Sometimes I feel like smashing his face in, but what’s the point when the stairs can take care of it? I don’t want any trouble. You get people like that, you see them, you think they’re healthy enough, you shake them up a bit, and the next thing you know you’ve laid yourself wide open to trouble because all it takes is for them to bash into a wall on purpose — even if it’s only made of plywood — and they’ll start claiming assault and grievous bodily harm leading directly to them snuffing it.
So I don’t take any notice when he’s trying to get a rise out of me. But he’s always on my case. He’s after confrontation. He steals my doormats and dumps rotten fruit in front of my door. I know it’s him, and nobody but him, I don’t see who else in this block would act that way. I don’t have any problems with the other tenants …
* * *
Mr Hippocratic has had it in for me from the day I moved into this studio. One evening, my ex had told me not to forget to take the rubbish out, so I went down to the basement with a torch. I could feel someone breathing behind me. Someone padding along. I turned around and who should I see but Mr Hippocratic.
“So your country is the Congo, isn’t it?” he asked, without telling me how he knew.
“Yes,” I replied.
“Did you see the telly last night?”
“No, I was busy, I didn’t watch TV …”
“Dearie me, the poor Congolese, we’ve got to do something for them! There are diseases, there is famine, they have many wives, and they are always fighting all the time, poor things! And the president of these Congolese I’m talking about, what’s his name again?”
“Denis Sassou Nguesso …”
“Oh no, that’s not it, that’s not the name I heard on the telly! That’s not the name at all! It was a longer name, more of an African name, by which I mean rather barbarian sounding …”
“Mobutu Sese Seko Nkuku Ngbendu wa za Banga?”
“Yes! Yes! Yes! That’s the name! Something has got to be done, the poor Congolese are all going to die of starvation or AIDS or because of tribal wars …”
“That President Mobutu is already dead, you must have seen a programme about former Zaire and the regime that Mobutu …”
“Oh no he’s not, Mobutu’s not dead! I saw him on telly last night with my own eyes! He’s your president, and he was in the pink of health! He was giving a speech in a packed stadium. Apparently it was in the same stadium where he murdered and buried Patrice Lumumba. That Mobutu makes his people suffer, he is a villain, he is evil, he’s a dictator, we should send in the Americans to do a spot of mopping up over there! That man brings shame on your race, it’s intolerable! If I were an African I would rise up, I’d go and fight against that dictator. Hasn’t he ever heard of democracy, that president of yours? He sells your diamonds, he buys himself fancy homes in Europe, is that a normal way to behave?”
When I didn’t react, Mr Hippocratic started up again:
“And what about you, as a Congolese man living like a coward in Europe, what are you actually doing for your poor country where there are diseases, where there is famine, where the men have many wives at the same time and on top of that they are always fighting, eh?”
“I’m from the other Congo, the small Congo, Congo-Brazzaville. There’s another Congo which is bigger and where …”
“No, it was definitely your country on the telly yesterday, with that president with the long name who wears glasses and a leopard-skin hat. He walks with a stick! Are you telling me you don’t know who your own president is? I find that shocking! I’m telling you I saw him with my own eyes on the telly …!”
* * *
Even when my partner and our daughter were still living here, Mr Hippocratic would already be snooping on us through his spy-hole at the first sign of noise in the corridor. I know this because I could hear him tiptoeing over to his door and holding his froggy breath. And when our daughter was born, he wanted to know if I had triplets and not just one baby because a single child couldn’t possibly bawl fit for an entire nursery school. And off he went to snivel at our landlord about how there were small groups of Africans who were stirring up ill-feeling in the block, who were turning the premises into a tropical capital, who slit the throats of cockerels at five in the morning to collect their blood, who beat the tom-toms all night long to send coded messages to their bush spirits and put a jinx on France. That they should be sent back home, or he’d refuse to pay his rent and taxes any more, he’d go and give evidence at the local police station, and these immigrants would be allocated a one-way ticket on a charter flight, even if it was the French taxpayer who had to pick up the tab for their return to the native land.
I let him have his way. I’ve got nothing to add to his wild rants because back in the home country we were always taught to respect our elders, especially when they’ve got grey hair, which is the case for Mr Hippocratic. Each time I tell him I agree with him, that if negroes have wide noses it’s simply so they can wear glasses, and that the black man does not live by bread alone but also by sweet potatoes and plantains.
And since I’m not the type to pick a quarrel with anybody, I’ve decided the only answer is to move out. Unlike my ex who didn’t like the banlieue, I’m willing to go and live there, but I don’t want to move back into that studio in Château d’Eau I used to share with several of my compatriots. In life, you should never go back to square one.
I’ve visited a lot of studios in the area. Nothing doing. I’d need decent payslips, but I’ve been working part-time since my ex left, so I don’t see how I’ll ever leave this place.
I don’t talk to Mr Hippocratic any more. I try to make sure I come home when he’s already asleep. And when we cross paths in the hallway or down by the bins, we stare at each other defiantly. He spits on the ground and shouts:
“Bloody Congolese! Your woman’s walked out on you! Go back to where you come from!”
Now, if I were a nasty piece of work like him, I’d have evened the score a long time ago:
“Bloody Martiniquais! Go back to your island in the Caribbean!”
When I check out my profile in the mirror, I reckon I’m not a bad-looking guy. I wouldn’t even begin to compare myself with that minstrel who’s gone off with my ex and taken my daughter with them. Between him and me it’s like night and day. I’m tall and nicely proportioned; he’s such a midget you don’t even notice him when he walks past. If you’re not careful you might trample him underfoot or mistake him for a four-legged animal with no tail. I’ve got a small moustache and I’m handsome; he looks like a primate who narrowly missed out on evolving into a human. So that nickname of the Hybrid I gave him fits like a glove. As for the way he dresses, it’s a disaster! Does being an artist mean he’s got to wear threads like that? What a load of bull, I know artists who are always snappily dressed with shades and a fan for flaunting it. When it comes to clothes I don’t mess around, and my friends at Jip’s understand this, including Roger the French-Ivorian. I’m not trying to show off, but my suits are tailor-made. I buy them in Italy, in Bologna to be precise, where I scour the shops, stopping at each boutique in the city’s arcades. When I moved in here I didn’t know where to store it all. I’ve got six big suitcases of clothes and shoes — mostly crocodile, anaconda and lizardskin Westons, as well as Church’s, Bowens and some other English shoes.