Alain Mabanckou - Memoirs of a Porcupine

yes, I was a happy porcupine back then, I’m putting up my quills as I say this, that’s our way of swearing a pledge, another is to raise the front right paw and wave it three times, I know humans swear on the heads of their ancestors, or in the name of the God they’ve never seen, the one they worship with their eyes tight shut, they spend their whole lives reading His word in a big book which was brought here by white men in the days when the people of this country hid their absurd little organs under leopard skins or banana leaves, unaware that over the horizon there lived other people, not like them, that the world stretched on, far beyond the seas and oceans, that when night fell here, elsewhere the sun still shone, and as it happened, my master, Kibandi, owned this book of God, with all the stories men have forced themselves to believe, on pain of not deserving a place in what they call Paradise , you won’t be surprised to hear I had a look at it myself, out of curiosity, since, like my master, I was a good reader, sometimes I would read for him, when he was tired, I had a good look at the God book, whole pages at a time, some thrilling, some touching, I underlined some passages with my quills, I’d already heard some of the stories with my own little ears, from the lips of some pretty respectable people, with little grey beards, who attended the village church on Sundays, told with such precision, with such great faith, you could only think they must have seen these things with their own eyes, I should add that the bit of the story they tell most often, these bipeds, is the one about this mysterious guy, a kind of wandering charismatic, the son of God, they’ll tell you, how he came to be here was all very complicated, there’s nothing about how exactly his parents mated, he’s the same guy that walked on water, and turned water into wine, and multiplied the loaves to feed the crowd, and gave respect to the prostitutes, when everyone else threw stones, and made the lame to walk, even the hopeless cases, and the blind to see, and he came down to earth to save the whole of humanity, including us animals, because, get this, even back then they wanted to preserve at least one sample of every living species, we didn’t get forgotten, they put us all into this cage called Noah’s Ark , so we’d survive a torrential rainfall, for forty days and forty nights, the deluge , it was called, but then many centuries later God’s only Son was sent down to earth, men didn’t believe him, they persecuted him, the bad people whipped him, crucified him, left him out in the blazing sun, and the day of his trial, at the hands of the very same people who accused him of causing a public nuisance with his spectacular miracles, they had to choose between him and another man, a wretch they called Barabbas who feared neither God nor man, they chose to set the brigand free and kill the other one, the poor son of God, but believe it or not, he came back from the dead, like someone just waking up after a quick siesta, and the reason I’m going on about this mysterious guy is not to get away from the subject of my confessions, but because I’m quite sure this guy, the son of God, really was something special, an initiate, like my master, but he must have been protected by a peaceful double, he never hurt anyone, it was others went looking for lice in his tonsure, well anyway, Kibandi had stopped reading those stories, and moved on to more esoteric things, probably because he thought the book of God would condemn his beliefs and practices, and seek to divert him from teachings of his ancestors, so my master didn’t believe in God at all, particularly since God always put off answering his prayers till tomorrow, when he wanted concrete results today, to hell with the promise of paradise, that’s why sometimes he cut short the hard core believers in the village, saying something like ‘if you want to give God a good laugh, just tell him your plans’, and it’s all very well men swearing on the heads of their dear departed, or by the name of the Almighty, which they’ve done since the dawn of time, they never keep their word, in the end, because they know very well that a word means nothing, you only have to keep it if you believe

back in the forest after a mission, I’d go and think things over for a while in a burrow, at the top of a tree, in a hollow trunk, or even by the river’s edge, far from the parade of ducks, the procession of animals, I’d review what we’d been doing, me and my master, while he slept long and deep, recovering his strength after an exhausting night, I might think and think till the evening of the following day, it never tired me, in fact I enjoyed grappling with the abstract world, and I learned early on to discriminate, to look for the best solution to a problem, I don’t know why men think themselves so superior, I’m sure they’re not born intelligent, they may have a certain aptitude for it, intelligence is a seed which must be watered if is to flourish, and grow into a well-rooted fruit tree, some people will always be ignorant and uncultivated as a flock of sheep, following one of their number over the edge into a ravine, others will always be fools, like a certain astrologer, a poor cretin who fell down a well, or the old crow who snatched a sheep because he saw an eagle do it, and others will cling to their stupidity, like the agama, that excitable lizard who tosses his head from dawn till dusk, such humans will always live in the twilight zone, their sole consolation being their humanity, the aged porcupine who used to govern us would have snapped ‘they’re all cretins, their bottom