The Laughing Cry, page 24
“What?” A cry from the heart. “You compare me with them?”
And Ma Mireille refused to withdraw what she had said. A long discussion was needed, at the end of which it was Daddy who had to lower his voice and display all the patience of a schoolmaster.
In the end, he proposed listing the concubines among “members of the presidential family”. Ma Mireille called up her reserves. Appeal had to be made to her family, then to a tribal court judge who was the best-informed about Djabotama customs and the most prestigious in Moundié, to call her to reason by referring to many examples of our tribal law. Was she not the Chief’s wife? Well, then . . . Who could take on such responsibilities without additional support, contenting himself like the Uncles, the hypocritical Uncles, with a single wife? And whoever had several wives must he not be scrupulous in dividing everything into strictly equal portions? Well, then . . .
Thank God, even the most impassioned palavers in our society always end in a happy solution. A Super DC8, called The Capital, took the whole delegation for this marvellous journey. But Ma Mireille, still deeply affronted, contemplated and secretly prepared her revenge, accomplishing it in a rendezvous with your humble servant, in the middle of the afternoon, in a suite of the George V Hotel.
At Orly, the French Minister of Cooperation was standing at the foot of the gangway, as announced by Monsieur Bruno de la Roncière. To tell the truth, the Marshal had hoped to the last moment that his fellow-President would welcome him at the airport, as he himself took trouble to do when one of his peers landed in our country. The French Chief of Protocol interpreted in a flash the unhappiness in our Chief’s face and found the right tone to murmur in his ear that the official visit didn’t really begin until the steps of the Élysée: the traffic jams, you understand . . . But this little cloud was a mere drop of wine in the river. As he reached the V.I.P. lounge, Daddy had the satisfaction of seeing the journalists, with their Nagra tape recorders in a bandolier, cameras at the shoulder, and with microphones extended on long metal arms, begging for a declaration, a few words from him. From him! His face flashed alive. He had to think of Louisette’s family in the rue Rambuteau. He shifted from one foot to the other, like a child holding back a piss. They wanted to know what were his impressions on treading the soil of France (a very great emotion . . . he felt at home); what was the meaning of this visit (the strengthening of cooperation with a chosen partner); what he thought of French policy in the field of cooperation (very, very satisfactory, disinterested and effective, even though insufficient, if France wanted to help Africa to develop itself and above all, if she didn’t want to see herself supplanted by another partner . . . just as the French people had freely chosen their President of the Republic Pierre Chevalier, his dear brother, for whom he wished the support of all right-thinking French citizens, his country had freely chosen France as a special partner and he trusted she would not disappoint the millions of hopes placed in her . . . ); what were the big economic projects being discussed (the ministers and technicians would see to all that); what he thought of the present evolution of Africa (the so-called progressive countries mess up the whole place and tip the continent towards the Soviet bloc . . . France must therefore help her overseas friends to counter this danger); what did he think of world developments (the menace ending in -ist was the most serious). No question was put aside by the Chief, and the journalists continued to press him. The interview soon turned, in the opinion of the young compatriot Cabinet Secretary, into a press conference and would have developed into a meeting, but for the reaction of the French Chief of Protocol, preoccupied (too preoccupied, according to Daddy) to stick to the program as planned, minute by minute. Daddy left the journalists with much bowing and cries of “Thanks, thanks, thanks, my dear cousins.”
A star, a star, he was a star in the country of the Uncles: he’d quite forgotten the absence of his peer at Orly. Quite forgotten.
