Abdourahman Waberi - Transit

1. Organization of African Unity. — Author's note

CALLING YOURSELF Binladen, the most wanted man on the planet, it's too-too much, right? Binladen, the biggest richkiller. His big head with fine-fine beard, most expensive in the world. Worth fifty million dollar. Our new president, old camel pee compared to that. Bush the cowboy president of the Americas want Binladen dead or alive. Also the rich fat-cat Saudis, and his real family, blood of his blood same father same mother, disown Binladen cause they afraid of catching big American revenge. So, Binladen terriblific. But me, I'm mini-Binladen, see, like Madonna dolls, Michael Jackson dolls, the other things there in small-small size. I don't got fine beard and big head of Binladen but watch out, I'm wicked and pitiless. I suicided men, enemy Wadags and other men not enemies. I trashed houses, I drilled girls, I pirated shopkeepers. I pooped in the mosque, but don't shout that from rooftops cause I was very pickled. I done it all. Easy to do things-there when you sleep, you dream, you eat with a Kalashnikov or even an Uzi. Uzi is attack rifle, it's Israeli I'm telling you, believe my word. Israelis too-too strong for war. African heads of state like so-so much Israeli bodyguards cause Israeli bodyguards they protect from military coup like rubber protect from AIDS you get me? At the front, I was the man who shot faster than his shadow, Marlboro in my mouth like that, bazoom bazoom. Sniper the Americans say, I saw that in movie at Youssouf's: Youssouf, he show movies at his house. Snipers against Bosnians , that the name of the movie. They say all the time Bosnians Muslim, but me I don't believe it cause those guys have white face an all that.

So, kill, destroy the other side, eat enemies' hearts, OK. By who? Why? That none of my business. I get my orders, chief say kill that fat rebel sonofabitch, I kill without fear or fault cause you gotta obey chief. Way the army is. Our chief got chief he gotta obey too. Chief of all chiefs on the northern front, his name Mad Mullah. He drink whiskey in daytime, drink whiskey at night. When he not drinking whiskey he opening bottles of beer with the barrel of his AK-47 an yelling orders quick-quick. I thought about it but I never found out why Mad Mullah his name. Maybe you know his name-there, his rank, uniform, his little darlin's perfume an all that. Me I shut my trap about that cause this business not real clear. Maybe we learn about that before long.

On the front, lot of us didn't have no uniform. Draftees cruited quick-quick like me. How old are ya, kid? Eighteen, I lied for real. Where you from? District 6, Djibouti. You're a kid from the magalla,* get over there. Into the courtyard, fall in! Tomorrow you leave for Yoboki. OK, dismessed. I didn't even know what to do. I stood planted there front of cruiting officer. You deaf, or what? Move it! That I know all right. Hour later, I was in military truck with my new buddies, Ayanleh, Warya, Aïdid, Haïssama, an all that. Aïdid, that not real name. Aïdid, he the Somalian general who screwed the American soldiers. Aïdid, champion in battle, Platini 1of war. Americans, they making a real movie to show how Aïdid there, he too-too wicked. Aïdid, he got an expensive head, too. Ten million dollars. Our new president flat like old chewed-chewed piece of gum compare to that. No, I say big bravo Aïdid and also he friend with our president not with rebels. Long story short, he no moron like our chief instructor or asshole general now residing in Gabode prison. Yuck.

