“The New World, New Mexico, the contemporary era …”
“I’m married.”
“There’s no such thing as a faithful man.”
“But Requiem …”
“I don’t wish to be rude.”
“Think of Jacqueline …”
“She can find a man to bone.”
One of the two girls: “We give good head.”
A boy ran up to them, carrying a container. They got themselves some peanuts, lemons, and kebabs, as well as kola nuts and other aphrodisiacs. In the distance, between two melancholic calls of “Do you have the time?”, the imprecations of the diggers, a fatwa, hurled from a minaret, demanding the summary execution of the proprietor of Tram 83, a slot machine out in the open, run by a bunch of Mozambicans, the throbbing of old jalopies, the monologues of a Kalashnikov, the mournful and nostalgic lamentations of a bitch in heat.
“Do you have the time?”
AT REQUIEM’S PLACE WITH THE SINGLE-MAMAS AND THEIR MASSIVE-MELON-BREASTS.
Requiem lived in Vampiretown, a bourgeois neighborhood that stood on the road leading from the station to the town center. The apartment he rented was quite spacious for a modern day bachelor. Vampiretown dated from the colonial period. Built to demarcate the area, using sturdy materials and terra cotta tiles, its wide boulevards lined with flame trees, pines, and frangipanis. The first Europeans to settle here died from the effects
“You guys live alone?”
“Yes!”
“We give good head.”
of the dodgy sanitary and weather conditions, as they were wont to do. The place had to be adapted at all costs: build suitable walls, fight the feeling of exile and uprooting that adversely affected their “transactions,” guffawed Requiem, he who bore the blood of a Russian shipowner come to seek his fortune in the scorching tropics. The Tram 83 gossip of July 1972 speculated upon his Slavic origins. The Tram 83 gossip of February 1982 speculated upon his Vietnamese origins. The Tram 83 gossip of September 1992 speculated upon his Comorian origins. According to legend, a foundry was established to
“Call me Astrid. I can’t live without caresses.”
“Émilienne, I’m as free as the ocean.”
“Requiem …”
“Talk, I’m listening.”
extract copper ingots. And it wasn’t far from this venture that they chose to site the new town. The foundry workers lodged in the surrounding area. Administrative offices, banking, postal services, all sprang up around twelve miles away. They … In the beginning the stone, and the stone, the railroads, and the railroads, and the arrival of men of diverse nationalities speaking the same dialect of sex and coltan. Drunk on sex and easy money, perverts they were, born adventurers, capable of trying any lead as long as it paid, as long as it earned them money and sex, and even more money!
“I’m not going to screw. I’m fucked for tonight.”
“That’s a sleazy joke.”
Round about the years 1910-1920, the segregation between the Europeans and Africans translated into urban planning. The newcomers, shouldering their universities, schools, hospitals, and churches, were careful to stay in town,
“The Far West?”
“Why?”
“We are of the railroad civilization …”
“What is it with my breasts?!”
obliging the others, natives of their species, to live in the suburbs. The only ones to penetrate the closed circles were a few musicians, their repertoire spiced with gospel from Southern Africa, places like Northern Rhodesia or Nyasaland. Same for the lackeys and a few right-hand men. For reasons that were more or less vague.
“What is it with my breasts?”
They crossed a dozen rails, stepping from one to the next, and walked down the main road for a good half hour, groping each other.
“I love money. Who hates money?”
Arrived. Negotiated the rates, first up then down. Smoked nicotine after nicotine. Manufactured heaven in pasture and cloud. Even traced out straight lines and oblique angles. In other words, pleasures of the underbelly.
“Cuddle me …”
MEN AND WINDS HAVE THIS IN COMMON: NEITHER HAVE THEIR FEET ON THE GROUND. NOMADS, THEY COME AND GO LIKE THE PAIN OF SHATTERED LOVE, NERVOUS TENSION, INDEPENDENCIES, WARS OF LIBERATION, THE URGENT NEED TO DEFECATE IN THE STAIRWELL OF A BUILDING BETWEEN TWO BLACKOUTS.
Lucien got out of bed at three in the afternoon. Requiem and the girls had already taken leave of him. He was groggy, rocked by nausea and migraines. Lucien experienced this kind of malaise after drinking one too many. But why on earth had he let himself succumb to inebriation before rounding things off with some below-the-belt delight? He ascribed his tiredness to the latter, and his nausea and migraines to the alcohol. He tried to walk. His calves wobbled. Impossible to move.
“Requiem!”
He yelled out for him. Nothing. His companion must be busy sorting out some cash deal. Otherwise, why leave so early, with no concern for his own dramas? He went back to sleep, eyes half closed.
Lucien was susceptible to bad dreams. He’d had two, one after the other, without the slightest break. He set to analyzing them. There was nothing apocalyptic about the first dream. A metallic voice squawking from Jacqueline’s face instructed him to grab his texts and climb aboard the first train leaving for the Back-Country, the land flowing with milk and honey. And he, in a sleeveless outfit, on a theater stage, balked, scoffed at the voice and the face, and held forth in a language lacking r’s, z’s, t’s, a’s, and s’s. He defended himself, claiming that his life was his own, that he could fling it about wherever it suited him. But the voice and the features took on a different appearance. He noticed he was not on a theater stage but in a little boat leaving a misty port; between his legs, a cat was licking his left foot.
He shook his head, gave a hoarse shout, grabbed his satchel, took out his notebook, scrawled a few lines. He began to examine the characters from his dream step by step. The barking voice — God perhaps, or ancestors hungry for solitude. He was devoted to the souls of his ancestors, but his spiritual life had changed since the death of his daughter. Why only Jacqueline’s face and not that of Requiem or even Émilienne? Perhaps because you’ve only just seen her nakedness, he told himself. Even so, what’s that got to do with it? And how about the train evoking desertion and exile? And the little boat? And the cat with the same colors as Juventus?
Second dream. Like the prologue of the first, he’s on a stage, but for music this time, accompanying Toumani Diabaté: The Mandé Variations. At the end of a song, everyone, musicians included, begs him to quit the City-State. In his dream he gets up to leave. Where to? He becomes aware of his nakedness, damp with sweat, dirty. His shoes, clothes, satchel, notebook, and handkerchief, gone! He sets out to walk with nothing on. And that’s when a huge, bustling crowd starts chasing him, gesticulating aggressively, uttering threats and parables. He leans down, plumps up the pillow, continues deciphering the riddle. He sighs and embarks on another sleep, another dream most likely.
Requiem was still not back. The man with train-track feet returned only to pick up more dough or stash some away. The neighboring tenants hated him with one eye and admired him with the