When the Plums Are Ripe

by Patrice Nganang

  His wife didn’t respond immediately. He got up and went looking for her in the back of the house.

  “Bikaï!” his voice echoed again.

  Um Nyobè was amused to see his friend caught in the tentacles of family; his face burst into a broad, toothy grin. He knew something about all that. He thought of his own wife, Martha, and then suddenly, again, of the war. Once back in Yaoundé, he’d be caught up again in that strange war. His time in the village had been a peaceful break, but he couldn’t keep on burying his uncle forever. His bags were already packed and standing there in a corner of the room. This gathering was a farewell, even if it didn’t really feel like one. Except, perhaps, in the eyes of Ngo Bikaï, Fritz’s wife, who quickly popped in and out. Out of habit, they all called her by her maiden name, although she was now over twenty years old and looked like a true matron: rounded features and a calm authority that quickly brought the children to order. It was only when her back was turned that the children had invaded the living room, bringing their loud voices and games with them, and her husband pointed that out, of course.

  “But what were you saying?” Fritz asked, turning back to his friends.

  Um Nyobè was still a bit thunderstruck, as if the noisiest of family scenes couldn’t have kept him from doing something stupid. But it was almost time for him to leave.

  “I have to go.”

  It was true. The news from Yaoundé was rather alarming. The city was preparing for its most unpredictable Fourteenth of July celebration since the French had occupied Cameroon, that is to say, since 1915. It was the sort of event that could make your head spin. And how! History is our one true mistress.

  11

  The Problematic Little Poetry Circle

  Let’s get back to the problematic little poetry circle. Pouka couldn’t stop a certain familiarity from developing among the members of his group and Mininga’s girls. Despite the years he’d spent at the missionary school, he knew that whole chapters of French poetry—and not the least among them—had been written in bordellos. Proximity with vice is the gateway to transcendence, that much he knew. And besides, the little poetry circle, what was it if not a gathering of bohemians? Of course, he had promised Father Jean he wouldn’t read any Communist poets, but what about the depraved ones? Baudelaire, Rimbaud, and even that rascal Verlaine, known as the “prince of poets”—was there any way to do without them? And what about that devil Villon, whose poems were really enticing ballads about fornication? Now, dear reader, you must be thinking, My God, Pouka, why are you burying your head in that weighty tome, the history of French poetry by Lagarde and Michard (the fourth edition, published in 1936) that you use as a prop, when you could be losing your head in the little burning bush of the mistress of the house!

  I know, that’s not quite how you would put it: “burning bush”—what kind of metaphor is that? Besides, Pouka hadn’t yet started calling Mininga “La Seigneuriale”—“Her Ladyship”—but would that have bothered her? He showed up that morning and the words that the women of the place exchanged didn’t help open his eyes!

  “Oh, shush, you stupid fool, you imbouc,” someone said. “Your lake is so full in the morning that whales are swimming in it.”

  “Whales?”

  “You mean sharks!”

  He had no idea that these exchanges were volleys of bullets flying through the morning air. Had Pouka forgotten that duels, the real ones, were held in the morning, when the mist was still rising from the grassy paths? We know that when it comes to this sort of thing, it’s just a question of time—the truth will out. The time was approaching, coming over the green mountains, rousing everything that slept, hurrying people along, knocking on doors still shut: knock, knock, knock! Mininga went to open the door, surprised since people usually didn’t knock at the bar, but just let themselves in. Pouka heard women’s voices outside, some whispers, some shouts, but he didn’t pay much attention. Knock, knock, knock! He paused, but still … Then Mininga came back in the bar, tiptoeing toward him. What she whispered in his ear lit up his face and left his mouth agape; then he asked the question that everyone in the little circle heard.

  “My mother?”

