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

I’VE ALWAYS HAD this old shoebox full of notebooks, with a journal I’ve kept on and off for three years, and stacks of cards where I note down sentences that come to me, sketches, bits of dialogue overheard in bars, short descriptions of chance encounters, objects and animals, thoughts on jazz, girls, hunger — that sort of thing. A kind of autobiographical grab-bag where the beginning of a novel, an unfinished journal and a missed appointment are all thrown together. What can be saved from this amorphous mass? Burning it is the only reasonable thing to do. I dry out the sink, set the box in it and prepare for immolation. (“Ta ha. It was not to distress you that we revealed the Koran.” Sura XX, 1.)

THE CHICKEN and rice is ready. I set the table. Bouba puts on a Coleman Hawkins record (Blues for Yolande) that he cut with Ben Webster.

“You writing, man?”

“I’m trying.”

“What’s it about?”

Bouba never reads what I write. He likes to talk about it, build a project, discuss a subject, but reading a manuscript — never. He abhors being presented with a fait accompli.

“I think I’m onto something big.”

“Great!” Bouba looks happy. “Tell me about it.”

“It’s a novel.”

“No kidding. A novel? A real novel?”

“Well. a short novel. Not a real novel — more like fantasies.”

“Knock it off, man. Leave that number to the disabused, used-up critics who don’t have any more juice. A novel’s a novel. Short or long. Tell me about it.”

“There’s nothing to it. It’s about a guy, a black, who lives with a friend who spends all day lying on a couch meditating, reading the Koran, listening to jazz and screwing when it comes along.”

“Does it come along?”

“I suppose it does.”

“Hey, man, I like that, I really do. I like the idea of the guy who doesn’t do fuck-all.”

“Of course you do. You’re my model.”

“Writers! You can’t trust them, they’re all bastards!”

Bouba lets loose a big jazz laugh.

“Then what happens?”

“Nothing in particular.”

Hawkins’s sax plays “Body and Soul” (1939).

MIZ LITERATURE arrives just in time with a cheesecake in a white box tied with a pink ribbon. Bouba produces some wine dregs he’s been hiding in one of the folds of the couch. We wash it down. Miz Literature can’t stay too long. She has a class tonight. I like these whirlwind visits.

Miz Literature takes a little wine. Two fingers. She’s one of these giddy drunks. She dances across the room with all the grace of an albatross, running into the couch, the table, the fridge and the Japanese screen. She takes off her shoes and throws them at the ceiling. Then it’s on with the dance, with awkward strength and transparent joy. She is wearing a white dress with a black collar and charcoal tights. The floor is littered with butts and stained with drying puddles of beer. Miz Literature dances on, unaware of the filth. She’s a flower on a dung-heap. Then she slows down and collapses on the couch next to Bouba, with her arms crossed.

“You know what, Bouba,” she says, “I mentioned you to my friend Valery and she doesn’t believe me.”

“What doesn’t she believe?”

“She doesn’t believe you exist.”

Miz Literature looks at Bouba with the eyes of a Bodhisattva.

“I told her you were Montreal’s only living saint. I told her you live like a monk, that you hardly eat and that you only drink tea.”

“Is that the low-down on me?”

“Your life is clarity. You spend it sleeping on this couch when you’re not reading the Koran.”

“Is she ugly at least, this rare pearl of yours?”

“Oh, no! She’s beautiful!”

“Then you might as well forget it.”

MIZ LITERATURE wasn’t expecting that. She stood there open-mouthed a minute. I was busy at my machine, correcting the chapter I had just finished. It was a mild afternoon. The shoebox, belly exposed, was on the table. A fly landed on the cake like a raisin. Miz Literature looked to me for an explanation.

“Didn’t you know?”

“Know what?” she asked.

“Didn’t you know Bouba is scared stiff of Beauty?”

“Oh, God! When Valery hears that she’ll go crazy. She’s always dreamed of meeting someone who cared about more than her looks.”

