Tomorrow I'll Be Twenty (28 page)

He laughed again, and rolled round in the rubbish like a child playing in the sand on the Côte Sauvage.

‘So you're not mad, little one, but you're rooting around in the rubbish with me, and
I'm
mad?'

I don't know what came over me. I said in a little voice: ‘You're not bad, otherwise you'd have told me to clear off from your bin. So you must be mad, but only a bit, just a tiny bit. And maybe you're not actually mad, it's just that people think you are.'

He'd stopped rummaging now, he looked troubled. Close up I could see his big pink lips moving about, his red eyes like two peppers. His square jaw and the little moustache with a few white hairs.

He came up close to me: ‘I'm going to help you, little one. Together we'll manage to find the key!'

So we both start sifting through the rubbish. We chatted, like two school friends.

He comes over to me: ‘You look on the left, I'll look on the right.'

While we were looking through, he asked me over and over: ‘Found anything?'

I shook my head.

‘I'm not mad, you know, little one. People think I am but I'm not. I'm a philosopher, I've got my diploma in arts and
philosophy. D'you know what a philosopher is?'

‘No.'

‘Then I'll tell you. A philosopher is someone who has lots of ideas that other people never have. That's why the fools that pass me by in the street think I must be mad. If I was in Europe, people would write down what I say and teach it in school to little white children.'

He stopped rummaging and threw his head back to look up at the sky. Tears rolled down his cheeks, and I felt a little bug come into my eye too.

In a loud voice he announced: ‘Round here they call me Little Pepper, probably because of my red eyes. What's your name then?'

‘Michel…'

‘Well, Michel, today I want to talk to you, so listen, and don't interrupt, it's been a long time since I talked to someone who looks at me like a real person and doesn't think I'm completely off my head. You're looking for a key to open a door, I'm looking for one to get out of the place I've been shut up in for years. Maybe the same key will free us both. When I was a child like you I loved it when my grandfather told me stories. And there was one story I will never forget. I'd like to tell it to you, to teach you to respect all forms of life, human, animal, mineral.'

He'd stopped looking, he was sitting down now, with his long hands placed on his legs. I stopped too, and placed my own little hands on my legs.

