Let Giscard d’Estaing carry on being President of the French Republic for ever and ever
May this business about the diamonds not make the French vote for a different president
Let’s hear it for Giscard! Let’s hear it for Giscard!
~ ~ ~
If Caroline thinks I’m going to apologise to her, she’s wrong. She was the one who wanted a divorce, not me. Why should I go running after her? Since I’m not speaking to her, and she’s not speaking to me, and Monsieur Mutombo thinks it’s not right, he turns to Longombé and Mokobé and asks: ‘What’s up with our two little lovebirds?’
Caroline throws a fit and shouts that we’re not lovebirds. We’re not married, we never were married, her husband is a great footballer who wears the number 11 shirt and scores lots of goals and reads books by Marcel Pagnol. She goes running out of her father’s workshop.
I’ve come round to bring Papa Roger’s mohair trousers. They’re brand new, but they’re too long, so they need to have several centimetres taken off, otherwise my father’s going to be sweeping the dust as he walks, like some other papas I’ve seen in the quartier. I see some of them who’ve turned up the hem of their trousers themselves and every time it comes down again, so you have to turn it back up in front of everyone, when it’s really hard to walk, if you’re always thinking you must be careful your trousers don’t come undone. Who thinks about their trousers or their shoes when they’re walking down the street? You think about other things, about where you’re going and how you’re going to get there in time.
As soon as I walked into the workshop with my father’s trousers over my right shoulder, I saw Caroline sitting just by Monsieur Mutombo and I nearly left, thinking I’d come back later. But I went in anyway because the two apprentices at the back had already seen me.
Longombé shouted, ‘Hey it’s our Michel!’
Mokobé added, ‘Probably got his shirt ripped by his friend again!’
I didn’t say hello to Caroline because she was looking at me already as if to say, ‘If you say hello to me I’ll shame you in front of these grown ups.’
The apprentices were busy sewing her a red dress with green flowers on it.
Monsieur Mutombo says to me, ‘Go and see what your woman’s doing outside, you should never leave your wife unhappy, someone else might cheer her up and marry her, and you’ll be left weeping alone.’
I come out of the workshop. Opposite, there’s a little football pitch. Caroline’s sitting on the ground watching me walk towards her. Just as she’s getting up to move away I call, ‘Wait, don’t go, I’ve got something to say to you…’
‘No, it’s over, we’ve been divorced for ages.’
I force myself to stay calm and say, ‘I know, but at least let’s talk about it and…’
‘No, I don’t want to talk to you, or I’ll start loving you again and then I’ll feel sad all the time!’
Now she’s drawing things on the ground with a little twig. I look at her drawing close up.
‘What’s that then?’
‘Can’t you see it’s a rose? Mabélé taught me how to draw it, and he’s really good at drawing. He said I’m a rose, so now I’m drawing myself.’
The name Mabélé irritates me. I lose my cool and go on the attack: ‘Does Mabélé know who Arthur Rimbaud is?’
‘Who’s that then?’
‘He’s a writer. He’s got loads of hair, it all grows in winter…’
‘Is he more famous than Marcel Pagnol? Has he got four castles and…’
‘No, Arthur hasn’t got all that stuff, he doesn’t care about things like that.’
‘If he hasn’t got a castle, that means he’s not rich and famous!’
‘But he travelled at lot, so he can get to see all the castles in the world.’
‘What about his own castles?’
‘He built them in his heart. And I’ll keep you in the castles I’ve got in my heart too, where no one can harm you.’
She looks up at me at last. It’s almost as if she’s got a bug in her eye.
‘Where did you learn to say things like that, like some grown-up chatting up a woman?’
‘It’s thanks to Arthur.’
‘Really? Have you met him then?’
‘Yes.’
‘Where?’
‘In my parents’ bedroom. And when I look at him hard he smiles and talks to me.’
A plane passes overhead. I can’t ask Caroline to guess which country it’s going to. That’s a game between me and her brother.
So I look at the plane on my own and I think: It’s going to land in Egypt. The capital of Egypt is Cairo. I don’t want that plane to go and land in Saudi Arabia where Idi Amin Dada is, swimming in his pool and boxing with his servants. I don’t want the plane to land in the Ivory Coast where Emperor Jean Bédel Bokassa the First tells tall stories about Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, who wants to be president of the French Republic again.
While I’m thinking about Egypt, Caroline takes my left hand and begs me, ‘Can I meet your friend Arthur with the castles in his heart too?’
‘Of course, he’d love that! But you’d better come to my house because my father will get cross if I take Arthur out into the street. And if my father gets cross, Arthur won’t ever smile at me again.’
She’s just rubbed out the rose she had drawn in the earth, and she’s taken hold of my hand. We go back inside her father’s workshop.
‘You know, Mabélé’s not actually very good at fighting. Why did you run off when you met him in Diadhou’s shop? If someone attacks us one day in the street will you run off like that and leave me alone with the bandits?’
I don’t answer. Because I don’t want to have to hear Mabélé’s name again.
Monsieur Mutombo’s amazed to see me coming back with Caroline. Longombé and Mokobé want to laugh, but they stifle it. They know Monsieur Mutombo will probably shout at them. Longombé pretends to sneeze, then finally bursts out laughing, as do Mokobé and Monsieur Mutombo. As the three of them are now laughing helplessly, Caroline and I start laughing too. As usual, I’m the one laughing loudest, holding my sides. The more I laugh like that, the more it sets the others off. I collapse on the floor, laughing. I get up again, laughing. I lean against the wall, laughing. I lean against the table where they cut the cloth, laughing. I laugh and laugh and laugh and suddenly, without warning, the whole workshop turns black. Monsieur Mutombo’s shiny head disappears. I turn round and see Longombé’s mother blocking the doorway. As usual, she can’t get in the door, not even sideways. I manage to stop laughing just in time. Besides, everyone else in the workshop has stopped. Longombé gets up and goes over to his mother, they stand and talk a few metres outside. I creep out to watch. Longombé’s giving his mother money. Too late, she’s seen me, and she calls threateningly: ‘Hey you, Pauline Kengué’s son! I’ll get you one of these days! Why do you laugh every time you see me? Because I’m fat, is that it? How do you know you won’t get fat when you’re grown up?’
Off she goes, at top speed. When she walks the dust rises off the street. People she passes turn round as though they’ve seen an extra terrestrial. She shouts abuse at them, even though they’ve said nothing. I think: why doesn’t Longombé’s father ever come and ask his son for money? Has his father left his mother? Doesn’t Longombé even have an adoptive father? I feel sorry for him, working so hard and paying for his mother’s keep while I’m standing there laughing like an idiot. Would I like it if people made fun of Maman Pauline like that? No, I’d want to throw stones in his face.