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  Of Brittany, I miss nothing. Not the sugared crepes or the crepes flambé in chouchen cider, nor the liquid skies and the rain-wind of Mont-Saint-Michel, nor the vacations at Saint-Pierre-de-Quiberon (they were from the land on my father's side, from the sea on my mother's, and that's why schooners, longshoremen and their strikes, deep-sea fishing, foggy docks, caravels, puffins, pelicans, chebecs and clippers, trawlers, seaweed and seafarers, frigates, the navy, overcast skies, the Azorean anticyclone, the waters of the Gulf of Gascony, Ouessant, and Roscoff, Aix and Oleron, the beaches of Finistère and even far-off Cape Horn were all part of family conversation), the noisy folklore in Lorient or Morlaix in the summertime, with its sprightly carousels of boozers and bagpipe blowers. I have no need for memory, that cumbersome totem. No Proustian remembrance of things lost for me, no madeleines, no little patch of yellow wall. And I might as well tell you right now: Celtic music really gets on my nerves. I can't retrieve that memory unless I'm under hypnosis. It's epidermal, it's contagious, that's all. End of story.

  Sometime before her tragic death, she confided to me that when she was a teenager, her nose was a little too hooked. One of those little defects nature bestows on you for life. As you might guess, that made her self-conscious, and her family never failed to remind her of it. They had decided that she should have her nose fixed. She was shaking with fear, fear of dying, fear of not waking up, fear of sinking into the arms of her anesthesiologist for good. Her legs, soft as cotton, couldn't carry her any longer. An appointment had been scheduled shortly before summer. The date was nearing. They kept coddling her, reassuring her as best they could. But her fear only intensified. And yet, a miracle happened. It came from the clinic of Doctor Lucien Roussel, the most famous plastic surgeon in Brittany. He's the one who put an end to that panic fear. Three days before she was due for surgery, he committed suicide.

  In the history books, articles, and newspaper clippings Maman used for her research, bringing them back from the National Archives of Overseas Territories in Aix-en-Provence, you find numerous terms and insulting denominations, the wild theories of anthropologists or preposterous tribologists that should be stowed away deep inside the warehouse where historical anathemas are stored and forgotten. Not to mention, Papa would say, that school of tropical geography that never got out of the claws of the colonial lobby. They're a real pain in the neck (let me tell you, I'd just as soon get smacked in the kisser by a shepherd's stick, Maman would say if she heard me talk like a little professor) with their poor little men oppressed by their climate, their volatile acacias married to the desert winds, technically deprived, threatened by pandemics, bedimmed by sleeping sickness, reduced to living naked, and overwhelmed by a soaring birthrate. They keep talking about those minds filled with wonder and innocence, fed by the milk of France, their savior and benefactor. In the editorials of the time, we were always subjected to the risks of mutilating choices: convert or exploit them, educate or emasculate them, develop or crush them. “Exterminate all the brutes!” vociferated Conrad's counterpart, someone who knew how to speak the language of truth. As a young thirty-two-year-old sailor, he had commanded a steamer that went up the Congo River in 1890. Heart of Darkness is simply the fictitious version of his logbook, and Kurtz is only applying the techniques then in use to exploit gold, ivory, and wood on the property of good old king Leopold of Belgium.

  I have ungrudgingly revealed to you my intuitions and the kind of books I read. It's up to you to finish the job, if you feel like it. I'll even help with the bibliography if need be. And if I were you, I wouldn't stop here.

