‘Really?’
‘They’re new, those boys, you can tell. They don’t know that the band leader never comes on first, he’ll turn up later because he’s the most important musician. So those boys will only see Papa Wemba’s other musicians because after ten minutes Donatien will ask them to make way for the others. And since we’re eleventh and twelfth we’ll get to the hole just when Papa Wemba’s about to take up the mike.’
He’s very clever, our Maximilien. How does he know this stuff, when if he’s at home and you ask him something he acts like he’s really stupid, and we all make fun of him? When I think how he mistook Lounès for a giant who’d come to beat me up, it baffles me. Totally.
We’ve been standing in line for over an hour when Donatien comes and signals to us. It’s our turn to go up to the hole.
Maximilien tells me, ‘You get ten minutes, I get ten minutes, that’s a total of twenty minutes between us. But we’ll split the twenty minutes in four: you look for five minutes, then I’ll look for five minutes, that way each of us gets two goes. And while you’re looking, you tell me what’s happening, and when I’m looking I’ll tell you, ok?’
‘Ok.’
‘Right, you go first.’
I lean forward. Even though the hole is small, you can easily see what’s going on in the bar because Papa Wemba is directly opposite, and his band is behind him.
I describe what I can see to Maximilien. I tell him, Papa Wemba’s arrived, he’s dressed in black leather from head to toe, he’s just picked up the mike, he’s singing with his eyes closed and he’s already sweating all over. There are couples dancing, clinging onto each other, tightly packed together. They move up and down, from one end of the dance floor to the other. When they’re dancing opposite me I can see them. But when they move to the left, or to the right, I can’t, even when I swivel my eyes like a chameleon. Some of the couples get in my way, they dance too close to my eye. One woman’s backside is so huge, it’s like a second wall in my face. I need to find a long piece of wire and prick the great fat backside of the woman stopping me getting a good view of Papa Wemba. On the other hand, I don’t want to prick it because the backside in question is moving to the rhythm of the music and it makes me want to dance. When the drummer hits his instrument really hard, the woman’s backside bounces like a grain of sweetcorn in a pan of hot oil. And it makes me want to laugh, I didn’t know you could dance like a grain of sweetcorn that’s been flung into boiling oil. There’s a man over at the back there holding on too tight to a woman in a really short skirt. He’s put his head in between this woman’s breasts and closed his eyes, like a baby that’s just finished its bottle and has fallen into a deep sleep. Every time the woman breathes the man’s head moves to the rhythm of the music and it makes me start to dance too, imagining it’s me with my head between the breasts of the woman with the short skirt, that I’ve got my eyes closed and am fast asleep on the woman’s chest, like a baby that’s just drunk up it’s bottle. That woman could be my mother, so I shouldn’t be thinking things like that. I should be trying to imagine she’s a girl of my own age. So I think about Caroline’s chest. Caroline doesn’t have breasts like the woman’s yet, but perhaps they’ll be that big when she’s twenty.
Papa Wemba is singing now, with a musician I don’t know very well. I’ve seen his photo somewhere. Who is he again?
‘That’s Koffi Olomidé, he lives in France,’ Maximilien tells me, as though he’s guessed I was going to ask him that.
When my five minutes are up, Maximilien takes my place, and describes everything. He tells me about the bass guitar, the backing guitar, the guitar solo. He says the big deep voice we can hear above all the other voices is a singer called Espérant Kisangani, alias ‘Djenga K’. Maximilien would like to be able to sing like him, to play guitar solo better than Rigo Star and Bogo Wendé, Papa Wemba’s two guitarists. When did he learn those two names, names I don’t even know, and I’m bigger than him? And he’s dancing while he talks, dancing really well, all without taking his eye from the hole. His head sways to the right, his backside swings to the left. Then the same thing the other way round. He swings out his right leg, and shakes it when the drummer bangs out a quick rhythm. He does the same thing with his left foot, then he shakes his arm, as though he’s imitating a bird in the sky. And when he dances like that, the whole line behind him starts dancing like him and imitating his moves.
I turn round to see how the other boys are dancing. That’s when I notice that some girls have arrived in really short skirts, hair in braids, lipstick, and pointed shoes, like the high heels that grown-up women wear. They’re with well-dressed boys who dance with them, with their head on their chest, even though they don’t have big breasts like the women dancing in the bar.
Every five minutes, Maximilien and I swap over. When it’s me looking through the hole, Maximilien yells in my ear: ‘You mustn’t keep still, you have to dance, or people will think you don’t know how to dance and they’ll make fun of us. Go on, move! Put your head on one side and move your body the other way. Imagine you’re a turkey, a dancing turkey! It’s the new dance they call Turkey Cuckoo.’
So I try to imagine I’m a dancing turkey. Maximilien sniggers because he can see I don’t know how to dance the Turkey Cuckoo. I keep moving my head up and down instead of from side to side.
‘Michel, you’re meant to be a turkey, not a lizard. The Lizard Cuckoo was last year’s dance! That’s old fashioned now!’
The other boys are sulking a bit because we’ve been cleverer than them and split our twenty minutes into four. Every time my brother and I swap over they all shout: ‘Plot! Plot! Plot! Cheats! Cheats! Cheats!’
Donatien looks at his watch and steps forward to move us away from the walclass="underline" ‘Come on then you two, time’s up now, off you go, let the others have a turn!’
Maximilien takes my hand, ‘Let’s go home, we’ve seen everything. In any case, it’ll be mayhem in a minute, the musicians will be too tired, they’ll have smoked their dope and they’ll start playing rubbish.’
Our parents are very cross, even Yaya Gaston, who still has a cut over his wound from the fight.
Maman Martine says, ‘Where were you then? Don’t you know the thugs from the Grand Marché come and hang round here on concert days?’
We stare at the ground and she goes on, ‘Since you’d disappeared, we finished all your food, so there’ll be nothing for you to eat tonight! That will teach you!’
Maximilien murmurs in my ear: ‘Don’t you worry, I thought about that. We’ll take the money that’s left in my money box and go and buy some big dumplings and soup from Mama Mfoa in the street opposite the bar called Credit Gone West, that’s open 24/7. Believe me, her soup is so good, you won’t mind missing the sardines the others had tonight, besides, we had them for lunch anyway!’
~ ~ ~
This morning my big brother Marius and my little sister Mbombie are getting ready to go into town. They are going to get their vaccinations against tetanus and sleeping sickness. Until now, those two have always said: No, we won’t have our vaccinations. But this time they can’t say no: a boy from our quartier died yesterday from sleeping sickness, and in the evening Papa Roger reminded everyone, ‘Tomorrow morning, all those who haven’t had their vaccinations must go to see the Chinese doctors at the Congo-Malembé hospital! When I get back from work I will check your arms to see you’ve got marks from the injections. You must have tetanus jabs too.’