As he walked off, I’d stand and watch him for a moment, making his way down to the far end of the avenue to where the Karl Marx lycée stood. After a few minutes he was no more than a tiny speck, absorbed into the crowd of students. Then off I went to the Trois Glorieuses secondary school. I arrived just in time for the raising of the flag in the schoolyard, when we all sang the national anthem, which we were made to learn by heart:
Arise, brave country,
Who, in three glorious days,
Seized the flag and raised it
for a Congo, new and free
That never more will stumble
And no more be afraid.
Our chains we have burst open,
Now freely we will work
We are one sovereign nation.
If my foes do slay me,
Before my hour has come,
Brave comrade, take my gun;
And if a bullet hits my heart
Our sisters all will fearless rise,
Hills, river, too, with all their might
Will repel the invader.
Today our land is born anew,
And all in value equal,
No leader but the people,
Who alone has chosen
To stand in dignity.
Grand Poupy favoured white shirts and terylene trousers, which he ironed energetically every weekend. He cut his own hair, in the style of the Afro-American actors of the 1970s, whose posters we fought over on the Avenue of Independence, where they were laid out for sale on the ground outside the Rex, the Duo and the Roy.
The layout of the interior of our three-room house changed with the arrival of my mother’s cousin. By now it was a really tight squeeze, with my aunts Sabine Bouanga and N’Soni in one room, and my parents in the other. Any other member of the family who happened to turn up had to find a corner in the living room to lay down a mat, without getting too close to where Uncle Mompéro had set up his bed and would not be moved. Grand Poupy’s arrival would upset my routine. I no longer slept with my uncle, and chose instead to share the mat with the latest arrival, listen to him relate amorous escapades, which of course always ended with victory for him and the surrender of his lady-love, as long as Uncle Mompéro didn’t complain and tell us to shut up. Grand Poupy would lower his voice, while my uncle ranted from his bed:
‘I can hear you, Poupy, you’re keeping me awake! If you don’t shut up I’ll wake up the boy’s mother and you can explain yourself to her! Ever since you got here you’ve been filling his head with your lies! Has anyone ever seen these girls you’re always boasting about?’
At this point Grand Poupy would whisper to me:
‘Let’s go to sleep, I’ll tell you the rest tomorrow. Uncle Mompéro doesn’t know Grand Poupy, ladies’ man extraordinaire!’
On days when there was no school, he would suggest we take a walk in the neighbourhood:
‘I’ll show you how to approach a girl, just watch what I do! As soon as I see a girl, I’ll go up and talk to her. There’s one sign that’s always a giveaway: if I put my hand on her right shoulder and she doesn’t remove it, things are looking good…’
We were standing at an intersection about two hundred yards from the house, a strategic spot from which we could see most of the girls in the Vongou neighbourhood pass by. They were on their way to market, some dressed in multicoloured pagnes, others in tight-fitting trousers, with tops that bordered on indecent. If my mother’s cousin liked the look of one of them, he would turn up the collar of his shirt, smooth his Afro with the palm of his hand, and quickly spray some perfume under his armpits, behind his ears and even inside his mouth:
‘Don’t move, I’m coming back!’
He’d set off after the girl, imitating almost to the point of caricature the manner of Aldo Maccione, who he’d seen in L’Aventure c’est l’aventure.
I watched from a distance as Grand Poupy hitched up his trousers, smiling his broadest smile and finally placing his hand on the girl’s right shoulder. He would turn back to me and wink. Seeing his conquest didn’t shake off his hand, I decided Grand Poupy must be right, he was an ace, and his technique was infallible. What would have happened if the young lady had removed his hand? I had complete faith in his ability to come up with a response. He’d probably already encountered more difficult cases, and knew instinctively which girls he could target and be sure of success. So, I decided, he wouldn’t risk it if he thought there was a chance he’d be rejected. Why, for instance, did he tend to go for the ugly ones, when a real beauty might be passing just a few centimetres away, flashing us her most provocative smile? If I ventured to question him on this matter, he would say, with an air of great experience:
‘A smile isn’t enough, you have to wait till she touches her hair, and especially till she looks down at the ground. Did she do that, the beauty who went by a couple of minutes ago?’
‘No…’
‘Well then, that’s why I didn’t waste my energy! I’m telling you, the pretty ones are only interested in the boys who don’t notice them. They want to be seen, that’s what they’re aiming for. And another thing, if you meet two girls together, an ugly one with a pretty one, I mean, start with the ugly one, and the pretty one will start flirting with you the next day, just as a challenge to the other one. I call it the billiard technique: to get to a ball and pocket it you need to hit another one, and fortunately it’s possible to hit two birds with one stone, because both balls could end up in the same pocket, or in two different holes! But that takes experience, and you’re still a beginner…’
‘And if both of them are pretty, which ball do you aim for?’
‘Impossible! There’ll always be one prettier than the other, there’s no such thing as a draw in beauty, or in ugliness either!’
Sometimes, when he wasn’t looking, I’d open the notebook where he wrote down the girls’ names, with some of them marked ‘to simmer’.
Intrigued, I plunged in one evening:
‘So what does it mean, to simmer?’
Grand Poupy gave a start, and his face expressed grave disappointment:
‘So, how long have you been looking through my private things?’
He had raised his voice, and just as I began to feel tears pricking my eyes, he spoke more softly, to console me:
‘No point snivelling now… What’s done is done. Don’t do it again. I’ll tell you what “leave to simmer” means…’
He took out the notebook from his satchel and opened it:
‘On the left-hand page I write out the names of the girls I’ve already been out with, and the right-hand page is for the ones I’m still working on. Some of them are the tricky ones I’ve already tried it with, I’ve kissed them on the lips, but they put on an act, they don’t want me to go any farther. So I pretend I’m not interested in them, like I haven’t got time for them, I let them simmer, like a dish you cook over a low heat in a pot. It pays off eventually because in the end those are the girls that come running after me! And I’m back in charge!’
I wasn’t honest with my mother’s cousin, I continued to read his notebook without him knowing. I discovered it wasn’t just the names of his sweethearts he wrote down. He also recorded his memories of Sibiti, the place he came from. I remember long passages without a single crossing out, in which he described the adventures of a certain Chelos, to whom the writing was addressed. They all began the same way: