Yeza wants far too much money. They’re begging him to lower the price. They tell him that Longombé’s mother is very poor, that she has no husband, that he ran off when Longombé was born. The joiner listens sympathetically. I get the feeling he’s going to cry. He even takes out a handkerchief and wipes away a tear, then says: ‘No, I’m sorry, I can’t lower the price of a coffin. I’ve given you a good price, but wood’s very expensive now. Go and ask the other joiners the price of a coffin and you’ll see!’
Since Monsieur Mutombo and my father can’t get him to change his mind, they get their money out and start counting. The joiner watches them, with the look of a greedy man with a tapeworm. His head bobs up and down each time a note comes out of the wallet and is laid on the bamboo table that stands in his yard. They hand over a lot of money, and he takes it and stuffs the whole lot in his pocket with a little smile that really irritates me. Then he gets the money out again, puts it back on the table and counts it as though he doesn’t trust Monsieur Mutombo and my father.
The whole group leaves the lot. The joiner goes into his workshop and we can hear the noise of his saw cutting up the wood.
Maman Pauline comes over to me and leans forward slightly to talk to me without the others hearing: ‘Michel, you must sleep on your own in the house tonight, your father and I are going to the wake. Don’t forget to put up your mosquito net, and to switch out the lamp when you go to sleep.’
She hugs me tight and kisses me. It’s the first time she’s hugged me like that, and given me a kiss. My cheeks are wet with her tears. If Maman Pauline is crying, she must be really unhappy, it must all be too much for her. I don’t want her to be unhappy. I know my mother isn’t crying for the death of Longombé. She has often told me that when someone weeps for a death outside their own family it’s because they’re thinking about their own fears. But I’m not thinking about my own fears, I’m actually thinking about how Longombé used to laugh in the workshop, the way he used to look at the women getting undressed in front of him so he could take their measurements. And when all these thoughts come into my head then I do start to feel a bit of a bug in my eye.
I hold out my arms for my mother to kiss me again, because I don’t know if she’ll ever kiss me again one day, or if I’ll have to wait for someone else round here to die first. She stoops down so she’s at the same height as me. My voice won’t come out, I don’t know what to say to comfort her, to stop her crying over Longombé’s corpse because she’s thinking of her own fears. Since my mouth is pressed up against her ear, I whisper: ‘Maman, I’ve got something for you…’
I take out the key and show it to her, she takes it quickly and starts crying really loud. When they hear her, the others think she’s still crying about Longombé’s death.
I see Monsieur Mutombo, Madame Mutombo, Maman Pauline and Papa Roger all walking away with Longombé’s mother and several other people from the neighbourhood come to join them. My mother turns round every now and then to look at me. Papa Roger too. The two of them have just been talking, and I get the feeling my father has now put the key I gave Maman Pauline into his pocket. I can tell even from here, because he keeps touching his pocket, as though he’s afraid the key might disappear. I do the same thing, touching the pocket of my shorts, and I can tell there’s still a key there, the little key for opening tins of headless Moroccan sardines.
~ ~ ~
It’s the first time I’ve been down to the river Tchinouka with Caroline. I asked her to come. I went past her house and whistled three times. I was worried it would be Lounès who came out, but I knew, too, that he wouldn’t be there, that he’d gone into town with his father to buy fabric. So the day before, when he told me he was going out with Monsieur Mutombo, I said to myself: I have to meet Caroline, it’s very important.
At the third whistle, Caroline came quickly out of their house. She stood barefoot outside their front door. She signalled to me to wait, then she went back inside. What was she going back to fetch?
She came back a few minutes later, nicely dressed, in a blue dress, white shoes, and a red scarf. I felt a bit scruffy in my blue trousers that were too short for me, and my brown shirt that her father made for me two years ago. I hadn’t combed my hair and I looked like I’d just got out of bed.
Caroline looked at my feet: my plastic sandals were a bit worn looking.
‘Where are we going then?’
‘To the river.’
She wanted to go and walk about in town. I said no, because it’s too far and you have to take the bus. Anyway, in the town centre we might run into Monsieur Mutombo and Lounès. Besides which, I’m scared of accidents now, with the buses going too fast, and not stopping at red lights.
We walked in silence. Caroline seemed to be walking slowly. So I slowed down too, to wait for her, and she gave me her hand, and I took it, and we went on our way like that, still not speaking, all the way to the river.
‘Michel, what have we come down here for? I don’t like this river, it smells, and the toads make such a noise! Did you know, toads are devils? They say they’re bad people who’ve died and been turned into toads.’
I hear a plane. I can only make out its wing, the rest is hidden behind a big dark cloud. I don’t want to try and guess which country it’s going to, or the capital of the country. Instead I’m thinking about next year. Maybe I’ll have my School Certificate in my pocket and I’ll go to Trois-Glorieuses secondary school. I’ll take the workers’ train with my friends. I’ll be in year 7, but Lounès will be in the big children’s class, in year 9. I’ll learn difficult things without worrying about becoming a madman like Little Pepper, Athena or Mango. I’ll be a little chap with hair under my chin and down below, inside my pants. I’ll walk faster than I do now because I’ll have muscly legs. My voice will change too, it won’t be high any more, and when I laugh people will say: ‘Hey, that’s a man laughing, not a little boy from Trois-Martyrs primary school, where water comes through the roof when it rains.’
Caroline gives me a shake, ‘Michel, are you dreaming, or what?’
‘I was thinking about next year when I go to big school.’
‘Did you find your mother’s key?’
I nod. Just now we were sitting down, but now she stands up suddenly and smiles at me.
‘Where is the key? Can I see it too?’
‘I gave it to my mother.’
I take out a little piece of paper from my pocket and hand it to her. She unfolds it to find the poem I wrote for her a long time back. Her lips move, her eyes fill up. But she doesn’t tell me what she thinks. I know she likes the poem, even if it’s not like the poem by Victor Hugo that her brother once recited.
She folds the piece of paper again, and hides it in her dress pocket. Just at that moment I take the key out of my pocket, the one that opens tins of headless sardines made in Morocco: ‘Here, this is for you too. Look after it carefully. I know you’ll need it one day to open your belly with.’
She has a bit of a bug in her eye and I can feel my heart dipping down into my stomach. I am so in love with her.
She tells me to get up and she takes me in her arms.
‘Do you still want to have two children with me?’
‘Of course.’
‘I love you Michel.’
‘I love you too and…’
‘Tell me how you love me.’
‘I love you like the red five-seater car we’re going to have.’
‘And the little white dog, don’t forget!’
The wind blows and whips up the river. Perhaps it’s going to rain. Caroline takes me by the hand and we leave the river. I’ll walk her back to her house, then I’ll go home, Maman Pauline will make me beef with beans this evening.