Gods and Soldiers (20 page)

 

the Negroes of the cabinet set about their arduous task with a Chaka Zulu spear and a sword of Damocles dangling over their heads while the palace walls still echoed with the president's final words, and around midnight, since they still hadn't thought of anything—there's plenty of petrol in this country, but not many ideas—it naturally occurred to them to phone a well known member of the Académie Française who was apparently the only black person in the history of this august assembly, and everyone applauded this last minute idea, and everyone said the academician in question would consider it a further honour, so they wrote him a long letter full of smoothly phrased imperfect subjunctives, and even some particularly moving passages composed in classical alexandrines with identical rhymes, they checked it carefully for punctuation, they didn't want to be sneered at by the academicians, who would take any opportunity to prove their use to the world, besides handing out the Top Prize for novels, and the president's Negroes almost came to blows over it, because some of them said there should be a semi-colon in place of a comma and others didn't agree and wanted to keep the comma to move the phrase up into fifth gear, and those in the latter camp stuck to their point even though it was contradicted by a certain Adolphe Thomas in the
Dictionary of Difficulties in the French Language,
whose view supported that of the first camp, and the second camp refused to yield and the point of all this was to get on the right side of the black academician who, as they were humbly aware, was one of the first ever Doctors of French Grammar from the African continent, and everything might have passed off smoothly if Adrien's Negroes hadn't then said that the academician would be slow to reply, the spear of Chaka Zulu and the sword of Damocles would come down on them before they received word from the Coupole, which is the name given to the onion dome beneath which these immortal sages sit listening to the distant babble of the French language and decree absolutely that such and such a text is the degree zero of all writing, but there was another reason why the Negroes beat a retreat, one member of the cabinet, who'd come top in his year at the ENA and owned the complete works of the black academician in question, pointed out that he had already produced a phrase for posterity, “reason is Greek, emotion is black,” as an ENA graduate himself he explained to his colleagues that actually the academician couldn't come up with a second slogan because posterity isn't like the court of King Petaud where nobody's boss and anarchy rules, you only get one chance to coin a phrase, otherwise it's all just hollow chatter, much ado about nothing, that's why phrases that go down in History are short, sharp and to the point, and since such phrases survive through legends, centuries and millennia, people unfortunately forget who the true authors were, and fail to render to Caesar what is Caesar's

 

