The Heart of the Leopard Children by Wilfried N'Sondé Read Free Book Online

always be prepared for hard times. That is why Mireille had grown up in an apartment with very little light and life, no music, no books, leaving aside the television programs, some advertisements and a few fashion magazines. It was only after she had left her home and living in university housing that her mother, in a convulsive state of panic, had finally relieved herself of the weight of her past by evoking some of the episodes that had completely turned her life upside down. She had become a virtuoso in the art of waiting around in silence.
    For Mireille, her father was a strange body who happened to share the same home in which she lived. His sentences were almost inaudible, and the ideas he had about people dated back to the nineteenth century. There is no doubt that this is precisely what had encouraged her to create the imaginary world she was so excited to share with Drissa and me. This also explained her incredible admiration for the extravagant stories the ancestor told and the ramblings from Drissa’s uncle.
    Mireille’s parents sincerely liked Black people. They are kind and harmless, her father would say, when we were children. Even to this day, her mother is very polite with my mother. I want to believe that over the years they have come to share a kind of mutual affection even if it has never prompted them to confide in each other. There is something still that keeps them apart. I always had the feeling that Mireille’s mother had guessed very early on that there was something between her daughter and me. A mother can sense these things. But she had never spoken up about it. Maybe she took pleasure in imagining that her daughter allowed herself to be happy, allowed herself a little bit of fantasy. She and her husband had tolerated our friendshipwhile we were kids, but once we became adults and they saw signs of us getting serious, they worked to slowly undermine our relationship and in the end they succeeded.
    Today, above all else, Mireille considers herself Jewish. Cut out your childish nonsense, she would say in her facial expression, falcons are domesticated worse than dogs in the Saudi Arabian desert. There are all these incredible things happening to our planet and you don’t even realize it. It’s in danger. What state are we going to leave it in for our children? Be serious. All you ever think about is fucking. Stop feeling me up all the time. It’s annoying. Stop being so superficial. Grow up. We have to get informed, get involved in the fight. Cowing down in my chair, I beg her to spare me her political combat, her student activism. Do I drive you crazy with all those African issues, AIDS , civil wars, the systematic raping of men and women, from the Atlantic all the way up to the Great Lakes? Genocides and mountains of hands without bodies in Sierra Leone? You don’t even bother to stop by and check in on your friends in the neighborhood who are having a really hard time, and now you’re going on about saving the planet. You hardly ever smile and your caresses are basically hard labor for you. She explained how it made her sad to see how much we had strayed away from our beautiful younger years. She was concerned for Drissa and me, especially Drissa, who wasn’t doing so well, had a pretty screwed up vision about things if not to say horrific, drinking alcohol and getting wasted all the time, his speech, basically incomprehensive. . . . She couldn’t stand him anymore. I made her uncomfortable. More and more, she wanted to be alone and then one day she just took off.
    Drissa didn’t get his high school diploma. A few weeks before the exam, he decided not to get out of bed. When the body is so heavy and numb, the outside world feels really threatening. When you have taken in so much, at some point you can’t be bothered to fight anymore. And under the covers, it’s warm and cozy. He created his very own sweet and safe alcove, listened to