Kaveena

by Boubacar Boris Diop

  Of course, N’Zo Nikiema was past the age of sound reason. He was not so naive as to believe that men of the people were always dignified and honest. He had known many who were loathsome individuals. But he was forced to admit to himself: old N’Fumbang had known how to show real magnanimity given the circumstances.

  We had discreetly offered him more money than he’d ever seen in his whole life. I myself had been responsible for delivering the little suitcase of bills to him. And, I must insist parenthetically to my reader, that’s a delicate mission. You are entrusted with ready cash, withdrawn from “political” funds. If you’re the nervous type, you can put a good part of it in your pocket without anybody noticing. I, Asante Kroma, can boast that I’ve never touched a penny of those fat sums.

  Anyone in old N’Fumbang’s position would have come up with some grandiose reasons for pocketing so many millions. He was content to refuse our offer without causing any scandal. Informed about his attitude, N’Zo Nikiema and Castaneda insisted on knowing if he was in contact with any of their political rivals. The day they called me in to talk to me about it, I saw that a real panic was starting to come over Castaneda. This Kaveena case was his secret wound. My department got right to work. We tailed the man, infiltrated his entourage, and even intimidated his employer. All that got us nothing. Still, Castaneda wanted him eliminated. Just like that. Each time he felt overwhelmed by events, he tried to regain control by taking those kinds of extreme measures. N’Zo Nikiema and I managed to calm him down.

  It’s worth recalling that the first fissures were already perceptible in the old collaboration between N’Zo Nikiema and Castaneda. As soon as I was alone with Nikiema, he started to denigrate Castaneda. “You see,” he said to me, laughing, “if I let him be, he’s going to make a martyr of that whole poor family! And of course, the newspapers all over the world are going to vomit their bitterness all over N’Zo Nikiema, the ruthless Negro tyrant!” The president was completely right in a sense. I said to myself that Pierre Castaneda had some nerve trying to make himself come off as the one responsible for respecting human rights in our country. On the other hand, I knew that Nikiema was a crook. I made no comment. When your two bosses get to that point, you simply have to shut it out or pretend to endorse the one who calls upon you as a witness. The important thing is to know who is going to win and to be with him. At any rate, N’Zo Nikiema was mostly just talking to himself.

  It remains unknown why he had saved this anonymous taxi driver’s life. At the time, I thought it was only to annoy Castaneda, who became very ill at ease as soon as Kaveena’s name came up. Now I have enough information to provide an explanation for this indulgence that’s a little closer to the facts. It’s silly, and for what remains of my friendship with the late president, I would like Mumbi Awele to know it: N’Zo Nikiema was just convinced by N’Fumbang’s sincerity. I found some handwritten lines in a notebook where he compares Kaveena’s grandfather to Abel Murigande. “Those two,” he notes briefly, “have the same spiritual power. One took up arms and died for a noble ideal, and the other for the rest of his life will remain an ordinary man, not even suspecting the high degree of his soul.” The tone is perhaps a little too lyrical. That is understandable. Nikiema, lonely and being hunted down, feeling his end was very near, was not able to have a simple connection with the words. It’s normal that he let them inflate, at times, to the point of excessiveness.

  On the same page, N’Zo Nikiema comes back to the interview N’Fumbang agreed to give to a foreign television network. Remember that this was his only interview, and he literally appeared pious. To throw him off balance, the journalist had pounded him brutally: “The government gave you money, sir, everyone knows it. Is that why you refuse to talk to the press?”

  “No, sir. It’s not right to talk like that. I didn’t get any money.”

  “But they offered you some, right?”

  And N’Fumbang, looking the journalist square in the eyes: “No, sir, they never offered me anything.”

  In front of his television screen, alone in his office on the first floor of the palace, N’Zo Nikiema had gotten up and screamed in admiration, “Good God, what a man! What a man!”

  The memory of that night had an unexpected effect on Nikiema: he felt, for the first time since his adolescence in Nimba, tears forming beneath his eyelids. That emotion didn’t last long. He almost suspected he was playing sensitive now that all was lost.

  As he came up from the basement, N’Zo Nikiema heard something like a light creaking above his head. Little by little, he had grown accustomed to the cracks of the wood planks in the ceiling and to the noise the snakes made in the tall grass around the house. But this one wasn’t at all familiar to his ears. He remained motionless, his senses on alert. It was nothing: two pigeons snorting on the terrace. During those few minutes, he’d only had one idea in his head: if people came to arrest him, he would shoot at them and make them bring him down. He even thought about putting an end to his days. Although, he had trouble imagining shooting himself in the head or, as some bizarrely did, in the mouth. Even knowing he had no way out of his situation, it was impossible for him to consider such an extreme act. He always had real admiration for those who could reconcile themselves to doing it without being betrayed by their trembling hand at the last minute.

  It was two o’clock in the afternoon and he had only just woken up. He knew from experience that the rest of the day would be difficult to bear. After his meal—always frugal: canned meat or dried fish, boiled vegetables, and a few fruits—he would have to sit there for hours, invaded bit by bit and then smothered by his past. It was even worse some nights. Not managing to get to sleep, he would toss and turn in his little bed until about eight or nine o’clock in the morning.