  What on earth is she coming to do here in this bar? That is certainly the question that flashed through his mind as he rushed out into the courtyard where our Sita was waiting for him. Pouka should have slowed down a little, taken a moment to think, strategize, come up with a plan. For when he opened the door, there were four women waiting for him. Hebga’s mother was standing in front, wearing her fighting pagne, her head swathed in her angry scarf, apparently in no hurry to head off to the market as she usually did. Behind her were three women who looked worried, somber even, you could say. He recognized Ngo Bikaï, Fritz’s wife. But it was our Sita who spoke first.

  “Is Bilong here?”

  You can tease history as much as you want, sooner or later it’ll come knocking at your door. Pouka was surprised, but he ought not to have been.

  “Is Bilong here?”

  “Bilong?”

  “He hasn’t come home for three weeks.”

  And Bilong’s mother added her laments to this scene, which was growing more startling by the minute, as the women behind her glared reproachfully.

  “Just what are you doing with my son?” demanded one woman, her head wrapped in an orange floral scarf.

  “Three weeks?”

  Back in the bar, Pouka’s eyes met Bilong’s calm face, surrounded by the knowing smiles of everyone else there. He also saw the face of one of Mininga’s girls peering out from the shadows and realized he was the last to know.

  “Three weeks?”

  “Yes … longer, even.”

  “Let me explain, maestro.”

  Everyone there called him “maestro.” That was the first rule he had set, following Mallarmé’s lead. He was the one giving the orders, strutting around like a giant surrounded by all his little colts. But that morning, faced with those four women, his usually imperious tone cracked. Bilong looked crushed, although it wasn’t clear he thought he was at fault.

  “You owe your mother an explanation.”

  Pouka should have demanded that he do more than that, for who else in Bassa land ever would have had a boy explain himself as punishment? Either he was the maestro, or he wasn’t.

  “Mama, I’m living with a woman.” That’s what Bilong said to his mother. It left her speechless.

  What could Pouka have said after such an admission? The little devil didn’t even have the decency to keep quiet while his mother and everyone else erupted in surprise.

  “You don’t need to worry about me,” he went on, showing the muscles of his arms, his body. “Look, I’m well fed. She makes me breakfast every morning. She makes the most delicious meals for me. I’m eating three times a day—morning, noon, and night. And then at night she—”

  “Shut up right there,” our Sita cut in, “you little shit!”

  Our Sita was so scandalized that she said “little shit” in French. But the boy’s insolent speech couldn’t be derailed that easily; he had clearly run through it several times in his head so he could deliver it with confidence now, knowing it would set off a bomb.

  “Okay,” Bilong went on, trying to ignore the reactions of the women, including his mother, to his speech. “We are living together like man and wife, and of course we’ll soon be married, if that’s what you’re worried about. Nguet is the woman of my life.”

  Nguet, the barmaid.

  “‘The woman of my life’?” screamed Ngo Bikaï, clapping her hands. “‘The woman of my life’!”

  “Do you hear this?” Our Sita called on all the women as witnesses. “Like husband and wife. Just what has gotten into this boy?”

  “‘Like husband and wife,’” another woman repeated.

  “The gentleman is rolling out his best French!” his mother added. “The gentleman is speaking like a white man!” She imitated her son’s voice: “The woman of my life!”

>   “He says that to his mother!”

  “A real piece of work, hmm,” underscored Ngo Bikaï.

  The boy started to say something, perhaps to take back that phrase “the woman of my life.” But mostly because Ngo Bikaï was his older sister and her words covered him in shame.

  “Just shut up, Bilong,” Pouka cut in. “Don’t you see you’re making your mama suffer?”

  “You want to kill our mother, is that it?” Ngo Bikaï added.

  His sister’s suffering came out cloaked in sarcasm.

  “Just tell me, you little know-it-all, do you know what she does for a living, that nyama nyama of yours?” his mother asked.

  Here Ngo Bikaï backed up her mother’s words with her own accusations.

  “Your mamy nyanga?”

  Bilong didn’t say another word, for he hadn’t imagined he’d have to face up to the tyrannical power of a group of women, to his sister’s wide mouth, or answer for his girlfriend’s profession, for that matter. Or rather, yes, he had, but deep down he just really didn’t give a shit about Nguet’s profession.

