Tomorrow I'll Be Twenty (6 page)

Before she left she said to me: ‘You're going to Martine's for a few days, I'll come and collect you after the wake. Be good, and behave as you do with me. If I hear you got up to any tricks I'll make sure you feel it.'

A wake lasts at least two or three days, sometimes as long as a week, even two if the dead person's not happy with his family and is sulking in his coffin. Then you have to wait for the traditional chiefs to arrive from their village with their tam-tams and fetishers, to make
gris-gris
. The fetishers will ask the dead person to move on to heaven for good, and not come back haunting people round midnight. Some dead people are really tricky, they start bothering people on the day they're to go to the cemetery: they jam the wheels of the hearse, so it can't move forward, they throw thunderbolts around the
quartier
, make rain, and their ghost comes to the funeral ceremony to check no one's making fun of the corpse, or that the men aren't flirting with the women when they should be weeping. If the corpse's ghost sees he hasn't been washed properly, or that the sheets on the body are bargain sheets, the ones the Senegalese sell down at the Grand Marché, and that no one's crying much, they'll start pestering folk at night.

When Maman Pauline went to the wake, I said to myself: ‘Let's hope the ghost of this corpse isn't too tricky.' She came back two days later, the ghost in question had behaved properly, he was happy with the wake and was prepared to depart at the same time as the body, and leave people in peace.

.....

As soon as a mango falls off the tree, Lounès and I eat it. Since he's bigger than I am, he gets first bite. He gets two bites, I just get one. That's only right, his stomach's bigger than mine.

Sometimes we just sit there in silence, with our eyes shut, so we can hear the butterflies flying up above us. Most of all we like watching the planes flying overhead, guessing which country they'll land in. If one of us says the name of a country, he has to say the name of its capital too. That's how I know that the capital of Belgium is Brussels, the capital of England is London and Germany's is Berlin. But Lounès does world history at Trois-Glorieuses secondary school and he explained that with Germany it was a bit complicated because it's a country that's divided in two, with a big wall to keep the people apart, though they're all Germans. One part's capitalist, the other's communist. I didn't know the name of the capital of the communist bit, though it's a country that likes us because we're all struggling against the capitalists. It was Lounès who explained to me that the capital of the other Germany which is communist like us is called Bonn.

I watch him munching his mango, it takes me back to Monsieur Mutombo's workshop, when Monsieur Mutombo's saying, ‘My son's name is Lounès, it's a promise I made to my Algerian friend.'

Then he explains that he lived in Algeria for a year and a half, in a
quartier
of the town of Algiers called Kouba. At that time he wanted to be a tradesman like the Arabs in our country, who are now the richest people in Pointe-Noire.

I listen to him tell his story, waving his hands around: ‘I only went to Algeria because I believed we could be businessmen
too. We could make lots of money like the other tradesmen, or else one day they'd be selling us cassava, even though we've been producing it ourselves since the dawn of time.'

If you go into Monsieur Mutombo's workshop he'll tell you his Algeria story at least ten times. The one thing you mustn't say is, ‘You told me that last year.' If you do that he'll just down tools straight away and you won't get your shirt or your trousers for at least another two weeks. You just have to hear him out, and he'll start by telling you it was in the
quartier
called Kouba that he first learned the trade of cobbler, before giving it up to become a tailor. He'll also tell you it was there he first met the man who's like a brother to him: an Algerian called Arezki.

The longer I look at Lounès, the more he reminds me of his father talking about his friend Arezki. ‘Meetings like that are meant to happen! Every morning, from the window of his house, Arezki would see me getting off the bus. Every time he met a black man he'd tell the story of his journey to Senegal, where he and his family had lived for many years. He'd wave at me from a distance and I'd wonder if he was someone I'd known in the Congo, or if he'd confused me with someone else. Then one day he invited me to drink tea at his house, and he told me: “No, we've never met, but my door is always open to you, brother.”'

Monsieur Mutombo will then explain that in Algeria there are lots of black people like us, and that these black people are Algerians. He'll add quietly that people with our colour skin suffer almost as much as Blacks in South Africa, where Whites and Blacks can't sit next to each other on the bus, even though buses are there for everybody. Some people get on with animals that have fleas, so why can't black people go in the bus too? And Monsieur Mutombo will suddenly get angry, but you mustn't
think it's against you, just because you're listening.

