Practically Marzipan

This is the fourth of the five stories on the Caine Prize shortlist.

The nature of the Caine Prize makes it inevitable that we’ve all been talking about/dancing around the idea of Africa as a single literature-producing entity (as far as any place that has ever produced more than one book could ever be such a thing); Melissa Tandiwe Myambo is from Zimbabwe and her story “La Salle de Départ” is set in Senegal. Does that make this the most international story on this shortlist so far?

The story in brief: Fatima’s brother Ibou lives in America but has come to Senegal for a short holiday. Throughout his stay, Fatima has been trying to work up the courage to ask him to take her son to live with him next year. Most of the story takes place during the siblings’ rather fraught ride to the airport; Fatima struggles to understand Ibou’s refusal to take charge of her son, while Ibou in turn finds himself unable to explain his complex feelings about his own identity, and what his Americanisation has done for his relationship with his family.

I think, as Stephen Derwent Partington says here, that a large part of what makes this story interesting is its focus on Fatima, who was left behind and does not exist in two cultures, rather than Ibou, who does. We’ve heard Ibou’s story several times, we know that to be hybrid is a sort of never coming home – many of us know all this first hand. From the beginning Ibou does not come across as insensitive or heartless to me, because I’ve heard his story enough to sympathise with him. In some ways, though he is sympathetic, Ibou is more archetype than person for me.

Fatima is different. Partly because her apparent weakness is deceptive – the hints we get of her life indicate that her divorce was her choice, that she has built up quite a successful business on her own. She may think that her mind is slow, but we’re told that she finished lycée with high marks; high enough for her uncle to offer to pay for her university education. She is, understandably, a little bitter about the fact that this did not happen – women stay at home, men “fly”. But she’s also prone to stereotyping people (her remarks on the ‘loose’ Lebanese women). And her apparent depression is something that could make up a story in itself.

But at the heart of it this is really a story of two people who don’t know how to talk to one another despite (as the text makes clear) having multiple languages at their disposal:

“Je vous en prie,” she began in French and continued in Wolof, “Please.” Her voice was hoarse. “Only you can help him. Please help him to be like you. Do what Uncle Thierno did for you. Look how lucky you are, how successful. The success of one is the success of the whole family. Babacar’s future is the future of us all.” She clutched at him, her long ring scratching his wrist as she grabbed his hands, pulling him around to face her.

He looked at her for a long time but he couldn’t hold her gaze. It wasn’t so much that he was afraid of what he would see but rather of what she would see, the feelings he did not care to admit even to himself. Somewhere deep down, Ibou experienced familial obligation as an intolerable irony.

To me the most obvious manifestation of this is in their differing perspectives over Ibou’s relationship with his partner Ghada. Ghada is Egyptian, and for reasons of class and income is comfortable with her family in ways that Ibou cannot be with his own. He sees her as an intellectual superior – he wishes that she could speak for him as she’d do a better job of explaining his feelings, he parrots her own words about her understanding of religion. It’s obvious that for all his estrangement from his family Ibou wants approval from his sister- when he gushes about his girlfriend he’s also waiting for a response, for Fatima to show interest or excitement over what matters to him.

“Ghada has read the whole Koran,” Ibou said aloud, echoing his long-ago letter. “Religion for her is something she truly practices rather than obeys. It’s something that she interrogates and interacts with, wrestling with its contradictions and inconsistencies, those within her and those within the religion itself. She is not afraid of them you see, she doesn’t deny them, she faces them head on. We can only understand God’s word as it is translated by and through men. God is great but all religions are man-made and are therefore imperfect.”

Fatima held her breath. Were these Ibou’s words or Ghada’s? He sounded like he was reading from a book but his hands were empty. She had never known Ibou to be either religious or philosophical. Not trusting herself to reply, she slipped the foulard off and then expertly rewrapped the thick, starchy material around her head. She lowered her arms and twitched her shoulders so that the heavy gold embroidery bordering her collarbone shifted to the side leaving her left shoulder bare in the preferred style. It was her most expensive boubou, the one she had worn for Maimouna’s fourth child’s baptism. This entire readjustment took almost two whole minutes yet Ibou’s gaze was still fixed on her expectantly. Was she actually supposed to respond to that speech? Her mind churned to no avail.

Finally relenting, Ibou looked away and pulled his red baseball cap further down on his brow and turned his iPod back on, jamming the headphones deep into his ears.

And so these two people cannot help but hurt one another.

I don’t think “La Salle de Départ” is particularly ambitious in what it sets out to do. But it’s a very human story, and one that is generous to its characters. It’s not my favourite of the Caine Prize shortlist, but it certainly deserves to be there.

Other blog posts on this story:

Black Balloon
Backslash Scott
bookshy
Loomnie
Ikhide
Ayodele Olofintuade

“And I would put it to you that it is actually a lot easier for non-Africans to talk about “African” writing — both insightfully and not — than it is for non-Kenyans to talk about Kenyan writing.”

