Marius plans to leave our country the day he turns eighteen. So that means, if I’ve worked it out right, that in only five years’ time, he’ll go off to be a Sapper like Jerry the Parisian. Now at eighteen I don’t think he’ll be able to become a footballer, because the king, Pelé, started playing when he was fifteen. I think my brother’s more likely to become a great Sapper than a great footballer like Marius Trésor, Didier Six or Michel Platini. You can be a Sapper at any age, you don’t have to do lots of fitness training, go running every morning or work up a sweat training. But first Marius needs to find the money to get to France. Lots of money. That’s why he works at the Victory Palace Hotel in the school holidays, putting out the bins and watering the flowers. Papa Roger got him this little job, but he doesn’t know that the reason Marius works is so that one day he can leave us all and go and live with the Whites in Europe. So Marius is saving up his pocket money in a little wooden box he hides under the bed and checks before he goes to sleep and when he wakes up. He thinks there are jealous people in the neighbourhood who might cast spells to stop him going to Europe and becoming a great Sapper, or footballer. The jealous people might send rats to get under his bed, and they might eat all his money, even the coins. So every night he sprinkles this stuff round the box, called Death to Rats. Any rat that comes round trying to eat his money is going to die an instant death from the poison.
People round here always find the name Ginette surprising, but I think it’s really pretty. It’s the name of the owner of the Victory Palace Hotel. Our father wanted to please his boss, who’d given him his job and held on to him for years. Apparently the boss was pleased my father had called his daughter after her. The result was, Madame Ginette increased Papa Roger’s salary by 130 CFAs a month. In December she gives our sister Ginette a bigger present than she gives the other children of the hotel workers who were not clever enough to call their daughters Ginette.
Ginette’s a tiny little thing. You wouldn’t think she was eleven, she looks more like eight. I guess she won’t be very tall because Papa Roger’s short. But you mustn’t tell her she’s too short or she’ll get mad and refuse to eat her lunch or supper. If we want to really annoy her and eat her food we tell her she’s really small, that she looks like she’s only eight. If she’s very hungry she’ll eat anyway, and swear she won’t eat tomorrow, at lunch or supper. By the next day she’s already forgotten that we told her the day before that she was really small.
When he saw that his boss was really happy that he’d called our sister Ginette after her, Papa Roger decided he’d do the same again when he had another daughter. He planned to call her Marie-France, after Madame Ginette’s older sister. But this time, Madame Ginette was not pleased. She said enough was enough. That it was getting ridiculous. Papa Roger was very disappointed. In the end he named his daughter after his late mother. So the sister who’s nine is called Mbombie like our late paternal grandmother. Otherwise she’d have been called Marie-France and she would have always had a big present at the end of the year. Sometimes Papa Roger calls her Marie-France anyway, because he really likes his boss. But Mbombie doesn’t like that name and she won’t answer when you call her by it.
‘Don’t call me Marie-France! Have you ever heard of anyone called Marie-Congo or Marie-Zaire?’
Maximilien is a boy who never says no, where most people by the age of six have long since learned to refuse to do things that grown ups want. So at home everyone asks him to go and buy this or buy that, close the front gate, go and see if the pan is boiling over in the kitchen. As soon as you ask him to go and buy something he runs off like the world 100 metres champion. Then after a little bit he stops, comes back again and asks you all wide eyed, ‘What was I meant to go and buy? Where do I have to go to buy it?’
Often we send him to get doughnuts, or sweets, or a Gillette razor blade for Yaya Gaston, ribbons for Ginette’s braids, palm oil for Maman Martine. But when he gets back he gets shouted at because on the way home he’s lost the change the shopkeeper gave him. We know he’s lost it when he starts crying and pointing back at the street, as though the street had stolen his money. Sometimes he forgets to come straight home with the shopping and stops at the crossroads to watch a row between some prostitutes from Zaire who are fighting with forks and pan lids because the younger one has stolen the older one’s client. Maximilien is determined to stop them fighting so that afterwards the older one, who’s been beaten up by the younger one, will give him a bit of money for saving her life.