‘People don't talk much about the suffering of the Blacks in Arab countries! What's that about then? You don't find many pale skinned Arabs there marrying Arabs with dark skin. Racism and slavery don't just exist between White and Blacks, you know! Arabs had black slaves too, they whipped them like the Whites whipped us back then, and when I see the way the pale skinned ones treat the Blacks over there I think nothing's changed since slavery. Now my Algerian brother, Arezki, he didn't care if his neighbours thought the Black who came to drink tea with him was his servant. That's right, in Kouba they took me for a “boy”. Arezki's wife was called Saliha, and they had two sons: Yacine, the older brother, who was studying in Europe, and then the little one, Lounès, who was very clever, with bright blue eyes. There was a daughter between the two boys, Sara. Sometimes I'd walk in the streets of Algiers with the two children. And people would turn round and wonder if they could be my children. If so why weren't they as dark as me? Then they'd think I must just be the servant who was looking after the children of an Algerian capitalist family. Does that seem right to you?'

Once he'd finished being angry he'd talk about Algeria in a sad voice, while continuing to stitch your suit.

‘I gave up cobbling to learn tailoring in a little workshop in an old quarter of Algeria called the Casbah. It made more sense for me to learn tailoring because back home the school children change uniforms every year, but many of them go to school barefoot. You can see, my workshop's doing well. I've bought my own plot, I've built a big house, and I'm not one to go round moaning. But, oh, I did love the Casbah! In that part of town the houses are all squeezed together and look out
across the sea. It's like living in ancient times. You see people threading their way through the zigzag alleyways. There are steps everywhere, everything's up and down. If you don't know your way round you can get lost. During the war with Algeria the French wouldn't go into the Casbah, they were afraid they'd get lost and be attacked by the Algerians, even the children know where the steps lead and which little passage goes where. Before I left Algeria I made a promise to Arezki and his wife. I told them that if God gave me a son he too would be called Lounès. That's how things were with our ancestors, they named their children after people who were dear to them, not just after their own relatives.'

In his workshop there's a big black-and-white photo of him surrounded by his family in Algeria. Monsieur Arezki and his wife are on either side of him. The children are squatting down in front and the little Algerian boy called Lounès is the one with very dark hair, like his father's, looking down at the ground. Monsieur Mutombo explains proudly that the little Algerian Lounès was looking at the ground in the photo because he was trying to hide his tears at the return of his father's friend to the Congo.

The wind blows and too many mangoes fall. We can't eat them all. He'll give me some and keep the others for his parents and Caroline.

I look at the sky and wonder if it will rain. When it rains it's like a river running through the
quartier
. But I don't think it will rain, the sky's still clear.

Lounès tells me he's got hairs growing down there.

‘Where down there?'

‘Down in my pants, inside.'

I don't believe him, so he opens the zip of his pants and
shows me. Little shiny black hairs like on a baby's head. He says I'll get them too. You have to have hair down there for girls to respect you. Otherwise they think you're just a child and you can't yell at them. Hairs are the sign you're a man now, not your normal beard, even goats have that.

‘But I don't want hairs down there!' I tell him.

‘You'll still get them.'

‘I want to stay the way I am!'

He changes the subject, and asks me if I've seen Caroline. So he's picked up that something's not right between me and his sister. I can't hide it.

‘Don't talk to me about Caroline!'

‘What is it? Has she upset you?'

‘Did you know it was her that did my mother's braids, and that's why Maman Pauline went out without me?'

‘Is that all?'

‘What d'you mean, is that all? Do you like it, then, when your mother goes out? If Caroline hadn't done braids in her hair, she'd never have gone out without me that Sunday!'

We hear someone coming up behind us. It's Madame Mutombo coming out of the house. Maybe she heard us talking.

‘What are you two whispering about?'

‘Nothing. Just chatting,' Lounès says.

She moves slowly forward, carrying her big heart inside, and passes just in front of us. She's got a sack of peanuts on her head, she must be going to the Grand Marché. We watch her go, then I put my lips close to Lounès's ear.