The quote above is from Aaron Bady’s post on “Urban Zoning” at The New Inquiry. I find myself more insecure about my lack of context for Kahora’s story than I was for “Bombay’s Republic” last week.And so I’ve waited for other people to write about the story, simply so I’d have something more to bounce off. Stephen Derwent Partington’s post, for example, was really useful; he provides some more background for Kahora’s position within Kenyan literature as a whole. Whereas Bady’s piece (linked above) teases out the implications of “African” writing and “Kenyan” writing, the general and the specific. This is in many ways the question at the heart of the Caine Prize itself, and central to Bernardine Evaristo’s essay here - what does African writing mean, what narratives of Africa are we seeing, what narratives of particular countries, particular districts within those countries, particular social classes; and I’m not sure where I stand on any of it. Which is maddening.

And so to “Urban Zoning” (a pdf can be found here) which, without much context I genuinely liked. Kahora’s protagonist Kandle is a young man, currently in what he calls the “Good Zone” (achieved by 72 hours’ drinking and keeping the level of alcohol inside one stable). But there’s also the Bad Zone, a place of self-loathing. The Zone has inflicted damage upon Kandle and his friends – we hear of a cousin who died in a car accident as a result, a friend who cut himself badly and whose wounds became infected, a girl who is sexually assaulted while in the Zone and goes into depression. Kandle’s comment on this is that the Zone “was clearly not for those who lacked restraint” and that all these are “examples of letting the Bad Zone overwhelm you”. So what is this restraint in the context of the story, and what is the level of Kandle’s control over how he experiences the Zone?

From the first, this seems a tenuous thing. Kahora’s prose heightens this sensation – it’s a little slurred, all-over-the-place, as drunk as his protagonist. An early attempt to fend off the Bad Zone by focusing on pleasant memories of school is a failure, as Kandle finds himself thinking of darker things that happened in school soon after. And yet.

Kandle’s dislike of touch is connected within the story to an incident of sexual abuse. Yet that refusal to touch also connects with a larger sense of detachment from everyone around him – even inadvertently catching a whiff of someone else’s sweat affects him to a disproportionate degree.

The “Zoning” in the title is presumably a reference to the good and bad zones in Kandle’s head. But there’s another sort of zoning as well. Early on, Kandle thinks about how he has made a mark in the city, and made himself known.

In many of the younger watering holes in Nairobi’s CBD, he was now an icon.  Respected in Buruburu, in Westlands, in Kile, in Loresho and Ridgeways, one of the last men standing in alcohol-related accidents and suicides. He had different names in different postal codes. In Zanze he was the Small-Package Millionaire. His crew was credited with bringing back life to the City Centre. In Buru he was simply Kan. In the Hurlingham area he was known as The Candle.

As it turns out, Kandle is really good at shifting between registers, being different people in different places. At one point, even as he stares at his own reflection and feels the self-loathing that comes with the bad zone, the face changes to that of his father, and his dislike is displaced along with it. His natural instinct to cringe away from touch becomes the means to charm a woman in the street when he moves out of her way.

Kandle’s control of his multiple, changing identities becomes clearest of all in the final pages, in which he’s charming annoyed secretaries, playing on the emotions of bank officials, and you have to wonder how far his control over all of this, his restraint has to do with his basic dislike of touch.

“You could never really play well if you hated getting close. Same with life and the street, in the city—you needed to be natural with those close to you,” Kandle thinks, but perhaps he’s wrong. Of all the characters we see in the story, he seems the best adapted to the life of his city.

Other people who wrote about this story:

Black Balloon
Stephen Derwent Partington
The Reading Life
Backslash Scott
Ikhide
Loomnie
ndinda
City of Lions
zunguzungu

I am blogging about the stories shortlisted for this year’s Caine Prize, alongside a number of people. There’s a list of links to their thoughts on this story (I’ll be adding to it as more people publish their pieces) at the end of this post. Babatunde’s story is available here, and there’s a discussion at the twitter hashtag #CainePrize.

Midway through “Bombay’s Republic” a white soldier explains to Bombay why the Japanese soldiers have been dicing up the bodies of the fallen black soldiers but leaving the white ones intact.

The Japs are convinced black soldiers resurrect,  said an officer, so they dice the corpses to forestall having to kill them twice.

Bombay was incredulous. You mean… they believe it is possible we rise up to continue fighting them after we are killed, he asked.

Yes, the officer replied, chuckling.

Every one of us?

Yes.

Just like Lazarus?

Why?

And like Jesus Christ, your saviour?

A scowl had replaced the smile on the officer’s lips. Yes, he said.

