FOLKS IN MY TRIBE WERE FOND OF SAYING that you got the President you deserved. It was back in the day when we were building the village to which the seat of power was moved, on the exact spot where National Mom had buried my placenta. I’m tired of this rotten place, and I’m sick of this group of Mom’s people who keep muddling up the presidents. He’d made our brother Digomar gulp down three dozen bars of toilet soap because you’re starting to confuse your presidents. He’d also spat a chunky ball of spicy spit onto the military High Command of my hernia who no longer seem to know in spite of everything that I’m the President; and well, now I’ve got to keep on reminding you. He was forced to spank the Minister of Trade Negotiations because I’m the President. He’d instructed the Minister of the Media to kneel down right there in front of the people and my hernia because you seem to have forgotten who the boss is around here. He’d hurled a bowl of crab broth all over the minister from my colleague’s country who just doesn’t seem to grasp that when it comes down to it we’re all presidents; during an official dinner he’d tossed a jar of mustard at the head of protocol but, the monkey having skillfully dodged it, alas, it smashed my host in the face. Right in the poor presidential face of Nicolas Laroux Bissi, I apologize, I apologize in the way our ancestors would have done, I’m terribly sorry, here, you can have the head of protocol, take him with you as a political prisoner and do with him as you see fit, because my brother, it’s bedlam around here: and we already have our share of people who are a pain in the ass around here. He’d thrown his chamber pot and all the leftover odds and ends from the years of rummaging through his shit for Merline’s coin, here, take that in the face with all my roundworms and consorts, Colonel of my weenie and I’m going to have you operated on to see whether you’ve swallowed one of those pamphlets; he had his ninety-three secretaries operated on for the exact same reason, and you too, National Toussia, for the same reason, get over here so that I can rummage about in you, and he’d really dug deep inside her, and when he pulled his hand out of her vagina he was holding onto a piece of her small intestine. But he still kept boasting about his thirty-seven years in power and going on about how he’d never harmed so much as an ant.
He came over and offered Yambo-Yambi’s ex-wife the beautiful poems that my hernia wrote in your honor:
Let me be
that beast
who knows how to succumb
to the murmur of things
let me become a land of recall.
Let me love you the kaki way. He tells him about Mom who went crazy because of the fatherland, but this earth looks out onto my heart, I love it just as I’ve come to love you. Our brother Issa Traba came to tell him: Mr. President, the Comedia de la Outa says they can’t go on without her.
“That’s fine, from now on you’ll be the national theater company. You need to know that the President is a mammal just like everyone.”
This was at the time when Vauban and he, disguised as Arabs, went into the slum, on foot, and asked around: “Where does Cataeno Pablo live?” “We don’t know, sir.” Then to a bunch of kids playing in a puddle left over from the morning showers: “We don’t know.” The young girls sitting in the sand, busy showing each other their privates answered in the same way. Did you see that Vauban; they’re already fiddling with those procreation instruments of theirs. He smiles at them but the young girls scurry off, repeating, “We don’t know, we don’t know.” Their parents most likely warned them about Arab merchants selling off girls. And he’s there scratching his hernia: My God how beautiful they are. They ask the women busy doing their washing in the Traori Baba Issa rapids the same question, but we don’t know, they answer. He asks the woman who’s washing some dishes a little further upstream but I don’t know she tells them. So he asks the group of men swimming in the green and languid waters, but we don’t know. Vauban’s eyes lit up, Yum! What a feast, all those nice bums! What ineffable bodies! He swallowed another glob of saliva. He asks the woman who’s harvesting her peanut plants on the community plot: “I don’t know. . . .” And yet I was told that he lived in this god-damn slum. All the stuff they’re carrying prevents them from going any further. Ok then, we’ll come back tomorrow. The following day they return to the slum and ask the whole neighborhood the same question again: “We don’t know, sir.” He hands out three thousand coustrani: “Where is this hut I’m looking for?” “Take a right, then two lefts, you’ll see a large palm tree overlooking the lake; make a right, keep to the right until you get to a pile of manure in the middle of the road, you’ll see a small pond, take off your pants because the water will come up to your waist, head to the left until you reach the breadfruit tree, you’ll see a hut under construction, someone around there should be able to show you the place you’re looking for, but who are you? What do you want him for?”
