Black Bazaar (9 page)

Centre Forward waited for the girl to fall into his arms, but the moment never came. He became aggressive, and threatened not to contribute to the water and electricity bills any more. He used to sulk in the evenings and reckoned I was the one who was thwarting his plans, that I was pulling underhand tricks outside our studio, in the cat-houses on Rue des Petites Écuries.

But it was a guy from outside, a Central African with red eyes who finally won the game. He met Louzolo at the Marché Dejean and she bid us farewell one evening, to the great disappointment of Centre Forward who
had at least succeeded in stealing a pair of the girl's knickers …

I also told Original Colour the names of my roommates at the time. Lokassa aka Centre Forward worked on building sites. He didn't have any papers and was using the identity card of Sylvio, a French Caribbean guy who I ran into sometimes at Jip's. The trouble was that Centre Forward couldn't receive his salary directly. It was paid into Sylvio's bank account, and so the two men had to meet up at the end of every month outside Métro Château d'Eau. Sylvio would draw the money out from his bank and hand it over to Centre Forward, after taking ten per cent commission for the use of his identity card.

Serge was a section supervisor in a branch of Leclerc in the banlieue. Thanks to him we ate decent meat and didn't have to buy light bulbs or toilet paper for our studio. He'd struck a deal with the security guys at his supermarket and could take whatever goods he liked.

Euloge was a security guard at the Bercy 2 Shopping Centre. In his spare time he played the guitar in an orchestra with folks from the big Congo. We didn't like it when he smoked his joints in the toilet. The smell hung around for weeks.

Moungali was a packer in a shoe shop. We turned down the shoes he tried to give us because they weren't Westons. Sometimes, he would fly off the handle about
this. To keep the peace, we'd accept his presents and send them back to the home country.

Everybody thought I had a slacker's desk job because I worked at a printing works in Issy-les-Moulineaux. What they didn't realise was that I spent my time loading boxes of magazines and books into vans …

Despite all this, Original Colour wanted to come and see the conditions we were living in. My heart skipped a beat. For me it was just a dormitory, there was no question of her visiting me there. She'd have a fainting fit because she'd see that even though I was always clean and well-dressed with the most expensive clothes in France, I slept in a pigsty. There weren't any tables or chairs, there were just mattresses on the floor which we piled up on top of each other every morning so we could move around a bit.

For weeks on end I did everything to stop her from setting foot there. So I was the one who used to go over to hers, to visit this studio where I now live all by myself, ever since she cleared off with our daughter because of the Hybrid who plays African drums in a group nobody's ever heard of in France, including in Corsica and Monaco …

* * *

When I walked into the main entrance of Original Colour's building, I was puzzled to hear breathing
coming from behind the apartment door next to hers.

“There's someone spying on us from behind that door!” I said in alarm.

“Oh, forget about it, it's just the neighbour again. You met him the other day. I think he's got issues, he's always like that. He doesn't like Blacks.”

“But he's as black as we are!”

“There are plenty of Blacks like him who don't know they're black. That's their choice …”

Every time there was the slightest noise it set me on edge, and Original Colour started to get fed up:

“I told you, it's my neighbour, so give it a rest … Listen, why don't you come and live with me, then we can really get up the bastard's nose. There'll be two negroes from the Congo in the building, and that's not counting the ones who live nearby!”

I thought she was joking. The next day I didn't go to work, I brought my suitcases of clothes and Westons over to her studio. The man we would later nickname Mr Hippocratic kept a close eye on me secretly moving in, and he started breathing more and more heavily behind his door because he could sniff out the niggertrash laying siege to the building.

From that day on, I only had to poke my face outside to land on him. I would always say hello but he eyed me contemptuously, refusing to answer. When he did open his mouth, it was to tell me to make less noise at night because he could hear us when we were in bed.

“And anyway, what are you doing here, eh? It's a studio, it's not meant for two people!”

Every time I entered the building, my heart would be pounding, I had to go on tiptoes. But I might as well not have bothered because Mr Hippocratic seemed to be expecting me. He would cough to signal that he nothing escaped him. After that I decided not to give a monkey's, and not to credit him with more power than he had. So I walked proud and tall, deliberately making the hall ring out with the sound of my Westons. I whistled a tune from back home and opened the door as loudly as possible.

And he would bellow at the top of his voice:

“Go back to that Congolese bush where you come from!”

Seven months on
from meeting each other, Original Colour invited me out for a meal at L'Equateur, a Cameroonian restaurant in the 11th arrondissement where one of her friends was a waitress. It was the first time she'd offered to pay. Her friend welcomed us and pointed to the table opposite the bar. That way she could keep an eye on us. I chose the first dish that caught my eye, ndolé with beef. I'd never eaten it before, but it sounded like saka-saka, a cassava leaf dish from back home. Original Colour just ordered chicken wings and salad. The restaurant had photos displayed of the celebrities who had dined there. I spotted Manu Dibango's smile and Yannick Noah's dreadlocks.

We ate in a silence I began to find heavy and I was trying to figure out what was going on in Original Colour's mind, given she didn't really go to African restaurants much. Something was up, I could tell. Seeing as she couldn't look me in the eye, I guessed straight away:

“You're pregnant …”

I glanced in the direction of her friend at the bar. She smiled at me.

“Did she know about this?”

Original Colour didn't answer.

“If I've got this right, we'll need to move apartments?” I ventured.

“You must be joking, rents are expensive in Paris! We'll just have to squeeze all three of us in.”

“We could always move out to the banlieue.”

“DON'T TALK TO ME ABOUT THE BANLIEUE!!! It's a pile of shit out there!”

To this day, I still haven't figured out why the word banlieue got such a reaction out of her. The people on the next table turned around when she started shouting. I chalked it up to the stress of being pregnant. One man even piped up:

“I'm from the banlieue, now d'you think I could eat my meal in peace?”