Félicienne is the baby of the family. Maman Martine looks after her as though she’s her only child. As a result she still acts like a spoilt five month old baby even though she’s two. It’s as though she doesn’t want to grow up. She still crawls, even though she can walk fine when she chooses, especially when she’s coming to me. And she looks like she’s going to hang on to her bottle for a while yet. Once I came across her fixing her own milk. As soon as she saw I was watching her she stopped and started crying, as if she’d been stung by a wasp. Maybe because she realised I had found out her little game.
Félicienne likes me to take her on my knee, but when I do I always feel something hot on my belly: she’s wee’ed on me, and now she’s laughing. She does it on purpose. So whenever she holds her arms out to me with a big smile to get me to pick her up and carry her on my shoulders, I look the other way. Because I know it’s me she wants to wee on, no one else. It’s not really naughty, it’s just her way of playing with me, and perhaps it’s also her way of telling me she loves me as much as her blood sisters and brothers.
I love it when Yaya Gaston lets me sleep in his studio, even if it makes my brothers a bit jealous. Yaya Gaston knows I won’t gossip about what goes on in his studio, though honestly I could tell all sorts of stories, because I see all the pretty girls who come to visit him and even bring him food. The food they bring is so good, they must make it extra well to make Yaya Gaston love them even more. I listen to them talking, boasting about how pretty they are, prettier even than film actresses, when it’s not possible, in fact, to be prettier than an actress. They try to be nice to me so that Yaya Gaston will love them. But it’s just a smokescreen really because when Yaya Gaston’s back is turned there are some of them that stare at me with these big mean eyes; they want me to get out of the house so they can be alone with our big brother. I don’t go, unless Yaya Gaston tells me to go take a walk outside. It’s not their house, it belongs to us.
Out of all the girls who are crazy about Yaya Gaston, my favourite is Geneviève. She doesn’t stare at me with big, mean eyes. She doesn’t ask me to go and take a walk outside so she can do rude things with my big brother. No, she asks me to stay with her, she asks me what I’ve been learning at school, what I like doing best, and what I want to do when I’m older, when I’m twenty. And I rattle on and on, I’m chattier than a whole family of sparrows, that’s all I do, just talk. I tell Geneviève that I want to be this, that I want to be that and that I want to be this and that both at the same time, if possible. I want to do everything. I want to be a movie actor so I can kiss the actresses in Indian movies; I want to be President of the Republic so I can make long speeches at the Revolution Stadium, and write a book all about how bravely I faced the enemies of the Nation; I want to be a taxi driver so I don’t have to walk on the hot tarmac at midday; I want to be the director of the Pointe-Noire port so I can get free stuff that comes from Europe; I want to be a vet, but I don’t want to be a farmer because Uncle René wants me to be a farmer. I also want to write poems for Caroline. I tell her this, and she smiles and says life is too short to do all those things. You have to choose just a few, and above all, do them well.
When I’m with Geneviève my heart beats really fast. I want to be in her arms, to smell her perfume. She’s not very tall, which is a good thing, because Lounès says a woman shouldn’t be tall, or no one will want to marry her. If her husband’s smaller than her, he’d be embarrassed to walk by her side.
Gaston c
alls Geneviève ‘My Black Beauty’ because her skin is very dark. She doesn’t straighten her hair with white people’s products like the other local girls, she combs it so it stands out in a big ‘Afro’, and you want to touch it. It looks like a black American woman’s. She always wears white, which means she’s someone who takes care her clothes aren’t dirty.
Sometimes I think the reason Yaya Gaston loves her must be her eyes. When she looks at you, you want to give her everything, even a house with an upstairs or a huge piece of beef, even when you’ve been really hungry for two days. I’ve never seen eyes that colour before. They’re like a calm, green river, with bright little diamonds sparkling round the edges.
.....
