Fools, Thieves, and Other Dreamers: Stories from Francophone Africa

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fools, Thieves and other Dreamers

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Fools, Thieoes and other Dreamers

Stories from Francophone Africa

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Published by Weaver Press, Box 1922, Avondale, Harare. 2001

This collection © Weaver Press, Harare. 2001

Each story © the author. 2001 Translations © The Dept of M odem Languages, University of Zimbabwe ‘The Fools’ Gallery’ by Abdourahman Ali Waberi is taken from Le Fays Sans Ombre and ‘Small Hells on Street Com ers’ by Florent Couao-Zotti is taken from L’homme dit Fbu et le Mauims Foi des Hommes. Both short story collections were published by Le Serpent k Plumes, Paris; in 1994 and 2000 respectively. We are grateful to them for giving us permission to translate and publish these two stories. The initiative for this collection and the support of this publication came from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Embassy of France, Harare.

Typeset by Inkspots Pvt Ltd, Harare. Cover Design: Inkspots Pvt Ltd, Harare. Printed in Zimbabwe by: MG Printers, Ruwa.

All rights reserved. No part of the publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise - without the express written permission of the publisher.

ISBN: 0-7974-2306-0

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A bdourahm an Ali W abcri was bom in 1965 in Djibouti. In 1985 he left the Horn of Africa to pursue his studies in France, where he now lives, working as a teacher, journalist, essayist, poet, writer, and literary consultant in African and Black literatures for the French publishing house, Le Serpent k Humes. In 1994, he published his first volume of award-winning short stories, Le Fbys Sans Ombre (Land without Shadows) from which ‘The Fools’ Gallery’ is taken. In 1996, the Association of French-speaking Writers awarded him the Grand Prix Litt£raire d’Afrique Noir for his second collection of stories, Cahier Nomade (Notebook of a Nomad). His first novel, Balbal (Paris 1997) concluded his trilogy on the theme of his native country. His work of fiction Moisson de Cranes (Harvest of Skulls) (Paris 2000) is part of the project: Rwanda: ficrire par Devoir de M^moire, initiat­ ed by Fest’Africa. Florent Couoa-Zotti was bom in Benin in 1964. He lives and teach­ es in Cotonou, the city’s downtown life is the inspiration for most of his short stories. His first novel, Notre Run de Chaque Nuit (Our Nightly Bread) was published in 1998. It was followed in 2000 by his first volume of short stories, LHornme dit Fou and la Mauvaise Foi des Hommes (The So-called Fool and the Dishonesty of Mankind) from which ‘Small Hells on Street Comers’ has been taken. CouoaZotti is also the author of several plays. Seydi Sow is a prolific young author from Senegal who has been publishing novels and short stories since 1997. His novel Las Reine des Sorders (The Queen of the Wizards) won him the Grand Prix of the President of the Republic for Arts and Literature. His fable, Au Fond d'ttn Puits (From the Depths of a Well) is one of his most recent works and is first published in this collection.

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The Translation Project

2001

In 2001, the Zimbabwe International Book Fair (ZIBF) has Francophone Africa as its featured territory, and Senegal as its coun­ try of emphasis. When representatives of the French Embassy and the ZIBF first met to discuss the fair’s focus, the main question was: how can an interest in Francophone literature be developed and sus­ tained in an Anglophone environment? By way of reply, it was suggested that selected stories from Francophone authors be translated into English and published in Zimbabwe. It was felt that such translations would promote lively debate around contemporary Francophone writing and perception, make the work of writers more accessible, and strengthen the possi­ bilities for cultural exchange between Anglophone and Francophone Africa, which is one of the main endeavours of French cultural pol­ icy in Africa. An agreement was made between the French Embassy and the Department of Modem Languages at the University of Zimbabwe (UZ) and three lecturers undertook the translations assisted by nine­ teen students (see Appendix). Their achievement is plain for all to see in this publication, Fools, Thieves and other Dreamers. In addition, the three authors represented in this collection now form part of the French syllabus at UZ. ■*sfcvii^

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The Embassy of France is gratified to have fulfilled its objectives of promoting French and Francophone literature and culture, encouraging cultural exchange in a number of different areas and worked in partnership with local academics, students, publishers and the ZIBF. It is to be hoped that this project will be the first of many and, the translation, publication and promotion of books from Francophone Africa, will lead to greater understanding and amity across the con­ tinent.

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jjSl C o n t e n t s &x

From the Depths of a Well

1

Seydi Sow

Small Hells on Street Comers

11

Florent Couao-Zotti

The Fools’ Gallery

31

Abdourahman Ali Waberi

Appendix: List of participants

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x& V yow\ the Depths o f a

Well &*

Seydi Sow Translated by students studying French at the University of Zimbabwe

The Hue men had come to the same conclusion: if they did not quick­ ly find a solution to their fate, they were going to die at the bottom of the well. They were wrapped in a heavy silence bom of their adversity. It had been two days since they had fallen into this damned hole. They had tried to pull themselves out by all possible means, but the smooth walls made it impossible for them to reach the edge of the coping. The well was deep, and those who had dug it had cemented it smoothly right down to a couple of centimetres from the bottom. The pit of the well was covered with twigs and thorny scrub that hurt the five men, splintering their skin if they made the slightest movement; and they could smell the carcasses of small animals that had died after falling into this trap. At first they had shouted in unison, hoping that their voices would alert passers-by although they knew that the well had been drilled in a desolate area and abandoned long ago. They had to find another way to avoid being buried alive. The heat emanating from the ground made the atmosphere stuffy and oppressive. In order to

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feel more comfortable they had been forced to take off their clothes, but still thirst parched their throats. Crouched at the bottom of this pitiless lair, the five men were on the verge of despair; they knew they could not count on outside help. A sense of suffocation compressed their hearts, increasing their anguish and sense of helplessness. The five men all knew that by climbing on each others’ shoulders, one of them could escape and seek help. But the fate of the others would be irretrievably linked to his person, as none of those remaining would be able to reach the top using the same stratagem. The men, with no alternative before them, sized each other up to see in whom they could place the hopes of the whole group. They knew each other, of course. They knew that they had amongst them a judge, a Member of Parliament, a minister, a journalist and a sim­ ple citizen. This information in itself, however, seemed inadequate for them to place the hopes of the whole group in one man, without taking the precaution of obtaining from him a firm guarantee that once he was out of the well, he would return without delay to liber­ ate them. If they ignored what had led them towards this desolate, rarely frequented area, where they were going, and how they had fallen into the well, they should be able to identify who was most worthy of their trust. They could not afford to make a mistake. It was a question of living or dying.

The heat in the well had increased making it steadily more difficult for them to breathe. They no longer dared to raise their heads towards the opening of the well. The sun’s rays entering obliquely made the walls gleam to one side and the patches of light revealed the exact outlines of a continent: their own. They needed to move fast to select the person who, climbing on their shoulders, would escape this terrible prison and find help. The first of the five to address the group was a podgy man with a very affected manner and a soft, hypnotic voice. His whole person exuded a sleek charm.

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‘I am a Member of Parliament,’ he began in the polished language that politicians know so well. ‘You know me, I am one of you, and you gave me your vote. You can, therefore, entrust your fate to me with complete peace of mind. Help me get out and I promise that I will bring you help immediately.’ But the remainder of the group looked at each other, and they shared the same impulse: rejection. They gave the disappointed Member of Parliament the following answer: ‘Mister MP, yesterday when you wanted our votes, you came as a wolf in sheep’s clothing, and here you are, still the same. And you won’t be able to do this again, in this hot, suffocating place!’ ‘Gentlemen,’ replied the Member of Parliament, who wanted to convince his audience at all costs, ‘The promises that I have made you, are made in the firm belief that you would take them for what they are: electoral promises ...’ ‘All the more reason not to put our lives in your hands. You have mastered the art of deceiving the she-goat with an empty calabash. Today, it is no longer a question of selling illusions about a hypo­ thetical. ‘better tomorrow’; it is simply a question of survival. We must place our fate in reliable hands.’ ‘Think again, I am your MP! No one in this trying situation deserves your trust more than I.’ ‘It’s true that you were our M P on your journey to Parliament, but you stopped representing our interests as soon as you got there.’ ‘How can we trust an elected M P who no longer passes laws for the good of his people but only for the pleasure of his master?’ added an anonymous voice. Sad and miserable at having been rejected by his companions, the MP curled up among the thorns.

Hour after hour went by. The silence in the well was heavy and oppressive. They knew that only they could help themselves: but in whom should they put their trust?

