Kannjawou

  THE NEXT DAY, THERE WAS A MEETING WITH THE DIRECTORS OF THE SCHOOL AND SEVERAL STUDENTS. It was custom-ary to organize a ceremony to pay homage to deceased professors. But the problem was that there wasn’t any body left to display, and we couldn’t categorize the little professor’s death in a desirable way, like an act of heroism or an accident. The experts had concluded that it was deliberate. A student who called himself a militant suggested that, according to a Marxist vision of things, we had the right—even the duty—to consider his death revolutionary symbolism. It could be said that the little professor, a citizen fired up with patriotic feelings, hadn’t been able to bear the weak Occupation to which all of the leading bodies of our country have submitted. We could remember that during the first Occupation, a poet had done the same thing. I was opposed to this idea. The professors, too. And other students. We didn’t have any proof that he had wanted to end his life. I hadn’t responded to the question, “Did he commit suicide?” He hadn’t confided in me, and given how astray the Occupiers’ analyses and suggestions often led us, foolish was anyone who trusted the so-called experts. The little professor’s death was a matter to be kept between him and Burial Street. I refused to talk about it with strangers. I had spent the previous night at Mam Jeanne’s. On the balcony. “The worst part isn’t the fire. The fire wasn’t anything but the official end and physical pain. He had been dead for a long time. Inside. Where it hurts the most. It took courage for him to hold on.” Mam Jeanne’s words didn’t console me. Was she trying to? Mam Jeanne doesn’t know how to console. How to love, yes, of course. I think there have been a lot of men in her life. Many gestures of affection, towards her lovers, her friends, people in general. But consolation isn’t her strong suit. Face it. She respects Sophonie. But to her, Joëlle is “a precious little thing, nothing more.” Mam Jeanne doesn’t forgive misfortune, either. And she only loves the just. Being just isn’t an easy thing. We aren’t taught how… Popol and Sophonie hadn’t come looking for me. How could I see Sophonie without seeing a little bit of Joëlle in her? And I’ve never wanted to talk about my feelings in the presence of my brother. It’s been that way since childhood. I suspected that they, too, were suffering. It’s not always helpful to bring people’s pain and bitterness together. That’s what Wodné’s gang does. But is pain the best connection you can form with others? Collective pain is a terrible force, and when it causes you to take action, nothing can stop you. On my mattress on the floor on Mam Jeanne’s balcony, I wept for the little professor’s death, alone. I relived the moments that we had spent together. Including the night when he had invited us to go dancing at the little bar on Acacia Street. We had danced. The girls had been so beautiful. He hadn’t wanted to dance. He said, laughing, that he liked watching the women dance too much, and anyway he had two left feet. Joëlle had dragged him out. Love can do anything. Between two dances we had talked about liberty, about love. The girls were so beautiful. He stayed at the table from time to time, watching Joëlle move, with a gaze so wide it could have included us all. A sleepless night while reliving all of that. And Mam Jeanne’s regular snoring, her cat scratching me from time to time to show her displeasure at my having taken her usual spot. And the noise of the pickaxes and shovels of Halefort’s gang. And Mam Jeanne’s song. They go, go, go this way… And me wondering—when you’re in pain you have the right to ask stupid questions—three little turns and then…if the song also applies to those who don’t dance.

  THE CEREMONY TOOK PLACE. Popol, Sophonie and I didn’t go. We took public transportation to the Côte des Arcadins instead, and at the public beach I threw the handful of ashes that I had collected from the ruins of the house into the water. We walked along the coast, trampling over the sand at several private beaches. People watched us with curiosity from their chaises longues. Even walking on the sand can be considered an intrusion. Noise from parties to which people from the public beach weren’t invited floated out from inside the villas. Rich people don’t have a kannjawou culture. Except when they marry their children off and invite all their kind to the party. Who in turn invite them to an even grander wedding. Competition and one-upping. One day, you’ll see it on a box of invitations: Come see how much more successful my party will be than yours. More guests. More money.

  Private beaches. Second homes. Grand hotels. Lying on the beach in front of the grand hotels were happy people speaking in foreign languages. How different things can become in just a few meters, even the blue of the sea. The bottom of the sea, too. It’s rocky here. Thistles and algae. Soft over there, where fishermen and residents are paid to remove everything that might cause injury. The rich people’s sea. The occupiers’ sea. And ours. Even if it’s not always easy to distinguish rich people from poor ones. Ever since he became an interpreter, Victor earns more than the little professor did. His first trip confirmed that. Others will follow. And in ten years, Victor will be an expert himself and he’ll travel from one country to the next, or he’ll become a minister or a people’s deputy. And maybe his daughter will marry the grandson of Monsieur Vallières.

