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Jazz and Palm Wine
By Emmanuel Dongala, Dominic Thomas Indiana University Press
Copyright © 2003 Emmanuel Dongala
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-253-02669-9
CHAPTER 1
The Astonishing and Dialectical Downfall of Comrade Kali Tchikati
The day will not save them
And we own the night.
LeRoi Jones (Imamu Baraka)
One of the things I really like doing when I arrive in a new place is to venture out late in the day, at those inchoate and fugitive hours when the daylight begins to fade and darkness gradually spreads its cloak. Those early evening hours give you a good indication of a city's secret pulse, of its hopes and fears, a glimpse of all that still hesitates to appear or disappear, a moment when people and things were the most off-guard. This is also the time for new smells, when the wood-burning fires or kerosene lamps were lit, when hurricane lanterns and candles suddenly appeared, flickering just like a thousand fireflies in the night sky, all carefully lined up along the sidewalks where vendors sold manioc, skewers of meat and grilled peanuts. ... And then there was all the hubbub, sounds unique to each city, composed of stifled voices, the cries of mothers beckoning their offspring to return home, barking dogs, loud engines, and all the local nightspots bellowing out the latest tunes. Lovers could be spotted on the street corners relishing the anonymity afforded them by the vanishing daylight, the first ladies of the night loitering close by, nocturnal butterflies transformed into obelisks and rendered strangely desirable by the soft velvet of the moonlight. These intervals in time were inebriating, hinting at the proximity of those forces that filled the African nights!
The city I found myself in on that particular night had something more to it though: the distinct murmur of the ocean and a light salty breeze. Just as in port cities the world over, with the cosmopolitan fauna of foreign sailors waiting patiently for nightfall in order to disembark, leave their comfortable element behind for a few hours and enjoy the pleasures on dry land. There were also lots of Cubans around, the rear guard following those who had already landed and made their way to the battlefields in neighboring Angola.
So I strolled along the streets of Pointe-Noire with the pleasure that comes from being on terra incognita, especially when, as was the case here, there were no street names or numbers. Directions were given out in such a way that you had to find your bearings in relation to various landmarks, such as a shop or a well-known watering hole. I continued to wander aimlessly and, by the time I'd reached the Ntiétié neighborhood, had been engulfed by the night. That's when I started searching, unsuccessfully, for a taxi so I could make my way over to the Widow Djembo, a restaurant and dance bar some friends back in Kinshasa had recommended. Tired as I was, I decided to grab a beer across the street at a bar called Josepha, quench my thirst and take in some of the local fraternal warmth in this popular hangout.
No sooner than I'd sat down than some big guy, and I don't quite know how else to say it, basically marched in like some force of the night wearing a long colorful boubou, with a bushy beard and thick disheveled hair, and a talisman around his neck like the ones the Senegalese marabouts sell. He seemed totally disoriented, like a lost seaman, a drifting vessel in search of the safe haven of a port in this somewhat chic bar. A peculiar combination of power and desperate solitude emanated from him. But what was all the more peculiar was the fact that there was something familiar about him, and the more I observed him, the more I became convinced that I knew him. He didn't sit down but instead went straight to the bar, as if he wanted to quickly throw one back and then head back into the night from which he'd emerged and continue on his journey. I searched my most distant memory, recalled images of acquaintances that even vaguely resembled him, but still didn't come up with anything. I eventually just sat back and savored my own drink.
* * *
Folks in Pointe-Noire have the reputation for being heavy drinkers, of both beer and imported red wine, which means that at this time of the evening they swarm the local watering holes like nocturnal insects drawn to the light, looking to assuage a great thirst accumulated throughout the day in this city that, despite its proximity to the ocean, is always particularly warm. Folks are generally in good spirits, charming and fun to be around, even if, in the same way as people who hail from the south, like I do, they're ultimately vain, more often than not boastful, yet, and this is a somewhat likeable characteristic, also especially fond of women. So there I was deep in my sociological ramblings when I felt a friendly tap on my right shoulder followed by an exclamation of surprise.
"Well if it isn't Kuvezo!"
"Oh, it's you!," was about all I could come up with as I desperately worked my gray cells into action because he at least had recognized me; his name ... was right there on the tip of my tongue ... I almost had it ... fiat lux, and then suddenly, like a lightning bolt: "Kali Tchikati! It's you, Kali Tchikati, I can't believe it, what on earth are you doing in this place?"
"I should be asking you that, dear old Kuku ..."
"You're still calling me by that ridiculous nickname. Here, grab a seat. What's the latest? Tell me! What are you drinking, my shout."
I didn't have to ask him twice, but he really did seem happy to see me again. Believe or not, it had been a good five years since our last meeting, right around the time he'd been expelled from our one-party government that controlled everything, every gesture and every thought. He ordered a large bottle of red wine as any local son worthy of the name would have done; we continued our exchange of pleasantries until they brought over the bottle.