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The next to speak was the one who bore all the aspects of a min­ ister; he announced himself by clearing his throat. He gave a speech, similar to that of the MP: ‘I am your Minister. In other words, I am the one in whom you entrust power and who governs the city. You know me. I do not usu­ ally make vain promises. You must believe what I tell you: I shall save you! Just help me to get out of this well.’ The one who called himself a minister had already adopted the haughty attitude of men accustomed to giving orders. Throwing out his chest and squaring his shoulders, he awaited an answer from his companions in misfortune: his hard, inflexible eyes stared at them each in turn. His arrogant bearing and his determination to impose himself on them could clearly be seen. But once again, the others looked at each other, revealing their distrust of the minister. One man, expressing everybody’s single thought, said: ‘The only thing we can be sure of, Mister Minister, is that once you are outside, you will be swept up in the fierce desire to manifest your power and play your role as a ruler, and you will not remem­ ber us - poor citizens that we are.’ ‘T hat’s not true! Once I am out of this well, I will not allow myself to forget that you were the architects of my fate and that thanks to you I can get drunk on sunshine. I swear I will not forget you in this hole.’ ‘Princes cannot be traitors, since they cannot be held responsible for promises they make to the common people. O f all of us, you are the greatest dreamer. Now you are far removed from the symbols of office,and so you speak to us as a human being; but once the scep­ tre is again in your hands, the exercise of power will make you for­ get that your journey to freedom began with our efforts. As a ‘states­ man’ you will not remember how to bend to the memory of a few poor fellows at the bottom of a well.’ ‘He will bury us on the third day of his reign in order to wipe from his memory the image of our crucified forms and conceal our tortured voices for ever,’ said somebody.

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‘A nd he will pass laws forbidding anybody to evoke our memo­ ry,’ said somebody else. The minister fell silent, deeply disappointed by the refusal of his companions to designate him their ‘saviour’. He had approached them with the deeply held conviction that power never stopped shin­ ing on the person who had to wear the mantle of office. He had learnt at his own expense that the splendour of the throne does not shine beyond the palace. This glamour that feeds the majesty of princes is bom of daily exposure to that vital substance: power. Far removed from the royal milieu, having unfortunately fallen into a well, he had also lost the opportunity to renew his gloss. The min­ ister tried to remember his own name to more easily rid himself of the trappings of office, which only lent unnecessary weight to his shoulders. Strange is the fate of princes these days! He seemed sadder than the Member of Parliament as he shrank into the confined space. He tried to make himself invisible.

It was now the journalist’s turn. He was proud to be the spokesman of his people and the barometer of the democracy of his country. He gave his personal particulars in a loud voice. There was absolutely no doubt in his own mind that his companions would be happy to give him credit for his sincere intentions. Was he not the most neu­ tral of the group, the one who was an equal distance from all of them? Day after day he had faithfully reported on other people’s actions, without hesitating to denounce certain faults. They would, without delay, get him out of this damned well, as he was certainly the most capable of keeping his word and of quickly finding help. ‘Through my writing, I have so often denounced your misery,’ he said, the better to sway his companions to make him their choice. ‘Side by side with you I have always fought against injustice and barbarity. By sounding out your opinion I have tried to sketch the ideal society that you dream of. Today I can be your saviour. Contrary to all his expectations, they refused him, replying in the following way:

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‘It is true that if there is no burning issue at stake, you will train the spotlight on us and thereby arouse a keen interest on the part of the people which will lead to our liberation. For, at that moment, we will be your only means of support. But how can you prove to us that cur­ rently the world is without stir: that there is no important military coup in the offing, no genocide in some part of this world, no horrifying nat­ ural disaster, no nations tearing each other apart to the sound of can­ nons and rifles? If such a case should arise, it will too late for us: even before you remember our misery, trapped in this pit, our bones at the bottom of this well will have bleached white a thousand times over.’ ‘W hat are you talking about? You can rest assured that no event could be more important than the tragedy that you are now living through!’ ‘We can clearly see the extent to which you have distanced your­ self from your own breeding ground: the daily preoccupations of the human condition, the agitation of life, the commerce of daily exis­ tence. You forget that whether you like it or not, you are the rider of a mount whose reins you do not hold. And your steed rides fast, Mister Journalist!’ ‘Then we are all going to die in this well,’ cried out the journalist. ‘No one will come to our aid. It is up to us to save ourselves. You have to understand that we have all been betrayed by those who led us into these paths, long since abandoned, and who pushed us into this well. If we do not come to an understanding, we will die here! Now, we have dismissed the M P ...’ ‘Because he once forgot us: we who elected him. If he escapes from this well, he could well forget us again!’ ‘We have also dismissed the minister ...’ ‘Not long ago he ignored our suffering. If he is freed from this trap through our endeavours, he will take up his favourite pursuit again and govern by any means possible!’ ‘A nd what about me? W hy do you reject me? I am your last chance, precisely because I live off your misery. How can I forget about those remaining in the well, as your misery will always be my source of income!’

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‘You have just expressed the very reasons for our fear. Yes, Mister Journalist, we are afraid that our misfortune is of little significance to the world and will, therefore, force you to turn away from it. You sell sensadonal, hitherto unpublished material. The ideas that you advo­ cate are those that bring you large returns. Our imprisoned carcass­ es will only be of interest to you if they are of interest to the world.’ Baffled, the journalist observed his companions. Their thoughts about his professional activities wounded him, though all in all gave a new dimension to his philosophy as a man of action. By pointing his camera at the hunger and misery of people, by dedicating his quill to democracy and justice, he looked, above all, like a vulture. In his approach, nothing justified the human ingredient, although he fought for it, he simply became an ideas machine. He was putting his finger into the wound, exploring it deeper, squeezing it hard to remove all the pus; but, without any intention of healing it, he only helped to further its existence. As a result this wound interested him only because it gave him the power to shake up the world. If humankind turned away from his story or just did not care, the wound might go gangrenous, but that was no longer his business. His friends were right to be cautious. Too often he had aligned himself to the prince, so that he could better establish his domina­ tion of the people. It was true, he was not able to run about in search of the sensational, while at the same time returning to reach down to the bottom of the well and lend a helping hand to the miserable shreds of humanity who had lost their way. However, he was the most lucid of the group and so he felt he really deserved to be their saviour. m i After the journalist had spoken, a sense of indedsiveness prevailed as if no one dared to volunteer again. The sun had abandoned the top of the well, and the growing shade accentuated the darkness of their hole without easing their plight. The slight breeze which had arisen at the earth’s surface blew dust, twigs and small stones at them, the first spadeful of their burial earth: death would not be long

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in coming if they did not succeed in finding a solution to their wretched fate. Night was falling. The darkness made them feel the appalling anguish of their approaching end, and slowly their strength and will deserted them. Were they condemned to die this way? Wisely, the judge had hardly opened his mouth. He had let the others volunteer. But seeing that nobody had succeeded in crystal­ lizing the hopes of the group’s survival, he also addressed the assem­ bly in order to offer his services. The judge promised, hand on heart, that nothing, absolutely nothing, could prevent him from coming back to liberate them once he was out of the well. Moreover, he was a believer in truth and unable to act treacherously. They might confidently place their fate in his hands. ‘We have always been afraid of your justice,’ they confessed to him. ‘W hy?’ stammered the judge, surprised by the violence of this statement. ‘It is slow, painful, torturous and heavy.’ ‘All the same, you have no reason to be afraid. I am telling you that I will liberate you.’ ‘Certainly you will come and help us escape the certain death that awaits us ...’ ‘So, get ready to enable me to climb on your shoulders and reach the coping of the well. Time is running out.’ ‘Time is running out, indeed, but tell us now, man of justice, which one of us will you pull out first when you return to rescue us!’ The judge hesitated. Then someone answered him: ‘It is from such hesitation that our misery will stem. The time that it will take you to solve this dilemma, which you will see as your own, will be more than enough for us die at the bottom of this dun­ geon.’ Despite his companions’ refusal, the judge did not declare himself defeated. Deep down he continued to ask himself which one amongst them should get out first. Was it the minister, the MP, the

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journalist or the simple citizen? Perhaps it ought to be the citizen. Did the life of the city state did not work solely towards the benefit of his happiness? Are not all these men at the bottom of this well on his payroll? The judge was about to answer the question that he had been asking himself, when he realized that it was too late. He was, from henceforth, debarred from speaking. Someone else had replaced him and was now trying to focus the choice on his person.