line is we’re humans, but a fly’s not a bird, just because it can fly’, what I’m saying is that while I sat there thinking, I was trying to understand what lay behind each idea, each concept, I know now that thought is of the essence, it’s thought that gives rise to human grief, pity, remorse, even wickedness or goodness, and while my master brushed these feelings aside with a wave of his hand, I felt them after every mission, many’s the time my face was wet with tears, because, for porcupine’s sake, at times of great sadness or compassion, you get a lump somewhere right near your heart, your thoughts turn black, you regret your actions, the bad things you’ve done, but as I was only carrying out orders, devoting my life to my role as a double, I managed to get a grip on my black thoughts, and tell myself, by way of comfort, that that there were worse things you could do in this life, I’d take a good deep breath, gnaw at a few manioc roots or palm nuts, try to get some sleep, tell myself tomorrow would be another day, and soon I’d be given a new mission, and I’d have to prepare myself, leave my hiding place, make my way to my master’s house or workshop, receive his instructions, of course, I was free to rebel, I did sometimes dream of escaping my master’s clutches, it sometimes crossed my mind, the temptation was strong, there were certain acts I could perhaps have avoided, but it was like a kind of paralysis, and I didn’t act, even yesterday, when the only option was the cowardly one, to flee like a peaceful double, as my master breathed his last and passed on to the next world, I waited and watched while he endured his final death throes, a scene which stays etched in my mind, pardon my emotion, the tremor in my voice, I’ll just pause here, take a few deep breaths

by rights I should have left this world by now, I should have died the day before yesterday, along with Kibandi, there was total panic, total shock, we were caught short, we had no contingency plan for an event of this kind, I turned back into a wretched little scarpering porcupine, in fact at first I didn’t realise I was going to survive myself, and since a double normally dies the same day as his master, I thought I must be just a ghost, and when I saw Kibandi gasping his last, surrendering his mortal soul, I was immediately thrown into a panic, because, as our old governor used to say, ‘when the ears are cut off, it’s time for the neck to worry’, and I didn’t know what to do, where to go, I was running round in circles, space seemed to be shrinking around me, I felt like the sky was about to fall in, I couldn’t get my breath, everything was terrifying, I told myself I needed immediate proof of my existence, but what proof is there ever that one exists, that one is not just an empty shell, a shadow without a soul, well, I had picked up a few handy tricks from the men round here, I just had to ask myself what the difference was between a living being and a ghost, first I told myself that I thought, therefore I must exist, now I’ve always said that men don’t have the monopoly on thought, anyway, the inhabitants of Séképembé, in any case, say that ghosts can think too, since they come back to haunt the living, and have no problem finding the paths which lead to the village, they wander around the markets, go and look round where they used to live, announcing their death in the villages all around, sit down at a roadside bar, order a glass of palm wine, drink like old soaks, settle the debts they ran up while they were alive, and yet as far as the eye is concerned, they don’t exist, so one couldn’t be sure of anything, I needed a different sort of proof, so I tried an old trick, I waited till the sun rose on Saturday, that was yesterday, and I came out of my hiding place, I looked left, looked right, sat down in the middle of a sort of empty space, waved my front paws, crossed them, uncrossed them, and seeing that, praise be to porcupines, who’d have believed it, my shadow moved, and its movements corresponded to those of my limbs, I was alive, no doubt about it, and I could have just stopped there, you would have thought, but no, I wasn’t sure, I didn’t want to do anything dumb, I wanted still further proof — the surest kind — that I was alive, so I went to look at myself in the river, and again I waved my front paws around, and crossed, then uncrossed them, I saw my reflection mirror my movements, so I couldn’t be a ghost, because what I’ve gathered so far, what I’ve picked up from the humans in Séképembé, is ghosts don’t have reflections, they lose all physical presence, become immaterial, but I still wasn’t convinced of my existence, despite all these irrefutable items of proof, which would have been quite enough for your average villager, I had to do one more test, a more physical one this time, so since by now I was walking along by the water’s edge, I dropped down and scrabbled in the dust, took a running jump then flung myself into the water, I felt its chill, and then I knew, this time for certain, that I was still alive, the worst thing is, I would have drowned if I hadn’t quickly got out of the water, and straight after that I went back to my master’s house, to see how things were developing over there, I hid behind the workshop, and was amazed to see the body of Kibandi, lying under a cover of palm leaves, he had departed this world, for sure, but what shocked me most was that, from a distance, it looked as though his corpse had an animal head, a head looking something like mine, but ten times bigger than mine, or maybe it was the fear of my own demise that conjured up this illusion, it was death, that was clear, death lay here before