“We’re his friends.”
They make their way to the hut under construction and ask a young girl who’s doing her chemistry homework: “Where is Cataeno Pablo’s hut?”
“There’s no one by that name in this neighborhood.”
He hands her fifty coustrani but Mister there’s no one by that name around here. They walk on and ask a group of women, braiding each other’s hair, nattering about loincloths and husbands.
“Where is Cataeno Pablo’s hut?”
“Right in front of you.”
They come across his cook.
“Where is Cataeno Pablo?”
“He’s taking a nap, sir. If you don’t mind waiting.”
“I don’t have time to wait, go and wake him up.”
“But he’s going to start bitching.”
“Wake him up: I’m the President.”
And they wake you up. You come before my hernia. You rub your eyes. Hey, Cataeno Pablo: they say you like women. And she claims it’s you she loved. I don’t get it. After all, you were there when I took her from Yambo-Yambi. And you were there when I went and delivered all those bottles of wine to her father. Are you challenging my hernia? Fine, if that’s how you want things to be. Take him Vauban: we’ll be better off back at the palace. And for me to be loved I have to throw in a car and a villa, but you dare to be loved effortlessly, what do you have that I don’t? I think you’ll be better off back at the palace.
My parrot Narka is singing the national anthem. In order to honor the beast, Moupourtanka will be crowned “National Beast.” Brother Armane Suaze said: “Mr. President, that really is the last straw.” What, how dare you question the decision of my hernia? He produced a forty-eight-page document to prove that your hernia is making a big mistake, ah hang him; that’s enough and leave his corpse on display until he’s completely decomposed so that the people can see how their enemies end up. Rodriguez Lopez Lavouza will also be hanged for the same reason. And the same goes for Monsignor Mallavra, now send his body over to Jesus Christ’s father-of-the-nation so that he can see how I deal with the likes of him.
“Yes, Mr. President.”
Shut down all the convents and consorts, move all the nuns into the army at the rank of corporal, and all those bloody priests as well at the rank of sergeant. Let them learn to handle my prick instead of spending their days lounging around. No more blah-blah-blah.
He received fourteen trunks filled with messages of support; now this is the real national literature, enough of that bullshit other stuff.
“Yes, Mr. President.”
As the saying goes, You have to run with the pack, ah how shameful. But brother Jolango who wanted to leave the country to the children of the children of our children comes to lay Mr. President his congratulations on the table, bowing down to the ground. His eyes are red with shame. But congratulations! He is drenched in sweat. But you have to run with the pack. My ex-wife who wanted to leave the country to the children of her mother’s children entered, with all those resigning shamefully lined up behind her, but in reverse order this time. Ladies and gentlemen, you cannot change Africa as one does a wife. General Dordobanni, and Fentas Manu,
Giovanno Lanza, Vansio Fernadez . . . please accept our warmest congratulations, Mr. President. They all brought gifts for National Moupourtanka, Beast of the Nation, and also for Mom.
Dressed as a prince, the animal was breathing heavily, up there in its official cage, amidst all the gold and diamonds. He was so healthy, majestic, regal, we all thought he’d live for at least two centuries. On this special day, he must have been thinking about the Spanish hills on the mother’s side of his lineage, or perhaps even of the village of Loupiac. Mr. Jean Perrier, who prepared his resumé, spoke of Loupiac and the Auvergne region, places where the beast had spent its childhood, in this country where Europe ran like Africa. He spoke of Florence Mensah who watched the beast grow up, and who welcomed me in the same way we do in Africa, and we spent six lazy days together in the same way we do in Africa, to the magical tolling of cow bells, listening to old guys talk about their hemorrhoids in the same way we do in Africa. The only person we were still waiting for was Cardinal Marcinni; I still don’t know why he expects me at his age to have to court him, and I’m not Vauban now, am I?
“Mr. President, he’s refusing to come.”
I really don’t get it, his mother went and slept with Mussolini and the offspring ended up a fucking cardinal and if he doesn’t want to bear the full brunt of my anger he’d better get his ass over here and bless me! Does he not know the motto: He needs to come and run with the pack whether or not he agrees with my hernia.