  “She’s a whore,” Ngo Bikaï declared, and then, as if her brother didn’t understand, she clarified, “a prostitute,” adding “a wolowolos.”

  “I am not a wolowolos.” The words came from the back of the crowd.

  “So what are you, then?” Ngo Bikaï spat back.

  Nguet wanted to answer. Nguet wanted to make her stand. Nguet wanted to defend her honor before those four women from the village. Nguet wanted to do just what all those women were waiting for: start the fight.

  “Just shut your trap, Nguet!”

  That’s when Mininga stepped in, speaking in French. It was the best advice she could give. Fortunately, Nguet stayed out of sight. But Bilong’s mother would have liked to know which girl, yes, which girl it was who had stolen her boy, as she put it. She would have liked to see her, but most of all, she really wanted to do lots of little violent things to her, to that girl, things she didn’t have the words to name.

  “Mouf, aren’t you ashamed?” she asked, speaking to Nguet, although she still couldn’t see her. “He’s just a child, only sixteen!”

  “I’m not a child!”

  Bilong took offense at that. But what he hadn’t yet understood, the women were ready to explain to him.

  “You louse!”

  “Chiendent!” someone exclaimed in French.

  “Individual!”

  “Runt!”

  No one was asking Bilong what he was, they just told him. Yet, believe me, what he wanted most was to tell everyone what he was—not just a grown young man, but a poet. He would have said it with a cocky tilt of his nose, a gesture he had picked up from Pouka, for a poet’s arrogance is a lesson quickly learned. Ah, but not even his maestro Pouka would have laughed had he said such nonsense (and I’m saying “nonsense” euphemistically). No, he’d have given him a slap that would have made the women cheer: “Finally!” “You teach him!” “Show him!” “Thank you!” But here’s what really happened: the peasant woman no longer recognized her child.

  “You are the one who’s come here to ruin our children,” she spat out, pointing at Pouka. “I am going to the police!”

  Pouka raised his hands in a show of innocence. Standing behind his teacher, Bilong shrugged: he knew his father wouldn’t complain; he’d be happy that his youngest was going through that masculine rite of passage. But his comrades had another idea. The members of the little poetry circle had all snuck out during this scene. Each in his own way was trying to put out this early morning fire that was threatening to spread through the bush. Because no one wanted to see the tirailleurs make an appearance. Did anyone not know how violent they were? The Hilun in particular made a real show of diplomacy, trying to quell the women’s rage with flattery, reciting a whole litany of words of gratitude.

  “Ah, kids these days,” he said.

  Pouka realized that in a colony poetry cannot be innocent, but did they need all this brouhaha to make the point? He would have preferred to read about the morning’s surprising twists and turns in the alexandrine verses of a poem—let’s say “Prelude to the Afternoon of a Runt”—but as it happened, he’d been confronted by a mother’s teary face, a furious Sita, and two agitated women. On top of that, there were the faces of the other scandalized women in the back of the bar—because it seemed Mininga was the only one to keep her calm amid the chaos. The poet recalled the words of Um Nyobè: “You are crazy, my dear friend!” What Mininga couldn’t swallow—and Pouka understood this well—was that anyone would call her establishment a … a whorehouse. A cathouse. A den of iniquity. A baisodrome. That, no, she’d never tolerate that, because if it was a baisodrome, then poets wouldn’t come here, would they? Let’s set that aside, shall we, for clearly she didn’t know anything about those French renegades, the poètes maudits.

