6. ABDO-JULIEN
I'M CURIOUS about everything. As soon as the door opens a crack, I slip like a little mouse into Papa's library, where the caramel smell of his Amsterdamer is floating in the air, and search through the jumble of papers and newspaper cuttings. Old copies of the Réveil, recent issues of La Nation, the governmental weekly, communiqués of the Scud that reach him through secret channels, l'Ensemble of the Fearless Opponent and the brand new regional bimonthly Nouvelles du Pount that friends brought from Paris are all piled up on the floor. It's a shambles. Oh, and there's an old adage — I don't remember who wrote it: tell me what's in your library and I'll tell you who you are. But enough of that. I unfold a newspaper and I go through it for hours on end. It puts a stop to teenage games and laughter with my neighborhood buddies, the family of Papa's colleague Guelleh Hersi included. I really don't care. I hardly register fifteen on the speedometer and I'm not done telling you my crazy stories. Once I've finished reading the papers I stay there dreaming for a while. These are the times when my mind rises and frees itself from all its bonds. It whirls around so deliriously I grow faint. It's an aircraft carrier where only fertile mirages take off, a cloud-bird huge as a whole world. Through the twisting, mysterious paths of my imagination, I often succeed in linking some of the names repeated in the newspapers to street names I manage to decode on the few commemorative plaques that are still legible, or to the names I catch in the course of an argument between adults. No way I'll interpret an anecdote or the fragment of a story I intercept here and there as a single piece of music, a score established once and for all. I now know (but who can ever be sure with me — you're so singular and evanescent, Papa would say) that Aboubaker Aref and Houmed Dini are among the first important people who went to sign agreements with the Emperor Napoleon over a hundred and fifty years ago. I also know that Grandpa used to play just one record — but what a record! Oum Kalsoum giving a masterly interpretation of Anta Oumri: sixty minutes of pure bliss. I noted that the Bank of Suez on Place Menelik, where my parents go so often — my father, once again, would say that some adults draw the water of their own well-being from the success of their clan — has something to do with a story that fascinated me for weeks on end: the odyssey of the Frenchman Ferdinand de Lesseps opening the canal of the same name through his pugnacity, trickery, and flexible spine. But did I know that the fiery lawyer who just yesterday publicly challenged the authorities in Djibouti is also a descendant of the pasha that Napoleon invited over for tea? The name Napoleon sounds like an animated cartoon character lost in a fabulous land like Tarzan's savannah, Aladdin's magic lamp, or the enchantments of The Jungle Book. My two special heroes are Peter Pan and Don Quixote; Grandpa admired Saad Zaghloul, the Egyptian who headed the revolt against the English in 1919, I think, led his country to liberation and truly deserved his great equestrian statue in the middle of Alexandria.
I navigate easily between different languages, historical references, cultures, rumors from yesterday still warm today, and the oldest memories. Totally natural, I'm the product of love without borders; I'm a hyphen between two worlds. But wait, I'm not just a contemplative mind; I'm interested in others, in my family first of course, but also in everybody. Thus my repeated insistent winks to Moumina — ah, I'd love to say “Ya habibi”* to her some day, like in the sweet songs of Oum Kalsoum. And ride her mane. She would be Eve (or Hawa) and I would be Adam (or Aden). Together we would Adamandeve around a brand new world where life would be generous to everyone, where every moment would be a ceremony. Not to mention the discreet helping hand I give to my neighbors and buddies Kahen and Koschin with their homework. And when there are too many clouds in the blueing sky, the first words of a song Maman often listens to come back to me right away. It begins with Serge Gainsbourg's Dieu est un fumeur de havanes (“God smokes a Havana cigar”) and then gets lost in the mist, of course. I can't help thinking how much she probably misses the wind-rain of her Brittany but I keep quiet. Maman's irrepressible laughter when she pretends to be Janis Joplin comes back to me right away.
7. BASHIR BINLADEN
THE FIRST HALF lasted long-long time in that war. Everybody stayed in position; the attacks were rare. The battle was a tie, without real fair referee. Cause referee still France in that business-there. Paul Djidou, the Paris guy, never stop coming an going between Paris an Djibouti, so much the Boeing 747 all tired out. Paul Djidou he mediation: result zero. But goverment accuse: yes you wanna help the rebels, France too much friend of The Eternal Opponent (Eternal Opponent, he new chief of Scud, sworn enemy of the president, former prime minister, former deputy, former nurse — Eternal Opponent always former). On their side the rebels accuse too: yes, France providing support for the maneuvers (that military language, very correct) of the goverment. Paul Djidou yelled: yes me too I'm sick of this former territory of Wadags and Walals, and hey I'm going back to Nice (Nice, it beautiful part of France). Long-long time later we learn on RFI that Monsieur Paul Djidou, he left to do peace mediation between Hutus and Tutsis, over there in Rwanda, I think. Results: first half of the first war, it lasted. Old as a child of three, an that no joke. Both teams, they thought we gonna find new fair referee. Eternal Opponent went to ask Saleh (no, not the marathonian from Djibouti, that Ahmed Saleh, he so-so good with feet; the other Saleh, he president of Yemen) if he think he can be good fair referee. Saleh said: that political interference. Me too, I got big problems: with Eritrea, with fierce bearded guys (poor Saleh don't know my name been Binladen for six months, that confidential top military secret). Real country of Binladen, it's not Gaudy Arabia, sorry, Saudi Arabia, it's Yemenite mountains. Binladen before he got rich an smart he was living out in the sticks in Yemen. So Saleh of Yemen he end up saying go see UN, OAU, Arab League, you'll find good fair referee. So war will stop by itself. Dialogue between goverment and Eternal Opponent is deaf dialogue, always. Us draftees, we were happy. We had the weapons, the right to do whatever we want. An then, there still wasn't fierce battle. It was status quo (that military language too). Tie. And lots of dead too, specially rebels or civilians who sort of help rebels. But wait, let's be serious, there dead on our side too, specially young draftees with no esperience, not like me or Aïdid, Warya, Ayanleh, Haïssama. Lot of young draftees (why'm I saying young draftees, they all young, right?) pig out on bullets in the belly. That's war, but can't cry too much like mamas. Man with real hard thing between his legs never cry like little woman and that's that. Dismessed.