Miz Literature pours herself more wine. She’s in a great mood today. I love the gaiety of serious girls. There’s a knock on the door. Miz Literature smiles mischievously.

“I asked Valery to pick me up here.”

THREE DISCREET little knocks. McGill code, it would seem. Miz Literature opens the door and a magnificent girl walks in. The kind of girl who leaves you breathless. Her smile is warm. Not that she needed it to set this room on fire. Bouba remains impassive. Miz Literature does the introductions. Bouba looks out the window. The evening shimmers. He takes down his old hunting hat. It’s his day to go out.

I swear by the Exordium (“Praise be to Allah, Lord of the Creation”) that was the most electrifying cruise I have ever witnessed. Once Bouba’s out the door, Valery literally goes into convulsions. She’s one of those girls, not a snob or anything, whom everyone cruises but who refuses to go out with anyone. I’m sure McGill is full of very rich, very handsome and very intelligent fools whose only dream is to marry her. To meet Valery is to understand the dilemma: she despises herself, her beauty, wealth and intelligence — the classic situation! Her beauty stands between her and Truth, so she thinks. When you come down to it, Valery is looking for a guru. Bouba the Guru. Wouldn’t you know it: to get the most beautiful girl at McGill, you have to stay at home and do nothing. Cruising in place.

BOUBA IS sitting on the couch like an ancient bhikkhu deciphering Li Po ideograms, with Miz Suicide at his feet, drinking in his words. Behold Miz Suicide: a tall stringy girl with dishwater hair and eyes that are always open a little too wide. Bouba is her suicide consultant. Suicide is her only interest. And the world returns the favor, with the exception of Bouba, who receives her every Tuesday and Thursday, from 4:00 to 4:45 p.m., which makes for three teas at fifteen minutes each.

Miz Suicide brews her own tea in an old samovar, heating up the water on an alcohol lamp. Miz Suicide, you guessed it, journeys through life with a pack of Camels, dirty fingernails and a copy of The Prophet by Khalil Gibran. Bouba unearthed her at the Esoteric Bookstore on St. Denis, across from the Bibliothèque Nationale.

Seated on the couch like a diva in endless improvisation on the phrases of the old Zen master, Bouba creates a singular atmosphere without even trying. In his guttural, mystic voice, he reads the slender, precious book by the bearded poet Li Po on the correct manner of drinking tea.

“First you must learn.” Bouba explains, “how to breathe the tea before proceeding to drink it.”

Miz Suicide listens with the inner concentration of a true bodhisattva.

“Like this?”

“No. Let the bouquet of the tea slowly flow into you.”

Conscientiously, Miz Suicide sticks her nose into the teacup. When she comes up for air, her steamy nose is a horrible sight to see, as if she had just escaped drowning.

“Now,” Bouba instructs her, “you may take the first sip.”

“Not yet,” she says, more fanatic than her master, “I want to breathe it some more.”

I LIE back on the bed, trying to clear the thoughts from my head. Coleman is playing “Blues Connotation.” Bouba speaks in low tones. Miz Suicide drinks her tea with ecstatic expression. I open the window. Down below in the alley, some kids are playing hockey. Six boys, three girls. From up here they look short and squat. The biggest girl is strong but the little one is not really old enough to play. She is too busy hanging onto her dog so he won’t disturb the game. The dog is stronger than she is and he drags her into the fray. She pulls back on the leash, then gives up and drops it. The dog rushes into the melee and grabs the puck from off a stick. Then, according to a well-rehearsed ritual the dog comes back and drops the puck on the girl’s lap. He lays his head in her lap and whimpers. The angry players recover the puck. The girl reprimands the whimpering dog. She pets him. The dog lets himself be petted for a minute or two, then rushes off to disrupt the game again. Darkness settles. The game slows down. The players are tired. The Cross on the Mountain is phosphorescent.