At his emergence from the audience chamber, he was met by a double line of Africans in bubus and cloths, yelling wollé, wollé, woï, woï with the same conviction as at home — something which the Uncles found primitive, contemptuous as they were of our cultural identity. I recognised among them some Djabotama students and some officials on prolonged stays, most unpopular with the young compatriot Cabinet Secretary. He claimed that these fellows, on the verge of retirement, came in truth to acquire a certain prestige by their European studies. I also noted a squad of security police, all armed and dressed in black, beside a bus with barred windows. Later we were told that they had just rounded up and removed, in similar buses, any students who seemed too nervous. Djassikini, for sure. Although all this passed off quietly enough, and without our even noticing it, my young compatriot Cabinet Secretary muttered to himself that it was the beginning of the fascistization of France. Losing my calm (and the reader will have appreciated my calm through all the preceding pages), I retorted to Monsieur Intellectual that we Africans are not serious, and especially not they, the intellectuals. By what right could we, who lived on our knees at home, swallowing all the shit from Daddy’s backside without a single cry or protest, sometimes even aiding the Guinarou in his work (follow my look) — by what right did we pose as critics of the Uncles’ democracy? And I doubted even that the day when those intellectuals, with all their dialectical apparatus . . . But the young compatriot Cabinet Secretary dug me in the ribs and whispered in Kibotama that the driver was listening, and that it didn’t look good for us to quarrel like this, in the presence of an Uncle, and in his language, too.
Along the route, the outriders opened our way with acrobatic skill, risking their lives a hundred times over, sliding with their cycles almost horizontally, with all the elegance and agility of star dancers, through a dense mass of cars and trucks, forcing them to pull off, with a bad grace, however resistant they were to the sirens of the cortege. One could even imagine that they wanted us to fuck off. Ah, these Uncles! So disrespectful towards the great. As if it were not clear enough that an official cortege was passing! They seemed to be fed up to the teeth. Really, our country over there is not so backward as people think. At least in the matter of order, it’s far ahead of the Uncles. One would be amused at so much hullaballoo at home, where it’s treated with such nonchalance. With the tones of an apostle vulgarizing the rich thoughts of a leader to his disciples, the Minister for Customary Affairs explained to us, on our arrival at the hotel, that we’d had under our eyes a living example of the decadence of Western morals, resulting from a too-pronounced cult of individualism. Such was the irremediable fate of civilizations which, abandoning the sacred, demystified all values and had nothing left on which to base themselves. Live, my brothers, the policy of cultural resurrection! And wollé, wollé, woï, woï!
The orderly officers and gorillas selected by Daddy for this journey didn’t want to be outdone by the outriders and freely added their number to the gapers, hoisting their torsoes through car windows and glaring distrustfully at the balconies in search of some criminal sniper. Alas . . . !
We sped through the Place de l’Étoile. As for me, I’d had the chance to enjoy it at leisure on earlier visits. But the little darlings of Daddy . . . they were like schoolgirls excited by a holiday jaunt. Our Chief of Protocol was irritated, shrugging shoulders and complaining of the impression they were giving (false, surely) that we are all yokels, savages who had never seen anything. Afterwards, both Gavroche Aujourd’hui and radio grapevine spread an anecdote about this event. Daddy wanted to ask the driver to stop, so that he could bow before the flame of the Unknown Soldier, but the Minister for Foreign Affairs managed to convince him that the convoy should proceed, because this ceremony had been provided for later in the program. Honestly, I don’t know how much of this is true. I was in another vehicle at the time. But such a gesture would suit well with Daddy’s character. He loves grand gestures that rise from the heart and strike the imagination of the crowd. But (how many times were we not told by Brother Anthony in his lessons at St. Raymond de Penyafort!) France is the country of moderation, not that of grandiose popular emotions.
On the other hand, the young compatriot Cabinet Secretary told me definitely that Daddy had insisted on the program including a march right along the Champs-Élysées to the Arc de Triomphe, but the French security officials had been fearful of provoking Parisian opinion by such a display.
At the end of the famous avenue, the cortege slowed down, and the cars were surrounded by mounted Republican Guards, who escorted us to the residence of the French President. Our host and the very charming Madame Chevalier were awaiting us on the threshold, and it was at this point, as already pronounced, that the official visit really began.
