Alain Mabanckou - Broken Glass

by rights I should never have been a teacher, I haven’t got a secondary-teaching certificate, I never went to teacher-training college, but diplomas can often distort the business of living, a true vocation arises from a combination of circumstances, it’s not usually the ones who wear out the seat of their pants at school who become good teachers, and in my case, I was forced into the profession, when I’ d only just completed my second year of study at Kengué-Pauline, and the government decreed that since there was a national shortage of teachers, all the poor sods who’d got their elementary-education certificate should go off and teach, and that’s how I fell flat-footed into teaching, that’s how I came to learn on the job, but in actual fact I taught myself, even though some egghead wearing spectacles came from the political capital to give us intensive training in pedagogy, he fancied himself as an intellectual, said I had no talent, that I didn’t speak or pronounce French properly, and the government had made a real blunder, letting ignoramuses like me set our children on the path of life, ever since then I’ve always hated intellectuals of all kinds, because it’s always like that with intellectuals, they talk and talk, but nothing concrete ever comes out of it, only more and more discussions about discussions, then they quote some other intellectuals who said this, that, or the next thing, and who saw it all coming, and then they have a good scratch of their own navels, and they think everyone else is stupid, and blind, as though no one could get through life without philosophizing, and the problem is, these pseudo-intellectuals, they philosophize without actually living, they know nothing about life, and life goes on anyway, following its own course, countering all their second-rate Nostradamus predictions, and they all go round congratulating each other, but what you notice is, pseudo-intellectuals all love suits, and little round glasses, and ties, because an intellectual without a tie is basically stark naked, incapable of proper thought, but I’m proud of how I got here, I did things myself, I’m a self-made man, I don’t even know how to tie a tie, but I’ve read whatever I’ve been able to get my hands on, and it’s obvious no one person could ever read everything, life’s not long enough for that, and I’ve also noticed that there are far more people who talk about bad books than there are people who actually read and talk about real ones, and the people who talk about bad books are merciless about the other ones, well they can just go and get lost, there’s more to this world than their little navels, that’s not my problem, this book isn’t about teaching anyone anything, each of us must cultivate his garden as best he can

I could see why they wanted to fire me from my teaching job, the pretext was alcohol, so, just two months after they did fire me, Diabolica started sleeping at her parents’ place, which meant our house was left empty, as we had never had children, and the local thieves and bandits dropped by and looted everything, my TV, my radio, my dining table, my bed, and my books, including my San-Antonio novels, which meant much more to me than the books those people detached from real life told us were the unit of intellectual measurement, and the thieves looted everything, they even took the last book I’d been reading, Diary of a Thief , I’m sure they thought there would be stuff in it about learning to steal without getting caught by the police, and Diabolica said the whole thing was my fault, she said it was my drunken friends who stole our things, and I said my friends were drunks but they weren’t thieves, and she said I was covering for them, I was their accomplice, and then she left for good, leaving me a scrap of paper on which she’d written, possibly at midnight, “I’m off” and when I turned the paper over, I saw she’d added, possibly also at midnight, “finding an ending,” neither of these telegrams meant anything to me, and I looked for her everywhere, in all the backstreets of the district Trois-Cents, in the town center, at funeral wakes, and then one day I saw her walking past Credit Gone West, I thought I was dreaming, and I ran after her and pleaded with her, I said “we were happy,” and I also said “I can’t live without you, if you leave me I’m fucked, come back home” but she wouldn’t change her mind, she looked me up and down and said “you’re already fucked, you’re not going to change, leave me in peace, you old tramp”

* * *

I turned into one of Credit Gone West’s most loyal customers the year I got thrown out of teaching, I consolidated my friendship with the Stubborn Snail, and became so much part of the fittings and furnishings that the boss said to me “you know, Broken Glass, if you’d been a bit more together, I’d have taken you on as a bartender here” and I replied that I was together and if he doubted the clarity of my mind he could test me on my times tables and he said “no, Broken Glass, business isn’t about times tables, it’s about clarity of mind” and I said I was perfectly clearheaded and he laughed and we had a drink together and then we laughed some more, there was one tree I would always go and piss under, and tell it my wanderer’s tale, and the tree would weep to hear me, because, don’t let them tell you otherwise, trees also weep, and sometimes I would shout insults at Diabolica under this tree, and at her mother too, with her one eye smaller than the other, and her father, with his clubfoot and his hernia hanging down between his legs, and when it was really tough, only the tree understood me, and moved its branches, to show that it cared and whispered low that I was a loser, but a nice one, and that society just didn’t understand me, and the tree and I would have these long conversations, as the negro would say to his admiral when bringing the water for his coffee, and I promised my leafy friend that when God called me back the next time I would choose to be a tree

I was by now a real regular, and spent my entire time at Credit Gone West, I sat through the hours, come rain or shine, I never left my adopted home, I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else, so there I’d be, in the middle of the night, dozing on my stool after eating kebabs sold by an old Benin woman at the entrance to the bar, long before the reign of our dear bald soprano, Mama Mfoa, it was a fine life, and I must make sure to write it down legibly, that I’m proud of those moments of yore, never let it be said I was having a hard time, that I was bored, that I was sad about Diabolica leaving, that I was nursing a grievance, or was planning to write a letter to the friend who did not save my life or to claim a compassion protocol for my trouble

I heard it said, not long ago, that Diabolica was living with a good husband, and they had children, I don’t care, there’s no such thing as a good husband, I was the man she needed, the rest are just wretched freeloaders and liars who’ll exploit her till they’ve used her up, I’m not jealous, even if I haven’t had sex since then, I’m aware that my sex life is a bit like the desert of the Tartars, nothing in front, nothing behind, only the shadows of women talk to me, in truth I’m a man who longs for a distant love, don’t expect me to speak to you of love and other demons, fortunately at this unhappy period of my life I still had my love of the bottle, the bottles understood me, they stretched out their arms to me, and whenever I found myself sitting in the bar, which I still love dearly, and always will, I would watch, and observe, and register the doings of the people around me, that’s why it’s important to explain more exactly why I’m writing this book, to be clear about how and why the Stubborn Snail compelled me to record, witness and pass on the history of this place