‘It’ll be OK,’ I murmured, ‘don’t forget she’s your twin, the two of you are one body… If you believe your strength can pull her through, then it will.’
These words consoled my cousin, and as he hung up I heard him give a sigh of relief…
The day before she went into hospital, Bienvenüe was showing me another photo of when she was young. Deep down I knew she had only one thought in her mind: to throw off the thin body she had today, and catapult me back to the time when she was a beautiful young woman who turned the heads of the boys. She seemed to be apologising for what she had become. Which was not surprising, since it is common for sick people to take refuge in self-justification, whatever their state. Was there any particular reason she should act like this with me, who had known her when she was a beautiful young woman full of joy? Back then – she must have been around twelve – she, Gilbert and I all slept in the same bed. My presence between the twins evened things out in some way: I was a partition wall between them, a façade encouraging each of them to take their first steps towards independence, instead of seeing the world always from the point of view of their twinness. We made an inseparable trio, day and night. Gilbert, who was considered a bit of a spoiled child and an incurable egoist, nevertheless appreciated me sufficiently to lend me his favourite toys – in particular an electric train which, in our eyes, was the best toy on earth. You could travel the world with it, cross bridges, encounter Indian tribes, fight epic battles on the forecourts of deserted railway stations. Gilbert could also use me as a shield to hide his worst eccentricities. I remember, for instance, his fear of the dark. Uncle Albert often switched out the light to save energy, which did little to soothe my cousin’s fears. He trembled in his bed, convinced that a monster with three heads, who, according to him, lived in the sewers of the rue du Louboulou, would come in the middle of the night and eat us all up. He described this creature using images taken from Gidrah, the Three-headed Monster, which his big brothers, Jean de Dieu, Firmin and Abeille, had shown on a projector in the yard, using a machine bought for them by their father. In this film, a prophetess from another planet comes down to earth to announce the imminent arrival of a three-headed dragon known as King Ghidorah. The only people who could possibly save us were Rodan and Godzilla, who had also returned, and would join forces with Mothra to defeat the terrifying creature. And since Gilbert was sure that Rodan and Godzilla wouldn’t be turning up in the rue du Louboulou to offer their protection – because our street didn’t feature on any map known to man – he asked to sleep in the middle, and would hide under the cover till first light. He was so frightened, he refused to use the little pot that was left out by my uncle at the entrance to the room for us to pee into. If he ventured out of his hiding place he might fall into the jaws of the three-headed monster. He sprayed the bed with quantities of hot urine and I got the blame in the morning, with no support from his sister, as Uncle Albert lectured me, and my own silence condemned me. In case I said anything, Gilbert would threaten to stop lending me his train, or still worse, to stop me sleeping with them…
Uncle Albert lavished every attention on the girl twin, setting her apart from the rest. This annoyed Gilbert, who would grumble in private, but calmed down once his sister handed over half the presents she had received from my uncle. My mother, too, had a special fondness for Bienvenüe. Whenever she visited Uncle Albert she would ask straight away:
‘Where’s my girl Bienvenüe?’
Bienvenüe would come out of her room and run to Maman Pauline, who would then ask Aunt Ma Ngudi if she could take her along with her to the Grand Marché for the day.
‘But Pauline, Bienvenüe’s your daughter! Why are you asking me permission to take her with you?’
Bienvenüe would come home in the evening with armloads of presents. I was secretly jealous of her, particularly since my mother had never taken me with her to the market, where I could have watched as she talked to customers while I nibbled a few peanuts, ate a ripe banana with Beninese doughnuts and drank ginger juice.
The fact was, we were scared of Bienvenüe, not because of her tempestuous, unpredictable character, but because of the belief in our tribe that a female twin was more powerful than the male. As such, the minute Bienvenüe got angry, we dashed off, till she came to find us, and reassured us:
‘Come back, both of you, I won’t put a curse on you, I’m not angry now…’
The reason Gilbert and I ran off to hide in Grandma Hélène’s yard was because there was another belief that when a female twin got angry she could block up your ears for an hour or more.
