Sony Tansi - The Shameful State

“I want to get married in this outfit.”

National Carvanso tries to convince him otherwise:

“But Mr. President sir, the Whites will mock you. They’ll mock you for sure. Reporters will take advantage of this.”

“But Carvanso, the Whites can mock me as much as they like: their very own Louis XIV only washed a handful of times and that was the life of Louis XIV, and then there’s Vauban, and Frederic II. He fell into his historian’s laughter to describe Catherine of Russia who…”

“But Mr. President, I’m convinced they’ll mock you, it’s in your nostrils, all over your ears.”

“It’s the mud of the people. Let them mock me. Africa must remain Africa. Yes, Africa must give the world back to the world.”

And so, covered in mud, he walked the route past the invited delegations and their representatives. Everyone applauded. He shakes hands with His Majesty of the Flemish and embraces him in the way of the ancestors, leaving some historic mud on him; then the hand of Her Majesty the Princess of Denmark in the way of the ancestors, leaving some historic mud on the back of her royal costume; he embraced all the friends of the people in the way of the people and with the gift of his historic mud. Hey, it’s you, my colleague from the neighboring country, and he lets him have some of the people’s mud. You can see a faint smile on the face of the people with all these illustrious guests getting a dose of his hernia and local mud on them, on this historic day when I’m marrying the most beautiful girl on earth. And then the delegation makes its way to the exact site where National Mom buried my placenta and no bullshit: this is now a place of worship; then from there on to visit the cathedral my hernia erected thanks to the Good Lord. Next they boarded a plane and headed four hundred and thirty-five miles north of my hernia to see where I will be buried….

Cardinal Dorzibanzo, who’s refusing to marry me, is brought in. “Untie him and let him get to work!”

“Mr. President, Dorzibanso says he can’t.”

“Why the heck not?”

With his torn cassock, bloody eyes, hands tied, his mitre all wrinkled, they bring him before his hernia.

“I’ll cut your dick off if you fail me on this.”

Ex-Cardinal Dorzibanso asks if, for better, for worse, his hernia wants to take this girl.

“But Dorzibanso, the worst has already happened since the infantrymen cut off her speech utensil; they cut off her kissing instrument.”

He gives him his yes, his historic yes and here’s her yes, yes for me and yes for her.

“Historic Colonel, Your Excellency, I can’t bless this union.”

“Watch out Dorzibanso, my hernia is about to explode.”

He looked at him with astonishment and said it again: I can’t do this.

“You’re going to come up against my hernia. And believe me, it won’t be like banging on butter, so you’d better watch out: my intestines are growling. You’re stirring my kaki nerves and the shame I feel in front of the Whites who’ll think I’m no longer the supreme master in my own house. Now just get on with it and bless this union or be prepared to die from this national anger that I can feel swelling. Show some respect for my meat stick that’s bowing here before your God.”

“Mr. President, I can’t bless this union, not with this girl here who’s crying when she should be smiling. The Church would be ashamed, our Lord would die a second time of shame. Because, Mr. President, Christ is watching me and I can’t go pounding shit into the scars left by the nails; I can’t give him piss instead of water.”

“Dorzibanso, don’t go remaking the Lord in your image. No no and no again: there’s no trifling with the bites of a hernia.”

He kneels down as he would before the Lord, and begs him: “Dorzibanso, my cheek held out for you, for the love of thy neighbor, if you don’t want to chow down on my herniated balls in seven sessions,” and then he switches his tone: “You can’t do this to me; remember how you became a cardinal with the support of dick, ah, my hernia is sad! We’ve always been good friends, friends and brothers, try and understand.”

But there was nothing to be done, this leech won’t go along with him, he mimics the voice, he says things in National Mom’s mother tongue and amen! The people answer, amen. Folks didn’t seem aware this was a hoax. He paraded his hernia around, his chest tinkling with the medals he had won fighting Russia who came to sell my hernia ideas rather than feeding my people. Ha, my people: we have here the proverbial truth of that The voice don’t make the man .

Dorzibanso was locked away after the church ceremony to make sure no one would find out the secret of the Mass said in Mom’s mother tongue. Then came the big night and the gala where he danced with Princess Honglanni leaving behind his trail of strong sweat and smearing her with mud. He also danced with Colonel Domingo Pinto’s ex-wife and smeared the people’s mud on her too, as he did with the mayor of Zamba-Town’s ex-wife, and Her Majesty the Queen of the Flemish; he danced with all those invited by my hernia and smeared them all with the people’s mud.

“This earth will accompany me to the grave.”

He also offered General de Laborderie, my first wife’s father, the people’s mud. As he danced the dance of my people, he distributed mud to all the men. By three in the morning, his hernia really started to reek. Truly nauseating vapors. Enough to make you puke. Stomach-churning. The scales on his sweltering herniated balls secreted a revolting stench. Stale juices. As he danced the dance of my people, a loincloth fastened around the waist, his hernia began to stink in that historic way, giving off a rotten nitrous odor. His brochette of medals chimed away. He sang in honor of my colleague whose country came later than ours. After the big feast and binge drinking where he got loaded the way the people do, he collapsed in an armchair right there in the middle of the party, both hands gripping his hernia.

“Don’t disturb him.”

In shirtsleeves, buttons in the wrong hole, holding his socks, National Carvanso comes to let him know that Mr. President sir your new spouse has hanged herself.

“What do you mean hanged ?”

“Yes, Mr. President, she has hanged herself.”

“I… I don’t understand. What language are you speaking, Carvanso?”

“She killed herself.”

“My herniated balls have dropped.”

He thinks aloud just how magical last night was. As enchanting as a campfire. We danced together. I listened to her heart beating against my chest. Ha, that tempestuous shape of a body. Tender and made in the likeness of a goddess. With lips that incite fear and lunacy. There she stood, well-calculated, designed in the very image of my hernia. With her milk-filled breath, child of my own knotted breath. What do you mean hanged ? Is what you’re saying there true? He sheds real tears the way we do, and it was clear he loved her. He’s been bawling for the past six days, drowning in tears and snot, hasn’t touched his food, his eyes are covered because I can still feel but I would never dare look at her corpse. Three times now he’s tried to kill himself over your body that’s punishing me. Each time our brother Carvanso got there just in time. Colonel that I like to call Vauban consoles him. National Mom consoles him.

“I let her have the very best copy I had of my soul.”

While the infantrymen were busy handing out black armbands to the people at three hundred coustrani each for the period of mourning, ah National Mom I’m inconsolable: he sets off to Italy, France, and Gainesville on a journey of mourning, ah good God I’m inconsolable! He accompanies her glass hearse all the way to the foot of Mount Fuji…. Ah! Then he heads to Tahiti.