Tomorrow I'll Be Twenty (10 page)

So what? As far as I see, everyone's someone's boy. Even Uncle René's someone's boy because there's always someone higher up who says, ‘Do this, don't do that.' The only person who's not someone's boy is the President of our Republic. And even then I'm not sure because our President isn't as powerful as the presidents of countries like the United States of America, the USSR or France. Put him in front of presidents like that, and our President curls up small, like he's their boy, suddenly he's the receptionist and they call all the shots. When the Americans, the Russians and the French speak, our President looks down at the floor, too, and answers ‘at your service, boss!' And if our President refuses, if he's stubborn and disrespectful towards the Americans, the Russians and the French, they can bombard our country in a single day, blast us off the map of the world or give our land, our oil, our river, our Atlantic ocean to Zaire, who would be only too happy to accept.

So Uncle René's the receptionist at the Hotel Victory Palace. What's wrong with that? Jobs are like hoops. You have to jump through them. I don't know where I heard that – I think it's what Monsieur Mutombo says when parents come and shout at him in his workshop because he's late with the school uniforms because he's always going on about Algeria. They insult him, tell him he's rubbish, and that's when he says jobs are like hoops. You have to jump through them. Everyone laughs then, because he's talking about people jumping through hoops when he's got a limp.

In fact my uncle doesn't realise that Papa Roger is a very intelligent man, who knows what's going on all over the world. He stayed at school right up to his Certificate of Primary Studies, which is like having a diploma that lets you go to a
French university and study with the Whites. Also, Papa Roger always reads the newspapers he finds at work. The Whites leave them at reception when they've finished reading them over their coffee. They also leave books. My father takes them and brings them home and says to us, ‘Don't you touch my books, now, I'll read them when I'm retired.'

Caroline walks past our house. My heart starts pounding. I'm happy, I leave the house, I run towards her. I'm out of breath, as though I'd been running for an hour and she doesn't wait for me to get my breath back.

‘Why are you running like that? I haven't come to see you!'

‘But you're here, outside our house, and I thought…'

‘You thought what? Am I not allowed to walk past your house then? The Avenue of Independence is open to everyone, you know!'

She makes out she's going to the market, but I don't believe her. You don't set out to market like that. She hasn't got a basket with her. What's she going to put her shopping in?

I tell her to come on inside with me.

‘Come on, my parents are out. We'll be alone in the house and…'

‘No, I don't want to!'

I look her up and down. She's got nice new red shoes on. I like her white dress with yellow flowers.

‘That's a lovely dress…'

‘Don't you try smooth talking me! You leave my dress out of this, I'm not wearing it for you! You think I'd put on a dress for you?'

‘Listen, stop talking like that and come inside with me.'

‘What for? It's all over between you and me!'

‘I want to show you something. You'll see, it's really amazing and…'

‘No. There's nothing amazing in your house!'

She looks at me as though she doesn't know me, as if I was her enemy.

‘So you're still cross with me?'

‘Yes I am. We're not married any more, we're divorced! I'm never having two children, a white dog and a red five-seater car with you!'

‘Why not?'

‘'Cause I'm marrying someone else.'

‘Oh, right, I see. And would it by any chance be a boy called Mabélé you're thinking of marrying?'

She's astonished. ‘You're not meant to know that! Anyway, who told you his name?'

‘Lounès…'

‘He's not meant to tell you his name! I was meant to tell you myself, today, not him!'

‘So you did come to see me…'

‘No, I'm going to the market!'

Deep down inside, I think: ‘I have to calm her down and calm myself down too. If we both get angry we'll end up getting divorced for real. And she's angrier than I am, so I'd better stay calm.'

‘I don't want us to get divorced, Caroline…'

‘Well you're just a horrible little boy, so that's too bad!'

‘I know, but I was a bit cross because you did my mother's braids and that's why she went out that Sunday, but it's over now, I'm not angry now…'

‘It's too late! I've already promised Mabélé he can be my husband and buy me the red five-seater car.'

