Alain Mabanckou - Tomorrow I'll Be Twenty

‘Listen to this one: one dry season, a workman’s told to dig a hole by the river bank. He says, “I can’t work between a croc and a hard place!”’

No one laughs, but he’s doubled up.

He goes on, ‘When President Georges Pompidou was annoyed, he’d shout, “That’s the least of my woollies!”’

No one laughs, but he’s doubled up.

He goes on, ‘A man goes to the dentist for a bridge, but it’s too expensive. He gets up and walks out, saying “Oh no, that’s a bridge too far!”’

No one laughs, but he’s doubled up.

He adds, a little disappointed by our reaction, ‘If you want to find out about your family tree, consult a gynaecologist!’

Still no one laughs. We watch him wipe away his tears, he looks back at us, and we start laughing for the very reason that he couldn’t make us laugh. He puts his piece of paper back in his pocket. Maybe the Whites will laugh when he tells them his jokes, but we couldn’t work out when we were supposed to.

Uncle René’s always criticising my father’s work. He thinks Papa Roger’s office isn’t a real office, just a place where the hotel guests come to pick up their room key. He also thinks my father has no power, compared to him, since he’s the administrative and financial director of the CFAO. He thinks when the bosses of the Hotel Victory Palace talk to my father he looks at the floor and says ‘yes boss, yes boss!’ He thinks that’s how black people used to reply to their white bosses before our countries got independence. My uncle says a receptionist in a hotel is just like a Boy working for the Whites, that it’s shameful.

So what? As far as I see, everyone’s someone’s boy. Even Uncle René’s someone’s boy because there’s always someone higher up who says, ‘Do this, don’t do that.’ The only person who’s not someone’s boy is the President of our Republic. And even then I’m not sure because our President isn’t as powerful as the presidents of countries like the United States of America, the USSR or France. Put him in front of presidents like that, and our President curls up small, like he’s their boy, suddenly he’s the receptionist and they call all the shots. When the Americans, the Russians and the French speak, our President looks down at the floor, too, and answers ‘at your service, boss!’ And if our President refuses, if he’s stubborn and disrespectful towards the Americans, the Russians and the French, they can bombard our country in a single day, blast us off the map of the world or give our land, our oil, our river, our Atlantic ocean to Zaire, who would be only too happy to accept.

So Uncle René’s the receptionist at the Hotel Victory Palace. What’s wrong with that? Jobs are like hoops. You have to jump through them. I don’t know where I heard that — I think it’s what Monsieur Mutombo says when parents come and shout at him in his workshop because he’s late with the school uniforms because he’s always going on about Algeria. They insult him, tell him he’s rubbish, and that’s when he says jobs are like hoops. You have to jump through them. Everyone laughs then, because he’s talking about people jumping through hoops when he’s got a limp.

In fact my uncle doesn’t realise that Papa Roger is a very intelligent man, who knows what’s going on all over the world. He stayed at school right up to his Certificate of Primary Studies, which is like having a diploma that lets you go to a French university and study with the Whites. Also, Papa Roger always reads the newspapers he finds at work. The Whites leave them at reception when they’ve finished reading them over their coffee. They also leave books. My father takes them and brings them home and says to us, ‘Don’t you touch my books, now, I’ll read them when I’m retired.’

Caroline walks past our house. My heart starts pounding. I’m happy, I leave the house, I run towards her. I’m out of breath, as though I’d been running for an hour and she doesn’t wait for me to get my breath back.

‘Why are you running like that? I haven’t come to see you!’

‘But you’re here, outside our house, and I thought…’

‘You thought what? Am I not allowed to walk past your house then? The Avenue of Independence is open to everyone, you know!’

She makes out she’s going to the market, but I don’t believe her. You don’t set out to market like that. She hasn’t got a basket with her. What’s she going to put her shopping in?

I tell her to come on inside with me.

‘Come on, my parents are out. We’ll be alone in the house and…’

‘No, I don’t want to!’

I look her up and down. She’s got nice new red shoes on. I like her white dress with yellow flowers.

‘That’s a lovely dress…’

‘Don’t you try smooth talking me! You leave my dress out of this, I’m not wearing it for you! You think I’d put on a dress for you?’

‘Listen, stop talking like that and come inside with me.’

‘What for? It’s all over between you and me!’

‘I want to show you something. You’ll see, it’s really amazing and…’

‘No. There’s nothing amazing in your house!’

She looks at me as though she doesn’t know me, as if I was her enemy.

‘So you’re still cross with me?’

‘Yes I am. We’re not married any more, we’re divorced! I’m never having two children, a white dog and a red five-seater car with you!’

‘Why not?’

‘’Cause I’m marrying someone else.’

‘Oh, right, I see. And would it by any chance be a boy called Mabélé you’re thinking of marrying?’

She’s astonished. ‘You’re not meant to know that! Anyway, who told you his name?’

‘Lounès…’

‘He’s not meant to tell you his name! I was meant to tell you myself, today, not him!’

‘So you did come to see me…’

‘No, I’m going to the market!’

Deep down inside, I think: ‘I have to calm her down and calm myself down too. If we both get angry we’ll end up getting divorced for real. And she’s angrier than I am, so I’d better stay calm.’

‘I don’t want us to get divorced, Caroline…’

‘Well you’re just a horrible little boy, so that’s too bad!’

‘I know, but I was a bit cross because you did my mother’s braids and that’s why she went out that Sunday, but it’s over now, I’m not angry now…’

‘It’s too late! I’ve already promised Mabélé he can be my husband and buy me the red five-seater car.’

Now that really got me. That damn Mabélé really annoys me. I go on the attack.

‘I’m going to tell my uncle not to sell you that car! He won’t let you have it, he’s my uncle and he’s the only person who sells cars in this town!’

‘If you tell your uncle that I won’t braid your mother’s hair, and she’ll be ugly then, like Jérémie’s mother!’

She looks me straight in the eye to see if I’m worried about her not doing Maman Pauline’s hair any more. But I’m actually quite pleased. Suits me fine, at least if my mother’s hair isn’t braided she’ll stop going out and I can stay with her on Sundays.

But Caroline’s realised what I’m thinking and she adds: ‘And besides, if you tell your uncle not to sell us the red five-seater car, I’ll never speak to you again, ever again, and we’ll go and order our car somewhere else and you and I will be deadly enemies! And if I see you in the street I’ll spit on the ground!’

She fumbles in the pocket of her dress and takes out a piece of paper, which she unfolds and passes to me. It’s a page torn out of the Redoute catalogue. There’s a photo of a girl and a boy in front of a red five-seater car. They’re about our age, but white. The girl has a white dress and a red hat and shoes. The boys are all dressed in black with a white shirt and a bow tie. They look like they’ve just got married and the photographer’s just said: stand over there and I’ll take your picture.