I wasn't well paid at the printing works, so I needed to supplement my income. At the weekends I would go and buy clothes in Italy, which I quickly sold on to my compatriots in Château Rouge. I brought back suits and ties. Given that everybody knew about my taste for Sappe, there was no shortage of customers. They would follow me to the foot of our building, or else wait for me in front of the Arab on the corner's. As a special favour, my former roommates from Château Rouge got to drink beer with me inside our studio. Mr Hippocratic saw red and took to impersonating the
police in front of the main entrance. He demanded to see the identity cards of my customers.

I would react violently:

“You're not the police!”

“As for you, bringing all the illegal immigrants in France and the neighbouring countries into this building! You're going to hear me out!”

* * *

I'd like to make it clear that I'm the one who bought the baby clothes, because I wanted Original Colour to know I was the responsible type, that's how it works back home, the man pays for everything, full stop. If I hadn't paid for the baby clothes, my status would be rock bottom today. I wouldn't be able to look myself in the mirror. I also noticed that baby clothes weren't within everyone's means. Those tiny bootees cost an arm and a leg, and the pram was the price of rent back in the home country. You can reproach me for whatever you like, but I'm proud that I protected my honour as a father.

When our little girl was born, I was the happiest father on earth. And I wanted the whole world to know about it. I paid for an announcement in the columns of
Libération
as well as
Le Parisien
, even though babies come into the world anonymously in our circles, as if the parents were ashamed of their progeny. People saw me out and about in the neighbourhood with my
pram and a pack of Pampers. I'd be coming back from the Arab on the corner's, I let him talk to my daughter because he said at that age children could understand all the languages in the world. So he spoke to her in Arabic without translating for me …

* * *

I didn't wait three months before turning up with my kid at Jip's to show her off to my pals, so they could see with their own eyes that I'd become a dad. They were the ones who had insisted on it, they gave me a hard time about hiding my daughter like those members of my tribe who only show their child several months later so as to avoid evil people putting a curse on them. I told them all they needed to do was read the newspapers in this country, that there was an announcement in
Libération
and
Le Parisien
.

Bosco the Embassy Poet was the first to see my little girl. He was standing at the entrance with a glass of red wine in one hand and a copy of Rimbaud in the other. There was a moment's silence, then he stepped away from the door and stared at us tensely. I nodded to indicate he could hold my child, that I wouldn't mind.

“Have you taken leave of your senses?”

I couldn't understand why he'd reacted like this. It turns out that in Chad, in his ethnic group, the men won't touch a baby until it's twelve months old.

“Don't be offended, my friend. I shall write for your
daughter a poem in the style of Victor Hugo's
Infantile Influence
. And you will see, I promise, that there will be some highly rewarding rhymes from start to finish! The trouble with today's poets is that they have abandoned rhyme. So anyone can call himself a poet, and there is no way of separating the wheat from the chaff. I find it absolutely staggering when I read what these so-called poets write these days. Where has the elegance of Valéry gone? What has happened to the genius of Hugo? What have they done with the impertinence of Baudelaire? Could you tell me, please? I am the only one to stand up against this dereliction of poetic duty. But be there only one poet left, I shall be that poet. Let us place the order for your baby straightaway, here is my pen and a piece of paper to write it down. Would you prefer alexandrines or six-line stanzas? Or rather do not worry yourself, I shall write two versions, one with alexandrines, and another with six-line stanzas. Just allow time for my inspiration to take hold.”

To this day, I still haven't received any poem.

As for Vladimir the Cameroonian with the longest cigars in France and Navarre, he joked that two of his cigars end-to-end were longer than my daughter was tall. Not only that but he wanted to know why we had called her Henriette. I told him it was after my grandmother, Henriette Nsoko, a woman who played a very important role in my childhood, and someone I miss a great deal.
My mother and I used to go to see her in the village of Louboulou in the south of the Congo, she died when I was barely six years old. The picture I still have of her is of an old woman sitting in front of the door to her hut, her eyes raised to the sky as if she were putting herself in God's hands for the rest of her days. The goats were her only confidantes, old age had worn away at her memory and she could no longer remember who I was. When I opened her kitchen door, she shrieked that she was being robbed, the villagers would rush over to explain that I was her grandson, the son of her daughter Pauline Kengué, not a goat-rustler. But my grandmother, doubtful and suspicious, would fret:

“Who is Pauline Kengué?”

This wasn't how Vladimir saw it:

“I understand that Henriette was your grandmother's name, but there's no need to go overboard! With all the names that are available in the Whites' calendar, how dare you condemn the poor little girl to death? Henriette is an old lady's name! Let me tell you something, these Europeans don't trifle with first names, they take them very seriously. They've got some fine-sounding ones like Georges, Valéry, François and Jacques. If you'd asked for my opinion, I'd have given you some sound advice. Not only did you go and have a baby behind our backs, but you lumber the poor innocent thing with a name from the Jurassic period! Do your really think Henriette is a
name for a normal child, eh? You could have called her Jeanne, for example, or Charlotte, or Odette, or Marie or I don't know what else, these are fresher names, they are more attractive and they will guarantee your child a future … And then there's another false note, and I'm not going to hide this from you, it looks to me as if your daughter will be even darker than her mother, who is already at the peak of negritude. Anyone would think you made your baby in a Medieval Christian oven and left her in there to burn without keeping an eye on Hell's fire. Because, as you know, normally when a black child comes into the world he is very pale-skinned like the children belonging to the Whites, it's only afterwards that he gradually takes on his original colour. But your child is already as black as can be. I am completely taken aback, I've never seen such a charred baby, not even in Africa!”

Yves the just-Ivorian was grinding his axe about the colonial debt again: