The Wondrous and Tragic Life of Ivan and Ivana

by Maryse Conde

  The subject of the second lesson was slavery. Of course the Arab sultans also practiced slavery, filling their harems with black beauties bought for fabulous sums, but their slavery was not dehumanizing and could not be compared with the brutality of the Atlantic slave trade, which reduced millions of Africans to the state of commodities and wild animals. Ismaël described the conditions on board the slave ships: the stench of the hold and the repeated rape of women and prepubescent young girls. He handed around engravings illustrating the slave markets on the islands of the Caribbean where the teeth of the slaves up for sale were examined, their testicles weighed, and the insides of their anuses checked to make sure they were not hiding any contagious disease.

  These lessons began after the last raucous call of the muezzin and ended at 10:30 p.m. Around 9 p.m. refreshments were served. Always the same smoked fish, hard-boiled eggs, and millet couscous. Oddly enough this frugality had nothing monotonous about it. On the contrary! It sharpened the brain, and a host of questions inundated Ivan’s mind. Why did the Age of Discovery result in the marginalization of and contempt for millions of human beings? Why did the conquistadors rapidly turn out to be ruffians and assassins? Ismaël calmly explained: the discovery of the New World had not been an age of lively interest, tolerance, and communion. The Discoverers had come to plant their flags, and to grab and control anything that differed from them.

  One evening Ismaël took Ivan familiarly by the arm and dragged him into his office.

  “I’m extremely satisfied with you. You should become one of us and convert to Islam.”

  “Convert to Islam?” Ivan cried out. “Why, for God’s sake? I would be betraying my mother and grandmother who have been so loyal to the Catholic religion.”

  “It’s because they have been misled by the myths and the lies and never been made aware of the truth,” Ismaël retorted. “If you become a Muslim, you will be our true brother. You will strive to make great and powerful our wonderful religion that has been so disparaged, so misjudged.”

  All night long Ivan turned these words over and over in his head. Ismaël’s words had one good thing going for them: if he converted, he would be closer to his father and his extended family, and at the same time fool El Cobra and other fault-finders.

  In the morning he had made up his mind. Although Lansana was overjoyed at the news (at last, this rebellious boy was giving in to him), this was not the case with Ivana. When her brother confessed his intention she firmly shook her head.

  “I will not follow you along this path. This religion disgusts me. Look at what’s just happened in Nigeria: girls kidnapped from their school and sold as wives or concubines to men they don’t even know, and boys massacred.”

  It was the first time they had thought differently. Cut to the quick, Ivan clarified his thoughts: to become a Muslim was merely a way of integrating into a society which in actual fact he rejected. Once their differences had been ironed out the twins embraced each other, glad they were both of the same opinion.

  Nothing is more different from a Catholic baptism than a Muslim baptism. A Catholic christening is all pomp and finery. Near the baptistery the infant in the arms of her godfather and godmother wears a gown of white lace whose train is sometimes as long as a wedding dress. The priest can hardly be seen amidst the clouds of smoke created by his choirboys in red surplices swinging their censers. Then he utters a long homily where he compares the faithful to Christian soldiers. The Muslim ceremony on the other hand is short and sweet. The neighborhood imam shaves the head of the baby and repeats his name. It only lasts a few minutes. But Lansana acted otherwise.

  He invited the numerous Diarras to come to Kidal. They came in crowds, dressed in their finest attire. Among those present were the Diarras from Villefranche-sur-Saône, where the start-up they had created had made them millionaires. However, the guy who got the most attention was unquestionably El Cobra, wearing his combat uniform and with his Kalashnikov swinging from his hip. He smiled left and right, swaggering and showing off. This little man symbolized all the duplicity of a power structure that knew his reprehensible violence only too well but exploited him for its own security. He was accompanied by a young mixed-blood guy with languishing eyes that looked like they had been made up with kohl like those of a woman, and who claimed to be his adopted son. People whispered it was nothing of the sort, and that in reality he was his lover, proof by nines he was hiding something. How could we know the truth? Nevertheless, he appeared to be on the best of terms with Ivan and Lansana, whose music he claimed to adore.

