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  When we landed we were dreaming of a world in which people looked each other straight in the eye and spoke to each other like human beings, a world where people spoke man to man the way South Americans address each other—Hombre!—with no distinctions of class, race, or nationality. Alas, this country and its sun drove me mad. Their way of living in apnea infuriated me. Always waiting, spying on the neighbor's breathing, the cousin's breathing, the breathing of the man who came back from Ethiopia that summer or the woman who just found a meaningless administrative job at the Fisheries through her relatives. Waiting. Waiting. I could have written a whole notebook of his return to the country of his ancestors as I waited.

  But there were also things more serious than my petty bouts of melancholy; what's more, you know me, I'm not a poetess of the tropics, you can see that straightaway, right? Sure, they'd warned me, but really, as long as you haven't lived through something yourself it's a waste of time. As long as you haven't felt the tough, concrete reality in your own flesh it doesn't amount to a row of beans. Ali Aref's henchmen kept the little colony in a state of permanent terror as if their political mentors were Dr. Malan and the farmer Ian Smith, respectively the brain behind apartheid in South Africa and the strong man of the future Zimbabwe, then called Southern Rhodesia after the name of the British explorer and builder but nonetheless exterminator Cecil Rhodes. On the map of Africa, only Djibouti—besides Rhodesia and Pretoria—was still living under the colonial yoke. I'm sorry, my little cactus, if I'm giving you so many political examples that are not from your time. It's to better render the sound and fury of that period, nauseating and explosive all at once, and then I felt terrible when they associated me with the last little bunch of colonists just because I was French. In fact, I was a walking disgrace; maybe you'll understand that some day. An animal with horns avoided by your father's so-called friends. I couldn't have cared less about their distrust, aside from the fact that all around us the atmosphere was insurrectional. The lower city was untenable even if the Foreign Legion held the main roads and intersections from the end of the afternoon on. On the Richter scale of fear, our world had toppled into eruptive, telluric panic. A world the color of meat and blood. Of poverty, too: never had I seen so many begging hands at every bus stop, so many malnourished children as there were the month after we arrived. It's because of the famine in Ethiopia, said the propaganda. And a world of bling and lucre, where, at noon prayer on Fridays, we could already see crowds of suvs, exhibited as zebus once were in times gone by.

  Ali Aref and his supporters had done all they could to sort people out, and anathema and exclusion were the rule. Your membership in a tribe, or more precisely a clan, contrary to the common appellation, was stamped on your identity card, and, as if that weren't enough, they invented a new population category, decreed non-native on the pretext that they were supposed to be from Somalia. Non-natives and nomads of the inner country had to go through the Balbala checkpoint to get here, to the capital. This checkpoint was a miniature Berlin Wall. One word too many and you'd be accused of sabotage on the spot, handcuffed, shackled, and brought to the Service du Fichier, the data agency behind the only high school in the colony—attended mainly by children of expats, let me say in passing. You had two solutions: confess all the sins of Israel and you had a very slight chance of being released, broken but alive, intellectually annihilated but still hanging onto life by the guardrail. You would return home, but it was an open secret that you'd been turned; appointed by the secret services and their slave forever, you'd be constantly on edge now: you'd take to your heels at the sight of a dead caterpillar. The other solution: you had nothing to confess, had committed no crime, and your corpse would be carried by the tide between Haramouss and Loyada or, at two cable-lengths from town, between the slaughterhouses and Boulaos, half-decapitated by a shark, twisting in a net of seaweed, your skin eaten away by salt and the sun of the Last Judgment as an eyewitness. Of course there were a few exceptions, widely bruited about and held up as examples to hail the kind indulgence of the white chief. Again and again they told of the case of such-and-such, a young man from a good family led into the temptation of rebellion, the harmful influence of friends quickly detected, the virus eradicated, the young man miraculously saved from deadly waters, God recognizing his own, God always works in mysterious ways with resurrection at the end of the road, blah-blah-blah, once he was put on the straight and narrow the young man was sent off to study in France with a scholarship awarded by the Territory like that Vic Lebleu and his silly nickname.