  Maman's eyes are blue, Papa's are black, mine are brown. Maman, she's grace itself and Papa—forget it! My eyes? Brown, and light, she often adds. Moumina (Memona, that's how my funny half-Breton mom pronounces it), the girl who works for us, has gray eyes like a cat, which has oblong pupils, as you well know. She also has two high round breasts, what am I saying, she has two ogival arches thrusting upwards into the sky, an aquiline nose close to my heart, and two long thighs the color of honey. Ah! There she goes, she's starting to size me up with her sexy look; it's because she has readjusted her lips to put her smile back on, a necessary prop in a seducer's paradise. Moumina has for me the face of all the feminine rotundities to grind or knead. Moumina is the human clay on which I dream of planting my particle of life. She's the one who feeds me in the kitchen whenever I feel like eating something. I don't want Maman to know this right away. We feast on the leftovers. Anyway, Moumina's the boss in the kitchen. Let me tell you, I much prefer it this way. Telling you she knows how to be in charge isn't giving away a secret: Moumina grew up in the orphanage managed by the former president's wife. He loved to care for a plentiful, distant brood. Since they were childless, the presidential couple was bled white by their close family, a demanding and expensive one. What more gratifying, then, than a tribe of orphans humming their gratitude, laurel palms in hand, eloquence on their lips, ready to cheer them enthusiastically every single weekend.

  * * *

  1. Organization of African Unity.—Author's note

  3

  BASHIR BINLADEN

  CALLING YOURSELF Binladen, the most wanted man on the planet, it's too-too much, right? Binladen, the biggest richkiller. His big head with fine-fine beard, most expensive in the world. Worth fifty million dollar. Our new president, old camel pee compared to that. Bush the cowboy president of the Americas want Binladen dead or alive. Also the rich fat-cat Saudis, and his real family, blood of his blood same father same mother, disown Binladen cause they afraid of catching big American revenge. So, Binladen terriblific. But me, I'm mini-Binladen, see, like Madonna dolls, Michael Jackson dolls, the other things there in small-small size. I don't got fine beard and big head of Binladen but watch out, I'm wicked and pitiless. I suicided men, enemy Wadags and other men not enemies. I trashed houses, I drilled girls, I pirated shopkeepers. I pooped in the mosque, but don't shout that from rooftops cause I was very pickled. I done it all. Easy to do things-there when you sleep, you dream, you eat with a Kalashnikov or even an Uzi. Uzi is attack rifle, it's Israeli I'm telling you, believe my word. Israelis too-too strong for war. African heads of state like so-so much Israeli bodyguards cause Israeli bodyguards they protect from military coup like rubber protect from AIDS you get me? At the front, I was the man who shot faster than his shadow, Marlboro in my mouth like that, bazoom bazoom. Sniper the Americans say, I saw that in movie at Youssouf's: Youssouf, he show movies at his house. Snipers against Bosnians, that the name of the movie. They say all the time Bosnians Muslim, but me I don't believe it cause those guys have white face an all that.

  So, kill, destroy the other side, eat enemies' hearts, OK. By who? Why? That none of my business. I get my orders, chief say kill that fat rebel sonofabitch, I kill without fear or fault cause you gotta obey chief. Way the army is. Our chief got chief he gotta obey too. Chief of all chiefs on the northern front, his name Mad Mullah. He drink whiskey in daytime, drink whiskey at night. When he not drinking whiskey he opening bottles of beer with the barrel of his AK-47 an yelling orders quick-quick. I thought about it but I never found out why Mad Mullah his name. Maybe you know his name-there, his rank, uniform, his little darlin's perfume an all that. Me I shut my trap about that cause this business not real clear. Maybe we learn about that before long.

  On the front, lot of us didn't have no uniform. Draftees cruited quick-quick like me. How old are ya, kid? Eighteen, I lied for real. Where you from? District 6, Djibouti. You're a kid from the magalla,* get over there. Into the courtyard, fall in! Tomorrow you leave for Yoboki. OK, dismessed. I didn't even know what to do. I stood planted there front of cruiting officer. You deaf, or what? Move it! That I know all right. Hour later, I was in military truck with my new buddies, Ayanleh, Warya, Aïdid, Haïssama, an all that. Aïdid, that not real name. Aïdid, he the Somalian general who screwed the American soldiers. Aïdid, champion in battle, Platini1 of war. Americans, they making a real movie to show how Aïdid there, he
too-too wicked. Aïdid, he got an expensive head, too. Ten million dollars. Our new president flat like old chewed-chewed piece of gum compare to that. No, I say big bravo Aïdid and also he friend with our president not with rebels. Long story short, he no moron like our chief instructor or asshole general now residing in Gabode prison. Yuck.

