children, give your souls a minute, and number nine burst out laughing: we should be thinking of our remains that they won’t return to our families, my mother will be forced to cry into emptiness, my wife, my children, my friends, it’ll last two or three days, my buddies will stop by for a quick look, Floria will bring something over, condolences for mom, perhaps a little something as well for the kids, but nothing for Elsa because Floria can’t stand Elsa, my sister doesn’t care for my wife: it’s absurd of course, but she wanted me to marry Drobando; Guilliano will also die, he’ll fold his arms on his chest because: “I told him to steer clear of those things,” poor guy just doesn’t get it, he believes everything he hears on the radio, he’ll be thinking about it before he heads off, I had a drink with him on the eve of the arrest, we danced quite a bit, and then went to our respective homes around four o’clock in the morning, the roosters had already started crowing, “How could he have…,” he’d never fully understand how the national radio reported it; I owe Morna a thousand coustrani, he was going to drop by and pick them up and since he never listens to the national radio, he’ll drop by, they’ll tell him I’m dead, he won’t believe it, but they’ll tell him to turn on the radio, he’ll shrug his shoulders. Madra, what do you think death is like? Shut the fuck up, I have no specific views on the question, but it’s probably something immense, that’s all I know. Do you really think it will be immense? I don’t really know, but immense was the first word that came to mind; one person’s life is worth the same as the whole world’s. Cataeno, you who were once president, how does it feel down there in your balls when you’re right there? Who cares about all this, why don’t we listen to number thirteen’s story, the only serious thing in life is ass; men make you spit, let’s talk about women, all their brains have gone into their legs, the first one I slept with tasted of cookies, that was back in my dorm in junior high…. Keep your boarding school stories to yourself and quit interrupting Cataeno; some guy came in to clarify some of the conditions for a pardon: you have to write down all the reasons that drove you to work with that traitor Yambo-Yambi and don’t leave anything out, write down what you think of the president who’s agreed to pardon you, and don’t leave anything out, and he takes the opportunity to add a few words: you lot that go looking for democracy in your mothers’ pussies, it’s right here in front of you, but you have to learn to handle it… number eleven cried out “Mothers’ pussies,” and the guy snapped back at him that the way to answer the dead was through silence; then he took off, and Lansa Maria said: democracy my ass… and you can tell his rotten decomposing hernia that… Lansa Maria, don’t speak in that way, some of our comrades might decide to ask for a pardon; and Agostano started screaming like some lunatic: let them go ahead and waste us, let them get on with it. I couldn’t hold on any longer, so at around two in the morning I let Lansa Maria know that I wanted to ask for a pardon; he looked at me for a long time, and then said: I pity you; he looked at me some more, he asked me if it was the fear of death that was pushing me to do this, and then his voice thundered: Is it fear or what? But I didn’t respond: then I looked at him and said: It’s not fear. Well what is it then? The need to speak out! I see, the need to speak out, because you think they don’t know we’re innocent, let me tell you, my brother, around here, everyone has found a way to get by in the pretend world, to believe in all the pretend things that go on, and they live pretend lives, and in any case you know they won’t bother to read your statement, no, my brother, you can’t let them start thinking that we need them in order to die. No, my brother, you’re going to get us into a shameful situation, you’ll bring shame to all those who know we’re innocent, but do as you please: in the face of death we all have the right to do what we like with the time we have left: you can’t force people to be heroes. You think about all this some more: and then you decide to write: “Mr. President, these are the words of a dead man, and dead people don’t know which language they speak and they’ve no other polite form of address than the smell of death, and in any case it’s awful to have to die because that’s what people ask of you, but that’s not the question, it didn’t take us very long to learn the business of death; you who are not the president of the dead but rather the president of living; I hope you will read these lines all the way to the very end. This would help you see why you must not only pardon us but also make sure that justice is served; death is not harrowing for us wretched folk that have already been written off, we barely feel its touch, and in any case, I’ve already said so much in my books, my conferences, during my stint in office and at this hour I should probably remain silent, but I’m speaking here in a different voice, yes, Mr. President, you will notice that I’m speaking here now with the words of a dead person. I’ve always spoken of love, fraternity, understanding… but today I realize that those things can’t just be spoken, they must also be lived. But today, Mr. President, this is about us, us and this shameful state (by which I mean state as condition) in which we find ourselves. It is our country, continent, race and finally the Black man in general that is speaking through me. The Black man and mankind in general, mankind in the face of the eternal struggle against natural barbarism, mankind in life with its human dimension, and you