  Despite battalions of paid informers, the wrath of the people never ceased to explode during the two decades of the Aref regime. The people found a way to express itself creatively, each link in the chain doing its job; with no clear leader, the results were obvious nonetheless: now the people was building barricades in poor neighborhoods, driving the Legionnaires away with stones, occupying Gabode prison, derailing trains, boycotting French products and schools, and refusing to pay taxes of all kinds, as in August 1966. Everything would suddenly calm down for a while, and then, without advance notice, start up again with renewed vigor. The staccato drone of helicopters grazing the rooftops and the heads of the demonstrators, the suffocating smell of tear gas, the neighborhoods locked down, the main roads blocked, the headquarters of the labor unions sacked, the arbitrary arrests, lashes of whips, pointless humiliations, expulsions from the country, the corpses of activists on the sidewalks—everything was catching fire again. Then back to calm. The cycle of struggles would begin its rounds again elsewhere, tomorrow, based on spontaneous anger, underground activism, the slogans of poets and singers, the ruses of the multitude—the thousand-and-one faces of solidarity. The multitude is the old woman who carries in water to soothe eyes smarting from the gas; it is the women who gather stones and give them to the men and to the children who have taken the vanguard—mater dolorosas and amazons all at once. The multitude is the muezzin who calls for insubordination and at the same time for prayer and return to the bosom of God. The multitude is the rage of the rebels, most often adolescents, confronting forces stronger than they are, biting the dust and getting up again to charge the enemy. The multitude is repetition, too. Starting again, always. Resistance and desire are present in every moment of life. Raising an old bush song to rally, relay, reconnect, wake sleeping energy, shake the genealogical tree. The old underground laws show the tip of their nose. Raids, razzias, fantasias, vendettas, last-ditch stands, everything that could frighten the good organization of the colony. Depriving the high commissioner of sleep, and his local native, too. Telling the outside world, seeking out potential allies in the enemy camp. It is impossible for the police to contain the movement, its life, its protuberances, its transformations, its desires and its new needs, which come from afar, from very far. Silence, exile, and cunning. Crossing and re-crossing borders that make no sense for anyone; a surge of nomadic life, mobility, cooperation, exchange, sharing, the power to annoy. “Irredentism, irredentism,” shouted the head of the high commissioner's cabinet. No matter.

  Protect oneself from stupidity. The savor of being and existing. Tactical retreat and return to the source. Going back to square one, to your mental hinterland—something larger than this colony the size of a postage stamp or a piece of dust-covered confetti. Ah, the great day was approaching. You could feel it in the air. You could feel it because morale on the other side was at a low point. All beginnings are lyrical; what follows, not so much. There was lyricism and carnival in that resistance. You could sense a huge dynamic force capable of propelling destiny forward. This rabble was stealthily bringing the French Republic under Pompidou to the court of universal conscience in the name of Republican values.

  21

  ABDO-JULIEN

  “IN THE MIDST of the forests and savannahs and ergs, in the red burning embers of the cities above the wild sea, on the sweet-smelling hills where the butterflies play, there lived a beautiful beast, warm and tawny, which was called happiness
.” Dixit the Breton storyteller Maria Kermadec, who often concludes her ramblings with a proverb she attributes to a sailor from Cancale: “He who has words in his mouth can never get lost in the world.”

  Maman's records, old vinyls buckled by the heat, rarely leave their pink candy jackets these days. If the hippie queens, the hepcat princes, Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix, Marianne Faithfull, and French singers like Brigitte Fontaine, Georges Moustaki, Barbara (her favorite), remain silent, prisoners stuck in their plastic covers, it's because Maman's sunny disposition has been stymied. As for Papa, his shelf of records is drawn from the rugged paradise of Deep South blues: Sonny Boy Williamson, Muddy Waters, and Bobby Bland share his favors. To make him reel into nostalgia, no need for khat. Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye, and Smokey Robinson remain his youth pills. Maman needs a particular microclimate to open that magic box. Old friends coming over, a phone call from an old girlfriend from Rennes, a bunch of youthful memories, things like that. Something still simpler: a melody, an old hit heard on the radio during a short trip, and you can be sure Maman's going to dust off the record player and play her twenty-odd LP records and as many 45s one by one. The whole household will be invaded by the brash voices of artists belting out all the music they have in them. In general, it goes in cycles and can easily take three to four days. The music of their youth has a beneficial effect on the morale of the troops: Papa perks up, even tries a few dance steps, imitating a matador with his sharp pin; Maman is jovial at first, then suddenly the tension mounts and swings into hysteria once the needle has landed on a Janis Joplin record. That's who she's imitating now. And all this can end in a terrible noise of broken dishes. No two ways about it, she's howling like a hangman at confession. The neighbors are taken aback for a while, wondering if everything's OK in the family of Harbi Awaleh and Alice, the daughter of the Breton storyteller who used to collect old ten-centime colonial stamps—“Madagascar and Dependencies”—and Abdo-Julien, that's me, stillborn in his seventeenth year, spirit wandering in the great tradition of the dibbuks you can find in The Golem, a small child returning periodically like the abikou* in the region of the Gulf of Guinea whose umbilical cord is buried next to Ilé-Ifé—an extraordinary fate, in the direct line of the shafeec* of our people. I owe everything I know to my parents. Does that surprise you?

