Tram 83 by Fiston Mwanza Mujila Read Free Book Online

ecstatic students disrobed, climbed right up on stage and swore by the delights of forbidden fruits. Requiem, who was a good, a very good actor, couldn’t stomach the idea of holding out a hand to the audience. “What a waste,” he cried vehemently, “we came for texts, not for orgiastic sessions of any kind!” Of course this Requiem was of a different tune in his youth, calm, sincere, and loyal. Time makes brutes who wait for just the right moment to draw their pistols. That doesn’t mean Requiem was a brute — a necessary nuance.
    â€œDo you have the time?”
    Lucien headed toward the table they’d occupied the previous night. A man, school principal type, past fifty, was already sat there. Alone with his cigarettes and a fine row of bottles, portents of an inveterate alcoholism. When you got wasted, you didn’t return the empties, in order to avoid misunderstandings. The waitresses and busgirls were inclined to tell you ten bottles instead of the three or five you’d actually ordered. No surprise to come across a guy with fifty empty bottles on his table and even the floor.
    â€œEvening, sir. May I sit here?”
    Standing before the seemingly very pleasant man.
    â€œAs you wish!”
    Hardly sat down:
    â€œWhere are you from?”
    â€œVampiretown.”
    â€œAnd before, I mean, before Vampiretown?”
    Lucien stammered. Remembered his friend, Porte de Clignancourt, putting himself through the ordeal of contacting Paris theaters, and he there, in the middle of watching a botched concert.Remembered the girl from the elevators. Remembered that abrupt power cut.
    â€œI just came from the Back-Country.”
    The man’s curiosity intensified. Clasped his hands together as if invoking higher deities. A gold bracelet on his left wrist let Lucien guess at his interlocutor’s pecuniary caliber. Behave and maybe he’ll help you get on your feet again, he wondered softly to himself.
    â€œHow so?”
    â€œI’m passing through. I don’t know if I’m going to extend my stay.”
    â€œI can see life’s treating you well here.”
    He told him this with all the pride of Archimedes discovering his “any body partially or completely submerged in a fluid at rest is acted upon by an upward force equal to the weight of the volume of fluid displaced.”
    â€œYes, I’m enjoying myself.”
    The image of his friend, Porte de Clignancourt, flitted through Lucien’s brain a second time: “I’ve got the Festival des Francophonies en Limousin, the Tarmac and other Paris theaters, the contacts in Brazil. And what about you? Are you enjoying yourself with this guy shooting questions at you?”
    He sighed.
    â€œDo you have the time?”
    A band from the Amazon, composed of Indians, readied themselves to go on stage. The interrogation continued. The man was surely someone influential. He wanted to know everything and was not to be offended. Who knows, perhaps his future GoodSamaritan? Good intentions can be found even in the lion’s den. Each answer stirred his curiosity further.
    â€œMarried?”
    â€œâ€¦â€
    â€œDivorced?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œWhat line of work are you in?”
    He hesitated to go on.
    â€œI hold a bachelor’s degree in history.”
    The interlocutor slammed his glass down on the table and erupted into laughter. As if that weren’t enough, he got out of his chair, took a few steps, asked the musicians to lower their voices, and pointed his finger at Lucien:
    â€œDear friends, you’re not going to believe me: this man you see is a historian!”
    General hilarity.
    The whole Tram as one:
    â€œDidn’t you give a shit, or what!”
    Then as a scattered choir:
    â€œAnd you earn a living doing history?”
    â€œLook what can happen by dint of imitating the tourists!”
    â€œYou study girls too, or just history?”
    â€œYou’re an