen, she got undressed and lay down on the couch. He was going to turn off the light, but she raised herself on one elbow, in a panic, “No, leave the light on!” He got undressed and joined her on the couch, Kimi with her hollow belly and bushy pubic hair. She opened her arms, offering him the gift of her lovely breasts. He lay down awkwardly on top of her, his trunk between her nervous thighs, and with both hands, she pressed his cock mechanically against her vulva to take him inside her. Ito remained leaning on one elbow, slowed down by the brusqueness of the girl’s actions. Her dilated pupils seemed to be begging him to go ahead, but he had known some women in his time and he was thinking that this was when most of them closed their eyes to fully experience the intensity of penetration.
The clock in the apartment showed it was past midnight. She asked him to take her to the bed. He did so, carrying her light, frail body. His desire came back. She said, “I’m going to turn
over on my belly. You lie on my back. That way you won’t be afraid of my open eyes.” He refused. In the bed, it was she who got on top of him. She kissed him greedily. She found his cock and tried with difficulty to take into the dryness of her pussy. Disappointed, she collapsed on her lover’s chest. Kimi, frigid and hooked on cocaine. He told her she should seriously consider another detox treatment since the first one hadn’t succeeded. She promised to think about it, and added that some of her friends at the crossroads of the miserable had, like her, tried to stop. They had failed and had gone back to living on the street. She still had a little grass in her bag, and she got out of bed to roll some joints in translucent paper. She came back under the sheets. It was the first time Ito Baraka had tried grass. He couldn’t turn off the light because she was afraid of the dark, and she kept her eyes open so as not to see the menacing shadow of her dead mother.
28
Ito Baraka goes to his work table. He would rather Kimi find him there when she comes home, in the position of someone who is still able to do something with his time. From there he glimpses the back of the apartment door with three coats hanging on it. He crosses the space between the desk and the coats with difficulty, feels the lining of the one in the middle for a hidden pocket, from which he takes a small transparent plastic bag to roll a few joints while he waits for Kimi. It’s their little ritual, once a week, and she loves that time, when they sit close together on the sofa and smoke until the middle of the night. They don’t talk, each one trying to forget something in the wreaths of smoke, she, a mother devoured by disease and the ashen body of a father at the end of a rope, and he, the creaking of his old carcass. He goes back to the table, gets some rolling papers out of a box, takes the marijuana from the bag, and gets to work rolling the joints. He remembers to wet the edge of the translucent paper. He looks at the answering machine, which is blinking. Perhaps a message from Kimi. He doesn’t want to listen to it, he’s afraid she’ll say she won’t be coming tonight. He prefers to wait. He starts to feel a tingling under his skin again and a heavy, slack mass in his muscles. Kimi will find him sitting there, it’s impossible for him to move. He leans back in the chair, closes his eyes for an instant, picks up his pen again. The shadow of his friend Koli refuses to let go of him.