  The next day when Ivan attended the meeting of the Army of Shadows, Ismaël once again put his arm familiarly around Ivan’s shoulders and dragged him inside his office.

  “We are very glad you made this decision. As a way of showing his satisfaction the commander in chief of the Army of Shadows is giving you the honor of eliminating El Cobra.”

  “Eliminating? What does that mean?” Ivan stammered in fright.

  “It means,” Ismaël explained, “eliminating physically—murder, assassination.”

  Ivan was not exactly fond of El Cobra, but to assassinate him was another matter! Moreover, the time had long gone when the idea of possessing a gun intoxicated Ivan. Ever since he had handled Kalashnikovs and repeating rifles in the militia he had been frightened by their power of destruction.

  “Why me?” Ivan murmured in dismay. “I’m a new recruit in the Army of Shadows. Couldn’t you find someone older and more capable?”

  Ismaël shook his head.

  “I repeat, it’s a great honor we are doing you. We all agreed about your intelligence and bravery.”

  Ivan protested weakly, “But I have never killed anyone.”

  Ismaël gave him an affectionate dig in the ribs.

  “Well, it’s never too late to start and, you’ll see, you’ll take a liking to it!”

  He then turned serious.

  “You’ve got four weeks to do it. You can of course enlist other recruits from the Army of Shadows to assist but you realize it must remain a secret.”

  Ivan returned to the compound trembling and weak-kneed. In his worst nightmares he had never imagined such a situation. Now he had four weeks to put to death a man of flesh and blood like himself. He thought about running away. But where? He was as vulnerable as a prisoner locked in his cell. He spent the following days elaborating plans which seemed more and more ridiculous. As a last resort he decided to ask his friend Birame Diallo for help. He had noticed Birame, not because of his amazing athletic build and muscles, something rare for a Fulani, but because at every session he would frown and bombard Ismaël and the other leading lights with questions: “What should we think of Christopher Columbus? Was he a bastard too?” Or else: “Does Eric Williams’s book Capitalism and Slavery have the place it deserves in the school syllabus?”

  Ivan came and sat beside Birame during lunch at the Alfa Yaya barrack’s canteen and managed to whisper, “I need to talk to you. But nobody must overhear us. Where can we meet in secret?”

  Birame looked doubtful. After a while he declared, “I can see no other place but my house. My mother died last year. My two older brothers have gone to France to look for work. I live alone with my younger brothers who are never home.”

  Ivan went to join him the same evening at his mud-brick house situated in a crowded neighborhood. After drinking his mint tea he explained his problem. Birame listened to him without saying a word, then whistled at length through his teeth.

  “Well, that’s a real ultimate initiation test they are having you take.”

  “Ismaël never stopped telling me that the military command was doing me a great honor,” Ivan explained.

  The two boys snickered in unison.

  Then Birame declared, “Let me think it over. I’ll get back to you when I come up with an idea.”

  A week went by before Birame invited Ivan
to his place again. This time he offered Ivan a ginger beer, and after careful consideration said, “Prepare yourself for a mass killing, since El Cobra always travels with a bunch of bodyguards, friends, and relatives.”

  “A mass killing!” Ivan shouted. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean you’ll need several people to help you. You can count on me as well as my young brother; we hate El Cobra and his clique. I have a plan. El Cobra is fond of techno music and every Saturday he goes to the Ultra Vocal concert hall which specializes in that type of music. After half an hour he gets up and begins to dance on his own. That’s when you have to shoot him.”

  “I still don’t understand. What do you mean by mass killing?”

  Birame looked Ivan straight in the eyes.

  “I mean you’ll not only have to aim for El Cobra but also for his bodyguards, his relatives, and friends who make up his followers and accompany him everywhere.”

  Ivan remained speechless, both flabbergasted and scared. Birame went on with his explanations regardless.

