I

Already Over a Week in Louboulou

Now that we’re far away from Batalébé, we can believe that one day we’ll finally make it to Pointe-Rouge. It’s the only place that has been spared by the events. Everything the authorities say about Pointe-Rouge amounts to no more than a diversion. I know that now. It’s one of the strategies employed to sow confusion and discourage people from heading for the city.

Life in Louboulou merges with the red dust. Trees losing their leaves. And that shifty river crawling along in its boredom, no longer knowing which way to flow. It mumbles, paws the ground, barely moving the notched water lilies that accompany it all the way into the maze of bamboo and the crisscross of ferns. Who knows under which skies it will finally discharge its melancholy and its sluggishness?

Mam’Soko is here. She passes this way and that. A light, timid figure, she seems to be running after time, a time that is no longer the same as our own and whose patience and stubbornness we would wish to borrow for the journey that awaits us.

We’ve been here over a week. We took a walk in the late afternoon. We went to pick cassava leaves in one of Mam’Soko’s fields. We dug into the soil to find the roots. My thoughts strayed. I wanted to go back, to resume reading my notebooks and writing in them.

When we returned home, I told Maribé to light the three-stone fire and to put the cassava roots in water to boil them. I ground the leaves in a mortar. We still needed palm nuts. The old lady had given us salt and groundnut paste. It was the first time we’d eaten saka-saka without palm oil. All the same, Mam’Soko liked it. Night fell. Maribé went to bed. As for me, I wasn’t sleepy. I went into the corner where I’ve been writing the whole time since we arrived. I lit a candle, because there was no more fuel in the hurricane lamp.

I started remembering the Okonongo Affair.

The Okonongo Affair

According to foreign observers, it is unlikely that Pointe-Rouge should be sharing the experiences of Mapapouville, where everything began after the Okonongo Affair.

When I was in Batalébé I heard several versions of the story, including some that were truly unbelievable; I could have filled any number of notebooks in recounting them and cross-checking them so as to separate the wheat from the chaff. So where’s the truth in all of it? Which version should be trusted, since a new one pops up every day?

Depending on whether you come from one district or another, your interpretation of the facts can reflect reality or diverge from it. We had always kept our cool, my daughter and I.

I remember a visit I made to Christiane, just after the Okonongo events. Gaston had not yet been interned and was at work. I took the opportunity to have my hair braided, though it was only two weeks since the last time I’d had it done.

On that day Christiane had predicted that the Okonongo Affair would end up spreading to the South of the country. I didn’t believe her, perhaps out of ignorance or because I misunderstood what was at stake. I said to her that it was nothing but a quarrel between two men in power, both northerners. How could a conflict between two sister tribes of the North affect the South? Christiane stepped back abruptly, interrupting her braiding. After a moment of silence, she sat down in a woven chair in front of me. In a calm voice, she began:

“Hortense, when you learn who was confronting who in the North, your view of the facts of Okonongo will change.”

She narrated the affair to me with such precision that I thought she must have lived through the events herself.

“I agree with you that it concerned two northerners,” she went on. “You shouldn’t forget that the North of Vietongo is the native region of General Edou. At the time the affair began, he was merely a former president who’d lost the elections and now had come back from a long exile in France. But the general was not a man for defeat. His ambition was to oust his successor, His Excellency Lebou Kabouya. Everyone knew he could do this only by force of arms, since the people had already thanked him for his service five years before! So then, to put the current regime’s back up, he undertook a pilgrimage to the North of the country. As you’re aware, he was received as a savior, the man that was needed. Old people knelt down before him. He was given gifts. Women wept and threw their arms around him. Men promised their support if only he should ask. He was carried for miles on a raffia armchair, a traditional honor strictly reserved for our customary chiefs.

“Just to be completely clear, Hortense: General Edou in fact wanted to humiliate Ossouki Wapi, the Minister of the Interior, a northerner who had dared to join the government of His Excellency Lebou Kabouya. How could he have offered his services to a president from the South? It was plain to see that on his pilgrimage the general had wanted above all to pass through Okonongo, the native district of this minister labeled a traitor. What better place to humiliate him than his own village, before his ancestors? It was also a way of silencing his tribe. I really don’t think you appreciate the impact of the general’s visit to that village!”