OK, I gotta confirm this story right away: yes, in the army everyone's not native, plenty cousins from Somalia there. Some come from Mengistu's army, specially with the rebels. There's real foreigners even, I mean Gaallos* —you know, Whites. Poles, Lebanese or Albanese, Czechoslowhatians an all that. All those guys, they mercenaries like they say in fancy French. But that top military secret. I know a real general who helped our president for cheap in great battle of Obock. His name Saxardid, I'm telling the true truth, believe me faithfully, he was second chief of Somalian army with Siyad Barre. Real bloodthirsty one, that guy. Holy shit! Siyad, he was worser than our president who stopped the war. He gobbled little kids not to die old-old. Haile Selassie, he was bigger kid-eater than Siyad Barre with his wife-there, Queen Menem. She liked flesh and fresh blood of children too-too much. So, because of ceasefire, me, I'm demobilized. Not cool, right? Without Kalashnikov you can't pick up rich stuff everywhere no more. That not charity. That civilian life there, it's real shame, you don't scare no one no more. The pretty girls, they boycott you for real. The ugly girls they turn their heads away when you walk in front of their face. The always-unemployed they say out loud hey there's a new unemployed, when before you used to go: bang! boot in the gut here you bastard take that in the belly. Even little mouse laugh at you. City say war no good, no good, like that Congolese singer. But I don't agree. I say war too-too good for sure.

1. Great French soccer player of the 1980s. — Translators' note

ALL BLOOD IS MIXED and all identities are nomadic, Maman would have said, talking about me, Papa, herself, or the whole wide world. This business of mixed blood is a very old story, she would add, raising her voice — so old that the first traces of African migration in the Italian peninsula, to give just one example, date from the conquest and fall of Carthage. Much later, there are records of nobles with black slaves: the famous mori neri in the paintings of Veronese or Giambattista Tiepolo. All that is typical Maman — a Frenchwoman born in Rennes and attracted by the mixture of races. She came to Djibouti well before I came into the world close to two decades ago. I owe my existence to those student parties that are so popular on campuses. For a few hours, foreign students can forget loneliness, the lack of familiar landmarks, their depression and feeling of dislocation. For a few hours, native students can find cheap thrills, exoticism, the feeling of being transported far away in the sway of the music blaring as loud as possible, and the giddiness caused by the mixture of perfumes and sweat. The Zairian rumba was in full swing then. James Brown, Manu Dibango, and Miriam Makeba heated up their bodies. Later, “Rock Around the Clock” woke up the ones with a head stewing in hops. The Platters' “Only You” welded the desiring machines together again. Toward dawn, the toughest would stagger back to their rooms with a blood level of alcohol that would make Rasputin turn pale. “It's not because we went there to have a drink or do some dancing that we screwed our balls off,” said a friend of my parents who boasts of calling a spade a spade.

My mother, with her hair twisted together like those sentences of Monsieur Proust that no one can unravel, fears neither the sunburns that knock off foreigners with delicate skin nor the narrow little streets covered with dust. As a child I was fed on the milk of love, and reading. The big words of adults went right through my mind (picaresque, epic, tachycardia, scenography, crazy twists and turns of plot…), but the stories stayed with me for a very long time. Some day I'll tell you the story of that adventurer from Brittany, born with a fishing rod in his hand, said the novel: he hunted whales in the Bering Straits, sold real Bordeaux wine in the tropics, and took on the boldest pirates with the help of his adorable companion Louison, a royal tigress he had freed from the jaws of a Malaysian crocodile. I still remember every episode. Would you like another one? I'm hesitating between Alexandre Dumas, Eugène Sue, Jules Verne, Scheherazade, or the snow-white beard of Charles Dickens. Are you ready to hunt the rhinoceros in the Serengeti in the company of Ernest Hemingway, become a maharaja in the country of long-haired princes, wind between the seven pillars of wisdom behind Lawrence of Arabia, follow in the footsteps of Peter Pan, or acquire bouquets of wisdom under the guidance of the venerable Tierno Bokar between Dogon cosmogony and Peul poetry? Some other day I'll tell you the life of Monsieur Henri de Monfreid in great detail: Maman loved him at the beginning of her stay in her new country. You're looking at me wide-eyed as if I were a monster, as if I were hiding some shameful infirmity in my frail silhouette. I'm just a little clever for my age, and ahead by a few books. Apparently that happens sometimes: a statistician cites the figure of 1/127, without bothering to prove anything at all. One child out of 127 is supposed to be gifted with superior intelligence — where did he get that stuff? This being said, that little figure might have the advantage of reassuring the most rational minds.