The Death of Comrade President

by Alain Mabanckou

  There are dogs everywhere. They’re all really skinny, even though there’s loads of rotten food around. I go right up to the bin too, and look closely at each of the dogs. The animals are so focused on eating, they take no notice of me.

  But I’ve come up too close: three dogs start barking, thinking I’m going to snatch the bone they’re fighting over when in fact I’m not interested in their petty quarrel. I take a step back, then another, and stand off to one side. What do I see? There, among the three mad dogs, there’s one that looks exactly like Mboua Mabé. I take a step forward again, then two more, to get a better a look. My God! It’s him! He’s all black and skinny! It’s Mboua Mabé! There’s no mistaking him! I’m so happy! I want to shout three times over, like at Saint-Jean-Bosco’s: Thank you, Lord! Thank you, Lord! Thank you, Lord!

  I put my plastic bag down on a heap of rubbish and lunge for my dog, but the two others are barking because they think I’m going to take some of their food away.

  I move forward, shouting loudly:

  ‘Mboua Mabé! Mboua Mabé! Mboua Mabé!’

  I get to less than two metres from him, and he bares his sharp teeth at me, his hair stands on end and he gets ready to leap at me as if this was the Biafran war and I was the enemy.

  No! No! No! I realise at once it’s not my dog, this is not Mboua Mabé. Besides, this one isn’t black all over, as I thought when I saw him from a distance. He’s got brown hair on each paw and is wearing a little chain round his neck.

  I start running, but I can hear the dog running after me. I look behind me; he’s stopped at the bag, which I forgot to pick up. He turns it this way and that with the claws of his paws, with his mouth, and rips it. He’s disappointed with what he finds, and since it is impossible to eat a bottle of red wine, he attacks Papa Roger’s tobacco and chews at it, as if it was a normal bone. Unfortunately for him, this tobacco is for human beings, and he starts sneezing. It’s the first time I’ve really noticed that dogs can sneeze like us. The more he sneezes, the more other dogs come and gather round him and start barking, as if they’re asking, ‘What’s wrong with you? Who did this to you? Tell us and we’ll go and take care of him!’

  I can’t just head off and leave my father’s wine there with these animals. If someone comes this way they will be glad to find it and have a free drink; the rule of the bin is finders keepers. So I pick up some stones and throw them at the dogs. They scatter, but return to the bag as soon as they’ve dodged the stone. I decide to go to Paul and Placide Moubembé’s house, they’ll help me. I set off running like a mad man …

  When I get to the Moubembés’ plot I find Placide reading a Tarzan adventure as usual, and he tells me his big brother has gone into town with their father, who’s going to buy him some Salamander shoes.

  I explain my problem with the dogs and he laughs:

  ‘Are you really scared of dogs like that? Ha! Come on, I’ll show you, they’ll panic as soon as they set eyes on Placide Moubembé!’

  We’ve been friends since primary school, and I like the way he sometimes shows how brave he is. Even though he’s not very tall, he can leave you half dead with a punch because, as he often says himself, you don’t have to be tall to be strong, just really focused at the moment you punch. He dreams of being Tarzan, but I know that’s impossible, because when he tries to swing through the trees he always falls and has to put boa grease on his wounds. I have to be careful not to laugh too much when he falls, or he’ll stop lending me his Tarzan adventures. Placide, too, like Tarzan, dreamed of being adopted by orangutans, who are virtually humans, and wanted to live with them. He hates the way that in most films you see at the Rex or the Duo cinema they make Tarzan talk like a wild animal, when most humans are more like wild animals than orangutans are. And anyway, the orangutans we’re talking about are kind; they rescued Tarzan after the death of his parents, who were with him in the African jungle …

  So Placide and I are back at the bin now, where I was before. The dogs are still standing round Papa Roger’s bottle of wine. Placide picks up a stick and approaches them. As soon as they see him coming, they drop their heads in respect and one after the other they move away.

