Dany Laferrière - How to Make Love to a Negro without Getting Tired

“Not bad.”

The DJ is playing reggae.

“You want to dance?”

“Okay.”

Brazilian music comes on.

“Should we stay?”

“Fine with me.”

It’s that easy when it’s working. Smooth as silk.

“Let’s get a drink at the bar,” she says. “It’s quieter there. We can talk.”

We sit down at the bar on the high stools and order drinks. I ask her what she’s up to these days.

“I’m reading.”

“What?”

“Hemingway.”

“Excellent.”

We finish our drinks. She asks me back to her place for coffee.

“I’ll come.”

“Are you leaving with that girl?” Bouba asks me as I get my jacket from the back of the chair.

“Looks that way.”

“The girl next to me says you dropped her because she didn’t agree with everything you said.”

“Tell her, Bouba, that all I did was beat her to the punch.”

“Looked to me she was hot for you. She told me it was the first time anyone’s ever put her down.”

“Tell her that times are tough for everybody.”

I wish them all a good night. The girl with Bouba, Miz Zodiac, smiles back. Miz Mystic too. A put-on smile. The other girl was waiting for me at the door.

SHE LIVES in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, all the way across town. A nice place. Across from a park. Another girl across from a park. But this park has nothing in common with the Carré St. Louis. She cohabits with two cats: Lady Barbarella of Odessa and Blue Salvador Nasseau, otherwise known as Mitzy.

Lady Barbarella is the playful, mischievous, romper-room type. Sir Nasseau the grumpy one. It’s obvious that the apartment belongs to them.

“A drink?”

“Daiquiri, please.”

Miz Cat moves into the kitchen and I hear her rinsing the glasses in the sink. She adds the ice cubes. I try to interpret every movement.

The room is divided into two unequal halves by a black oilcloth. The smallest half, probably the bedroom, has a yellow sofa and a tiny set of shelves which contain erotica only: J.J. Pauvert’s celebrated collection, Miller’s complete works (Nexus, Sexus, Plexus), The Story of O, the publications of Régine Deforges, Lucien de Samosate’s Oeuvre amoureuse, Aretini, Rachilde and Octave Mirabeau. The other side of the screen, more spacious, is less impressive. Prints, a wicker chair, a few cushions and photographs of cats all over the walls. Famous cats. Literary cats. Art critical cats. Communist cats. Aristocats. Vegetarian cats. Lustrée and Fourrure, Malraux’s cats when he lived in Buisson-les-Verrières. Bébert, Céline’s cat. Léautaud’s pussy. Remy de Gourmont’s cat. Huxley’s cat and Claude Roy’s cat. Cocteau’s feline. Colette’s creamy female. Carson McCullers’s stray cat and a few photos of Lady Barbarella in Cuba, Mexico (gazing at the ruins of an Aztec temple), Trinidad, London, China (walking on the Wall) and Singapore.

MIZ CAT is still working on my daiquiri in the kitchen. It is always hard to begin a normal conversation with a person you’ve just met, more or less a chance encounter. Besides, when we’re talking black man and white woman, who are already separated by light-years of metaphysical distance, the slightest physical distance increases the difficulty considerably. In these circumstances of separation — she in the kitchen, I in the living room — the conversation drifted (Allah knows why) onto the topic of famine and cats.

“What?”

“I said that. ”

“I can’t hear you.”

“I was saying. ”

“Talk louder.”

“In my country, people eat cats!”

This time, of course, she heard. At that precise moment I realized I had just committed the gaffe of the century.

“I don’t, of course,” I added as quickly as I could.

Too late. What’s done is done. She brought me my drink with a constipated look on her face, and bravely we tried to change the subject.

“I bet you like to read a lot.”

“I do. I spend a fortune on books.”

She glances at her library. Maybe she’s forgotten the incident. What man could love books on one hand, and on the other hand eat cats? I could have told her I appreciated the savor of human flesh, not as gamey as I like, of course, but a pinch of salt helps it go down. I could have told her that and she wouldn’t have blinked. A guy who eats human flesh isn’t necessarily any worse than anyone else.

