Broken Glass

by Alain Mabanckou

  in fact I wouldn’t mind screwing Robinette, I haven’t had a good screw for a while, beggars can’t be choosers, I don’t even know if I’d go the whole way with her, women like Robinette must brew up seismic orgasms, you’d have to keep jogging away for hours, whip her up well till she squeals, and one reason I said no to the Stubborn Snail’s proposition, much as I’d have liked to take him up on it, was because I didn’t want to tread on the Stubborn Snail’s toes, it wouldn’t have felt right, perched on top of her, imagining the Stubborn Snail himself jigging around on her like an epileptic rabbit, and anyway, what if the boss himself got jealous, and I wouldn’t like to mess up my relationship with the Stubborn Snail with that kind of complication, I don’t want to fall out with him when he’s like a brother to me, and in any case, would Robinette actually let me take a ride on her, a wet dishcloth like me, and there’s a big technical problem, I don’t think I’m that well endowed, let’s be realistic, and considering all the excess baggage she’s carrying behind, I’d probably spend the whole day scouring her Nether Regions for her G-spot and only ever get as far as her B-spot, if that, and still have her spots C, D, E, and F to go, so I’d never satisfy her properly, I’d better just forget it, what I really need at this point in the story is a good rest, I don’t want to write another word now, not for a while, I just want to drink, do nothing but drink, take huge big gulps of drink, the last I’ll ever have, and if my mental arithmetic’s up to scratch, I reckon I must have been writing flat out for several weeks now, some people like to make fun of what they call my new occupation, there’s even a rumor that I’m working for an exam that’ll get me back into teaching, they say that’s why I want to stop drinking and stop coming here, but that’s nonsense, I’m hardly going to go back into teaching aged sixty-four, am I, in any case, I need a rest, I need to put my pen down, not read back what I’ve written, and carry on when I’m ready, whenever that may be, but I will carry on, I just don’t want to spend all my energy on it, and when I’ve finished the second half I’ll go, go somewhere far, far away, I don’t know where, but I’m going, and I don’t care what the Stubborn Snail says, I’ll be far away by then, far from Credit Gone West

  Last Part

  today is another day, a grey day, I try not to be sad, and my poor mother, whose spirit still drifts somewhere over the dirty water of the Tchinouka, always used to say you shouldn’t let the grey days get you down, perhaps life’s waiting for me somewhere, I wish someone would wait for me somewhere, too, and I’ve been sitting in my corner here since five o’clock this morning, I’ve got a bit more distance on things now, so I should be able to write about them better, it’s four or five days now since I finished the first part of this book, it makes me smile when I read through some of the pages, they go back quite a way now, I wonder whether deep down I should be proud of it, I reread a few lines, but mostly it frustrates me, nothing really fires me up, in fact everything irritates me, it’s nobody’s fault, I feel weak, my tongue feels mushy, as though I’d eaten a meal of pork and green bananas the previous day, and yet I haven’t eaten anything since yesterday, and I’ve allowed this tide of black thoughts to wash over me, I’m beginning to wonder whether this isn’t my will I’m writing, even though I’ve no right to speak of a will since the day I do pop my clogs I’ll have nothing to leave to anyone, all that’s just dreaming, but then dreaming’s the only thing that helps you keep a grip on this treacherous life, I still have a dream of life, even if my whole life now is lived in a dream, I’ve never been so clearheaded in all my days

  the days pass quickly, though at the time it seems like the opposite, when you’re sitting there, waiting for I don’t know what, just drinking and drinking, till you can’t move because your head’s spinning, watching the earth turn around on its own axis and around the sun, even if I’ve never believed those damn fool theories I used to teach my pupils when I was still a man like other men, you have to be mad to come out with that kind of far-fetched nonsense, because to tell you the truth, when I’m sitting here drinking and relaxing in the doorway of Credit Gone West, it seems impossible to me that the earth I see before me could be around, that it could be spinning away around itself and around the sun as though it had nothing better to do all day than spin around like a paper airplane, go on, somebody, show it to me turning around itself, show it to me turning around the sun, you have to be realistic, surely, let’s not allow ourselves to be bamboozled by thinkers who actually shaved themselves with a common flint or a roughly chiseled stone, maybe if they were really modern they used a bit of polished stone, anyway, roughly speaking, if I had to analyze all that in detail, I would say that in the past people divided into two kinds of thinkers, on the one hand the ones who farted in the bath, then went around shouting “I’ve found it, I’ve found it” though nobody gave a shit about what they’d found, let them keep their discoveries to themselves, sometimes I’ve happened to take a dip in the river Tchinouka, which carried off my poor mother, and I never found anything worth talking about there, not every body submerged in that dirty water automatically performs the famous rise to the surface, in fact that’s why all the shit from the Trois-Cents is lying on the riverbed, so someone better explain to me why the shit doesn’t obey the rule of Archimedes, and then there’s the second major category of crank, who were just plain lazy good-for-nothings who sat around the whole time under the nearest apple tree, waiting for apples to drop on their head, something to do with attraction and gravity, I’m opposed to accepted beliefs, as far as I’m concerned the earth is as flat as the Avenue of Independence that runs past the door of Credit Gone West, that’s all there is to say about it, I declare the earth is sadly immobile, that it’s the sun that goes whizzing around us, because that’s what I see as it rises over the roof of my favorite bar, so enough of all this other stuff, and if anyone even tries to persuade me that the earth is round and turns on its own axis and around the sun, I’ll chop his head off there and then, even if he does go down shouting “but it does turn”