So what about Gilbert? What powers did he have? No one knew, he had probably passed them to his sister as was said to happen between non-identical twins, opposition of the sexes always being, it was said, to the advantage of the girl.
Anyway, Bienvenüe was pleased to see me, and to show me her photos, but her brother had omitted to tell me that he would be taking her to the hospital the next day. While I was there he just stood by and watched his sister’s display of euphoria as she wallowed in nostalgia, her eyes shining bright.
‘What you been doing these twenty-three years abroad, then? I’d even forgotten you were a bit taller than Gilbert!’
As though she didn’t believe the photos I had seen would be enough to remind me how beautiful she’d been, she asked her brother to go and take down from the wall another of her favourite photos.
‘I want to be photographed with that photo!’
She sat down in the green armchair in the living room, with the photo placed in clear view on her knees, allowing herself to be photographed with the circumspect smile that convinced me she did still have sufficient energy to battle with the illness, which was getting worse by the day.
I looked her straight in the eyes:
‘You’re going to be OK, I promise you…’
She batted off the flies that had tried to settle on her swollen feet, and began to offer excuses:
‘It’s my blood… it’s stopped circulating properly and my kidneys are a bit blocked… The flies like that…’
I looked up at the living room ceiling, showing the marks of rainwater, of imminent collapse, perhaps.
‘I need to do some repairs,’ Gilbert murmured, a little embarrassed by my inspection.
The light was beginning to fade. I kissed Bienvenüe and the children. Gilbert wanted to come with me as far as the Avenue of Independence, where I would pick up a taxi. Bienvenüe stood at the entrance to the plot with her daughter, her nephews, her nieces, and watched us grow smaller, and no doubt thought to herself that this was the last time we would see each other…
A crow has just come to settle on the roof of the hospital. I don’t think it brings bad news. Because something tells me Bienvenüe will recover from her illness. And yet the bird is looking over this way and is spreading its wings, as though preparing to come over to me. The road past the Institut Français is empty of traffic now. I suddenly feel terribly anxious. I drink my coffee in one gulp, and come back into the living room, to read through the notes I’ve taken so far, and continue writing this book…
Children of paradise
I have a lot of ‘nieces’ and ‘nephews’ now. A small group gathers round me in Uncle Albert’s yard, devouring me with their huge eyes, pulling at my shirt with their little hands. If I move, the whole buzzing little cluster follows me; I stop, and they stop too, afraid, I think, that I might disappear. For these kids I’m like an apparition, a shadow that will vanish with the setting sun. In their minds I’m just a character, artfully constructed by their parents, to the point where the poor kids actually think I can heal the lame and restore sight to the blind. One of them – the tallest – sniffs at me like a dog trying to identify his master after a long absence. They all want to be the first to speak. One wants sandals, and embarks on a series of elaborate explanations:
‘’Cause you know, Uncle, if you don’t have new sandals, you can’t get to school on time, you ha
ve to spend two hours in the street mending them and when you tell the teacher he won’t listen, he just says “little liar”, but it’s not true, I’m not a liar! Don’t you believe me, Uncle?’
‘I believe you, Antoine.’
He’s happy now, and starts jumping about, while behind me I hear a shy little girl’s voice:
‘Uncle, I want a dress like Ursula’s!’
‘Who’s Ursula?’
‘I can’t tell you. There are too many people here, they’ll tease me…’
‘Whisper it in my ear, then…’
I signal to the others to move off a bit, and I bend forward till I’m down at little Julie’s height. She puts her mouth right next to my ear and hisses:
‘Ursula’s a bad girl! She’s my enemy…’
‘Your enemy?’
‘Yeah, she pinched my boyfriend because her father bought her a red dress with yellow flowers on. I want the same dress so my boyfriend will love me too…’
As she’s speaking right into my ear, I answer right back into hers. This game makes the others jealous, I can tell from the frowns on most of their faces. They reckon Julie’s getting special treatment, and they all want to talk to me like this, but I straighten up again.
