When the Plums Are Ripe

by Patrice Nganang

“I was transferred,” Pouka said, “since the events.”

  “Yes, but I didn’t know that then.”

  Martha handed him a huge watermelon, as well as a few mintumbas, those tasty steamed manioc cakes: “Since you don’t have a woman at home to cook for you.” Each time he visited after that, she would give him other dishes, meals for the single man. Pouka left his friend’s home, embarrassed because he had realized just how shallow he was. The master of vainglory hadn’t gone to see his cousin when he should have. History was his alibi, but it was the only one he could find. Could he have told his friend that he was working too much? That his new responsibilities were taking up all of his time?

  As he walked on down Messa Road, which leads from Mokolo back to his home, he tried unsuccessfully to calm the turmoil in his heart. A long stretch of road spread out before him—one with no electric lights—and Um Nyobè had left him with only his own guilty conscience for a companion. He thought of his cousin Hebga spending days in this capital; he had always hoped to show his cousin around but, when push came to shove, he hadn’t done anything to fulfill that promise. He thought about Um Nyobè, who had also been caught up in the events, but who still found the time to make several visits to the camp, “taking Martha along, too,” so he could see how his brother—or “our brother,” as he said—was holding up.

  Suddenly Pouka understood just what he found so disconcerting about his friend. He was always ahead of his time, ahead of everyone else, yes, but precisely because he got down to the root of things. He recalled watching Um Nyobè in his living room debating all those people that Pouka didn’t know, and he was ashamed—yes, ashamed that he had dismissed them as speechifiers. He had thought, yes, that they were “politicians”—especially given the ease with which Marc massaged arguments, finding his own way of presenting them such that there was no room for disagreement: “My father,” he’d said. Just who could attack his father? And, Pouka admitted, Um Nyobè, who organized gatherings like that, always found the time to do what was necessary, what he himself had let slide: visiting the soldiers before they were sent off to war, treating them with simple human compassion.

  “He’s a politician, and he always wins.”

  There in the darkness, with his hand caressing the round watermelon, he went through all the arguments Marc had made. Yes, it was their duty to defend the interests of the Cameroonian soldiers, especially since the soldiers in question were our cousins, brothers, and fathers—in short, our compatriots. That argument couldn’t be parried: even if they had fought on the German side, whether they had been askaris or tirailleurs, they were still our fathers, brothers, and cousins. Pouka saw once again the face of his friend Fritz’s father: he had been an askari, a position that helped him to build his fortune, which he had invested in land that he planted, and later left to his son. He also saw Hebga’s face: he saw his cousin, the boxer, the woodcutter, now wearing a tirailleur’s uniform. He saw him in Yaoundé, setting off for a distant war, waiting for his cousin to make the gesture of kindness that he never got, the visit he never received. His shame grew thick, then his mind responded with a burst of protestations and excuses.

  But, he said to himself, comparing the good fortune of Fritz’s father to his cousin’s present deprivations, there is no way to think about what was in Cameroon’s best interest outside of the question of history’s vicissitudes, for history is really what politics leaves behind. “And the ideal in politics is compromise,” he concluded out loud. Since history is then nothing more than the sum of many compromises, perfection is only possible in poetry. That idea stirred him up so much that he exclaimed, “Perfection is a poetic idea.” His voice roused the homeless, the beggars and lepers who were dozing off under the stands in the Mokolo market. He hurried on. But he still wasn’t done, for his thoughts kept circling back. “Only Cameroonians themselves can defend the interests of the Cameroonian people.” That phrase echoed on in his mind.

  But then what about France? he wondered. How to get rid of France? His thoughts were racing. Suddenly he realized that although that sentence had a rhetorical weight and could be used to drive home the final nail in a lively debate among friends who were riled up, as a political program it had only flaws. In fact, in political terms the idea was outrageous.

  Just how will they be able to defend their interests?