  “We shall have to be masked so that none of the survivors will recognize us. We might also have to wear a special belt and blow ourselves up once we have accomplished our mission. You know in that case we’ll go straight to Paradise.”

  Ivan refrained from shrugging his shoulders. This business of Paradise, he didn’t believe a word.

  Two weeks went by before he accepted the proposed plan. And finally he made up his mind to act. Birame had spared no detail and arranged to meet him at 9 p.m., the time when the concert would begin. In order not to attract attention, each of them would enter the Ultra Vocal separately and sit down several rows apart. They would join up only when El Cobra began to dance on his own. They would then slip on their masks, and fire, conducting their mission of death.

  The Ultra Vocal concert hall had been built in the ’80s by a French businessman, a homosexual who loved techno music. It was a plain building but had perfect acoustics. It had hosted groups from all over the world but its biggest success was a Japanese ensemble who combined melodies from East and West.

  That evening, Saturday February 11th, a crowd began to assemble on the Place de l’Amitié, where the Ultra Vocal concert hall was situated, composed of young girls and boys, some in short trousers, for only the under-eighteens liked techno music in a vague desire to rebel against their country’s traditions. Cherishing such music, which came from the United States of America, from Detroit, was a pledge of their modernity. Nobody stopped to suspect the four armed militia men who mixed in with the concertgoers. On the contrary, their presence was reassuring. The hall rapidly filled up.

  At 9:10 p.m. the concert began, slightly late because one of the musicians had been taken ill with violent diarrhea and had to relieve his intestines. Moreover, he was too weak to continue and had to go home, and thus escaped the massacre that was to follow. At 9:37 p.m. El Cobra got up and climbed the few steps leading from the spectator’s pit to the stage where the musicians were seated. He began to dance with his eyes shut, somewhat clumsily like a bird without wings. Nobody understood what was happening when he fell to the ground smashing his head, while blood spurted from his forehead like a geyser. Nobody understood either why the spectators covered in blood began to collapse left and right while the militia assembled at the back of the hall systematically fired their weapons. Birame’s two younger brothers playfully tossed a grenade, which hollowed out a monstrous hole among the spectators. Without running the slightest risk, the gang of four withdrew, pushing open the heavy armored doors, removing their masks, and while crossing the lobby deciding on a whim to kill the old guard who was asleep. They walked out and crossed the Place de l’Amitié. It was then that panic broke out in the Ultra Vocal concert hall and the spectators began to run out screaming. It was too late. The four militiamen had only to quicken their step and take refuge inside Birame’s house close by.

  A few hours later a communiqué claimed responsibility for the attack. It was signed: The Army of Shadows. We will never leave you in peace. This communiqué threw the country into a state of incomprehension and panic. Who was this Army of Shadows? What did they want? Everything had seemed to be going so well. The Moors who were siding with the terrorists had recently rallied behind the government while the latter had decreed a Persons and Family Code, which earned them much praise from the West.

  The government declared a state funeral for El Cobra. He was taken to be buried at the Rawane cemetery. His adopted son walked in tears at the head of the procession surrounded by some of the regime’s most eminent personalities. He was followed by a dense throng who had traveled from Timbuktu, Gao, Djenné, Segu, in short from every corner of Mali. Some had even been bold enough to travel to Kidal either on those small Moorish stallions whose hooves raised clouds of dust or on camels walking at a slower pace. It was a beautiful ceremony without a doubt, and El Cobra, so denigrated while he was alive, became a legend: at the age of ten he had killed a lion and, making the tail into a belt, had knocked on the door of the hut where the elders were debating the welfare of the tribe. At the age of fifteen he had killed the man who had tried to rape his sister, and when the court released him the villagers had carried him in triumph through the streets, and so on and so on.

