Alain Mabanckou - Memoirs of a Porcupine

my master may have been a quiet tempered man, but he was not someone to pick a quarrel with, I only saw him get into an argument once or twice, there was that time with old Moudiongui, the palm wine tapper, probably the best palm wine tapper in Séképembé, they knew each other very well, he and my master, I would never have imagined that one day I would find myself dealing with a loser like him, his whole life revolved around palm wine, he could draw mwengué , the finest wine to be got from a palm tree, the village women were crazy for it since it was sweeter than any other wine, but the bad thing about the mwengué is that you don’t know you’re getting drunk, you drink cup after cup and don’t realize you’re cackling like a hyena, and it’s only when you try to get up you find you can’t control your legs, you walk all crooked, like a crab, everyone busts out laughing, saying ‘there’s another one who’s been at Moudiongui’s mwengué ’, and my master had got into the bad habit of mixing a bit of mwengué with his initiation drink, to make it less bitter, so now he would only drink it when it was mixed with old Moudiongui’s palm wine, so every morning the old loser stopped by Kibandi’s hut to drop off a pint of palm wine, he spoke fondly of Mama Kibandi and remarked how quickly time passed, in fact this was to make Kibandi feel sorry for him so he’d give him more money, my master paid no attention, handed him a crumpled note, Kibandi was convinced that the palm wine added that extra something to his mayamvumbi , now old Moudiongui was becoming unreliable, he’d get into a sulk for nothing, sometimes Kibandi had to go and wake him to get him to go out into the bush and fetch the palm wine and, taking advantage of my master’s dependence, the old man put up the price as he felt like it, take it or leave it, ‘if you don’t like it, go and fetch your own mwengué , otherwise, pay my price, end of discussion’, Moudiongui claimed that mwengué was getting increasingly hard to come by, that the palm trees in our region had stopped producing this special wine, that my master would have to make do with normal palm wine, and one day the old man brought back some mwengué , as usual, my master tasted it, he had a moment of doubt, he realized it wasn’t real mwengué , the old man was tricking him, he said nothing, just called me one evening and said, ‘right, tomorrow at dawn when the plains grow bright, go follow that bastard palm wine tapper, he’s acting strange, I can feel it, go and see how he works’ and I followed him first thing next morning, I saw him vanish into the forest, till he reached a place where there’s nothing but palm trees, as far as the eye can see, and I saw him climb to the top of a palm tree where he’d hung his gourds the day before, he took them down, they were full, he climbed down, he sat at the foot of the tree, took out a small bag from his pocket, I caught him pouring sugar into the palm wine he’d just drawn, and since he was mad at my master he even spat into the gourd, muttering angrily, and I reported this back to Kibandi later, so when the palm wine tapper turned up at Kibandi’s house to offer him this nasty brew, he had the truth flung in his face, I heard them arguing, old Moudiongui was desperate to sell his palm wine, my master replied that it wasn’t real mwengué , they called each other all the names under the sun, old Moudiongui insulted my master, ‘nothing but a bag of bones, you are, you’re dead already, you’re jealous of my trade because you’re only a poor carpenter, you couldn’t even climb up a mango tree, you’re a crazy guy, a maniongi, a ngébé , a ngouba yak o pola ’, all insults in bembé , Kibandi didn’t answer, he just said to the palm wine tapper, ‘let’s just see, shall we, who’s the maniongi , the ngébé , the ngouba yak o pola around here’, old Moudiongui said, just as he was leaving, ‘what will we see, then, you’re a nobody you are, don’t expect me to give you mwengué from now on, old dry bones, go join your mother in the graveyard’

I left my master with his other self, the two of them lying on the last mat Mama Kibandi ever wove, at break of day I returned to the foot of the same palm tree where I’d caught the palm wine tapper mixing sugar in the gourd and spitting into it, slowly I climbed to the top and hid there, a few centimeters from the hanging gourds, which were filled to overflowing with palm wine, the bees were already having a party up there, I saw Moudiongui arrive, he seemed quite anxious, his eyes darting about, he couldn’t understand how my master had found out about his little fiddle, I saw him arranging the ropes he used to climb up to the top of the palm tree, up he climbed, up and up, but halfway up he paused to look about him, as though to make sure no one had spotted him, then, reassured, he went on climbing, he was almost at the gourds, and when he looked up, bless my quills, found himself looking into my dark, glistening eyes, it was too late for him, I’d already fired two of my quills, hitting him full in the face, the old man slipped, tried in vain to grab the branch of a paradise tree just next to the palm tree, I heard him fall, and land like a sack of potatoes down below, his legs and arms spread wide, the villagers found him there a day later, eyes wide open, his face locked in a rictus, and everyone agreed he had grown too old to tap palm wine, he should really have retired long ago, and now a young person from Séképembé must be trained up to take over his work