  If the defense of Cameroonian interests needed to be made on a political field, who—yes, who—could put it forward? You’d have to rely on a French lawyer, give him the case.

  So it’d be back to France.

  And really, just what did “standing up to France” mean?

  Well, in the end, it meant placing France again at the center of things!

  And besides, what language would be used to formulate this statement of opposition, or this defense of the interests of the Cameroonian people, if—according to the arguments made there in Um Nyobè’s living room—it needed to include “all Cameroonians.”

  Should it be in French?

  On what text should it be modeled?

  On “The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen”!

  So, on a fundamentally French text, is that it?

  On the text that founded the French Republic.

  And that wasn’t all. We want respect for our rights? Well, those are best protected by a republic!

  It follows, then, that it is clearly in our interest to establish a republic. And it was France that founded the first republic in Europe!

  It was as if his clotted thoughts had finally begun to flow freely: To defend our interests, what would be ideal is the formation of a republic based on the respect of our rights, in short, a Cameroonian version of the French Revolution!

  He paused.

  And the formation of our own republic, on the French model.

  And with that, Pouka concluded, we are back where we started: France. As he opened the door of his house, he realized that he held in his hands—finally!—an idea, the one he could have shared back there in Um Nyobè’s living room, where he had sat in silence. He should have said that it is naïve to want to cut yourself off entirely from the West once you have been colonized; because the identity of the colonized is a product of politics, the idea of perfection is inherently inapplicable to it, even if it is anchored in the fortress of sentiments that a son feels for his father, or a man for his compatriots. The heavens above the colonized have already been filled. The paradox of our relationship with France is that she is at once our oppressor and our ideal. How can we get out of this trap?

  “We must take responsibility for France if we want to free ourselves. We must take responsibility for France,” he should have said, “that’s why we must defend her.”

  He should have said, yes, that the tirailleurs to whom France had given rifles with bayonets held in their hands the advocate—arma maxima!—that their grandparents, unarmed at the start of colonization, hadn’t had; that their parents, who’d been disarmed and defeated alongside Germany, hadn’t had.

  This weapon, it’s a symbol of the republic!

  A symbol of the constitution!

  A symbol of liberty!

  He could have said a lot of things, yes, for example: “We must instead sing of the glory of our soldiers.”

  Yes, he would have said all that and even repeated himself: “Pouka’s not going to be caught out twice.” That very night he began his poem “Sincere Tears,” in which he hopes that France, having been brought to her knees, will rise up again, and where he writes that to take up arms on her behalf is to defend the interests of the Cameroonian people. If Germany’s past defeat had been Cameroon’s as well, Cameroon’s ultimate victory would come with France’s. This poem expresses everything he didn’t say that evening at Um Nyobè’s:

  In the desert night you sleep ’neath the eternal moon

  None will know your names, poor men of Cameroon

  In the shifting tomb where your manes lie in repose

  Never will bloom willow
or rose

  Nothing will recall for us your sweet memory

  Except, perhaps, these verses that sing your glory.

  And these words, he wrote them, of course, in alexandrine verse.

  6

  A New Cane for Leclerc

  Meanwhile, on the front lines, Lieutenant Colonel Jean Colonna d’Ornano received an order to attack Italian positions in Libya. He had lively eyes and quick reflexes. He was as imposing physically as verbally, but right then he was speechless. Colonel Leclerc had come to his tent, saluted him, and given him de Gaulle’s order, straight from London. D’Ornano read it in silence and grew angry. He had expected it, so it wasn’t the order itself that angered him. Let’s put ourselves in his place: when a colonel is under the orders of a lieutenant colonel, you’re in a really strange situation, there’s no way around it. No doubt d’Ornano would have reacted differently had he known that Leclerc had promoted himself to colonel “by enchantment” the moment he set foot in Cameroon. For the moment, he focused on “this confused line of command,” as he called it, because the situation was dire.

