Mam’Soko and the Events
Mam’Soko is a little hard of hearing. Despite my explanations, she’s not going to be able to understand why we’re here. When I listen to the radio she seems surprised. She must not grasp any of it. She watches my thumb and forefinger as they turn the big dial to find the Voice of the Vietongolese Revolution.
The old lady thinks we’ve been thrown out by my husband; she assures me that in her day men acted the same. You just need to find some common ground, to talk with one another. Leaving is not a good way out.
I once asked her if she was aware of what was going on in Mapapouville these days. She didn’t reply. She merely pointed out that I spoke Bembé with a marked northern accent.
Most often it’s my daughter who repeats my words to her. Maribé puts her mouth right up to the old lady’s ear and shouts. We’ve explained to her that I’m from the North, that I married a man from the South, and that we will have to leave for Pointe-Rouge in the coming days. She murmured something, and Maribé translated that she hadn’t gotten any of what I’d told her.
I have the sense that after she’s visited us she goes away with a ray of light on her forehead. She takes us for her daughters, she who never brought any children into the world. She claims that Maribé looks like me and that she would have liked to have a little girl like her. Each time we make food, I ask Maribé to take her a plate. Mam’Soko likes that.
In recent days she’s even been bringing the plate back so she can eat with us. I took advantage of her being here to remind her that we’d be leaving very soon to head toward the Mayombe region, then one day continue on to Pointe-Rouge, which has been less affected by the events.
“What events?”
Her astonishment seemed so natural that I didn’t say any more. She peered at my feet and Maribé’s. Pointe-Rouge was several hundred miles from Louboulou. I told the old lady that our minds were made up. We’d walk, and when we found the railroad tracks, we’d follow them all the way to the end. She asked if we were going to take the train. I almost smiled, because I know now that there are no more trains. Trucks and cars are looted by the Negro Grandsons of Vercingetorix. The railroad that links Pointe-Rouge and Mapapouville is in such a bad state that to get it back in working shape, you’d need to mortgage all the oil wells of Vietongo present and future, to the profit of foreign oil companies. There were no more trains. The former stations had been turned into headquarters or bandit dens.
“We’re going to walk,” I insisted.
I didn’t think the old lady placed any importance on what I said.
“You can have this house, Daughter. Do you not feel comfortable here?”
“Mother, we have to leave. I’m from the same region as General Edou . . .”
“Who’s General Edou?” she replied in the same composed tone as when I’d spoken of the events in Mapapouville.
“Yes, Mother, General Edou.”
I realized we could not talk of this.
The Rains
For the moment we’re not leaving Louboulou. It’s been raining a great deal recently. It would be risky to head out again into the bush, with rivers flooding and trees knocked down by the wind. We have to wait. Wait for the end of the rains. Wait for the rivers to settle. For the earth to become firm again. It’ll take another week, ten days at the most. I think we’ll slip out of Louboulou without telling Mam’Soko. That way our stay in this village will remain a mystery to her. She’ll say we were nothing but passing shadows. Perhaps shadows from the world in which she’s taken refuge.
The image of Christiane is still present. But I try to keep it at bay, to think about the rest of the journey that we’ll make once circumstances permit. I refrain at all costs from talking about the situation in Mapapouville with my daughter, from mentioning the name of her father, Kimbembé, much less that of Vercingetorix. I let her listen to the Voice of the Vietongolese Revolution. Military songs all day long. Speeches by General Edou.
I feel somewhat guilty at having involved Maribé in this affair. Yet I’m convinced she knows that we could no longer endure our situation back in Batalébé. Admittedly, at seventeen she deserves a different existence from this one. A future other than fleeing her native region. That’s partly why she didn’t utter a word of protest before following me. I even had the impression that it was exactly what she had expected, and that my decision was late in coming.