  Placide’s really proud of himself. He picks up the bottle of red wine:

  ‘Here, next time don’t upset the dogs. They know me really well; they know I love animals …’

  I explain that I’m looking for Mboua Mabé, who disappeared when he heard them say on our Grundig:

  Now, with its back to the wall and in its death throes, imperialism has used a suicide unit to launch a cowardly attack on the life of our dynamic leader of the Congolese Revolution, Comrade Marien Ngouabi, who died in combat with his weapon in his hand, this Friday, 18 March 1977 at 14:30 hours.

  He stops me at once:

  ‘Stop saying that! And don’t say “Comrade President Marien Ngouabi” out on the street! Do you want to get arrested or what? Don’t you know they even killed a captain called Kimbouala-Nkaya, from your mother’s ethnic group?’

  ‘Of course I know, Kimbouala-Nkaya was my uncle! The northerners killed him, but he turned into a white crane, and I know cranes live for ever …’

  ‘Ha-ha, very funny! You don’t change! Kimbouala-Nkaya was your uncle?’

  ‘I promise you! And two of my uncles that I’ve never met came from Brazzaville; they’ve run away from there and—’

  ‘Stop! Stop!’

  ‘Why won’t you believe me when I—’

  ‘Michel, you must think I’m stupid! If this Captain Kimbouala-Nkaya was your uncle the militia would already have arrested your parents to kill them too! You’ve just made it all up, as usual. Michel, you’re a dreamer! You’ve got a problem! And all that about cranes, that’s just stuff in Soviet songs we sang in primary school!’

  I’m thinking: Why did I tell him about Captain Kimbouala-Nkaya being my uncle, when Uncle René asked us to be discreet?

  I quickly change the subject to wipe out my stupid mistake and stop him asking too many questions about my uncle:

  ‘Hey, Placide, you know my dog …’

  ‘Is he one of them?’

  ‘No, he went missing when he heard about the assassination of Comrade President Marien—’

  ‘Don’t say “Comrade President Marien Ngouabi” out on the street!’

  ‘I mean, my dog’s gone missing, I’m looking all over for him because—’

  ‘Well, there’s no point looking for him here! Dogs are like us, they stay in their own neighbourhood. If he comes here, the others will fight him and deal him a mortal blow! Go and look in your own neighbourhood, in the bins down by the River Tchinouka, for instance …’

  Seeing I don’t believe him, he says:

  ‘There’s some other problem weighing on you, Michel, I can tell …’

  ‘No I’m fine, Placide, honestly …’

  ‘No you’re not, I know you!’

  So I tell him the truth.

  ‘Well, I think Papa Roger’s going to yell at me: I’ve lost his change …’

  ‘What? How come?’

  I show him my arm.

  ‘I took a hundred francs to buy this bit of black cloth I’m wearing, and his tobacco got eaten by one of the dogs who’s scared of you …’

  He takes a long hard look at me.

  ‘When will you ever change? How much did your dad give you?’

  ‘A five thousand Congolese franc note, all clean, and not crumpled.’

  ‘Here then, pay me back when you can …’

  ‘Where did you get that?’

  ‘I sold my old Tarzan stories to the old man who runs the pavement bookshop outside the Rex cinema.’

  ‘Oh no, I can’t take that …’

  ‘Would you rather get yelled at by Papa Roger? First you lost his tobacco and then you used his money without asking his permission, and after that you lost his change, that’s a lot, Michel …’

  He takes the bottle of wine from my hands.

  ‘I’ll keep it;
you go and buy another one with the money I’ve just given you, then they’ll give you the same amount of change and your father will never know. And stop going round boasting that Captain Kimbouala-Nkaya was your uncle and has turned into a white crane! It’s usually troublemakers that tell lies like that, they could easily arrest your parents for it!

  The dirty note

  Ma Moubobi is surprised to see me come back into the shop:

  ‘Pauline Kengué’s son back again? Did I not give you back the right change?’

  I tell her I forgot my father wanted two packets of tobacco and two bottles of wine.