“But he won’t come, Mr. President sir.”
“Fine, then bring me his balls.”
Here’s Cardinal Marcinni. Execute him. And he thunders: “Lord. I die facing this shame.” Bang! Eleven cartridge clips to the groin and he drops like a lump of lead into a pool of his own blood. National Yosuah crowns the beast. Then, as always, came the great big feast, followed by dancing, the true dances of the people. Then there was a violent rainstorm. No one left, we’re not made of salt after all, and the celebrations continued. God may well challenge us, but we’ll hold on tight. So for three days and three nights they drank and ate and danced in the torrential downpour. There was never any mention of giving up. The water came up to their ankles, the water came up to their waist, and still, they kept on going. They danced in the mud puddles, and those who slipped and fell over got covered in the people’s mud. He cursed and cursed the rain over and over again. But you could see them all dancing: the ambassadors, the cultural attachés, the military High Command, the people. They all danced in the mud. The Ameridians, who if they so much as balk I’ll withhold the oil supplies of my hernia, the Flemish whom I’ll eject from the game if they so much as balk . . . the Russians, the Japanese, the folks from my colleague’s country . . . they dance the dance of the century, the horse dance . . . the national dance. And you there from my colleague’s country that I made Moupourtanka’s godparent. They ate and danced until that moment when, Mom I’m dying, Colonel Tuenso shot the beast and ran off shouting, “Hurray for the fatherland!” He left with three jeeps, firing into the crowd and at the infantrymen and shouting, “Hurray for the fatherland!” They headed toward Rouviera Ourta.
“Colonel, they’ve taken National Mom and that girl.”
Colonel Tuenso, you’re really pissing me off, but your day will come and you’re going to pay for this. In the meantime I’m going to take care of your brother, your mother, and all your loved ones because infringement is hereditary in our culture. And with this vertical decision of my hernia, that’s it, enough with this Good President shit, and too bad for you.
Do you understand Carvanso? When you see these human shits fornicating with your mom, fucking her poor old lady’s heart out, fucking her crazy woman’s nerves, how can you not think the world is a nasty place? And he cried over my national horse poor old beast dying for the nation, the world is a nasty place Carvanso because the lot of them and I mean the lot of them except him Colonel Tuenso that I picked up from the sidewalk, washed, cleaned up, dried off under the sun of my name, ironed up nicely, I had to blow into his lungs to inflate them, he had no idea how to munch on life, I spoon-fed him, showed him how to use his jaw, the correct motion, and all that was left for him to do was to crunch down and you see the thanks I get; the world is a nasty place Carvanso, everyone but him, but no, you must know Mom’s proverb: The finger you nurse may be the one that ends up pulling the trigger that kills you. . . . And he cries over this nasty world, he cries because I’m beginning to believe in the existence of sin . . . God is right: men are good for nothing but starting fires, century after century, and he parades it about! God is right: we need the Last Judgment, because my hernia cannot understand why you put them on earth and how it is Mom that they’ve started mentioning your mother’s privates, they’ve started mentioning your father’s legs ah my hernia is smoldering loving you and what filthy dog of a response you have for my entrails, what filthy response you have for my fatherly intentions. What an awful brand of meat we are; without me ordering all the shopkeepers and consorts to buy copies of my portrait, where would all the money you have in your cash registers right now have come from, without me ordering all of them to buy copies of National Mom’s portrait at the price you all know, without my hernia that is so strong in the art of looking the other way, what would you have in the country’s cash registers?