have to listen to this voice, setting aside preconceived notions. You know how those racists present us in their humanitarian dealings: Blacks are made for emotion, not for reason. And this charge is historically serious. We’ve been made to plunge into a wholly shameful historic situation. As we see it, it is for us to meet the challenge. Only our particular experiences will tell us whether those prejudices were right or wrong. Ambivalence, Mr. President! Our most sacred duty is to get rid of our ambivalence before it destroys us. We entered history after a series of bad dice rolls, and I’m no longer interested in questioning the image we have of our own minorities as we spend time deploring the White minorities, I’m no longer interested in questioning the image we have of our own helmets as we bury the colonial helmet, I’m no longer interested in questioning the peculiar way in which we handle freedom, even if the definition is straightforward: He who knows how to handle freedom is human. As things stand today, I no longer need to breathe to be alive, I’d like to remind you that we condemned Malcolm X’s death…, we condemned Lumumba’s death as well as Biko’s, while we were busy applauding Yambo’s assassination. But who knows the truth about his death, except for my friends and a certain Master Kidneys, who will ever know, who will ever know that Yambo was assassinated? Torture, Mr. President, is torture revolutionary? Is inhumanity somehow humanitarian? Of course, our national radio that treats our people like a horde of forty million toddlers just announced that Yambo had committed suicide in his cell, but I saw what happened, and my brothers saw what happened, and we loathe the national radio. So the big question we’re left with is the following: If we are indeed helpless in the face of mankind’s fall, just how much longer do we have left as humans? Why condemn the Africa that kills Steve in order to free the Africa that kills Yambo? Am I to conclude then that freedom is not worth fighting for? That the Black man is a false problem? Well if that’s the case, then the slave trade probably was as well, and while we’re at it, hats off to Hitler and Pizarro, hats off to Auschwitz and to Hiroshima! But in death, Yambo showed me how to see things differently: now I believe in freedom, as the ultimate human dream, as a basic prerequisite for progress, peace, and happiness. Let’s not turn freedom into some kind of fool’s trap, let’s not turn our respect for human flesh into a farce, for in so doing, we would inadvertently be praising Pizarro and Hitler. And Mr. President sir, I know that you’re neither Hitler nor Pizarro, that you were averse to the sacrilegious bombing of Hiroshima, I know that you condemn Auschwitz. But Yambo was assassinated: I have no doubt you will hunt down his assassins and bring them to justice, so I’m here to plead the case of all those who were tortured to death, convinced as I am that barbarism will never be humanitarian, convinced as I am that Pizarro was not human. Us Blacks have been historically christened with insults; we have more reasons than others for being human, and we must not only breathe but also function, function so that the race of crocodiles that came into History covered in scales of shame can function. The force of circumstance, everyone knows our origins, and here we are, shepherded along by prejudice. If, on the other hand, you do not resolve to shed some light on Yambo’s assassination, it will become customary for people to kill with impunity. And I wanted to avoid raising, Mr. President, my brother, the key question of….” Listen my friends, Cataeno Pablo has asked for a full pardon for all; tear that up, said Zenouca, no, don’t, said Lansa Marta, let’s at least read it first, then we can decide whether or not we can leave it as a gift to his hernia. Junitas read the fifteen pages while the others listened attentively. Some liked what they heard, others did not; now listen up children, we’re going to vote on this so that we can enjoy freedom one last time; if the vote is negative we’ll tear up this nonsense, and if the outcome is positive we’ll all add our signatures to lend weight to it, and you get it, the dead don’t rip each other up like the living do; and the voting begins: nineteen yeas, eleven abstentions, nine nays, you could say the yeas pretty much won, and Lansa Marta has everyone sign the letter. Number sixteen goes ahead and signs, but not without first voicing his displeasure: those people from the area near the lake have such a high opinion of honor, they say that a promise is a heart. And we send the letter. Do you think he will grant it, Junitas asks his older brother Lansio, and Lansio blows up: I don’t need it anymore, they’ve already killed me, they busted my balls. And Agoranti, what will you do if they do grant it? I’d move up north; it’s more peaceful there, I’d find some nice quiet spot and plant some corn, I’d tear up all their filthy licentiousness, but why wouldn’t you head for the mountains, corn grows well at high elevations; I’m not so keen on mountains, I find them too imposing for my small frame. The preacher abstained on the vote but nevertheless signed the letter, and he said as he was signing, I no longer believe in life, this life! What time do you think it is? Four forty; just twenty more minutes, twenty minutes is nothing, and Junitas says: We still have twenty centuries ahead of us, we’ll clear a sinister hole in the matter, an emptiness that’ll throb across the centuries, and he starts spewing out names: Oudramani Motès; Larbacho, Louvoursak, Pedro Mandezo, Henri de Salmata, Patani, Goya: those are some of my ancestors; I’m off to see them.