me, with a heartbeat like my own, ready to pounce on me, maybe in a minute, maybe in an hour, several questions occurred to me, for example ‘what if a hunter set upon me’, or ‘what if there was a flood and I was swept into the turbulent river Niari?’, with questions like that going round in my head I just couldn’t stay calm, I felt nervous, anxious, at the slightest noise I dashed for cover, like a coward, like a peaceful double, and I went and hid myself in a lair, the first time I’d set foot in it, I was right to be frightened too, because straightaway I heard a reptile hissing, no time to work out what species it was, out I came, rolled up in a ball, terror in my gut, and I said to myself a reptile that hissed like that must be deadly poisonous, I came hurtling out of the lair, I had to cross the main road to get to the houses at the edge of the village, and that was dangerous too, it was a road used by transport trucks once a week, I couldn’t remember which day they came roaring like mad things though our region, I decided I wouldn’t cross the road, you never know, and I just wandered around where I was, unable to shake off the image of my master with my head on him, I lost a few quills along the way, and then I began to feel ashamed of myself, I was letting my human side get the better of my animal nature, you scumbag you, I said to myself, coward, selfish bastard, I told myself I couldn’t just run away like this, and yet I didn’t see what else I could do at this point in the proceedings, if I wasn’t careful I’d attract the attention of the Batéké dogs and then the whole village would come running after me, to kill me, there was a little voice I couldn’t resist, though, that spoke to me, chided me, called on me to show some dignity, to make some gesture which would have pleased my late master, so I went back to Kibandi’s hut a bit later, despite the danger of being picked upon by those tailed vigilantes, the Batéké dogs, fortunately they were off duty then, I just had time to make out what was going on in my master’s yard, they were preparing to take him to the cemetery, he didn’t qualify for the kind of village funeral that lasts at least five or six days, he’d be buried within twenty-four hours of his death, I saw a small group of men carrying the body to the graveyard, I recognised the Moundjoula family, who had been the cause of my master’s death, their two children, the twins, Koty and Koté, it was more of a formality than a proper burial, I swear, no one was crying, for porcupine’s sake, I wouldn’t have been surprised to find the villagers murmuring ‘all bad deeds on earth are punished, at last the wicked Kibandi is dead, let him burn in hell’, my heart ached to see the way they dragged his coffin along the ground, I’m quite sure the only reason they went through the motions of giving him a final send off was because, even though they may not feel like it, humans will bury even the wickedest man, and the witch doctor gave a funeral oration even though he didn’t want to, two guys hurriedly moved to fill in the grave, the cortege left in silence, while I stayed there, staring at the cross they’d cobbled together from two branches of a mango tree, it leaned a bit to the left, stuck on top of a mound of earth which was now my master’s tomb, I could make out an old storm lantern that the villagers had left by the tomb so the deceased would be able to find his way in the deep darkness of the next world, and more to the point, so he would never show up again amongst the inhabitants of the villagers, worming his way into the belly of a pregnant woman, what’s more, the villagers are convinced that if the dead don’t have a storm lantern by their tomb they may go walking over the bodies of the other dead souls, to whom they should show respect because they died before them, which seemed quite considerate of them, considering Kibandi had given them nothing but grief, I saw the group coming back towards the village in single file, I heard their whispers, their conjectures as to the cause of my master’s death, I blocked my ears because they were saying things I could scarcely believe, in fact what I wanted was to get closer to Kibandi’s last resting place, sniff the earth where he lay, but I didn’t, I left, weeping bitterly, angry with myself for fleeing like a coward, I turned round to take one last look at his tomb, then finally left, but with no thought where I might go, night fell upon the village, shadows loomed before me, I could see nothing, by chance I found a place to spend the night, between two large stones, I’d had to scratch way at the earth for quite a while to make a place for myself, I knew it would only be a temporary shelter, I wasn’t going to hang around there forever because it’s the place where some of the villagers sharpen their hoes before going out in to the fields, and during the night I fought off the desire to sleep because my feeling was that the night and death go together, always have, and when I did actually nod off for a bit, forgetting for a moment that I was under sentence of death, forgetting the image of the corpse with my own head grafted onto it, I dreamed that I was falling into a great hole in the ground, and I also dreamed that I was surrounded by flames, which swept through the bush, throwing even our eternal enemies, the lions, the leopards, the spotted hyenas, the jackals, the cheetahs, the tigers and the panthers, into a panic, I woke with a start, astonished to hear my quills rustling, surprised I could still see things, ‘I’m still alive, I’m still alive, I’m not dead, for porcupine’s sake’, I said to myself, but I had to get out of there fast, so that’s what I did