When the Plums Are Ripe Read online

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  This story about men and women is, like a handful of red earth from the village, dedicated to my mother, Kemi Rebecca.

  One clarification: The whole world is my country, Cameroon my subject, and Yaoundé my field of definition.

  When there are many laws, the people cannot be wise.

  —Sultan Ibrahim Njoya, Saan’gam, 1921

  This Story Does Not Begin in 1939

  In Yaoundé, the heart of the country is revealed when the plums are ripe. Dacryodes edulis, the African plum or bush pear, peeks out, a burst of red in the tree’s greenery. Then, in groups of five or ten, they make their way along the streets, filling up bags at the market, spreading out across grills set up on street corners, where they delicately take their place alongside the plantains or grilled ears of corn: a perfect combination of flavors. The plums are sold wrapped in sheets of shiny paper or newsprint, three for a hundred francs, a price no one could grumble about without sounding ridiculous. Sometimes, at the end of the day, they are dumped into piles on the pavement, just like that, a pile of garbage attracting flies. Left to be crushed under the wheels of passing cars or smashed into a slippery goo that sticks to the soles of your shoes. Because their season is quite short, and all it takes is a little bit of sun for the plums to ripen, the market women or bayamsallams sell them off cheap every evening, unwilling to let the price fall in the morning, before the plums have even made their way onto the coal-fired grills. They know even more will be flooding into the city the next day.

  So when they’re in season, plums are everywhere. Even Ongola, as the center of Yaoundé is called, is imbued with their heady scent. The plums are usually eaten at nightfall. Plums are nothing like mangoes, oh no, they don’t have that intense flavor that the storm spirit uses to justify jacking up the price, a trick the city is all too ready to go along with. No, plums are more honest in their dealings with men, with the city’s poor neighborhoods. Plums scatter their bursts of red across the trees’ shaded boughs before slowly turning to a deep bluish black, thanks to the sun. All it takes is a gentle shake of a branch for piles of plums to fall all around. For children it’s a real celebration: to cook the plums, they just put them in a paper bag and cover them with a handful of ashes. The plums need only a little bit of heat for their skin to release a coating of oil, then their rich tender flesh takes on that singular flavor that makes them the favorite dessert of the street—no, of the city itself. Because the plums are offered up to the city’s stomach at stands in front of every little bar, people eat them quickly, right there in the street. Once the season is over, the plums’ color—blood-red at first and then black—and their sweetness live on in everyone’s mind. No one can escape their succulence.

  As I write this story I think about the men standing on street corners, who suck on a plum and then toss the pit on the sidewalk, and I know that one image says it all: the sensory feast offered up for the lowest price; the nonchalance of a city that eats its plums swathed in shiny paper, as if it were trying to construct in its stomach the shelters it refuses to provide on the streets; the violence of the gesture, so useless, really, of wrapping the plums up in shreds of newspaper, newspapers that are like portals open to the world, echoes of all the stories that will be trampled underfoot; the negligence of those who take the plum or life itself as a given, undeserving of notice; and yes, yes, also the trace of the plum’s exquisite, tender blackness that is accessible to all, for such a small price. I think of Makénéné, of Tonga, of Edéa, of all the little plum towns spread along the endless road—but most of all I think of Yaoundé. Why, tell me why, at the start of plum season do I think of all the waste in the capital—a city that really doesn’t give a shit whether there are plums or not, but that adores them just the same? Ah, the very short season always reminds me of the time when our country discovered, if not the crux of its own violence, then that of the world; when it sent off along the road through the desert its many sons—young soldiers who were then known as tirailleurs sénégalais—just like the fruit sellers toss away each evening the plums they haven’t been able to grill. For us, the people of Cameroon, 1939 isn’t the start of the Second World War, it’s the date inscribed on the façade of our Central Post Office. This novel is as much our story as it is that of our city, but most of all, it’s the story of the poet Pouka. That’s why it gets a bit of a late start, relative to the rest of the world. But after all, the home front has its own schedule, and its own stories.

  THE PUTSCH IN ONGOLA, 1940

  1

  June Vacation Back in the Village

  “To make a long story short,” M’bangue concluded, crossing his hands on his knees, “that’s how Hitler committed suicide.”

  Then he began to describe the deceased dictator, his blue jacket, his black tie, the barricaded toilets whose doors had to be broken down to get him out. Everyone was staring, their mouths agape, especially Pouka, who no longer recognized his father, whose hands were now tracing outrageous symbols, expansive symbols. The seer’s face was lit up for an instant, then his eyes quickly disappeared into the fractals that his fingers had traced on the ground, into the geomantic mystery of the signs that gave shape to his pronouncements. No one called his word into doubt, for who could challenge his dream? Until that moment it had been nothing more than monologues, whispers, and murmurs: a spitting of distant sounds that evolved into words in the hollow of his belly.

  “In the toilets,” he continued, “mark my word.”