  To be taken seriously, de Gaulle needed to put a military victory on Churchill’s table, even if the troops were lost somewhere in the middle of the desert near Faya-Largeau. What he didn’t need was a quarrel between French officers. The troops from Cameroon had been placed under d’Ornano’s command, a considerable reinforcement that gave his troops a numerical advantage over the Italian forces positioned at Kufra. The lieutenant colonel went over in his mind each of the problems posed by such an attack, the most unexpected of which was dealing with Colonel Leclerc’s impatience: he was ready to throw his men into the desert that very evening in order to finish off the “fascists.” Used to acting on his own, keeping his exchanges with de Gaulle private, and making the most of the credit he’d gotten for having rallied a good part of central Africa to the cause without firing a shot—Leclerc was a bit full of himself. Or maybe he was a bit immature? It was hard to get him to listen to anyone else’s opinion.

  Why hadn’t the general given Leclerc command of the troops in Chad? d’Ornano wondered. Who there could have explained that the general had only promoted Leclerc to the grade of squadron leader?

  Counting the troops that Colonel Leclerc had brought from Cameroon, d’Ornano had at his disposal an army of some five thousand tirailleurs, twenty companies in total, and three units of meharists. He was happy to have found among them two officers who knew Chad well: Captain Dio, whom he hadn’t seen for several months, and especially Massu, an expert in navigating the fesh-fesh, the desert’s treacherous sands. He needed to reorganize his forces, reassign the officers, and do it all without running afoul of Leclerc’s pride—Leclerc’s only experience in the desert was a short training period in Morocco in his youth. If only he knew how to listen! Late in the night the two men talked, finalizing the battle plan, and mostly trying to clear up the lines of communication so nothing would muddle their exchanges in the war council.

  “War in Africa cannot be fought by conventional means,” that was Leclerc’s opinion, and d’Ornano just couldn’t convince him otherwise.

  “The Italians have their askaris, too,” he noted.

  “Of course.”

  Impatient, Leclerc repeatedly struck the ground with his cane.

  “They are Libyans who know their country,” d’Ornano continued. “Their country.”

  “This is about defending our country,” Leclerc retorted. “Our country.”

  The irritation came through in his voice. And the lieutenant colonel thought about the thousand Chadian soldiers who had already made it through the most difficult of terrains, only a few of whom were used to dunes and sandstorms. The hundreds of Cameroonians Leclerc himself had brought from the forest, armed for the most part with no more than a machete, and who were certainly exhausted: Did he intend to use them as cannon fodder? The few trucks he had, a couple dozen, were useless in the sand, and they were running low on all the essentials. The troops don’t even have adequate uniforms, he thought, shaking his head. To defend our country!

  “That’s why,” Leclerc continued, his eyes running over the map spread out between them, on which only a few scattered spots marked oases, “we have to take them by surprise.”

  D’Ornano noted that this idea enchanted Massu. Massu, the officer in charge of the meharists.

  “By surprise,” said Dio. “That changes everything.”

  “We need to cut their communication lines,” Captain Massu began, “that means starting in Murzuk.”

  “Murzuk.”

  D’Ornano’s face lit up as he repeated that name. It was as if he had found the talisman he’d been missing till then. Or maybe it was the wind-driven sand whipping through the desert outside that rekindled his hopes?

  “The Italian air base,” Dio continued.

  And the officers looked at one another, stunned as much by the announcement of this unavoidable battle as by how ill-suited their troops were for the task. For d’Ornano, it was obvious, only perfect soldiers could pull off this operation. Leclerc, for his part, saw that as just another excuse: war is fought “with the army you have.” Yet the prospect of this unequal battle enchanted d’Ornano. In the morning he appeared at the colonel’s tent with the plan that they had hammered out late the previous night in his hand and, on his lips, words that made Leclerc smile: “The English.” Outside, the tirailleurs were doing their exercises, despite the chill of the desert’s morning air, their songs and shouts ricocheting off into the unending silence that surrounded them, their movements casting indistinct shadows in the mist.

