The Wondrous and Tragic Life of Ivan and Ivana

by Maryse Conde

  Birame shrugged his shoulders.

  “You’ve no idea how many respectable heads of family are in fact homosexual. El Cobra being the first. Haven’t you heard all the stories that are being rumored about him?”

  After such a misadventure there was no question of whether Ivan would continue his friendship with Birame, or stay in his compound. He returned to Lansana’s place where crowds of relatives from the towns and villages in the North were piling into the mud-brick huts, tired of being threatened by terrorists and seeking safety. Ivan nevertheless found room to unroll his mat near a group of gray-haired men who claimed to be uncles. One of them was describing the latest attacks they had suffered.

  “It happened during the wedding of my niece Lalla with Mossoul,” he said. “We had known them since they were knee high. That day everyone was overjoyed. Everyone was singing and dancing when suddenly three armed, masked men burst in. But this time our guards knew how to handle them. They jumped on the new arrivals and pinned them to the ground. After that I rounded up my family and fled.”

  Ivan was ecstatic to find his sister again.

  “I’m so glad you’ve come back,” she said, embracing him. “Our father is very strict, it’s true, but he loves us and he’s not a bad sort.”

  “He’s not a bad sort,” Ivan retorted. “Yet he offends God in everything he does. He smokes Job cigarettes and leaves his cigarette butts just about everywhere. Night after night he invites women to the house, sometimes very young girls, still prepubescent.”

  “But nowhere in the Koran does it say a man must not frequent women. What are you blaming him for? Is it your job in the militia which has changed your character? You’ve become radicalized.”

  She used the word for the first time. Up till then she had not been aware of how her brother had changed. Suddenly she realized how much.

  The compound was undergoing great upheavals. First of all, Lansana was living openly with Vica, a Haitian singer with a lovely contralto voice whom he had met at a concert in Rotterdam. Vica had lost her husband and six children in the last earthquake in Port-au-Prince. She had remained almost a week under the rubble until some rescuers had pulled her out to a cheering crowd. She now had one foot in the supernatural and spent most of her time singing traditional Haitian melodies:

  Twa fey / twa raisin / jeté blyé ranmassé songé / mwen gen basen twa / mwen twa fey tombé ladan’n / chajé bato z’anj la.

  Vica and Ivana got on like a house on fire, speaking Creole and whispering little secrets.

  Lansana also got it into his head to regulate the status of the griots. Since the noble families were no longer capable of ensuring their subsistence given the insecurity which prevailed in the country, many of the griots were often reduced to begging. They would turn up uninvited at baptisms or weddings, croaking a song of praise in exchange for a plate of fonio. Why couldn’t the state pay them an allowance and hire them as civil servants like Sékou Touré did in Guinea?

  This idea by no means met with general approval. Its critics claimed that what happened in Guinea would happen in Mali, i.e. the griots would sing a lot of rubbish praising the merits of the regime and the grandeur of its ministers. It should be remembered that originally the griot cared little for fortune or power and praised virtuousness. They were masters of eloquence for those who deserved it. None of these objections bothered Lansana. Despite the squabbling, the griots emerged out of every crack and cranny and dashed to Lansana’s place so as to be acknowledged by their benefactor.

  Finally, as if these innovations were not enough, Lansana created an ensemble which he called The Voice of God out of provocation, for he was intent on showing everyone that music is a noble expression and must be safeguarded at all costs. Ivan thus found himself marginalized since his sister was monopolized by Vica and even more so by her father. In the evening, armed with a computer, she made a list of all the names of the griots, their addresses, their favorite instruments, and their repertoires.

  Lansana organized more and more concerts and meetings throughout Mali, one of which was to be performed in Timbuktu, a decision which was by no means a coincidence. Timbuktu, the Pearl of the Desert, much praised by René Caillé, had been occupied militarily by the jihadists for many long months. They had destroyed its mausoleums and endeavored to lay hands on the rare manuscripts owned by the mosques. Thanks to the intervention of a foreign power they had been chased out, but still remained present in the surrounding desert and continued their reign of terror over the population. Ivan insisted on accompanying them so as not to be separated any further from his sister. The voyage was planned in two phases. First of all, by road to Gao on the banks of the Niger River, and then on to Timbuktu by boat. Lansana therefore had bought four seats on the deck of the Capitaine Sangara.