undaunted, the Negroes of the President and General of the armies came up with something else at the last minute, they decided to put all their ideas and everything they had found into a hat, they said it was called
brainstorming
in the smart colleges some of them had been to in the USA, and each of them wrote down on a piece of paper several phrases that had gone down in the history of this shitty world, and started to go through them, like they do in countries where you have the right to vote, reading each one out in a monotonous voice under the authority of the chief negro, beginning with Louis XIV, who said
“I am the State,”
and the leader of the Negroes of the President and General of the armies said “no, that quote's no good, we're not having that one, it's too self-regarding, it makes us sound like dictators, next!,” Lenin said
“Communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the entire country,”
and the chief black said “no, that's no good, it's disrespectful to the people, especially in a country where they can't even pay their electricity bill, next!,” Danton said
“Boldness, and again Boldness, and always Boldness!,”
and the chief black said “no, no good, too repetitive, besides, people will think we're not bold enough, next!,” Georges Clemenceau said
“War is too serious to be left to the generals,”
and the chief black said “no, no good, the military won't like that, we'll have a Coup d'État every five minutes with that one, the President himself is a general of the armies, don't forget, we need to watch our step, next!,” Mac-Mahon said
“I am here. I shall remain here,”
and the chief black said “no, no good, sounds like a man unsure of his charisma clinging to power, next!,” Bonaparte said, during the Egyptian campaign,
“Soldiers, from the height of these pyramids, forty centuries look down on you,”
and the chief black said “no, no good, it makes the soldiers sound uncultured, as though they've never read the works of the great historian Jean Tulard, it's our job to show people soldiers
aren't
idiots, next!,” Talleyrand said
“This is the beginning of the end,”
and the chief black said, “no, no good, they'll think we mean the end of our regime, and we're meant to be in power for life, next!” Martin Luther King said
“I have a dream,”
which irritated the chief black, he hates any mention of MLK over Malcolm X, his idol, so he said “no, no good, we're fed up with utopias, everyone's always waiting for their own to come true, and I can tell you they'll be waiting a good few hundred years yet for that to happen, next!,” Shakespeare said
“To be or not to be, that is the question,”
and the chief black said “no, no good, we've got past wondering whether we are or whether we aren't, we've already settled that one, we've been in power here for twenty three years, next!” and the President of Cameroon, Paul Biya, said
“Cameroon is Cameroon,”
and the chief black said “no, no good, everyone knows Cameroon will always be Cameroon, it's not as though any other country's going to even try to steal its identity or its Lions, who are, in any case, unbeatable, next!” the former Congolese President, Yombi Opangault, said
“A tough life today for a sweet life tomorrow,”
and the chief black said “no, no good, don't take the people of this country for fools, why not a sweet life today and to hell with tomorrow, hmm, besides the guy who said that lived in the most disgraceful luxury of all time, come on, next!” Karl Marx said
“Religion is the opium of the people,”
and the chief black said “no, absolutely not, we spend our whole time trying to persuade the people that our President and General of the armies is God's elect, and everyone will get steamed up about religion again, don't you know every single church in this country is subsidized by the president himself, come on then, next!” and President François Mitterrand said
“Time will take care of time,”
but the chief black got cross at this, you mustn't mention Mitterrand to him, and he said “no, no good, that guy took all the time in the world for himself, he spends his whole life riding roughshod over his friends and his enemies, then bows out to take up his seat at the right hand of God the father, no way, next!” Frédéric Dard alias San-Antonio said
“Fight your brother when he's shorn,”
and the chief black said “no, no good, too many bald people in this country, especially in the government, we mustn't rub them up the wrong way, I'm bald myself, next!,” Cato the Elder said
“delenda Carthago,”
and the chief black said “no, no good, people in the south will think it's some phrase in northern patois and the people in the north will think it's a phrase in southern patois, best to avoid misunderstandings, on we go, next!” Pontius Pilate said
“Ecce homo,”
and the chief black said “no, no good, same applies as to Cato the Elder's flights of fancy, next!” as Jesus was dying on the cross he said
“My God, My God, why have You forsaken me?”
and the chief black said “no, no good, too pessimistic, too whiney, really, for a guy like Jesus, he could have really fucked things up here below with all the power he had, next!” Blaise Pascal said
“If Cleopatra's nose had been shorter it would have changed the face of the world,”
and the chief black said “no, no good, we're talking politics here, not plastic surgery, move on, next!” and so the president's Negroes looked through thousands of quotations and all sorts of other historic sayings and found nothing suitable for the country's most important citizen, because each time the chief black said “no, no good, move on, next!” and then at five in the morning, before the first cock crowed, one of the advisers who'd been flicking through some black and white documentaries at last hit upon a historic phrase

 

