Alain Mabanckou - Broken Glass

they dragged me inside Zero Fault’s house, I was humming to myself, I forget what, but who knows why the caged bird sings, I was probably humming the Song of Solomon, the wheelbarrow was jolting about, almost tipping over, miraculously I didn’t fall out, and people were taking it in turns to push it, they were really pissed with me because I was burping all the time and threatening to pee and shit, and eventually we arrived at the top of a hill, before Zero Fault’s old shack, on the opposite bank of the river Tchinouka, and the sorcerer, who had seen us coming from a distance, said “miscreants, take off your shitty shoes, rid yourselves of evil thoughts, this is my home, the kingdom of our ancestors” and the whole cortege promptly complied, as though the words came from the Holy Spirit incarnate, my wife took off my little shoes manu militari , and they threw my little shoes into a corner, I said to my wife “don’t forget my little shoes” and they gave gifts to Zero Fault, who was cooing thanks in C major, though they came out sharp, the guy was so louche, and I saw at once that Zero Fault was very far from being a real healer, he was like the one who’d wanted to make the judge rich, the one I mentioned at the start of this second section, whose name was Mouyeké, and Zero Fault was nothing like a real sorcerer either, because I do actually know how to recognize a real sorcerer, and he wasn’t even a gentleman crook, he was the Confidence Man, and I challenged him, I said to Confidence Man, “if you’re a real healer, if you really are genuine, as you say, tell me my birth date and birthplace, in front of all these witnesses, tell me about my family tree, give us some proof of your esoteric knowledge” and my parents-in-law, these mujiks who could sell a dead man’s soul, these battú , these men and women peasants all looked at me in horror and shouted at me, baying for my blood, and told me to stop playing the fool or divine retribution would come down upon me while Zero Fault was getting in touch with the ancestors, they pushed me up against the wall and, cheeky as ever, I went on “yeah, ’cause the real sorcerers from Loubloulou, my native village, can tell you where and when you were born, you can’t do that, I know you can’t, and you know you can’t,” the atmosphere was starting to get really strained, and my wife said to me “Broken Glass, could you just zip your big mouth a minute and let Zero Fault do his work,” but I didn’t stop, I banged another nail into my own coffin by saying to the people present “that guy is a first-rate imposter, he’s not a real sorcerer, he’s not a real healer, he just wants to fleece you, like all the confidence men in this country want to fleece honorable citizens, he’s the devil, not me, let me tell you, vade retro me, Satana,” my wife’s family all began shouting insults at me, while I went on reciting my heresies and my wife cried “shut up now Broken Glass, why are you talking like that to a man feared by the entire district, are you mad or what” and I laughed, and gave the con man the finger, I spat on the ground, and my father-in-law said “I must say, your husband is no longer the man I knew” and then my mother-in-law said “ by God’s grace may our ancestors forgive us for the ravings of my son-in-law, I never knew Satan could put such blasphemy in the mouth of one of God’s creatures,” and the brother-in-law said “he’s no creature of God, he’s the Antichrist in person” and all the mujiks and the ostrogoths and peasant men and peasant women began saying much the same thing, and my wife spoke up again, because she wanted to set the record straight, and she said “Broken Glass, I demand that you apologize this instant to Zero Fault and to the ancestors, who look down upon us as we speak, it’s your fault they’re not getting through ” and Zero Fault, who was pretending to be meditating, finally spoke, with a sigh, saying “madame, I thank you for these words of wisdom, but you must understand that the devil is inside your husband’s body, those are the words of the demon, I promise you that we will drive out the devil from his body, believe me, I’m not called Zero Fault for nothing, and as you all know, I’ve fought much greater spirits than that” and I carried on ranting, shouting “stop talking rubbish, you low-down liar, you low-down criminal, low-down dream seller, low-down man with seven names or so, low-down bully boy, low-down charlatan, low-down conjuror without talent, low-down profiteer, low-down capitalist, vade retro me, Satana, ” I said all that and Zero Fault suddenly became angry and lost control and showed his yellowest smile and bared his old charred stumps, which was just what I was hoping for, I wanted him to lose his temper, and he