The Lights of Pointe-Noire by Alain Mabanckou Read Free Book Online Page A

house where Maman Martine lived with my eight half-brothers and -sisters.
    The affair of the third wife eventually poisoned the atmosphere in both households. At ours, my parents no longer spoke to each other as they had. The slightest spark was enough to light the fire and set them off arguing, even though I was standing behind them, unable to understand why they were rowing about what seemed to me like the kind of things that occupy kids in the playground.
    The situation grew worse every day, and in the end my mother and Maman Martine joined forces, and decided that it was up to us children to go and pay a little ‘courtesy visit’ to the potential ‘co-wife’. Permission was even granted to sort her out by whatever means we saw fit.
    I was part of the little group that set off on this punitive expedition, along with six of my half-brothers. One afternoon we went over to the neighbourhood where the woman lived, having been told her name by our mothers: Célestine. Outside her house we found a woman of a certain age, and Yaya Gaston, the oldest of us, spoke to her, saying:
    â€˜Excuse me, madame, we’re looking for a young woman called Célestine, your daughter, we need to talk to her…’
    The woman answered curtly:
    â€˜What do you want with her?’
    I felt Yaya Gaston’s body shake with anger, and he clenched his fist:
    â€˜Mind your own business, you old crone! We’ve come to tell your daughter to keep her little panties up and stop bothering our father, or we’ll beat her up! She should be ashamed, stealing money from a respectable man with two families!’
    â€˜Well, go on, then. Beat me up!’
    â€˜We don’t want you, old lady! We want to talk to Célestine! Come on, get out of the way, we need to search this place, we know she’s hiding in there!’
    She burst out laughing:
    â€˜There’s only one Célestine here, and that’s me! So what are you waiting for? Hit me!’
    Yaya Gaston shrank back, turned to us and then looked at the woman again for a few seconds. Grey hair. Large, thick spectacles. Threadbare, patched pagnes. She must be older than Maman Martine, she could be Maman Pauline’s grandmother.
    â€˜It’s – you’re – you’re her?’ stammered our big brother, incredulously, his fist still clenched as though he still meant to hit her.
    â€˜You want to see my ID or what? You just try to hit me, and you’ll be cursed to the end of time!’
    Gaston unclenched his fist and turned to us again:
    â€˜I can’t. I just can’t… She’s really old. Who’ll hit her for me?’
    â€˜I said hit me!’ yelled the woman, commanding now, sure none of us would dare lift a finger against an old woman.
    Since no one in the group moved, and we were all looking at the ground, Yaya Gaston settled for intimidating the old woman:
    â€˜We’ve come to warn you! If you don’t stop hanging round our father, you’ll live to regret it! Even if you are… like you are!’
    â€˜And how am I? Old, am I? Stink do I? Do I ask your father to come over here? Go and sort out your own affairs, and tell your mothers to satisfy their man, because in my day, believe me, I was such a great lay, my late husband would forget to go to work for a whole month! And tell your mothers to look to their cooking, because when your father comes here you’d think he hadn’t eaten in years! And now, if you don’t get off my land, I’m going to expose myself to you. Then you’ll see with your own eyes what your father’s up to when he’s not with your mothers! I’ve got white hairs on my pubis, you want to see them?’
    Yaya Gaston was already out of her yard, with his fingers stuffed in his ears to block out her obscenities. We dashed after him, and fled with our tails between our legs, just as the old woman lifted her pagne around her waist to shake her