at exactly midday, just as the entire population sat down to a delicious meal of chicken-bicycle, the President and General of the armies took over the radio programmes and the only tv channel in the country, it was a solemn occasion, the president stretched taut as the skin of a bamileke drum, it was hard to choose exactly the right moment for leaving a phrase to posterity, and on that memorable Monday he was dressed in his Sunday best, wearing his heavy gold medals, looking from then on like a patriarch in the autumn of his reign, in fact he was so much dressed in his Sunday best, on that memorable Monday, you'd have thought it was the day of the Feast of the Goat, which we celebrate in memory of his grandmother, clearing his throat to overcome his nerves, he began by criticising the countries of Europe, who dazzled us with the sun of independence, when in fact we're still dependent on them, since we still have avenues named after General de Gaulle and General Leclerc and President Coti and President Pompidou, but in Europe there are no avenues named after Sese Soto, or Idi-Amin-Dada, or Jean-Bédel-Bokassa or any of the other fine men known personally to him, and valued for their loyalty, humanity and respect of the rights of man, in that sense we are still dependent—they take our oil but withhold their ideas, they cut down our forests to keep themselves warm in winter, they educate our leaders at ENA and the Polytechnique and turn them into little white Negroes, the Banania Negroes are back again, we thought they'd disappeared into the bush, but here they are, ready for action, thus spoke our president, his breath short, his fist punching the air, and this speech on the ills of colonialism led him on to a denunciation of the cruelty and challenges of capitalism, he said all that was utopia, and worst of all were the homegrown lackeys of the colonialists, the guys living in our country, who eat with us, dance in our bars, sit next to us on public transport, work in our fields, our offices, our markets, these double edged knives who do things with our wives which the memory of my mother who died in the river Tchinouka prohibits me mentioning, these men are actually moles of the imperial forces, and let's just say the President and General of the armies' anger shot up by ten notches at this point, because he hates those lackeys of imperialism and colonialism, as one might hate chigoes, bugs, fleas or worms, and the President and General of the armies said they must be tracked down, these criminals, these puppets, these hypocrites—“Tartuffes,” he called them, “Malades Imaginaires,” “Misanthropists,” and “Paysans Parvenus,” he said the proletariat revolution will triumph, the enemy will be crushed, driven back, wherever he may appear, he said God was with us, that our country was eternal, as he was himself, he called for national unity, the end of tribal warfare, he told us we were all descended from a single ancestor, and finally he came to “The C
redit Gone Away
Affair,” which was dividing the country, he praised the Stubborn Snail's initiative, and promised to award him the Legion of Honour, and finished his speech with the words he was determined to leave to posterity—and we knew these were the words because he said them several times over, arms stretched wide as though clasping a sequoia, he said “I have understood you” and his phrase too became famous throughout the land, which is why, for a joke, we common folk often say that “the minister accuses, the president understands.”

from
THE BELLY OF THE ATLANTIC

HE RUNS, TACKLES, dribbles, strikes, falls, gets up again, carries on running. Faster! But the wind's changed: now the ball's heading straight for the crotch of Toldo, the Italian goalie. Oh God, do something! I'm not shouting, I'm begging you: if you're the Almighty, do something! Ah, back comes Maldini, his legs knitting up the turf.

In front of the TV, I leap off the sofa and give a violent kick. Ouch, the table! I wanted to run with the ball, help Maldini get it back, shadow him halfway down the pitch so he could bury it in the back of the opponent's net. But all my kick did was spill my cold tea onto the carpet. At this exact moment I imagine the Italians tensing up, stiff as the human fossils of Pompeii. I still don't know why they clench their buttocks when the ball nears the goal.

“Maldini! Oh yes, great defending from Maldini, who passes to his keeper! And Toldo kicks it away. What a talent, this Maldini! A truly great player. Still staying loyal to AC Milan. Over a hundred caps for Italy! Amazing. Cesare, his father, was a fine player too; the family definitely has talent!”

The commentator would have liked to make up a poem in praise of Maldini, but in the heat of the moment he could only utter a string of exclamations.

Why am I telling you all this? Because I adore football? Not that much. Why, then? Because I'm in love with Maldini? No way! I'm not that crazy. I'm not starstruck. I don't crane my neck gazing up at the sky. My grandma taught me early on how to pick up stars: all you have to do is place a basin of water in the middle of the yard at night and they'll be at your feet. Try it yourself, you only need a small dish in the corner of the garden to see twenty-two stars, Maldini among them, chasing round in circles on the grass like rats in a maze. So, since I'm not writing Maldini a love letter, why am I telling you all this? Simply because not all viruses land you in a hospital. Some just work inside us like they do in a computer program and cause breakdown.