  12

  A Black Man’s Roll of the Dice Can Abolish History’s Chances

  Let’s move on, for obviously there are more important things to this bit of history than a runt losing his virginity. Pouka was very touched by his group’s esprit de corps. As a result, he gave each of them a nickname drawn from the Parisian poetry circle that had inspired him. Since he really enjoyed being the eccentric of the group, he kept the name of Nerval for himself. As for his fake bard Aloga, who had defended him against the Furies, he dubbed him his Théophile Gautier. The boy with the cat-like head who never spoke and who seemed to have been torn straight from the depths of the jungle was the group’s Philothée O’Neddy, and two others, who still hadn’t done anything to distinguish themselves even after two full months of intensive sessions, became Augustus MacKeat and Xavier Forneret. Bilong was called Charles Lassailly. These names meant nothing to the boy—no more than his mother’s words. He didn’t even ask just who Charles Lassailly was. Pouka didn’t make the members of the circle take any oath, but it was almost as if he had: their new names were proof they belonged to a brotherhood of eccentrics. As for Mininga, who was truly amused by the proceedings, she became La Seigneuriale, a name that certainly did not displease her. Far from it, far from it. There was nothing better than flattery to revive the spirits of this woman who, only minutes before, had been fuming about the uttering of the word “prostitute.”

  But there was another whose name change led to unexpected consequences in Cameroon: Philippe François Marie, comte de Hautecloque, that noble who one day decided he’d henceforth be called François Leclerc, a name so common it could have been found in any phone book in Picardy, his native region. He had already biked across occupied France disguised as a monk, then swum the English Channel, and, once in London, shaken the hand of General de Gaulle, who made him his right-hand man. This time the limping officer and his friends had arrived in Douala in a pirogue, but his cane was not just a joke, and much less so his broken foot. Still, luck was with him; he arrived on the shores of the Wouri River and on the streets of Douala just when the troops led by Captain Louis Dio—let’s inscribe that name, lest he be forgotten—found themselves on a forced vacation; they’d crossed the whole length of Cameroon only to realize that France was done for. Some traces of the celebration of the Fourteenth of July, 1940, were still hanging in the trees, sad symbols of the republic’s collapse: colored light bulbs left dangling on the walls, even if no one remembered that there had been a ball.

  Ah yes, the war was full of uncertainties, including the one that had forced Captain Dio’s tirailleurs to hunker down for winter in Douala, where they’d been for the past month without getting any clear orders from Faya-Largeau, their command post in Chad. Life in the territory had grown elastic—such a strange war!—but Captain Dio was used to the flexibility of the colonies; he had twelve years in Africa under his belt. Still, when a telegram asked him to put himself and his men at the service of a squadron leader named Leclerc, he jumped.

  Just who is this Leclerc? he wondered.

  He had never met him, not in the whorehouses of Douala o
r in the barracks, where nobody else seemed to have heard of him, either. Dio hadn’t yet realized that he had been put under the orders of a soldier of the same rank as himself. Later, when he found out, he was sitting in the trenches in Tibesti, Italian bullets whistling overhead, an old machine gun from the Great War in his hands. Then he really felt like laughing, especially since the soldier in question had a limp, to boot.

  The telegram that he had received and that put him under Leclerc’s orders was, first and foremost, the solution to a problem that a soldier like Captain Dio could never understand, although it was in fact quite straightforward. For Dio’s boss, Félix Éboué, the governor of Chad, it was impossible to both be black and support Vichy. It was one or the other, never both. He had no choice about being black, but as for supporting Vichy … Éboué’s crisis of conscience had immediate consequences, for it placed under General de Gaulle’s orders the military base of Faya-Largeau, one of the five bases that girded French Africa, and one of the most important militarily, because it was located at its center and heart. Éboué’s decision also had global consequences, for it opened up an African front against one of the Axis forces, Italy. If you want to talk about a roll of the dice abolishing history’s chances, this really was one.

  Éboué had written the letter announcing that he had rallied to the Resistance by hand, on the back of the racist letter he had received the day before from the Italian authorities in Libya, with which Chad shared its northern border. That letter that was addressed—no joke—“To His Excellence É—Boué” (a spelling that, in French, turned his name into mud). The immediate result of that racist taunt was that the first squadron of the Free French forces was comprised of black soldiers, under the direction of a black man. Yes, because the racists from Berlin, Paris, and Rome who sought to dominate the world had written one letter too many. Your Excellency, the perfidious letter began—and I would like to quote it in its entirety: