The Shameful State (14 page)

with insults; we have more reasons than others for being human, and we must not only breathe but also function, function so that the race of crocodiles that came into History covered in scales of shame can function. The force of circumstance, everyone knows our origins, and here we are, shepherded along by prejudice. If, on the other hand, you do not resolve to shed some light on Yambo's assassination, it will become customary for people to kill with impunity. And I wanted to avoid raising, Mr. President, my brother, the key question of. . . .” Listen my friends, Cataeno Pablo has asked for a full pardon for all; tear that up, said Zenouca, no, don't, said Lansa Marta, let's at least read it first, then we can decide whether or not we can leave it as a gift to his hernia. Junitas read the fifteen pages while the others listened attentively. Some liked what they heard, others did not; now listen up children, we're going to vote on this so that we can enjoy freedom one last time; if the vote is negative we'll tear up this nonsense, and if the outcome is positive we'll all add our signatures to lend weight to it, and you get it, the dead don't rip each other up like the living do; and the voting begins: nineteen yeas, eleven abstentions, nine nays, you could say the yeas pretty much won, and Lansa Marta has everyone sign the letter. Number sixteen goes ahead and signs, but not without first voicing his displeasure: those people from the area near the lake have such a high opinion of honor, they say that a promise is a heart. And we send the letter. Do you think he will grant it, Junitas asks his older brother Lansio, and Lansio blows up: I don't need it anymore, they've already killed me, they busted my balls. And Agoranti, what will you do if they do grant it? I'd move up north; it's more peaceful there, I'd find some nice quiet spot and plant some corn, I'd tear up all their filthy licentiousness, but why wouldn't you head for the mountains, corn grows well at high elevations; I'm not so keen on mountains, I find them too imposing for my small frame. The preacher abstained on the vote but nevertheless signed the letter, and he said as he was signing, I no longer believe in life, this life! What time do you think it is?
Four forty; just twenty more minutes, twenty minutes is nothing, and Junitas says: We still have twenty centuries ahead of us, we'll clear a sinister hole in the matter, an emptiness that'll throb across the centuries, and he starts spewing out names: Oudramani Motès; Larbacho, Louvoursak, Pedro Mandezo, Henri de Salmata, Patani, Goya: those are some of my ancestors; I'm off to see them.

F
OLKS IN MY TRIBE WERE FOND OF SAYING
that you got the President you deserved. It was back in the day when we were building the village to which the seat of power was moved, on the exact spot where National Mom had buried my placenta. I'm tired of this rotten place, and I'm sick of this group of Mom's people who keep muddling up the presidents. He'd made our brother Digomar gulp down three dozen bars of toilet soap because you're starting to confuse your presidents. He'd also spat a chunky ball of spicy spit onto the military High Command of my hernia who no longer seem to know in spite of everything that I'm the President; and well, now I've got to keep on reminding you. He was forced to spank the Minister of Trade Negotiations because I'm the President. He'd instructed the Minister of the Media to kneel down right there in front of the people and my hernia because you seem to have forgotten who the boss is around here. He'd hurled a bowl of crab broth all over the minister from my colleague's country who just doesn't seem to grasp that when it comes down to it we're all presidents; during an official dinner he'd tossed a jar of mustard at the head of protocol but, the monkey having skillfully dodged it, alas, it smashed my host in the face. Right in the poor presidential face of Nicolas Laroux Bissi, I apologize, I apologize in the way our ancestors would have done, I'm
terribly sorry, here, you can have the head of protocol, take him with you as a political prisoner and do with him as you see fit, because my brother, it's bedlam around here: and we already have our share of people who are a pain in the ass around here. He'd thrown his chamber pot and all the leftover odds and ends from the years of rummaging through his shit for Merline's coin, here, take that in the face with all my roundworms and consorts, Colonel of my weenie and I'm going to have you operated on to see whether you've swallowed one of those pamphlets; he had his ninety-three secretaries operated on for the exact same reason, and you too, National Toussia, for the same reason, get over here so that I can rummage about in you, and he'd really dug deep inside her, and when he pulled his hand out of her vagina he was holding onto a piece of her small intestine. But he still kept boasting about his thirty-seven years in power and going on about how he'd never harmed so much as an ant.

He came over and offered Yambo-Yambi's ex-wife the beautiful poems that my hernia wrote in your honor:

Let me be

that beast

who knows how to succumb

to the murmur of things

let me become a land of recall.

Let me love you the kaki way. He tells him about Mom who went crazy because of the fatherland, but this earth looks out onto my heart, I love it just as I've come to love you. Our brother Issa Traba came to tell him: Mr. President, the
Comedia de la Outa
says they can't go on without her.

“That's fine, from now on you'll be the national theater company. You need to know that the President is a mammal just like everyone.”

This was at the time when Vauban and he, disguised as Arabs, went into the slum, on foot, and asked around: “Where does Cataeno Pablo live?” “We don't know, sir.” Then to a bunch of kids playing in a puddle left over from the morning showers: “We don't know.” The young girls
sitting in the sand, busy showing each other their privates answered in the same way. Did you see that Vauban; they're already fiddling with those procreation instruments of theirs. He smiles at them but the young girls scurry off, repeating, “We don't know, we don't know.” Their parents most likely warned them about Arab merchants selling off girls. And he's there scratching his hernia: My God how beautiful they are. They ask the women busy doing their washing in the Traori Baba Issa rapids the same question, but we don't know, they answer. He asks the woman who's washing some dishes a little further upstream but I don't know she tells them. So he asks the group of men swimming in the green and languid waters, but we don't know. Vauban's eyes lit up, Yum! What a feast, all those nice bums! What ineffable bodies! He swallowed another glob of saliva. He asks the woman who's harvesting her peanut plants on the community plot: “I don't know. . . .” And yet I was told that he lived in this god-damn slum. All the stuff they're carrying prevents them from going any further. Ok then, we'll come back tomorrow. The following day they return to the slum and ask the whole neighborhood the same question again: “We don't know, sir.” He hands out three thousand coustrani: “Where is this hut I'm looking for?” “Take a right, then two lefts, you'll see a large palm tree overlooking the lake; make a right, keep to the right until you get to a pile of manure in the middle of the road, you'll see a small pond, take off your pants because the water will come up to your waist, head to the left until you reach the breadfruit tree, you'll see a hut under construction, someone around there should be able to show you the place you're looking for, but who are you? What do you want him for?”

“We're his friends.”

They make their way to the hut under construction and ask a young girl who's doing her chemistry homework: “Where is Cataeno Pablo's hut?”

“There's no one by that name in this neighborhood.”

He hands her fifty coustrani but Mister there's no one by that name around here. They walk on and ask a group
of women, braiding each other's hair, nattering about loincloths and husbands.

“Where is Cataeno Pablo's hut?”

“Right in front of you.”

They come across his cook.

“Where is Cataeno Pablo?”

“He's taking a nap, sir. If you don't mind waiting.”

“I don't have time to wait, go and wake him up.”

“But he's going to start bitching.”

“Wake him up: I'm the
President
.”

And they wake you up. You come before my hernia. You rub your eyes. Hey, Cataeno Pablo: they say you like women. And she claims it's you she loved. I don't get it. After all, you were there when I took her from Yambo-Yambi. And you were there when I went and delivered all those bottles of wine to her father. Are you challenging my hernia? Fine, if that's how you want things to be. Take him Vauban: we'll be better off back at the palace. And for me to be loved I have to throw in a car and a villa, but you dare to be loved effortlessly, what do you have that I don't? I think you'll be better off back at the palace.

My parrot Narka is singing the national anthem. In order to honor the beast, Moupourtanka will be crowned “National Beast.” Brother Armane Suaze said: “Mr. President, that really is the last straw.” What, how dare you question the decision of my hernia? He produced a forty-eight-page document to prove that your hernia is making a big mistake, ah hang him; that's enough and leave his corpse on display until he's completely decomposed so that the people can see how their enemies end up. Rodriguez Lopez Lavouza will also be hanged for the same reason. And the same goes for Monsignor Mallavra, now send his body over to Jesus Christ's father-of-the-nation so that he can see how I deal with the likes of him.