Now that really got me. That damn Mabélé really annoys me. I go on the attack.

‘I'm going to tell my uncle not to sell you that car! He won't let you have it, he's my uncle and he's the only person who sells cars in this town!'

‘If you tell your uncle that I won't braid your mother's hair, and she'll be ugly then, like Jérémie's mother!'

She looks me straight in the eye to see if I'm worried about her not doing Maman Pauline's hair any more. But I'm actually quite pleased. Suits me fine, at least if my mother's hair isn't braided she'll stop going out and I can stay with her on Sundays.

But Caroline's realised what I'm thinking and she adds: ‘And besides, if you tell your uncle not to sell us the red five-seater car, I'll never speak to you again, ever again, and we'll go and order our car somewhere else and you and I will be deadly enemies! And if I see you in the street I'll spit on the ground!'

She fumbles in the pocket of her dress and takes out a piece of paper, which she unfolds and passes to me. It's a page torn out of the
Redoute
catalogue. There's a photo of a girl and a boy in front of a red five-seater car. They're about our age, but white. The girl has a white dress and a red hat and shoes. The boys are all dressed in black with a white shirt and a bow tie. They look like they've just got married and the photographer's just said: stand over there and I'll take your picture.

I look at the picture again, close up. Caroline's guessed what I'm looking for. ‘The white dog's not in the picture. He's at home with their two children.'

That makes me want to laugh because I've already looked through
La Redoute
at Monsieur Mutombo's workshop. He copies the European clothes out of it. The customers choose their
style in the catalogue, then Monsieur Mutombo tells them if it's possible to make it, how much it will cost and how long it will take. Now I know they don't sell cars at
La Redoute
. But I don't want to annoy Caroline, I want to carry on talking to her because I love her. Because I want to have two children with her. So I need to find a good reason why she should leave this Mabélé.

‘Lounès said Mabélé's ugly, he's not even as good looking as me! Your children are going to be ugly like Mabélé, if you had them with me they'd be attractive.'

‘That's not true! Mabélé is intelligent and he's two years older than us!'

‘Yeah, and what else has he got that I haven't?'

‘He's read lots of books.'

‘Oh yeah? Which books has he read then?'

‘Marcel Pagnol.'

‘Who's Marcel Pagnol?'

‘See, you don't even know! He writes books about his mother and his father and their four castles. And Mabélé says he's going to buy me a beautiful castle like the one in the books by Marcel Pagnol.'

‘Can't you tell he's lying? A book about castles, that's a book for capitalists who exploit the proletariat!'

‘Well then, while you're busy slagging off Mabélé and Marcel Pagnol, what have you read?'

I don't answer. I try to think of the books we've read in class, but they're just little extracts in the primer we have, and in the book by the President of our Republic. If I mention the book by the President of the Republic, Caroline's going to laugh at me. So I think hard about the reading book we have in class, with its extracts, and I say: ‘I've read the fables of La Fontaine!'

‘Yes, but it's the animals that talk in those stories, I've recited
those in class too. Marcel Pagnol has real people, who live in real castles!'

I think about Papa Roger's books in the bedroom. I've never looked inside them, they're still waiting for when my father retires. I don't even know a single title.

‘And anyway, Mabélé writes me poems every day, in his poems I have bright blue eyes and really long blond hair like the dolls little girls have in Europe. You never wrote me any poems. You didn't love me! You're a bad husband, now stop answering back, I'm going now, yes I am, I'm off!'

And she walks away and I shout, ‘Come back, come back Caroline!'

She can't hear me. She's already gone. She's not going to the market, she's going home. So she did come to see me. No other reason, I say to myself.

My father's shouting, ‘No! It can't be true! It's unbelievable! They can't do this to me! What have I done to deserve it?'

