Having Louzolo in the studio made us change our habits. We didn’t sleep well any more because when she took her shower or slept on her front, half-naked, with her legs slightly apart, all we could think about was our thing down there. There were even those among us who went as far as sniffing her knickers, especially Lokassa aka “Centre Forward” who boasted about having a thing down there that was bigger than all the rest of ours put together. We got bored of him in the end because I couldn’t see how he did the business if he spent the whole time revealing his battle secrets, and making out he could draw faster than Lucky Luke and his shadow. Each time he laid it on thick about his performance and his exceptionally long thing down there, it reminded me of that clever man who once said a tiger does not proclaim his tigritude, he pounces on his prey and devours it. Centre Forward didn’t know about this because IQ wasn’t his speciality. You could see him laying his traps from a mile off. He would come home earlier than the rest of us just to be alone with Louzolo and wait for her to cave in.
“I will succeed,” he warned us, “because each time I look at that girl my thing down there rises up all by itself without my brain blowing the whistle! I know what I’m like, and it’s a sign that never lets me down. When I see a girl and I get a hard-on, it means she’ll end up in my arms. And another thing, between you and me, boys, she’s been here ten days already, so she’ll reach the point where she’s gagging for it. She’s not going to let her low countries down there freeze in the middle of winter. Central heating is all well and good, but natural warmth is better!”
Centre Forward waited for the girl to fall into his arms, but the moment never came. He became aggressive, and threatened not to contribute to the water and electricity bills any more. He used to sulk in the evenings and reckoned I was the one who was thwarting his plans, that I was pulling underhand tricks outside our studio, in the cat-houses on Rue des Petites Écuries.
But it was a guy from outside, a Central African with red eyes who finally won the game. He met Louzolo at the Marché Dejean and she bid us farewell one evening, to the great disappointment of Centre Forward who had at least succeeded in stealing a pair of the girl’s knickers …
I also told Original Colour the names of my roommates at the time. Lokassa aka Centre Forward worked on building sites. He didn’t have any papers and was using the identity card of Sylvio, a French Caribbean guy who I ran into sometimes at Jip’s. The trouble was that Centre Forward couldn’t receive his salary directly. It was paid into Sylvio’s bank account, and so the two men had to meet up at the end of every month outside Métro Château d’Eau. Sylvio would draw the money out from his bank and hand it over to Centre Forward, after taking ten per cent commission for the use of his identity card.
Serge was a section supervisor in a branch of Leclerc in the banlieue. Thanks to him we ate decent meat and didn’t have to buy light bulbs or toilet paper for our studio. He’d struck a deal with the security guys at his supermarket and could take whatever goods he liked.
Euloge was a security guard at the Bercy 2 Shopping Centre. In his spare time he played the guitar in an orchestra with folks from the big Congo. We didn’t like it when he smoked his joints in the toilet. The smell hung around for weeks.
Moungali was a packer in a shoe shop. We turned down the shoes he tried to give us because they weren’t Westons. Sometimes, he would fly off the handle about this. To keep the peace, we’d accept his presents and send them back to the home country.
Everybody thought I had a slacker’s desk job because I worked at a printing works in Issy-les-Moulineaux. What they didn’t realise was that I spent my time loading boxes of magazines and books into vans …
Despite all this, Original Colour wanted to come and see the conditions we were living in. My heart skipped a beat. For me it was just a dormitory, there was no question of her visiting me there. She’d have a fainting fit because she’d see that even though I was always clean and well-dressed with the most expensive clothes in France, I slept in a pigsty. There weren’t any tables or chairs, there were just mattresses on the floor which we piled up on top of each other every morning so we could move around a bit.
For weeks on end I did everything to stop her from setting foot there. So I was the one who used to go over to hers, to visit this studio where I now live all by myself, ever since she cleared off with our daughter because of the Hybrid who plays African drums in a group nobody’s ever heard of in France, including in Corsica and Monaco …
* * *
When I walked into the main entrance of Original Colour’s building, I was puzzled to hear breathing coming from behind the apartment door next to hers.
“There’s someone spying on us from behind that door!” I said in alarm.
“Oh, forget about it, it’s just the neighbour again. You met him the other day. I think he’s got issues, he’s always like that. He doesn’t like Blacks.”
“But he’s as black as we are!”
“There are plenty of Blacks like him who don’t know they’re black. That’s their choice …”
Every time there was the slightest noise it set me on edge, and Original Colour started to get fed up:
“I told you, it’s my neighbour, so give it a rest … Listen, why don’t you come and live with me, then we can really get up the bastard’s nose. There’ll be two negroes from the Congo in the building, and that’s not counting the ones who live nearby!”
I thought she was joking. The next day I didn’t go to work, I brought my suitcases of clothes and Westons over to her studio. The man we would later nickname Mr Hippocratic kept a close eye on me secretly moving in, and he started breathing more and more heavily behind his door because he could sniff out the niggertrash laying siege to the building.
From that day on, I only had to poke my face outside to land on him. I would always say hello but he eyed me contemptuously, refusing to answer. When he did open his mouth, it was to tell me to make less noise at night because he could hear us when we were in bed.
“And anyway, what are you doing here, eh? It’s a studio, it’s not meant for two people!”
Every time I entered the building, my heart would be pounding, I had to go on tiptoes. But I might as well not have bothered because Mr Hippocratic seemed to be expecting me. He would cough to signal that he nothing escaped him. After that I decided not to give a monkey’s, and not to credit him with more power than he had. So I walked proud and tall, deliberately making the hall ring out with the sound of my Westons. I whistled a tune from back home and opened the door as loudly as possible.
And he would bellow at the top of his voice:
“Go back to that Congolese bush where you come from!”
Seven months on from meeting each other, Original Colour invited me out for a meal at L’Equateur, a Cameroonian restaurant in the 11th arrondissement where one of her friends was a waitress. It was the first time she’d offered to pay. Her friend welcomed us and pointed to the table opposite the bar. That way she could keep an eye on us. I chose the first dish that caught my eye, ndolé with beef. I’d never eaten it before, but it sounded like saka-saka, a cassava leaf dish from back home. Original Colour just ordered chicken wings and salad. The restaurant had photos displayed of the celebrities who had dined there. I spotted Manu Dibango’s smile and Yannick Noah’s dreadlocks.