Tram 83 (23 page)

Misfortunes always succeed each other closely. The owner of the Tram died following a long illness. The baby-chicks contended that the dissident General was undoubtedly a sorcerer and that he had eaten him in the spirit world. Which stoked the animosity against him and his militia and strengthened the links between the tribes clinging to their Tram.

“You're handsome like in a porn film. Come to my arms, beloved tourist.”

Hissing that they'd swiped from him the power that was already
eroding because of the many defections among his troops, the dissident General lifted the prohibition on the mines. But who could get away with excavating except a few for-profit tourists, thirsty for sex and easy money? The mines interested nobody for nearly two months.

33.

THE THREE KINGS
.

The dissident General had not recovered from the photographs and all the idiocies put about regarding his skinny matchstick wiener, his vile death in Lucien's theater piece, and, above all, his assaults repulsed with such vigor during the siege of Tram 83. He gave a 2½ hour speech, at the end of which he put a price on the heads of Lucien, Malingeau, and also Requiem. “I want you to bring me these three bastards, dead or alive! Fifty thousand dollars and the authorization to excavate for life in the Polygon of Hope Mine.”

Malingeau, who feared being sold out by his own, obtained, not without some difficulty, the right of asylum in the official residence of the Chinese tourists. Requiem narrowly escaped an ambush set by Mortal Combat. An idea occurred to him, and he too took refuge with these same tourists. Disguised as a woman, on Christelle's advice, Lucien also managed to earn the protection of the Chinese tourists.

The gossip surrounding the General's penis continued apace. He began to increase the reward money. As the sum grew, the
attitude of the Chinese tourists started to change. They were no longer kind and obliging vis-à-vis the three fugitives. “You know,” they repeated, “our business is floundering, but if we could truly gain the favor of the dissident General … The dissident General is now offering seventy thousand dollars, while we only need twenty thousand dollars to save our firm from bankruptcy.”

As soon as they learned that the trio had found refuge in Beijing, the Chinatown of the City-State, the second-rate tourists, the mercenaries, the baby-chicks, the for-profit tourists, the diggers, the Congolese musicians, the waitresses, the busgirls, including the busgirl with the fat lips — basically, everyone — contacted the Chinese tourists to get them to hand over the three bastards and for the money to be distributed equally. Christmas was coming and everybody was preoccupied with acquiring some red wine and the wherewithal to buy their dog kebabs.

“Take me to your country and I'll give you all the love in the world.”

On the 24th of December, Requiem, Lucien, and Malingeau took advantage of their hosts being otherwise distracted to vanish into thin air. They had but one thought: get to the station whose metal structure … then climb aboard the first train for the Back-Country.

Requiem, walking ahead of them, was more than aggravated. He insulted everyone: the baby-chicks, the second-rate tourists, the Diva, the for-profit tourists, Christelle, Jacqueline, the waitresses, the busgirls, the busgirl with the fat lips, the mercenaries, Lucien, the publisher, the dissident General, Mortal Combat …

Malingeau reacted forcefully to the Negus's barking: “Don't speak to me in that tone! I was born in Geneva, Requiem. I was born in Geneva, you know!”

Lucien meanwhile, hanging back, stopped to write despite the characteristic congestion of this station whose metal structure …

All paths lead to Tram 83. No roads lead to the Northern Station without passing in front of the place. They felt some nostalgia as they walked past the Tram. The ambience was at its peak. Outside, people sat, stood, drank, ate, sang as one voice renditions of the Diva, danced, yelled, kissed, enticed the clients, hailed the baby-chicks, cursed, brawled, and demanded jazz in order to be on the same footing as the first-rate tourists.

“Do you have the time?”

When they began to cross the rails, stepping from one to the next, the music reached them, a delicious conversation between saxophone, drums, and trumpet. The saxophone rose, rose, rose, then faded into blissful silence. The drums then filled the empty space before petering out. Sax and drums then climbed together, before the drums broke off, giving free rein to the sax, which soliloquized like a dying dog. The saxophone passed away in turn with an almost cerebral hiccup. It was at this precise moment that the trumpet made its entrance, covering a tune known throughout the City-State. The saxophone then ascended from its ashes and set to nibbling away at the space conquered by the trumpet. In two beats, the drums joined this predators' ball, which echoed through the station with its unfinished metal structure, gutted by artillery, train tracks, and locomotives that called to mind the railroad built by Stanley, cassava fields, cut-rate hotels, greasy spoons, bordellos, Pentecostal churches, bakeries, and noise engineered by men of all generations and nationalities combined.

FISTON MWANZA MUJILA
was born in 1981 in Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of Congo, where he went to a Catholic school before studying Literature and Human Sciences at Lubumbashi University. He now lives in Graz, Austria, and is pursuing a PhD in Romance Languages. His writing has been awarded with numerous prizes, including the Gold Medal at the 6th Jeux de la Francophonie in Beirut as well as the Best Text for Theater (“Preis für das beste Stück,” State Theater, Mainz) in 2010.

His poems, prose works, and plays are reactions to the political turbulence that has come in the wake of the independence of the Congo and its effect on day-to-day life. As he describes in one of his poems, his texts describe a “geography of hunger”: hunger for peace, freedom, and bread.
Tram 83
, written in French and published in August 2014 as a lead title of the
rentrée littéraire
by Éditions Métailié, is his first novel. It has been shortlisted and won numerous literary prizes in France, Austria, England, and the United States.

ROLAND GLASSER
translates literary and genre fiction from French, as well as art, travel, and assorted nonfiction. He studied theater, cinema, and art history in the UK and France, and has worked extensively in the performing arts, chiefly as a lighting designer. He is a French Voices and PEN Translates award winner and serves on the Committee of the UK Translators Association. Having lived in Paris for many years, he is currently based in London.

Roland Glasser would like to thank Looren Translation House for their provision of a residency (
www.looren.net
).

ALAIN MABANCKOU
is a Franco-Congolese author and Professor of French and Francophone Studies at UCLA. His novels include
Blue White Red
(1998),
African Psycho
(2003),
Broken Glass
(2005),
Memoirs of a Porcupine
(2006),
Black Bazaar
(2009), and
The Lights of Pointe-Noire
(2013). He is the recipient of numerous literary prizes, such as the
Grand Prix littéraire de l'Afrique noire
,
Prix Renaudot
,
Prix Georges Brassens
, and the
Grand Prix de Littérature Henri Gal
from the Académie Française for his life's work. He was short-listed for the Man Booker Prize International in 2015.

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