  As for Ivan, he was worked up into a somber excitement. It was as if the blood he had spilled, at first reluctantly, suddenly and amazingly had invigorated him. He had fallen prey to a transformation out of his control. The Koran, which he had read up till now as an act of conscience, came back to haunt him and he could quote from memory entire suras. He was constantly preoccupied by the idea of God and walked with renewed authority around the compound. He openly confronted his father: “We ought to say our mea culpa,” he argued. “Perhaps we deserved this dramatic event.”

  Lansana threw a fit of anger and shouted, “What are you talking about? You’re crazy. This government is by no means perfect but it’s doing its best. The rebellion in the North has been quelled. The family code has stipulated that a polygamist can only have two wives. What more can it do?”

  Ivan went to find Ivana who, on the contrary, never stopped crying as she had lost two of her best friends in the Ultra Vocal attack. He told her quite plainly that she should no longer wear the white canvas shorts which she so liked and which showed off her legs.

  “No longer wear my shorts?” she exclaimed. “But why not?”

  He looked at her with a sense of importance.

  “They excite men’s desires and, in doing so, the wrath of God.”

  “They excite men’s desires,” she repeated in amazement, “and, in doing so, the wrath of God. You speak like a sanctimonious old man.”

  “I am a sanctimonious young man,” he coldly corrected her. “Do not take umbrage, but certain details of your behavior must change. You do not take God into enough consideration.”

  She stared at him open-mouthed.

  “Which God are you talking about?” she retorted. “I’m not a Muslim and have nothing to do with Allah’s precepts.”

  This was the second time their opinions had diverged. Ivan realized in terror that a crack was becoming apparent in the beautiful edifice of their love. Consequently he drew her into his arms, showered her with kisses, and said not a word more.

  A few days later the government named El Cobra’s successor, Abdouramane Sow, an impeccable choice, a former blue helmet who had been assigned to the MINUSTAH peacekeeping mission in Haiti. The very next day he assembled the militia. According to him, the recent attack was an inside job. Without a doubt the national militia was harboring traitors, assassins, and friends of terrorists. The Army of Shadows was inserted into the very heart of the militia. Such lucidity surprised more than one, starting with Ivan.

  Ever since the attack they had committed, Ivan and Birame had become very close friends. At noon they sat side by side in the barrack’s canteen eating their miserable lunc
h. In the evening Ivan drank his mint tea with Birame, had dinner at his place, spent the night there, and finally ended up moving in with him. Ivan, who loathed the pile of relatives crowded into Lansana’s compound and the inevitable promiscuity it entailed, loved Birame’s three dilapidated huts, now deserted since Birame’s younger brothers, busy with mysterious jobs trafficking both soft and hard drugs, regular visits to the prostitutes in the Tombo neighborhood, and gambling, returned home only in the early hours of the morning. Ivan spent his nights in the hut that had belonged to Birame’s mother. Through the open window he could watch the fluctuations of the moon. He took delight in smelling the droppings and manure from the goats raised in the backyard and listening to the cackling of the chickens, while a red-feathered rooster swaggered around three gray-plumed hens.

  Two or three weeks had passed when one evening while he was lying naked in bed due to the heat, Birame burst into his hut, forced himself onto Ivan, and struggled to penetrate him. Ivan had enough strength to push his assailant back against the wall.

  “Are you mad!?” he shouted.

  Although taken by surprise Ivan was by no means naive for he had often seen this same desire mirrored in the troubled waters of other men’s eyes because of his muscular build and had had to defend himself against their advances. But this time he had not seen it coming.

  Birame did not lose his cool. With a visible erection and heaving chest he declared, “You don’t like girls, everyone knows it. So I thought you were like me and you liked boys.”

  “You swine,” Ivan roared. “How long have you been practicing this vice?”

  “It’s not a vice,” Birame replied. “Nobody is responsible for their sexual orientation. You have to put up with it, that’s all. When I discovered at the age of twelve that I was homosexual I wanted to kill myself. Then one of my father’s shepherds took my virginity and ever since I have gone with the flow.”

  “Gone with the flow?” Ivan said, horrified by his cool.