"Let's drink to our health and our reunion my dear Kali," I said, raising my glass.
"And let's not forget our ancestors," he added, pouring a few drops of wine on the ground.
At first I thought he was merely continuing to mock those theoreticians of the myth of authenticity he'd spent much of his life, as a good progressive, railing against. And yet there was something about this gesture of his, how should I put it, something genuine, almost an act of faith. It actually caught me off guard, but I didn't think about it for long. And so we drank away, me with my beer and him with his wine, that awful red wine the French sent our way when they cleared out their cellars and vats, one glass of which was enough to trigger a stabbing migraine that would last for hours. The wine didn't seem to affect him in the same way, although after his first glass the initial enthusiasm he'd shown when he first spotted me had worn off entirely and was now replaced by a worried look. Something was clearly plaguing him. But what could it be?
"Tell me Kali, what's bothering you? You look worried, as if the demons of the night are after you."
"That couldn't be closer to the truth! I am being hunted."
"By what? By whom? I thought your problems with the party were behind you."
He didn't say anything for a while, then downed half his glass in one gulp and continued.
"My dear Kuvezo, you have before you someone who is about to die. I've been bewitched by my paternal uncle."
Those were the words Kali hurled at me. For a second there I thought he was kidding; in fact, I almost burst into laughter and was about to tell him that I wasn't that gullible, but then thought better of it when I saw the desperation in his eyes, big open windows into his deeply troubled soul. I could see this was serious. Nevertheless, I still had difficulty believing his sudden "conversion," in getting my head around the fact that Kali Tchikati of all people could possibly believe in witchcraft or at the very least in the kind of mystical or metaphysical beliefs which our people held on to so dearly. I couldn't help probing a little further.
"You, Kali, bewitched? You're pulling my leg, right?"
"There's no doubt about it, my uncle wants to 'eat' me."
"Come on now, really, you the steadfast materialist, with six years of ideological training in Moscow under your belt, the former director of the party's school and head of ideological propaganda, you who wanted to convert all the temples and churches into museums, you ..."
"I get it that this must be hard for you to believe."
"You bet!"
He didn't respond, just took a few more swigs of red. I also kept quiet, feeling a bit guilty, that I'd perhaps been overly harsh with a friend who clearly needed to confide in someone who would listen to him. That said, I was really struggling to come to terms with this new Kali Tchikati sitting opposite me. I could still see myself arguing with the Kali of old, my friend-adversary with whom discussions had always been frank, and often also quite heated, violent even. We'd fallen out on numerous occasions but always made up again. He was a childhood friend, and we'd been at middle school together at the Lycée Savorgnan de Brazza. I also knew his father, who'd treated me like his own son. When we graduated, I went to America to study the physical sciences while Kali headed to Moscow to study the social sciences, in the aftermath of the popular revolts that swept away the former regime. We both returned to the Congo at about the same time, give or take a few months; I became a professor and disappeared into relative obscurity at the university, while he quickly rose through the ranks, becoming an eminent member of the newly established party, second in command in the hierarchy right after the head of state who served as its president, because he was at once the director of the school and the head of ideological propaganda, in other words the guru of the future red leaders that the country would train. Six years in Moscow was no small feat! And that same guy was now sitting right in front of me, talking about witchcraft and curses with even greater conviction than I'd ever had, me who had always taken safe refuge in that gray area in which one couldn't really separate belief from disbelief, much in the same way as most people are aware of the limits of their own knowledge. Kali had been of those who, in his hour glory, had been responsible for the atmosphere of intellectual terrorism in the country, claiming they knew best what the "correct political line" for the Revolution should be, falsifying history, stifling a wider public debate of ideas under a form of centralism that had nothing remotely democratic about it, censoring writers and artists, imprisoning journalists. And I won't even mention the way they treated political opponents. It just didn't make any sense ...
And, as always when one doesn't quite grasp something, silence takes the place of words — which is exactly what I resorted to — right after ordering another beer. Fate had already played its part bringing us together again, the loud music and crowded bar a haven of sorts, such that even if someone had wanted to eavesdrop on our conversation they wouldn't have been able to. A few prostitutes were looking our way determinedly, beckoning us into the night. Perhaps contrary to our good morals, these girls at least had peace of soul. This thought brought me back to Kali, who also seemed to be relishing the silence of the night in this questionable place in which we could barely hear each other.
"Kali, why don't you tell me exactly what went wrong and what's going on now. Tell me the whole story, don't leave anything out, I'm your friend."
"You don't need to ask, you know, Kuvezo, I'd already decided I was going to tell you everything the moment I spotted you. I now realize that you're the only friend with whom I've always been able to speak frankly. So, let's start with my wedding ..."