  “Why do you need a cabin?” he drily asked Ivan, who was complaining bitterly. “A seat on the deck is quite sufficient. The voyage only lasts two or three days.”

  If it hadn’t been for the resentment he felt towards his father, Ivan would have found the trip on the waters of the Joliba quite charming. When you opened your eyes in the morning you were plunged into a fluffy whiteness. Not a sound. Draped in mist the Somono fishermen were already casting their nets. The boat glided over the water, and the huge shapes of animals asleep in the fields could be seen. When the sun dawned it immediately began its ascension in the sky. There then followed the heat which gradually seeped over the land while the tightly shut doors of the huts slowly opened like large frightened eyes. Children set off for school while the infants stretched themselves in the relative cool of the morning. At noon everything fell calm and silent. At dusk singers and musicians emerged from every corner of the boat, which became a floating orchestra.

  When they arrived at Timbuktu, night was about to fall. The sky was streaked in red and the roughcast white of the huts was turning blue. Timbuktu was in a state of siege as the jihadists had threatened an imminent attack. The streets were deserted. Only black-and-white soldiers could be seen patrolling on foot or in military jeeps. They would roughly pull over the rare passersby and ask for their identities. To Lansana’s surprise nobody had come to meet them at the landing stage. No matter, they knew where to go and they set off on foot for the house of El Hadj Baba Abou, an Arab, who had been the former rector of the Sankoré Mosque. He had been blinded in both eyes for refusing to hand over the rare manuscripts in his library to the jihadists. Despite this disability, he remained affable and courteous. He conveyed his concern about the rumor that the concert would be canceled because of the state of emergency.

  “The concert canceled?” Lansana cried. “That’s exactly what the jihadists want. Their intention is to force us to obey the diktat of the irascible and evil God they have fabricated and destroy everything that is good and beautiful in life.”

  “What is good and beautiful in life?” Ivan asked sarcastically.

  “Creating music and literature, that’s what’s good and beautiful,” replied his father.

  El Hadj Baba Abou held out a calming hand to cut short this burgeoning quarrel and sent one of his servants out for news. He returned shortly afterwards to announce that the concert had truly been canceled. Lansana then went into a fit of rage which only he could justify and, without saying a word, downed in next to no time the delicious meal prepared by El Hadj Baba Abou’s cook. He then rushed out dragging Vica along with him.

  A few moments later, since El Hadj Baba Abou had buried his nose in the Koran, Ivan had nothing left to do but accompany his sister to the women’s compound where she was to spend the night.

  “What a rude lout our father is!” he ranted.

  Ivana shrugged her shoulders leniently.

  “El Hadj Baba Abou and Lansana have known each other for years, ever since they were students. Don’t meddle in their affairs.”

  Their stay, however, was not lacking in charm. Kidal couldn’t
hold a candle to Timbuktu, which is a literary icon. Ivan had never seen such a countless number of mosques and shrines, masterpieces of African art. He peeked into Koranic schools where young students wearing white caps chanted verses from the Koran. His heart skipped a beat. And what if God really did exist? And this life on earth, so precarious and disappointing, was merely preparation for the splendors of the afterlife? In the evenings he would wander the narrow, winding streets in the dark. Night-lights twinkled here and there. All you could hear were the pounding feet of the soldiers on patrol. He was not frightened. On the contrary, he felt safer since the city seemed better protected than Kidal.

  Every evening he set off to look for Lansana, who disappeared mysteriously with Vica as soon as dinner was over. Unfortunately Ivan could never find him. As a rule he ended the night at the Albaradiou caravanserai where three Fulani acrobats could usually be seen clowning around.