I didn’t say anything.

She looked around, as if she was worried someone might hear us. In a confidential tone she went on.

“So on that day in the North, a sizeable delegation accompanied General Edou toward the backwater that is Okonongo. The general’s militia, the famous Romans, invaded the area. The local population had thought they were getting a visit from their only political luminary, the Minister of the Interior. Then they realized it was the general, a man from the neighboring tribe, the stuck-up ones. Opinions were mixed when it came to this unexpected appearance. Some saw it as the general wishing to make peace with his brothers of the North. Others, more clear-sighted, called it a provocation. They were going to be embarrassed for all to see, especially once they saw the general being carried into Okonongo on his armchair, accompanied by a jubilant crowd.”

“You’d think the general was in some way expected in that region!” I put in.

“Moving the story along, you could put it like that, since the general’s failure in the elections five years earlier had mortified the northerners, who up till then had gotten used to running the entire country themselves. Trust me, in that respect the Okonongo district was simmering as never before! Cries of joy mingled with insults flung at the visitor. The Romans had their work cut out. The mood was more and more strained between the groups that tried to draw near to the general and the Romans pushing them back onto the grass verge along the road. The procession inched its way through the dense, noisy crowd. No one had imagined the district could produce so many men, women, children. What was certain was that people from the neighboring towns had come in.”

“But the Voice of the Vietongolese Revolution said that the general was legitimately defending himself and that all he did was respond to an attack by supporters of the minister!”

“Those are lies! Nothing but lies! In fact things didn’t happen the way they were explained on the national radio station, which is controlled by the general. The analysis on Radio-Intercontinentale is the most accurate, but to pick up that station during the events you had to have a radio with a dish antenna like the one we have, which Gaston got while he was working as a customs officer in Pointe-Rouge. The reality is that at the moment the general’s procession began to leave the Okonongo district, bursts of gunfire were heard. The local people panicked, while the general and a handful of his Romans in his jeep roared away in a cloud of dust. Other Romans, who had stayed behind to oversee the departure of the procession, entered the center of Okonongo, submachine guns in hand. There were certainly clashes between the general’s supporters and locals loyal to the minister. But the provocation definitely came from the Romans themselves, who imagined arrogantly that they were already in power. Over a hundred died! Don’t believe the figures provided by the Voice of the Vietongolese Revolution, which, as was to be expected, downplayed the number of casualties. The Romans had demonstrated the effectiveness of their weapons and their desire to return to power.

“Like you, many people took the confrontation as an unremarkable settling of accounts between two northern tribes, as you repeated a moment ago. Yet the Okonongo Affair was all of a sudden exported to Mapapouville, and it triggered the events there.”

“As for that,” I put in, “the Voice of the Vietongolese Revolution reports that the carnage in Okonongo had nothing to do with the conflict in Mapapouville!”

“And how! If you only listen to commentary from Mapapouville, your view will be a caricature of the facts. We know now that after what happened in Okonongo, General Edou barely made it back to Mapapouville with his men, and that the Minister of the Interior quickly went on the radio to announce that his uncle and his mother had perished in the massacre. Those responsible for such a bloodbath could not go unpunished, he had explained to President Lebou Kabouya. Pursuing the culprits, bringing them to justice: those were the official motives that would trigger the hostilities. President Lebou Kabouya soon issued an arrest warrant for a certain number of people whose names had been mentioned by witnesses to the clashes. The witnesses were certain: the aggressors had been officers, General Edou’s trusted men—his Praetorian Guard. In a word, the Romans.

