Alain Mabanckou - Tomorrow I'll Be Twenty

I hear Lounès’s voice in the distance.

‘Michel, come back! Come back! Come back!’

I don’t go down the Rue des Plateaux, I cut through the yard of Placide’s house — he’s one of my classmates. It’s a short cut I know well, Placide’s big brother, Paul Moubembé bars my way.

‘Michel, stop, why are you running like that, have you stolen something?’

I pretend to run to the left, then duck back to the right and manage to dodge Paul Moubembé, who stands there, like a post, watching me run. I go through Godet’s parents’ yard — he’s another classmate. This is a short cut too, that brings you directly onto the Avenue of Independence. I’m sweating like Uncle René when he’s talking about Engels, Lenin, Karl Marx or the immortal Marien Ngouabi. I wipe my forehead with my right arm. My shirt is flapping where it’s torn, as though I’ve got wings on my back. I might just take off, running this fast.

I’m on the Avenue of Independence now, and at last I turn round. Lounès hasn’t followed me, he’ll watch the match even if I’m not there. I don’t know what will happen between him and Mabélé. Will they fight? Will Lounès do the karate Maître John taught him? What are these advanced katas his teacher’s shown him? Does Lounès take off like Bruce Lee when he lays into people who are bigger than him? I don’t actually want him to fight Mabélé, Caroline will only blame me.

Lounès likes me being with his sister, but when he yells at her to go and see me, Caroline screams like she’s having her throat cut. He’s told me now, it’s our business, no one else’s. He’s not going to mention it to her again. Caroline is too complicated and Lounès says that whenever she cries, Monsieur and Madame Mutombo blame him and stop his pocket money for a week.

I get back home, and bump into Maman Pauline who’s just packing a big bag. I turn my back on her so she won’t ask me why my shirt is torn. She’ll think I’ve been in a fight, though in fact I’m afraid of fights because I’ve never won one yet.

‘Is the match finished already?’

‘No, I’m hungry, and it’s too hot there.’

I’m staring at her bag. It’s a travel bag, so she must be going somewhere.

‘I’m going in two weeks’ time, but I’m preparing my bag now, otherwise I’ll forget things.’

‘I’m coming with you.’

‘Oh no you’re not. I’m going into the bush to buy bunches of bananas, then taking them to Brazzaville to sell. The bush isn’t safe for children.’

At last Papa Roger has given her the money for her new business, I think.

‘I’ll go and make you something to eat.’

‘I’m not hungry now.’

‘Michel, it’s a surprise: beef with beans, I’ve made it specially for you!’

‘I’m not hungry.’

I go to my room and lie down on the bed with my eyes shut, but I’m not asleep yet. I hear a slight noise: rain drops on the metal roof. A voice inside me exclaims, Oh no! Not rain! I don’t want it to rain — if it does the Tié-Tié Caids will postpone the match. That’s how they win so often. They go and see a fetisher, and he promises to bring rain to wipe out the other team’s fetishes. If the Tié-Tié Caids win, Caroline will carry on being crazy about Mabélé because it’s always the number 11 shirt that gets to dribble, always the number 11 people love, and cheer for, always the number 11 shirt the girls come to see after the match.

The Shah of Iran’s become a kind of vagabond, wandering from country to country, while the Monster, Idi Amin Dada, is fine, no one’s after him, he’s just chilling out in Saudi Arabia. He used to be swimming champion of Uganda, so perhaps he’s got a great big pool and goes swimming every day. He must have a room where he does boxing, because he also used to be Ugandan boxing champion. The people running his country are saying: let him stay there in Saudi Arabia, we haven’t got time to go running after him, but if he does come back we’re going to put him away, he can pay for his crimes. And I think: Even if he can’t read and write, is he really going to be stupid enough to go back to a country where they’ll kill him? So he’ll just go on swimming up and down his pool all day, and doing his boxing training with his cook and gardener.

The Shah still hasn’t found a place where he can live with his family without being threatened from Iran. He left his Prime Minister behind, but now he’s done a runner too. He might get executed by the new government, who have it in for anyone who worked with the Shah. Besides, Papa Roger says that since the Ayatollah Khomeyni returned from exile in France he’s been ruling with an iron fist and the only thing he’s interested in is catching the Shah and sentencing him, not governing his country for the good of the suffering Iranians at home.

While my father’s busy talking like Roger Guy Folly, I try to count in my head the number of countries the Shah’s been to. Every time the American journalist named one, I made an effort to memorise it. First of all he went to Egypt to see his great friend the Egyptian president, called Anouar el-Sadat. His friend wouldn’t allow him to become an international beggar, him and his wife, the empress Farah. Out of the question. So Anouar el-Sadat said to the Shah: Don’t you worry, my friend, you come and hide out here in Egypt, it’s your country too, you’re my life-long friend, a friend of all Egyptians, I won’t let you fall into the hands of those who seek to put you on trial and execute you, like they’re executing your former ministers.

But then Iran made it clear to Egypt that they weren’t happy about them sheltering the Shah. Anouar el-Sadat wanted to keep his friend anyway, and said to him: I won’t hand you over to the Ayatollah Khomeyni, you’re my friend. But the Shah chose to leave Egypt, so as not to be a nuisance to his Egyptian friend.

The Shah went to Morocco, where he had another friend, a king called Hassan II, who offered to take him in.

I’m still counting the countries when I hear Papa Roger yelling at the radio like he’s really angry with Roger Guy Folly, who’s still speaking. My father turns the sound down and turns to us: ‘The American president has abandoned the Shah! How can he do that? That’s what they’re like, these Americans! What do they think they’re doing? It’s them that’s screwing everything up in Angola, because they’re so scared of the Communists, and it was them and the Belgians that plotted to kill Patrice Lumumba and put that thug Mobutu Ses Seko Kuku Wendo Wazabanga in power, who for years has been making speeches and robbing the people of Zaire. Maybe the Shah should have been a dictator like Idi Amin Dada, maybe then they’d have helped him!’

So then the Shah turned up in Morocco, but he didn’t stay long because the Iranians warned him that if Monsieur ex-President didn’t clear out of Morocco, they’d assassinate all King Hassan II’s family. So the Shah himself said to King Hassan II, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll leave Morocco, I don’t want them to kill your family.’

So then he left Morocco and went to some islands called The Bahamas because there wasn’t a single country left brave enough to welcome him. And he didn’t stay there long either, because Henry Kissinger (the American minister for what goes on abroad) suggested he should go and live with the Mexicans.

At this point I said to myself, ‘It’s strange, why don’t the Americans take in the Shah, why do they keep sending him to this country or that? Maybe it’s because they’re scared of eating hot potatoes, as Papa Roger puts it. The Mexicans are like us, my father remarks. They suffer as we do, but at least they’re better than us at football because they’ve already hosted the World Cup, even if Brazil actually won it. I don’t even know if one day we’ll qualify to go and play with the best players in the world. If we can’t even invite the Shah to come and live with us, how’s anyone ever going to trust us to host the World Cup?’