port, the Place du 8 juin; we only made it back to the palace at dusk. We walked through all the rooms: the weapons hall, the diamond gallery, the corridor to the Companions of the Revolution, the presidential vault where only one of our eleven presidents had lain at rest because the other ten had been dumped in a mass grave for acts of high treason.
“What’s that?”
“That’s the map of the country, Mr. President sir.”
“Aha! I see! But what are all those blue serpents?”
“The rivers, Mr. President.”
“Aha! I see! And these smaller serpents?”
“The county roads, Mr. President.”
“And those serpentlets?”
“The borders, Mr. President.”
This is when we first heard his big fatherly laugh, and holding on to his sides, he pointed out just how stupid we all were: You’ve gone and left parts of the nation over in that shameful state in which those “Flemish” left them, you’ve left parts of the nation as if the pale power was still here. How shameful dear Mom, and you’re such a bunch of fools! Hand me some red markers. And he set about redrawing the contours of the fatherland: put those infantrymen to work, and he proceeded to join together four straight lines, leaving areas of the sovereign territory over to our neighbors and taking over some of theirs because, my brothers and dear fellow countrymen, that’s the sovereign decision of my hernia: the fatherland shall be square. How could you possibly expect us to live in a crater left behind by the colonizer! What kind of a people are we if we don’t even have the freedom to fabricate our own borders? He enlisted the support of the media for this decision of his hernia and that’s enough of this crap, and put those infantrymen to work instead of them spending their days mounting girls, clothed and fed by the state, and fucking up the shit and seizing power at the first opportunity. . . . And the sovereign decision of his big, big, big herniated balls was decreed in red ink, sending the infantrymen to the new borders, get the lot of them outta here, because an infantryman is made to fire old boy!
After delivering this first televised message on those god-damn TVs that keep teasing my hernia, he beckoned Carvanso, grabbed him by the shoulders, and gave him a couple of friendly taps: you’re going to be my right-hand man, you’ll be National Mom’s right-hand man, and then he lowered his voice and asked him if, well, you know, it’s not that easy being a bachelor these days: my appetite is up, go find me a hooker.
“Mr. President sir, you need to be more careful now with all the media around.”
“Fuck the media, my appetite is up. And don’t bring me one of those young ones. Those young ones aren’t ripe enough.”
He ate quickly, barely drinking. He called over the maitre d’ to ask him why his meat was bloody. “I’m not a fucking cat, you know!”
“On the contrary, Mr. the Presidente: this is civilized cuisine.”
“Well what on earth makes you think I’m civilized?”
“. . . Ah, Mr. the Presidente . . .”
“Just get the hell out of here if you don’t know how to cook like we do around here.”
We applauded when he appointed Mom as the national cook.
“What about the title National Hotelier, Mr. President sir,” suggested Carvanso.
“Why’s that?”
“It sounds better, Mr. President.”
He sounded out the title a few times and said, well, Ok then, you’re right, it does sound better. And then came the day when, in front of the parliament, the Chamber of Elders, the diplomats and military High Command, the Apostolic Nuncio, he swore in Mom’s name and mine, in the name of the fatherland, “You can trust me, I’ll be a good president.” He got down from the podium, sporting the colors of the nation, grinning from ear to ear, humming the national anthem, arms raised, hands joined together, escorted only by Mom, Carvanso, and Vauban, making his way through the cheering crowd, past the people dancing, covered in the fatherland’s flowers, past the children who wanted to touch his hernia, the mothers who laid down their loincloths on the ground before him, the elders who wept tears of joy: we’re going to have a good president, long live Lopez, son of National Mom, long live Carvanso! The air in the streets of the capital, Zappalo, Muerte, Grabanizar, Machinier, and in Passion Place was filled with the smell of palm-waving perspiring dancers and sulfurous gunpowder. He paused to eat and drink as my people do, joined them in my true dances, not like those assholes who imported everything from my colleague’s country; I’m staying as I am, I’ll eat what we eat here, drink what we drink here. He gathered one hundred and thirty nationals and fifteen former presidents living in exile in the country and I’ll show you how we do politics around here; he set about dictating to our brother Carvanso the seventy-five articles that would make up the new “Order of Command”: article 1: the fatherland shall be square; article 2: down with demagogy; article 3: National Mom is everyone’s mother; article 4: no strikes and no more bullshit; article 5: down with the death penalty; article 6: I’m the president but you can knock me off whenever you see fit. . . . He set about appointing the Council of Ministers. Raise your hand. Who wants to be Minister of Dough? Who wants to be Minister of Stamps? So, who wants to be Minister of Roads who wants to be Minister of Rocks who wants to be Minister of Medication in charge of the status of women? He appointed a Minister of Borders, Minister of Customs, Minister of Transactions, Minister of Debts, Minister of Crops in charge of the forests, Minister of Fishing in charge of wildlife, Minister of Trade Negotiations. . . . But I’m going to be Minister of Infantrymen in charge of the people’s freedom. My brothers and dear fellow countrymen, let’s get to work. And while they sang the national anthem, he whispered to Carvanso: please, I’m so horny: fetch me a chick.
“Yes, Mr. President.”
“And a real chick. How about a White one, I feel like a nice juicy White one.”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
For five years he managed the nation and the borders and damn those Mihilis who had risen up in the western region. Carvanso will teach them the lesson of my hernia; as for the Bhas who refuse to pay a tax offering, go dish out my big greasy balls, and those Bhozos rising up in the south, go put a curse on them Carvanso! Yes, Mr. President sir! And to relax he had his griot National Thanassi come over, who recounts the famous story of our brother Louhaza who loved his own mother so much and gave her twelve children including Talanso Manuel, National Mom’s great-grandfather, a descendant of National Lakensi, founder of the fatherland, and tells the story of Lukenso Douma, founder of a vast kingdom that encompassed the Congo, Zaire, and Angola, and also how Manuelo Otha had founded Tamalassi . . . as well as the story of ex-Colonel Youhakini Konga, now that one’s a long story, but I very much want it to be handed down from father to son for eternity, exactly in the way I heard it from my grandmother, the late Gasparde Luna. As he listened, his eyes looked as if they were going to pop out of his head: my God, our ancestors were truly great.
“Yes, Mr. President.”
“They were born to shake things up.”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
“There aren’t a thousand ways of being in this world. We’ll muddle through somehow. Twenty percent Flemish blood running in our veins, not quite Black enough to be negroes, not quite White enough to be whites, but I’ll find a way to shake