“How do you think those in power might have reacted, eh? So then, in broad daylight, watched by a terror-stricken population, a unit of elite marksmen, a tank, and four jeeps filled with soldiers were dispatched toward the northern sector of Mapapouville with the aim of apprehending the alleged culprits of Okonongo, who, it was said, had taken refuge in the general’s residence! The latter learned about the expedition well in advance, thanks to his network of informers. These had provided details of the plans for the operation and when the government militiamen, the Anacondas, would arrive. Which meant that the Romans were already lying in ambush at strategic points in the neighborhood and that the Anacondas were venturing into the lion’s jaws. Everyone knows the general’s mansion: a huge building towering over other houses in the vicinity. It’s a veritable marble château, with a swimming pool, a gigantic fountain, and well-tended grounds. From there the general can oversee a good part of the city. As it happens, by night he likes to gaze at the string of lights that begins at the Centenaire Bridge, zigzags toward the shanty town of Loumfui, then disappears behind the Central Mapapouville Cemetery. There are rumors, which I believe, that underneath his house he built a soccer field, a tennis court, and a screening room. In a word, an entire neighborhood unto itself.

“But wait till you hear what’s next, Hortense: the Mapapouville that you knew would become a battlefield after the Okonongo Affair. The rumble of tanks and armored cars, the sound of gunfire, the explosions of grenades transformed the capital into a city experiencing an endless eclipse. The inhabitants felt as if night had fallen. Men from the two factions moved about, heads down, guns trained ahead so as to unsettle the adversary. Then gunfire would ring out right at that moment. The Romans, well disciplined, protected by bulletproof vests, emerged left, right, and center, dropped from the trees and descended from rooftops, pincering the Anacondas, who had no recourse but to fall back. Yet behind them more Romans opened fire and tossed grenades. The local residents barricaded themselves in their houses, their windows shattering from the explosions. Shots went back and forth without respite.

“Little by little, things quietened down in front of General Edou’s residence. This was an encouraging sign for the putschists. It meant that the Anacondas had bolted, or were all dead. The Romans outdid one another shooting in the air, their way of celebrating the victory they’d just won.”

“But the general and President Lebou Kabouya could just have discussed things and avoided aggravating the situation!”

“That was impossible. They’re two strong personalities whose rivalry reaches back into the depths of time. Their respective ancestors were already tearing each other apart over matters of land and chiefdoms. Plus, what do you think would happen to the general’s pride? To His Excellence Lebou Kabouya’s pretentions to being the first intellectual leader of the country?

“From then on, Mapapouville was divided in two. In the north part of the city, the general and his Romans waited for attacks by those in power but also made serious plans to lay siege to the capital. In the south, His Excellency and the Anacondas dreamed up all kinds of stratagems with a view to disarming their adversary, capturing the wrongdoers, and putting the general on trial for his involvement in the killings. The government increased tenfold the number of soldiers and southern militiamen around the presidential palace, in front of official buildings, and at the homes of leading politicians. The regular army was no longer capable of entering the northern neighborhoods, which had become a proper no man’s land protected on all sides by the Romans. Young people were recruited by both camps. Once enlisted and thoroughly brainwashed, they were assigned to the private militias and pledged themselves in the name of God and country. They swore an oath never to retreat in the face of the enemy, and to join the front lines in the fight to conquer the other half of Mapapouville.”

“Where was Vercingetorix in all this?”

Christiane paused, her expression blank, as if to gather her thoughts.

“He didn’t enter the dance till much later. At the beginning he played the neutrality card, even if he was His Excellency’s prime minister. Later, as the situation worsened, he ordered his Negro Grandsons to join forces with the Anacondas. After all, this was an alliance of southerners! What do you imagine? In the two camps, each of them maintained his own preserve. Intimidation campaigns multiplied in the night, with explosions in the air coming above all from the side of the general, who used weaponry as a powerful deterrent. Though the Romans weren’t going to cave because of simple scare tactics. The proof? A week after the affair, at a point when both sides had so far contented themselves with trying to stare each other down, the Romans opened hostilities, taking advantage of a dark, rain-lashed night to launch a large-scale offensive around three in the morning, in a region in the southern part of the capital. Exchanges of fire shook the city—it was as if a dormant volcano had come to life and was making up in a single day for a century of sleep. The inhabitants felt like Mapapouville had been turned upside down, shaken, ground up by an immense monster who spat inextinguishable fire from its gaping mouth. That night the fighting intensified around the airport. The Anacondas and the Negro Grandsons were able to contain the Romans’ attacks, but they wouldn’t be able to hold out for very long. Huge numbers of reinforcements arrived from the north part of the capital on the general’s side. The Anacondas and the Negro Grandsons came under fire from multiple directions. The townspeople kept watch to the sound of heavy submachine gun fire and the flashes of rockets that rent the darkness then faded toward the Vietongo River. The Romans had decided to push back the government forces as far from the downtown neighborhood as possible and to gradually cut into their territory. Their objective was precise: to extend their occupation zone and control Mapapouville International Airport. They succeeded: the attack was crowned for the general and his men by the capture of the television and radio stations, which were located in the same area. That was how the Okonongo Affair inflamed the country and led to the fall of President Lebou Kabouya! We know the rest: General Edou became master of Mapapouville and the whole of the North of the country. In the southern part of the city, the Negro Grandsons refuse to this day to recognize the general’s authority. A general exodus of the government marked the end of five years in power for President Lebou Kabouya, who waited in vain for help from the international community and above all from other countries of this continent! I’m sure you know the story about how, only hours before he fled, President Lebou Kabouya asked his people: ‘What became of Vercingetorix, who was supposed to give our troops the magic potion?’”