  OK, I gotta confirm this story right away: yes, in the army everyone's not native, plenty cousins from Somalia there. Some come from Mengistu's army, specially with the rebels. There's real foreigners even, I mean Gaallos*—you know, Whites. Poles, Lebanese or Albanese, Czechoslowhatians an all that. All those guys, they mercenaries like they say in fancy French. But that top military secret. I know a real general who helped our president for cheap in great battle of Obock. His name Saxardid, I'm telling the true truth, believe me faithfully, he was second chief of Somalian army with Siyad Barre. Real bloodthirsty one, that guy. Holy shit! Siyad, he was worser than our president who stopped the war. He gobbled little kids not to die old-old. Haile Selassie, he was bigger kid-eater than Siyad Barre with his wife-there, Queen Menem. She liked flesh and fresh blood of children too-too much. So, because of ceasefire, me, I'm demobilized. Not cool, right? Without Kalashnikov you can't pick up rich stuff everywhere no more. That not charity. That civilian life there, it's real shame, you don't scare no one no more. The pretty girls, they boycott you for real. The ugly girls they turn their heads away when you walk in front of their face. The always-unemployed they say out loud hey there's a new unemployed, when before you used to go: bang! boot in the gut here you bastard take that in the belly. Even little mouse laugh at you. City say war no good, no good, like that Congolese singer. But I don't agree. I say war too-too good for sure.

  * * *

  1. Great French soccer player of the 1980s.—Translators' note

  4

  ABDO-JULIEN

  ALL BLOOD IS MIXED and all identities are nomadic, Maman would have said, talking about me, Papa, herself, or the whole wide world. This business of mixed blood is a very old story, she would add, raising her voice—so old that the first traces of African migration in the Italian peninsula, to give just one example, date from the conquest and fall of Carthage. Much later, there are records of nobles with black slaves: the famous mori neri in the paintings of Veronese or Giambattista Tiepolo. All that is typical Maman—a Frenchwoman born in Rennes and attracted by the mixture of races. She came to Djibouti well before I came into the world close to two decades ago. I owe my existence to those student parties that are so popular on campuses. For a few hours, foreign students can forget loneliness, the lack of familiar landmarks, their depression and feeling of dislocation. For a few hours, native students can find cheap thrills, exoticism, the feeling of being transported far away in the sway of the music blaring as loud as possible, and the giddiness caused by the mixture of perfumes and sweat. The Zairian rumba was in full swing then. James Brown, Manu Dibango, and Miriam Makeba heated up their bodies. Later, “Rock Around the Clock” woke up the ones with a head stewing in hops. The Platters' “Only You” welded the desiring machines together again. Toward dawn, the toughest would stagger back to their rooms with a blood level of alcohol that would make Rasputin turn pale. “It's not because we went there to have a drink or do some dancing that we screwed our balls off,” said a friend of my parents who boasts of calling a spade a spade.

  My mother, with her hair twisted together like those sentences of Monsieur Proust that no one can unravel, fears neither the sunburns that knock off foreigners with delicate skin nor the narrow little streets covered with dust. As a child I was fed on the milk of love, and reading. The big words of adults went right through my mind (picaresque, epic, tachycardia, scenography, crazy twists and turns of plot…), but the stories stayed with me for a very long time. Some day I'll tell you the story of that adventurer from Brittany, born with a fishing rod in his hand, said the novel: he hunted whales in the Bering Straits, sold real Bordeaux wine in the tropics, and took on the boldest pirates with the help of his adorable companion Louison, a royal tigress he had freed from the jaws of a Malaysian crocodile. I still remember every episode. Would you like another one? I'm hesitating between Alexandre Dumas, Eugène Sue, Jules Verne, Scheherazade, or the snow-white beard of Charles Dickens. Are you ready to hunt the rhinoceros in the Serengeti in the company of Ernest Hemingway, become a maharaja in the country of long-haired princes, wind between the seven pillars of wisdom behind Lawrence of Arabia, follow in the footsteps of Peter Pan, or acquire bouquets of wisdom under the guidance of the venerable Tierno Bokar between Dogon cosmogony and Peul poetry? Some other day I'll tell you the life of Monsieur Henri de Monfreid in great detail: Maman loved him at the beginning of her stay in her new country. You're looking at me wide-eyed as if I were a monster, as if I were hiding some shameful infirmity in my frail silhouette. I'm just a little clever for my age, and ahead by a few books. Apparently that happens sometimes: a statistician cites the figure of 1/127, without bothering to prove anything at all. One child out of 127 is supposed to be gifted with superior intelligence—where did he get that stuff? This being said, that little figure might have the advantage of reassuring the most rational minds.