  I give her the five thousand Congolese franc note and she looks at it very uncertainly, like someone suspecting a trick:

  ‘And why have you brought another one, when you already had the change I gave you? That would be enough to pay me with now. Besides, your father always has clean new notes!’

  Without thinking I reply:

  ‘Yes, but he gave me this one because it was too dirty and he didn’t want it …’

  ‘What? What are you saying, boy? So Roger thinks my shop is somewhere you pay with dirty money, does he?’

  She tosses the bottle of wine and the packet of tobacco on to the table:

  ‘You can tell your father that Ma Moubobi’s shop isn’t some rubbish bin where the dogs of Pointe-Noire all gather! And if you don’t tell him, I’ll come round to your house and tell him myself!’

  The answer’s no

  Maman Pauline is out sweeping the yard. She’s wearing a black scarf on her head. So she’s decided to go into mourning even though Uncle René and Papa Roger don’t want her to in case people ask questions in the neighbourhood and she gets into trouble when people realise we belong to the same family as Captain Kimbouala-Nkaya. On the other hand you can’t actually say wearing a black headscarf is being in mourning because you really have to be in black from head to toe and shave your head completely for that. But Maman Pauline is wearing a wax wrap with pictures of little groups of birds with different coloured feathers. They’re not white cranes, they’re swallows, which you see everywhere – they make their nests on the roofs of the buildings at Three-Glorious-Days. I’m a bit sad the birds on my mother’s wrap aren’t white cranes, swallows are chatty birds, their flight isn’t exactly elegant. Their droppings are always falling on people’s clothes, and unless you wash them with Monganga soap the stains will never come out. Many people in Pointe-Noire think that if a swallow poops on your head it’s lucky, and they go running off to play the National Congolese Lottery in the hope of winning millions. Some idiots even stand guard underneath swallows’ nests waiting for them to crap on them when sometimes they don’t need to go, and they’re just playing among themselves, especially the children, who haven’t learned how to fly and chat yet. You shouldn’t go running after luck, it’s just a happy accident, the only accident any of us ever wishes for …

  From the way she’s looking, I’m sure Maman Pauline still hasn’t spoken to Papa Roger since this morning and she’s in a bad mood because of the row in the night about the head shaving business. My father knows there’s no point trying to make her talk; anything coming out of her mouth is going to be deadlier than viper’s venom. And if she gets angry the whole day will be a write-off in this house; we might not even eat again, like last time, even if we were saved at the last minute by the terrible news of the death of Comrade President Marien Ngouabi, the arrival of Uncle René and uncles Kinana and Moubéri. When I say ‘saved’ that’s just an expression, because there was a whole load of bad news inside that briefcase of Uncle René’s …

  I go and sit with Papa Roger under the mango tree. He doesn’t notice I’ve put his bottle of wine down beside him. I listen to the Voice of the Congolese Revolution with him. On this station they always talk about the thing you’re not interested in: instead of talking in depth about the death of Comrade President Marien Ngouabi and telling us something about Captain Kimbouala-Nkaya, it gives you the news from abroad. They tell you the French have just elected a new mayor of Paris, and that the man’s name is Jacques Chirac. Apparently he’s a fine chap, intelligent, and it’s thanks to him that the current French president, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, became president. To say thank you, this president bumped him up to prime minister in 1974. But Chirac only stayed prime minister for two years; he had plans of his own, like all intelligent people of his sort.

  The Voice of the Congolese Revolution says that this Jacques Chirac is a political magician and he can make sure the other candidates lose elections. I don’t know where the journalists get this kind of top-secret stuff. They even say that when Uncle Pompidou died, three years ago, France fell into chaos. Everyone knew he was ill, but people said he would last at least till the end of his term. But no, he just went and died and they had to change presidents. Usually Pierre Messmer, Pompidou’s prime minister, would have been the choice to replace Pompidou, but this Jacques Chirac, with his super intelligence, which the Voice of the Congolese Revolution has been going on about for the last thirty minutes, decided to go for Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, the Finance Minister, who really wanted to be president. So it’s thanks to this Jacques Chirac that the French have now got Valéry Giscard d’Estaing as president. Hang on, though, Jacques Chirac has done lots of good things, and the French are still reaping the benefits and haven’t even said thank you, says the Voice of the Congolese Revolution. Apparently, it’s thanks to him that the unemployed have somewhere to go to sign up if they’re looking for work, the National Employment Agency. We don’t have those, though we have plenty of jobless people here as well.