With limbs stiff from standing up for so long in the narrow well, the citizen, the last member of the group, spoke up, rather casually: ‘You recognize me, I am the citizen. I let you all speak, since I thought that it was your job to resolve this difficult problem for me. You all had the duty of looking after my well-being without my being obliged to involve myself. Is it not for this reason that I elect­ ed you, Mister MP, gave you the power, Mister Minister? And have I not asked you Mister Judge to dispense justice in my name? As for you, MisterJournalist, you were assigned to report the events of my time. You can all, therefore, understand the importance that I hold in the heart of your group. I am your priority and it is your duty to get me out of this well. In return, I will not fail to res­ cue you, since I have an essential need of you.’ The others looked at each other, sharing the same thought. T o tell the truth,’ he was told, ‘amongst all of us, you are the most capable of forgetting about us. For the citizen that you are has never had any sense of civil duty. It is gready to be feared that our survival means so little to you, seeing how little value you place on institu­ tions, on symbols, and on all that gives the nation its greatness.’ ‘I will restore the greatness of the nation! I will raise to the high­ est level the sense of my responsibilities. Trust me, I will hence­ forth refuse to be the nation’s grave-digger. I will no longer praise the despots, acclaim the demagogues or congratulate incapable rulers.’

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‘Your words arc still guided by fear, Mister Citizen. You have always allowed yourself to be manipulated by the forces of evil pro­ moted by shameful interests. Never have you given enough thought to issues; also, you have always been quick to defend yourself.’ ‘I am through with that, Gentlemen. I am done with the reign of the enslaved, television-guided conscience. A new citizen will emerge from this well, capable of taking his destiny in his own hands. Just help me to get out and I will prove to you that I have truly changed.’ ‘It is too late, Mister Citizen. You should have set an example yes­ terday. Had you done so, we would have nominated you our sav­ iour without preamble or delay. Alas ...’ ‘Remember that you are useful to me and that I would be inca­ pable of forgetting you.’ ‘Nothing will prevent you from choosing others in our place. The apocalypse has arrived, but you are not our saviour!’ The citizen was forced to remain silent. At this moment they all understood that because they could not make a choice, they were now condemned to die. There was no one to represent the hope of the group or act in the name of the general interest. Foolishly, they again started to hope for possible help from outside. And yet their saviour certainly stood amongst them.

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xA Small Hells

onStreet Comers e* Florent Couao-Zotti

Translated by Tava Gwanzura and Veronique Wakerley

A Uue and cry breaks out, a loud and ragged shout of protest. In the distance voices echo followed by a nervous half-lyrical, half-aggres­ sive chorus. But it actually isn't a song. ‘Hey! Hey!’ In spite of the vehicles backfiring in a nearby street and the deaf­ ening hubbub of the market, voices joined together - harsh, sharp and passionate - rising to a crescendo and overwhelming everything before gradually fading away over the heads of crowd. Vendors and customers immediately took up the refrain, but this time with an extra large dose of excitement. The alarm had been given: ‘Hey! Hey!’ ‘Stop thief! Stop thief!’ All around fingers pointed in the same direction towards a frail small stick-like figure; a child, it was a child! ‘Hey! Hey!’ ‘Stop him!’ 11

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He sped along like a tennis ball, running, jumping over obstacles, jostling female vendors and customers, stepping on everything that his little twig-like legs couldn’t avoid. He ran with increasing speed, fearless as an arrow. ‘Hey! Hey!’ The market was like some sort of monster, its insides continu­ ously churning, writhing, knotting and distending. From the tarred road to the lake, from the bridge to the large water tanks on the east side, row upon row of sheds and stalls, with the same indifferent, jostling crowd, the same cunning, daring thieves, the same coward­ ly, corrupt watchmen. Over at the other end, the warning shout was immediately echoed by other female vendors. But such a shout, repeated by as many mouths as the market owns - even when it wasn’t busy - has rarely brought a thief to book. And once the cul­ prit is caught, he is almost certain of being barbecued - struck down, manhandled, lynched: he is then thrown into the fire like ‘Uncle M6guila’s mutton kebabs!’ The little tennis ball of a fellow was well aware of all this. He had seen it all, heard it all. Would that his own fears, his own distress, his own nightmares would not catch up with him. Run! Lose your­ self in the wind. Be wind. Faster! Faster! His left fist was still clenched. He wasn’t in the habit of clenching it so tightly, even when he was running. He had to keep it that way until he reached his destination, without yielding to the slightest temptation to let any air pass between his fingers. A gold pendant was safely hidden in his clenched fist. He had to rise to the challenge and keep going until the very end, even unto death itself. At Section B of the market, where the spare parts dealers hung out, the hubbub had died down; or so the child thought, but was this really so? The fading shouts and the relative silence meant the thief was out of danger. Could he, this little tennis ball of a fellow, the rookie thief, not having fled very far, be safe already? He need­ ed at any rate to feel safe, to have that internal peace and assurance. His heart pounding like a drum, his lungs at bursting point, his feet and increasingly heavy limbs needed a good rest. A pause, my dear,

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just a short pause to savour the aftermath of the flight, to relish the imminent rest of the ... thief! Oh, my!

----- W hy a child? W hy an angel? Stealing, pinching something without any shred of conscience is an adult act, an-act of guilt. When it comes to hunger, a child doesn’t just steal, he steals to fill his belly. W hy then are you taking this risk, little fellow? Gold, a pendant made of a precious metal, worked into a Yoruba empire mask. Would you, in your child’s heart of hearts, say that you plead guilty and are therefore an adult? An adult? ‘Life teaches us to be responsible, Sir.’ ‘W hat life? A breath given is a breath that you nurture and cher­ ish. Here’s an author and there’s an adult. ‘Life teaches us to be responsible, Sir.’ ‘Look over there, look: there are millions like yourself out there, gamboling in the grass, grinning in the sun, nibbling at life ...’ ‘Yes, Sir. They are children, just children. Bom with a flower in their mouths and hope in their eyes. I came into the world with nothing. I have to make my own flowers and invent my own hope. I have become an adult, Sir. A culpable adult.’ ----5! He had stopped, and decided to take a much-needed break under an empty counter. He was puffing and panting, completely out of breath. It seemed as if dark vapour was coming out of his every ori­ fice in fits and starts. Open it up, yes open up that body, rip yourself open from throat to rectum and let it all flow out. A minute, then two went by. Before his eyes things were becom­ ing less fluid, less liquid. Colours were gradually regaining their hue, and the movement of people and objects, the movement of life, was becoming normal.

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Life, normality was back in focus. He looked around, made sure that nobody could see him, then slowly moved his right hand to the left. He needed to be deliberate, to be so very careful with this treasured gold, so as to give it at least some protection. Emotion was present in his eyes, in his every move­ ment. Emotion reigned supreme in this unfolding, unexpected drama. Slowly, he unclenched his fist by loosening two fingers. The pen­ dant was still gleaming in his cold, sweaty palm. It shone like a tiny, smooth sun. A feeling of joyous pride seemed to wash over him. Ecstasy, could this be ecstasy? He clenched his fist again and took a deep, voluptuous breath. Within himself, he tried to smile so as to express his relief, his satisfaction, his happiness. But the smile would­ n’t come. An odd sense of urgency suddenly returned him to his fears, his raw emotions. There was one question: ‘Where can I find a much safer hiding place? An inaccessible hid­ ing place, one which won’t arouse anybody’s suspicions ... W hat if ... Yes, of course, that’s it!’ He brought the pendant to his mouth, slipped it onto his tongue and let it go down, right down. With a heavy gulp his treasure slipped down in a flood of saliva. He grimaced as if he was going to throw up, but there was silence, peace. ‘Nothing else happened. Nothing Sir!’