  WE TURNED BACK AND RETURNED TO THE CHAOS OF THE PUBLIC BEACH. To the noise of a thousand radios and electronic instruments hissing a thousand songs, drowning out all the other voices and preventing conversation. To the imported chickens, cooked and reheated in oil that had already been used a hundred times. To the reeking toilets overflowing with shit, as a line of people indifferent to the smell waited outside. Mockery. As the famous song written by a surveyor who was excommunicated for blasphemy goes, the rich have their beaches, the poor have theirs. The rich have their loves, the poor have theirs. The rich have their gods, the poor have theirs. These types of contrasts are what create Wodnés. The glasses on the private beaches and the plastic cups on the public beach. The little glossy-paper girls who already swim like mermaids because they learned so early, who have taken dance classes, music classes, swimming classes after the dance classes, deportment and prejudice classes before the other classes. The children at the public beach who are seeing the sea for the first time don’t really see it, because there are too many people and too much garbage in the water. And then it’s not even pleasant, the sea, it doesn’t feel good. Most of the children of Burial Street have never seen the sea. Nor have their parents. Nor will their children, when they have children. Unless they follow in Victor’s footsteps. We looked for the place that was furthest away from the din, with the least amount of garbage, and when we found it Popol and Sophonie went into the water. They embraced for a few moments. Then Sophonie swam far away, alone. She learned by herself. Like all of us. When the gang of five would go find a bit of sea on Sundays to escape from our dead neighbors. Wodné, who didn’t know how to swim any better than the rest of us, would play at being instructor, and Joëlle let herself be impressed. Sophonie followed her own instructions and found her own way of doing it. At first, it scared us when she would swim far away, becoming just a little dot. But then we got used to seeing her return exhausted but calm. Joëlle learned to follow her sister. It was nice to see them leave together and return together afterwards. Had the little professor picked the wrong sister? Sophonie would go far away from us, but she always returned. Popol came and sat down next to me. Maybe he, too, was thinking about that time, where the future seemed like it could hold nothing but victory over misfortune. That time when we were proud of what we would become. Who are we and what have we done? He laid a hand on my shoulder and told me that he was going to take charge of the Cultural Center. It was the only good news I’d heard in a long time.

  AT THE CENTER, IT WAS ANNOUNCED THAT PIERRE LAVENTURE WAS COMING TO VISIT. The news spread. Young people and students came from all over the city to listen to him. Monsieur Laventure isn’t his real name. Everyone, or almost everyone, has forgotten his real name. He’s not a man, he’s a legend. When he was young, he went abroad on a scholarship, but abandoned his studies to return home secretly. With a new identity. Those were hard years, Mam Jeanne tells us often. �
�I saw many young men die who had abandoned their families, their studies, their comfort, to go fight.” Under multiple false aliases, Monsieur Laventure had worked as a farmhand in the construction industry, going wherever leaders and fighters were needed. He had cut cane with immigrants from the other side of the border and taken part in several dramatic operations to sow fear in the military camps. He had been captured twice and forced to undergo all sorts of experimental torture. Ever since the fall of the dictatorship, he was known to be working on reigniting workers’ movements in the free zones established by the authorities of the occupiers’ committee. And in rural areas. With a man like that, his life isn’t a real life, it’s an ideal. The only way not to admire him is to tell yourself that all human actions are motivated by the pleasure principle. But even if that were true, Mam Jeanne has the right to decide which applications of the pleasure principle deserve a dumping of cat piss on the head and which ones merit a bow to such a good person. We all decide. We students had decided that this man was a hero. Even Wodné’s gang, who can’t live without saying bad things about other people and who think that the world begins and ends with them. In this, they’re not very different from the customers at Kannjawou. All roads lead to them. The old man arrived, accompanied by a beefy guy who was much younger than he was. In the end, heros are very simple people. You can’t recognize them from the way they walk. He didn’t talk about how he had sacrificed his youth, or say that the only reason we were allowed to speak up was because others before us had fought, often losing, winning a little bit. He said, quite simply, that the little professor had been a comrade-in-arms who had been an immense help to him personally and who had done a lot for the movement. His friend. His companion. He was proud to have contributed to his development. The little professor hadn’t left without leaving anything behind. He had worked for a long time on a history of the left and of progressive movements. The conquests. The mistakes. He had gone often to the Center. Because of this, the old man thought that we had the right to know. The children most of all. He had known him when the little professor was quite young and was just starting out as a teacher. The little professor—he, too, had called him that—had come to him and asked him a single question: “How can I be useful?” He had responded that he was already useful, thanks to his profession. And the little professor had smiled: “You can never be useful enough.” The old man wanted just to say that to us. He excused himself for having taken up our time, and to not be able to or want to get into any of the details. A rebel in the audience shouted out that suicide is always cowardly, that a militant never abandons the fight. The old man got up. He walked calmly towards the loudmouth. The beefy guy tried to follow him. The old man signaled to him to stay where he was. He placed a hand on the shoulder of the hothead. “You know how you become a miltant? You have to start by being human. And when a human talks about others, he does so with forgiveness.”

