The funeral urn of your prayers
The soul expelled from your body
The twin brother you reject
I am merely an old mirror
A mirror cut to your disproportions
In which you hope one day to see
Yourself big even though you are small
He gave a reverential bow, then rose to his full height to savour the applause, of which there was a little. ‘Black Moon, by Joma Baba-Sy,’ he said, advancing through the middle of the room, where a dozen of us were having dinner.
He again asked for our attention and declared in a mocking tone, ‘My dear friends, I am leaving you. I am leaving you to your struggles, your suffering, your miseries. I’m going. I leave you courage, sacrifice, the nobility of grand causes … Yes, I yield them to you graciously. And if you wish, I bequeath you my virtues for they no longer make my soul tremble. As far as I’m concerned, the odyssey ends tonight. Tomorrow, I’ll be back with my fat partner and we’ll reinvent the world under a mosquito net …’
A few people laughed indulgently. Bruno came over to the table I was sharing with Elena, Lotta and Orfane, grabbed a free chair and sat down astride it, between the gynaecologist and the virologist. His bulging, joyful eyes rolled like white-hot marbles.
‘I’ve just come from Monsieur Pfer’s office. Guess who I had on the phone? None other than the French ambassador! He told me officially that my case had been examined with the greatest care and that I no longer had anything to worry about. I’m going to be given a new passport and an entry visa to Djibouti. Tomorrow, I’m flying to Khartoum on the freighter aircraft. The pilot has received instructions.’
‘Congratulations,’ Lotta said.
‘I’ve already told my partner the good news. She was so happy we cried like kids. My beard is still wet with my tears.’ He turned to me. ‘I’m going to miss you, Monsieur Krausmann.’
My throat was too tight to utter a sound.
He nodded his head and addressed the others. ‘And you too.’
‘You’re a likeable person, Bruno,’ Lotta said. ‘A bit scatterbrained, but very likeable.’
‘It’s the African sun that’s melted my brain. Which is all to the good. The less you think, the more chance you have of making old bones … Oh my God, how happy I am! I’m not going to sleep a wink tonight, and tomorrow will take for ever to arrive. I can already see myself at home, in my scruffy but comfortable little room … If you ever happen to be passing through Djibouti, come and see me. No need to tell me you’re coming. There’s no protocol in our house. Just go to the souk, ask after Bruno the African — that’s what they call me — and any kid will bring you to me. You won’t even have to ring the doorbell, because we don’t have one. You open the door and you’re immediately at home … Isn’t that so, Kurt?’
I merely nodded.
‘You will come?’
‘I don’t think so, Bruno, I don’t think so.’
‘You know what a marabout once told me? The man who sees Africa only once in his life will die blind in one eye.’
After dinner, Bruno took me to one side behind the canteen. ‘If you’d like me to stay a few more days,’ he said, ‘it’s no problem.’
‘What for?’
‘I don’t know. The soldiers might come back and ask for more information.’
‘They’ve already recorded our statements. No, you go. There’s nothing more for you here. Go back to your nearest and dearest. They’ve already missed you long enough.’
‘Monsieur Pfer told me the camp has received several donations and that another plane is due next week. I could come to an arrangement with the pilot.’
‘That wouldn’t be a good idea, Bruno.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Absolutely.’
He gave me a big hug and rushed off into the darkness.
The freighter aircraft landed at ten in the morning in a flurry of dust and noise. A monster of zinc and combustion, it trundled to the end of the waste ground, made a U-turn and bounced its way back to the camp. Some twenty men were waiting to unload the hundreds of boxes and crates fastened in its hold.
As far as I was concerned, the plane had come to rob me of my friend.
Bruno had put on a satin robe and had got Lotta to carefully trim his beard. His crew-cut hair shone and he had kohl on his eyelids. He gave me a broad smile and opened his arms to me.
‘How do I look?’
‘Apart from your bald patch, very handsome.’
He smoothed his hair. ‘Baudelaire said that when imperfection looks good, it becomes a charming accessory.’
Bruno embraced Pfer, then Lotta, whose behind he pinched in passing. He had to stand on tiptoe to hug Orfane, then, holding back a sob, he clasped Elena to him. When he got to me, he cracked and big tears rolled down his cheeks. We looked at each other for a moment, as if mesmerised, then threw ourselves in each other’s arms. We stood like that for a while in silence.
‘Don’t forget what I said, Kurt. The man who sees Africa only once in his life will die blind in one eye.’
‘I won’t forget.’