----- ‘You haven’t answered my question, boy: how does one become a man-child?’ ‘I ... I don’t know, Sir.’ ‘Remember, just now you said that you weren’t made like all the others.’ ‘Bom on the fringe, yes, in the gutter. But a man-child is not made! He just comes into being.’ ‘Tell me then, how you just come into being, explain to me your origins, your history.’ 1

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‘A living being has no history, Sir. His life is spread over three bridges in time: the past, the present and the future. It can’t be explained. You see it and you live it.’ ----m

j&Sn&a. He wanted to feel his treasure, his cherished gold, in his belly. He wanted to touch it, fondle it as if it was in its litde cloth wrapping, which his fingers could hold. Wait. He probably had to wait, to give it time to go right down, somewhere in his belly, a couple of pinch­ es from the skin. Wait. Wait. To the left, a litde further on, was the counter where the sellers of plates and dishes sold their wares. And just beyond, was the wide entrance, that enormous mouth which swallows and vomits up the teeming, crowding multitude. Everything was calm. Not a single watchman’s cap in sight. But, actually, yes, he could see Alphonse’s paunch: that fat, wimpish, slimy, sloth of a man was on duty. In other words a sort of watchman was posted there for ‘stricdy social reasons’. Get out. Move forward. Keep calm, don’t look suspicious. Maybe the signal had already been given to everyone around. All it needed was for one mouth to open and start yelling that diabolical ‘Hey!’ and he would be dead meat. Get out. Move forward. Ten steps already. ‘Nothing to report, Sir.’ ‘Tchakpalo! *Chilled Adoyo! Adoyot* He shivered. To the right, a few paces from the gate, a girl with a rich dark chocolate complexion was selling drinks to passers-by wilt­ ing in the sun and heat. For ten francs one could have local lemon­ ade and non-alcoholic beer, made from maize-meal. Just looking at her, with her large flasks full of tchakpalo, made you thirsty. ‘Tchakpalo! Chilled Adoyo! The child couldn’t resist. He had a few coins somewhere in his tom, tattered clothes. He approached and joined the waiting queue. * non-aldoholic beer * lemonade

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The vendor was doing brisk business, that’s for sure. And she didn’t complain too much when men - they never can resist a good thing - let their hands wander over her breasts, those well-formed, unashamedly fleshyyovo-doko* ‘How much do you want?’ ‘Twenty-five francs!’ AdoyoV ‘Tchakpalo!’ He gulped it down. It was cool, oh so cool in his throat! Tchakpalo is one of this century’s most welcome inventions. Just tasting it is risky, because it takes hold of you and you have to drink quite a lot before it will let you go, oh so reluctandy. ‘A nother twenty-five francs, my beauty.’ ‘With or without ice?’ ‘With!’ Again his lips touched the rim of the little calabash. Two, three mouthfuls. He paused between gulps, drawing out the pleasure. W hat a fool he was! He had forgotten that his rags, his grimy but­ tocks, his sweaty body - crazy-looking child that he was, in the eyes of this crowd of people ten times more decent - could draw their attention and make them curious. W hat foolishness! He had forgot­ ten that he was on the run, that there were people who existed only to make others’ lives miserable. He had forgotten that God had momentarily snatched from the devil the sword and trident which were hanging over his head. Already, people were frowning and looking at one another. ‘Tell me, you, what hole have you just crawled out of, with all that filth?’ ‘I’m sure I’ve seen this kid before.’ ‘Maybe ...’ ‘It’s him!’ ‘Him?’ ‘The little lout! The thief.’ * wheat-flour doughnuts

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‘Gome here, let’s have a look at you!’ The child took two steps backwards. The sun, behind the forest of clouds spread across the sky, came out and poured more light on the world. The heat rose by three degrees. The child felt it in his throat. A wave of dizziness came over him, a cruel stifling feeling. Immediately the shouts began, the same piercing shouts as before: ‘Hey! Hey!’ ‘Stop him! Stop him!’ He didn’t remember throwing down the tchakpalo and the cal­ abash. He didn’t remember when he started running. His head foggy, his heart thumping, he slipped out of the great monster’s mouth into the street, that other hell, the kingdom of the zems* STO ----- It is not my song, oh Man, nor is it a story for sleepless chil­ dren. It’s the river of my memory. A current that carries along life and death, bitterness and sweetness, silence and noise. It is not my song, I said, nor is it blues or emotions to order. It is the wind mov­ ing over the vast field which is the world and bringing with it scents of merriment and melancholy. I have nothing to give: nothing to take. I have already given everything; that’s how life and misfortune have made me ... In this town there are traces of my steps, whiffs of my odours. Open your eyes wide, sniff the wind and you will see, oh Man, you will smell my life, my little life as it is related by the streets, the gutters and the garbage dumps. T hat’s the one and only thing I am prepared to offer y o u .-----

Which way should he go with all these shouts of ‘Hey! Hey!’ at his back? Where should he run to with this dumb mass of pedestrians # motorised taxi-bikes

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in the way, taking up all the space like self-important patriarchs? How could he find his way when even the wind had lost its way? Just run, and let your feet and your instincts guide you. You’ve always done that in whatever situation you’ve found yourself. You’ve always tried to do this with your man-child smell. Far ahead, the bridge stood out from the curtain of fumes emitted by the streets’ feverish traffic. It was like a gigantic python with a spiky metal back, gingerly placed across the lagoon, going up and down to the two ends of the city. The bridge. The lagoon. W hy hesitate? W hy not imitate his ‘big brothers’, who were past-masters in the art of the flying trapeze? He slipped between two fat-bottomed ladies, jumped over a beggar who was holding out his stump of an arm, josded an old drunk. Another shout, maybe two. Behind him, the crowd was running; ceaselessly shouting its indignation. There were men, only men who were deter­ mined to rise to the challenge and catch their first, fifth or twentieth thief! The child could feel his belly glug-glugging! The tchakpalo he had drunk on credit had flooded everything down there. It had no doubt helped the gold to slip down to the best hiding place. He was already at the last slope before the bridge. Then he was there. He stopped. Ah, fresh air! Caressing air! Caress my face, oh wind from the sea. Your deep silent breath on my moist burning skin is welcome; the only real tenderness in a long time. Make me hear your song, your beautiful song, in my ears so that I can forget every­ thing, blot out everything, including my man-child memory. Oh brother of the inland sea, make me forget the time and misfortune of men, so I can return to my pre-birth kingdom, my mother’s womb. ‘Don’t move. It’s over.’ ‘Don’t make a move, we’ve got you.’ His pursuers. They were only five paces away: four now. But he didn’t flinch. The danger was no longer real for him. It no longer existed. It had completely disappeared. He felt then as if he belonged to another planet, where evil had already come and gone, where per-

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secution had already been eliminated, where pain was numbed. Elsewhere. Be elsewhere, and live like time. Melt into time. ‘Hey! Hey! You’re caught like a rat in a trap.’ He grabbed hold of the guardrail and hoisted himself onto it. Below, the lagoon appeared so flat and distant. The surface rippled, channeling the sun’s silver reflection into his eyes. Crossing his arms, kite-like, the child took one last look at his pursuers. He wait­ ed until the one in front was just a metre, a finger, a hair’s breadth away. His cockerel laugh made him pitch forward. A somersault and he plunged into empty space. There was the sound of a body hitting water, then silence. x&X&x. ----- I’ll be his first bed, said the dump. I’ll be the first to embrace him. ‘Why? Bit unusual, isn’t it?’ ‘What is usual is not always the norm. The norm is life, circum­ stances, emotions, man, God. One night, in the cool clear morning, somebody arrived with her arms round a paaui * I got the bundle right in my face, together with the woman’s tears. She poured her grief over my body and merged her remains with the horizon. Then in the warm sunny morning I recognized a newborn at the very same time as did the curious onlookers. After civilization had expressed its indignation, a man came and placed a kind hand on the paavi. ‘Come, see, my angel: from now on you’ll sleep in my arms.’ -----

As usual, the water was warm. The child took great delight in it, from his ankles to the nape of his neck, from his hair to the tips of his toes. He didn’t need to be chased to end up in such a gende, wel­ coming lake. He was in the habit of going there - he would come and splash about on very hot days or after hours of toil in the neigh­ bouring market. 3* bag made of woven coconut palm branches

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Above him, on the bridge, life continued as usual. The usual din, the usual spurts of urine across the guardrail, the usual rubbish thrown overboard. Nobody watched him resurface. His pursuers had gone, after cursing him at length. They had asked the gods to rain down on him every possible misfortune. Peace and great calm in the shade of the bridge. Peace engulfed him and washed away the stress that was sucking his life away. He lay on his back, stretched out his arms and closed his eyes. Just one more thing ladies and gendeman: for once he is having the time of his life!