I think this exchange is crucial. We’ve already learnt that the Europeans have purposely spread stories about the Africans for their own benefit. “We fuelled those rumours by dropping leaflets on the enemy, warning them that you will not only kill them but you also will happily cook them for supper.” In addition, it’s clear that the officer’s amusement is in part meant to wound. Bombay turns the exchange around by comparing himself and his people not to undead monsters, but to the central figure of the white man’s faith – “your saviour”. It’s the first time we see him using stories to his own advantage.

People who read this blog regularly will probably roll their eyes now, but for me, “Bombay’s Republic” is very much a story about stories and how they are told, and the relationship between stories and the world. In the beginning, Bombay (I’ll return to the issue of his name later) appears to take the world pretty much at face value. The narrative itself shares some of this naïveté.  When attempts to get the young men of Bombay’s town to volunteer for the war fail, reports follow claiming that Hitler himself is at the border. There’s nothing in the text to suggest that these reports are false, other than the reader’s own knowledge of how propaganda works.

Bombay is one of those who volunteers to protect the country. The pages that follow find him constantly coming across new ideas and greeting them all with a sort of innocent-abroad-ish, wide-eyed acceptance. “Bombay’s discoveries of the possible would come faster than the leeches in Burma’s crepuscular jungles”, says Babatunde; he learns that white men can be as vulnerable to death, sickness or madness as any others, that other people manipulate truth for their own gains and that he can do the same. There are a couple of very deliberate literary references made – one of them to H. Rider Haggard, whose stories of Africans are compared to the tales of African savagery that have been fed to the Japanese. The other reference is to Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. Bombay is reminded of “his countryman Okonkwo whose story would become famous some years after the war”. In referring to the subject of a novel that has not been written yet, Bombay (and Babatunde) claim Okonkwo’s story as history and bestow upon it the status of truth.

It is after he returns from the war that we really see Bombay applying his newfound expertise with stories. In the first paragraph we were told that Bombay went to war a man and came back a leopard (“Before Bombay’s departure when everything in the world was locked in its individual box,  he could not have believed such metamorphosis was possible”) and now learn that the leopard-like rosette-shaped marks on his chest come from leeches. In his accounts of his journeys, he claims to have been stalked by an obsessed jinni. He has wrestled crocodiles with eyes of diamonds and gold in the Irrawaddy. He has been to the Black Hole of Calcutta and found it a bottomless pit, and gives the city of Bombay a new etymology – its streets are littered with bombs.

We’re not told what about the city made Bombay adopt it as his new name. But I think it’s significant that at no point in the story are we told what Bombay’s name was before he claimed this one. Babatunde gives us no other name with which to associate this character and so forces us to accept Bombay’s adopted name as his “real” one, giving this story that he tells about himself the status of truth as well.  To name things is also to un-name them in some ways; if Bombay is to be properly, undisputedly “Bombay”, he can no longer be “*whatever he was called before*”. It’s tempting, as an Indian reader, to digress here and talk about the real city of Bombay, and the reasons behind its renaming to Mumbai. That is as much story about narratives and history and nationalism and authenticity as the one we’re discussing, and I wonder if Babatunde was thinking of this.

Equally, when the District Officer is called “Charles” instead of “The District Officer”, as Bombay stubbornly insists on doing towards the end of the story, he becomes not Important White Officer, but just another person with a first name.

There are other noteworthy things about this story. I’m not sure I’m a fan of Bombay’s complete innocence at the beginning of the story (surely people in Nigeria also knew how to manipulate the truth?) but I love the detached wonder with which he accepts each new revelation. There’s no outrage at his own misrepresentation (a valid response to one’s own misrepresentation, of course, but not the only one); there’s a sense that understanding that this can happen has given him tools.

The “Bombay’s Republic” of the title is an abandoned prison into which Bombay moves, and which he declares an independent republic, population: himself. It’s easy to read this section as either a reference to Fela Kuti’s Kalakuta Republic (“Kalakuta” being derived from “Calcutta”). It’s probably also easy to read it as an allegory for statehood in general – where at first Bombay seems to be a conscious manipulator of his own stories, more and more one gets the sense that he’s succumbing to them as well. He gives himself a series of over-the-top titles, all of which sound like parodies of a certain sort of dictator: “Lord of All Flora and Fauna. Scourge of the British Empire. Celestial Guardian of the Sun, Moon and Stars. Sole Discoverer of the Grand Unified Theorem. Patriarch of the United States of Africa.  Chief Commander of the Order of the Sahara Desert and the Atlantic Ocean. Father of the Internet” (though- note that last one). But it’s hard to be sure – until his death Bombay makes a living out of being an independent state, so who knows?

What other people had to say about “Bombay’s Republic”:

Accrabooksandthings
Method to the Madness
The Oncoming Hope
Bookshy
Stephen Derwent Partington
Backslash Scott
Zunguzung
aaahfooey
The Mumpsimus
Ikhide
Loomnie
To Make Poesis
The Reading Life
Inkdrops
Cashed In
ndinda
City of Lions
Black Balloon