  He saw a cricket slide between two poufs. He approached it slowly and, holding his breath, started to observe it. Suddenly he had the impression that the creature had just noticed his presence, because it stopped briefly before continuing its walk along the wall. Two little ants were on its path. N’Zo Nikiema caught himself paying extra attention.

  If we judge by what followed, solitude at times had disastrous effects on N’Zo Nikiema’s mind. The fact that the cricket and the two red ants were bound to cross paths seemed to him a unique opportunity, one he hadn’t hoped for, to know how exactly such encounters take place in the animal kingdom. So many secret dramas, he thought, a little carried away, happen under humans’ noses and they don’t even know how to see them. Was the cricket going to eat the ants alive? Or were the ants going to trap him in their pincers or simply harass him until he died of exhaustion—like the gazelle Nikiema was remembering at that very moment? Impatiently, he started to watch for the fatal encounter.

  People like me like to believe that nature ignores mercy and that the cries of torture victims on our poor earth never reach heaven. The carnage didn’t happen and I was a little disappointed. The cricket grazed the two little red points and rushed into a hole. Then, giving in to a sudden impulse, I crushed the ants under my heels. After doing that, I raved out loud a little. The ants were dead because I was there without wanting to be, because there was civil war. After all, I could have been somewhere else right now than in this small house. In New York, for example, pontificating in front of the United Nations General Assembly about strategies for accelerated development. That’s been ambling along for centuries; African development, children dying of hunger or in wars and of epidemics. And everyone knows, the biggest problem with people who die is that they never come back to life again—and that’s too hard. We can’t just stand around with our arms crossed, so we look for solutions and, that’s right, in Maren’s air-conditioned offices, young economists with their broad foreheads have found the right strategy: to light a fire under development’s ass and see how that speeds it up, ha ha. They would have written this speech from hell for me, and over there, in the Manhattan glass building, as the newspapers say, you read the confused words of ambitious counselors in a
monotone voice—it’s their life’s cause, they’re going to find you some unpronounceable words from old dictionaries! And all those people stare at you with their dead fish eyes, not one among them believes even a word of your story, and when you’ve finished, they get up and give thunderous applause. There are hardly any dirty tie-wearing bastards in the world who actually ask you to save it for another time.

  But I wasn’t in New York, and the poor ants were two anonymous victims of History, and what’s more, they were the only two whom I, supreme leader of an army taking flight, could have prided myself on having put to the sword. . . . Or perhaps the two poor creatures died because you have disappeared too, Mumbi. . . . That there is an infinite chain of causes and effects floating around in every direction which, ultimately, prove my innocence completely, even though my angry hammering kick was, I admit, fully intentional. You see, it’s starting to go bad. I’m flying off the rails, so to speak. But with you, I can allow myself to. You’re the only person who counts for me now. If I manage to find strong-enough words to convince you that I am not a child murderer, I’ll be able to leave in peace. And I will find them, those words. And if you ask me why, I’ll answer you quite simply: because I am innocent. Pierre Castaneda is your daughter’s murderer.

  And then, you became a pain in my ass. If I had killed Kaveena, I would have had good reasons for doing it and I wouldn’t have regretted anything. And your father, this N’Fumbang who makes a fuss to us about being an incorruptible man, would have already been long gone to join her in the hereafter. I wasn’t the kind to leave someone to hassle the entire country with his pain.

  In my time, this country was still well governed.

  Wait and see, soon they’re going to miss me. I’m telling you.

  I can easily imagine their encounters in the small house.

  N’Zo Nikiema in all his splendor. He comes about once every two weeks to reunite with Mumbi Awele. The young woman welcomes him reluctantly. As soon as the door opens, she stares him down with a hostile look and steps aside as he comes in. After saying a vague hello, she returns to her studio, an inscrutable look on her face. He pays no attention to her, more anxious about whether or not anyone has recognized him around the neighborhood. As she mixes her colors, sets her frames, or draws her sketches with broad strokes, he remains seated in the living room. He feels a certain awkwardness troubling her in the middle of her work. She blames him for it, but N’Zo Nikiema also knows that Mumbi is a deeply kind person. They just have to ride out the storm. She always ends up changing her attitude. While he waits, through the corner of his eye he skims through the dailies he brought with him. Photos of him are on every page. He hates the journalists who insult him and he scorns the rest, his corrupt adulators. It’s no life, being a president.

  After several minutes, she comes back and offers, “A coffee or something cold? I only have water . . .”

  The question itself is a ritual. He feels her relax with the passing minutes. Their conversation, interspersed with long silences, becomes animated, little by little. Both of them are on their guard and she, it seems to him, is brooding endlessly with suppressed anger. One wrong word and she explodes. Kaveena is all around them.

  I can add that they almost never talk about themselves. For this, he can only be grateful to her: anyone else would have tried to strip him of his secrets. In every country in the world, people know that their political leaders are lying to them shamelessly and that they—the leaders—are unable to do otherwise. So as soon as an ordinary citizen has you under his finger, he takes advantage of the situation to make you come out with a confession. He also knows just how much power fascinates. Each day he sees nobodies who have no reason to fear him go to pieces in his presence. But this intimate link with President Nikiema does not impress the young woman. She never breaks out of her proud, haughty air. Is it because of the unique circumstances of how they met? There is, too, the murder of her daughter. She seems to be saying to him, all this smooth talking is pointless; you are a child murderer.