----- W hat do you want me to say, Sir? In this house where there are still a few whiffs of his scent, he only stayed long enough to expe­ rience another misfortune. One stormy night, the owner of the premises was snatched away by witches. He was struck by lightning and turned into a midnight feast for cannibals, so we’re told. T hat’s dying the African way; what’s more it’s dying intestate. The family - vultures, birds of prey - and undertakers’ assistants don’t like a barren inheritance. Stand by the door, my boy, it’s dank in here. ‘W hat do you want me to say, man? The child left and never returned. He left, taking his dignity with him and not asking for any­ thing, not even pity. I don’t even know his name. He was just pass­ ing through.’ ----xJMLx Suddenly the water heaved, and the child felt pressure around his arm. Somebody had just grabbed his wrist. He thrashed about and tried to free himself, but the grip was too tight. With his free arm he managed to spin around so he was facing the obstacle. The obsta­ cle? It was Nubi, king of the New Bridge mafia, the boss, the god­ father of the local riff-raff. He was a giant of a man, with a muscu­ lar body, legs and arms. He was like a block of concrete, an enor-

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mous elephant with a rasping, husky voice. The child hadn’t yet realized who it was. He was still reeling from the shock. Then the ‘block’ began to laugh; it was hoarse, guttural laughter that filled the little boy’s head, grew louder and spread all around him. The child fell to pieces. He felt his intestines, his spine, his head weakening, dissolving and a sense of heaviness and dizziness. He tumbled over into the water and lost consciousness. xJS8&*x ------I know all about those litde bums, I do! Some of ’em make their litde nests around here, and some make an absolute pigsty of the place. Pigsty, I tell you. Bad enough that they piss, that they dump their stream of shit ‘plop, plop, plop!’ But if they’re going to come here and behave like litde savages, in my very guts ... well, what times we live in! ‘Mr Sewer: they don’t mean to be rude. It’s just that they come into the world so naked ...!’ ‘And where do you think / was born? A litde guttersnipe who drags those shabby litde ashaos* with a bit of small change into my place. If that isn’t a curse, what is?’ ‘Was he doing that? Him, the one with the huge head, neck, legs and arms like pipe cleaners?’ ‘Not him. No, not that one. He used to crash here and then get up before dawn to get organised. How many dawns did he beat, the litde bastard? Sixty? Ninety? Dunno! After the first flood, he van­ ished ...’ -----

To the west of the New Bridge a shanty town lifted up its sharp litde muzzle, which was already pretty well covered with makeshift shacks made of a rip here and a snap there, gigantic cellophaned boxes, sheds of rusted corrugated iron, huts of salvaged wood, dustbins, # street walkers

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garbage - a higgledy-piggledy world. The child awoke. His gaze dart­ ed around the three faces pressed up close to him. He had no diffi­ culty in recognising them; and in the middle was Nubi, the giant. The same terror that had just overcome him, overwhelmed him again. But the man reassured him, bearing his stained yellowed teeth. ‘You owe me your life, kid. It’s up to you to thank me now. You owe me a little gratitude, don’t you think?’ The child wouldn’t, couldn’t, speak; he couldn’t say that he first needed to emerge from his own internal fog, to recover his own intimate silences, to tear himself away from his internal confusions. The man was too pleased to have him to himself, and probably anxious to ask him something. And the child feared what this ‘something’ might be. ‘Now, show me what you’ve stolen. You certainly seem to have found a good hiding place for it, this gold, my fine fellow. So come on, give it up!’ ‘W h a t... how?’ ‘Don’t play the fool with me, kid. I’m talking about the gold you nicked. You’ll be giving me my share, of course ...’ ‘Ca ... can’t. Can’t ... it’s in my belly.’ In your ...?’ The man gave a mad cackle. He setded into his armchair, scuffed the ground with his big feet. ‘Bloody kid,’ he whisded. ‘You certainly tricked them good and proper. Still, that’s their problem. But you can’t get away with it, not with me. Because I can make people who lie to me swallow their own balls. So, are you going to bring it out?’ The boy only just managed not to shit in his pants. How could he convince the man that the pendant was really in his guts? How could he make him realise that the booty hadn’t yet been passed on to an accom­ plice? In the world of small-time crookery, such ruses are wellknown: when a thief is being chased or is in danger of being caught, he slips his booty by sleight of hand to a partner in crime who then evaporates into thin air. But he hadn’t yet managed to become a member of such a gang, so he hadn’t yet acquired an accomplice.

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‘If you like, give me a laxative so I can get rid of it. You’ll proba­ bly find the pendant in my ‘Stubborn, aren’t you?’ The man grabbed the child by the hair. His fingers closed around a tuft in the middle of his skull. The boy felt his scalp quiver, he felt his hair coming away from his head. A burning sensation. Pain, ow, ow, ow! A crack. Blood. His voice splintered into a thousand pieces, which shook the container-hut. ‘See! Doesn’t take much to reduce you to a heap of shit. Now, I’m giving you one last chance.’ ‘I ... I swear, big brother,’ said the youngster, still trembling. ‘I swear that ... Look, it’s here, I can feel it.’ He was pointing to his stomach, his little egg of a belly, rather paunchy - after his tchakpalo drunk on credit - which was sticking out from his decrepit litde body, frail and spare (absolutely no meat on his bones). He showed the man, as if to reassure him, that the piece was quite perceptible beneath his finger, as if you would need just one movement to take hold of it. But still the man’s face inspired raw terror. His hands, balled up with tension, had already spread open again, the tufts of hair had slipped through his fingers and the blood was dripping through them. The other two men had moved back towards the wall, just watch­ ing their leader. They knew that when he was fired up by anger, when it burned within him, they should simply await orders, or other reasons to act. And the orders were not slow in coming. The man spat out: ‘A penknife, quick, a penknife!’ Immediately, a knife blade appeared beneath the child’s gaze. The man grabbed it and moved it towards the child’s belly, his little paunchy belly. ‘You’re right, kid,’ he agreed. ‘We’ll have to rip it open, that tiny little belly of yours, to get that fucking gold pendant out!’ His eyes darted down to the child’s stomach, then fixed on the knife, then again fell on the belly. Backwards and forwards, like table tennis: ping-pong. Then, all of a sudden, he struck. He struck, sharp and incisive. The child felt the lightning pain of a needle going

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through his intestines. Illusion. For the blow fell beside him, into the blue flesh of an old pouffe. A piece of furniture which, dismem­ bered, burst open, vomited its innards - rags, bits of material - onto the floor of the container-hut. ‘OK’, the giant sucked in his breath noisily, ‘I’ll try the laxative first.’ jc

»2®®Lx

----- W ho said no one could be around me? W ho has filled the whole town with my reputation of congested highways, polluted streets, noisy roads, avenues filled with potholes? Men complain about everything and yet want only, for good or ill, to be with the people and places that they complain about. At every hour of the day or night, they pass and pass again over my body. W hether there is hail or stormy weather, there they are; pres­ idents or rag-and-bone men, geniuses or idiots, rich men or beggars. If it’s not their legs or their vehicles, it’s their gobs of spit, or their shit. Amongst my regular tenants are the tight-knit bunch of vendors on the run, the mana-manas* on duty. I’ve seen a very young one, oval head like a paw-paw, tiny mosquito feet. He was clinging to vehicles as they stopped, reciting the insistent litany of the desperate hawker, capering when a motorist here or there took pleasure in giv­ ing him a fright. A tiny shape, small fry condemned to forget him­ self within himself, and never to grow up. A fleeting memory, my friend.-----

j&S&Soc Half an hour’s wait. Half an hour of nothing. The youngster had just undergone his umpteenth torture session. For the umpteenth time, he had been forced to drink the same laxative, at four times the normal dose, enough to tear out the entrails of an elephant. But he hadn’t yet let anything fall from his guts. He was naked, sitting * illiterate hawkers

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on a plastic chamber pot, hardly balanced, worn out by strain, ten­ sion, exhaustion. The giant, next to him, was also worn out. He kept turning around on himself, smoking cigarette after cigarette, swallowing sodabi• after sodabi ‘You’re going to shit if it’s the last thing you do!’ And every time, the child groaned, pushed. But there was never anything, anything at all in the pot. Maybe a few drops of sweat, a couple of spoonfuls of urine; and an ever-more unbearable wait, an ever-exacerbated anxiety. Outside, the dull roar of the market enfolded the city, pierc­ ing the precarious silence of the container-hut. Good God, it was enough to make you lose your mind! ‘I’ve done it!’ announced the child suddenly. A big strong spurt. The little slip of an angel pushed and pushed again. There were some sounds of gurgling, popping, like water coming to the boil, then a profound silence. The pot, already full to the brim, was smoking, letting off a terrific smell into the small space. The giant breathed in with one nostril and issued an order: ‘Going to have to search that shit, boys!’ Then he told one of his henchmen to pick up the pot and follow him. The three men dashed through the door, crossed the street, and went down towards the river bank. Here, garbage and grass, growing wild and unchecked, lay about everywhere, covering the whole bank, leaving only a thread of a path, which disappeared into the lake. ‘Stop playing the namby-pamby,’ grumbled the giant to the one who was holding the pot. ‘It’s not nuclear fall-out. Just dunk it into the water.’ The man hesitated a moment before complying. The pot was submerged and then pulled out, the immersed again. Three times, four times. They needed to progressively lighten the load of the con­ tents, to make it easier to see the bottom and finally find the pen­ dant. The men’s eyes got bigger, shone brighter, saw sharper. They had plunged into the pot, anticipating that final moment. Soon, the excrement had been emptied, then the bottom was revealed. The blue bottom. The uniform bottom. Goldless, pendandess, bootyless. The man almost choked with rage. $ redistilled palm wine

