Chapter Ten
Pragmatism has always been my watchword. This approach to life saw me through much of my time on Earth —until the late 1990’s, at least. At that point in time, les choses ont commencé mal se passer [things started to go south]. In other words, my policies came increasingly under challenge.
Even the anti-desertification measures I mentioned were opposed by those CPLN devils, who claimed I should have been working through the United Nations, rather than contracting the work to NGOs.37 This particular cloud had the proverbial silver lining: my son, Paul-Auguste, by then a higher-up in the ministrie d’Agronomie, stood staunchly behind his father’s policies.
Did those salauds [bastards] sniping at me from the sidelines even know that their darling U.N. was notorious, by then, for its bloated bureaucracy, if not for out-and-out corruption? The same ignorance and illogic informed their other calls for “progress.” When I approved the appointment of the first female Director of Public Relations for the Mindouli branch of travailleurs du cuivre unis [the Copper-Miners’ Union], did Odhon’g & Co. applaud my bold, pro-feminist initiative? Of course not!
“Why only one?” they carped. And “ — is just another Nkwema stooge, this one wrapped in Royal Kente!”38 Similar bogus outcries greeted my appointment of the nation’s first female ministers.
The 1990’s-2000’s turned into a long rainy season for my reign! (Sorry again, Reader!) In 2003, for example, when Ngongo’s second lycee’ was completed, at Mbandaka, the CPLN bastards sent hordes of demonstrators to the ground-breaking ceremonies. Among the less scabrous chants were, “Why only one new school?” “In his own village?”and “So where are the new hospitals?”
When one of the devils sprang forward and wrested the ceremonial shovel from my grasp, an overzealous bodyguard from La Force, who bore the soubriquet, Gros Pierre [Big Pierre], clubbed him so hard that the villain was pronounced DOA at a local health-care facility. The protesters’ chants then turned into cries for the murderer’s resignation.39 Comme si! [As if!]
Even more vexing, perhaps, than all of the CPLN rallies and protests was the fact that my son, Julius, was present at most of them. Indeed, during the millennial year, 2000, one of my Security-Service photographers caught him jabbering away at the side of Oscar Odhon’g. At the time, Julius was a petit journaliste [cub reporter] for Le Chronicle ngongien, a leftish rag that I long tolerated as a token of my commitment to democracy. Julius’s zany presence at CPLN-sponsored events was probably tolerated only because Odhon’g saw him as a conduit for publicity. With his tall, skinny frame, his straggly tresses rasta [dreadlocks], and camouflage complet [full camouflage uniform], Julius presented quite the picture!
Having managed to graduate from L’institut, in 1987, until Le Chronicle took him on, thirteen years later, Julius had drifted from job to job. Of course, the scoundrel never managed to support himself, and for the first post-lycee’ decade, I unwisely provided him with a modicum of financial assistance. Our final meeting, which took place on Thursday, March 3, 1998, was —shall I say?— memorable.
Julius had just lost one of his many jobs. A few months before, in a quixotic attempt to join le proletariat, he had been taken on as mecanicien junior [junior mechanic] by a sympathetic garage owner in the capital. But the young man’s chronic tardiness and stubborn resistance to instruction had finally forced this employer, a left-leaning man (although not, so far as we knew, an active CPLN supporter), to dismiss him. Our last father-son conversation, I can still remember, almost verbatim. I offer only a short excerpt:
FN: Again, Julius? You lazy dog!
JN: But Father, the man treated me like a slave.
FN: You say la même bêtise [the same stupid thing] every time someone expects you to do any work for the money they pay you.
JN: Ces gars [those guys] are a bunch of capitalist pigs. Just like you, Papa! Even worse, you are un chien de course pour les français [a running dog for the French!]
Who, then, was the dog? Talk about biting the hand that feeds you! By then, Julius was completely insane! Of course, I cut him off completely. I “whistled” the scamp “ off, and “let him down the wind to pray at fortune.” In 2000, his job at Le Chronicle… would last less than two months.
I believe I have mentioned the fact that few white people remained in Ngongo after Independence.40 Among those who chose to devenir natif [go native] was a beautiful and eccentric French divorcee’ named Sophie Poirier. Since she enjoyed what are called “independent means,” and since our society suffers from the malady of snobisme raciste à l’envers [reverse-racist snobbery], Mme. Poirier was accepted into the highest social circles. In fact, by 1961 or ’62, she had become the mistress of Alphonse Batakoudou.
Now, Sophie Poirier was a trifle indiscreet —actually, more than a trifle. At a state dinner, sometime during ‘62, she confided to my wife (who was, you will recall, Fons Batakoudou’s sister) her status as what she called “la Premiere Maitresse” [the First Mistress]. (Among her other vices, Mme. Poirier shared my own weakness for jeux de mots [puns].) She must have been very drunk, because she further confided that, in order to prevent conception, she was employing la méthode des températures [the rhythm method]. A year or so later, she presumably miscounted. At any rate, in June of 1963, Sophie Poirier gave birth to her first child, a daughter who was christened Isabelle-Julie.
This is where I came in. As I have also mentioned, after the President was shot, in 1985, my wife gave credence to rumors of my involvement, and I turned from a husband into a “player.” By then, Isa, as she was called by her intimates (of which, obviously, I became one), had grown into a willowy, copper-complected beauty of twenty-two or -three. Isa Poirier became one in the string of my on-and-off mistresses. When she was “off” with me, she was often “on” with one or another of my ministers, especially the man in charge of le ministere des affaires economiques.