They shout out a litany of lists. Each time I say yes, the lists get longer. Some requests are quite reasonable, like Célestin’s:
‘I want some Kojak sweets.’
Another has more contemporary tastes:
‘I want a video game I saw on the TV yesterday!’
One of the cocky ones pushes the group aside:
‘Uncle, I’m the brainiest here! You have to get me a laptop computer!…’
Another contradicts him:
‘He’s lying, Uncle, he never listens, he had to repeat his last two years of primary! I’m the brainiest, and I want to go to France and America with you!’
I don’t know exactly how many of them there are, and I’ve no idea when they were all born. They aren’t all here. Some are only a year apart, or even a few months. Every day new ones are added to the long list I was given when I arrived in town.
The mother of a nephew I don’t recognise pushes her son towards me:
‘His name’s Jaden, you’d better not leave him out!’
This nephew is hiding behind his mother, I can just see the gleam of his eyes.
‘Go on, Jaden, tell Uncle what you want him to buy you!’
Jaden is overwhelmed now, he sucks on his thumb and whines:
‘A car…’
‘OK, I’ll get you a toy tomorrow when I go into town,’ I tell him.
At this his eyes widen and he takes his thumb out of his mouth.
‘No, I want a car like grown-ups have, with a real horn, otherwise I’ll make an accident, and someone will die!’
His mother strokes his head:
‘Jaden, you’re too little to drive a big person’s car…’
‘Doesn’t matter if I’m little! I still want a car, I can keep it till I’m big…’
Cornered, the mother says:
‘Uncle will buy you one and put it in a garage in France for you. They look after cars in France, they never get stolen there. And when you’re grown up you can go and fetch it yourself. In a real plane!’
But he’s a cunning one, and shakes his head in disbelief:
‘No, when he leaves he won’t come back again!’
‘Why do you say that?’ his mother says.
‘You told me, you said when this uncle goes travelling he stays with the whites for twenty years and doesn’t come back, and I’ll be as old as Papa in twenty years. And Papa’s old already, and he doesn’t have a car…’
Even when it’s not clear how we are related, they all call me tonton, uncle, and no one seems to mind, especially not the parents. Since I never had a brother or a sister, this gives me an unaccountable sense of pride. I don’t know them, and I will forget most of their faces once I get back in the plane. Little Jaden is probably right: how many have left, and never returned, or returned only twenty years later? Every household in the town can probably claim one.
Still, I need to learn to recognise these little angels, and get their names straight, or they’ll be offended. Even if I’ve never seen them before, I feel close to them, and I know there’s a drop of my blood in their veins. The ones I do know slightly are the children of Gilbert, and of Bienvenüe, who is still in hospital, and whose absence is keenly felt at home. Their children insist on having their photo taken with me. And they choose, by chance, the same spot where I used to sit with Gilbert and Bienvenüe to eat. Here’s where Aunt Mâ Ngudi used to punish me for not finishing what was on my plate, where I toyed with my foufou balls, playing for time. And yet you could tell she really loved me. It was her that told my uncle one day that it wasn’t me wetting the bed, it was my cousin. My uncle was sceptical about this, so Mâ Ngudi then carried out an experiment which to Gilbert felt like the greatest mortification of his life. He was made to sleep alone in the room, while Bienvenüe and I slept in the living room. The next day the evidence spoke for itself: Gilbert, in terror of the three-headed monster, had once again pissed in the bed…
Whenever I was really naughty at home, my mother took me to Mâ Ngudi’s and told her I wouldn’t eat, that I was doing the ‘only child’ thing, as she put it. My aunt gave me a defiant look, then turned to my mother:
‘He’ll eat in this house, Pauline, don’t you worry, I’ll make sure of it. If he gets up to any tricks I’ll send him over to eat Grandma Hélène’s huge portions!’
