Miz Bombardier turns her attention to me.
“I read your book and I laughed, but it seems to me you don’t like women.”
“Negroes too.”
Miz B. smiles. I won the first round.
“But you do go a little far. ”
“When people reveal their fantasies, you’ll usually find something for everyone — or against everyone. Let me point out that for all intents and purposes there are no women in my novel. There are just types. Black men and white women. On the human level, the black man and the white woman do not exist. Chester Himes said they were American inventions, like the hamburger or the drive-in. In my book, I give a more. personal version of them.”
“Very personal indeed. I read your novel. It takes place around the Carré St. Louis. In a nutshell, it’s the story of two young blacks who spend a hot summer chasing girls and complaining. One loves jazz; the other literature. One sleeps all day or listens to jazz while reciting the Koran; the other writes a novel about their day-to-day experiences.”
“That’s it.”
“Let me ask you something.”
“Go right ahead.”
“Is it true?”
“Is what true?”
“Did all those things really happen to you? I ask because, in your real life, you live in the same neighborhood, off the Carré St. Louis. You live with a friend and you’re a writer, like your narrator.”
“Pure coincidence.”
“Perhaps. Your novel is the first portrait of Montreal from the pen of a black writer. Admit that you were a bit harsh.”
“You think so?”
“But your readers like that because they’re used to a more plaintive sort of Negro.”
“The ones in my novel never stop complaining.”
“Yes, but the tempo is different. They’re tougher, sharper, more pugnacious. They’re complainers, but they know how to hit back. Humor is their most effective weapon.”
“That’s the way life is. You parry the blows and you strike back.”
“Their weapons are quite different. Generally, blacks appeal to Africa, but your characters never do. Why not?”
“Because they live in the Western world.”
“But they’re Moslems!”
“True. Their faith belongs to Islam, but their culture is totally European. Allah is great, but Freud is their prophet.”
“Odd Moslems indeed!”
“The portrait is real. For when a black man and a white woman meet, the lie is the predominant feature.”
“Aren’t you painting things a little too black?”
“Last night I was in a bar downtown. A black man and a white woman were sitting next to me. I knew the guy. He was all but telling her he was a cannibal, fresh out of the bush, that his father was the big medicine-man in his village. The whole mythology. I watched the girclass="underline" she was nodding, in total ecstasy at finding a real bushman, homo primitivus, the Negro according to National Geographic, Rousseau and Company. I know the guy and I know he’s not from the bush. He’s from Abidjan, one of Africa’s great cities. He lived in Denmark and Holland for quite a while before coming to Montreal. He’s an urban man, a virtual European. But he’d never admit that to a white girl for all the ivory in the world. In the white man’s eyes, he wants to be a Westerner; but with a white woman, Africa serves as his supernumerary sex.”
“What about the girl?”
“She was beside herself. She had found her African. Her primitive.”
“You’re a harsh judge of people.”
“A harsh judge for harsh times. Don’t forget that the guy was wounded in his way too. Do you know what he told me in the men’s room? He asked me, ‘Do you know why Whites never say that a black is ugly?’ I didn’t know the answer; he did. ‘Because, so far, they’re not sure of our true nature.’”
“Can you elaborate?”
“We never say that a cat is ugly. Either we praise the animal or we keep quiet. We’re not entirely sure about animals. We say that the tiger is a handsome animal, but we don’t know what the other animals in the jungle think. And we never talk about specific tigers. We say, the tiger. It’s the same thing for blacks. People say, the blacks. They’re a type. There are no individuals.”
“Aren’t you exaggerating a little?”
“I may be.”
“How have blacks reacted to your book?”
“They want to lynch me.”
“Why is that?”
“Because I let the cat out of the bag. They don’t like being caught with their pants down. They say I’ve sold out, that I’m playing the white man’s game, that my book is no good and the only reason it was published was because whites need a black man around to carry on and give whites a clear conscience.”
“Is that your opinion?”
“I have no opinion. I make no statements without consulting my lawyer — unless they’re about writing. That’s not what the Moral Majority thinks. They say my book is the kind of trash that pollutes the reader, whose only goal is to debase the white race by attacking its most sacred object: Woman. You see, I’ve hit the jackpot.”
“Doesn’t that bother you?”
“What? Debasing white women?”
“No. Your black readers’ opinion.”
“To be a traitor is every writer’s destiny. I hope that’s the first cliché in this interview.”
“A final question: are you going to write another book?”
“Yes. Three others. It’s in the contract.”
“Good luck.”
The Negroes Are Thirsty
LAST NIGHT bouba dragged in a couple of half-dead females. Both of them were dogs. He’d picked them up on St. Catherine. Everyone knows no one’s ever seduced a girl with an offer of a place to sleep. They had to be dogs.
When he came in Bouba whispered to me that the big one was mine and I could do whatever I wanted with her: fuck her, sell her, throw her out the window. I didn’t want any part of it. It wasn’t in my job description. A month ago I would have considered her manna from heaven. (“On the day when they behold the scourge with which they are threatened, their life on earth will seem to them no longer than an hour. That is a warning. Shall any perish except the evil-doers?” Sura XLVI, 35.) But these days I’m on a diet. I’ve lost my taste for gimps, drunks, poetesses, what-the-cat-dragged-ins, sick of all those girls that nobody will take except bums and blacks. I want a normal girl with a conservative father and a bourgeois mother (both racist to the core), a real live normal girl, not a blow-up doll smashed on beer. Shit, I’ve got a thirst for a decent life. I am thirsty. The Gods are thirsty. Women are thirsty. Why not Negroes? The Negroes are thirsty.
The Big One was worse than a crushed cockroach on a Sunday night. She didn’t even see me; she flung open the fridge door and helped herself to a beer. Big, ugly and vulgar. (“Fighting is obligatory for you, much as you dislike it.” Sura II, 216.) Up above, Beelzebub is lying low. Very low!
Bouba started undressing the Little One and feeling up her breasts. The Big One had had time to put away three beers and still not notice me. I scrunched down in the bed. Bouba signalled me to take care of the Big One and went on feeling up the Little One. I was laying in wait for the Big One behind the eleventh beer. Then the ceiling came tumbling down with a tremendous crash. It had to happen sooner or later. Columns of pink smoke. But we were spared the worst. Escaping death by inches. Beelzebub wasn’t lying low up there after all.
The Big One went and stood in the shower with all her clothes on and and started screaming at the top of her lungs. She was hungry. She went and cooked up some spaghetti. Soaking wet. I don’t know when I finally snapped. I didn’t stop screaming for over an hour. The police came. I fell asleep right afterwards. The next morning the girls were gone.