“They told him that the former prime minister was en route for the district of Batalébé with a contingent of his Negro Grandsons!”

“After this reply, His Excellency realized it was all over. The last group of those loyal to him crossed the river by night and gained the neighboring country. It’s also said that His Excellency wept as he joined one of those crossings, under a hail of gunfire.

“The next day, without any further fighting, the general took possession of the presidential palace. The Vietongolese watched the fall of the southerners on television. The private residence of President Lebou Kabouya was razed to the ground. The Romans celebrated, firing in the air and dancing on the magnificent tables in the palace. Official photographs of His Excellency were peppered with bullets or were caricatured in southern blood, then replaced with pictures of the general.”

Confusion in Mapapouville

I hadn’t realized how well informed Christiane was about our current political situation. The day she spoke about the Okonongo Affair, I came to believe that Gaston must have been receiving up-to-date news from Mapapouville. The previous evening he must have spoken with his wife, explained recent developments to her. I envied that marital harmony, which contrasted with my own. In our household we never spoke a word about politics, though Kimbembé had become involved in this new activity.

To tell the truth, we no longer knew what had been happening in Mapapouville since the Okonongo Affair and the flight of the southern president. All was confusion. Like other Vietongolese, we were no longer able to pick up foreign radio stations. The national radio told us nothing new. It restricted itself to repeating over and over the official version and offering a one-sided analysis. In Batalébé it was thought that the new authorities in Mapapouville were jamming the frequencies of overseas radio stations. We knew that those now in power were no longer at ease, since they had decreed that listening to foreign radio stations constituted a serious offense against Vietongolese sovereignty. General Edou personally announced that offenders would be labeled “local lackeys of the imperialists” and punished as such. They would receive a visit from the Romans. During their three-month detention, aside from being subjected to the most humiliating abuse, the “local lackeys of the imperialists” would copy out our new national anthem seventy-seven times, seven times a day. That was why Kimbembé made sure our radio was permanently switched off—it was a way of ignoring the authorities. The order handed down by Vercingetorix was not to listen to the prevarications of those in power, since they threatened to weaken the rebels’ morale. This wasn’t an empty argument: listening to the national airwaves, you’d think the Romans had reached the Moukoukoulou Dam and were gearing up for the final push. “Confrontations can be won through public relations alone,” Vercingetorix proclaimed to his Negro Grandsons. So above all it was vital not to listen to what was said on the Voice of the Vietongolese Revolution.

Yet I wished to have for myself an overall picture of national events. To know how the ideology of those in power had been propagated around the country. I would wait till my husband’s back was turned, then tune in to one of the two Vietongolese stations. I’d lower the volume to the point that I had to hold the radio to one ear, the other listening out to make sure Kimbembé wasn’t back.

When I ventured to ask him one day why he forbade us to listen to the national radio, he answered peremptorily that the president who had just taken power and the national authorities were destroying the integrity of Vietongo. They had no legitimacy, not having been elected by the people.

“Unless of course you’re interested in hearing your brothers from the North, who have just seized power from us in such a shameful fashion.”