"... at which I was one of the witnesses."
"That's right, you haven't forgotten, have you?"
* * *
"I'd just come back to the Congo after years of studying abroad and wanted to marry a girl I'd met in Moscow, a fellow compatriot; a nice-looking girl, from a good family, and smart as a whip who'd just gotten her doctorate in sociology. But there was, how should I put it, a 'blemish' on her resume since we weren't from the same ethnic group. You understand the scandal I caused when my paternal uncle summoned me to let me know he was opposed to this union. I went against their wishes and challenged them on the basis of my ideological convictions. You remember the exchanges, right? 'You're our son and we don't want anything bad to happen to you; but just as true as it is that we are your fathers, the words we pronounce today will be realized and this in spite of your education and all those fancy diplomas you picked up in the white man's country' — a few drops of palm wine poured on the ground out of respect for the ancestors, a few drops drunk and spat out for the wind to carry wherever you decide to go — 'we're telling you: you will not be able to have children, your wife will not procreate, we don't want any offspring from the belly of this outsider' — more wine spat out, a knot tied into a piece of red cloth, a few more incantations — 'we don't mean you any harm, and rest assured nothing will happen to you except for the fact that the offspring of this woman will not enter our bloodline ...'
"I just laughed at all these beliefs, superstitions. So I just got up and to hell with the lot of them. As long as my wife was in good physical, physiological, and gynecological health, and she was, I saw no reason why the simple words of a bunch of backward illiterates whose reasoning had not even attained pre-Marxist levels, were going to prevent me from having a kid. In fact, I soon forgot about the incident, all the more so because I was consumed with the task of establishing the new avant-garde Marxist-Leninist party in which I was going to be the head of ideological propaganda and the director of the school.
"But then, now married for over two years, I still had no children. My wife was getting more and more worried because she really wanted a child; she was twenty-six years old and could feel herself getting older, and I don't have to tell you the prestige bestowed on wife-mothers in Africa, or rather the stigma attached to women who can't bear children. In spite of her Bolshevik training, she didn't share in my Marxist-Leninist convictions and was starting to seriously believe that my family had cursed us. Initially, she sought salvation in the Christian faith, the opium of the people, and which we'd abandoned over a decade ago. Funny isn't it how people, at times of 'stress,' fall back almost instinctively on childhood superstitions! But for once, Marxism and the Church were on the same page when it came to fighting animist and fetishist beliefs. The Church asked her to stop believing in this nonsense and rather have faith in God the Merciful, and to pray. She even went on voyages to Lourdes and Fatima. But all was in vain since six months later she still wasn't pregnant, and the clergy had been unable to help. She also tried her luck with Allah with the help of a Malian ivory trafficker. That's when she really started pressuring me to arrange a meeting with my family to seek forgiveness through repentance. Infuriated, I decided to take matters into my own hands, scientifically. I arranged for appointments with the top gynecological specialists available; they all reached the same conclusion, that there wasn't anything gynecological preventing my wife from conceiving. Taking advantage of my position in the party, I made up an excuse to justify an official mission abroad, and the two of us set off for France, where she consulted with five different doctors who found nothing wrong with her. And what if I was the one with the problem? And so I went to see five different doctors who found nothing wrong with me, either. But I still wasn't satisfied. And so, as soon as I got home, I fabricated another urgent mission, this time to Berlin, and we both went through another round of tests. And still, they couldn't find anything that, scientifically, prevented my wife from conceiving. By now she was on the verge of depression. Concerned, I made another appointment to see one of the specialists I'd already been to see, explained the whole situation to him, begged him to run some more tests, and to check whether maybe over there somewhere in my gonads or gonadotrophic hormones — I don't know what you call those things, that's not my area of expertise — to check whether there might not be something going on down there ... and, at my insistence, he did in fact end up finding a little something. After testing my sperm, he found the cause of the problem: I had lazy spermatozoids. Can you believe it! It took them so long to swim toward the fallopian tube that by the time they reached it, they were either already dead or too exhausted to be of any use; or, tired of waiting, the egg had already died. I literally rejoiced, was overjoyed to finally have a scientific, rational explanation. There was nothing mysterious about the fact that my wife had not been able to conceive, it was just that the egg had not been fertilized. Admittedly, only one of the ten or so specialists we'd consulted had detected the laziness of my spermatozoids, and only then following a second visit and because I'd insisted he find an explanation whatever the cost. This failure to reproduce the same results of course went against the principles of good science, but this didn't bother me in the least, I was just so relieved to have found a rational explanation.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Jazz and Palm Wine by Emmanuel Dongala, Dominic Thomas. Copyright © 2003 Emmanuel Dongala. Excerpted by permission of Indiana University Press.
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