‘Well, Michel, my boy, I've always had this feeling that animals looked at me strangely, that they know I'm descended from their master, my grandfather Massengo. When I was a child I used to smile when grandfather taught me that this
sheep was related to us, that goat was my maternal aunt, that pigeon was none other than my big brother who drowned in the river Moukoukoulou. I thought it was just nonsense from an old man who was cut off from the world, clinging to his ancestral beliefs. How could an animal be the double of a human being? Back then, Grandfather Massengo warned me: “My boy, you may play with any animal you like, except for that lone cockerel there. That's all I'm going to say, but believe me, if you truly love me, never touch that cockerel…” Who was my grandfather's double? It was the old lone cockerel with its crest at half mast. The cockerel was my grandfather, and my grandfather was the cockerel. Man and beast breathed the same air, felt the same pain, shared the same joy. The cockerel's feathers stood out like a porcupine's quills. Its thin, arched feet showed he was an animal from another time, he had faced all life's difficulties and dangers and now watched with indifference the passing seasons, people dying, children being born, marriages in the village. He was not really of this age. I would see this cockerel almost wherever I went, he might almost have been following me. I knew then that Grandfather Massengo was not far away, that he constantly sent his animal double to protect me against bad people in this world. In the evening the cockerel slept on one leg outside the door of our mud hut, with one eye open. During the day he hung around the yard, sheltering under the mango trees when it was hot or it was raining. When he moved around – always waddling because of his great age – all the hens in the village clucked to show their respect. The animal had lost all sense of time and could not tell night from day. Sometimes I had to chase him out of my grandfather's yard because he was always leaving his stinking droppings in the house. I'd no sooner shooed him out than he'd be back a few minutes later,
giving me this look as though mocking my stupidity, my ignorance of the true meaning of things. I was angry too, and went chasing after him into the manioc and maize fields, where he managed to give me the slip. At least then I knew he wasn't in the yard, that he was lost in the bush somewhere. But when I got back to the village I was amazed to find him already outside the door of my grandfather's house, with his beak in the air, his wings up high – it was his way of being proud, of showing he wasn't afraid of anyone in this world. So how had he managed to get back to the village in only a few minutes? Was he faster than me? It was humiliating. Once I picked up a piece of wood off the ground to knock him out. Behind me I heard a deep, angry voice: “What do you think you're doing?” It was Grandfather Massengo, standing at the door of our hut. I had never seen him in such a rage. He jerked his head. “You come with me, grandson, I think it's time I had a talk with you about a few things, before it's too late…” He took my hand and we went round to the back of the hut. He told me to sit down on the ground, while he remained standing. He was suddenly sweating, and his breath came short and fast, as though he had just escaped a grave danger. “So, grandson, you thought you'd kill me with that piece of wood, did you?” And I replied: “No, I want to hit the lone cockerel, not you.” He stroked his little grey beard and sighed: “Same thing! If you hit that cockerel, you're hitting me. You'll understand that one day when you're older, but will I still be here then…?” From that day on I gave up my war against the cockerel. I let him follow me everywhere, and leave his droppings in the hut. Sometimes I fed him and he liked that, because afterwards he'd come and rub himself against me to thank me and I'd stroke his crest till he closed his eyes and went to sleep, but with one eye open. I'd sleep too,
beside him, and I was the happiest child alive. Whenever I showed the cockerel respect, fortune shone upon me, so that if I went fishing I'd bring back more fish than all my friends. At the village school I came top in every subject, I was the best pupil in the whole district, with the highest marks in the Primary School Certificate. All I had to do was think about the cockerel, and everything that the other pupils found complicated became as clear as spring water to me. But the world is full and always will be, of people who are envious, people who are starving, of hypocrites and cynics, and those people are the reason Grandfather Massengo is no longer with us. May his soul rest in peace. Yes, he died because of my Uncle Loubaki's greed. Loubaki, who lived a few hundred metres away from my grandfather, was determined to eat the lone cockerel. At the end of the old year, the family always met to discuss what they would eat on New Year's Day. It was to be a cockerel from grandfather's chicken house, the biggest in the whole village. Up until then, the cockerel had survived because he was so intelligent that he understood our language and listened at doors to find out what humans were plotting. At the end of December that wretched year when the cockerel was to leave this world, my Uncle Loubaki said to the rest of the family: “We must eat the lone cockerel, he's too old, he's no use to us any more. And besides, he stinks and he spreads disease among all the other birds in the village.” My grandfather, who was present at this meeting, did not react to this. The cockerel, however, had heard everything. He slipped away quietly before dawn and only came back around the fifth of January. Meanwhile, on New Year's Day, they chose a different cockerel. Then the next year, Uncle Loubaki decided to play a deadly trick on the lone cockerel, who was hanging about eavesdropping on us: “It's
decided, we won't eat the lone cockerel for the New Year, he's too old, he stinks, we'll let him die of old age, why spoil the party with old rubbish like him when there are lots of other cockerels and hens in grandfather's hen house. That lone cockerel is the ugliest creature on earth. He doesn't deserve to be eaten. So let's eat the two chickens we bought last year at the market in Mouyondzi instead.” At that everyone laughed. Everyone applauded the decision. And since the lone cockerel was now quite sure he would be spared the pot once again this New Year, he stayed in the village on the evening of the thirty-first of December. On the first of January, at six in the morning, Uncle Loubaki himself caught him outside grandfather's door and slit his throat in one sharp movement. The feast was long and joyful. Only grandfather, they noticed, sat alone in his corner. He seemed distanced from our joy, and he began talking to himself about things no one could understand. We all drank to his health and long life, to all he'd done for his family and the village. We wished he might live as long as the prophets in the Bible. He thanked us several times. He accepted all the presents the family gave him. But when he thanked us he was weeping. I saw him turn away to wipe his tears, so no one would see. At the end of that day, the old man withdrew into his room murmuring: “I always thought you loved me in this family, but I've been wrong, all my life I've been wrong. I wish you all
bonne fête
, and hope you enjoyed the cockerel.” No one knew then that these would be his last words. On the second of January around ten in the morning, Uncle Loubaki went to knock on grandfather's door, for usually he was up and about by six. He found him in the living room, lying on the floor, with his arms crossed. Scattered around him were the feathers of the lone cockerel, though we had buried them well the day before, behind the
chicken coop, as was usual when one of the family's chickens was killed. And since that day, young Michel, no one in our family has ever eaten a cockerel. And even when I'm really hungry and I find a chicken thigh in a bin, I still don't eat it because I might see that old man's face as I do so, the man I loved more than anyone in the whole world. I think maybe that business drove me mad. When I sleep, I swear, I see headless cockerels in my dreams. I see feathers flying in the wind, and I fly after them, high in the air, till I see the face of Grandfather Massengo, where the sun should be. And if I hear a cock crowing somewhere close by, I run towards it, thinking I am going towards my grandfather.'

