That Amin’s name would one day feature in bedtime stories told around the campfire on Mount Gurugu was a macabre form of recognition for such a vicious man. But such was the nature of the storytelling at the residence.
‘I will finish my story,’ declared Peter Ngambo.
‘Ah, your story is deep, brother.’
‘You said it. His father spoke French and wanted to be a poet, and that’s when things took a turn for the worse. Now I’m not learned enough to understand the poem, but it shocked the perfect.’
‘The prefect, brother.’
‘Whatever, one poem was all it took for his son to be condemned to a life of nomading. This story is profound, brother. A single poem!’
‘Not any old poem, though, eh?’
‘Come on, brother. A white man be judging a black man. We all know how that story goes …’
‘Ah, this one speaks well. A white man was doing the judging, there was only ever going to be one loser, and it wasn’t going to be the perfect.’
‘The prefect, brother.’
‘Know what I think, eh? I think anyone who calls himself perfect is no ordinary person. Even if he’d been judging another white fellow, he’d always have won, I mean, who can defeat a perfect?’
Not Peter’s father. He didn’t defeat the prefect and he was expelled from the lycée for reasons that would weigh heavily against him. After being expelled, he started to become more conscious of the society he lived in. That’s right, he opened his eyes to the world and he realised that those who didn’t live in his yard spent every day of their lives in zinc huts. He realised that they pissed in the bush or up against crumbling walls, even around the back of their own homes, homes without caretakers or watchmen. That young man discovered that in the city he lived in most boys his age left home first thing in the morning to go out and find work, venturing anywhere they might be lucky enough to get picked out of a line or put on a waiting list. From one day to the next, Peter’s father discovered that those who did not live in a house like his had no running water and had to wash or answer nature’s call out in the street. He discovered that most people had no decent clothes and that many of them even wore rags and went about barefoot, and that they survived on whatever meagre earnings they made selling fried food from a tray they hawked around town all day. He saw that lots of people had no interest at all in reading newspapers and wouldn’t even stop to hear what a man in a tie might be saying on TV, regardless of whether that man was white or black and despite the fact that he evidently led a good life. In other words, Peter’s father, who read French and drank tea and liked to take his time about it, found out what country he lived in.
Peter’s father went on to discover that a lot of people who went around barefoot and had no interest in what well-dressed men or women, black or white, with nice smiles and even nicer teeth, had to say on TV, were interested in, indeed were fascinated by, anything that had to do with the national football league. Moreover, he found out that football matters in England or Spain were of profound interest to those who lived outside walled compounds, outside the civilised world of tea and daily newspapers. In other words, whether José Mourinho would leave Real Madrid to go to Chelsea, whether he’d secretly spoken to CR7 to persuade him to do likewise, whether Sir Alex Ferguson had insinuated that he maybe might not be in charge of Manchester United for very much longer, even that Emmanuel Adebayor had said nothing at all; these things were considered headline news and provoked heated debate: Who would take the baton from the illustrious Sir Alex? How would Arsène Wenger react to becoming the doyen of the Premier League? When would the true nature of The Special One finally be revealed, bigmouth show-off or pantomime villain? Peter’s father saw how hawkers would put their trays of doughnuts down on a pile of bricks and flies could feast with impunity for many minutes, indeed hours, if the game on TV involved two well-known teams. He saw how everyone would stop what they were doing if a shop selling TVs took a chance on security and showed a football match to advertise its wares. Yes, Peter’s father, who was still just a schoolboy, saw how children and adults who were oblivious to practically everything snapped to attention whenever football surfaced.
When Peter Ngambo’s father opened his eyes and realised he lived in a country very different to the one he’d thought he lived in, he decided to start a family. But not immediately, first he had to face up to the reality of his new life and make sense of his having been expelled from school: it’s not easy to deal with the knowledge that your own head is capable of thinking up ideas that might spark a revolution. Look, lad, we’re very sorry, and you were even quite a promising student, but we’ve zero tolerance when it comes to certain things, so you’re excluded from all classes. However, we’ve decided to give you a job in the lycée garden. That was when he became an adult, the moment he decided to start a family. If he hadn’t written a poem about eunuchs he’d have gone on being the Ngambo who woke up in a nice house every day and read newspapers. In other words, his true self was perhaps the man he never became, for working as a gardener was not going to allow him to carry on living in the neighbourhood he’d grown up in, nor any kind of neighbourhood where newspapers were delivered for that matter. So Peter’s father performed caretaker duties in the garden of a school he’d been excluded from on account of a Conceptist poem deemed too explicit. Or on account of him having had the temerity to gloss it, may God help and protect us, the prefect must have thought, for that school was run by priests with firm and fixed ideas about matters of faith and they had no qualms about abandoning the boy to the city’s mean streets.
While performing his duties as a gardener, chief sweeper of leaves, the expelled child became an adult, with adult needs to fulfil. He met a woman, the woman who would become Peter’s mother, and Peter was born, the young man whose story this is. They got on with their lives; nothing changed, and yet everything had: Peter’s father had grown up expecting to become a man of a certain standing and yet there he was, the gardener in a school that was supposed to have been his ticket to the good life, a school that he left every day to enter the harsh reality of life as lived by his fellow countrymen, a life devoid of poetry.