said “call me a capitalist, do you, you dare to call me a capitalist, am I a capitalist, d’you think, you say those blasphemous words once more in front of the ancestors and I’ll smash your face in,” that’s what he was shouting, and I just carried on, I said “yeah, you’re a low-down capitalist, a real low-down capitalist, you’re into the exploitation of your fellow man, vade retro me, Satana” and he got angrier still and said to my wife “listen madame, I can’t work like this, your husband does not respect me, he doesn’t respect the ancestors, he dares to call me a capitalist, I can go along with a devil who tells me vade retro me, Satana, but I won’t be called a capitalist, do I go round exploiting the poor, d’you think, do I love profit, d’you think, am I into the exploitation of my fellow man, d’you think, I’m Zero Fault himself, I am, you can ask anyone, they’ll tell you I’ve restored the eyes of the blind, the legs of the lame, the voices of the dumb and the ovaries of sterile women, the erections of men who couldn’t get it up, even in the morning, when his piss usually makes any man’s thing stand up, and did you know, by the way, that I helped the mayor of this town get reelected for life, not to mention the students and their exam results, the administrative posts I’ve secured for people who never even went to school, or the way I got the wife of the prefect of the region to go back to her husband, I’m not called Zero Fault for nothing, did you know that when the Adolphe-Cisse Hospital abandons all hope, I’m the one who goes in to help the poor cripples, so when I come across imbeciles like this one, like your husband here, trying to tarnish my legendary reputation, and desecrate the masks of the ancestors here on my wall, I tell myself this world is seriously screwed, that through him the Antichrist is with us here below, this man’s place is in the asylum, so would you kindly take that piece of rubbish home with you, hell, what’s going on here, get out, I said, I refuse to help this man, he has no respect for me, get out of this holy place before I put a curse on you,” and I began laughing again like a coyote belting out some Mississippi gospel, or a mountain wolf having a shot at a baroque concerto, and I said to my wife “don’t forget my little shoes” and my wife’s family put me back in the wheelbarrow because they were afraid Zero Fault would put a curse on them, because they were afraid that the curse might mean the family offspring would have snouts or pigs’ tails or trotters, so that’s how they brought me home again and how they came to think of me as an idiot, but happily I managed to escape the criminal clutches of Zero Fault, vade retro me, Satana

my sufferings were far from over though, because Diabolica was still not happy, so she decided to wean me, imposing a ban on hanky-panky for the next few days, weeks, and months, now I like a bit of that when I’ve had a drink, it’s good when you’ve a had a drink, you feel like you’re flying, like you’re gaining altitude, but Diabolica wanted nothing to do with me, apparently I stank, I was no longer the same man, sometimes I was rather like Satan, and yet I didn’t want to rape her, no way, that’s not the kind of thing I’d do, so I haven’t got my leg over ever since then, and a bit later on, when things were getting worse by the day, Diabolica sat me down at the foot of the mango tree on our compound, she had something important to say to me, but I didn’t want to hear, I said “let me be, I haven’t got my leg over for longer than I can remember, I’m not going to talk unless I get my leg over” and she looked at me pityingly, she started talking in this sad sort of voice, she almost had me crying, saying how I was known to everyone in the district now as a drunk, where I’d once been an excellent primary-school teacher at Trois-Martyrs, she said I no longer read my Frédéric Dard (alias San-Antonio) novels, or my La Fontaine fables, or my Letters from My Windmill, or my Diary of a Country Parson , she said that some of my former pupils still had fond memories of me, that others held positions of national responsibility, had become somebodies in various parts of the administration, and that I had actually been the only teacher in that school who didn’t belt the pupils, that I was an exemplary man, then she recalled how I’d suddenly been sacked from my teaching post, it’s true that was a bleak moment in my existence, but life’s like that, was it really my fault, had I really become incapable of teaching my classes, d ’you suppose, that was their opinion, the hypocrites, I think I’d better talk about that for a bit now, I ought to say a few words about it, even if my bicycle chicken’s been sitting here untouched, growing cold while I’m busy thinking