  Aware of the prejudice the cancellation of the concert had caused Lansana, the governor-general of Timbuktu had him driven back to Kidal with his family in a car which belonged to his personal fleet: an ostentatious Mercedes 280 SL, blue as the sky. This gave Ivan food for thought. Do the governing classes get all the pleasures on earth? Women, villas, cars. While El Hadj Baba Abou, the remarkable man Ivan had so admired because of his bearing and knowledge of the suras, possessed nothing at all, this obscure governor-general seemed to be living in the lap of luxury. It merely confirmed Ivan’s opinion that the world was not made right, and half-heartedly he found his way back to the Alfa Yaya barracks.

  We now begin a chapter of our story which is not reliable. We have no proof of what really happened and must rely on suppositions that cannot be trusted.

  Every town has its immigrant neighborhood. Whether they come from Burkina Faso, Benin, Ghana, or Congo, men leave their country in search of that rare commodity: work. As a rule, they leave their wives and children behind. The immigrant neighborhoods are miserable, poorly maintained, and often outright insalubrious. Cafés, restaurants, bars, dives, or joints—call them what you want—swarm along every street. Kidal was no exception to the rule. Its immigrant neighborhood was called Kisimu Banco. On several occasions the government had threatened to raze it but never did.

  Why was Lansana such a frequent visitor to the Etoile des Neiges, a low dive owned by a Moor, El Hassan, a kind of whorehouse where they traded in feminine flesh? It was said that Lansana was in his element in such a place and had numerous partners, sometimes very young. It was even claimed that he had relations with girls as young as twelve or thirteen. Who took offense at his behavior? The fact remains that Lansana was stabbed to death coming home from the Etoile des Neiges. Did a quarrel with an unknown rival degenerate into a brawl? Did he fall victim to a jealous husband or a father angered at seeing his daughter deflowered? Or to a hooligan, a thief, or a thug who was roaming freely through the streets at that time of night? As usual, there were different versions. Some said Lansana had collapsed at a crossroads, others claimed he was killed not far from his home. Another version was that he had been murdered in his bed and the crime had been made to look like a suicide.

  His death caused a huge sensation throughout the country. The griots came from all over to sing the praises of his family, the Diarras, who had once governed Segu so masterfully. They did not fail to highlight the talent of this son of royal origin who had not been ashamed to devote his life to music. For days his compound was a throbbing heart from which a range of sounds could be heard.

  The police conducted a thorough inquiry. They arrested all those who had quarreled with Lansana, and God knows there were quite a few. Nevertheless, they did not arrest Ivan, who quarreled with his father for no reason at all, as parricide is unknown in Mali. To plunge one’s knife into the blood of a father is a madness common only to Westerners.

  Lansana had kept his little secret well hidden. He had amassed the royalties from the sale of his records in Japan, where he was very popular, in an account in Switzerland. Consequently Ivan and Ivana both had the same idea: bring their mother over to Mali. Without a doubt it would be a pleasant surprise as Simone had never left the Antilles. She had been separated from her children for so many months now. To their amazement they received a negative answer to their offer. Even more surprising, Father Michalou and Simone were getting married and intended to renovate Father Michalou’s house at Pointe Diamant, and as such had no time to waste traveling.

  For Ivan and Ivana, Simone’s reply was a slap in the face, although Ivana endeavored to console herself by imagining that her mother would not grow old alone and could lean on a companion.

  Vica was the second sensation. She began to emerge from her hut at night dressed only in a pair of red briefs. For hours on end she would utter incomprehensible words while downing small glasses of a liquid at regular intervals from bottles marked Rhum Barbancourt. Any attempt to get her back to bed usually ended in a fistfight interspersed with screams. After two weeks of this little game she packed her bags and left on a plane for Port-au-Prince.

  “This compound has a bad smell,” she had screamed before she left. “All night long I see Lansana marching up and down. A crime has been committed and we’ll never know who did it.”