  As I’m listening to all this, I wonder why someone who used to be prime minister is trying to get himself elected mayor of Paris, when prime minister is a more important position than mayor of a town. I keep wondering why our national radio station gives us these good news stories and doesn’t mention the name of Captain Kimbouala-Nkaya once, when he loved our country and got gunned down for no reason. Here in the Congo we’re sad while the Parisians are just lazing about and feeling happy this Sunday 20 March 1977, having elected their mayor, Jacques Chirac, with no fighting, no military trucks in the streets, no telling people they have to stay home for the curfew and mustn’t meet in the street in groups of more than three people between seven in the evening and seven in the morning.

  Many people, like me, never knew that mayors were elected. In our country it’s the president who chooses the mayors, and he orders people to go out and vote one hundred per cent or there’ll be trouble. And if you get all clever and say you don’t want to vote for a mayor who’s been selected by the president, the soldiers who oversee the vote will put you in handcuffs and take you to a cell to be whipped with an AV42 drive chain.

  ‘Michel, you mustn’t talk to your mother if she’s not speaking to you,’ says Papa Roger, interrupting my thoughts.

  I glance back over at my mother: she’s over by the kitchen now, sweeping with her back to us. People passing in the street call out to her and she simply nods to say hello back.

  ‘I’ll drink this wine a bit later today; go and put it in the pantry.’

  I take a couple of steps towards the house. At the third step, Maman Pauline sees me. She puts down her brush, comes over to me, and we both go into the living room.

  ‘What was your father saying to you just now?’

  ‘Er … nothing.’

  ‘Did he mention your uncle Kimbouala-Nkaya? Tell me the truth …’

  I don’t know what she’s driving at, so I reply:

  ‘No, Maman, we were listening to the radio …’

  ‘Ah! And were they talking about my brother, Captain Kimbouala-Nkaya, on the radio at last?’

  ‘No, they were talking about Jacques Chirac …’

  ‘Who’s he, then? Was he assassinated along with your uncle?’

  ‘He’s a white Frenchman who’s just been elected mayor of Paris.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘They say
he’ll do anything to get someone elected president of the Republic. Also, he invented the office where people without jobs have to register to find work, the National Employment Agency and—’

  ‘Really! As if we didn’t have proper things to talk about in this country! Roger’s acting very oddly at the moment!’

  ‘He didn’t say that, the Voice of the Congolese Revolution did.’

  ‘Then it’s not true, Michel! I promise you, even this Jacques Chirac doesn’t exist! No one’s called Jacques Chirac, that’s a name they’ve invented so as not to talk about the murder of my brother Kimbouala-Nkaya! But we’re not going to let that happen!’

  She lowers her voice:

  ‘Tomorrow your father will sleep at his first wife’s, he’ll leave for work early in the morning, and as soon as he’s gone, you’ll come with me to the Grand Marché, there’s a woman who hasn’t paid me for months now and—’

  ‘The northern tradeswoman?’

  ‘How do you know that? Did you listen to us talking last night?’

  I lower my eyes.

  ‘Look at me when I’m talking! You’re taller than I am now and you’re acting like you’re scared! Tomorrow, when we get to the market, face to face with this northern woman, you have to pull a face like a really bad boy! I want her to be afraid of you. Try to look a bit nasty now, just so I can see if you’re any good …’

  I pull in my eyebrows, compress my lips and make myself look really horrible. Maman Pauline takes a step backwards to assess the effect.

  ‘That’s sort of right, but you need to press your lips and teeth together to tighten your jaw!

  I press my lips and teeth together even harder.