“Yes, Mr. President.”

Shut down all the convents and consorts, move all the nuns into the army at the rank of corporal, and all those bloody priests as well at the rank of sergeant. Let them learn
to handle my prick instead of spending their days lounging around. No more blah-blah-blah.

He received fourteen trunks filled with messages of support; now this is the
real
national literature, enough of that bullshit other stuff.

“Yes, Mr. President.”

As the saying goes,
You have to run with the pack
, ah how shameful. But brother Jolango who wanted to leave the country to the children of the children of our children comes to lay Mr. President his congratulations on the table, bowing down to the ground. His eyes are red with shame. But congratulations! He is drenched in sweat. But you have to run with the pack. My ex-wife who wanted to leave the country to the children of her mother's children entered, with all those resigning shamefully lined up behind her, but in reverse order this time. Ladies and gentlemen, you cannot change Africa as one does a wife. General Dordobanni, and Fentas Manu, Giovanno Lanza, Vansio Fernadez . . . please accept our warmest congratulations, Mr. President. They all brought gifts for National Moupourtanka, Beast of the Nation, and also for Mom.

Dressed as a prince, the animal was breathing heavily, up there in its official cage, amidst all the gold and diamonds. He was so healthy, majestic, regal, we all thought he'd live for at least two centuries. On this special day, he must have been thinking about the Spanish hills on the mother's side of his lineage, or perhaps even of the village of Loupiac. Mr. Jean Perrier, who prepared his resumé, spoke of Loupiac and the Auvergne region, places where the beast had spent its childhood, in this country where Europe ran like Africa. He spoke of Florence Mensah who watched the beast grow up, and who welcomed me in the same way we do in Africa, and we spent six lazy days together in the same way we do in Africa, to the magical tolling of cow bells, listening to old guys talk about their hemorrhoids in the same way we do in Africa. The only person we were still waiting for was Cardinal Marcinni; I still don't know why he expects me at his age to have to court him, and I'm not Vauban now, am I?

“Mr. President, he's refusing to come.”

I really don't get it, his mother went and slept with Mussolini and the offspring ended up a fucking cardinal and if he doesn't want to bear the full brunt of my anger he'd better get his ass over here and bless me! Does he not know the motto:
He needs to come and run with the pack whether or not he agrees with my hernia
.

“But he won't come, Mr. President sir.”

“Fine, then bring me his balls.”

Here's Cardinal Marcinni. Execute him. And he thunders: “Lord. I die facing this shame.” Bang! Eleven cartridge clips to the groin and he drops like a lump of lead into a pool of his own blood. National Yosuah crowns the beast. Then, as always, came the great big feast, followed by dancing, the true dances of the people. Then there was a violent rainstorm. No one left, we're not made of salt after all, and the celebrations continued. God may well challenge us, but we'll hold on tight. So for three days and three nights they drank and ate and danced in the torrential downpour. There was never any mention of giving up. The water came up to their ankles, the water came up to their waist, and still, they kept on going. They danced in the mud puddles, and those who slipped and fell over got covered in the people's mud. He cursed and cursed the rain over and over again. But you could see them all dancing: the ambassadors, the cultural attachés, the military High Command, the people. They all danced in the mud. The Ameridians, who if they so much as balk I'll withhold the oil supplies of my hernia, the Flemish whom I'll eject from the game if they so much as balk . . . the Russians, the Japanese, the folks from my colleague's country . . . they dance the dance of the century, the horse dance . . . the national dance. And you there from my colleague's country that I made Moupourtanka's godparent. They ate and danced until that moment when, Mom I'm dying, Colonel Tuenso shot the beast and ran off shouting, “Hurray for the fatherland!” He left with three jeeps, firing into the crowd and at the infantrymen and shouting,
“Hurray for the fatherland!” They headed toward Rouviera Ourta.