Alain Mabanckou - Memoirs of a Porcupine

and that, dear Baobab, is how I left the animal world and joined the service of young Kibandi, who had just received his initiation in Mossaka, the boy I would later follow all the way to Séképembé, the boy I would stick to for decades, up to last Friday, when I could do nothing to save him from death, I’m still feeling sad about it, I’d rather you didn’t see my tears, so I’ll turn my back to you, out of decency, and rest for a moment, before I carry on

not a day of his life went by without my master thinking of the night his father sold on his destiny to us, visions of the initiation haunted him, he was back in Mossaka, aged ten, it was night, a night full of terrors, of flying bats, when Papa Kibandi woke him without a word to his mother, and dragged him off into the forest, and even before he left the house, little Kibandi witnessed something so incredible, he had to rub his eyes several times, to be sure it really was his father, one lying next to his mother and one standing beside him, so there were two identical Papa Kibandis in the house, one asleep in the bed, the other moving around, and in a sudden panic the child cried out, but his father, the one standing, put his hand over his mouth and said ‘you saw nothing, I am me, and the one lying next to your mother is also me, I can be myself and my other self , you’ll soon understand’, little Kibandi tried to escape, the standing-up father easily caught him, ‘I can run faster than you, and if you escape, I’ll send the other me after you’, little Kibandi looked again at the father standing up and the other one lying down, it felt like he was being kidnapped, perhaps he should wake up his father’s other self, and he’d come to the rescue, but then he wondered if the lying down one really was his parent, the standing up father let him check, then nodded, to say that he was the one the child had to talk to, he was his father, the real one, little Kibandi was speechless, the standing-up father nodded again, gave an enigmatic smile, my young master cast a last despairing glance at his parents’ bed, his mother now had her hand on the lying-down Papa Kibandi’s chest, ‘my other self won’t even wake up till everything’s over, in accordance with the ancestors’ wishes, and if he does wake up now, you’ll find yourself without a father, come on, we have a long walk ahead’, he grabbed the child with his right hand, almost roughly, the door was ajar, they vanished into the night, the father always with his hand on the child, as though afraid he might run off, they walked and they walked, the only sound was the cries of the night birds, and when at last they came to the heart of the bush, under the eye of the watchful moon, the father let go of my young master’s hand, he knew it was too late to run off now, he was too afraid of the dark, Papa Kibandi brushed aside a tangle of creeper, headed for a field of bamboo, picked up an old spade lying hidden under a pile of dead leaves, the child watched carefully, they turned back, went into a clearing, you could hear a river running somewhere down below, and Papa Kibandi began to sing in his gravelly voice, while digging the earth as skilfully as a grave digger , one of those shroud-stealers who, once they’ve committed their theft, and desecrated the sepulchre of the stiff within, immediately wash the burial cloths in the river, fold them up neatly, and set off to sell them at full price in any neighbouring village where there might be a funeral, Papa Kibandi went on digging, the sound of the spade hitting the earth pierced the silence of the bush, and after about twenty minutes, which was like an eternity for my young master, the father threw down the tool on the pile of earth, heaved a sigh of relief, ‘right, that’s perfect, we’re there now, soon you’ll be released’, and he lay down on his belly, plunged his hand down into the hole in the ground and drew out an object wrapped in a piece of filthy cloth, and inside the child found a gourd and an aluminium cup, Papa Kibandi shook the gourd several times then poured the mayamvumbi into the cup, took a gulp himself, clicked his tongue, then held the vessel out to his son, who shrank back, ‘hey it’s for your own good, come on, drink’, and he grabbed him with his right hand, ‘you’ve got to drink this potion, it’s to protect you, don’t be stupid’, and when little Kibandi began desperately to struggle, he pinned him to the ground, held his nose, forced him to drink the mayamvumbi, a few mouthfuls was enough, it worked straight away, little Kibandi at once began to feel dizzy, fell to the ground, got up, swayed, could hardly stand, his eyes were shut, the liquid tasted like palm wine, but also like swamp mud, the potion burned his throat, and when he opened his eyes, my young master saw a child who looked just like him, he just caught a glimpse of him, before he vanished between two bushes, ‘you saw him, your other self , didn’t you, you saw him’, said Papa Kibandi, ‘he was there in front of you, it’s no illusion, my boy, you’re a man now, I’m very happy, you’re going to follow the path I received from my father, which he got from his father before him’, little Kibandi was staring at the spot where the boy, his other self, had vanished, he could still hear dead leaves being trampled underfoot in his flight, an insane flight, as though someone was chasing after him, and there was silence, at last his father could breathe again, he had waited so long for this moment of liberation, when the duty of transmission would finally be fulfilled

little Kibandi didn’t have much to do with his other self, who spent most of his time trailing me, stopping me sleeping, I’d hear him walking on dead leaves, running till he was out of breath, or breathing quietly in the bushes, drinking water from a stream, and sometimes I’d find food supplies piled up near my hiding place, I knew little Kibandi’s other self had left them there, and it was at such moments, I guess, that I felt comforted, I was glad to be privileged, I put on weight, my quills grew stronger, I saw them gleaming when the sun was at its height, I grew used to the game of hide and seek with my young master’s other self, he became a go-between, and when I hadn’t seen or heard him for two or three weeks, I felt uneasy, I’d set out in haste for the village, reassured only when at last I saw little Kibandi playing in their yard, I’d return to my hiding place, reassured, and so the years went by, the other self and my young master fed me, I lacked for nothing, I had no care for tomorrow, I only had to stick my snout out of the entrance to my refuge, there were my supplies left waiting for me, and if any other animal dared come and help themselves, my young master’s other self threw stones to drive them away, for once I had to agree with what humans say, I had a pretty easy life things were fairly quiet during my master’s adolescent years, we learned to get along, to synchronise our thinking, to know one another, I’d send messages to little Kibandi via the other self, then one day I was hanging around in a backwater when I came across him sitting on a stone, he had his back to me, I stopped moving, made no noise, or he’d have run off again, he was watching the herons and the wild ducks, I suddenly felt such a wave of emotion I almost thought it must be the real little Kibandi sitting there with his back to me, I moved forward a few yards, he heard me, at once he turned, too late, I had seen his face, though he looked just like my master, the strangest thing was, Kibandi’s other self had no mouth, no nose either, just eyes, ears and a long chin, I stared in amazement and at once he was off into the bushes, leaping into the backwater, and the herons and the wild ducks took flight, hiding him in his confusion, then he was gone, leaving only ripples in the water, it was one of the very few glimpses I would ever get of my young master’s other self, the last time was when the creature without a mouth came to tell me that my master and his mother were about to leave for Séképembé, a few days before Papa Kibandi died