  No, Pouka no longer recognized his father. For everyone there, and him most of all, it was impossible to take this tale seriously. Besides, the month of June was strange enough already. Why would Hitler have committed suicide after occupying half of Europe? The Old Man didn’t say—but that was the real question. Oh, his son didn’t push for an answer: he just wanted to rest. The village held out that hazy promise to anyone returning from the city. Yaoundé could turn a man into a dog, as some would say. It sounded like a taunt, and this time they were right. And yet, with plum trees laden with fruit, where rows of pine and flame trees and bushes full of daisies meant it always smelled of Christmas, the village held out a promise of happiness that he could not turn down.

  “He ate a good sausage,” M’bangue concluded, “and then he killed himself…”

  There were some who chortled. But not Pouka. No, he didn’t laugh.

  To think it was already 1940! Three years had gone by since he’d last set foot in Edéa; yes, three years when he hadn’t come home. Maybe that’s why he was staring at the Old Man’s gestures with more surprise than anyone else; why he jumped at the end of the prediction. Clearly, Pouka was no longer the adolescent he’d been, torn from the shirttails of his cousin, the boxer, and sent to the mission school. It wasn’t just that he’d converted to Catholicism in the meantime; no, he’d been promoted to the position of writer (really more of a secretary), écrivain-interprète! And that meant something! If reading shifting signs in the dirt was his father’s business, juggling with words and filing folders was his. He, too, lived in the place where the future was created; or at least that’s what he believed.

  Or rather, no, that’s what he hoped. How else to explain the meticulous care he took getting dressed each morning? Pouka could very well have given up on
wearing his polished shoes, his tergal pants, his formal shirt, his multicolored cap, and … what else? But then he would have reverted into the barefoot little boy he’d left behind long ago. A kid. A native. Since then he had set his eyes on a goal, even if it was a little blurry. But now he’d come back. During the trip, he had come up with a reason for his visit: he told his father that he wanted a wife. Obviously that was a diversion, a way of avoiding the confrontation to come.

  “I didn’t send you to the white men to have you become a…”

  What had he become? What? Wait a moment, dear reader, for this is a scene he had played out for himself several times. Never had he managed to say just what it was he had become. Yet it was obvious. A tall man, a head taller than anyone else. And on that head, Edéa would soon grow accustomed to seeing, come rain, come shine, a puffy cap that he never seemed to take off. Looking around, he saw respect inscribed on the faces of all the villagers. Envy, too. Jealousy, sometimes. Or maybe curiosity? Just what had he become? And they wondered: Why didn’t he ever lift his cap to greet people? Did he screw with it still on his head? As for girls, no, no need to talk about girls. Still, there were a lot of stories told about him, racy stories. Stories, he knew, that worried his Old Man.

  “When are you going to get married?”

  Pouka hadn’t yet found a good answer for that question, which he’d read long ago in his father’s inquisitive gaze, on the day he left the village. He was the eldest son, the first of some fifty children, many of whom already had passels of children to show the Old Man. And then there were his friends—especially Fritz. We’ll come back to him later, but really, his name says it all. Yet right then, as he stared at his father, whose eyes still glowed with distant visions, Pouka suddenly realized that the war had become an ugly distraction in this peaceful forest.

  “Hitler…” M’bangue continued.

  This time, however, he didn’t finish his sentence.

  2

  The Collapse

  Pouka’s return to the village had been abrupt, but necessary. After June 14, a sudden change in the winds made the capital’s offices aware of their own superfluity. The news had come just a week after school had let out, unleashing crowds of children. It seemed like the whole territory was on vacation. And yet! Ongola, the city center, had fallen under the sway of a particular type of fever: one instant stretched out infinitely, a point turned into a zigzagging line. It wasn’t just that there was no more paperwork to file or notices to circulate. Since the start of the war officials had been spending their days glued to the radio, and the rest of their time trading improbable stories from Paris—from France. What was new that day was the dramatic expression on their faces.

  “I always said,” one voice began, “that Lebrun is an idiot.”

  If failure can take on several forms, powerlessness has only one.

  “A traitor, you mean!”

  Useless words, superfluous mouths, transparent hands gesturing endlessly, caught up in a chattering, toothless conspiracy.

  “The Reds have taken Paris!”

  “The Communists?”

  “Hitler, you mean.”

  “That would be the worst!”

  “You said it!”

  “My dear friend, better the Brown Shirts than the Reds.”

  The face of the man who had just spoken looked around and, suddenly noticing Pouka, his native assistant, shooed him away angrily.

  “The government is on the run,” someone repeated.

  A government only falls if it has already been crushed; otherwise, there is always hope it will rise again. And yet, “on the run”?

  There was very little credible news. Rumors were inflaming the spirits of those starving for updates from the metropole, and hope buoyed up imaginations.

  “In exile,” said someone over here.

  “Relieved from duty,” corrected another over there.

  “In Bordeaux,” a third added, “but not defeated.”

  “But not defeated.”

  “Never defeated!”

  Hope is the drug of the tortured.

  “In Africa!” the prison warden announced the next day. “My brother told me that the government is now based in Africa.”

  “In Africa?”

  All the colonists stared at each other, mouths agape.

  “Where in Africa?”