  Vica had scarcely turned her back than the malicious gossip began to flow. She had gone back to a man, a man she had never broken up with, a man almost twenty years younger than her. The same one who had spent the last rainy season locked up in her hut, a poet, a certain Jean-Jacques, nicknamed the Batrachian because of his two huge eyes like those of a toad. Very popular in Haiti, he would spout his texts day after day for hours over the state radio. Shortly after she left, Ivana received a package from Vica containing a letter carefully sealed inside a bistre-colored envelope. It contained a small collection of poems entitled Mon pays verse des larmes de sang (My Country Weeps Tears of Blood). Here is the text of the letter Ivana received.

  My dear little sister,

  I miss you so much and I remember our long conversations at my place when we discussed our dreams. I found my island again both monstrous and magnificent. On the sidewalks around the Iron Market there are piles of naive paintings. Some are real works of genius depicting loas descending from heaven on golden swings. There’s music and singing everywhere.

  But my people are too poor and still housed in torn canvas tents. The children are running around bare-bottomed, famished, with their willies out. There’s no other place in the world so desolate.

  I’m enclosing the collection of poems by a young man who is more than a brother to me. Savor every drop of this magic potion.

  With love and kisses,

  Your sister Vica

  Unfortunately Ivana appreciated only what she did not understand. That’s why she was mad about René Char. Consequently she never opened the book, and Mon pays verse des larmes de sang remained untouched. If we may take this opportunity to give our point of view, Ivana was wrong not to leaf through the poems, for they contain some real gems. For example, the poem on page ten begins in French with a reference to the great Aimé Césaire: Blood! Blood! So much blood in my memory. My memory is filled with blood. But on the very next line he differentiates himself from his model and writes in Creole: Pigé zié, pigé zié (Weep, Weep). The poem then becomes a composition worthy of the best of Sonny Rupaire, our national poet.

  As for Ivan, he was increasingly determined to leave the compound. It was not only because it was overcrowded, swamped with false relatives, useless mouths to feed, and the professionally unemployed. It was not because it was bombarded with evil spirits, as Vica claimed, but because rumors, malicious rumors, had begun to circulate. When Lansana was alive, his presence had muzzled people’s mouths. Once he was gone, mouths opened and guffawed. Why? Judge for yourselves. What was the mystery behind this boy built like an athlete who never screwed around? He had no known mistress, whereas at his age he could easily have been the father of one or two
sons. What was he hiding? The explanation of course was plain to see. As a result, beautiful young men began posturing and showing off their attributes in front of Ivan. Momo Diallo, the well-known playwright, nicknamed Tennessee Williams, wrote to Ivan inviting him to be the guest of honor at the first Gay Parade in Bamako. Much more serious was the fact that this malicious gossip forced open the doors of the Alfa Yaya barracks and swept inside. Ivan was given a nickname which we translate as best we can to: “He who doesn’t know how to use his tool cutter.” Instead of handling their Kalashnikovs, the recruits started mimicking gay behavior. One day the commander in chief of his division locked Ivan in his office and threw himself onto him.

  “I don’t like boys,” Ivan protested, about to burst into tears.

  “That’s a likely story! Perhaps you prefer them younger, less beefy than me.”

  Bullied, Ivan was at a total loss. What was to become of him? The idea haunted him. Then something only a homosexual could come up with so he wouldn’t be outed: take a wife. Yes, he needed to take a wife and show the entire town. But where should he look? He imagined in disgust the body of one of these females pressing up against him.

  After days of hesitation, he set his heart on a close friend of Ivana’s, which was perhaps also a way of remaining close to his sister. Aminata Traoré was not yet twenty. Everyone agreed she was lovely, with her curious little straight nose and her fiery eyes. Her young years had not yet fully formed her personality and she radiated gentleness. Employed like Ivana at the Sundjata Keita Orphanage, she adored the little children in her charge. Seducing her was no trouble at all: a few well-turned words, a few smiles, and some presents such as rahat lokoums, which she was mad about and which could be bought on the black market in town.

  Then the moment arrived, the moment of conquest. Aminata Traoré lived not far from the Diarra compound. Once the mint tea had been downed, Ivan had no trouble shutting himself up with her in his room. Utterly lacking in desire he made his move towards the pretty body which was to be his. First of all he feared he would make a fool of himself. Fortunately nature came to the rescue and he managed quite well.