Memoirs of a Porcupine by Alain Mabanckou Read Free Book Online Page A

throat, and when he opened his eyes, my young master saw a child who looked just like him, he just caught a glimpse of him, before he vanished between two bushes, ‘you saw him, your other self , didn’t you, you saw him’, said Papa Kibandi, ‘he was there in front of you, it’s no illusion, my boy, you’re a man now, I’m very happy, you’re going to follow the path I received from my father, which he got from his father before him’, little Kibandi was staring at the spot where the boy, his other self, had vanished, he could still hear dead leaves being trampled underfoot in his flight, an insane flight, as though someone was chasing after him, and there was silence, at last his father could breathe again, he had waited so long for this moment of liberation, when the duty of transmission would finally be fulfilled

little Kibandi didn’t have much to do with his other self, who spent most of his time trailing me, stopping me sleeping, I’d hear him walking on dead leaves, running till he was out of breath, or breathing quietly in the bushes, drinking water from a stream, and sometimes I’d find food supplies piled up near my hiding place, I knew little Kibandi’s other self had left them there, and it was at such moments, I guess, that I felt comforted, I was glad to be privileged, I put on weight, my quills grew stronger, I saw them gleaming when the sun was at its height, I grew used to the game of hide and seek with my young master’s other self, he became a go-between, and when I hadn’t seen or heard him for two or three weeks, I felt uneasy, I’d set out in haste for the village, reassured only when at last I saw little Kibandi playing in their yard, I’d return to my hiding place, reassured, and so the years went by, the other self and my young master fed me, I lacked for nothing, I had no care for tomorrow, I only had to stick my snout out of the entrance to my refuge, there were my supplies left waiting for me, and if any other animal dared come and help themselves, my young master’s other self threw stones to drive them away, for once I had to agree with what humans say, I had a pretty easy life
things were fairly quiet during my master’s adolescent years, we learned to get along, to synchronise our thinking, to know one another, I’d send messages to little Kibandi via the other self, then one day I was hanging around in a backwater when I came across him sitting on a stone, he had his back to me, I stopped moving, made no noise, or he’d have run off again, he was watching the herons and the wild ducks, I suddenly felt such a wave of emotion I almost thought it must be the real little Kibandi sitting there with his back to me, I moved forward a few yards, he heard me, at once he turned, too late, I had seen his face, though he looked just like my master, the strangest thing was, Kibandi’s other self had no mouth, no nose either, just eyes, ears and a long chin, I stared in amazement and at once he was off into the bushes, leaping into the backwater, and the herons and the wild ducks took flight, hiding him in his confusion, then he was gone, leaving only ripples in the water, it was one of the very few glimpses I would ever get of my young master’s other self, the last time was when the creature without a mouth came to tell me that my master and his mother were about to leave for Séképembé, a few days before Papa Kibandi died

it was as though with age Papa Kibandi was returning to the animal state, he stopped trimming his nails, when he ate he did it just like a real rat, he scratched his body with his toes, and the people of Mossaka, who had always treated it as a rather sick joke, an old fool’s game, began to worry about it, the old man developed long sharp teeth, particularly at the front, tough grey hairs sprouted from his ears and straggled down to his jaw, and whenever Papa Kibandi disappeared