  22

  BASHIR BINLADEN

  WAR INTO OVERTIME on the field now. President brought in a lot-lot draftees to replace all the dead. And then Scud 2, it start talking negotiations. The chiefs went quick-quick into town to get armchairs, A/Cs an radios. Ran like rabbits to pick up armchairs before their friends. Chiefs of Scud-there, they so-so hungry they'd eat their rebel boots. President so happy, he decorated the wounded, soldiers without arms, soldiers without legs, children without papa an mama. He accepted wounded rebels in big hospital to make buddy-buddy with second-in-command of Eternal Opponent. So it real peace now. Cept Eternal Opponent left for Paris to take refuge, he said war-there not over, said Scud 2 sold out corrupt. Him, watch out he gonna throw Scud 3 onto the field now.

  Hey, that true truth cause ambush start again at Randa, Ambado, As-Dara, an all. So us we stay stuck in military positions at Dikhil, Tadjoura, Obock, an in the Mabla. We defensive forwards to save the sovereignty and gains of the united and indivisible nation, that fat rich language like French head of diplomacy talk. So all that-there, not too bad for us, right? Me, that's how I kept my job. All the guys relax; we have fun after we cried a lot cause of buddies dead on the sideline like Housseini in Adaylou, the one who bought and sold the pink pills. Everybody knows the pills-there come direct from Mogadishu; they love pills there too much so they can keep on with fierce war. Normal, right? But you can't make fun of the other monkey's cunt when your own ass-there naked too, even. Somalians, they in deep shit, but we got our problems too. The whole world saying: Somalians, Africans, all a bunch of savages make civil war all the time. Well, gotta understand us. What you expect when politicians-there they pick up all the pots an chow? When they eat the skin off the nape-a your neck. You pick up rifle, that's all. Us, we don't got comfort, villa, car, pay vacation like French, English, an even Norwegians who're nice cause they give NGO money an keep their trap shut. Me I say if a big white guy he wanna take my place, I give it right away an go screw his wife an daughter. That way it democracy between us. I give my place an he take my place here. Then I take his wife. Tie, ball in midfield. Be serious now and stop that crap about rightsaman, rightsawoman, rightsababies. We got a right to the good life too, don't we? Sick of drinking our own sweat. Draftees wanna admire shooting stars too, cept what they see's tracer bullets singing sweet little songs like this: “C'mere my little honey, come this way, been waiting for you for a long long time.” Draftees, they like that old camel the family gonna kill to eat him cause he's too-too old. The old camel, he say to chief of camp: “I worked for you all my life. I marched, marched, and marched to carry your tent and your merchandise. You got all you needed out of my back, now you wanna eat my meat and bones. After that you still get more out of me cause you'll take my skin an you'll make shoes with it, right?” So there you are, us draftees like ole camel-there cept us, we younger. That's all. Gotta stop bringing tears to my eyes. I close parenthesis.

  Now on the field there not only Scud 3 but also NGO who wanna help rebels by giving medicine, OK with me, but also LAV (that mean light armored vehicle) an bazookas. Me, I say no fair. OK, NGO can help rebels a little but come on, gotta help us a little too. That way it justice. You give grub to one brother, gotta give grub to other one. Me, I think business-there a little not clear. NGO, they say we gonna give grub to population, but behind they making strong allies. We caught an old white woman hiding boxes of Chinese grenades in her white truck with blue flag. So President, he get real mad, bang on his desk, yell: I don't wanna see no more NGO humanimajig on the field. You catch one, you kill him right there. I will personally send a bill to the main office of his organization for the bullet he gets between the eyes. From now on, these people will be carrying their coffins on their backs. Now me, that where I say, bravo. Big bravo even. Can see he not kidding around no more, the ole president. That crystal clear like the desert sky.