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----- Out of consideration, we call them ‘begging consultants’ for they live by charity alone and from what others throw away. Tramps, lepers, the one-legged, the one-armed who’ve sold a limb to the devil to get money, little no-hope gangsters, small-time crooks, half-mad predictors of approaching apocalypses, they come here in droves to quell their anxieties, to offer their dreams the chance to enjoy a little bit of comforting for the cost of a couple of small coins. To sleep without the sound of dogs barking, without feeling the end of a policeman’s boot? A gift from God, the chance of a lifetime to be fruitful! So, like all the others, he too came to rent his little cor­ ner of the earth to go bye-byes. But he found the ground to his taste, the dirt suiting his dimensions. Since then, he has added on days, multiplied the nights. I used to lie in wait for him because, unlike the others, there were, in his creamy black face, eyes filled with a lumi­ nescent sparkle, a subde life filled with sound, the second imbalance in this litde shifting whole. Where does he find the money to pay for his patch of ground or his bit of cold cement? The market, which is a couple of crowds away from here, keeps that secret in its bosom. It is like the river that provides everyone with food and drink, it’s like the earth which gives its fruits and bounty to mankind. For this, all that is needed is to trade with the beggars, to offer them enough for zero growth. ‘So what is he doing at the market?’ ‘I don’t know. And it’s not my intention to find out.’ -----

Vanished. The child had disappeared. The three men realised it when they retraced their steps. Gotta catch him, litde bastard, gotta trap him, tie him up then, slowly and with very refined torture, roast him alive! General pandemonium, thanks to the litde devil! He was staggering now, our litde tennis ball of a fellow. He was staggering, muscles tired, hollow-eyed, nose running. At every

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stride, he would turn around, scanning the horizon, trying to pene­ trate what might lie in the shadows. But no one seemed to be haunt­ ing his steps, no one seemed to be clinging to his smell. No problem. The best way to hide was to flee, go to the ends of the earth, to the very boundaries of his own desires. The great hubbub of the market was beginning to die down again. Evening was lazily falling over the city, the vendors had packed up their wares and were going home, as were their cus­ tomers: the office workers and other unemployed swarming the streets. The streets where motorcyclists and drivers were moving for­ ward, where pedestrians and porters were getting their feet crushed, where exhaust fumes slowly exhaled their curtain of darkness. To stop. Just to stop in front of the brown line, this dual carriage­ way opposite the exit from which he had just come, after clim bing up a steep narrow alley between the spaces filled with gardens. Might he be recognised in this river of a crowd? One treacherous eye, one murderous mouth - could it not open and roll over him the word ‘Hey! Hey!’ Surely there’s nothing like one street urchin for looking just like another. But ... Got to get across. Across? I might as well ask you to jump with your feet tied together along the fourteen metres of the roadway. There were obstacles everywhere, in every square centimetre, espe­ cially as no road user was willing to give way and here, having the right of way meant being in the minority. He clung to his instinct and hurled his tiny form into the road­ way. Shouts and curses immediately assailed him. He had already hopped and landed on his left foot. An ill-intentioned zemwas head­ ing straight for him. He got out of its way, dashed in front of a taxi, slipped between two lorries moving along at the double. All he had to do now was to cover the last two metres of the road. At the same moment, on his left, there came a ‘coffin on wheels’, a delivery van, vintage nineteen dot, without brakes, or headlights. The child made the mistake of hesitating. The tar seemed to be stuck to the soles of his feet. And the im pact... Impact. A din of tin and steel. The asphalt resounded with a dull thud. Then silence. The voice of the child - thrown to the other side,

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on the pavement, bleeding horribly. ‘Mama! Mama!’

----- ‘Do you think, my dear fellow, that I will tell you what souls live inside me, what forces impel me, what anxieties come to coil within me so that I get to the point of taking on all this bleating sea of humanity?’ ‘I want to know, to know what he is doing here, how he copes with life every day, with eating, sleeping, with his stomach not being left empty and orphaned. Tell me, Great M arket...’ ‘Everyone on earth has his secrets. There are many, driven by need and the quest for survival. And he, eaten by the same obses­ sions, has let himself be used by others. ‘I do not know how. Perhaps as a porter, rickshaw boy, shoe-shine boy, pastry seller, knife-sharp­ ener ... I don’t know. When you can understand the life of a single one of those, you will be able to guess at the lives of the others and thus the life of your ... W hat is it you call him?’ ‘Man-child.’ -----

Gawpers were there on the instant. They were pushing up against his feet. Noisy as ever, bad-mouthing the hit-and-run driver, full of pity for the child. The child who was lying on the ground, stretched out like a piece of dried fish, holding his little rounded belly: ‘I t ... huuuurts. Hurts!’ He opened his eyes wide. A woman in the crowd, standing on her platform heels, bursting out of her clothes, was looking him over from head to foot. She recognised him. She recognised the little hood­ lum who had stuck his hand into her shop window and had ‘eaten’ the gold pendant. She wanted to throw herself upon him, shriek the ‘Hey! Hey!’ which would bring the crowd running. But it was as if

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her throat, her reflexes, her blood, were coated in thick ice. She had to be content just to look at him. Voices mingled in the crowd. Voices addressed each other with familiarity but no one came to help. Through his blurred eyes, the kid was still watching the lady. He wanted, probably for the umpteenth time, to shout out loud, but instead of a sound, it was blood that he spat from his mouth. Blood accompanied by a jet of foam. Then suddenly, a sliver of yellowish metal, the pendant! ‘Ma..ma..’ he cried. Out of the crowd darted another kid, same emaciated body, same frail limbs like bamboo sticks. He crawled towards the injured child who was vomiting. You would have said they were twins. He got closer, grabbed the pendant, made as though to examine its contours as if it were a family heirloom. At that moment, he pushed his way through the crowd and disappeared. He ran off and vanished. The woman had only time to register surprise and shout: ‘Hey! Hey! He’s stolen my pendant!’ A great hubbub. A loud and ragged shout of protest. The same voices that, every day, discover here or there man-children, culpritchildren. The same voices which shout for them to be lynched. The umpteenth chase in hot pursuit had just begun. rnw ----- ‘Now you understand everything, my dear poet. You have managed to absorb all your questions.’ ‘I’m not sure about that. Yes, I’ve been in the streets, all ears. I’ve managed to get from a few of the houses some aura of your smells. Yes, I have taken the same silent, winding roads to measure your losses, understand your pain. But I don’t know why your hand, your little hand, plunged into that shop window, nor do I know why you were born ... an orphan.’ The child had burst out into a dark chuckle. A laugh that showed me in a lightning moment of revelation, the scratches which troubled his soul. He had given me an answer.

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‘Sad poet, your job is not to explain but to reveal, to offer your illuminations to others. I have wanted to regain the time I lost as I was growing up, I have wanted to tear from the world my confis­ cated treasures and become part of mankind’s logic. But all I am is a child of the gutter, a creature lost within the debris of the world. My birth, apparently, was nothing but a mistake. My mother was expecting a fart. But instead from between her legs emerged a baby. W hat can I do about that? Now, let me alone in my cage, boss. Let me laugh at my life riddled with holes.’ -----

I had risen to my feet. I had taken a couple of steps. I was expect­ ing, as I turned around, to catch him unawares in the act of crying. But no. He was not crying. He was not laughing. He was sleeping as if he were already absorbed in inventing another life for himself somewhere else. Perhaps in the wide open sea. Perhaps in death. So young and yet already so old. Scarcely bom and yet already sacrificed.

