Alain Mabanckou - Tomorrow I'll Be Twenty

No, better stop thinking like that, since it’s not my fault I’m not a girl.

I go on listening to what they’re saying behind the wall. Papa Roger’s explaining that the reason children turn up in my mother’s womb but don’t make it out into the world is because they get lost somewhere along the way. So, instead of arriving here below they go directly to heaven, which is not the best way of making people on earth happy.

Maman Pauline reminds my father that before me she had two daughters in two and a half years, and both died the same way: they came out of her womb ok, they cried, then they just closed their eyes for ever. And by the time someone checked to see they were breathing, it was too late — they’d already gone.

When Maman Pauline reminds Papa Roger about this, I listen carefully. I want to know, after all this time, what those two sisters of mine were called. No, she doesn’t say their names, she says ‘my two daughters’ or ‘my two queens’. Am I like them? I think I must be, because I look very like Maman Pauline and I can’t imagine my two sisters not looking like my mother but like some horrible policeman from Mouyondzi.

So what can my sisters have seen the day they arrived on earth, that made them want to turn round and go back to heaven quite so soon? Did the nurses who helped them out have red globules? I can understand one of the sisters leaving, but why, when the next one was due out, a year and a half later, did she do the same thing? What’s going on up there in heaven, why do some children head straight on up there as fast as they can? One way I have of cheering myself up is to imagine my sisters are stars and perhaps they talk to me without my even knowing. Now, when night falls, I always look for two stars close to one another. And there always are, if you look hard enough. Since I don’t know my sisters’ names, I’ve decided to call my big sister ‘Sister Star’. I haven’t got a name for the other one. I keep looking, I keep trying, but I still can’t think of one. Until I think of something pretty I’m going to call her ‘Sister No-name’.

I’m hiding under my sheet, trying not to move around, because every time I move I feel like the mosquito net’s going to fall down on top of me. I’ve got my ears open. I don’t want to miss what’s being said behind that wall. Papa Roger’s talking now. He’s speaking very quietly, and I can hardly hear him. So I come out from under my sheet and pull the mosquito net to one side and get out of bed and stand next to the wall.

Papa Roger’s trying to comfort my mother.

‘It’ll be ok, we’ll have more children, I promise…’

‘Lots more?’

‘Yes.’

‘Roger, I want daughters, even just one, I don’t want boys, I’ve already got one and—’

‘That’s not up to us, Pauline. Let’s ask the Lord for a child, to start off with, let’s not worry if it’s a boy or a girl.’

My mother falls silent. Papa Roger goes on talking. He says that the children he had with Maman Martine are my mother’s children too, and my brothers and sisters. He adds that he’s never made any distinction between them and me. It’s true, when I go to Maman Martine’s, she treats me as though I’d come out of her own belly. Besides, my brothers and sisters are very fond of me. Papa Roger also says that I love little Maximi-lien, that’s it’s touching to see little Félicienne weeing all over me, and that Marius talks to me a lot, Mbombie respects me, Ginette looks out for me, Georgette is a true big sister to me, and Yaya Gaston, big brother to all of us, always wants me to sleep with him in his studio.

Whatever he says, Maman Pauline insists that she wants to have children from her own belly because if I fall out with my sisters and brothers from the other house they’ll probably remind me that I’m not their blood brother, and they’ll say it deliberately to upset me.

‘Roger, are you blind and deaf? You know people round here are saying you’re not Michel’s real father, that your children with Martine are not his real brothers and sisters, and that they’re not my children! Now stop talking to me like I’m an idiot!’

At this my father starts to get angry. He talks so loud you’d think he was actually in my bedroom.

‘That’s just stupid talk, Pauline! Stupid! Are we going to spend our lives worrying about the local gossip? We don’t give a damn about them, don’t do their dirty washing for them! You mustn’t listen to them, I love you and nobody’s going to come between us, d’you hear?’

‘Yes, but did you know, at the Grand Marché the other sellers say the only reason I have lots of customers is because I’m a witch and I can’t have children?’

‘Pauline, listen, we’ll go to see a doctor, and you’ll see, we’ll sort it out!’

‘We’ve already seen doctors, that’s all we’ve been doing for the past few years, I’m sick of it! Is there a single doctor in this town we haven’t seen since we’ve been together?’

‘I’ve just been recommended a new doctor, he…’

‘I don’t want to go to another Congolese doctor! He’ll only tell everyone our business and people will go on laughing at me!’

‘It’s a white doctor, everyone knows he’s the best in town, and he’s new…’

There’s a silence. I think to myself, Maman Pauline’s going to say yes.

My father continues, ‘Anyway, those gossips down at the Grand Marché are idiots! People should mind their own business! I’m going to show them I’m not a nobody! Next month I’ll give you some money, you can set up a business away from here. You can go into the bush, to Las Bandas, and buy bunches of bananas there. Then you can load them onto a train and take them to Brazzaville to sell. They say that’s where business is best at the moment.’

This set my alarm bells ringing. Maman Pauline would be away at least one week a month. I feel like banging on the wall, to tell my parents I don’t want this, they must ask my opinion too. There are three of us in this house, they shouldn’t take decisions without consulting me. The people in Brazzaville will kill my mother. Brazzaville’s too far away. That’s where the President of the Republic lives, who runs this country. You have to sleep two whole days on the train, almost, to get there. What’s Papa Roger thinking of?

They carry on halfway through the night. I think of Maman Pauline going once a month to Brazzaville. I turn this whole question of her wanting children at any price round and round in my head. What can a doctor do, even a white one, if the children inside a woman choose to go straight to heaven without stopping off on earth? Does any man, white, black, yellow or red, really have the power to change God’s plan? Wouldn’t it be better just to go and pray really hard at the church of Saint-Jean-Bosco even if the prayers there do go on too long?

My parents have switched the light out now, and are talking very quietly. My mother was crying earlier, but now she’s laughing and my father says, ‘Hush, don’t laugh so loud. Michel can hear us.’

‘No, he’ll be fast asleep by now. I know him.’

One day when I’m older, I’ll take you far away

To where the crabs walk on the sand of the Côte Sauvage.

Our little girl will wear red shoes

Shiny red shoes and a white dress

With yellow flowers

Like you

Our son will wear a hat

I want to wear a hat too

One day when I’m older.

I’ll take our daughter by the hand ,

Her right hand ,

We’ll call her Pauline like my mother

You’ll take our son by the hand ,

His left hand ,