But cats are another matter. Deep down, she’s right. Everyone loves a lover. Now she’s smiling sweetly at me. The alert has been called off. Suddenly I feel an irresistible urge to piss. The third door to the right. I empty my bladder. Whew! I consider my reflection in the mirror. The Montreal Cat-Strangler. I don’t look the part, but you can’t judge a book. What got into me to reveal such an intimate thing? The Devil made me do it. Beelzebub. The Spirit of the Bush that trips up the Negro every time he tries to scale the Judeo-Christian ladder. Perhaps it was a sign from Allah. To avoid compromising myself with this infidel. (“Speak of what has been revealed to you in the Book, obey the necessity of prayer, for prayer preserves you from the impurity of sin and all blameful actions. To keep Allah in your heart is your duty. Allah knows your actions.”) Why did I say, “In my country, people eat cats”? What made me pronounce such words? Fortunately, she does not seem too upset. But why do it in the first place? I splash my face vigorously. White teeth, fire in my eyes. Sexy. Ready for the war between the sexes. I emerge.

And see Miz Cat in the hall, panicky, holding Lady Barbarella of Odessa and the phlegmatic Sir Blue Salvador Nasseau in her arms.

If I don’t waste too much time in needless apology, I might still be able to catch the last subway at one-thirty.

I WAKE up to the notes of Saxophone Colossus. Bouba is saying his first prayer of the day. Clean dishes, peonies next to my Remington. Manna in the fridge: cheese, pâtés, milk, eggs, yogurt, fresh vegetables. Miz Literature visited us as we slept. She left a note by the typewriter.

Dear Man, Are you still among the living? If so, let me know. If not, go to hell.

I offer you three choices:

1. Come by at noon and we’ll eat at the McGill cafeteria.

2. Come by this afternoon if you know how to play badminton and meet me in the gym.

3. Tonight Braxton is at the Rising Sun. Me too.—L.

I fix a quick but copious meal. The sun still uncertain. The Remington, always faithful, with its blank page stuck down its throat. Bouba winds up his prayer. (“We spread the heavens like a canopy and provided it with strong support: yet of its signs they are heedless.” Sura XXI, 33.)

I sit down in front of the typewriter. Bouba is having his breakfast.

“Did it work out all right last night, Bouba?”

“She’s totally crazy, man.”

“That’s the way you like them, I thought.”

“Not all the time, man. She wanted to do my astrological chart. Fuck the stars. She took me to her place on Park Avenue. A five-and-a-half, worse than the Oratory. Dark. Mystical bookshelves. Big blow-ups of the maharaji. Every crazy-man was hanging on her wall. She’s totally out to lunch. We sit down lotus-style on reed mats. She tucks her legs under her mystic ass. Legs that would drive the most ascetic bunch of Buddhist monks wild. We do a little meditation. My soldier is standing up straight.”

“What’s she doing?”

“Absolutely nothing. I got up and took a piss to show her that a human being, even a black one (especially a black one!) is made of flesh and blood, muscle and piss. She didn’t move. She uncoiled her legs and went into her room and came out with the tools of her trade. She wanted to do my chart at two o’clock in the morning. Date of birth, place, time, the whole thing: Jupiter influences Saturn and Saturn influences me, and I couldn’t influence her. Finally she remembered I was there. She got up to run a bath. I like a nice hot bath, but it really wasn’t the moment for it. It did smell good, like leaves. But I’m not the aquatic type. I was on fire. In the water. That kind of combination is hard on a man’s nerves. Then she put on a Hindu record, something like The Sacred Music of Plants of the Far East. You can listen all you like but you won’t hear a thing. Plant music, man. Plants aren’t too talkative. All that was missing was the incense. I’m telling you, brother, the West can’t get a hard-on without some kind of stimulant. No natural hard-ons.”