He nodded, picked up a big bag filled with gifts and walked towards the plane. The pilot pointed to the hold and invited him to get on board. Bruno turned one last time and waved farewell. Once the unloading was finished, the door of the hold closed and the winged monster, in a din of propellers, moved onto the runway. We followed it from a distance, waving our arms. Bruno appeared at a window and blew us kisses until the dust enveloped the plane as it set off to conquer the sky.
I was pleased for Bruno, but sad to see him go. Our friendship had been sealed in pain and would never end. Neither distance nor time could lessen it. I knew that wherever I went, whatever my life held in store, whatever my future joys and sorrows, the indelible trace of those weeks full of sadness and fear shared with my inimitable French companion would always remain in a corner of my heart, a corner as sacred as a forbidden city. I would remember Bruno as a remarkable man, a good, sensitive man even when he was play-acting, always helpful and generous, closer to the poor than many a saint or prophet, and happy to be alive despite so many setbacks and so much ingratitude. I didn’t know what he would represent for me in the future, but he had initiated me into the simplest of gestures, giving them a meaning, a strength, and a richness that was worth all the possessions in the world, and into a simple beauty, such as the beauty of fraternal signs that strangers send each other when they emerge from a tragedy or when they spontaneously rally round to deal with human disaster. Would I miss him? Yes, in several ways. For me, he would be Joma’s ‘twin’, except that I wouldn’t reject him. Wherever I went, I was convinced that he would be lurking in my shadow like a star in the darkness, and I would catch myself smiling every time a noise, a light, a piece of music reminded me of Africa, where a world was aspiring to fade away so that another could wake to the song of children.
Bruno had barely been gone five days and already it seemed to me that I had dreamt him. Passing the tent where he had chosen to wait, among ‘his’ people, for his situation to be sorted out — he had refused the cabin that Pfer had allocated him — I thought I heard his African laugh, the laugh that started with a guttural contraction before dissolving into a series of Homeric yelps. Bruno laughed about everything, his misfortunes as well as his achievements … What a strange character! Resentment had never dented his indestructible faith in human beings. He saw in their stupidity only a terrible immaturity that did them more harm than they themselves caused. At night, unable to sleep, I tried to find ways into his mind, to understand how it worked, but whatever key I tried, every attempt failed. What secret had he discovered on this continent? What philosophy had he acquired during his years of wandering? Whatever it was, he had taken it away with him. Would I ever see him again? I didn’t think so. I would go back to my rich man’s bubble and die blind in one eye, just as he had prophesied … If there was a moral in life, it could be summed up like this: we are nothing but our memories! One morning, we are there; one evening, we are no longer there. The only mark we leave behind us is a memory that slowly fades until it is shamelessly consigned to oblivion. What would I have left of Bruno? What would I have left of Hans? All the things I couldn’t hold on to: a tone of voice, a fleeting smile, situations distorted by the prism of years, absences that were like hangovers. Now that they were no longer around, I realised how insubstantial any truth was in this capricious world … And what of later? … Later, we come full circle, start again from the beginning and once more learn to live with what we no longer possess. Since nature abhors a vacuum, we create new reference points for ourselves. Out of pure selfishness … Elena knew our relationship had no future, and so did I. That didn’t stop us from taking advantage of the moment … I had made friends among the refugees: Malik, the boy who had asked for my torch, and who came to see me regularly and made sure he never left empty-handed; Bidan, an amazing contortionist who could get his entire body into a box barely large enough for a puppy; old Hadji, who could read the future in the sand and spent all day long sucking on his pipe; Forha, the one-armed man who could put his clothes on faster than a sailor getting ready for combat; and the unstoppable Uncle Mambo, who was a bit of a mythomaniac and was absolutely convinced that Neil Armstrong had never set foot on the moon … But the temporary is like a crazy moneylender who demands his due when he feels like it. And what I feared finally caught up with me. The previous day, three workers had fallen from scaffolding and been seriously injured. I spent the night assisting the surgeon who operated on them. In the morning, hearing the staccato buzzing of a helicopter, I assumed the men were being evacuated to a better-equipped hospital and buried my head under the pillow. I was wrong. The helicopter was for me … It was the Sudanese colonel in person who came and asked me to get dressed and follow him. From his crestfallen look, I understood. I had to cling to the handle of the door to stay upright. ‘No, don’t tell me that …’ I stammered. He looked at me without saying anything. There are silences that speak louder than words. I collapsed on my bed and struggled with all my might to keep a modicum of dignity. ‘They’re waiting for us, sir,’ the colonel said. I got dressed and followed him …