Chapter Two
Some wag once quipped of me: “il etait ne’ avec une cuillère en cuivre dans la bouche” [“He was born with a copper spoon in his mouth”]. Since I could never discover the identity of the quipster, I have been left to interpret his bon mot for myself. I take it to mean that my birth conferred certain privileges, but not of the highest order.
A second implication of the witticism alludes to the source of my family’s modest prosperity. Throughout the years of my youth, my father was a trusted employee of the French-owned concession, L’Union Miniere d’Ngongo, rising gradually from a position as junior clerk, to middle management, and finally, at Independence, in 1960, to part ownership (1/6th) of the company.
Papa’s career affected my boyhood in several ways. After his initial promotion, in 1940, his work required constant travel to the far-flung mines of the concession. This meant I was left in the care of my mother and of the priests who were my teachers. Not that I was un fils a maman [“mama’s boy”]. No, my mother mostly left me to the Jesuits, like Father La Chasse, who were not known for coddling their charges.
This remained the case after my graduation from la verge benie, at age ten, at which point I left Mbandaka for Fort Chaltin, the capital. There, I matriculated at L’institut pedagogique, at the time our nation’s sole secondary school. In F.C., I boarded with paternal relatives. With my mother left behind in Mbandaka, and with my hosts s’occuper de sen affaires [minding their own business], my subsequent training (1947-51) was once again left to the not-so-tender mercies of the priests.
Like my father, I grew tall, reaching my full height of almost 188 centimeters during my final year at L’insitut. Not to boast, but I was also something of an athlete (a winger on the school’s football team), and already a budding lady’s man. My early erotic successes owed something to the fact that I was also un etendoire [clothes horse], which was, in turn, one manifestation of my having been born with that cuillère en cuivre [copper spoon] in my mouth.
Of course, my letters back home to my mother and to Pere la Chasse made no mention of any precocious amorous exploits, instead emphasizing my exploits in the classroom and, to a lesser extent, on the playing field. My busy father seemed satisfied with my quarterly report cards, which sometimes even provoked brief notes of commendation from him.
Perhaps it was the distance between father and son that caused me to take an unexpected turn in life’s path. Upon graduation from L’institut, my first steps were predictable. For four years, 1951-55, I followed, without much enthusiasm, in my parent’s footsteps. A beneficiary of our nation’s customary nepotism, I was hired by L’Union Miniere. Since copper was then enjoying a protracted boom in world markets, I found myself a participant in a thriving enterprise.
But then, at age eighteen, I surprised everyone (including myself, if truth be told) by declaring my wish to become a soldier. But, before I move on to my military career, I should pause to “flesh out” the years between 1947 and 1956, when I was, first, a secondary-school student, and then, a businessman (or, as political correctness now demands, a “business person”).
In introducing this decade, I have already mentioned my height and prowess at my chosen sport, football. By my second year at L’institut, I was already 185 centimeters tall, and (not to boast —too much) a mainstay on the school team. Since ours was still the sole secondary school in Ngongo (a deficiency I would eventually remedy, as the country’s leader), our matches were necessarily few and far between, involving, as they usually did, travel to and from neighboring, fellow-francophone colonies, such as Gabon, Middle Congo, and Ubangi-Shari-Chad. The scarcity of opponents had l’effet secondaire [the side effect] of making our intra-squad scrimmages fiercely competitive.
Among my few rivals was a boy whose later life and mine would be inextricably entwined. Alphonse Batakoudou was two years ahead of me at L’institut, which meant that, when the incident about to be described, occurred, he was in his final year. Almost exactly the same height as I was, “Fons,” as everyone called him, was the team’s center-back.
During one particularly intense scrimmage, as I was on a breakaway rush toward Fons’s goal, he took an angle to cut me off. When the airborne pass arrived, we simultaneously leapt for it, and our heads collided. Both of us were dazed, and play was, of course, paused. Then, another boy noticed that both our heads were bleeding, and that the blood had formed a single, small pool on the field. “Fons and F.N. [as I was then called] are now frères de sang [blood brothers],” the fellow quipped. As this memoir unfolds, the prescience of that witticism will become obvious.
The second incident to which I alluded took place in Mindouli, five or six years later. By then, I had graduated from clerk to mid-level employee of the still-thriving Union Miniere. As such, what I mostly was, was a troubleshooter. Whenever a particularly vexing problem arose at one of the company's then-twenty-seven mines (consolidated, under my watch, to five, plus two or three also producing newly discovered deposits of coltan), I, or one of two colleagues, would be dispatched to the site, carrying full authority to resolve the problem.
The 1955 incident in Mindouli involved an act of theft and vandalism. When one of the miners lost his life during an unfortunate cave-in (all too common in those dark times), his family members were unwilling to accept the standard compensation of 100 francs CFA (equivalent to about seven euros in today’s money, without factoring for inflation, depreciation, devaluation, etc.).
After some back and forth, a young exalte’ [hothead], the nephew, I think, of the deceased, refused to return his uncle’s headlamp and, as I recall, also defaced a large sign at the entrance to the shaft where the accident had occurred. In large black letters, l’exalte’ wrote a graffito for le parti du peuple ngongo, or PPN, the most radical among several groups demanding our Independence.
Since such acts of thievery and vandalism were not taken lightly by the Company, I sentenced the perpetrator to a term of five years’ service, without wages. To add symbolism to the punishment, he would have to dig by hand, without any tools. Since “tools” normally included a headlamp, it was unlikely he would survive the stipulated term of punishment.
This sentence turned out to be highly ironic, for within a few years, I would myself become one of the leaders of the PPN. As my more astute readers may already have guessed, one of my comrades in the Independence struggle was none other than Alphonse Batakoudou.8
Note 8: Also ironic is the fact that, almost two decades later, another death at the Mindouli mine would prove a formative influence in the life of Pierre Tshombe, a central figure in the plot to assassinate Nkwema. See my Pierre Tshombe, ch. 2, et passim.
To be continued...
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