This man was Hans Motonnier, a super-competent Belgian technocrat whom I inherited from Fons. (I did not previously divulge his name, out of understandable reluctance to open myself to charges of consorting with les blancs [whites].) I note in passing that Hans would later have nothing to do with the plot by which I was goaded to order the execution of my own father. The central figure in that plot, you will recall, was Andrew Enyannge, who worked in le Bureau des Statistiques, a completely separate department from Hans’s Ministry.
I think I have already mentioned my copper-tinged dreams. As the old century expired, like my waking life, all of my dreams became more and more troubled. In one, I was attacked by three terrifying figures. The first wore the crisp khaki undress shorts-and-shirt uniform of Oscar Odhon’g. The second combined the chalky black skin with the tall old man’s stoop of Fons Batakoudou (my late brother-in-law). The third wore the smug demeanor of my own father.
The trio would menace me with lethal-looking, thorn-studded war clubs. Lurking to one side of my attackers was a fourth, muffled figure, an onlooker clad in white, who somehow projected the mysterious aspect of a Lugbara ancestor figure. He, too, brandished a war club. When the attackers were about to smash my head with their clubs, I would invariably wake up. Over the course of six or eight years, from 2000 on, I must have had this dream, or variants thereof, at least a dozen times. There was also, as I mentioned, the terrifying copper-mine dream.
Of Isa, I can report, I never dreamed. Of course, however, life’s delights always seem to come at a cost. Isa would constantly demand expensive gifts, to “prove that you still love me, mon choux [my dear, or literally, “my cabbage”]. The ruby, emerald, and diamond necklaces, and the fur coats (which she never wore in Ngongo, of course), the luxury cruises to Riviera gambling venues, etc., etc. all cost me trebly. Not only were they literally expensive, they fueled my enemies’ incessant cries of corruption and of my alleged preference for les blancs. Finally, they precipitated the many instances when I would temporarily break off relations with the minx. Isa.
Are you critical, Reader, of an aging Black man’s relationship with a much younger half-white woman? If so, I can offer several rejoinders. First, you are being ethnocentric. Among most African nationalities, it is completely acceptable for old men to take young brides or lovers. One might even see the practice as a reflection of economic realities. I say this because the only criticism that most Africans might offer of a “May-January” marriage would be if the older man lacked adequate means to support the bride.
Second, you ask, “What about your wife?” As I have pointed out, Sally was the one who decreed that our marriage bed become “a no-fly zone.” And, of course, my liaison with Isa, as expensive as it was, did not mean that Sally’s material well-being was neglected. At all! Of course, I continued to maintain my wife (only one, please note!) “in the manner to which she was accustomed.”
And, finally, we come to the racial implications of my relationship with Isa Poirier (and of Fons’s liaison with her mother). Do you condemn me (us) for sniffing after “lighter meat”? Hypocrite lecteur! [Hypocritical reader!]41 Look in thine own mirror, and ask yourself what your criticism of me (and of Fons) says about your own racism! Enough?
During my many temporary estrangements from Isa, it was a relief to take up with a series of less demanding vierges ngongoniennes [maidens]. Not only was congress with these girls a tonic for an aging philanderer! Their parents usually considered the few sous I would toss their way, upon terminating the relationship, more than adequate compensation for any diminution of their daughters’ putative prix de la mariee’ [bride price].
Note 37: For the CPLN point of view on this matter, see Pierre Tshombe…, Chapter Twelve, supra.
Note 38: For the CPLN point of view on women’s issues, also see Pierre Tshombe…, Chapter Twelve, supra.
Note 39: For Gros Pierre, see Pierre Tshombe…, passim.
Note 40: See Chapters Three and Four, supra. But, in discussing Independence, Nkwema did not mention how many whites remained in Ngongo after 1960.
Note 41: Here, FN is quoting Baudelaire’s famous phrase from the Preface to Les Fleurs du Mal. Omitted, perhaps significantly, are the words that follow: “mon semblable, mon frere” [my double, my brother]. In other words, the hypocrite lecteur may be reacting to a hypocrite auteur!
Returning to the question of how FN, who never attended University, managed to learn so much about so many things, he has previously mentioned his ”sponge-like memory.” (See Chapter Nine, supra.) When I asked him how he found the time, during a very busy career, for such voracious auto-didacticism, his reply was, “I have trained myself to require no more than three-to-four hours of sleep each night.” —RS
FN’s complex discussion of his on-again off-again relationship with Isabelle Poirier seemed so problematic that I raised the matter with his son, Paul-Auguste, during one of our many meetings in Fort Chaltin. (I realized it would be pointless to ask Julius!) In essence, here is the response of the mild-manned bureaucrat. (With Paul’s permission, I recorded our meetings on my phone.)
“My father’s liaison with Isa Poirier (like that of his predecessor, with her mother) was, of course, much talked about, over the years. As he admitted, among dissident ideologues, it fueled accusations of a neo-colonial mentality, and of corrupt squandering of the nation’s assets.
“Among the masses, however, both urban and rural, the liaison was regarded in a very different light. I have personally heard more than one ngongien peasant praise my father’s prolonged virility. (“Ah, our President can still do this? He is a real man!”) Furthermore, that he provided the masses with years —decades— of juicy gossip, may even have contributed to the longevity of his reign!”
To be continued...
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