the problem with Youla was he owed my master money, I think this must be one of our most heartbreaking episodes to date because now I really think about it, it was the thing which ultimately brought about Kibandi’s downfall, but I need to tell you the whole thing more slowly, after completing this mission I felt uneasy, I kept seeing the victim’s face, his innocence, I really felt Kibandi had gone a bit too far this time, but then did I have a right to tell him how I felt, it’s not for a double to judge or argue, and certainly not let his own remorse get in the way of things, and as far as I was concerned this was one of the most gratuitous acts we had committed, Youla was father of a happy family, a modest peasant with no education and not much success, he had a wife who loved him and had just had a child by him, a baby whose eyes were barely yet open, and then, one day, I don’t know why, this business of the debt between him and Kibandi cropped up, Youla had been to see him to borrow money, a ridiculously small sum which he said he’d pay back the next week, it seems he wanted to buy some medicine for his child and swore he would pay back the full sum by the agreed day, he grovelled, went down on bended knee, wept, because no one had been prepared to lend him this pitiful sum, Kibandi did him the favour, though his own finances were dwindling from year to year now that he’d given up carpentry, and the notes he gave Youla were so dirty and crumpled, they looked like they’d come straight out of the bin, and a week went by, no visitor to the hut, another week, still Youla didn’t show up, he’d dropped out of circulation, my master thought correctly that he must have done a runner, so he went to his home two months later, and told him if he didn’t give him his money back things would get nasty between them, and as the man was drunk that day he began sniggering and insulting Kibandi, telling him to drag his skinny frame off someplace else, which of course did not please my master, who said ‘you can find the money to get yourself drunk but you can’t pay your debts’, and when Youla just laughed harder, Kibandi added dryly, out loud, ‘people with no money shouldn’t have children’, Youla indulged in the remark ‘ I’m not even sure I do owe you money, do I, maybe you’ve got the wrong person, now get out of my yard’, his wife then joined in, telling him to get lost, or she’d summon an elder of the village, and when my master got back home, feeling vexed, I saw him talking aloud to himself, cursing, I knew then that things were going to go badly wrong for Youla, I had never seen Kibandi in such a state, not even when that young show-off Amédée had called him a sick hick, he summoned me straight away, this was urgent, he couldn’t wait, Youla would soon see what my master was made of, and at midnight, after Kibandi had taken a giant dose of mayamvumbi , this time without mixing it with mwengué to sweeten it, we were all ready to go, my master’s other self was coming with us for once, although I wasn’t very clear what his role would be, we came to the peasant’s compound, his house was so run down a donkey could have got in through the holes in the outside walls, my master sat down at the foot of a paradise tree, his other self was behind him, with his back to us, as usual when he was moving about, I walked round the house, ending up in the bedroom, I saw Youla snoring on a mat, with his wife in bed at the far end of the room, I expect it was always like that when the husband was drunk, I crossed the room, went towards the child’s room, as soon as I got close to the baby I felt a pang, I wished I could go back home, Kibandi’s other self was behind me, I wondered why my master had decided to attack the little babe instead of the man who owed him money, or if it came to that, his wife, who had dared take sides in their argument, my quills grew heavy and reluctant, I told myself I wouldn’t be able to shoot, I had never attacked a child before, I needed to find a reason, something to increase my determination and put some fight back into me, but what motive could there be, I couldn’t think, then suddenly I said to myself that my master was right, actually, to remind this guy that when you have no money you’ve no business making children, and I also remembered that the old porcupine used to preach that all men were bad, including children, because ‘the tiger’s young are born with claws’ so we needed to pin some vice on him, find some fault with him that was beyond redemption, I told myself he was a drunkard, and in any case, the poor kid would have a terrible life with this uneducated peasant, I muttered these arguments to myself, in an attempt to sweep away the remorse, as though I could banish the pity which was making my quills wilt, suddenly they perked up, I could feel them starting to whirr, my master’s anger was now my anger, as though it was me Youla owed money, and I lost the sense that the creature before me was just an poor innocent thing, I told myself that in fact our action would free him, relieve his suffering, Youla didn’t deserve to be a father, being an alcoholic who broke his word, who perhaps owed money to the entire population, and at that moment of reflection I tensed, a firm quill flew out of my back and into the poor child, my master’s other self had gone from the room, perhaps he’d been there to give me the strength to do the deed, I quickly left myself, so I wouldn’t get upset, what I really didn’t want to do was watch the poor innocent child taking leave of this life just because of the stupidity and irresponsibility of his father, that I did not want to see, and yet something about it bothered me, I felt ashamed of my own reflection in the water, I went to the funeral, perhaps hoping for some kind of forgiveness, I heard the poor folk singing their funeral songs, and I wept