  23

  ALICE

  AT THE VERY BEGINNING of the seventies, Abdouwahid Egueh, aka Vic Lebleu, aka Victor or more commonly the Guy from Lille because he almost became the first soccer player of the Territory sent to France, had only played two seasons for the club of the big northern city, which was then in the Second Division. Perseverance was not his strong point, so he came back home in secret. Needless to say, Wahid, the Unique, was not up to the hopes that had been placed on him. However, between Lille and him there was a wild love story, at least at the start. But that wasn't all: his trip to the other world gave him a laid-back attitude that became legendary. Vic Lebleu is a new man now, blathering away on Triton Beach night and day, spending most of his time on Plateau du Héron, neglecting the family house in District 4. A gang leader with no other authority than his good humor, he hangs around with Chiné (the Chinese, a little thug) and his friends, killing time in front of the Clochard (Tramp) Stand, a stone's throw from the Olympia cinema. He brags about his ability to move effortlessly through all social milieus—not just the expatriates he's after all year long—and speaks, in addition to his French peppered with swearwords and Lille slang, the three languages currently used in this part of the world. Late at night, Vic and Chiné's whole gang meet at the Mic-Mac, a shady spot but very popular in the capital, something between a dance hall, a nightclub, and a hangout for whores. On the dance floor Vic wiggles his hips, with honeyed eyes and catlike steps. With his laughs, ramblings, and easy gab, he's the king of the dance floor, a pasha reigning over his little sultanate, Sinbad sailing between the scent of tobacco and hops. And yet a perceptive eye will probably sense his vulnerability. Very grave things are said about him. He's said to be an agent provocateur in the pay of the secret services. When he got back from Lille he w
as taken over by very sure hands. If you wanted to take the trouble to look for his umbilical cord, you'd find it around District 4 or Einguela. His almost perfect knowledge of the field is not something to be overlooked in these uncertain times. His encyclopedic cackling about the underworld, marked by what he has skimmed from rumors, can be useful. Ferdinand Valombreuse, Aref's shadowy right-hand man and an expert in dirty work, ran into him a few times in the officers’ mess hall on Boulevard de Gaulle and can attest to it. They looked each other up and down for a long time. In the soft languor of a muggy afternoon, they clinked their glasses of Heineken together. Vic's face took on an auriferous glow, and Valombreuse, with a 180-degree smile, left the premises to go about the business he had set for himself that day.

  The first mission they gave Vic was child's play. He had to find two or three house painters and whitewash the blood-covered walls of the Teacher Training College after the student revolt mentioned above. Once the work was over, he would leave his usual signature or more exactly his initials (VL for Vic Lebleu) in the corner of one of the walls, the way a Renaissance painter might sign his stained glass windows. More prosaically, this signature is a cabbalistic sign for men in the secret services.

  Vic joined their stable at an early age. He admired their crafty style and above all flipped at their risky games and their taste for bling-bling. You can easily follow their route at regular times in the upper city. Omar Bashé and Gourmad Robleh, the excellent sleuths on the vice squad fresh from police school at the École Nationale in Villeurbanne do exactly that, but discreetly. Towards four PM they leave Triton Beach. At five, they have sodas and cans of beer in a dark bar run by an Ethiopian exprostitute. The hand moves around the clock once more and they're taking the air near the industrial port, opposite the Coca-Cola bottling plant. At eight, they're strolling along the coast road, built at the exact spot of the present Route de Venise (a gift from Italian Cooperation) always two by two, three hundred yards apart from each other, stopping to smoke a cigarette, quicken their step or on the contrary slow down. They pass by soldiers in tracksuits trotting along on their way back to the naval base on Heron Island. The draftees, noisier than a kindergarten hive, don't hesitate to provoke them from a distance. All winks, chuckles, and sighs. Vehicles with the insignia of Air Detachment 188 slow down as they reach the swampy zone. Stares coming from all sides, coupled with little nervous laughs. The mares waddle along, let themselves be desired. A new moon shiny as a twenty-franc piece is beginning to glimmer in the coal-black sky. From time to time, the headlights of a civilian car shoot out of the bottleneck of the port; the mares slow down and make themselves very visible on the sidewalk under the halo of the lampposts. Playing at innocent games, they suck a Miko ice cream bar they'd bought previously or lick a cone, their faces turned towards the peaceful sound of the sea.