  now then, I don’t know why, for instance, I haven’t yet told the tale of Mouyeké, a guy who used to come here, but doesn’t anymore, for reasons which will become apparent, I couldn’t not mention this guy, not give him a place in my book, even if he did only pay Credit Gone West a lightning visit, I like people like that myself, you barely glimpse them passing, just a quick walk-on role, a brief silhouette, a shadow flitting by, a bit like that guy they called Hitchcock, who made furtive appearances in his own films, which your average spectator wouldn’t even notice, except if he had an expert neighbor whispering in his ear saying “hey asshole, look down there, in the left-hand corner of the screen, see that tubby guy, the one with a double chin, walking across the screen behind the other characters’ backs, that’s Hitchcock himself” but I have to say that Mouyeké is not of the same stature as our friend Hitchcock, one must be careful not to get carried away with comparisons, Hitchcock was a real life-size character, a talented man, a guy who could make your spine shiver just with a few birds, or a rear window, he could turn you into a psycho with a single characteristic little trick, but Mouyeké’s story made me laugh more than shiver, and I don’t feel particularly sorry for him either, I’ve no time for crooks with no talent, people with no personality, so this guy Mouyeké claimed to have been abandoned by his fetish, his amulet, and I use the word fetish because Mouyeké himself claims to be descended from great shamans, who can stop the rain from falling, control the heat of the sun, predict the harvest time, read people’s minds, and wake up the souls of the dead, just like Christ, who said solemnly to a poor cold corpse “wake up, Lazarus, and walk!” and, while I’m on the subject of resurrection, I should also add that this wretched stiff of a Lazarus was scared shitless of Christ, and in particular of God, who ever since the dawn of time has been perched somewhere up between two cumulonimbus watching us pile up sins, when he could actually help us avoid them with a little intervention from the Holy Spirit, but the Lord our God has perched him
self up there to get a panoramic view of all the worst goings-on in the world, and write them down carefully in his little book, ready for the Last Judgment, and when Jesus spoke in the name of his Father who was perched up on high, poor stiff Lazarus woke up with a start and quick as a flash, shivering with fear at the ways of the Lord which are usually impenetrable but which he had attempted to penetrate during his brief stay with the dead, began walking around like a puppet on a string, which is pretty much what Mouyeké went about saying, according to him, the miracles of Christ were as nothing compared to what he could manage himself in the blink of an eye, he’d claim to be able to turn cats’ piss into red wine approved by the Societé des Vins du Congo, and he’d do it, that he could give amputees their legs back, and he’d do it, besides, he’d say, the things Christ did that we find so amazing are completely unverifiable, they’ve been brainwashing us with them for centuries, wowing us like nursery-school kids, apparently people are still arguing about the miracles of Christ today, even the faithful have never seen eye to eye on them, and, this is still according to Mouyeké, we should treat these miracles with caution, whereas his own miracles were all verifiable, without going back to biblical times when those guys only had some rough old stones to set down the Ten Commandments on after God had mumbled them really quietly while hiding himself away as usual between two strata of cumulonimbus, and anyway no one keeps any of God’s dozen or so commandments now, people get more of a kick from breaking the rules than from keeping them, in a world in which sex is everywhere, affordable for all, in a world where fidelity has become meaningless, in a world where even monks and cenobites envy the wrongdoers their lecherous ways, in a world ruled by jealousy and envy, in a world where they put people to death by electric chair even though it is written quite plainly in Holy Scripture “Thou shalt not kill,” this is how Mouyeké talks, he’s always bad-mouthing the Jerusalem Bible, he’s not putting God and his lieutenant-colonels on his Christmas list, and one day Mouyeké said “my dear friends and fellow negroes, why is it, do you think, that in the Bible all the angels are whites, or something very like it, they might at least put one or two black angels in there, just to butter up the negroes here on earth who refuse to alter their condition on the grounds that the chips were down from the start, on the grounds that the Almighty got their skin color wrong, so there are no black angels in Holy Scripture, and if one or two blacks do ever crop up in it, it’s always squeezed in between a couple of satanic verses, often they’re devils, or very minor characters, and there were no blacks among Jesus’s disciples either, which really is surprising, are we supposed to believe that at the time the Bible soap was running there was no black actor who could play a leading role, I don’t think so, but I do understand and forgive the poor whites, you can see why they saddled the negroes with the role of bootblack in daily life here below when from