First an exchange of speeches. Welcome on the one part, including a eulogy for a country whose history was common with that of France and whose President was a tried and true friend of the French people, tied to them by many bonds, beginning with that incomparable common instrument of thought: language. Thanks and joy on the other part, with Daddy applying himself even more than usual to differentiate clearly the é from è; the o from the au; and the i from the u. By the approving nods of the French authorities, one noted their satisfaction in tasting the correctness of his accent. They had something to be proud of in the education they had given. Colonialism, contrary to fashionable notions, had other things than crimes on its conscience. The Chief expressed himself as custom demanded in all the speeches delivered in such circumstances, not omitting to celebrate the secular bonds, the communality of the linguistic instrument, the eternal glory of France, land of liberty and the rights of man, which she had so generously exported to the African continent, hitherto sunk in barbarism. No one knows what passed between the two men in the subsequent tête à tête that took place just before Daddy’s departure for the Hotel Crillon, which was to be his refuge during the visit.
The details of the whole affair were given in Paris-Match for the following week. An agreeable visit, perfectly organised and crowned with a joint communiqué, strictly along the lines of diplomatic tradition.
“Come on, Edwige, no good refusing. Take this one, it’ll be much easier.”
She continued protesting a moment, tried once more and, rather shame-faced, ended by accepting the spoonful offered by Boubeu.
I was giving myself a big treat, quite at my ease, eating the tiebdjeun with my fingers.
The girl in white from the Hibiscus had been seated at my left, and I kept asking myself where I had seen her before.
The table was small and once already our knees had involuntarily brushed together. She paid no attention to my apologies, which were those of a clumsy schoolboy.
Edwige complimented the host on his cuisine, and the movement of her lips in pronouncing “it’s delicious” stirred in me a troublesome desire.
That hair, those lips, that voice, where then, my God, had I already encountered them?
Our knees touched again.
Boubeu, master of the situation, discoursed brilliantly about Senegalese dishes, cloths, bubus, music, the téranga, the diom and other guttural words as difficult for my Djabotama tongue as for those of the other guests. It was a real course in civilization. Edwige, deeply interested, posed a thousand questions, seeking clarification, and the inexhaustible Boubeu, who had got up to brush away the flies with his sky-blue toga, was rich in replies that set even himself dreaming.
I was licking my fingers, so as to lose nothing of the perfume of the rice and fish of the tiebdjeun.
Edwige, having sat down again, pulled some cigarettes from her handbag. Black tobacco. She offered me one. I set a cigarette to my lips, licking my fingers again in the process. She rummaged in her bag without succeeding in finding either her matches or her lighter. I took one of the candles that Boubeu, as a man of taste, had placed on the table.
“Here, a cigarette lighted from a candle always tastes better.”
Once again, our knees touched, the hand that held the candle trembled, and her eyes lifted towards the tip of the cigarette, towards the flame, and finally, met my own. She inhaled deeply, deeply, deeply, with a great thrust of her bosom. When she puffed out the smoke, I felt that her senses were satisfied.
Boubeu offered her a basket of fruit. With a hand on her stomach, she refused, a smile on her lips and her eyes shut. We all moved over to participate in the ceremony of drinking mint tea, seated upon the carpet. I tried not to let my gaze dwell on Edwige’s calves, as she sat with her legs crossed under her. She was leaving next day. That was the occasion for Boubeu’s dinner party. She had spoken about her stay here in N . . . , about all that she had learned here, of her friends and the briefness of her visit . . . I discovered in this woman, who strove to display a masculine energy in all the traits of her character, the accents of an emotion that altered her voice. She stopped, leaned forward and sat up again, offering me my cup of tea between two fingers. She fixed me with her glance for an instant. I felt myself sinking. The eyes of an instructress who dominated me. Where had I seen them before?
Boubeu clapped his hands. When I saw him, upright and majestic in his toga of a great Wolof lord, ready to inflict a speech on us, I felt a bad taste rise into my mouth. I didn’t dare look at anyone. In fact, it was short, simple and moving. Edwige blew her nose and discreetly dried her eyes. One would have thought the eyes of . . . No, absurd.