I love it when I’m with Geneviève and we’re walking down the street. I hold my head high and walk like a big boy, so people will respect me. When a car comes up behind us it’s me that says to Geneviève, ‘Look out, there’s a blue Peugeot 504 coming up behind us!’
She laughs, we stand aside, the car goes past and we continue on our way. We walk for a long time, in silence. I know that she’s not talking because she’s thinking about lots of things, she feels low because of the other girls who’ve slept in Yaya Gaston’s studio.
We’re still walking. Now we’re at the road that runs parallel to the Avenue Félix-Eboué. Suddenly she turns her back to me, as though she were going to go back the way we’ve come. I stop too, and I see her wiping away tears. I ask her why she’s crying, she says she’s not crying, she’s just got a bug in her eye. I offer to blow in her eye to get the bug out.
‘It’s ok thanks, it’s gone now.’
I know they’re tears, she’s crying because Yaya Gaston makes her unhappy.
Why don’t the other girls who stay over in the studio all have bugs in their eyes? It must mean they don’t love Yaya Gaston. If you love someone and you’re unhappy because they’re behaving badly, it must make a bug fly into your eye so it starts watering.
We set off again. I think about Geneviève being unhappy, about the other girls who say she’s too black, too small, that she doesn’t know how to cook, etc. And as I put myself in Geneviève’s shoes, I find I’ve got a bug in my eye too. I turn my back on her, like I’m going back the way we’ve come, but it’s too late, she’s seen.
She stands still and asks, ‘Do you want me to blow in your eye to get the bug out?’
And remembering her reply, I murmur, ‘Thanks, but it’s ok, it’s gone now.’
And we both laugh. I never want to be apart from her. I never want her to let go of my hand. I never want to go back to Yaya Gaston’s studio. I feel good with her. I squeeze her hand tight. She squeezes mine. I’m sure I feel like I love her, does she love me too? I’m in love with her. I want to tell her, right now. But how? She might laugh at me.
I tell her anyway: ‘Geneviève, my heart is falling into my stomach, I want to marry you.’
She isn’t at all surprised and asks with a little smile, ‘Why do you want to marry me?’
‘Because I don’t want you to go on being unhappy. I don’t want bugs to keep getting in your eye.’
She touches my head, I look into her eyes: her green river has more and more diamonds sparkling round the edges. I dream I could be one of those diamonds. The biggest one of all. I shine brighter than all the other diamonds and I make sure the river always stays green.
‘Michel, you’re not grown up yet, you can’t marry me…’
‘I’ll be grown up one day!’
‘Then I’ll be like an old lady to you.’
‘No, you could never be an old lady, and I…’
‘Michel, you already have a girlfriend, you told me last time. What’s her name again?’
‘Caroline.’
‘She’s the one you must marry, you’re the same age and…’
‘We got divorced.’
‘Already?’
‘It was her idea, not mine.’
‘Why?’
‘She’s going to marry Mabélé and they’re going to have a red five-seater car and two children and a little white dog…’
‘Do you want me to talk to Caroline?’
‘No, I’m too useless. I can’t play football, and anyway, I haven’t read Marcel Pagnol yet, the one who writes about the four castles Mabélé’s going to buy for Caroline.’
We arrive at the Senegali’s shop, opposite the bar called Le Relais. We go inside and Geneviève buys me two Kojak lollies.
We get back to the house, the other girls have left. They’ve left their things in a mess everywhere. Geneviève’s going to be spending the night with Yaya Gaston and she sorts out the mess in the studio.
First of all the three of us eat, then I go to say goodnight to Maman Martine, and my sisters and brothers, in the main house. Papa Roger’s reading the newspaper in the bedroom, I hear him cough. Deep down I know he’s missing the radio cassette player back in the other house. He’d like to be listening to the Voice of America, Roger Guy Folly, the one who reports on the Shah of Iran. And he’d like to be listening to the singer with the moustache weeping for his tree, his alter ego. But that’s our secret, in the other house. I’m not allowed to say, not even to Yaya Gaston, that we’ve got a radio cassette player that can record what people say.
