Abdourahman Waberi - Transit

All that was yesterday, at the time when Alfred Ilg and Léon Chefneux had just launched the train, and the cathedral was still the church Sainte-Jeanne-d'Arc; it was roughed up by the earthquakes of 1929, 1930, and 1942. A whole yesterday still fresh in my mind, not your time, my little cactus, but rather the time of your father when he was still a teenager. You'd think it's already been relegated to time immemorial, like the women who sorted coffee beans on Place Ménélik; today they'd be as old as your grandmother. Or the time of the native militia (your grandfather was one of its first recruits). With the help of the Senegalese infantrymen — in reality not only Senegalese but from all over the AOF 1—they maintained order in the model city, as model as a sub-prefecture of Ardèche or Ariège in France, or at least that was the claim of the weekly paper of the colony, whose banknotes came from the Banque de l'Indochine. During that whole period, they particularly had to keep their eyes on the Place des Chameaux (the future Place Rimbaud, now Place Mahmoud-Harbi, a stone's throw from the great Hammoudi mosque, which symbolized Djibouti and the Côte Française des Walals at the famous Paris Colonial Exposition of 1931). It served as the terminal for caravans but also as the main market for wood, milk, butter, and the spicy rumors from the backcountry, so dreaded by the governor. As soon as he got up in the morning, the governor would inquire into what was being said on the Place des Chameaux, who had arrived that day, what could have been said about him, what would Paris think of his silence, it's been three days since he didn't send them a letter through the usual channels. A colonial intelligence agent, relying on his three informers from the native tribes, would reassure him immediately. Nothing to worry about as far as our interests are concerned, the same old stories of bloodshed, poisoned wells, kidnapped fiancées, raids on zebus, and vendettas between rival clans. Trouble could come from the greed of the Abyssinians, but we've known that for ages. So, a promising day for the governor despite the blazing sun, so hot it could addle the brains of the little blond heads of the schoolchildren in the École de la Nativité. And the aroma of coffee would attract the governor. A table was set under the oleanders for this ritual. He would go inspect the brand-new premises of the Messageries Postales built by Duparchy and Vigoureux, the same firm that had put the final touch on all the viaducts between Djibouti and Addis Ababa as early as 1897, making generous use of metallic constructions of the Eiffel type. In short, a real day's work.

There was in our house a dog-eared sepia photograph sitting on a piece of furniture in the living room. You could see Mahmoud Harbi with a baby face, although he had already turned thirty, in a suit, with a bow tie. A baby face because it's only after they've reached forty-four that men here are fully entitled to be called an adult, your grandfather would have said in his gentle voice. Whoever entered the living room could not fail to take off his hat before that heroic figure. Could the dead really be the only creatures to inspire respect and dignity in this world here below? Behind the photo, on the wall, a map of Greater Somalia would attract the visitor's attention. A sand-yellow territory on a sky-blue background, and all around it the four colonialists (France, Great Britain, Italy, and Ethiopia) who cut up the land of the sons of Samaale. That very allegorical map was less appreciated than the photo of the great fighter.

1. Afrique Occidentale Française, French West Africa. — Author's note

THE OLD-OLD SOLDIERS, ones thirty an over, they loved strong liquor too-too much: gin, vodka, Johnny Walker, White Spirit. It's top chief brings back that stuff. Fat rich Arabs and Hindis, they give all that free for the patriotic effort. No lies that. Label say so. Établissement Fratacci, El Gamil Supermarket, Borreh & Associates, Idriss Driving School, V. D. Singh & K. S. Vijay, Coubèche and Sons, etc., see what I mean? Rebels they love doomo too much (that, Wadag palm wine). Us young draftees, we like liquor not too-too strong. Heineken, Kronenbourg, Tuborg, plus pink pills plus hashish. woww! After that, sleep flee from your eyes. Belly stop fussing, that's all. You can't fish up pity for nobody, not even for a small-small little child. You pick up rebels’ girls to make slave honeys in military camp. All the girls, they're for us, they gotta show their ass, that simple. Some girls they even come on purpose, they leave the mountain, they too-too hungry. They say: I wanna stay with soldiers, there's army food. They love soldiers for that, or else it's hunger too much. Rebels, when they gain ground on us, they catch their sisters. They knock em off quick-quick. Yah, you were with soldiers. You traitors, you cooked for soldiers, you screwed all the time. Bitches, I'm gonna fuck up your life: here, take that in the ass and bang! And you after that, you go crazy. You don't give a shit; you throw the old mamas old uncles and all in holes in the mountain singing Tupac Shakur. You burn camp; you poison water. You spray the animals bang-abangbang. It's funny, camel stuffed with bullets falls, gets up on long-long legs, falls, gets up, falls, up again. You come in bang bang bang salaam-an-bye-bye. Who gives a shit? Cows, they too stupid, they got big white eyes, moo moo moo, they wait for the bullets, they looking for death. Sheep, they run all over. Goats, they run-run fast. I saw soldiers rape donkey going ee…ee…ee. You have a ball.

When work there done, you burn your hash, you breathe in hard-hard till your eyes pop out of your face. After that, you calm, you cool with your Walkman. You can't stand tiny-tiny noise. So you sleep. Not for long. Two hours max; after, it's sentry duty. The others they sleep two hours and then, sentry duty. That way, you get used to it. You just take little nap cept when you smoked too much, grazed too much khat. But OK, that your own business. When chief he ask, Bashir you been smoking again? No Sir Sergeant, I give answer all ready. Always deny that stuff-there. Chief, he can't do nothing, he needs draftees to go on details too much. To get the prisoners together, bury wounded quick, burn rebel corpses covered with white clay (must be their grigri, that), it's the rule here. And soldier, he follow rules an that's that.

The night after, you have nightmare plus nightmare all night. Once, I had mean nightmare. We were trapped in ambush near Kallafi. Aïdid, Ayanleh, Haïssama, they dead. Me, I hid behind acacia. The rebels, they look all over. They don't find me. Then, at the last minute, a smart little rebel he found hiding place. Now four rebels coming in, their finger on trigger. They come up slow-slow like Clint Easthoud in movie (shit, this is serious, man, I can't remember what movie). They keep coming at me. OK I got my Kalash; I keep cool. They come closer. They look lef-right; they come closer. Shit, my Kalash, it stuck, don't wanna work. The four rebels, they see my Kalash it screwed. Me too.

GRANDFATHER USED TO SAY: the desert you see there, well, it's alive, like you and me. Proof is, the dunes are white in their childhood and grow yellow over the centuries. To see it, all you have to do is put on the right kind of glasses or stand at the right distance. Nothing ever dies, and the desert you see there can regain its former face, the face of the savannah, go back to the sea of water and grass, the way it was a few million years ago. Clock time and hourglass time are nothing, absolutely nothing, compared to the age of the globe. In the same way, man's path is not linear like the horizon: it has roots, branches, and sap. It's all renewal, rhizomes, and ramifications. Man is a tree, my boy. I hardly listen to him; he's been talking by himself for hours. A hundred billion neurons, what a capital! But very few people draw generously from this capital Providence has bestowed on us — not to mention the evils of khat, alcohol, tobacco, and the intoxication of arms. Men are brainless hunks of meat; I almost choke when I say that to you. A star falls from my eyes, they're suddenly misty, a tear is putting a pearl on my wrinkled cheek. It is time for me to go away and leave you to your daydreams, my boy. I'll come back tomorrow and we'll pick up the discussion exactly where we left off.