Little Pepper falls silent for a few moments. I've begun to look through the bin again, though since he told me the story of the cockerel I've had a little bit of a bug in my eye. Then suddenly, in great excitement, he plunged a bit further into the rubbish, shouting: ‘That's it! I've found it! There's the key!'

I hurried towards him to look. But I was soon disappointed: ‘Little Pepper, that's not a door key, it's far too small.'

‘Well what is it then?'

‘It's a key for opening tins of sardines, the kind without heads brought in from Morocco.'

‘Yes, but you said a key, you didn't say what kind!'

He kept it in his pocket, and we went on looking for at least an hour. People who saw us thought I must be his child. My clothes were dirty, like a mechanic mending an old car engine. There were maggots climbing up my arms, and Little Pepper came to pick them off and eat them like roasted peanuts.

‘As long as it's not chicken, I can eat it!'

It made me feel sick, which made him laugh like a little child. Then I realised he really liked this game and that we'd be
spending hours in this bin if I wasn't careful, so I stood up.

‘I have to go home, or my parents will be cross.'

‘Oh come on, Michel, let's keep looking, the key's here, we'll find it, I promise.'

But even when people bought fresh rubbish, and stood a little way off, watching us rummage, we didn't find the key.

When the sun began to set behind the houses on the edge of our
quartier
, Little Pepper stood up and dusted his backside down with his right hand.

‘You can go now, little one. I've just had the best afternoon of my whole life. I'll go on looking for that key for you. If I find it I'll keep it for you.'

He pointed over towards the cemetery of the Voungou
quartier
: ‘I live down there. Yes, just by the door to the cemetery. It's quiet down there at night, I can sleep in peace, and talk with the dead and departed. They don't look at me like the living do. They tell me everything that goes on in this town…'

‘Can you really talk with the dead?'

‘Of course!'

‘So have you seen my two sisters?'

‘What are their names?'

‘My Sister Star and My Sister No-name.'

‘I need real names. You know how it is, I see so many people pass by.'

‘I don't know their real names, I just call them that.'

‘Well ask your mother their names and come back and see me whenever you like.'

I stood up too. I dusted down my backside like Little Pepper. I called goodbye as he watched me leave. I'm sure he was thinking I'd never come back.

I've just told Geneviève about what happened with Little Pepper.

‘Have you really got a key you've hidden somewhere?' she asks.

‘No.'

‘Well find any old key, then! I'll help you. I've got an old key that…'

‘No, Little Pepper's going to find it for me, he can talk to invisible people. And it will be a real key, to open up my mother's belly.'

‘You should be careful. That man's mad.'

We've been walking down the street for a few minutes. We're going to the Lebanese shop, where she'll buy me some boiled sweets.