30*5**

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xAThe Fools' Gallery Abdourahman Ali Waberi Translated by Birgit Schommer

‘HeU. is empty and all the devils are here!’ William Shakespeare

‘I t is nobody sfault! Evelyn Waugh

A sky almost white in its blueness. A suburb of downtown Djibouti. A wooden house, like all the others, with an aluminium roof. Here and there on the dirty roofing, which is full of holes and as much worn by rust (humidity reigns supreme) as by usage, the most unex­ pected objects lie touching, strangely echoing each other: a burst ball shrunk by the heat, an old crumpled bicycle wheel, a used straw hat, a shoe trodden down at the heel, a cloth, some lost nails. In a shady comer of the verandah, leaning against the common partition wall, a man rather older than younger is sitting on a raffia mat. In front of him, a small, low, wobbly table on which are placed, side by side, a litde red water cooler to keep the water cold, a ther­ mos flask for hot tea that is strongly spiced with cinnamon, whole

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cloves, cardamon and ginger, a glass and a cup. Just under the tap of the water cooler wrapped in a cloth that is constantly kept moist: khat* the plant of all desires in this part of the world. The magic plant. Malevolent. Khat comes in the shape of thin twigs held togeth­ er by a fibre the colour of cork and comes from a banana leaf. This man with the half-closed eyes of those who have stayed awake all night is my father. Awaleh is ‘grazing’, as we say here, with a hint of pride. To be honest, he does not graze, he chews his khat like people chew tobacco. O r like chewing-gum. And every quarter of an hour or so he takes a sip of fresh water, then hot tea. Khat makes you thirsty. Khat gives you pins and needles in your legs. My father changes position every half-hour; after the right side (his favourite), he leans on his left. He always proceeds in the same way. Always. Khat punctuates people’s lives in this ruined country. Without khat no life! From one to two o’clock, khat keeps men (and women) alive. Without it, what would they do, how would they live? Only the forlorn voice of the muezzin disrupts, for a few, this ritual, so well absorbed into their lives. In a world adrift men cling to the most fragile thing that exists: the twigs of an Ethopian shrub. In return this plant toughens them. Khat is the poison and its antidote, in other words the perpetual imprisonment. The most murderous fires always occur in the afternoon, when men and women, children and animals become lethargic and long to enter the world of reverie. Some muddy alleyways further away, a cottage takes forever to bum out. The firemen keep people waiting like messiahs. As usual. Maybe they will never come. It does not matter. Some say that they do not know any more which way to turn. Last week a wretched woman in her nineties died: exhausted, suffocated under the debris. Some hours later, when the blaze was put out by expressionless neighbours, a handful of ashes seemed the only remaining evidence of the old woman. The fire, a mischievous Prometheus, facilitates matters magnifi­ cently for the city planners. Openly and publicly, the fire in its * Also kat/qat. Shrub native to Arabia and Africa, cultivated for its leaves that produce a mild nar­ cotic effect when chewed or brewed in tea.

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lunatic dance sets to work, tracing zig-zagging alleys downtown, tak­ ing everything with it on its way like an Acheron, and only leaving behind some rough, stunted coal-coloured stakes. More recendy, before helpless victims, a high-ranking official responsible for the city planning made this meaningless speech: ‘The fire is a real scourge, but you have to acknowledge that peo­ ple only get the heat they deserve. Notice that we are never obliged to complain about damages caused by some arsonist in the real city.’ In this part of the world, fire is given carte-blanche. Hesitant as a frail raft, life rises from the empty stomach of a litde girl; this more child than girl with an emaciated face is feeding another child who is equally sickly. Which is the mother? Which is the offspring? During this time, not far from here, my father is sitting on a raf­ fia mat. Leaning as usual against the partition wall he is mechani­ cally grazing. Outside there is uproar. The hot wind stiffens the faces to such an extent that they seem like mere masks. The streets are emptying of their passers-by, life moves more slowly, more fluidly. There will be no more people in the alleyways. The din will have disappeared. The witching hour approaches with stealthy tread. Khat establishes its hold over the city. Waiting for zombification, nothing counts any more. The external world has ceased to exist. It is the witching hour. In the dusty alleyways, untouched by tar, littered with rubbish, loose stones and animal droppings, some women are squawking on their doorsteps. The one across the street yells: ‘You filthy brat, bom from devil water, go and get an ice-cold Coca-Cola for that absent father of yours! Don’t pretend to be deaf, you know very well that khat is drying up his throat. Come here, you little bastard!’ Her neighbour takes up the refrain with a tremor in her voice in order to give some substance to her story ‘My husband is of the same mould. Without a drop of Coca-Cola, he’d shit khat like a refugee baby with a bad case of diarrhoea.’ This woman, a nurse’s aid in the neighbourhood community clinic, takes pleasure in

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impressing her neighbours, by using new terms in her stories that she has systematically acquired from the hospital. A third, a tall black woman with breasts flattened against her chest that can easily be divined under the transparent diric* lashes out in her turn: ‘Mine is like a child. I have never seen someone who loves sugar as he does. Three Coca-Colas and very sweet tea, every day. Sometimes, I wonder if it wasn’t Coca-Cola he suckled from his crazy mother’s breasts.’ From a backyard the monotonous voice of Said Hamarghod, the most prolific singer in the Somali language, keeps repeating this doleful refrain: ‘I do not lament I was bom for pain One day I will be healed One day I will be healed ...’ My father is grazing in his comer. Friends, cousins, family mem­ bers, both close and distant, tribesmen and various acquaintances keep accosting him. Some come to graze with him, others to borrow a bundle of khat for which they will never pay. Each has found a small space to place his skinny arse. At two o’clock everybody is ready and waiting. The khat match has already started. Outside, it is the witching hour. Hamoud, the blacksmith, remains one of the most unassuming personalities in the area. Nevertheless, his peers acknowledge his unbelievable dexterity, unequalled in the slums. True to his repu­ tation, it is at the suicide hour, during the time when the spears of the sun are sharper than slivers of a broken botde, that Hamoud arrives at his work place: a scrap-iron heap that he uses as an openair workshop. For the footnotes of History (which often shed light on History as a whole), Hamoud is a Tumal, in other words he belongs to a caste which is considered inferior and as a result despised and isolated by all the Somali ethnic groups. The Tumals, as they work with iron, are the victims of a real segregation, which is outrageous. In our neighbourhood malicious tongues claim that Hamoud gives himself without a second thought to the Devil’s * Very transparent light dress worn by the women, in the style of a sari.

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drink. Others solemnly swear by their great-grandfather who died following the Great Drought, also known as ‘the Destroyer’, that Hamoud hides his wine in a botde of cough mixture under his iron bed. Amongst the adversaries of the blacksmith are a fair number of devout muslims led by the chief of the district, Haji War Amoussa. In an indescribable fit of rage, War Amoussa almost gouged out the eye of the blacksmith’s apprentice, a scrawny blacksmith-mechanic of an uncertain age. Halloul did not try to sue the aggressor because he knows full well that War Amoussa is untouchable. People whisper that an old and conjugal controversy would partially explain the impossible hatred that War Amoussa dedicates to Hamoud. At the far end of an alley full of potholes, two senior students of unusual maturity are engaged in brilliant conversation (as there are no universities in this country, everybody, from the moment he has set foot into a senior school, is considered to be an intellectual). The first says to the second: ‘Our country is hell on such a grand scale that Antonin Artaud would not have been able to resist it.’ The second retorts with equal gravity: ‘At Independence and after it, we got nothing, not even a vision­ ary demagogue who could transport us on river-like speeches, who could speak to us of nadonal uprisings, or, to cut a long story short, someone to cradle our illusions for us.’ Bob Marley was singing ‘Waiting in Vain’ in another alleyway. At three o’clock the first signs - preludes of the mirghan® (the hour of Solomon, as a Yemenite poet, a lover of khat who knows what he is talking about, expresses it) - come out into the open. People get up to stretch their legs a little. They take the opportu­ nity to go to the comer where there is a septic tank - with its swarms of flies, its network of spider webs, its innumerable geck­ oes, its fat purple cockroaches and its litde rats - to empty their bladders. The most agile khat-grazers reluctandy go to the nearby grocer to buy a second botde of Coca-Cola or a third packet of ® This particular moment, in the twilight where

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Virginia cigarettes. The most voracious - they are legion - swal­ low their pride, and borrow one more bundle of khat to the great despair of their usual vendor, my father for example. The wisest they are rare - decide to save some money by thriftily chewing on their thin khat twigs. Those do not throw away any leaves: not those-too-hard-for-the-teeth, nor those-too-stubborn-for-the-tongue - those leaves that people usually give to the beggars and fools that roam the neighbourhood. Every suburb has its own horde of fools. Every fool suffers his own special folly that characterizes him, cultivates his particular art, and conducts his own madness as he understands it. Every fool represents a folly uniquely his own. And all of them differ from each other in their innate charm and in their very own attraction. There are the furious fools, generally throwers of stones. Resentful and malignant they make it their first priority to attack children, women, drunkards - another race of fools in this coun­ try - and sick people or those who appear to be ill. The furious fools fear the competition (which is in their eyes both insolent and disloyal) from the armies of beggars, originally troops of refugees that the governments have driven away with baton blows and barbed wire. W ho will ever listen to them? The furious fools denounce the disgraceful and insolent vagrancy of those rogues from abroad, in other words from nowhere. Fiercely protective of their suburb (since they are the real sons of the country), the furi­ ous fools are hunting normal people and strangers. They can turn murderous: these children indigenous to the neighbourhood have kept the memory of batdes long ago, those for Independence amongst others. ‘It was us, the furious fools, that were the most ardent nation­ alists. We fought the war against the French. We have left the most furious amongst us on the fields of honour at Poudri£re, at Gabode or Loyada, not to mention the front lines where the sol­ diers of the enemy were more frequent than flies on an open wound. But fuck it, all that belongs to the past, gone with the wind ... Shall we be frank: right now, we do not understand any-