  Days of doubt; days of suspicion. In all truth, the atmosphere had grown unbearable. His boss’s irritability made it imperative that Pouka leave on vacation. No one challenged his request for leave. The offices were empty, decisions superfluous. The rhythm of war flooded over the city, imposing a sense of emptiness none could ignore. One day Pouka asked for a month’s leave, since the future really didn’t mean anything anymore. Days of uncertainty. What excuse had he given? No, he hadn’t said he was going home to take a wife, since that would have been ridiculous … who gets married in times like these?

  What times!

  The truth itself would have been judged, if not ridiculous, then at least stupid, and would have resulted in a resounding no. Can you imagine if he had simply said what he intended to do: “I want to start a poetry circle in my village”?

  First off, who would have believed him? Although he had written many manuscripts that had failed to find an editor—“not yet, not yet,” he told his friends—he was still the most celebrated poet of his generation, having published pieces in La Gazette du Cameroun and in L’Éveil camerounais. So he was fed up that no one in his village had heard of him—even though he’d received the Palmes académiques d’outre mer, as well as colonial medals for poetic distinction—while his cousin Hebga, the boxer, remained the area’s favorite son, just for the strength of his muscles. No, Pouka hadn’t won the Goncourt Prize, but still. He had finally realized that these French institutions that awarded him prizes didn’t give a damn that none of his compatriots had ever seen any of his books, that the natives were unaware of the definition of a rondeau, and so he had decided to take matters into his own hands.

  Rebellion? No, he considered himself a French subject. The need for recognition can sometimes lead to folly, but the mere thought of rebellion scared him. In truth, he despised his brothers, yes, he despised them. Yet, the idea that they couldn’t even read made him angry. In short, what he really wanted was to create a reader for his poems in his village, and to his mind that made him no different from Hugo, or Mallarmé, or even Gautier, whom he saw as his model. He couldn’t confide the goal of his trip to his boss, of course. But he was too honest to say it was because of a death in the family, although that would have been the most believable excuse. No, you never know what consequences will come from claiming that your father has died, or of killing off your grandfather again, although he’d been buried years before.

  On the bus that took him to Edéa, he thought of just how he would explain his unexpected arrival—or rather the three years since his last visit—to his father. Our dear Pouka wouldn’t be the first one to invent some story: in those days, people were afraid of truth more than anything else. For who on earth would admit that what was going on—whether it was a Swiss watch losing time, gusts of wind coming through new zinc roofs, or the whimpering of an infant in a closed room—was actually happening? And so our hero, a rather haughty, but timid, young man, prone to avoidance, and who had built a temple to the scents of women, had suddenly realized that being alone in a bus filled with passengers meant sharing all of their silent illusions. Vacation! The old village!

  At the very moment when his father kissed him in the courtyard of the family compound, the clamor that had followed him since the bus station fell silent. A woman selling grilled plantains had recognized him and shared the news of his arrival with the Bassa hills. Then she followed along behind him, accompanied by the kids from the missionary school who had just been let out into the playground for four months of vacation.

  3

  The Old Man’s Four Eyes

  In Edéa, the world kept turning, wh
ich at that point meant following the rhythm of the Old Man’s deliberate gestures. M’bangue had a power that made everyone who could be considered a figure of authority in the region bow down at his feet—everyone, that is, except the French, who had never forgotten that once he had spoken German. Maybe there were other reasons, too—dubious ones, to be sure, for why on earth would anyone have doubted the accuracy of his visions? Once he had crossed the forest in the middle of the night to wake up his brother, arriving just in time to save him before the roof of his house could come crashing down on his head. Those who didn’t believe his words had always paid dearly for their skepticism. Take, for example, his brother-in-law, a woodcutter who had gone to cut down trees one day despite his warnings, only to have one tree, which he hadn’t even touched, twist around strangely and fall right on top of him. Where the Old Man was really unbeatable was in predicting rain. Though many others shared this gift, his was beyond question. M’bangue could tell you the hour the storm would start, how long the rain would fall, and even where it would come down hardest, along with the number and even the names of its victims—if there were any men stubborn enough to ignore his warning not to make love to their wives the night before the storm.

  “Did he screw?” M’bangue asked about a man he’d warned and who had been struck dead by lightning.

  Embarrassed, the dead man’s wife opted not to answer; maybe she even went into hiding to avoid retribution. No one ever cast doubt on the Old Man’s dreams, except for his Hitlerian predictions, which were, you had to admit, rather preposterous. This wasn’t the first time M’bangue had done something out of the ordinary, however. That his son had gone, like only a handful of other village boys, from the Catholic school to the French administration, without ever asking for his approval—well, people said that was enough to explain why he hadn’t come back to the village for so long. Was it because of a bad dream? Or just a sulking father? What? Looking back on this now, it would be easy to write that M’bangue had foreseen what his son would become! But don’t read too much into the squabbles of a father and son! There were stories about voices raised in the house one night, or maybe it was one afternoon, or why not even a morning … A mother’s tears shed in a darkened room, curses offered up right in the living room. But then again, what didn’t people say?