Tropic of Violence by Nathacha Appanah

Author:Nathacha Appanah [Appanah, Nathacha]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-64445-122-9
Publisher: Graywolf Press
Published: 2020-07-14T16:00:00+00:00

Bruce

I guess you think it’s easy to be the Don of Gaza.

You don’t get to be king just like that, it’s a jungle out here, you need to be a lion, a wolf, you need to sniff the air, track down your prey and show your claws. I showed mine at the time of the big strikes. Who lit the first bonfire at the Kaweni crossroads? Me. Who decided to put up barricades? Me. Who threw the first stone at the firemen? Me. Ha, ha. Everyone took my lead, adults, civil servants, street vendors, the unions, they all shouted No to high prices! but I couldn’t give a shit what they were shouting, the one who’d lit the fire was me and that’s what makes a warlord, he leads the pack, he lights the fire and, when he decides, he puts out the fire himself. And everyone knew that. I heard the wind speaking to me with the voices of people everywhere. It was Bruce who barricaded the Kaweni road, it was Bruce who decided, it was Bruce who said the word, you need to ask Bruce, where’s Bruce? Even the wind spoke my name and it was like Gotham summoning up Batman.

You need to know Gaza like it was your wife. You know where she’s wrinkled, where she’s curvaceous, you know when she’s crying out and when she’s in pain, you know what she likes and what she doesn’t like, you know what music she likes, you know how to please her and how to make her grovel, you know where she’s dry and where she’s dripping wet. You know her head from her pussy, and her hands from her feet. No one knows Gaza like me.

You need to be strong, you mustn’t be scared to fight. In Gaza they know Bruce is like Batman, he dominates everyone. He doesn’t grovel either to the law or to politicians. He can turn anything into a weapon, a stone, a stick, a sheet of corrugated iron, the lid of a cooking pot. You need to know how to strike and you need everyone to see you win.

What you did to me yesterday I’ll never forgive and neither will my wolves.

You need to have an army. Youths to keep watch on all sides, and you send them to beg from the muzungus. You set up competitions between them, you send some to Caribou Café, some to the exit from the ferry and some to Banana Café, then you wait. They come back to Gaza smiling as if you’d invented the most wonderful game for them. Do you think you could have thought up that game, fool? Youths are useful too for climbing all over the place, into trees for fruit, onto roofs when you want to pinch a TV cable, that kind of thing.

You need your homies your age to help and protect you. The hardest part is choosing them. They need to be strong, but not as strong as you, brave

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