BRITTANY. I WAS thinking about Brittany as I ate a plate of rice that came from no particular country. Sayed explained how it worked. He and Maïko mixed their spices into the same dish. In other words, they made love in the kitchen as they added their Vietnamese and Kurdish flavours to the rice. The dish was scented with both lemon grass and cumin. Why Brittany? For the sea that fascinated me, the oysters, the faces scoured by the wind, but most of all for that moment that haunted me, Isabelle and Emma walking away from the deck of the Hôtel Bellevue, and me letting them go. I had stopped thinking of the children. I was thinking of myself. It was the first time in my life that I considered myself and neglected everyone else.
Sayed wanted me to go back home. He was worried, I could tell, for his own security. “I have no home, Sayed.” Sometimes I dreamed of the Bay of Paimpol, but it was a sepia dream like a nostalgic photo lightly hued with sadness and regret for those smiles I never cared to follow.
The rumours were running full force. Kabanga had gotten weapons from the Chinese. The Congolese were obsessed with the Chinese, they’d replaced the Americans in the African imagination, standing for a confusion of fear and hope. The rumours roared. Kabanga had allied himself with the Canadian oil companies that were financing him.
Marcel has made himself very much at home, as if he were the rightful tenant. I need a plan. Four hours sitting in front of a piece of paper, and no rational idea, only fears, hopes, and feelings. I’m losing my way. I don’t have a globe where I could find my position, and no expert accounts, no complex studies, just me and a country I know without ever having experienced it, a town that was keeping an eye on me, a hegemonic lizard, and old mistresses who inspire no regret.
At the cinema, I got a Primus, avoided people’s stares born from rumours, and watched a completely infantile Stallone picture I’d seen three times before. Absolute emptiness can replace Prozac.