Tomorrow I'll Be Twenty by Alain Mabanckou Page A

herself and me. Not that she was afraid of them, she knows how to scratch the face of a wickedwoman. When she scratches a wicked woman it looks like she’s written a whole book on her face, in Arabic or Chinese. But she didn’t want any of that.
    I don’t actually know what Mouyondzi district looks like, out in the region of Bouenza, in the southern bush. Since all I’ve seen there is the sky, I imagine the earth must be red, like everywhere in Bouenza. That’s what our teacher says in geography, anyway. I also imagine that people’s animals down there – particularly pigs – go wandering wherever they like. I mention pigs because according to my mother the inhabitants of Mouyondzi love pig and eat it with plantain bananas whenever there’s a party, or someone’s just died. I imagine, too, that if the fathers in this district are all like Maman Pauline’s policeman, there must be lots of other children without a father and lots of other mothers living alone with their children. I have no wish to go there, not now or ever, I’ll only hate the people and want to wage global war on them, especially the policemen.
    I feel like a real child of Pointe-Noire. Here’s where I learned to walk, to talk. Here’s where I first saw rain fall, and wherever you see your first rain fall, that’s where you come from. Papa Roger told me that once, and I think he was right.

When she left Mouyondzi district, Maman Pauline didn’t want to go back to the village where she’d been born – she knew the people of Louboulou would laugh at her. She chose the town of Pointe-Noire because Uncle René already lived there and had just finished his studies in France. With our people it is common for the children to be given the names of the uncles, and my mother gave me Uncle René’s name, even though he’s not my father. My uncle was very pleased my mother chose him rather than their big brother, Uncle Albert Moukila, who worked for the electricity company.
    The good thing was that Uncle René was quite happy for Maman Pauline to come and live at his house, with me too, and he gave her a bit of money so she could set up her peanut business at the Grand Marché. She got up in the morning and went straight down to Mtoba, where she bought sacks of peanuts from the farmers. After that she shelled the peanuts and put them into bowls. At the Grand Marché she sat behind her table and waited for customers. Sometimes business was good, sometimes not. But even when it wasn’t, she’d say it didn’t matter, tomorrow would be better than today. She was never going to get rich with this business. At least she could buy me milk and nappies instead of having to ask Uncle René all the time. Now what she didn’t know was, there in the Grand Marché, her life was about to change. Mine too.
    .....
    It was one very hot Sunday afternoon. The Grand Marché was pretty empty. She looked up and saw a man in front of her table, not very tall, well-combed hair, a well-ironed shirt and a briefcase in his left hand. At first she thought it was one of those bad men who sometimes come round asking the stallholders to pay a fee to the town hall, or else there’ll be no table for them the next day at the market. When you come across a bad man, you always feel a bit afraid, but in this case she felt her legs trembling, as though her heart was about to fall into her stomach – she says that’s what happens when she’s in love. The man with the briefcase bought lots of peanuts and my mother guessed straightaway that anyone who buys peanuts like there’s no tomorrow must have a large family to feed. No one can eat all that themselves. So she added lots of extra peanuts, and even reduced the price.
    After that, the man with the briefcase turned up regularly at my mother’s table. He stopped buying peanuts from anyone else, and if she wasn’t there he