He jumped out of bed and where’s that telegram I want to show it to my hernia, the Pope under my hernia, ah what a pleasure, the Pope, Jesus Christ’s father-of-the-nation, let him come in God’s name let him come and see for himself, and he made his way into town to see the guys fixing the potholes on the public roads, removing the refuse from the middle of the road, draining the backwaters left by the latest tropical storms, and bury that dog won’t you, because we don’t want Jesus Christ’s father-of-the-nation thinking we’re rascals, pick up this dead chicken, move that piece of scrap metal, take this away, dig here, fill that hole over there, and by order of my hernia, so that the father-of-the-nation of the Christians doesn’t take us for the last of the rascals; he surveyed every corner of the city, from north to south and from west to east, with national fellow Vauban of my trust following right behind the whole time, and by order of my hernia: paint all the huts white, paint the roofs red and the rest white, let’s show the world we’re an advanced people, and to prepare for the arrival of the father-of-the-nation of Paradise, he ordered only white horses, five hundred stretch Mercedes, five hundred two-door sports cars, we have to save face even if my hernia runs out of money, what would become of us if the father-of-the-nation of Christians took us for a bunch of losers? He invited all the journalists to the Hotel des Carillons and, ladies and gentlemen, go ahead and ask me anything you like about the functioning of my hernia, the functioning of the ministers and the functioning of the people, at this very moment when we’re preparing for the arrival of the father-of-the-nation of worshippers, come on, now, the floor is open. . . . Mr. President, National Colonel sir, what do you think of human rights? Aha, now that’s a good question, I’ll answer that one: Man’s first right is his hernia, because ladies and gentlemen it may be shameful but it’s the truth, and it’s no joke that my emblem is the zipper, and take my word: it is the hernia that make the man, and don’t be fooled: when the White man speaks of mankind it is to his hernia that he turns, so don’t be fooled . . . your shitty power that I have just seized, have a look how it is hand-stitched with pricks; I think I’ve answered that question, so go ahead and ask Mr. National Lopez another one. . . . He interrupts him to say to him, dear boy, address me like real people do or get the fuck out of my country, and while you’re at it take your hands out of your pockets ah you look like you’re proud to be White, but my hernia is laughing at you, because the White man’s merit is to have brought the world to the ground . . . and that’s not a good question anyway, someone ask a different one; Mr. President, sir ah ah let’s not have the same people asking questions all the time, you there, ask a question: Mr. President, sir, why the Pope? That’s a good question, I’ll
answer it: because he at least does not spit in the hand that feeds him, the Pope is a good president, there is no better president than him on this earth, trust me on that, remember how National Tonso gave himself to the Russians and how the Russians wiped him out, and National Matos that had entrusted himself to the Amerindians and they didn’t think twice about wiping him out, and Juarioni who went and turned himself into a utensil for the French and they didn’t think twice about wiping out, but I’m an instrument of the people, that’s it, period, I’m not like that Dartanio Diaz who went and gave a chunk of his bald head to the citizens of that Flemishything and poor old Dartanio Diaz, God rest his soul! And he motioned to Vauban of my mom, check out that girl, isn’t she something, as beautiful as four women; and Vauban’s already extending his officer of prey’s claws, I want her tonight, yes Sir!, but I want her perfectly fresh and with no scratches on her, yes you old devil sir! No bullshit and yes National Colonel, ah Vauban, you see, out of bad comes good, I don’t really care for their questions but each time they come here there’s always one that’s as beautiful as four, who arouses my blood and activates my balls, eh! National Vauban, this beast (he points at his prick) this filthy beast is our next heart, imagine that! And he points at Edouardo Maunicka from the Tomorrow My Hernia newspaper, now ask your question, yes, Mr. President sir, what do you think of the financial situation. . . . Ah just the other day I was thinking, no, stop, that’s a bad question. . . . The economy is a drink concocted over there in that Flemishy place, what do you expect my hernia to do about it? And Mr. President sir, people are saying that you have purchased several châteaux in Europe? Aha, now that’s more interesting, this is a question of space, the Flemish have land under my big sovereign hernia, so we have to have people owning land over there too, and Mr. President sir, what do you think of the death penalty? Lots of good things actually, old chap, do you read the Bible? In any case, the death penalty was discovered by God and he condemned Adam and his concubine, what was her name again? In any case, the death penalty is for women, and for our part, we’ve replaced it with the male sentence or the sentence of my hernia; it’s more refined, more humane, and that makes one hell of a ruckus, because our civilization is a civilization of ruckus, the modern world is above all about making a ruckus; go ahead, ask your questions, this is a democracy and I’ll answer them. . . . Mr. President sir, who killed Tarsansio Ahendio? Ah, I’m not quite sure: it was either bilharzia or malnutrition, anyway, let’s not worry about our dead buddies: there are still plenty of people alive. Mr. President sir, why do you offer gifts to rich countries?
The Shameful State Page 11