Alain Mabanckou - Black Bazaar

I told him that everything was fine, that I was just a bit tired.

“Look me in the eye … You are lying … Yes, you are lying. I can see that your eyes are all red. You’re not going to tell me it’s because of those stories you write on your typewriter! What is wrong?”

* * *

I found out that the Hybrid had been talking to our Arab on the corner and that the shopkeeper had enjoyed his company.

One evening when I went into his shop to buy some Pelforts and milk he said to me:

“For too long the West has force-fed us lies and bloated us with pestilence! Do you know which black poet spoke those courageous words, eh? My African brother, last night I was with your relative, I mean the cousin of your wife, so he is your cousin too. I often used to see him coming out of your building very late and running in the direction of the métro like the people who steal my vegetables from outside. I was puzzled as to who he was because you might not think it, but I know just about everybody who lives in that building of yours. There is a total of only three Blacks: your woman, your daughter and you. I’m not counting the Caribbean gentleman because he’s a case apart, a strange character who does not think he’s black, or that there’s anything African about him, and that he’s French through and through. But as for your cousin there, what a fine fellow! He talks softly, and when he listens he folds his arms and nods with each word. Wouldn’t you call that a sign of respect? He is a very educated kind of man because education begins with listening even though in the West they think it all starts with the spoken word. My father, he often used to say to me: ‘Djamal, he who listens is wiser than he who speaks …’ Do you get my gist? Did you realise that cousin of yours there has already been to Algeria and Morocco for some traditional African music concerts? Do you know any African brothers who have worked such wonders? We should be developing exchanges like that between the Maghreb and Black Africa! We are strangers to one another, which is why there are fools who claim that in the old days the Arabs forced their black African brothers into slavery. Can you believe lies like that? Do I have the face of someone whose ancestors were slavers? We need to look into this subject, it is not for nothing that the West didn’t dwell on it. It is a sensitive topic. But I say to Westerners that slavery is the West’s story, it is not about us Arabs. We are all brothers and no one forces their own brothers into slavery … Anyway, all this is to say how happy I was when your cousin told me that he has been to Algeria and Morocco and that he liked these countries! He at least knows how we live over there. He has seen the meaning of respect where we come from. He told me that he wants to convert to Islam, isn’t that a good piece of news? He has understood everything, he wants to follow in the footsteps of those Blacks who have become Muslims, those Blacks who have changed and who continue to change the world: Mohammed Ali, Malcolm X, Karim Abdoul-Jabbar, Louis Farrakhan, etc. Do you realise that your cousin calls me ’papa’, eh? I had tears in my eyes! Why haven’t you ever called me ‘papa’ when we’ve known each other for a long time and I could be your father too given that I am bald and going grey on the sides? If we had a million immigrants like your cousin in this country, we would be strong in the face of the West. And another thing, he has an extraordinary talent, he is the leader of a traditional music group. That group is very well known! Because, between you and me, to go and play in Algeria and Morocco you already have to be very well known throughout the world otherwise the Algerians and the Moroccans will never come to your concert, I know my people. Your cousin also told me that he is going to return to the home country for good with his group. Don’t you think that’s a respectable attitude? We should all go back home so that one day the African Unity of the Guide Muammar Gaddafi may turn into a reality. The Guide also said, like the pastor Luther King: ‘I have a dream’! It is up to us to make his dream come true, it is not the people from the West who are going to give us a leg-up, they are too cunning, they have created their European Community even if they don’t get on among themselves. Do you know why they don’t get on among themselves? It is because the English don’t want anything to do with their single currency. It is because the Danes and the Swedes don’t trust it, now look if they really do want that currency then why are they going round in circles instead of jumping on the bandwagon with the other countries, eh? And then, my African brother, why doesn’t this Community of theirs accept that Turkey has a place in it, eh? Well, let me tell you, it is because when you see Turkey on the map, this country shares her life between Europe and Asia, and yet the problem it is that the Europeans who had the idea for their Community in the first place are all against polygamy! What are the poor Turks going to do? Move their country? But with our Community that we are going to create thanks to the Guide Gaddafi, if Turkey wants to stay polygamous, well then she will be able to join us, we will open our doors to her because polygamy isn’t a problem for us, why it’s even enriching! And this is what I was saying to that cousin of yours, and he understood everything from A to Z. He is so modest that he didn’t want to tell me he is a great artist who is the pride and joy of our continent. It was only when I asked him where that drumming sound comes from I’ve been hearing in your building recently, that he told me he was playing the drums to soothe your little one and to help her acclimatise to the African environment! Splendid, don’t you think?”

The day Original Colourcame back home with a new hairstyle I nearly had a cardiac arrest. She was sporting green and white braids with cowrie shells like the ones Venus and Serena Williams wore when then played at Roland Garros. Her hairstyle wasn’t just ridiculous, it showed how stupid and blind I had been despite Carcass indirectly doing me a favour at Bar Sangho.

“Did you go to the hairdresser’s in order to charm your cousin?” I asked Original Colour:

“Why?”

“Because you’ve got to be beautiful for his concert this weekend!”

“I didn’t speak to you, I am not speaking to you any more! Leave me alone! Haven’t I’ve got the right to braid my hair the way I like? Is my head your head?”

“Where did you get the money?”

“It was Nicole …”

“Nicole?”

“She agreed to let me pay her back when I’ve got some cash.”

Nicole is a good woman. I know her. I owe her respect. She does a great job of running her four hair salons in Château d’Eau. She decided to go into that line of business ages ago when she was still a medical student. But none of this stopped my male pride from taking an uppercut.

That Saturday I got drunk on Barbancourt rum over at Louis-Philippe the writer’s and then I decided to go for a stroll around Château Rouge.

Soul Fashion did its main turnover at the weekend, the shop was always full from morning to night, but the boss had given Original Colour Saturdays off since the little one was born. She mostly stayed at home. This time, though, she was in a rush to go out. She got the kid’s bottle ready and wrote on a scrap of paper: “Henriette must have her bottle at seven o’clock on the dot.”

She gazed at her reflection for the umpteenth time and left without speaking to me.

I let an hour go by and then I went to drop off Henriette a few metres from our Arab on the corner, with the Cape Verdean mama who was overflowing with kindness to the point of giving us food even though she had seven mouths under her roof to feed. You’d think she was cooking for a whole tribe. She took the little one and asked where Original Colour had gone. I said I was off to meet her in Château-Rouge where we had an appointment.