up on high you get the impression negroes don’t even exist,” that’s the kind of thing Mouyeké would say, my own feeling was that for a witch doctor he was just a little bit too familiar with certain things, which, in my opinion carried a whiff of modernity and the kind of discussions held by intellectuals wearing ties and little round glasses, though the long stretch he did in prison wasn’t for his ideas, but for cheating and swindling, anyway, after he got out of prison he came bleating his woes to a line of wine bottles here at Credit Gone West, he’s a wretched man, a poor specimen, with bulging muscles and bloodshot eyes, a squalid spectacle, they do say cobblers always wear the shabbiest shoes, and to look at him you would well believe it, he should have asked his gris-gris for a new suit, though maybe not an Yves Saint Laurent, like the Printer’s, he could have asked them for some shiny shoes like Casimir High-Life’s, but the true fact of it was, Mouyeké went around cheating honest folk, innocents who paid him huge sums of money, so on the day of his trial, the old judge who heard his case in the criminal court laid a trap for him, saying “right, I do not intend to waste time on a matter which seems crystal clear to me, just tell us how much money your victims paid you, Mouyeké” and the accused replied “I’m not some small-time witch-doctor, people paid me large sums of money, very large sums indeed, Your Honor, so I must have been worth it, not every witch-doctor gets paid as much as I did” and the judge answered, “what exactly do you mean by ‘large sums,’ let’s have some exact figures, you’re not here to take the piss out of people, do you realize I can have you put away this instant if you start playing that little game with me, eh, did you know that?” “yes, Your Honor, I did know that,” “well then, give me a straightforward answer, how much money did these honest folk pay you?” and the accused murmured “over one million Congolese francs per consultation, Your Honor,” and the magistrate was speechless for a moment, trying to work out in his head what a huge sum like that meant, and then went on, skeptically, “and what exactly did you have to do for them, it’s not everyone has a million Congolese francs in their pocket” “Your Honor, my job was to help them, I made them fetishes, so their businesses would work, I improved their lives, how many people in this country improve other people’s lives, d’you think, alas, no one, except me!” and the judge almost laughed in his face, and said “so you were helping other people, do you think I’m stupid, why don’t you make some fetishes for yourself, then, so you can get rich, take a look at yourself, you look like someone who spends their life among the dogs and trash cans of Trois-Cents,” and Mouyeké said, assuming the serious manner at which criminals are so adept, “Your Honor, fetiches are for helping others, it was what my ancestors did, and that was their legacy to me,” “yes, but properly organized charity begins at home, if I was in your shoes I’d start by improving my own life, your own life’s not exactly a success,” and Mouyeké looked thoughtful and answered “have you ever seen a doctor perform an operation on himself, Your Honor, well, witch doctors are the same, they can’t make fetishes for themselves, it just wouldn’t work,” “well make them for your family then, that way you can cash in on their fortune,” and everyone in the room started laughing, and the judge carried on “so you claim to be able to make someone rich, is that right, Mr. Mouyeké?” “yes, Your Honor, that’s right, if you come to me for a consultation, I can make you very very rich, and you’ll become the top judge in the whole country in less than five minutes and thirty seconds, I promise you, and you won’t have to read case files anymore, the truth of each case will dawn with the light of day, and you will make fairer judgments, instead of condemning innocent people like me,” “you stick to your own job, my man, I don’t need you to help me make fair and impartial judgments, and I’ll show you what I mean by that in a minute, because what I like to do with scum like you is have them banged up where they can talk about ancient philosophy with the rats, I don’t even have to consult the jury about your case, I’ll deal with it personally, because I am the Law” and everyone laughed so hard that the judge almost had to dismiss the court, and the old man in his robe mopped his brow before reading out his expedited decision in a monotonous voice and Mouyeké was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment with no chance of parole, a fine of four million Congolese francs, five years’ deprivation of civil rights, and everyone applauded, the judge rose and said to the police “take this crook down to where his friends the rats await him!” and so, after six months in prison, he began turning up here, never saying very much, never getting into conversation, but we all knew he was the famous sorcerer crook who wanted to make the judge’s fortune in five minutes and thirty seconds flat, and if you’re wondering why I’ve talked about Mouyeké here it’s because I came up against a sorcerer myself at one time, and his name was Zero Fault, but anyway, I won’t go into that now, I’ve still got things to write which I fear I’ll have forgotten by the morning