Boubeu presented her, in the name of us all, with a cloth, two statuettes and some ivory bracelets.
Edwige replied in the same tone as Boubeu, but adding a little touch of love. Despite her emotion, she expressed herself easily, like someone accustomed to this sort of occasion.
I ought to have left the party. My duties began early the following day. But I was as if nailed to the carpet. Each cup of tea sweetened my tongue more than the last. And then this unusual and inexplicable fear of solitude which was haunting me.
Boubeu switched on his hi-fi system at a volume fit to wake all the neighbours, and everyone began to “shake” in a real party spirit. Shoulders, hips and heads swung to the rhythm of electric guitars and Latin American percussion. The girls devised movements as delicate as Chinese dolls. The men burst into improvisations like artistes. Edwige, the only white woman present, kicked off her shoes and let herself be taken by one partner after another, swinging her hips uninhibitedly in a puppet-like rhythm, a gauche imitation of our own. I sat aside, smoking cigarette after cigarette.
At two o’clock, I finally found the will to get up.
Edwige looked at her watch and exclaimed with horror that she hadn’t packed her bags.
How did we find ourselves together on the doorstep and how did she come to propose giving me a lift in her Mehari? All along the cliff-road the sea wind pressed her skirt against her thighs.
“Come on, let’s take a drink at my place.”
With a serious air, she hesitated a moment, then descended without a word from her fibre-glass jeep.
We took a glass of strong liqueur.
There were no clumsy gestures, no coarseness, none of the habitual comedy. She had breasts like God’s thunder. And what freedom! At first, I was very self-conscious. Just think of that. But she soon put me at my ease. Her dance had the same sweep as her breasts. She swallowed me up in her fresh waters. We rubbed our skins against each other in the warmest of frictions. When her surprised throat gave out notes of deliverance in a tone close to solemn complaint, I couldn’t hold back the cry of an angry child on the brink of tears. She hugged me maternally in her arms, sweet as vanilla.
This morning, I met Boubeu.
“I’m just just back from the airport. I took Madame Berger . . . She’s really sweet on you, you know.”
Then his big laugh, shining like sugar cane. He gave me a tap on the shoulder.
“Pity. But, you never know. Perhaps she’ll come back, no?”
Daddy was presiding in his office, as usual, surrounded by a whole battery of telephones, buttons, panels, intercoms, levers, winking lights, loudspeakers, TV screens linked to spying cameras; not to mention, for those with eyes to see, a thousand concealed microphones. When I entered the room, he was speaking into two mouthpieces at once. He had scarcely laid these down when another phone rang, and I heard him reply in what he hoped was a softer voice:
“Oh, it’s you? Good, I’ll call you back in a quarter of an hour.”
Ma Mireille? I must say, to be accurate, that during this interview, just as during many others, the telephone would interrupt us and I would hear, with small variations which I now forget, the same phrase:
“Oh, it’s you? Good, I’ll call you back in a quarter of an hour.”
For the first time, I noticed the spots on his forehead.
Then he began moaning, as usual. The people didn’t appreciate, any more than his colleagues, their good fortune in having such a leader. If Polépolé had stayed in power another month, the country would have plunged into the abyss. And he, modest Messiah as he was, had saved the situation. He hadn’t hesitated a second to answer the call of the Eternal. The cadres, above all those accursed intellectuals whose mouths were filled with the titles of their diplomas or of their famous colleges, must understand this, once and for all. No one was willing to collaborate with him. All of them thought only of enjoying power, as if that power were theirs alone.
Those spots on his brow were intriguing me.
“Maître, if only you knew how the incessant pressure of the tribe and the incompetence of those under me prevent me from making this country what I really want it to be . . .”
And he began tenderly caressing the good old days, when he was still just a simple officer respected by everybody, without these wagon loads of shit to bear. He often felt tempted to chuck it all and let them sort it out for themselves, yes — do what Nasser had twice done . . .
