At last he opens his eyes: ‘Michel, I’ve always told you everything, and now there’s something really big you haven’t told me, it’s almost like you lied to me…’
‘Me, lied to you?’
‘I was at my aunt’s house, I saw Caroline, she told me Mabélé nearly beat you up and you ran away like a coward instead of putting up a brave fight. If I don’t know what’s going on how can I help you? Why don’t you come to Maître John’s karate club with me?’
I want to tell him I don’t like doing press ups because they make you sweat and afterwards it really aches. And anyway, when you get into a fight you forget your karate because the other guy you’re fighting’s not going to wait for you to do your advanced katas and fly through the air like Bruce Lee.
It’s as if Lounès can read my thoughts, because he says, ‘If you like we can both sort out Mabélé. I’ll leap into the air while you grab his arm and when I land again I’ll beat him till he bleeds, and…’
‘No, he’ll go and tell tales to Caroline. Your sister will go on loving him and she’ll hate me.’
Lounès gets up suddenly, as though he’s really surprised by my reply. ‘Hey, you’re right!’
The boys fishing on the other bank throw stones at us. They think they’re not catching any fish because we’re talking too loud and the fish can hear us. We lower our voices, and since we’ve stopped talking we feel like falling asleep. We’ll be there for at least an hour, waiting for the planes to pass overhead.
I give Lounès a shake to wake him up, and tell him I have to go home because I’m worried they might be looking everywhere for me, especially since Maximilien thinks I’m having a fight with a giant. He’ll probably tell them that at home and the whole family will come out to look for me.
Lounès comes with me as far as our place. Maximilien’s been standing on the same spot all this time, in the middle of the lot, like a post. He runs inside the main house to call Marius.
Marius comes out to face us with a stick in his hand. Maxim-ilien’s hiding behind him like a frightened dog and he screams till he’s hoarse, pointing at Lounès: ‘It’s him! It’s him! He’s the giant Tarzan that wants to beat up our Michel!’
Marius grabs Maximilien’s ears and goes back inside the house where he was probably busy counting his savings so he can get to Europe one day and become an even more famous footballer than Marius Trésor or a star sapper, like Jerry the Parisian.
Lounès has just left. Maximilien’s sobbing in a corner of the lot, still going on about Tarzan the giant.
He comes over to me and takes my arm and murmurs, ‘You know, I really wanted to protect you from the giant, but I’m still too little. When I’m big, I swear I’ll protect you against the bad guys round here.’
~ ~ ~
There are three girls arguing in Yaya Gaston’s studio. Geneviève takes me by the hand and says, ‘That’s not for your ears, come on, let’s take a walk outside.’
I’ve been hoping she’d say that ever since she walked in and sat down in a corner.
It’s dark outside. In the street we pass old ladies selling fritters and saltfish and maize. You can hear music coming from the bar called Joli Soir, and the noise of people drinking and dancing inside. Sometimes I’d like to go inside and see how they drink and dance in there. I’m not very tall yet, I might get trampled on, they might not realise I was there. And also, if I get beer froth on my chin, I’ll have little hairs like Lounès and they’ll think I’m an old man, when it’s not actually true.
We get to a street lamp in the Avenue Félix-Eboué. There are some people sitting about there, and I even see a man and a woman kissing each other on the mouth and touching each other, you’d think they’d no bedroom at home to do it in. If I was them I’d feel embarrassed for a year, or more.
Geneviève stops, opens her bag, rummages inside and pulls something out.
‘I know you’re going back to your maman’s in Trois-Cents tomorrow. I’ve got a little present for you.’
She holds out a packet to me. It’s not every day I get given something that isn’t a lorry, a rake and a plastic spade for playing farming with.
I open the wrapping and there, inside, is my present.
‘Is it a book?’
‘Yes, The Little Prince. It’s the first book my father gave me when I got my primary school certificate and I know you’re going to get yours soon.’
We go into the shop and I choose two boiled sweets. I offer her one, she says no. I keep it in my pocket for Maximilien, who’ll be very happy when I give it to him.
On the way back home, we go past the streetlamps again. The man and woman who were kissing have moved on now. They’re a little bit further down the street, where there’s less light. They’re so stupid, what if a snake comes and bites them in the night, what will they do then?
Geneviève talks to me quietly. As though she hopes I’ll keep what she says a secret, just between us two.
‘I love your big brother, he doesn’t realise, he’s blind. He’s strong and handsome, he can have any woman in the quartier. I’m nothing next to him, but in fact I’m everything, because I love him with all my heart. Besides, he’s the only man I’ve ever known, and I’ll never go with another man, unless he throws me out so he can live with one of those girls who come to his house to argue. I’ll wait a hundred years for him if I have to, love knows no limits. But I’m hurt, really hurt, and I lick my wounds in silence. When I talk to you I’m talking to him as well. Am I wrong? Am I right? Oh, Michel, I don’t know. Yaya Gaston’s not a child like you any more. He’s spoiled his innocence with pride and flirting.’
We find Yaya Gaston all alone in his studio. He tells us he’s kicked out all the girls because he was sick of them fighting. Now this was not what I wanted to hear. I hoped he would say he’d kicked them out so as to be alone with Geneviève. This was probably what Geneviève was hoping he’d say too, because we glanced at each other and then she lowered her eyes and went to tidy up the mess the girls had left. She put a mattress down on the ground for me and took out the sheet and pillow hidden under my brother’s bed. She put out the storm lantern and lit a candle, just by my head and then got into bed with Yaya Gaston. I’m not tired yet. I lie with my back against the wall and start reading the little book she gave me. And I start murmuring the first few lines as though it’s a prayer:
I lived alone, with no one really to talk to, until one day six years ago, when my plane broke down in the Sahara desert. A part of the engine was broken, and since I had no mechanic and no passengers I decided I must carry out the repair myself. It was a question of life or death…
I go on reading the book, and as I read a word echoes round in my head: desert. I try to picture what a desert looks like, because we’ve got loads of forest here. I love the word Sahara, too. Even saying it is really hard, you have to remember to say the ‘h’. It feels like it’s far far away, as though the people there don’t know that the rest of us exist, that someone in this house is reading a story that takes place where they live. How can I imagine a place I’ve never seen? So now I think of the Sahara just as desert, nothing else. And I wonder why the funny little man in the book went there, instead of coming here where there’s lots to see, and plenty of people to meet. He could have lived with me. We could have walked together down the streets and the avenues in all the different neighbourhoods, or along the banks of the river Tchinouka with Lounès. In the Trois-Cents quartier the little man would have been surprised to see us all playing, running about, sometimes getting into trouble. But maybe the desert is a wonderful, magical place. Maybe there the people have a forest in their imagination. An evergreen forest. Maybe in the desert there’s more room to live and maybe it makes you realise you’re lucky to be born in a country where there are lots of trees and rivers and streams, and even an ocean, like here. Even so, I’m a bit worried the desert’s where all the dead people gather and wait for the day when God says: ‘You’re going to heaven, you’re going to hell’. I don’t want to go to the Sahara. All I care about is, tomorrow I’ll see Maman Pauline again.