Sony Tansi - The Shameful State

“Colonel, do you remember the fortune teller’s prediction?”

“What prediction?”

“Remember when you were warned you would die on a Monday after a dog’s death… Merline Amarco came up with the same prediction.”

“And why are you only telling me this now?”

“Because, Mr. President sir, in this country, only those who have nothing left to lose may speak the truth.”

“Ok, you need to be downgraded all the way to the end: I’m making you Petty Officer Second Class: who killed my dog?”

“Colonel Danielli Doutranso.”

“Why did he do that?”

“Remember Merline’s very first prediction: you were only a child at the time, running around with all the other kids from the village with your dicks out, your belly button filled with mud; Merline rolled his cowrie shells and predicted you would one day become president and also that you would die: after a dog.”

This is when the phone rang: “National Colonel, our ex-brother Jean de la Patio has taken up arms against the fatherland. He’s marching on the capital. He has already blown up Golbazdi Bridge and the Fosio train station. He’s recruiting civilians en masse. He’s taken control of the local radio station in Novaya Cierta.”

“Teach him the lesson of my hernia.”

THEN THEY TALKED ABOUT MERLINE.He heals the sick. He attends to mad people. He revives the dead. Mr. President sir, he’s the real deal. He can lay hands on the blind and restore their sight and help a paralytic walk again. Once a big man in a tiny little neighborhood in Zamba-Town, he’s known today as Merline throughout the city. Merline for the Whites, Merline for the Blacks. He owns a donations store and another that sells hallucinatory plants. He’s even healed real cancer sufferers, Mr. President. He can also tell the future. Fine then, bring him to me.

Colonel Jescani, where’s Merline? He’s right here, Mr. President. He laid his hands on the epileptic guy who came along with brother Corbanso, a direct nephew of Martillimi Lopez: now you are healed, Quatro Terozo. He laid his hands on Colonel Cabio Fourazo’s son, and on the Urban Commissioner of Zama’s three nieces. Ok, I can see you’re pretty good. He paraded his historic hernia in front of the prophet, shaking off the historic mud from his scales that he shows off as his proudest medal, a gift from the people. It soothes my nickel silver heart. On this Monday evening he’s parading it about delightedly; he decides to take Merline to the edge of Lake Oufa, over by the presidential village, and his hernia is giving off that smell of acetylene. He presents him with Mom’s version of this meat that’s eating me up. He tells him how brother Anafonso Louma died unexpectedly, and how brother Rodimos Sama died unexpectedly and how they’d found his corpse, they’d chopped off his dick and stuck it in his mouth and only then called to let his mother and children know, those nasty men! I don’t understand the people around here. He started telling him that other story that you must have heard before, the one about brother Yuda Wassamba who died unexpectedly. And the one about National Sanamatouff. And Darbanso that we made into a national hero, also died unexpectedly. How shameful it is to die in that way: but I, Merline, I want to know. Ah, Mom’s Merline, you must be happier than the President. You have your others. Your real others: all I have is Mom and my hernia. And he shows him his national marcher’s thighs. You want everyone to love you, but everyone is envious of you. You can go searching for a smidgeon of pity, the smallest touch of pity: but they’re all as hard as rocks around here. He tells him about his badly spread juices, there are no secrets between us, but oh how they treat me! Be gentle, Colonel, my hernia is yelling out “be good be good”! Come on, Colonel, don’t go blowing up my entrails and I’m ashamed, Colonel, you’re crushing me don’t break my ribs now. He tells him about the piece of ass he just had over there in that run-down neighborhood and who says I make her want to laugh. He shows him his fifteen pounds of malformed herniated testicles, but that’s not why I had you come over; what I really want to know now is how it’s all going to end. You revived Captain Lapourta, you healed Colonel Juani of his epilepsy, and Damouta the madman is no longer mad, Oufanso the deaf-mute is no longer deaf-mute, and Kamato the blind man is no longer blind. I’ll give you an official residence, official car, you’ll have an official body, and your mother shall be an official mother. But I want to know how, when and who … I don’t want anyone healing my hernia; it’s all I have in this world. I’d feel so alone without it, we love one another, we understand one another: it gives me sound advice. Not like those filii da puta who only love me so as to better blow me. He tells him how Mom could very well kill herself if someone goes and kills her child just like they killed my National Aunt; she loves me more than life itself. And he tells him about the sixty-three illegitimate children he sired and how they’ll probably butcher them just like they butchered our late brother Lola Dosmento’s children, and my son-in-law Gomez who’ll commit suicide if they kill me.

“Prevention is better than cure.”

They went and cut open the hernia that brother Zola got from stamping on Colonel Martinez Lahounto’s balls, and if you had seen how they dissected him you’d never eat meat again.

“National Colonel, hand me a ten-coustrani coin.”

Shit. The proverb will be fulfilled: The rich man can’t find a needle to pass through . He sends Jescani to search up and down the palace for a ten-coustrani coin. But no one has one. He sends him out to check in the stores but no one has one. He sends him to the markets. You’re just a bunch of idiots, get out of my way, and he makes his way all over town searching for one; but no one has such a coin, and the rumor starts: the country’s had it, the President’s looking for a ten-coustrani coin. Everyone starts hiding their coins because his hernia should just have produced several at a time. He heads over to the central bank and has them make one especially for him. Here’s one, Merline.

“Thank you, Mr. President. Now repeat after me five hundred and eleven times the prophet’s words: ‘ Coulchi coulcha poumikanata ,’ and then you’ll repeat the response from the gods the same number of times: ‘ Kalmitana mahanomanchi lusata .’”

He repeats the words but it’s too complicated for him; he tries again but he just can’t do it. Try this, Mr. President, place the coin in my mouth, and now in yours, repeat God’s words, think of National Papa’s face, but I never knew the guy, Merline. Well then think of Mom’s face, Ok, I know Mom, now swallow the coin. Look for it in your next stool and bring it to me so that I can read your future on the coin.

“How shameful, Mom.”

He ripped his throat swallowing the coin. The coin gets stuck in the laryngeal inlet and he collapses and falls into a coma. His hernia gives off a sour smell. The top experts from my colleague’s country are called to his bedside. The people fill up the churches, every morning and every evening; they have but one single prayer: Please our great God, let him die . Colonel Jescani is secretly celebrating. He’s already scribbled down his list of appointees, he’s written a draft of his inauguration speech and of his oath of allegiance, instructed brother Darso Lamondia to prepare a new draft of the constitution. In short, he prepares a draft of his power…. He’s been in a coma for three weeks now. Then it’s six weeks, two months. And so Jescani decided to bury him. He had him placed in a marble casket, our French brother Jean de Rochegonde’s ultimate masterpiece. A golden shroud is draped over the body and diamonds sprinkled over him. The coffin is then moved to the cathedral in Mom’s home village, a few infantryman assigned to watch over him, and enjoy your death now, Colonel.