Tram 83 by Fiston Mwanza Mujila Read Free Book Online Page B

of the independence of Congo-Zaire, but I feel that instead of Lumumba it’s best to depict our own heroes, such as a resistance fighter who paid the price for this city, instead of getting bogged down in the history of Congo-Zaire. And as for ‘The Congo for the Congolese,’ leave that part of history to the dramatists of this country! Here, as in the Back-Country, there are surely men who have left a mark on their era. Leave these great men to their dignified repose! Turn your mind to texts that talk of railroads, mines, or I don’t know what.”
    â€œLet me explain …”
    â€œOtherwise you restrict yourself to churning out an essay instead of blending genres.”
    â€œI trained as a historian. I think, unless I am mistaken, that literature deserves pride of place in the shaping of history. It is by way of literature that I can reestablish the truth. I intend to piece together the memory of a country that exists only on paper. To fantasize about the City-State and the Back-Country with a view to exploring collective memory. Historical characters aremy waymarks. But baby-chicks, diggers, famished students, tourists, and …”
    â€œI’m familiar with that view of things. We’ve already had enough of squalor, poverty, syphilis, and violence in African literature. Look around us. There are beautiful girls, good-looking men, Brazza Beer, good music. Doesn’t all that inspire you? I’m concerned for the future of African literature in general. The main character in the African novel is always single, neurotic, perverse, depressive, childless, homeless, and overburdened with debt. Here, we live, we fuck, we’re happy. There needs to be fucking in African literature too!”
    Lucien made the most of his interlocutor’s fervor to guzzle his first suds. As he raised his glass, he noticed the two girls from yesterday who were eyeing them up from afar. He attempted a friendly gesture, poor thing. The single-mamas took the gesture for a code, and came down to them without waiting to be asked twice.
    â€œI’m interested in your stage-tale.”
    The Amazonians left by the back door, having been begged by the busgirls, the diggers, the Pentecostal preachers, and the rest of the audience, who’d just wiped away their crocodile tears, to vacate the stage.
    â€œYou’re a handsome pair. Good evening, for starters.”
    The two girls got settled. A rap group set to blazing up the joint. The rappers, a cantankerous and disreputable bunch of ex-students, ex-rebels, and ex-diggers, screamed, barked, moaned, haggled, and jabbered.
    â€œI’m going to organize a rehearsed reading. Joy Train Publications is honored to present … what was the name of your stage-tale again?”
    â€œ The Africa of Possibility: Lumumba, the Fall of an Angel, or the Pestle-Mortar Years. ”
    â€œOn this magnificent evening, Joy Train Publications are deeply honored and truly pleased to give you Lucien, a contemporary author whose work teaches us to overcome walls, train tracks, wars, and oceans, and which we shall publish one of these fine days.”
    â€œYou know …”
    â€œI am Swiss, by my father and mother. Anyhow, you’d have found out sooner or later. I prefer to tell you this before any collaboration. To avoid possible confusion. All these whites you see here are not necessarily Swiss.”
    Dreamily, craning his neck forward slightly, the man continued, in a hoarse voice like someone in a restroom stall who doesn’t want to be disturbed:
    â€œSome are even more African than you people. I mean to say, they love Africa.”
    The pair of young ladies glared at each other, as did the busgirls and the waitresses. They possessed the same desires, the same powers, the same liberations, the same ardors, the same jealousies. The far-fetched rumors knocking about Transition Street, Sovereign National Conference Street, and Democratization