The Wondrous and Tragic Life of Ivan and Ivana by Maryse Condé

Author:Maryse Condé
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: World Editions
Published: 2019-12-02T12:46:09+00:00

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OUT OF AFRICA

Ivan and Ivana disembarked at Roissy Airport, still dazzled by the colors of Mali, on a morning which to them appeared gray and dirty. Although we were only in the early days of September the weather was quite cool. Fortunately one of their “mothers” in the Diarra compound had knitted soft pullovers for them, unfortunately in a shocking spinach green for Ivan and salmon pink for Ivana. Hugo, one of Father Michalou’s cousins, who for years had tightened bolts in the car factory on the Île Seguin and now enjoyed a meager pension, had come to meet them. He was very proud to own a car, an antiquated Ford which still hummed along intrepidly. Exiting the airport they drove along a road cluttered with cars. At the end of a tunnel they entered Paris. Ivan and Ivana had never seen such tall, massive buildings forming a sooty black wall along the sidewalks. Set apart at regular intervals the street lamps gave off a ghostly, yellowish light. Despite the early hour the streets were by no means deserted. Men, women, and even children headed down into the metro while vehicles as gloomy as hearses revved impatiently at red lights. Ivan’s heart sank at the sight of this hardly welcoming atmosphere. Ivan had never liked Kidal but now he felt he wouldn’t like Paris either. Why was it named the City of Light? He recalled that Father Michalou compared it to a lovely odalisque who struck dumb those who admired her.

They drove for miles across Paris and then exited the city, for Hugo lived in Villeret-le-François, a suburb that to the two new arrivals seemed miles away from anywhere. Hugo proudly insisted that in Villeret-le-François there were people of every nationality.

“We have Indians,” he said. “Pakistanis, and even Japanese. Soon the Whites will be in the minority compared with those who come from elsewhere.”

He had kept a strong Guadeloupean accent, and on hearing him Ivan relived his childhood and those moments of happiness.

After an endless journey the car finally reached Villeret-le-François. It stopped inside a somewhat shabby-looking housing estate in front of four or five multistory tower blocks surrounded by a peeling wall.

“Here we are,” Hugo said. “This is the André Malraux housing estate. There was a time when they called it the Mamadous. Chirac was very proud of it. He went straight ahead and installed electricity and running water for the garbage collectors he recruited from Africa.”

“What!” exclaimed Ivan, climbing out of the car, “He had Africans come over to empty the garbage of the French!”

Apparently Ivan had never heard of the famous song by good old Pierre Perret:

They thought she was fairly pretty, Lily

She was a Somali

Who arrived in a ship full of émigrés

Who came of their own free will to empty the garbage bins in Paris!

Hugo did not seem to be at all shocked.

“Chirac pampered his garbage collectors like they were the apple of his eye. Today everything’s dilapidated. The elevators no longer work. A pack of dealers sell drugs in the stairwells.

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