With his story told, Peter lay back and made himself comfortable on the cardboard boxes that served as his bed. He did not seek approval in the faces of the other residents, nor any other sign that they had enjoyed his story, for he’d no need to: he knew he’d spoken the truth.
‘I ask your kind permission to tell my story,’ another resident now said, ‘and I ask your kind permission that I may remain lying while I tell it, for as the saying goes, if it’s not broke, don’t fix it.’
‘I can’t think of a single thing that’s not broke around here.’
‘What I mean is, I’m comfortable lying as I am. But anyway, I would like to speak of why I left my neighbourhood, what set me out on this path, for when I was listening to the stories of brothers Darb and Alex, I almost started to think I was from the same neighbourhood as them.’
‘Don’t tell us the tatata girl visited you too, eh? Maybe we’ll finally find out who she shacked up with,’ someone said, drawing laughter from the other residents.
‘No, we weren’t really from the same neighbourhood. I suppose what I mean is that you find some things everywhere. I grew up and the house we lived in became small, so I moved to a different neighbourhood. I got a job working for a carpenter and rented a house owned by his sister. I don’t remember how much she charged me, and if I don’t remember, it can’t have been very much. But I do remember that I lived there because of my boss. I won’t go into the details of the job, for that would delay the story.’
‘But you already said you were a carpenter, no?’
‘Yes, but I’d rather leave it at that; I think it’s enough to simply state the profession.’
‘Then we respect your wishes, brother.’
‘The house was semi-detached and made of cement and had one bedroom and a lounge, both of them tiny. At the back there w
as a door that opened onto a yard where there was a hole in the ground, meaning I didn’t have to leave the premises to do my private business.’
‘The lap of luxury!’
‘Everything would have been fine, never mind that a hole in the ground is really just a hole in the ground and not a bathroom, if it hadn’t been for the fact that the house belonged to the sister of my boss.’
‘Don’t tell me: she came through the back gate, your face was all covered in soapsuds and she took you by surprise, eh?’ said someone, prompting more laughter.
‘Be patient. That wasn’t it, but there was a back gate that opened onto the street and she would sometimes come in through there. She came to check on the animals she kept in one corner of the yard, specifically a duck and two chickens. The duck mostly sat in the corner while the chickens jumped about on a chest, or a coffin, that was propped up against the wall and covered in cloth sacks.’
‘Hang on a minute, brother, a coffin is not actually the same thing as a chest. I thought you said you were a carpenter! What did your boss really do?’
‘Honestly, it doesn’t matter, and if I were to explain everything, it would be a very long story. So anyway, I didn’t pay much rent and so I couldn’t very well object to my boss’s sister making use of her own yard, not even when she started leaving the animals there overnight. But that’s when the problems started. I was brought up in a culture of respect and good manners, and so I could not continue to live in that house.’
‘Your story is just another version of the tatata girl, only in your case the woman had lost the ability to transform into a little girl, gone past being a young woman and turned into a middle-aged housewife mother, oh!’
The man who’d talked of soapsuds let out a chuckle. ‘This one is funny!’
‘No, no, it wasn’t that. I carried on living there and working for the carpenter. I’d get home, and before doing anything else, like cooking or whatever, I’d take a shower. As I said, the bathroom, or what passed for a bathroom, was outside and so I had to strip off and pour a bucket of water over my head right there in the yard, in front of the animals.’
‘The animals?’
‘A duck and two chickens.’
‘Oh yeah. And so … ?’
‘Yes, brother, so … ?’
‘So, that’s it. I wasn’t used to bathing naked in front of anyone.’
‘Brilliant!’
‘That’s it? What a story, brother!’
‘Ha, ha, ha!’ The man who’d mentioned soapsuds now couldn’t contain himself.
‘Do you mean you were afraid the owner would actually come back while you were naked, or are you truly saying …’
‘Don’t laugh, brother, I wasn’t comfortable being naked in front of those animals. Because they didn’t turn around, they stood right there in front of me, I swear, it was like they were watching me.’
‘This one is too funny,’ roared the man who’d called the boss’s sister a middle-aged housewife.
‘Well I don’t see what’s funny about it! Chickens and ducks have eyes, they must know when a man’s naked. If they’d closed their eyes or looked the other way, then fine, but I wasn’t accustomed to being watched.’
Almost everyone was laughing now.
‘What did you say your name was, eh, brother?’
‘I don’t believe I did state my name. Are you telling me you’d happily undress in front of domestic animals? Are you saying you’d be totally fine with that?’
‘Ah, brother, we’re just trying to understand your story. Come on, tell us your name.’
‘Mangu.’
‘And brother Mangu, you honestly felt like those two chickens and a duck were watching you?’
‘My brothers, please don’t make me out to be strange. Would you honestly have undressed in the same circumstances?’