Maman Pauline, who was outside, comes running back into the house. Her wrap's almost slipped off her waist and she snatches at it hastily.

‘What is it, Roger?'

‘They've overthrown the Shah of Iran!'

My mother shouts angrily, ‘Is there really nothing else to listen to on the radio? Besides, he's not even one of ours! That radio's going to drive you nuts!'

My father fiddles with the aerial as though he's not sure the information he's just heard can be true. Sometimes the sound cuts out; Papa Roger moves about, stands by the window, as though the news comes into the house that way, and if we close the window there'll be no more radio. He tries each corner of the dining room and I follow him like a shadow.

Whenever the radio starts crackling, I realise how far America is from our little country. But then I realise Radio Congo crackles too, and it makes me want to say to my father, ‘Let's sit down again, we'll hear better that way, if we sit at the table, like we do when we're eating our meat and beans.'

Papa Roger's standing by the window and I'm behind him. He turns round, and bends down, so the radio's just level with my ears. The American, Roger Guy Folly, is talking about Iran.
He explains where it is, what language they speak, a language we don't speak here. I hear names I can't pronounce, and places I've never heard of. Papa Roger tells us again that Iran is far far away, in Western Asia, and the capital's called Teheran. And when I ask him if the Iranians have the same money as us, he says no.

‘So how do they buy food at the market if they don't have our money?' my mother asks.

‘With their own money.'

I think there must be another reason why Iran doesn't want to use our money – because the Iranians don't want to have to look at our President's head on every one of our notes and coins. In Iran they have a revolutionary leader, like us, and it must be
his
head on the notes and coins. They are our brothers because we have a revolutionary leader, like them. All leaders are brothers, so we must help this brother of ours.

Looking at my mother, Papa Roger tells us that the shah who's been overthrown isn't an animal, he's a man, even if in our folk stories the animals are like kings, ruling the earth, and men must respect them, and tip their hats when they walk by.

‘The shah's a man, ok, an important man, but the new top leader in Iran is another Iranian, the Ayatollah Khomeyni. There's ingratitude for you! He's been totally straight with Ayatollah Khomeyni, he even pardoned him when he was out to undermine the revolution which was there to give women the vote! What's going to happen there now, eh? Now Khomeyni's trying to get hold of the great man, and fling him in prison. What sort of a world do we live in?'

Papa Roger looks at us, and shrugs, because he knows our sadness is not the same as his sadness. It's the first time we've ever heard of the Shah and Ayatollah Khomeyni.

When Maman Pauline asks us to sit down at table, my father comes away from the window, looking disappointed. He goes outside, and takes the radio with him. My mother signals at me not to follow him.

‘You sit down, let him get on with his Iranians, we'll eat.'

From where I am I can see my father sitting under the mango tree, his hands on his head and the radio cassette player on the ground. From a distance we hear the words of ‘Sitting by my tree'. And when the singer gets to the bit about ‘alter ego' and ‘saligaud', I stop eating and think to myself, ‘my father's thinking about his own
alter ego
's problems with its
saligauds
'.

My parents are arguing on the other side of the wall between their room and mine.

I hear my mother say, ‘It's not fair! If God wanted me only to have one child, why couldn't he at least give me a daughter instead of a son? Look at the Mutombos, they're lucky: they've got Lounès and Caroline, a boy and a girl!'

She starts to cry, and when she cries it's as though her tears were coming from my eyes, not hers. And I think too: It's not fair that Maman Pauline had a boy instead of a girl. And it makes me want to dress up as a girl, talk like a girl, walk like a girl, pee like a girl. Perhaps then my mother will only be half as unhappy. It's not easy to copy what girls do and hide the fact that you're a boy. People will just say, ‘You're not a girl, you're a boy disguised as a girl.' And they'll throw stones at you in the street like a mangy dog. And they'll say, ‘If you think you're a girl, what did you do about that thing between your legs, did you change that into a girl's thing too?'