To Leave Batalébé at Any Cost
To go. Leave Batalébé. From then on this thought obsessed me. I was permanently prey to anxiety. I felt I was suffocating, dying by inches in this godforsaken place that had turned into a trap for northerners. The sky was hatching a tragedy whose fatal day was unknown to me. Christiane’s warnings were well founded. She asked me what I intended to do. She kept urging me to run away with my daughter. I procrastinated.
And then the idea came home to me. Yes, I had to leave. We had to leave. How? In which direction? At what moment? I had to speak about it with Christiane as soon as possible. Preferably when Kimbembé would not be around.
The opportunity had presented itself. It remained only for me to pay a last visit to Christiane. To talk it over with her.
It was a farewell visit. She knew it. True, she didn’t talk long, but deep down she knew that I was reading her thoughts about life in Pointe-Rouge, Gaston’s abduction.
I listened to her. I didn’t interrupt. My decision had already been made. I was going to take the plunge, brave the anger of the Negro Grandsons of Vercingetorix. At that moment I wasn’t thinking about the distance we had to cover. I saw it as a straight line leading from the South of the country to the North. I was a long way from reality. I had to rely on the wisdom of Christiane, who I regarded as a sister. She showed me the route to take, the safest way to make it here, to Louboulou, before continuing on toward Pointe-Rouge.
Oweto Blues
As we fled Batalébé in the early morning, it was above all my birthplace, Oweto, that I was picturing. The figures of my parents rose up before me in my phantasmagorical confusion. Are they aware of our present situation? I don’t believe so. They’ll be surprised to see us appear in the North one day. We’ll arrive by the main road that cuts the district in two. Our clothes will be in rags, barely covering our bodies. I’m convinced that we’ll arrive in the late afternoon or evening. The entire district will applaud. We’ll become local heroes, symbols of resistance, of liberty. A party will be organized for the occasion. Speeches will be made. Chief Bayo will clear his throat. I can imagine more or less what he’ll say:
Dear brothers, dear sisters, we see before us proof of courage, of endurance, and of independence. Hortense is back among us, with her daughter, both safe and sound, after a long odyssey that few among us could have undertaken in the same conditions. Some years ago, we believed in a certain idea of national unity when we agreed to a man from the South marrying our child. We were mistaken. Southerners are all alike: small-minded, deceitful, hypocritical, through and through. I’m tempted to say that it’s impossible to imagine a hen living with a cockroach. As representative of the state in this district, I will henceforth be vigilant and apply to the letter the orders that come from Mapapouville. Already I rejoice that the few southerners who live in this region have been delivered into the hands of the Romans. For the rest, we know what we have to do: facilitate General Edou’s task and safeguard the power of the northerners, for we were born to govern this country.
In the bush, as I walked, our bundle of possessions on my head, I imagined my mother getting deeper and deeper wrinkles since the events. Getting away from Batalébé was already a victory. The farther we went, the lighter we felt, freed of that sword of Damocles hanging over our heads. And walking, though heavy going, no longer discouraged us. My father’s words kept coming back to me: “Kimbembé’s a good man, like us northerners. But will he be able to stay that way among those who aren’t?”