“We’re his friends.”
They make their way to the hut under construction and ask a young girl who’s doing her chemistry homework: “Where is Cataeno Pablo’s hut?”
“There’s no one by that name in this neighborhood.”
He hands her fifty coustrani but Mister there’s no one by that name around here. They walk on and ask a group of women, braiding each other’s hair, nattering about loincloths and husbands.
“Where is Cataeno Pablo’s hut?”
“Right in front of you.”
They come across his cook.
“Where is Cataeno Pablo?”
“He’s taking a nap, sir. If you don’t mind waiting.”
“I don’t have time to wait, go and wake him up.”
“But he’s going to start bitching.”
“Wake him up: I’m the President.”
And they wake you up. You come before my hernia. You rub your eyes. Hey, Cataeno Pablo: they say you like women. And she claims it’s you she loved. I don’t get it. After all, you were there when I took her from Yambo-Yambi. And you were there when I went and delivered all those bottles of wine to her father. Are you challenging my hernia? Fine, if that’s how you want things to be. Take him Vauban: we’ll be better off back at the palace. And for me to be loved I have to throw in a car and a villa, but you dare to be loved effortlessly, what do you have that I don’t? I think you’ll be better off back at the palace.
My parrot Narka is singing the national anthem. In order to honor the beast, Moupourtanka will be crowned “National Beast.” Brother Armane Suaze said: “Mr. President, that really is the last straw.” What, how dare you question the decision of my hernia? He produced a forty-eight-page document to prove that your hernia is making a big mistake, ah hang him; that’s enough and leave his corpse on display until he’s completely decomposed so that the people can see how their enemies end up. Rodriguez Lopez Lavouza will also be hanged for the same reason. And the same goes for Monsignor Mallavra, now send his body over to Jesus Christ’s father-of-the-nation so that he can see how I deal with the likes of him.
“Yes, Mr. President.”
Shut down all the convents and consorts, move all the nuns into the army at the rank of corporal, and all those bloody priests as well at the rank of sergeant. Let them learn to handle my prick instead of spending their days lounging around. No more blah-blah-blah.
He received fourteen trunks filled with messages of support; now this is the real national literature, enough of that bullshit other stuff.
“Yes, Mr. President.”
As the saying goes, You have to run with the pack, ah how shameful. But brother Jolango who wanted to leave the country to the children of the children of our children comes to lay Mr. President his congratulations on the table, bowing down to the ground. His eyes are red with shame. But congratulations! He is drenched in sweat. But you have to run with the pack. My ex-wife who wanted to leave the country to the children of her mother’s children entered, with all those resigning shamefully lined up behind her, but in reverse order this time. Ladies and gentlemen, you cannot change Africa as one does a wife. General Dordobanni, and Fentas Manu, Giovanno Lanza, Vansio Fernadez… please accept our warmest congratulations, Mr. President. They all brought gifts for National Moupourtanka, Beast of the Nation, and also for Mom.
Dressed as a prince, the animal was breathing heavily, up there in its official cage, amidst all the gold and diamonds. He was so healthy, majestic, regal, we all thought he’d live for at least two centuries. On this special day, he must have been thinking about the Spanish hills on the mother’s side of his lineage, or perhaps even of the village of Loupiac. Mr. Jean Perrier, who prepared his resumé, spoke of Loupiac and the Auvergne region, places where the beast had spent its childhood, in this country where Europe ran like Africa. He spoke of Florence Mensah who watched the beast grow up, and who welcomed me in the same way we do in Africa, and we spent six lazy days together in the same way we do in Africa, to the magical tolling of cow bells, listening to old guys talk about their hemorrhoids in the same way we do in Africa. The only person we were still waiting for was Cardinal Marcinni; I still don’t know why he expects me at his age to have to court him, and I’m not Vauban now, am I?
“Mr. President, he’s refusing to come.”
I really don’t get it, his mother went and slept with Mussolini and the offspring ended up a fucking cardinal and if he doesn’t want to bear the full brunt of my anger he’d better get his ass over here and bless me! Does he not know the motto: He needs to come and run with the pack whether or not he agrees with my hernia.
“But he won’t come, Mr. President sir.”
“Fine, then bring me his balls.”
Here’s Cardinal Marcinni. Execute him. And he thunders: “Lord. I die facing this shame.” Bang! Eleven cartridge clips to the groin and he drops like a lump of lead into a pool of his own blood. National Yosuah crowns the beast. Then, as always, came the great big feast, followed by dancing, the true dances of the people. Then there was a violent rainstorm. No one left, we’re not made of salt after all, and the celebrations continued. God may well challenge us, but we’ll hold on tight. So for three days and three nights they drank and ate and danced in the torrential downpour. There was never any mention of giving up. The water came up to their ankles, the water came up to their waist, and still, they kept on going. They danced in the mud puddles, and those who slipped and fell over got covered in the people’s mud. He cursed and cursed the rain over and over again. But you could see them all dancing: the ambassadors, the cultural attachés, the military High Command, the people. They all danced in the mud. The Ameridians, who if they so much as balk I’ll withhold the oil supplies of my hernia, the Flemish whom I’ll eject from the game if they so much as balk… the Russians, the Japanese, the folks from my colleague’s country… they dance the dance of the century, the horse dance… the national dance. And you there from my colleague’s country that I made Moupourtanka’s godparent. They ate and danced until that moment when, Mom I’m dying, Colonel Tuenso shot the beast and ran off shouting, “Hurray for the fatherland!” He left with three jeeps, firing into the crowd and at the infantrymen and shouting, “Hurray for the fatherland!” They headed toward Rouviera Ourta.
“Colonel, they’ve taken National Mom and that girl.”
Colonel Tuenso, you’re really pissing me off, but your day will come and you’re going to pay for this. In the meantime I’m going to take care of your brother, your mother, and all your loved ones because infringement is hereditary in our culture. And with this vertical decision of my hernia, that’s it, enough with this Good President shit, and too bad for you.
Do you understand Carvanso? When you see these human shits fornicating with your mom, fucking her poor old lady’s heart out, fucking her crazy woman’s nerves, how can you not think the world is a nasty place? And he cried over my national horse poor old beast dying for the nation, the world is a nasty place Carvanso because the lot of them and I mean the lot of them except him Colonel Tuenso that I picked up from the sidewalk, washed, cleaned up, dried off under the sun of my name, ironed up nicely, I had to blow into his lungs to inflate them, he had no idea how to munch on life, I spoon-fed him, showed him how to use his jaw, the correct motion, and all that was left for him to do was to crunch down and you see the thanks I get; the world is a nasty place Carvanso, everyone but him, but no, you must know Mom’s proverb: The finger you nurse may be the one that ends up pulling the trigger that kills you…. And he cries over this nasty world, he cries because I’m beginning to believe in the existence of sin… God is right: men are good for nothing but starting fires, century after century, and he parades it about! God is right: we need the Last Judgment, because my hernia cannot understand why you put them on earth and how it is Mom that they’ve started mentioning your mother’s privates, they’ve started mentioning your father’s legs ah my hernia is smoldering loving you and what filthy dog of a response you have for my entrails, what filthy response you have for my fatherly intentions. What an awful brand of meat we are; without me ordering all the shopkeepers and consorts to buy copies of my portrait, where would all the money you have in your cash registers right now have come from, without me ordering all of them to buy copies of National Mom’s portrait at the price you all know, without my hernia that is so strong in the art of looking the other way, what would you have in the country’s cash registers?