Mâ Ngudi set to work making a beef soup and foufou balls. I wanted to slip away, but her fierce glare kept me rooted to the spot, and I stayed in the yard, right where my little nieces and nephews are sitting for the photo. Mâ Ngudi set a steaming plate of food, and a bowl of foufou down in front of me. I simply wasn’t hungry, but I had to eat, because my aunt had a rubber whip in her hands. I swallowed great mouthfuls, without feeling them go down into my stomach. I held back my tears, but suddenly felt the need to cough. I began to vomit, while Mâ Ngudi whipped me, and yelled at me to finish my food. I was used to seeing her wave a whip around. I’d stand there before her, eyes cast down in submission. You hardly ever caught her smiling. She was only ever radiant when Uncle Albert was around. It never lasted long, and we felt she was somehow never satisfied, even if everything was fine and we’d all eaten well, there was the washing up to do, the yard to sweep, the bottles on deposit to return to the bar in the Avenue of Independence. She wasn’t particularly hard on me, she treated her own children exactly the same, whipping them with a force that quite alarmed me. Whenever this happened, and I expected to be given the same punishment as them, since we had all been in it together, I feared the worst. But she tempered her lashes, reminding me, perhaps, that I wasn’t her child, that there were limits to her anger. Which Gilbert and Bienvenüe considered an injustice. My cousin always took it out on me once her mother had gone. She would pinch my ears and growl:
‘I’m pulling your great long ears, since Maman didn’t whip you like us!’
I met a friend from France in the lobby of the French Institute and showed him the photo of me with my nephews and nieces, and he remarked that they, ‘like most children in Pointe-Noire’, lived in a ‘paradise of poverty’. A native of Pointe-Noire himself, he launched into the kind of speech you hear from people who have lived so long in Europe, they now accept the image of the black continent projected by the media. While he was having his say, I watched him pityingly. He had forgotten where he came from, and had come to believe that the introduction of European ways would bring happiness to our country. He doesn’t seem to realise that the chains that bind him in what he believes to be a comfortable life in Europe hold no attraction for my little tribe over in the rue du Louboulou. True, he wears a suit and tie and polished shoes every day, when he’s back here. But whenever I meet him in Europe he’s dressed quite differently. Here he plays a role: broadcasting the notion that the salvat
ion of every Congolese lies over in Europe. Back there he comes face to face with reality, which he won’t be sharing with the young people wandering the streets of Pointe-Noire: he lives in less than twenty square metres, must struggle to legitimise his presence in France, and gets up every morning to go in search of casual work.
These children, though, find points of light in the harshness of their lives. It took me a while to understand that they were just as happy as I was when I was their age, and found my happiness in a plate of hot food in the kitchen, in the growing grass, in the tweeting of a couple of courting birds, or in the poster for an Indian film showing at the Rex cinema, where we started queuing at ten in the morning in the hope of getting into the three o’clock showing. The difficulties of our parents’ lives were something quite distant, and besides, we had confidence in them, they cleverly concealed their anxieties, the shortages, the difficulty of getting through to the end of the month, so as not to spoil our childish innocence.
Thinking back to my childhood, when we hid in the lantana fields near the Agostinho Neto airport and hunted iridescent beetles or fished for minnows from the banks of the River Tchinouka, I replied to my friend, with his ‘Parisian Negro’ arrogance:
‘These children aren’t in a paradise of poverty. Here, look at the photo: that tyre, those flip-flops… that’s what makes them happy… flip-flops to walk in, the tyre they can all climb aboard like a motorbike big enough to carry all their wildest dreams. Every day my nephews and nieces walk out in a long line down the rue du Louboulou. Their childhood knits them together, they wouldn’t swap it for all the world. They drink from a small glass, but it’s their own. Your glass is big, but it’s not yours, and each time you want to drink from it, you have to ask for permission. And alas, that permission is never granted…
The ladykillers
The Lights of Pointe-Noire Page 8