  I DIDN’T GO WITH POPOL ON WEDNESDAY. Joëlle wanted to see me so that we could talk. I told her we could meet at the Champ-de-Mars, where people selling beer, strong liquor, and roast chickens had set up kiosks and chairs. At the massive outside bar at the Place des Héros. She arrived, wearing the dress that she had worn when the little professor had invited the four of us out. The five of us. But Wodné had said no. It’s true that she can be very beautiful. Or pretty. I don’t quite understand the difference. But at first glance, she’s more attractive than Sophonie. There’s something in her eyes. Like a moon. A daydream. I offered her a beer, which she refused at first. Meanly, I told her that her master, who never drank alcohol, wasn’t there. Was she so well trained that she felt obliged to obey his instructions even in his absence? I wanted to spit my anger at her to make her feel angry, too. But there was no anger. She spoke in a low, flat, weak voice. “I don’t know why I do or don’t do things. In the beginning, with Wodné, I really believed that we were going to change the world, to make flowers grow on Burial Street, to create justice. I believed it. Or I pretended to believe it. And nothing could come between us. Nothing. Neither people nor things. I don’t know anymore what I believe in. Surely nothing. But we hang on to what we believe we have, to the habits that have become second nature. I know you hate Wodné. I do too, sometimes. I know also that you don’t trust me. In your eyes, Sophonie is the heroine. The one who sacrified herself for her little sister, for her father. The one who never asks for anything. Who doesn’t get angry. Who doesn’t whine. Not even to herself. I know that I can never repay my debt to her. Jacques wanted to give. And I didn’t know how to take, because I didn’t know how to pay it back. Wodné was scared. I give him courage for his fear, and then I don’t have to pay him back. He’s always been scared. When the storm caught us in the cemetery, he didn’t show you all how scared he was. But he admitted it to me. When you’re afraid, you must rule. So he wants to rule. Over me. Over the Center. Over the street. And when Jacques arrived, he was even more scared than he was the day of the storm at the cemetery. As for me, I didn’t know how to accept the gift of tenderness from somewhere else. And Wodné and his friends kept saying: don’t go. Why would he love you? Why would he love us? Life is street versus street, neighborhood versus neighborhood. I chose their fear. Out of laziness. Out of habit. You think that I’m Wodné’s servant. You’re wrong. It’s Burial Street that’s the master of both of us. Anything that doesn’t belong to it doesn’t belong to us. There are so many things that separate people that the abolishment of borders has become the very essence of our fear. I know that you’ll never forgive me for Jacques’ death. I don’t know if I’ll ever forgive myself. I envy you both. You exist. For you, novels are your refuge. For Wodné, the street is his kingdom. And I’m part of that kingdom. As for me, I’m a coward. Sophonie and Popol have strength. Naturally. I don’t know how to exist here. On Burial Street there will always be the same things, the same life. Jeanne and her cat. Hopes that lead to lies. The great cemetery and the funeral processions. The living who resemble the dead. I want to leave, to see somewhere else. To free myself from all of this. From your reproach. From Wodné’s fears. From the emptiness inside me. From this country. It’s not ours any longer, this country, not in any way. Before, it was our shit. Now, others come to add their shit to it, too, planting their flags, drawing up plans. One day, you’ll see, they’ll even tell us where to bury our dead. I don’t know how to exist here. So I let things be and don’t make decisions. One day I’ll go somewhere else and I’ll exist. Maybe.” She accepted the beer, and after the first sip, said, “I didn’t know about Jacques. I didn’t think he was suffering so much.” I didn’t ask her what she would have done if she had known. If she remembered the time when she had said, “It’s not good to be afraid.” The day when she had made us see, touch, feel, the middle of the wind. Silence between us. Other voices filling the night. The despair of an old man who’s been cheated on for the umpteenth time by his umpteenth spouse. “Go on. I’ll buy the first round. At your age you should know that you weren’t made to meet faithful women. And anyway, why would a woman only do it with you?” A preacher reading from the Book of Judges: “Then he made him that remaineth have dominion over the nobles among the people: the Lord made me have dominion over the mighty.” A prostitute interrupting his sermon, shouting at him, “Oh it is you, I remember your face. Your prick, too. Last time you left without paying. Well, it’s never too late to make up for it.” The preacher pretended not to hear her, continued: “So let all thine enemies perish, O Lord: but let them that love him be as the sun when he goeth forth in his might.” And the prostitute: “You, Lord’s friend, I want my money.” The preacher turning towards her: “Vade retro, Satana.” And the food vendors and their customers, choosing sides: “He’s lying.” “No, she’s the one who’s lying.” And the armored vehicles of the Occupation forces doing their useless rounds. “What do you think he would have liked?” It took a minute for me to understand the question. I watched the vehicles pass. “For you to dance. At least, I think so.” “Then
let’s go.” We went to the bar the little professor had invited us to. I’m also clumsy. I tried, just as he—the man I wanted to call my teacher, although I don’t know if I learned anything from him—would no doubt have done. We also tried to speak a bit about our respective thesis projects. Why did she talk about hers so little? It wasn’t that she didn’t have any ideas, but she was always with people who spoke constantly, so she just let them talk. We stayed for half an hour. We knew that the minutes would tick by, threatening the magic. We left the bar. Wodné was outside. She went up to him and slapped him, yelling, “But I asked you not to follow me.” Then they left together. I wandered off towards some unfamiliar neighborhoods. The city is big, and I’d like to believe that it belongs to me.