Black Bazaar (2 page)

“Well yes, you will find some among the traders in Trois-Cents, but their sheep aren't even white, they are all black, with patches sometimes, and you can't go telling credible stories with sheep like that. And another thing, the traders chop them up and sell them as kebabs at night in the streets.”

“Fine, all right then, but in these stories of yours, have you at least got a sea and an old man who goes fishing with a young boy?”

I said no because the sea frightens me especially since,
like a lot of people in our country, I went to see
Jaws
and had to leave The Rex before the end of the film.

Roger the French-Ivorian signalled to Willy for two more Pelforts.

“Fine, all right then,” he went on, “but in these stories of yours, have you at least got an old man who reads love stories in the middle of the bush?”

“Oh no, and anyway how would we get love stories to the heart of the bush? Back home it would be mission impossible, our interior is closed off. There is only one road that goes there, and it dates back to colonial times.”

“You have been independent for nearly half a century and you're telling me there's only one road? What the hell have you been doing in all that time? You've got to stop blaming those settlers for everything! The Whites cleared off and they left you everything including colonial homes, electricity, a railway, drinking water, a river, an Atlantic Ocean, a seaport, Nivaquine, antiseptic and a town centre!”

“It's nothing to do with me, it's our governments who are to blame. If they had at least resurfaced the road the settlers left us, then today your old man could be sent his love stories. But let me tell you, that colonial road is a scandal …”

“What is the matter, eh? Why is it a scandal? Are you against the settlers or what? I say we owe the settlers respect! Me, I've had enough of people talking through their hats when those settlers conscientiously got on
with their job of delivering us from the darkness and bringing us civilisation. Did they have to do all that, eh? You do realise that they worked like lunatics? There were mosquitoes, devils, sorcerers, cannibals and green mambas, there was sleeping sickness, yellow fever, blue fever, orange fever, rainbow fever and goodness knows what else. There were all these ills over our ebony lands, our ghostly Africa, to the point that even Tintin ended up having to come over in person on our behalf. So far be it from me to harbour a grudge against the settlers. You do accept that Tintin went to your Congo, don't you? And did that Tintin ask himself a thousand and one questions? Didn't he come with his friends, a captain with a beard who insults everybody and a small dog with more intelligence than you or I put together, eh? And if he managed to get there, well then, in these stories of yours, you can include some love stories to that old man along the colonial road!”

“Yes, but that road's too dangerous, especially during the rains.”

“What's the problem?”

“It never stops raining back home, and when it rains it is a thousand times worse than the Flood …”

After one round of silence and two gulps of beer, Roger the French-Ivorian, annoyed that I've always got an answer for everything, slammed his fist down on the table:

“I'm just trying to help you out here! Writing's no joke, you do understand that, eh? It's up to the people
who the write stories to invent situations, not me. So fire up your imagination, help that old man who's bored rigid out there in the bush to get hold of some love stories!”

When I didn't answer, he capitulated:

“Fine, all right then, I'm getting worked up for nothing, I'm sorry, perhaps I'm asking you something impossible. The thing is, I'm trying to work out how difficult this is. But in these stories of yours, have you at least got a young Japanese compulsive liar who tells her analyst she can't hear music any more, by which I mean she can no longer experience pleasure?”

It was my turn to get annoyed:

“Oh no, oh no you don't, I'm not going all the way to Japan for a story about a compulsive liar who can't get her kicks!”

“Have you got it in for the Japanese, or what?”

“Not at all, but why not go to Haiti too while we're at it, and talk about voodoo, eh? What's got into you? Are you some kind of sex maniac? Have you ever pleasured a woman?”

“Shhh! There's no need to shout like that and insult me, everyone can hear you in the bar, and that won't do. A writer should be discreet, he should observe his surroundings so he can describe them in minute detail … But in these stories of yours, have you at least got a drunkard who goes to the land of the dead to find his palm wine supplier who accidentally died at the foot of a palm tree?”

I said no because I've never set foot in the land of the dead and have no intention of doing so, not for anything in the world, especially since it's even further away than Japan and Haiti.

“Yes, but you're only telling a story, so just imagine you're going there. That's not so difficult, is it?”

“I won't go there. Some places are asking for trouble, and stories about people who go to the land of the dead are not my kind of thing.”

“Fine, all right then, but in these stories of yours have you at least got a great love that takes place in the time of cholera between a poor telegrapher and a young schoolgirl who will end up marrying a doctor later on?”

“What is a telegrapher?” I asked, playing innocent.

“I can see we're not out of the woods yet! We're going to have to work on your vocabulary … But in these stories of yours, have you at least got a crime of passion involving an artist who murders a woman he met at an exhibition, even though she admired one of his paintings?”

“Don't talk to me about art!”

“Really? You don't like art but you call yourself a writer?”

“Modern art gets up my nose. Back home, I saw a reproduction of a painting at the French Cultural Centre, it was called
Les Demoiselles d'Avignon
, and it was ugly as a bulldog's face.”

“So you don't understand the first thing about
painting, which is a major handicap … But in these stories of yours, have you at least got a character with a drum, somebody who from the age of three doesn't want to grow up, a character who will be interned in a mental hospital later on and who will tell their life story to their keeper through the peep-hole, eh? Now, I'm only saying all this to help you out a bit because you don't have a clue where you are going or who else has gone before you. It would help if the keeper in the mental hospital had an artistic streak, he might tie knots, for example, which he would show to the patient, do you see where I'm going, eh?”

I let it drop that I've got a character who plays the tom-toms, and that I've nicknamed him the Hybrid. He's the guy who's gone back to the home country with my partner and my daughter.