  “Clayton,” d’Ornano began.

  With that name, Leclerc suddenly found a new cane to lean on.

  “Clayton’s battalion is specialized in navigating across the sand.”

  “We have to contact him,” said Leclerc tersely.

  And that made Lieutenant Colonel d’Ornano smile.

  7

  Bilong’s Moment

  Had Lieutenant Colonel d’Ornano asked Hebga or Aloga what they thought, they surely would have advised him to choose someone else for the Murzuk mission. One can easily imagine that the officer’s nerves had already been frayed by the shakiness of his authority, which was continually undercut by the colonel looming in the shadows behind him. He knew he was being watched and, that being the case, the astute politician planned on making a few moves that would mollify Leclerc. When reviewing the troops that morning, he selected the tirailleurs for the operation in Murzuk. Dio and Massu, whom he trusted, had given him good recommendations for some of the Cameroonian soldiers; Leclerc concurred and, as a result, he stopped in front of Tirailleur First-Class Bilong and ordered him to step forward.

  The boy had put his whole heart into his training, you have to admit. His uniform was always impeccable, his comportment exemplary—he had become the soldier all officers dream of. His youth gave him an easy demeanor that others no longer had. It was as if the role of tirailleur had revealed in him military talents that no one in Edéa had ever suspected—or had ever wanted to see. Maybe he wanted to be done once and for all with the false judgments of men who treated him like a child, or those of his mother and older sister, who saw him as a kid. Confirming his revenge, he spied out of the corner of his eye the face of true disappointment. It was Philothée.

  Philothée was the person Bilong was closest to in the camp. His friend’s stuttering meant that they had moved beyond words; more than talking, what they each needed, really, was to see the other’s look of encouragement. They were about the same age, and the same ironic glint lit up their eyes when they saw something funny. A smile served as their secret code. That was all. They shared with Aloga the memory of Edéa’s little poetry circle, but they had never found a way to cross the bridge that separated them from the Hilun, to embrace that man who seemed to have emerged from an age-old thicket and, to top it off, whose “feet just weren’t made to wear the white man’s shoes”—as Bilong declared with a
laugh the day they each received a pair. Everything about that Aloga seemed a real mish-mash. Their friendship was based on the adolescent jokes they shared. Bilong was the one who told the jokes, and for him, Aloga was a never-ending source of material. The fact that they were all there together in the French army was what had sealed his authority over Philothée, who had really only joined Free France to copy his friend.

  The day Bilong had been torn away from Nguet’s perfume by the women of Edéa, instead of heading back home, he had rushed out along the streets of the village. Following a signal from Pouka, Philothée had headed after him. Together the two members of the little poetry circle had gone up and down paths, crisscrossing the market, with Philothée always at Bilong’s heels. The strange pair had soon found themselves in front of the French military camp, and that’s where Bilong confided his extraordinary plan: “I want to be a soldier.”

  They had arrived right when the machetes were being distributed to the tirailleurs. At first the sight of those weapons piled up in the courtyard at Captain Dio’s feet had given him pause. But then the mountain of metal, and most of all the way the soldiers had all looked at them—running their eyes over the boys’ cheeks as if they were women—had roused in him something he didn’t know his body was capable of: a blind rage. Colonel Leclerc signaled to Dio, who stopped what he was doing to hand Bilong an improvised enlistment form; Bilong’s hand trembled as he wrote down his name. That made him the first literate soldier from the region to volunteer. Leclerc decided it wasn’t important to ask his age.

  “What about your friend?” Captain Dio asked.

  “My friend?”

  I’d say that was the moment when Bilong started to feel responsible for Philothée. When Philothée hadn’t answered, Captain Dio—who had a gift for discovering hidden soldiers where they were least expected—put the question right to Bilong. Leclerc, for his part, recalled the young man who had launched into “La Marseillaise” and led the whole crowd in song—something the colonists in Douala hadn’t been able to do when the city had come under his command.