“Mr. President, I can’t bless this union, not with this girl here who’s crying when she should be smiling. The Church would be ashamed, our Lord would die a second time of shame. Because, Mr. President, Christ is watching me and I can’t go pounding shit into the scars left by the nails; I can’t give him piss instead of water.”
“Dorzibanso, don’t go remaking the Lord in your image. No no and no again: there’s no trifling with the bites of a hernia.”
He kneels down as he would before the Lord, and begs him: “Dorzibanso, my cheek held out for you, for the love of thy neighbor, if you don’t want to chow down on my herniated balls in seven sessions,” and then he switches his tone: “You can’t do this to me; remember how you became a cardinal with the support of dick, ah, my hernia is sad! We’ve always been good friends, friends and brothers, try and understand.”
But there was nothing to be done, this leech won’t go along with him, he mimics the voice, he says things in National Mom’s mother tongue and amen! The people answer, amen. Folks didn’t seem aware this was a hoax. He paraded his hernia around, his chest tinkling with the medals he had won fighting Russia who came to sell my hernia ideas rather than feeding my people. Ha, my people: we have here the proverbial truth of that The voice don’t make the man.
Dorzibanso was locked away after the church ceremony to make sure no one would find out the secret of the Mass said in Mom’s mother tongue. Then came the big night and the gala where he danced with Princess Honglanni leaving behind his trail of strong sweat and smearing her with mud. He also danced with Colonel Domingo Pinto’s ex-wife and smeared the people’s mud on her too, as he did with the mayor of Zamba-Town’s ex-wife, and Her Majesty the Queen of the Flemish; he danced with all those invited by my hernia and smeared them all with the people’s mud.
“This earth will accompany me to the grave.”
He also offered General de Laborderie, my first wife’s father, the people’s mud. As he danced the dance of my people, he distributed mud to all the men. By three in the morning, his hernia really started to reek. Truly nauseating vapors. Enough to make you puke. Stomach-churning. The scales on his sweltering herniated balls secreted a revolting stench. Stale juices. As he danced the dance of my people, a loincloth fastened around the waist, his hernia began to stink in that historic way, giving off a rotten nitrous odor. His brochette of medals chimed away. He sang in honor of my colleague whose country came later than ours. After the big feast and binge drinking where he got loaded the way the people do, he collapsed in an armchair right there in the middle of the party, both hands gripping his hernia.
“Don’t disturb him.”
In shirtsleeves, buttons in the wrong hole, holding his socks, National Carvanso comes to let him know that Mr. President sir your new spouse has hanged herself.
“What do you mean hanged?”
“Yes, Mr. President, she has hanged herself.”
“I… I don’t understand. What language are you speaking, Carvanso?”
“She killed herself.”
“My herniated balls have dropped.”
He thinks aloud just how magical last night was. As enchanting as a campfire. We danced together. I listened to her heart beating against my chest. Ha, that tempestuous shape of a body. Tender and made in the likeness of a goddess. With lips that incite fear and lunacy. There she stood, well-calculated, designed in the very image of my hernia. With her milk-filled breath, child of my own knotted breath. What do you mean hanged? Is what you’re saying there true? He sheds real tears the way we do, and it was clear he loved her. He’s been bawling for the past six days, drowning in tears and snot, hasn’t touched his food, his eyes are covered because I can still feel but I would never dare look at her corpse. Three times now he’s tried to kill himself over your body that’s punishing me. Each time our brother Carvanso got there just in time. Colonel that I like to call Vauban consoles him. National Mom consoles him.
“I let her have the very best copy I had of my soul.”
While the infantrymen were busy handing out black armbands to the people at three hundred coustrani each for the period of mourning, ah National Mom I’m inconsolable: he sets off to Italy, France, and Gainesville on a journey of mourning, ah good God I’m inconsolable! He accompanies her glass hearse all the way to the foot of Mount Fuji…. Ah! Then he heads to Tahiti.
“What do you mean, but what do you mean hanged? I gave her everything: my hernia, the nation, my heart, my strength… I gave her everything, and I mean everything. I even threw myself at her feet like a big mistake.”
When he returned home, brother Carvanso brought Camizo Diaz before him, who along with thirty-six mutinous infantrymen revolted, such incredible cowardice. To attempt to take power when I’m away, you see how the mice play here? And who’s at the head of this mousetrap, no other than that Camizo Diaz whom I personally went and found at the other end of the fatherland, who didn’t have the slightest idea in those days as to how to eat a sausage. I promoted him to Sergeant, then raised him to Captain then to Colonel just like everyone else, and this is the thanks I get. And just look at him standing there all naked my brothers and dear fellow countrymen. What more does he have than my hernia?
That section of the crowd that always makes things harder than they need to be shouted out: “The hernia,” and Mom’s Lopez burst out laughing: “That’s it, I’m better now.” And he orders Carvanso to cut off Colonel Camino Diaz’s speech instrument, go ahead and preserve him in formaldehyde, and have him put up on the wall in my bedroom next to the portrait of Mom, just below the portrait of my late wife Atélu-Léa, who died for the fatherland, hanged by those fucking idiots who wanted me to believe that she hanged herself but what do you mean hanged? Now please, let’s get the investigation underway.
~ ~ ~
WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE DONE if I’d been like Yao Tananso, who would call the Nation’s Council to an urgent meeting for just about any bullshit reason like when my cousin Zozo Portes Luna “slept” my other cousin Argento Comma’s wife? I’m not like Dimitri Lamonso who moved the capital to his mother’s village. I’m Lopez, National Mom’s son, nothing like Lazo Lorenzo who stuffed three cases of pre-filled ballots down the villagers of Yam-Yako to teach them how to vote. What I offer you is the only country in the world where democracy still means something. You get to ask all the questions, and I get to give you the answers; after all, you’ve had your Lan Domingo who hid the public treasury under Mom’s bed, and that faggot Cornez Caracho who gave all the ministers syphilis. Barça Baldi was the one who started all the financial crimes around here, and didn’t you go and make him a national hero? And I’m not like that Valso Paraison who took fifteen years in power to take hold of power. The soccer match opposing Juven National and Anzcox will take place right after the speech, or none of you shitheads would have come to the meeting. You love sport and that’s how I got you, and that’s enough bullshit for Christ’s sake! Then he makes his way back to the palace, on foot, to show everyone that the people have never been against him. Trailed by Vauban, a personal gift from my colleague, in charge of the investigation into the murder of my wife and head of security. He laughs at the thought of poor old Vauban who prefers men even though the whole country is swarming with women who want nothing more than my juices, Vauban with his worn-out backside, he laughs, never, I’ll never be like him. And he explains that if the Amerindians became what they are, it’s first and foremost because they knew how to handle women.