  5

  BASHIR BINLADEN

  WAR'S GOOD FOR LIVING, I mean for making a clean, simple living. How many dead? Why all that? Never again? Forget that debate there, too-too empty. On the front, morale of troops not so good. First of all our chiefs are real morons right out of the Sheraton casino, the greedy Hindi's place. Chiefsthere, OK they pros at restoration, but in battle I give them a flat zero. They bungle it in front of goalposts, right away the enemy screws us in the penalty kick zone an we KO standing up. Worst, every Thursday, they offside. They say yah, we go to the capital, get orders. They give us that to make alibi but they live it up out there at the Sheraton or Tonnelles dance hall inside the thighs of the girls an all. Fridays, they come back tired out like ole boiled chewngum, they stay on the sideline. They don't talk, they fall into big sleep. After that, the Scud, they understood that an fast, cause they had spies in town watching chiefs' little game. Scud, crazy mad for generations. So they attack, bite into the ball like starving hyena. They move down to our side of the field, an us we retreat all the time. So, battle, real simple, like soccer. You retreat, enemy attacks through center and wings. You take a wicked beating. That the story of first half in that civil war-there. Scud scored points. Us, we stuck inside the towns. We play defense in Tadjoura, Obock, Yoboki. When we made little timid attack, bang they sound big alarm. Look, look, they holding population hostage, representatives of the Scud they shout from Yemen and Paris. Open parenthesis. Go fuck self. You got balls, come back to Djibouti. We gonna bomb your Wadag neighborhood of Ambaba. You lousy immigrant bum! Close parenthesis, thanks.

  So, us, we defended by kicking the ball out of bounds. We put barbwire an anti-personnel mines all around towns. Daytime, we were the chiefs. Nighttime, they were the boss. (That English, I think, right?) It went on like that for the whole first half. Real joke was when president an big politicians in Djibouti they said the Scud not native. They Ethiopian an Eritrean adventurers. On the ground we crack up, we saying in silence: hey president, you ain't ashamed of yaself? Yah yah yah, shut you big mouth! We just say that in silence. Him, the ole president, he had mouth full of bullshit. He came up with big-big words: adventurers, revanchists, illusionists. We listened on Aïdid's radio to Radio France Internationale. (RFI they boast too-too much, they call themselves world radio but who they ask if it true, huh?) Staff sergeant Houmed say in his Tarzan voice: turn that radio off, willya, an fast. The staff sergeant, he was perplex, on one hand he head a battalion of the national army, on the other he was Wadag and supported the rebellion a little, sort of. But he was good chief, honest an all. But wait, things are more complexed than that, Wadags not all rebels. Aïdid for example, his mother Wadag even if he don't understand a thing she say. Haïssima, his father's the Wadag; Haïssima (now that true Wadag name even) he kind of kn
ow how to talk patois, that can help in battle. Long story short, let's be serious, half the goverment Wadag. The prime minister of the old president an the new president, the one who been riding horse for a long-long time, Wadag too. He from around Yoboki, I had my first battles there. That where I also did my three months' basic training with real instruction officer, not like the other moron. Where I learned how to march, crawl under barbwire, use weapons, how to prepare ambush, how to pick up secret messages on complicated frequencies (that's how I know secrets, you got that), how to get away before you get wicked red card, etc.