Dassin goes on whistling. Yaya Gaston’s hidden behind the door to his studio and is watching to see what will happen. We hear the front door of the house open. Georgette comes out. She was already all dressed up before Dassin started whistling. Now she crosses the yard and goes out into the street.
Yaya Gaston wants to go after her. Geneviève holds out her hand to stop him, but he pushes her away.
‘Let me go! I want to teach them a lesson!’
Too late, he’s already out in the yard. We come out of the studio too, because anything could happen outside.
Yaya Gaston runs down the street like a robber. Georgette, who has seen him, slips off down a side street behind the bar called Joli Soir.
Dassin isn’t running, he just stands there. He strikes a pose like a world heavyweight boxing champion. He thinks he’s Mohammed Ali and that Yaya Gaston is George Foreman. People come running from all over now, because my brother and Dassin are exchanging insults.
‘Fuckhead!’ Yaya Gaston shouts.
‘Pervert!’ Dassin replies.
‘Who are you calling “pervert”?’
‘Who are you calling “fuckhead”!’
‘’Your mother’s cunt!’ continues Yaya Gaston.
‘Your father’s balls!’ yells Dassin.
‘Capitalist!’
‘Local imperialist lackey!’
‘Who are you calling “capitalist”? Me?’
‘Who are you calling “local imperialist lackey”? Me?’
Geneviève pulls at Yaya Gaston’s shirt, but someone in the crowd’s just shouted: ‘Ali bomba yé! Ali bomba yé! Ali bomba yé’! They’re going to have to fight now.
Yaya Gaston says, ‘I’m Ali, because I’m the good-looking one, and you’re Foreman because you’re an ugly louse!’
Dassin replies, ‘No, no, I’m Ali, you’re Foreman!’
‘How can you be Ali, a wanker like you?’
‘You think you can be Ali with your face like something an elephant’s sat on?’
Yaya Gaston takes off his shirt because it’s from France and he doesn’t want Dassin to tear it out of jealousy. He throws his shirt over to us, and Geneviève catches it before it falls to the ground, otherwise someone else will pick it up and run off with it.
Everyone in the quartier is outside. Ali bomba yé! Ali bomba yé! Ali bomba yé! I’d better do something, there might be people in the crowd who are against Yaya Gaston because he works at the port, because he’s handsome, because he’s got a shirt that comes from France, most of all because he has a gold chain.
I slip away from Geneviève, I get into the middle of the circle and I give Dassin a push in the back. He wasn’t expecting it, and he falls to the ground. Yaya Gaston seizes his chance and jumps on him. He hits him, then he hits him again, and again and again. Everyone’s excited now, and every time he hits him they cheer. When he hits Dassin’s face, I kick him in the stomach because he’s the baddy. He yells out, calls for his mama. I’m just about to bite Dassin’s tibia like a wild dog when someone grabs me by the shirt. I turn round to hit them, but stop short because it’s Geneviève.
‘Michel’, she threatens, ‘stop that now, or you won’t be my little black prince any more!’
I do want to be her little black prince. So I stop thumping. Yaya Gaston and Dassin are rolling about in the dust. Dassin’s also trying to hit my big brother in the face. When he gets him, I feel like it’s me he’s hitting.
From a distance comes the noise of sirens and everyone scatters. Within five minutes the fight in the street is over. The police search for them both but can’t find them.
We’re already in Yaya Gaston’s studio. Papa Roger is there too, and he’s yelling at my big brother. He knew there was a fight going on outside but he didn’t realise it was Yaya Gaston. So he’d said to my brothers and sisters, ‘Go back inside the house and close all the doors and windows. No one’s to go outside! There are thugs out there fighting in the street, just let them get on with killing each other, it’s not our problem!’
Geneviève’s looking after Yaya Gaston, who’s got a cut over his eye. He asks her, ‘Where’s my Yves St Laurent shirt?’
I show him his Yves St Laurent shirt. Papa Roger’s outside, yelling.
Yaya Gaston looks at me, ‘That was fantastic, what you did, Michel, I’m proud of you.’
His words warm my heart. The bug goes straight into my eye and I start crying because Yaya Gaston might have to go to hospital, he might die, and for nothing. I’m really crying now, so Geneviève drags me out into the yard. Her face is set firm. She says, ‘If I ever hear again that you’ve fought someone, or you got into a scrap in this quartier, you can stop calling yourself my little black prince. And if you’re not my little black prince, you won’t be seeing the green river in my eyes, and the diamonds at the edges won’t shine for you any more.’
~ ~ ~
Maman Martine asks Maximilien to go and buy some milk from Bassène the Senegali. Just as he’s about to dash off she grabs him by the shirt.
‘Wait a second. What’s your problem? Whenever anyone asks you for something you don’t even stop and think, you just go running off like a sheep. And then you’ll come back and say: “What was it again I was meant to buy? Where do I go to buy it?” You’re to go to Bassène’s, and you’re to go with your big brother, Michel, or you’ll probably lose all the money or not come home till tomorrow evening!’
So we set off together. Maximilien wants to run, I ask him to walk, not run.
He’s not pleased. ‘I want to run! Let me run!’
‘But why do you always run?’
‘Because if I don’t run all the greedy people round here will drink up all the milk in the shop and we won’t have any milk this morning, we’ll die of hunger.’
I grab him by his shirt like Maman Martine, and I hold on tight. The Joli Soir bar is quite close to the house. You can often hear music, from midday till six in the morning, when it closes. Often you hear music coming from there from midday until six in the morning, when it closes. I stop and read a big notice outside, written in large letters, as if it’s meant for people who are short sighted:
FROM 18H TILL DAWN, PAPA WEMBA IN CONCERT
WITH HIS BAND VIVA LA MUSICA
FROM MOLOKAI
LADIES: 60 °CFA, MEN: 100 °CFA
I say to myself: ‘Children can’t be allowed at this concert, because there’s no ticket price given for them.’ I have actually heard of Papa Wemba. He formed his band two years ago. When you go past our local bars you hear him singing and we sing along, though we have no idea what he’s singing about. And when he sings with his musician, Koffi Olomidé, you get girls weeping over it, because when the two singers blend their beautiful voices together you can’t go past a bar without stopping to listen.
We get to Bassène’s shop. We get two litres of milk and Bassène gives us the change, which Maximilien hides in his pocket. Now he’s running already, I try to catch his shirt but I miss. I shout after him. Too late, he’s gone already, and as he runs, his shirt billows in the wind.
I go back past Joli Soir and a read the poster. Why is the price for men’s tickets more than for ladies? It’s not a good idea because now there will be too many women and not enough men. The boss of the bar can’t be very clever if he does that.
Oh well, at least I know I wasn’t dreaming: Papa Wemba will be at the concert at the Joli Soir from six in the evening onwards. I really want to go, but I’m not twenty yet.
We have our breakfast in the yard. We sit in a big circle with a cup in front of each of us. Maman Martine pours out the milk, she won’t let us do it ourselves, she thinks we’ll finish it all up, and we need to keep a bit for tomorrow. Only Papa Roger and Yaya Gaston are missing from the circle. It’s Sunday morning and they’ve gone to the port to buy sardines for lunch. Georgette doesn’t talk much now that Dassin’s had a fight with our big brother. I remember how Papa Roger calmed Yaya Gaston and Georgette down. The day after the fight he said to our big brother, ‘There’s nothing wrong with Georgette going out with boys at her age.’