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thing at all. We honestly regret the era of the Khaireh Addeh* who at least had the merit of clarity. However we are not fools, we know that France has left here since Giscard, but since then, it’s been the big black hole. Those who govern us have gone beyond the limits of folly that is ours, the so-called professional furious fools ...’ There are also the malicious fools, unequalled train-bearers and unsurpassed flatterers. People say of them that they act out of neces­ sity, because they do not know anything else. As victims, they like women best, whether rich or not, to whom they give advice for which they get paid to the last cent. It is because they know how to touch the G-spot in each of them. They restrict themselves to letting out a great mad scream (which people used to say was characteristic of Negroes) in front of the difficult cases. ‘Women, you are the most beautiful, the most generous, the most regal; we can discover this in the depths of your being, we can detect the slightest sign hidden in the puzzle of your personality, come on, pay us some khat, today, Friday, day of the Lord and not of Nabi Issa.* The stars couldn’t be in a better alignment, so everything will work out for you all! It is written in the lines of your throats and on the n^ost sensual parts of the inside of your thighs.’ Such words enchant more than one wench waiting for a wellarranged marriage. In contrast to the malicious fools, there is a mass of silent fools. Physical particularity: abundantly long hair, like the followers of Haile Selassie of Harar and the Rastafarians ofJamaica. Once they were wise men, good fathers, and direct descendants of the shep­ herds from the Horn of Africa; people whisper that they have since been affected by a sort of pernicious grace. The silent fools assume the luxury of remaining silent, while scratching their heads and backs, as if unknown to the world they intended to keep intact the secrets governing the Universe. They have a look that goes straight through you, that penetrates you, which prompts simpletons to say that they have some sort of mystique about them. Mute as buddhas, * Name that the people from Djibouti jokingly give to the French, and by extension to the whites. Addeh also means ‘the clarity'. # Jesus Christ

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they maintain a silence that makes your blood run cold; people attribute to them glorious pasts or astonishing love affairs. ‘Do you know why this man keeps silent?’ says an ordinary- man pointing his finger at a silent fool. ‘It seems that on his wedding day his ninth wife died of asphyxi­ ation just like all the eight others,’ he adds. In any case, one thing is certain: the silent fools make other peo­ ple talk. And consequendy bring them to life. There are not only male fools, there are also female fools in this part of the world, where the serious press has been dismissed a long time ago. Amongst the legions of female fools people are excited by a certain group of female fools who specialise in exposing their pri­ vate parts. Because of their high status they are followed by a pack of kids, many of them preparing for their profession of door-to-door fool: all this deliberately encouraged by the authorities, who do not know what to come up with next. In this way the female fools-expos­ ing-their-private-parts , as true queen bees, never move without their swarms. At rush hour at every crossroad, a female fool-exposingher-private-parts skilfully lifts her dirik in order to advertise her assets - a dramatic performance, especially in front of an audience of the faithful at the mosque. From that moment, believers no longer pretend to avert their eyes from the representatives of Lucifer. They find pleasure looking at this stunted private part stuff that stinks of excrement, urine and the froth of men that try not to be seen with a notorious female fool-exposing-her-private-parts who shows her pussy in the street. To tell the truth they make many men happy but only get hard words in return (a bit like the government, the milch cow of the nation). ‘We are goddesses, you visit us very often, come on, when will you build a temple for us?’ taunts a female fool. Finally, there are the fools who are noble in their folly. Champions of Somalian alliterative and elliptic poetry, they are at the top of the hierarchy in the profession, the most feared too. These men are dangerous. They are the philosophic fools who sometimes hit upon the truth and attract thunderbolts. They are becoming increasingly rare. They belong to a race in great danger of extinc-

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tion. They throw thorny mimosa branches at their current enemy: crowned heads of all kinds, for example. They recklessly defy the most respected figures of the nation, in other words the Prophet and the President of the Republic. W hen a fool, teller of some truth, enters a place, everybody falls quiet, some suddenly leave on tiptoe, others sweat profusely without reason, still others make the excuse of the need to vomit, or of pins and needles or incontinence. The most audacious like Haji War Amoussa, the suburb’s unofficial boss, try to corrupt the fool: ‘Here we have the devil in person, give him a drink! Are you thirsty? Here, take this piece of khat and this ticket to pay for the bus to Balbala,* Soub’han Allah, go, go my son ...’ And the philosophic fool pays him back handsomely. He digs in the chefs past to excavate buried secrets, white lies, false identities or hidden episodes. ‘Tell me Haji, since you show yourself to be so generous, you who fought not long ago with vultures over offal to sell at the mar­ ket at a high price. And - that twelfth pilgrimage of yours, how did you pay for that? Dishonestly, I presume?’ He is terrible, this fool, teller of certain truths from the moment he opens his mouth. He enjoys shocking phrases and possesses a loquacious mastery of words and a shrewd perceptiveness, jusdy appreciated and acknowledged by all. Others see in him the moral conscience - if there is any - of the suburb. This lunatic knows the value of each person in society, in a collectivity that stifles the indi­ vidual. He rewards the virtuous, who are increasingly rare, and punishes in his own way everyone who is malicious, vain, oppres­ sive or disloyal; a thief, a cheat, a ruthless careerist and, last but not least, a tribalist. T hat is why his enemies are more numerous than the beads of a rosary. They are always calling for some kind of action, they are constandy calling for him to be hung, drawn and quartered because of his impudence and flouting of tradition. But the fool, teller of many truths, continues to hunt down bigots by publicly revealing their failings: this one is a pederast, that one an alcoholic, etc. # Huge slums at the outskirts of Djibouti where the poorest live cheek by jowl.

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The demystifying fool vigorously takes on all the opportunists. From the outset, the fool lets everyone know what he believes in and prevents them from turning things inside-out. ‘It’s not poor suffering humanity that I am against; clear-sighted fool that I am, I seek out the bad seed. Aaaah! I tell you, I am a thou­ sand years old ...’ Leaning against the partition wall my father goes on grazing.

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Appendix

List of Participants of the Translation Project that resulted in the publication of Fools Thieves and other Dreamers.

Seydi Sow: Fro: I • the D epths o f a W ell

Translation by Birgit Schommer, lecturer in French African litera­ ture, Modem Languages Dept (MLD), University of Zimbabwe (UZ) Assisted by French Hons I students, MLD, UZ Rumbidzai Chiutsu Armstrong Luwala Tafadzwa Maraire Josias Maririmba Lovejoy Masendeke Ruvimbo Matanga Shepherd Mlambo Sheona Mohamed Munyaradzi Munikwa Gondayi Mzite Norman Neshena Gibson Ncube Nhanhla Ndlovu Shingirai Nzomb'e Olga Vera

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Florent Couau-Zotti: Sm all H ells on Street Corners

Translation by Dr Vdronique Wakerly (Head of MLD, UZ) Mr Tava Gwanzura (French Lecturer, MLD, UZ)

Abdourahm an W aberi: The Fools’ G allery

Translation by Birgit Schommer (Lecturer French African Literature at MLD,UZ) Assisted by Kudakwashe Dhoro (Hons III student at UZ) Wadzanayi Nhongo (Hons II) Anne Rundofa (Hons II) Mercy Shumba (Hons II)

From the Em bassy o f France

Fanny Gauthier, Cultural Co-ordinator Laurent Chappelle, Linguistic Attache Bernard Goldstein, Cultural Advisor

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These

three

short

stories by Seydi Sow, Florent Couao-Zotti and

Abdourahman

Ali Waberi provide us w ith taste

of

contemporary

an

exciting

Francophone

African w riting. 'From the Depths o f a Well' is an ironic modern parable about the corruption o f principle and the erosion o f trust; 'Small Hells on Street Corners' reflects on the life o f a street kid living from hand to mouth in a pitiless society; and 'The Fools' Gallery' describes the dream world into which people escape while life founders around them.

Sad or cynical as the stories may be, the authors provide us w ith a clarity o f vision and engagement by confronting their realities w ith inescapable honesty and directness.