Sony Tansi - The Shameful State

“Why are you crying my brother same mother?”

He wipes away his tears. He wipes away the snot and buttons his fly. Why are you crying? And answers, a quaver in his voice:

“The rebels have taken National Mom.”

“Oh, shit!”

He fell into the nearest chair and Carvanso go fetch my pain killers. He grazes on them, grinds his teeth. Get me some mustard. He scarfs down twelve jars.

“Our Lord Jesus Christ, what have I done to deserve this? I’m nothing like that Toutanso who pilfered and stashed away all that dough in Switzerland. I’m not like that Carlos Dantès who killed off half the Khas tribe in two years of my hernia.”

“Don’t worry, Mr. President, we’ll find her.”

“Yes, but they’re going to rape her. How shameful for me.”

He gnashes his teeth and starts crying because I’m sure they’re going to rape her. And that shame will be part of me. He summoned the ambassador from my colleague’s country and told him about this shame they’re going to rape her. He summoned the top diplomat from the country that’s staring at me over there: you must have heard all about my shame; now it’s up to you to do something. He summoned the Apostolic Nuncio so that you can tell Jesus Christ’s father-of-the-nation that the fire is now. He has Vauban come in with your three thousand Cubans of Europe and for the first time in the history of my hernia he’s wearing his armor, asks the General Treasurer to join him because, in case there’s a coup d’état, then let the people eat shit. I headed for the bush. But first he closed the palace gates himself because in this country you can’t trust anyone. The gates will be closed on the government and all those in the High Command for the entire time the war against the rebels lasts. He takes the keys with him. And if anyone so much as flinches, National Lavotou, blow the whole fucking thing up. Yes, Mr. President sir.

The generals’ wives express their relief. They’re all there: Armando Liz Agonashi, Sobra Ikesse, Laura Paltès, Lavinia, Flaura Nantès, Mryama… together they piss the juices from his hernia in the flower pots as revenge for all the scorn heaped on their legs. They get crazy Mom out of the place they’ve been hiding her and dress her in the clothes of her wretched son who makes them suffer so. They make her wear feathers in her hair and dance her wretched son’s dances. Glénazar has her wash her sanitary towels because those are your son’s juices. They’re all busy jabbering away. They talk about his big herniated testicles in front of her. They ask her to sing as they burst into laughter. They hide her under their dirty laundry, get her out again, lock her in a cupboard, dress like her son and “Come on National Mom, be scary! Dance those ancient dances for us.” They strip her clothes off and stare at the trail that produced such a shameful son. They paint her completely red and then smear her with the mud from around here so that you too can be historic. “Come on, be scary, National Mom, be scary!” They tie dolls around her waist. They make her tell the shameful story of her son. They make her wear the medals won in her war against Russia and repeat her son’s speeches as if we were in Alberto Stadium. Then one day he came storming in, followed by Vauban and Carvanso, thanks to his talking parrot Narka who kept squawking “My aunt Léonidas that the women have hidden away in the palace in a cupboard in a cupboard in a cuppppbbbboooaaaarrd!” Riding high on his savage anger he swings open the palace gates and there they all are right in front of him, Mom busy washing your mothers’ dishes and sanitary towels. Just you wait and see what warms my hernia. Ah, this anger that cancels out my father’s hearts. He screeched like a wild beast. Muddier than usual, covered in grass, roots, bark, sap, smelling of musky backwaters, crabs, minnows, and leeches crawling out of his armor, cobwebs and multicolored bird droppings in his hair, he honors Vauban because you have been historic throughout this campaign but you lot, just you wait and see. He honors Carvanso my loyal right hand man but you lot, just you wait and see. He wrote a check out for eight million coustrani for my colleague who just lost his mother but you lot, just you wait and see. Toussia the French woman came to let him know that she wasn’t the one who hid National Mom in the cupboard. Ok, but just you wait and see. He tears up their laundry and even their sanitary towels he tears up their bras and orders them to lie down on their backs, right there, on the carpet. He has six hundred infantrymen brought in and six hundred others from the palace staff and to wash away my shame please go ahead, right here in front of me, now sleep these bitches! Warm them up until they’re white hot: you have one week. And that’s how the palace was soon filled with joyful juices, with cries of pleasure, men clamoring, “Be good! Be good!” while the women screamed from pain and from shame. He summoned my little Russian girl Donia Lissounaia and I’m not quite sure how to pronounce your name but you need to know I’ve got six months worth of juices built up in my veins. He summons the ambassador from Vauban’s country and the one from my colleague’s country.

“Your countries provided support for my hernia; please let your people and presidents know I am grateful.”

And he suggested something that’s been trotting around in my hernia for a while: the heads of state should consider creating a worldwide federation such as the Organization of African Unity did, because Mom God knows only too well how our populations can hurt us. Finally he makes the decision of hernia: Mom shall be Minister of Customs, she will be the one to pay tribute and pronounce sentences.

That’s when someone came to inform him that, Mr. President, some White guy has invented a machine that can tell the future; well, bring him to me instead of having me waste my time in the shitter digging through my turds for Merline’s coin. Bring him to me. For God’s sake. What’s his name?

“Jean Aknin de Rochegonde.”

“Is he Flemish?”

“No, Mr. President. He’s from our colleague’s country.”

“Offer him the nationality of my hernia, you never know with those people. And while I’m thinking about it, what ever happened to the girl of my entrails?”

“She died, Mr. President.”

“I have no luck: I swear I’ll die a bachelor. Because all the ones I want to marry snuff it. Tell my griot to piece together her story; I’ll listen to it with the government on Sunday.”

Fully clothed and all muddy, he jumped into his big bed, the one shipped in from America. The leeches were busy at work in the lower part of his armor but we was fast asleep, fists tightly closed. Vauban watched over him, seated on the floor at the foot of the bed. He was snoring, lost in dreams of those wild areas he spent six months in searching for Mom. As always, he slept with his eyes wide open, his mouth ajar, his hernia hanging out, and if it weren’t for the sinister snoring and the continuous flow of drool fermenting in his mouth, you could be mistaken for thinking he was engaged in some kind of serious thought. A small vapor mist hovered above his hernia, a sort of halo of slime splashed over his thighs. You can see his fingers, raw after eleven years of excavating his shit I’ll never find that coin ah Merline. You can see his bedside books: Salvation Games, Eleven Years of Spoken Power, Artificial Liberties, Behind the Coup de grâce, Care of God…, Where there’s smoke, there’s fire .

“Aknin de Rochegonde has arrived.”

“Have him come in. But I want to receive him in the presence of the Minister of the Future and the Minister of Pornography. Invite the Minister of Infantrymen as well.”

“Yes, Mr. President.”