Who are you?
You—who knocks at my door
On those dark moonless nights
That thrust through my sleep
And drain my blood
—In the morning—
My mind shatters into fragments
And all I want is to run, run, run
To the end of the road
The savannah’s aflame
Bush fires are cursed
The city’s dried of breath
By unrelenting harmattan
This being the season of
Desire
I searched for such a long time. At the beginning, an image: an ebony‐warrior coming from Azania. Then it was like a three‐way mirror reflecting my past, present and future.
I searched for you everywhere: in my books, at the cinema, within my weaknesses, under the fine folds of my smile.
Then, I lost faith. From one hurt to the next I kept running into loneliness and I said to myself, ‘I will have a child on my own.’
At last, you surprised me from amid a crowd.
From the silence of my heart I hear you breathe. Days are short and nights warm. Good fortune smiles upon me. You would think I had done her a favour.
Life unfurls like a red carpet and I frolic and dance, make faces at bad oracles, stick my tongue out at sceptics and dismiss the unbelievers.
My hours are drawn in arabesques, hyperbole and curves. My body fills with abundant joy.
I raise my arms to the sky and thank the gods for making me so fertile. I have given birth to hope.
You changed my city. Painted her in a rainbow. I no longer recognise street names. Trees fleet by. The neighbourhoods are all different from each other, Yopougon, Cocody, Plateau, Macory. I charge at full speed down the secondary roads off the highway. Your plane leaves at five o’clock. We will get there on time.
You fly to another place. Home, to a big city of stone.
You leave as one does. One always leaves. But you do not know if you will ever return. And it is always the same question that is repeated over and over again. ‘I am leaving, I am leaving, will I ever return?’
I am leaving you today. Yesterday, I had already left you.
The grip tightens again and the circle shrinks. I feel unable to move any more.
Could it be your love that drains so much energy? This love which possesses me and makes me sever links? Come and join you … Leave with you … Is this not dying a little? Dying a fake death. Not the real death, but the sort that severs you from everything and covers the earth with a veil of solitude.
It is absence that really kills me. That is what will finally be the death of me. I tell you, it will kill me. I should be used to it by now, but each day it grabs me by the neck, holds a knife against my throat and drains all my strength.
It is always others who die. They leave you there in the middle of life and you have no idea whether you dreamt it or whether time still exists. Absence makes me wary. A kind of interminable waiting suspended in the clouds.
And it is always the same thing. Each day that dawns wears an ashen face, and each night that falls wears bloodshot eyes.
The fighter acknowledges his adversary. He will be his own opponent. Fear is what he must overcome. He never bows his head. He never allows anyone to kneel before him.
His humility is not the kind you find in beggars though. The leper licks the ground. The fighter has a proud heart. These are not my words. I read them somewhere.