One killed or killed oneself over everything, over anything, sometimes even over a woman. It even happened that a Greek would be gunned down because of his penchant for fondling women, as long as they were pretty and had entered his store. One day, the husband would burst into the store with a rusty old hunting rifle or, for lack of anything better, a bush knife, and without further ado, would punch his ticket.
The locals’ love of fighting and blood grew daily. When they had had enough of working each other over, they turned to the phenomenal number of merchants who lived there. They had quickly discovered that they could conduct this little game—of which nobody knew the tricks or rules—with impunity. One simply had to avoid confronting the French. But if the latter should happen, you knew what to expect. After all, isn’t that the most important thing? Out of bravado, certain people accepted the risk. The police nabbed these folks immediately, and that was the last one ever heard of them—unless they were still talked about decades later. As for the civilian members of the colonial administration’s hierarchy, they seemed to be paid to remain as invisible as possible.
The local population had therefore arrived from the four corners of the country. But they increasingly thought of themselves as inhabitants of Tanga rather than coming from the South, East, North, or West. One could observe them in the streets: they laughed, talked, and argued, all with exaggerated gestures that suggested that they were the masters of the universe. They ran, walked, bumped into each other, and fell off their bicycles, all with a certain spontaneity, all that remained of their lost innocence. They moved, danced, and sang under the nervous eye of the guardians of order whose rounds made the city look like it was in a permanent state of emergency.
At night, activity changed headquarters. North Tanga brought its people home and suddenly it became incredibly alive. Every night, it celebrated the return of these prodigal children. It seemed as if North Tanga needed to quench their thirst for something they might soon lose forever: joy, naked and real; happiness. But this they couldn’t understand. They could no longer say where they came from except by naming their village or tribe. They didn’t know where they were going or why. Indeed, they were surprised to find themselves part of such a crowd, and no less astonished at the strange sense of isolation produced by the surrounding tropical forest in which they felt themselves individually.
In North Tanga, one out of five huts served as a bar: watered down red wine, poorly stored palm wine, and corn meal beer—usually the best choice—flowed liberally. Those in the know could also find Africa gin, a famous local beverage with a very high alcohol content. The administration had officially made the pretense of outlawing its sale . . . and its distillation. An illegal network of distribution, purchase, sale, and transportation of this rare beverage had accordingly been set up. In any case, they couldn’t actually prohibit its fabrication since they didn’t bother to look at what was happening in the forest.
The dance houses also represented an irresistible attraction to inhabitants of both sexes and were violently lit, melodious, and, more often still, cacophonic, percussive, and full of a singular fauna. Dressed up in detachable cardboard collars, or stuffed into poorly tailored dresses and skirts, they wore clothes that were stiff, gaudy, borrowed, and fake. Luckily, they didn’t cost much. The dancers also frequently gathered by twos, threes, or more, around a cala-bash of wine, beat an empty crate for lack of drums, while someone picked at a guitar or banjo, thereby improvising a party where fantasy was the rule despite the locale’s barrenness.
It goes without saying that there was no public lighting in Tanga. The numerous local thugs took advantage of this to transform the streets into a place where scores could be settled. That is why the darkness constantly echoed with the sound of heavy steps, frenetic chases, and blows that popped like a Browning pistol. These episodes of brutality, by force of habit, had come to be of interest only to those they directly impacted; the rest of the population remained completely indifferent. Because good fiscal management and a sense of prudence dictated a total absence of policing in this part of town, to a stranger, these fights could last a disconcertingly long time.
So, how many souls called North Tanga home? Sixty, eighty, one hundred thousand, how could you tell? No census had ever been taken. Besides, the population was in a constant state of flux. Men left the forest for financial or sentimental reasons; or often out of a need for change. They stayed for a while, testing out the city. A few decided that it was unthinkable to dance in one hut while the neighboring house was mourning someone whose body remained unburied, and, disgusted, they simply returned to their village, where they spoke of the city with sadness, wondering what the world was coming to. Others, convinced it would just take time to get used to such odd customs, settled down for good. These men sent for their wives and children or, if they were young and single, brought their younger brother or sister along as a constant and living reminder of the village they might never see again, and then, little by little, as the years went by, they forgot it, instead focusing on problems of an entirely different nature. Some, deciding that they couldn’t fulfill their ambitions in Tanga, moved on to another city.
All the same, this instability couldn’t justify the absence of a census, since the administration was completely unaware of these movements. It was equally unaware of this semi-humanity’s joys, its sufferings, or its aspirations, all things, which, no doubt, it would have found confusing. It had never tried to discern, to understand, or to account for any of this. When it did finally deign to pay any attention to these people, two categories appeared to be particularly sought after. First, those who, having made it past innumerable stumbling blocks, had somehow achieved a semblance of social ascendance: the treasury suddenly decided that for this group a little taxation might be appropriate. Second, those who, from close or afar, consciously or unconsciously, by deed or by word, threatened the order of things, a particular conception of the world deemed necessary for certain reasons, or for that matter a particular group’s interests; in the case of this latter type, things were simple: they were given full room and board somewhere and all would be back to normal, for the greater glory of humanity.
Tanga, North Tanga that is, was a true child of Africa. It had barely been born when it found itself alone in the great wilderness. It grew and developed too rapidly. It moved and evolved at random, its inhabitants like children abandoned to their own devices. Like them, the city didn’t question its own fate, even when confused. No one could say what the city would become, not the geographers, not the journalists, and even less the explorers.
3
One February morning in 193 in a low hut on the outskirts of Moko, one of the neighborhoods of North Tanga, two young people, two children really, were getting ready to face the new day. They had faced many before, just as they hoped to face many more. They didn’t look like each other, even though they were brother and sister. He was young, rather tall, and somewhat stocky. With his long arms, his long trunk, his slightly short legs, he was one of the more common physical types around these parts. What distinguished him was his ever so slightly reddish complexion. His hair revealed a similar tint that a stranger would have thought unexpected. Even so, up close, there was not doubt that he was a child of this land. His slightly too light and disconcertingly darting eyes finally revealed the truth of this mystery: he had albino blood.
She, for her part, gave an immediate and overwhelming impression of radiant beauty. She was well proportioned, strong-boned but supple, with a slightly prominent backside. Her ample chest stretched the poorly cut cotton dress that signaled “village girl.” She had the smooth dark skin of a girl who bathes every day, slightly chubby cheeks, large sad eyes, and abundant hair woven into braids that fell toward her neck. The sum of her movements seemed a compendium of maternal promise.
After having donned his once-khaki mechanic’s uniform that had become oily, dirty, and black, he came into the little common room and rested his elbows on the sill of the small opening that served as a window: he kept his back to his sister and seemingly paid her no attention. He whistled girls’ songs as he watched the women going to market on the dusty roadway in compact and talkative clusters. From
