* * *
I’d had to push for Original Colour to explain how she’d ended up on her own in Paris instead of living in Nancy. She had fallen out with her father — and so, on the rebound, with her mother too — on account of a marriage deal that her parents had struck with Doyen Methuselah, our former Finance Minister back in the home country, the one who had emptied the state coffers when he realised that the regime in which he was a senior minister wouldn’t survive the second civil war, because the new strong man in the country had the support of France as well as more tanks, missiles, helicopters and rockets than the regular army. And so Doyen Methuselah had fled in great haste across the Congo River together with the ex-president, before catching a plane to Belgium, then France where he was accorded the status of a political exile. The minister liked to proclaim it from the Paris rooftops that he could feed every member of the Congolese opposition living in France, including those in Corsica and Monaco, for a hundred and fifty years. The Congolese in France would visit him at his private mansion in the 8th arrondissement and leave clutching big fat envelopes stuffed with notes. His fortune was estimated to equal the entire debt of our country. So all he had to do was give back to the people what he had stolen and then our nation could stop snivelling at the summits of rich countries about getting our debt cancelled. But Doyen Methuselah led the high life in France. He threw private parties in grand palaces where, in the middle of the night, he would have his wicked way with young Congolese girls barely out of puberty. Doyen Methuselah was very close to Original Colour’s father, who had defended him in a trial about embezzling public monies that had made a lot of noise in France a while back, and he had set his heart on the daughter of his former lawyer and his friend. He wanted to marry her despite the thirty-eight years that separated them. This would have tied things up nicely for the lawyer from Nancy who was hoping to benefit from the financial support of Doyen Methuselah so as to strengthen his political party while waiting for the green light from the Yankees.
Original Colour wanted to turn the page. So I didn’t ask her any more questions on the subject. She talked to me instead about one of her childhood friends, Rachel Kouamé, who had left Nancy for Paris ahead of her. They had been inseparable from elementary school all the way through to lycée. The day before Original Colour, in accordance with her father’s wishes, was supposed to marry Doyen Methuselah she packed her bags for Paris and went to knock on the door of her childhood friend …
* * *
Looking back on it, I think it must have been Rachel Kouamé who had spoilt her. The Ivorian girl was a bit older than Original Colour and rented a studio on Rue Dejean, in the heart of Château Rouge market where she sold saltfish, having abandoned her chaotic studies in accountancy. The two girls were now working together. They bought their saltfish from a Chinese wholesaler in Rue de Panama and sold it piecemeal, on the ground, at the fringes of the market between police raids. But their business demanded patience without turning in much of a profit. Plus their stall had to be very portable, with the result that it was often just a box so they could pack it away again and take to their heels at the first sound of a police car.
Original Colour observed the Château Rouge community and how it lived. After a few months, she came to the conclusion that we Africans spent astronomical sums on whitening our skin. That we would rather die of hunger than put up with dark skin.
One evening, when their business had been struggling for some time, she suggested to Rachel that they try their hand at selling de-negrifying products:
“We can sell this stuff, I know where to buy Ambi rouge and Diprosone at heavily discounted prices. This trade is like being an undertaker: undertakers are never out of work because people are condemned to die. Well, it’s the same with us Blacks: we’ll never give up trying to lighten our skin as long as we’re convinced that the curse hanging over us is simply a matter of colour …”
* * *
Unlike Original Colour, Rachel wasn’t cut out to be a businesswoman. She bullied her customers and chased after the latest Paris fashions, which she would flaunt in the nightclubs of Abidjan during the Christmas holidays. A chronic big-spender, she squandered their joint savings. Without warning her friend, Rachel would go off to the Champs-Elysées or Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré on shopping sprees, returning with bulging bags of clothes and luxury shoes. She couldn’t wear it all, so she sold on clothes and shoes from past seasons to her friends in Abidjan. She knew all about a taste for luxury. She bought her jewellery at Cartier on Place Vendôme, and wanted to wear the same perfume as Cathérine Deneuve, Juliette Binoche and Vanessa Paradis. She was finding it harder and harder to justify her spending when Original Colour demanded they do their accounts and look into expanding their small business to reach other Blacks from further afield than Château Rouge and Château d’Eau. Their arguments became more frequent, and at one point the two friends and business associates didn’t speak for a week. Each cooked for herself in a corner of the room, without bothering about the other. Original Colour swallowed her pride and tried to strike up a conversation, but she could barely get a word out of Rachel. In the end, Original Colour was made to feel that she was to blame for her business partner’s mismanagement. They lost the goodwill of their suppliers who refused to deliver on credit. It was cash only from now on. But the coffers were empty …
Relations were already tense between the two girls, and they deteriorated further when Rachel imposed a man on the household. Like her he was from the Ivory Coast, and he had the muscles of a fisherman of the open sea. But it turned out he was a shrewd gigolo who became lethally violent when drunk, smashing the crockery, and threatening to set the entire building on fire. This lout moved into Rachel’s place where he considered himself master of the premises. When he returned from his trips out and about, his food had to be ready with Rachel at home to serve it to him and massage his feet. Then he would collapse on the sofa-bed in front of the television, legs splayed. He would watch the football on Canal Plus, or else the pornographic film broadcast by the same channel on the first Saturday of every month. Unable to put up with this any more, Original Colour gave him a piece of her mind one evening when Rachel was there.
The Ivorian was quick to put her down:
“Since when a woman does have the right to speak, you’d think a man like that, eh? Is a woman same on a man? Who you are taking you for, isn’t it? Are you even coming up to my ankles? Is your small French you talk bad going to push me out? Have seen your big fat bumper moving in the crowd like a black snake in a Camara Laye story cutted in half? If you don’t agree, get out our house! I spit on your race! You are not here at home, you bloody Congolese girl from Bacongo …!”