Fiston Mujila - Tram 83

“You, go home, sleep.”

With considerable nonchalance, he handed the magazine to the honey doing her makeup just to his left. She opened it, leafed through the ten pages of the magazine, most of which were covered with photographs of tourists, and screamed as if stung by a bee:

“The General!”

The whole Tram, with the exception of the for-profit tourists, rushed the podium, a contorted mass, arms outstretched like the possessed in a deliverance session. Requiem began to hurl copies of the magazine into the crowd. He wasn’t even able to complete his task. He was violently shoved, squashed by the crowd trying desperately to swag the loot. Taking advantage of the ruckus, everyone wanting to leave, everyone wanting to enter the Tram, he crawled all the way to the bar, where the publisher abided — flabbergasted by the turn of events — and stuck a knife in his leg.

A MAN’S CREDIBILITY DEPENDS ON THE POWER OF HIS UNDERBELLY.

Upon his return, the dissident General flew into a terrible rage. Lucien had had a dig at him in his stage-tale. In the final scene, entitled “Taking of the Citadel,” the character of the dissident General met his death after Lumumba had given him a sound thrashing. The words that concluded the book

an empty-body

a thingy-body

a trashy-body

a doggy-body

the headless-body

of a farmyard General

lying in the sludge

in a state of advanced deterioration!

were on everyone’s lips. The baby-chicks even used it to accost potential clients, the waitresses and busgirls to demand their tip, the diggers to taunt the students, and the jazz musicians to warm up the Tram.

The two nude photographs of him published by the Negus had sent him into a state of apoplexy. According to the busgirl with the fat lips, he broke off diplomatic relations with Bolivia, Uganda, and Azerbaijan that very day, and shot at his bodyguards with live rounds. All conversations in the Tram were no longer about the General’s slender body, his bamboo-like frame, but his tiny pecker.

“Do you have the time?”

The inhabitants of the City-State had seized the opportunity to make fun of him. The mob hissed fortuitous comparisons between his penis and a matchstick. At the Tram, several nights had been spent debating how a man with no penis, or rather with such a tiny tool, could get a baby-chick going.

The strong man of the City-State, known for his interminable speeches, delivered the shortest oration in the world.

“I am closing all the mines in the City-State until further notice, and I have given orders for Tram 83, this hotspot of criminality, debauchery, and perversity, to be demolished this very afternoon.”

It was incredible what was happening. What would the City-State be like without Tram 83? Demolishing Tram 83 was like razing the Eiffel Tower or Rio’s Christ the Redeemer, decapitating the memory of the City-State, depriving an entire people of their leisure. The Tram embodied national unity and cohesion, despite the deep-rooted subdivisions. No one in the City-State, except Lucien, could stand to go a week without dropping into Tram 83. Even the patients packed into Saint Giles Hospital had excursions to the Tram arranged for them. The dissident General was going mad. Demolishing the Tram spelled unemployment not only for the waitresses and busgirls (including the one with the fat lips and dutiful-Negro patter), but all the young ladies of Avignon too.

As soon as the announcement of the Tram’s destruction was heard, the inhabitants of the City-State headed for Tram 83. For several reasons, of course: some — “Do you have the time?” — to lure potential clients, others to protest against the prohibition on excavating, still others to block the imminent destruction of Tram 83, for the Tram was the only thing that really belonged to them.

“Foreplay is all the fashion. We demand it too.”

There was a dissidence within the Dissidence. A hundred mercenaries broke away from their leader and switched camps with arms and ammunition. For two months, the baby-chicks, the musicians, the dandy sapeurs , the suicidals, the diggers, the tourists of all nationalities combined — in short, the whole of the City-State — ate, drank, pissed, idled, and shat in Tram 83 and its vicinity. The dissident General at the head of his rebellion failed on three occasions to take Tram 83.

Misfortunes always succeed each other closely. The owner of the Tram died following a long illness. The baby-chicks contended that the dissident General was undoubtedly a sorcerer and that he had eaten him in the spirit world. Which stoked the animosity against him and his militia and strengthened the links between the tribes clinging to their Tram.

“You’re handsome like in a porn film. Come to my arms, beloved tourist.”

Hissing that they’d swiped from him the power that was already eroding because of the many defections among his troops, the dissident General lifted the prohibition on the mines. But who could get away with excavating except a few for-profit tourists, thirsty for sex and easy money? The mines interested nobody for nearly two months.

THE THREE KINGS.

The dissident General had not recovered from the photographs and all the idiocies put about regarding his skinny matchstick wiener, his vile death in Lucien’s theater piece, and, above all, his assaults repulsed with such vigor during the siege of Tram 83. He gave a 2½ hour speech, at the end of which he put a price on the heads of Lucien, Malingeau, and also Requiem. “I want you to bring me these three bastards, dead or alive! Fifty thousand dollars and the authorization to excavate for life in the Polygon of Hope Mine.”

Malingeau, who feared being sold out by his own, obtained, not without some difficulty, the right of asylum in the official residence of the Chinese tourists. Requiem narrowly escaped an ambush set by Mortal Combat. An idea occurred to him, and he too took refuge with these same tourists. Disguised as a woman, on Christelle’s advice, Lucien also managed to earn the protection of the Chinese tourists.

The gossip surrounding the General’s penis continued apace. He began to increase the reward money. As the sum grew, the attitude of the Chinese tourists started to change. They were no longer kind and obliging vis-à-vis the three fugitives. “You know,” they repeated, “our business is floundering, but if we could truly gain the favor of the dissident General … The dissident General is now offering seventy thousand dollars, while we only need twenty thousand dollars to save our firm from bankruptcy.”

As soon as they learned that the trio had found refuge in Beijing, the Chinatown of the City-State, the second-rate tourists, the mercenaries, the baby-chicks, the for-profit tourists, the diggers, the Congolese musicians, the waitresses, the busgirls, including the busgirl with the fat lips — basically, everyone — contacted the Chinese tourists to get them to hand over the three bastards and for the money to be distributed equally. Christmas was coming and everybody was preoccupied with acquiring some red wine and the wherewithal to buy their dog kebabs.

“Take me to your country and I’ll give you all the love in the world.”

On the 24th of December, Requiem, Lucien, and Malingeau took advantage of their hosts being otherwise distracted to vanish into thin air. They had but one thought: get to the station whose metal structure … then climb aboard the first train for the Back-Country.

Requiem, walking ahead of them, was more than aggravated. He insulted everyone: the baby-chicks, the second-rate tourists, the Diva, the for-profit tourists, Christelle, Jacqueline, the waitresses, the busgirls, the busgirl with the fat lips, the mercenaries, Lucien, the publisher, the dissident General, Mortal Combat …