“Mention drums or tom-toms again and I'm walking out of this bar!” I bellowed. “I've had enough! I'm off!”

And I made a swift exit from Jip's, because Roger the French-Ivorian was getting more and more drunk. I told him I'd never talk to him about any of my projects again, and that he'd be better off forgetting what Paul from the big Congo had said to him.

My parting shot was:

“You don't understand anything. I write the way I lead my life, one moment it's one thing and the next I've moved on to a whole different kettle of fish, and that's called living too in case you didn't know. Buying
me a few Pelforts doesn't give you the right to shit all over me with your white sheep and your old men who like going to sea and reading love stories. I've got a real friend who listens to me, he's called Louis-Philippe and he's from Haiti. Now that's what I call a writer, not some loudmouth like you waiting to retire before you produce your masterpiece for all the world to read. Go and find someone else to pick on!”

Just as Paul from the big Congo walked in, I heard Roger the French-Ivorian answer in a metallic voice:

“Down here, Buttologist, everything has already been written! Everything! Take it from me, I've read all the great books in the world. So don't go thinking you can change things. And you'd better make sure I don't find my name in your diary of a cuckold! Speaking of which, where are your woman and daughter now, eh? You can't put that into writing because you're ashamed of people finding out. Call yourself a writer? You're just vomiting up your anger against your ex and the minstrel who stole her off you. Serves you right!”

It's definitely not me
who's digging the hole in the social security. It was already around when I got here, everybody had been talking about it for decades. Some people even claimed you could fall into it just from walking in the street, because there were no warning signs, so I had nothing to be ashamed of and, to boost my morale, I kept telling myself this hole story was made up by a few opposition politicians who wanted to stop the government from doing its work so it would have a disastrous track record when it came to the elections …

But the people debating it on telly a week ago declared that at this rate we were heading straight for “a spectacular and unprecedented collapse”. They've got me feeling very worried again, especially since even Roger the French-Ivorian is making it clear he thinks I am personally making matters worse by only working part-time and spending the rest of my time in front of my typewriter …

From listening to those well-informed people on the telly talking about it, I was led to believe that the
situation was worse than serious, it was hopeless. The country had lost the battle and the war. They talked about the deficit, about bad management, about calamitous governance and lots of other things too. I scribbled notes on the labels off the Pelfort bottles I'd bought the day before from our Arab on the corner, who's very friendly and always starts talking as soon as I walk in:

“‘For too long the West has force-fed us with lies and bloated us with pestilence' … Do you know which black poet had the courage to say that, eh?”

I couldn't take my eyes off the screen during that heated debate. Which was an achievement for me. I generally prefer to watch romantic movies or shows that promise me a chance of winning an automatic car if I dial the telephone number at the bottom of the screen. Oh, and I used to like watching those shows with couples who get catapulted to an island in South America where they're separated and exposed to the temptations of other men and women twenty-four seven, for twelve days. It's true, back then I never missed an episode, I used to joke with my ex and dare her to set off with me on one of those adventures, because apparently it's when they're far away from home that couples realise how unshakeable their love is. You'd keep watching to find out whether the man and the woman would head back home together, arm in arm at the end, or whether they'd be calling each other
every name under the sun and never speak again. My partner didn't find it funny when I suggested going for it, she was convinced I was just dreaming of getting down and dirty with all those blondes, redheads and brunettes with nice curvy backsides like the women from back home, the ones I go wild for. She said that the women we saw on telly weren't real, it was all down to the make-up, because she'd never met a woman who looked anything like that when she was out shopping in Franprix or Monoprix at the end of our street. She also gave me a hard time because some of the men and women who were stranded on the island gave into the sins of the flesh from day one, and you could see them fornicating in the pool; while others observed a brief period of abstinence before making up for lost time and doing the business in every grove of that paradise. Now according to her, I belonged to the first category of sinners who were in a hurry to take a bite out of the first apple that landed in their lap. It's been a while since I stopped watching those kinds of shows, because I found out they've often got fake couples leading viewers up the tropical garden path. Is that any way to go about things …?

So this time I was watching something else, a debate that was indirectly laying the blame at my door. Up on stage, a fight was about to break out among the guests. They said the words “hole” and “social security” nine
hundred and twenty-five times. We watched a report from a health insurance office and one from a chemist. As chance would have it, the reports had been filmed in our neighbourhood, a bit further off, towards the town hall. The men and women featured were openly criticising our social security system, they didn't realise the place was bugged with tiny microphones and cameras, or that they'd be watched throughout France, including in Corsica and Monaco. They were explaining how they often turned a blind eye to false claims because they couldn't give a monkey's, and anyway the money that got squandered in reimbursements for this or that didn't come out of their own pockets …

We needed answers at the end of the programme, but all we got were generalisations. “The State must play its part,” boomed a bald guy, pulling his last two remaining hairs up from his neck and down over his jutting forehead. “Urgent times call for drastic measures”, said a badly shaven guest, who had probably been using his wife's hair-removal cream. “We need a Marshall Plan hic et nunc” proffered a man who, to camera and in profile, looked like a sole. “We need to tighten our belts”, added a woman wearing glasses with lenses thick as bicycle wheels from the early years of the Occupation. “We need … we need, we need to look at … to look at … the behaviour of … of those on so … so … social … benefits, git … git … get … them to change their habits and useless … get them
to use less medishit … shit … medicine. And we also … we also … need to organise a crackdown on fraud”, was the response of a man who stammered from the off and had trouble finishing his sentences. The theme music started up, the debaters smiled and congratulated themselves, pleased at putting in a good performance.