Yaya Gaston and Geneviève sleep in the bed, and I sleep on a little mattress on the floor. There’s a black sheet hung between the walls to separate us. It cuts the studio in half, but they’ve got more space than I have. And when there’s a light behind the sheet wall, I can see their silhouettes blend into one, and move together, like I’m watching a film in black and white. I hear little noises, like a little cat crying because its mother’s left it all alone in the street. But it’s Geneviève’s voice. Why is she laughing now, though, instead of crying for help?
Before I close my eyes, I think hard about my two sisters in heaven. My Sister Star and my Sister No-name. Is it night in paradise, or is it always sunny there? I ask them to watch over Maman Pauline, who’s all alone in the bush and will be alone again in Brazzaville surrounded by bad people who look at women in tight trousers.
Maman Martine’s got white hair growing on the sides. She realises I’ve seen them, that I’m thinking she’s older than Maman Pauline, who is probably her younger sister, but really much younger, her daughter maybe. But I’m thinking something else: would she possibly agree to have a seed from my mother’s insides and keep it in her insides, so that Maman Pauline’s children wouldn’t go straight to heaven without coming down to earth? If she’d do that, Maman Pauline would stop being unhappy, there’d be another child in our house, because Maman Martine’s children don’t go straight up to heaven as soon as they arrive. Also, if Maman Martine agrees to my plan, we could keep it secret, we would tell people that the little seed really came from her insides. One day I must talk to Papa Roger about it, because I don’t really think this doctor can sort things out inside my mother, even if he’s white and white people never get anything wrong. At the same time, I’m sure there must be loads of women like Maman Pauline, loads of women looking for a child the whole time, and who can’t have one and never will, even if they’re cared for by white doctors.
We’re sitting outside the front door. Maman Martine is scaling the fish we’re going to eat this evening when everyone’s here. It doesn’t matter if it’s not beef and beans. I eat everything here, and I pretend I like everything. I can be fussy with Maman Pauline but not with Maman Martine, it would really upset her.
At home there’s only Mbombie, Maximilien and little Félicienne, who’s just pissed on me when I was being really kind and giving her her bottle. I don’t know where the other children have gone. Yaya Gaston left early this morning for the port, and Papa Roger won’t get back till sundown. My other brothers and sisters ought to be here too, because it’s the end-of-year holiday.
Seeing I can’t stop looking at the white bits in her hair, Maman Martine says, ‘Ah yes, I’m not young like your mother Pauline, now. She
must be the same age as one of my little sisters, the youngest, she’s just twenty-seven, she still lives in Kinkosso.’
She looks up at the sky, murmuring, as though she’s talking to someone else. She begins to talk, and she tells me how she grew up in Kinkosso and that to get to the village from the district of Bouenza you have to go in an Isuzu truck which takes four or five days. You go through other villages, across bridges that are just two trees laid side by side from one bank of the river to the other, so the trucks can pass. The only time they ever replace the trees is when there’s an accident, and lots of people die. That’s where she and Papa Roger met.
I like the way Maman Martine’s voice sounds when she tells the story about her and Papa Roger. Somehow she puts a bit of magic into it. I sort of believe her, but sometimes it sounds a bit like one of those stories from the time when animals and men could talk to each other about how to live together in peace.
When Maman Martine talks about when she met Papa Roger, she has a smile that lights up her whole face, and smoothes out the little lines – she looks young again, like Maman Pauline. Her face is all smooth, her skin is like a baby’s, her eyes shine and you forget about her grey hair. I imagine her as a young girl, turning boys’ heads. Somehow she manages to forget I’m there, and to imagine it’s someone different listening to her, her eyes are somewhere above my head, not focussed on me directly. She’s talking to someone who doesn’t exist, and I think: That often happens, it happens all the time, grown ups are all like that, they’re always talking to people from their past. I’m still too little to have a past, that’s why I can’t talk to myself, pretending to talk to someone invisible.
Tomorrow I'll Be Twenty Page 15