‘Seeing the effect it’s had on you, hell no!’ said a voice at the back, producing more laughter.
‘Brother Mangu, maybe you should actually try to explain what you were afraid of. What made you ashamed to go naked before the fowl?’
‘Why do you now refer to them as fowl, eh?’ said Mangu crossly. ‘You are deliberately trying to belittle the matter by calling them fowl!’
‘I called them fowl because they actually were two chickens and a duck! They weren’t people.’
‘But I wasn’t accustomed to it! Some days I managed to shower before they were brought to the yard, but other times they were already there when I got home from work. And they stood before me, watching me. I put up with it for a time and I tried to get used to it, but I couldn’t, so I waited to get paid at the end of the month and then I took off. I walked far and wide seeking a new start, and my steps led me here. I’ve made it sound brief, but it was a long journey.’
‘Congratulations, Mangu, you have gone well and you have spoken well, it’s a great story. I don’t think there’s anything strange about it, but I will ask you one thing: What if it hadn’t been fowl, what if it had been camels, for example, eh? Would you have been happy to shower in front of camels?’
‘Or parrots?’ said the man who’d mentioned the housewife. ‘That would be worse, because parrots can talk. They’d have flown from house to house telling everyone what they’d seen … Ah, now I understand your story. Ha, ha, ha!’
‘Bravo, brother Mangu, bravo,’ someone cut in above the laughter. ‘If something like that had happened to me, I don’t think I’d have had the courage to share it. So I take my hat off to you, brother, bravo. You’ve shown your greatness.’
Part Two
I
Dawn broke over Gurugu, pouring light into the residence and over the sleeping beauties stretched out on their folded cardboard. What joy the sun awoke in them, for it brought warmth, as if the cave suddenly had heating. But the jealous trees soon pounced to steal the sun’s rays and so the residents reluctantly got out from under their blankets, if they had them.
There was to be a football tournament on the mountain that day. All the Gurugu inhabitants had a special place in their hearts for a favourite idol, someone who represented their immediate futures, and for the most part these idols were footballers: Didier Drogba, Michael Essien, Seydou Keita, Uche Okechukwu, Yaya Touré, Samuel Okunowo, and the leader of them all, Samuel Eto’o. There were many budding or frustrated footballers on the mountain and Samuel Eto’o was foremost in all their thoughts. Eto’o was from Cameroon, but on the mountain he’d become the spiritual leader of all of Africa, the patron saint of all black people on European soil. For the majority of those on Gurugu, Eto’o was an inspiration and beacon, even for those who intended to triumph in a field other than football. That’s right, triumph. Do whatever or do everything, but do so triumphantly. Triumph might mean a phone call home, or a letter sent from a European address.
So the Gurugu inhabitants played football every day, in casual kickabouts and in fully fledged tournaments: it didn’t matter, so long as the ball kept rolling. Why did the ball have to keep rolling? Why were new arrivals instructed to immediately present themselves to the captain of their group and sign up to a team? Well, for a start, it wasn’t healthy to spend all day staring at the city below. Too much time focused on the same one thing could have painful consequences, including stiff necks and failing eyesight. Yes, failing eyesight, because by spending so many hours on the mountain, and the hours on Gurugu were many and long, there was the risk of all manner of vices being born among them. It would have been a very different story if the mountain had been theirs, if it had been donated to them by one of the King of Morocco’s daughters, for then they might have turned it into a plantation and grown things to eat and to sell. People would have come from across Africa, from everywhere north of the Zambezi, from Cameroon, Mali, Nigeria and Niger, from Mauritania, Senegal and Guinea, even from Morocco, those dissatisfied at being disregarded subjects, and they would have founded the People’s Republic of Samuel Eto’o on Mount Gurug
u. Then they would have demonstrated the great knowledge and agrarian expertise of their respective lands by cultivating favourite plants: from the hard Gurugu soil there would have sprung sweet potatoes, new potatoes, yucas and even rice. And once they were up and running they would have started to get serious and the land would have yielded fish to accompany the harvested potatoes. That’s right, such would have been the optimism and energy of the good folk of the People’s Republic of Samuel Eto’o that they would have believed themselves capable of cultivating fish and they’d have built swimming pools on the mountain to farm fish this big and this tasty, all because of the circus of them having been made citizens. Fish, which the Cameroonians would have grilled and accompanied with bumper crops of yuca, fish with thick spines and delicious bones that the Malians would have licked with delight, fish with couscous, for the cleverest of the new citizens would have even built special cubicles with the right microclimatic conditions to grow wheat in. It would have been their own land, to do with as they pleased, and so they would have acquired cattle and put them out to pasture, and imagine how their mouths would have watered as they prepared a bowl of couscous to set on the table beside a succulent pot of lamb stew. There would have been so much to do that the ball would have only rolled once or twice a week, for there would have been hundreds of tasks to perform in order to make the People’s Republic of Samuel Eto’o an independent and self-sufficient nation. And once it had become one, and once appetites had been satisfied and thirsts quenched, they would have sought justice.
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