Black Moses by Alain Mabanckou

Author:Alain Mabanckou
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781620972946
Publisher: The New Press
Published: 2017-05-06T04:00:00+00:00

‘If the twins are running away, that’s great, we can relax at last, we’ll be the masters of the orphanage!’

‘Bonaventure, you don’t get it: this is our chance to escape too! Believe me, we won’t get into trouble, we’ll just say it was all the twins’ idea, they led us astray!’

‘Who’s this “us” you’re always talking about?’

‘You and me! Don’t you get smart with me, time is short!’

He moved his head from side to side a few times: ‘No, no, don’t count on me, I smell a rat, I’m not moving from here! They want to do like in that film they saw, Alcatraz. They have to be three to get out!’

Unconsciously I repeated Tala-Tala’s words:

‘Bonaventure, are we planning to spend our whole lives here? If we were such extraordinary children, how come we never got adopted by a family? And how many children have actually achieved anything in all the time we’ve been here? None, that’s how many! We were here when the twins arrived, you and I, we’ve never been anywhere, and when they offer us a chance to go to Pointe-Noire, you start acting like someone who loves his masters’ house! You think it’s a trap, is that it?’

‘Well I certainly never planned to leave Loango that way!’

‘Really? So how exactly were you planning to leave?’

‘You know! I’m waiting for a plane to land here, just for me…’

‘In Pointe-Noire there’s a real landing strip, you’ll have all the planes you want when you get there, I promise, you’ll be able to fly anywhere you want!’

‘That’s just smooth talk, don’t get me muddled, I’m not coming with you! You go with them, I promise I won’t say anything, till the day my plane comes…’

‘Honestly! Sometimes I think the others are right when they say you’re an imbecile!’

‘Oh, I’m the imbecile am I?’

‘Yes!’

‘Thanks, but I’m not going to just lie down and let you thump me this time, it’s over, OK? Finished. Good luck to you…’

He threw me a look like a miserable puppy, then turned his back and walked back to the main building.

For a moment I stood there, wondering if I wasn’t about to walk straight into an ambush laid for me by the twins to get me into trouble with Dieudonné Ngoulmoumako. It would be easy for him to get rid of me by explaining to the people in the Congolese Workers’ Party that I was just a little local lackey of imperialism. It might even take the pressure off his own hellish situation, and get him back in favour after being edged out by the newcomers. I might get out of Loango only to end up in Boloko, the prison that was said to take only recalcitrant adolescents intent on deflecting their comrades from the path of the Revolution as laid out by our Guide, the president of the Republic.

I only had a few hours left to decide. Should I risk it with the twins, or stay with the person for whom I felt a deep affection? I couldn’t see myself leaving without him.

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