Blue White Red. Alain Mabanckou

let them mistreat me this way. Certain things had to be clarified.

      Many things.

      First of all, I demand that you tell me why we’re here. What did they say to you when you shoved me into the car? Answer me, sirs! Answer! Come on, give me an answer! Is this just for today? Until this evening? Until tomorrow? Or until the day after tomorrow?

      Silence.

      I wanted to express myself, explain, convince, tell them to give me a few minutes, just a few minutes. To ask a favor: take me back to rue du Moulin-Vert in the fourteenth arrondissement. Our building. The cars parallel-parked down the whole street. The Arab on the corner who let comrades buy on credit. The stairs. The window. The wool blankets. The plastic table. The camping stove on wheels. Which was the way to rue du Moulin-Vert?

      They would drive me there. Maybe not.

      They’d say, “What are you going to do back there? No, it’s out of the question.”

      I would beg them again.

      Nothing but this one last favor, please, sirs. They would no longer listen to me. Definitely wouldn’t talk. Shut up! One more word and they’d have an excuse to beat me with a billy club. Follow them silently. Do what they want.

      And wait.

      The corridor became narrower the further we went. We went down several flights. The two men escorting me, one in front, the other behind, knew where to step. Their practiced, aloof attitude meant this was certainly routine. The bigger of the two must have been at least six feet tall. His primate arms hung down to his knees and he had to unshackle himself from me to be able to move with ease. The second man was not as tall. He turned around and looked me straight in the eye, a dark look of resolution. His thickset muscular bulk showed that he worked out assiduously.

      We had been forced to walk lopsidedly and had to hunch over so we didn’t bump into the stairs above our heads.

      Finally, we got to a heavy iron door, equipped with no less than a dozen locks. One of the two men, the smaller one, took out a bunch of keys. He picked the wrong one several times. He muttered and cursed before finding the right one. The other one, without a word of warning, pushed me into the room. . . .

      When the door slammed shut, it was as if night had fallen. I stayed still for a good minute with my eyes closed. I opened them gradually to accustom myself to the darkness. Then, little by little, a glint of light made its way through the barred holes of the building’s air ducts, way above my head.

      The silence would have been complete were it not occasionally punctured by quick footsteps, coughing, murmuring behind the door, and even sometimes, to my great surprise, by outbursts of resounding laughter that I heard coming from above this sort of cell.

      So there was life in the building.

      Since then, I’ve been in this somber room, facing my shadow, which I see get up and walk without warning me. It comes and it goes. It gets up and sits down again, holding a hand to its cheek as if we formed just one entity and our fates were sealed forever.

      All their warnings struck me as ridiculous. Even left outside, alone, I wouldn’t find my way back. From the get-go, the idea of escaping never entered my head.

      I repeat: I do not consider myself a prisoner. I have nothing to escape from. But them, would they believe me? Experience had proved the contrary to them. I have no doubt, people in my situation, incensed, tried anything and everything. Wait behind the door, pretend to fall into a complete faint, then grab the throat and don’t let go of the man who would come toward them or bring in a meal.

      If they sequestered me—I can’t find a euphemism for the circumstance—in this sort of bunker, it’s only to protect themselves against an eventual escape.

      It is highly likely that a police van will come take us like damaged goods to put in storage before being disposed of later in a public dump, far away from everyday life. I say us because my intuition tells me that I’m not alone here.

      Do I have neighbors of misfortune in the adjacent rooms? Nothing indicated I should think so. Or think not. If they are there, are they there for the exact same reason as me or at least a related one? Had we also been neighbors in Seine-Saint-Denis, or did they come from other places around Paris? No information at all. A complete wall. Night.

      The rank smell.

      The room I was in had been unoccupied for a long time. In the dark, man’s only reflex is to turn inward on himself. The dark reminds him that he is nothing but an infinitesimal speck without the blessing of the light of day. He can’t set out to do anything, and he is reduced to groping his way.

      I curled up in a corner across from the door. Fatigue tightened its grip on me. But don’t sleep. Stay awake. Rub your eyelids. No, don’t sleep. Don’t do it, in order to see what is in store for me next. . . .

      The dark plunged me into a hypnotic state.

      It’s impossible for me to separate dream from reality. Shadows walked in front of me. Faces. Places. Voices. I’m unable to associate this phantasmagoric universe with a specific situation. For me, all of this is still confused. I feel like I’m at the bottom of a cliff, slowly rising back up, deluded in the ascent by the prospect of false happiness, which I aim toward, flying through the sky. The wind gives me wings. I use them. All I’ve got to do is lift my arms to the sky to take flight. Is that why my eyelids grow heavy?

      I stare at that smiling, reedy silhouette while I’m dozing off. I recognize the silhouette. I would recognize that one among thousands.

      It’s Moki.

      It’s him. Why does your face look a little thin to me? It’s really you, Moki. I recognized you. And that man next to you? Who drove him all the way here? I recognize him, too. His name is Préfet. He’s drunk. As usual. He’s looking at his watch. As usual. He sizes me up, deciding that I’m the man for the job, that I’ll do a good job with this business at the end of the month. I owe him that, I tell you, after everything he’s done for me. You tell me it’s also in my own self-interest; I should think about that, you add. Instead of staying put, not doing a damn thing, Préfet says. And you give him your agreement. I have nothing to say about that. My voice doesn’t count. Préfet will come back to rue du Moulin-Vert the day after tomorrow. Very early in the morning. We’ll make the rounds together. You made that decision together, a job for rookies, to use the words Préfet used that morning. Everyone has done this work. Even you, Moki, you assured me. Everybody started out with this. Later, I would do other things if I wanted to. It’s a job that shouldn’t be difficult for me to accomplish. You worked it out together—I know that, Moki. I’m talking to you. Why do you come after me even in my sleep? Do we remain connected even here? I make no mistake. It’s definitely your face.

      Where are you now? . . .

      I would like for everything to be in chronological order. At times, memory seems like a mountain of garbage that has to be patiently sifted through just to retrieve a miniscule object, the trigger that sends everything adrift, linked together in a succession of events irrespective of a man’s will.

      The tangle of events burns my temples. I was surprised at how things happened. I would like for everything to be clear. That there be no ambiguity. I have nothing to hide. Not to mention nothing to lose. Much less, something to gain. I did not hurt anyone, as I will point out. I acted like all the others, those in our circle. I’m not one of those that holds back, and Moki knows that very well. Préfet is convinced of it, even though that guy is hard to please.

      What’s important at this point is to understand.

      To