The Fugitivities, стр. 41

thought on it hard what he saw in his mind was dishonor. Too many nameless dead. Ship holds. Coffles. The deaths he had seen in his own lifetime. At Orangeburg over a bowling lane. At the hands of the police. He thought of the years of lynching. The faces smiling under the charred flesh of Jesse Washington down in Texas. He thought of the Freedmen betrayed in the Reconstruction. The long centuries before then, all under the whip of the founding fathers, as they took in their immeasurable lucre, built their empire westward, fiddled in their private Monticellos. He thought of all the brothers behind bars. The acquittals of officers, as regular and predictable as tides. Nathaniel opened his eyes. It was shocking to realize how powerfully he missed home. How the catalog of infamy that he had wanted, consciously or unconsciously, to run away from for so much of his life, to somehow ignore or work around, was still not powerful enough to keep him on the run forever. How strange it was to be here in this other land, in so many ways a better one, where he was seeing and understanding more than at any other time in his life, and yet his experiences, his study of history, all of it was only solidifying an itch he had repressed: a need to get back, to return home.

“No,” he said finally, looking over at Claude, “I don’t think there will be a black president in my lifetime.” He thought a moment and added, “But that won’t keep us from trying.”

Of the three friends from Cité Lamartine, Apollinaire was the one Nathaniel had gotten to know the least. Yet the week before it all came to an end, they had shared a most intimate moment together, one that Nathaniel could never forget. Apollinaire had insisted they go for a drive. Nate had to practically crouch to get himself in the little green Simca, but once they were packed in they peeled out marvelously, swerving out of the projects with a beastly guzzle, accelerating along the wide boulevards extérieurs, crossing the arm of the Seine at Bercy, switching lanes, the suspension yawing as they darted through traffic. A wooden cross on a string of colored beads jangled in a syncopated dance over the dash.

“Open the glove box!” Apollinaire ordered, as he imperiled their lives in an attempt to light a pungent cigarillo. Nathaniel popped the notch and instantly, an avalanche of papers began flying into the back seat. Nathaniel quickly shut it again, but not before having nabbed one of the pages as it whipped past. Compiled with a wobbly ballpoint pen was a list with the heading The Plot Against Africa:

Jacques Foccart / François de Grossouvre / Paul Barril / Bob Denard / Étienne Léandri / Charles Pasqua / Félix-Roland Moumié / Bolloré / Outel Bono / Eduardo Mondlane / Herbert Chitepo / Amílcar Cabral / Dulcie September / Steve Biko / Patrice Lumumba / Thomas Sankara / Aginter Press / Robert Sobukwe / Union Minière du Haut-Katanga /

—

“Don’t worry about that,” Apollinaire said. “Just some research of mine. Look in there for my OK Jazz.” Nathaniel rummaged through the papers at his feet and pulled out a plastic cassette box. Franco et le Tout Puissant OK Jazz Band, Paris 1984. The tape was a mess, looping out in a crazed tangle. Nathaniel stuck his pinky in one of the eyes, felt the teeth pinch his fingertip, wound it back till it was tight again, then shoved it in the car deck between their knees.

The twang of African guitars and Lingala poured out of the car stereo. Electrified guitars clanging Franco bellowing out with his chorus chiming in behind—LIBERTÉ—the guitar ringing out eh pa! OK Jazz en forme Apollinaire agreeing slapping the gearbox through second and third and fourth up the boulevard Leclerc—LIBERTÉ—Franco insisting on it the guitar chimes spilling over with a shattering clarity like diamonds in a briefcase on a flight from Goma to Kisangani to Antwerp like earrings chilling a glass countertop at De Beers—LIBERTÉ—Apollinaire gliding the whip expertly round the Place de la Nation the tires of the Simca skittering over the neatly combed cobblestone the two friends leaning magically in time muziki na biso—LIBERTÉ—in their wake the frown of disbelieving Gauls bopped on the head by the swinging congas of the Simca this African parrot green and raucous and loud her chassis screeching in bittersweet spasm—sweet LIBERTÉ!!!

“Ah voilà, mon ami. Nous sommes arrivés.” Apollinaire brought the car to a stop by the side of the road just off the roundabout at Porte Dorée.

“My friend, I wanted to bring you here to tell you a story, to illustrate to you so you might know my situation. You see that telephone booth over there. That one. I used to sleep in it. No money, no job, nowhere to go. It was a very bad time. That café over there, I would go in there when they were closing and offer to clean their toilet in return for some bread and a glass of wine to help me sleep. At first the waiters just said no. But I came back again, and the barman who was very nice, he said okay, but just a few times, a week maybe. Then I had to go elsewhere. I was very scared. It was a very hard time. And then, my friend, a miracle happened. I met a woman. Here, right here, where we are now. Her name was Florèse. You see over there that great building? That is the Tropical Aquarium of Paris. That was where she worked. One evening when she came out, she saw me, and she saw how I had nothing. How I was scared. My friend, I was so ashamed. That was the first day, the first day of my life, I really began to believe in God. Florèse took me home with her. She lived just around the corner in a tiny room