  Once or twice, however, he surprises her as she is undressing. What secret of Nikiema’s is she trying to find out? No doubt only she can say.

  She’s a prostitute, she sells her body for nothing, to buy her cans of paint or a few meters of canvas. Back in Kisito, it’s she who looks after the family. N’Fumbang, the father. Old aunts and some cousins. Nikiema takes a sly interest in what one could call her worth in the art world. Nothing special. Even he couldn’t say he was blown away by her paintings. But he has the modesty to admit his ignorance on the matter. At times, he has been tempted to give her some money—insane amounts actually. A little out of habit: people ask him for it all the time and for years he has dished it out to his entourage. With her, he feels that it would be a disaster.

  Some days, he wants to ask her if she receives men in the house or if she has a normal love life like any woman her age. Something, he truly doesn’t know what, holds the question at the back of his throat. N’Zo Nikiema dreads that this might be, all of a sudden, the end of everything.

  I have no trouble at all piecing together this bit of conversation:

  “You want to know if I behave decently? Is that it?”

  With her, Nikiema feels on the defensive right away. He answers sheepishly, avoiding her eyes, “No, of course not. You know it’s not that. If I were anxious to know, I wouldn’t have asked you any questions.”

  “I know that. You have the means to spy on everyone. In any case, my life is my life.”

  When she is mad—or is she only pretending to be, this time?—she is completely fake. He looks up at her to make her understand that she is being unfair to him.

  There has never been the least ambiguity in their relationship. As much as they sit and talk about everything and nothing, she doesn’t seem fully aware of her gender. In the beginning, four or five years earlier, she temporarily made him experience violent moments of distress. At the time, they made love much more frequently. She would yell, rambling. He thought this was unimportant then. According to what he believed he knew, it was banal human behavior: people make love throughout their entire lives, letting out the same confused cries, only for themselves, without the least pretension of being sincere. And honestly, the two are not alike at all. Between them, it is never a question of some amorous passion. But some days, she behaves like a madwoman and threatens to avenge not only Kaveena but also all of Nikiema’s other victims. She hits him with anything she can get her hands on and blames him for the murders of Abel Murigande, a.k.a. Commander Nestor, and, furthermore, Prieto da Souza. “And in Warela and Mirinda,” she goes on, “you and your friend Castaneda razed all the villages and massacred hundreds of thousands of innocent victims. No one in this country has forgotten that. Our people will never forget!”

  In the middle of his own rant, he has a brief moment of lucidity: how can she mix up Kaveena’s death in all of this? They are such different things! So, is she doing this for political reasons? That changes everything! “My little whore,” he roars in turn, “let’s talk about that—in Warela and Mirinda they launched an armed attack against the state and Castaneda and I dealt with it. Yes, as you say, my friend Castaneda and I!”

  He tells himself that any minute now she’s going to bash his head in. He persuades himself little by little that this has always been her intention and that she will do it, for a mysterious reason, while they’re together.

  Once back at the palace, N’Zo Nikiema thinks back on those crazy times and he is struck by this: if there is anything close to love between them, with this unforgettable carnal violence, it’s only because Mumbi Awele’s hatred toward him has remained intact.

  One day, he pulls her toward him in the studio. They hold each other, their genitals touching. Their faces almost touch and their eyes meet but they avoid looking at each other. After a few minutes, they move away from one another, a little embarrassed. Never before had he sensed she was so fragile. It almost brings him joy. She isn’t inde
structible either.

  I heard that you were among the refugees gathering all over the country and heading toward the Saasun River. I imagined you walking along its banks for several days until you reached Niamina. Maybe you crossed to the other side of the border next?

  On my end, I am starting to get used to my black hole down there; I’m even starting to like it a little. Last night, I stayed down there longer than I had to. It’ll be difficult for you to believe but it was for pure pleasure. Or almost. Colonel Kroma and his men are searching for me night and day at the borders. I even thought it wasn’t possible for them to find me one day. Or else it would be in three thousand years. There would be articles in two or three newspapers: A sovereign’s tomb from the third millennium was found in Jinkoré, near the city of Maren. He had been buried with canned goods and bottles of mineral water. No gold or precious objects. Materialist civilization. Everything for the belly. Times have changed, right? But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, the scholars would also say, because we’ve also found documents written in a very old language in the tomb. For that matter, some specialists think that the man wasn’t a monarch, but rather a high-level civil servant, something like one of those austere scribes from ancient Egypt. Anatomists and archeologists would lose themselves in complex calculations. They would come up with all kinds of nonsense and its opposite, but no one on earth would know enough science to contradict them. And honestly, my dear Mumbi, everyone could really give a royal fuck.

  After a civil war, the mercenaries are paid and go on their way. That’s the general rule. Ours stayed to earn extra, solo. They know that, dead or alive, the fugitive can bring them a fortune.