‘I'll tell you a secret, but you mustn't tell, not even your sister…'

‘She's not here, she went to braid our aunt's hair this morning.'

‘Yes, but even when she comes back, you mustn't tell her, or I'm done for!'

‘I won't tell her.'

‘Ok, you're not going to believe it. We're capitalists now, in our house…'

‘Really? Proper capitalists?'

‘Yes, we've got a brand new machine, no one else has got one here yet, it's a radio and a recorder at the same time. It's a radio cassette player.'

I tell him about the singer with the moustache.

‘His name's Georges Brassens. He's a nice man with a moustache. He keeps talking about this tree he liked but that he can't see now. And all day long he sings this song, all about his tree! I feel sorry for him, we have to help him. It's not right that a man gets so sad about a tree he starts crying.'

‘Is he white?'

‘What d'you think, who else would cry about a tree?'

Before I leave him I promise him one day when he comes round to our house, we'll listen to the singer with the moustache. One day when my mother and father are out.

It's good being a boss. When I say ‘boss', I don't mean like my uncle, he's not such a big boss as the President of our Republic, who's President, Prime Minister, Minister of Defence, and President of the Congolese Workers' Party, the CPT, all at the same time. You might get the impression he's a bit greedy, holding all these positions himself. People do say whenever there's a meeting of the President of the Republic, the Prime Minister, the Minister of Defence and the President of the CPT, our President sits on his own in a room, talking things over with himself, first as President of the Republic, then as Prime Minister, then as Minister of Defence, and last as President of the CPT. Which is why the meeting goes on longer than when he's with his ministers.

You have to remember that he's taken on all these posts to protect himself, which I can understand. If he accepts a Prime Minister who isn't himself, the Prime Minister's going to want to be President of the Republic too, and overthrow the Minister of Defence in a
coup d'état
, because he's a dangerous member of the armed forces who has already carried out one plot to kill the immortal Marien Ngouabi, and succeeded. As a military man he knows all the other military men, and they all respect him because it's not something everyone can claim, that he's killed one of the immortals.

Papa Roger doesn't like military men and he thinks ours are
always hungry. You'd think the last time they'd eaten was a century and ten days ago. They're not going to be much use if Zaire attacks us at five in the morning to take over our petrol and our Atlantic waters, with all the big fish, which are meant to belong to us as well. Our military men are too thin, they don't do any keep-fit, not like the Americans and the Russians, who train all the time because they know that world wars come along all of a sudden, and when that happens you don't have time to say, ‘Wait for me, I'm just going off to have a pee before I start fighting.'

Papa Roger also thinks our military men don't do any sport because if we do have a war it won't be tomorrow, and in any case if there is a war, a little country like the Congo's never going to win. So their stripes are worth nothing. They've never fought a real war. Even though it's not allowed, they'll mount a
coup d'état
and bump off immortals with anyone who's prepared to offer them new uniforms, ranks, crates of foreign beer and a fat salary.

Our President knows all this, which is why he's decided to make himself Prime Minister, Minister of Defence and President of the Congolese Workers' Party. The reason he's decided to make himself President of the CPT is because, as Uncle René is fond of saying, it's not rocket science to be president, first of all you have to be the boss of the CPT. The CPT chooses the president because we don't like wasting time with elections, not like in Europe, where they even ask the people to choose who they'd like to be president! What kind of a joke is that? You don't ask the people themselves who they'd like for president! What if they get it wrong, what then? It would ruin the country! Now, the members of the CPT have never got it wrong. So it's right that they should be the ones who choose the
President of the Republic for us. Besides, the President's always reminding us in his speeches that the elections the Whites go in for, and tell us we have to have too, are a bad thing – they slow down the Revolution. Our country's running late, we're in a hurry, we need to catch up with Europe, and we can't catch up with Europe if we're constantly asking people to choose a President of the Republic. Besides, not everyone would be able to vote. Some people won't even be there on the day, they'll have toothache and have to go to the dentist. Others will go off to work on their plantations, and die of malaria or sleeping sickness. And it's not nice, telling old people they've got to go and vote when they're tired and have a right to a rest.