an excerpt from Myriem by Boris Boubacar Diop
| … Fire embassies, it was madness. The President had to make a televised speech to calm the spirits. Her courtiers had finally had no choice but to confess the truth to her: “Excellency, Mrs. Dembélé has not committed any crime, and besides, it is, uh … Excellency, a crime that no one ‘has committed. We have been rolled in the flour, Excellency, but you, the intellectual giant, you the greatest head of state in the world, etc. The President then began to shout, mouth full of drool, eyes on fire: ‘I will kill you all! Poor fools, you have covered our country with ridicule! ‘ The President was all the more furious because he knew very well that he could not kill anyone. It was not done anyway, it was always won. But what could he do? It was not possible to set me free and say like this: it was a mistake, there was never a boat named Palomero, no street child was ever missing and the city of Strindgahm does not exist anywhere on this earth. The president was completely stuck. I suppose he began to curse the day when, by weakness or calculation, he cried in front of the whole country. This is how this unusual thing happened. A young Republican journalist had just questioned her on the exact number of children ‘sold by Myriem Dembélé to the pedophile network of Strindgahm’. What do you want me to say to you, madam? thundered the President, raising his arms to heaven. A child or a thousand is the same, it is the same scandal, madam! After a brief pause, her eyes were veiled with sadness and we saw a big tear slowly running down her right cheek. He had quietly wiped it off before immediately composing a more normal attitude. The scene lasted only a fraction of a second, but the promptness of the President to wipe his tear was generally perceived as evidence of extreme modesty. The relatives of the President proclaimed everywhere that, under his appearance of hard, the man had a heart of gold and no one could doubt his love for street children. The president’s tear was displayed on television several times and commented on by a crowd of political scientists, sociologists and psychologists during highly learned debates. Despite their many disagreements, the experts agreed at least on one point: the tear of the President being out of his right eye and not his left eye, the economic situation was bound to improve. We had really approached the catastrophe. the man had a heart of gold and no one could doubt his love for the children of the street. The president’s tear was displayed on television several times and commented on by a crowd of political scientists, sociologists and psychologists during highly learned debates. Despite their many disagreements, the experts agreed at least on one point: the tear of the President being out of his right eye and not his left eye, the economic situation was bound to improve. We had really approached the catastrophe. the man had a heart of gold and no one could doubt his love for the children of the street. The president’s tear was displayed on television several times and commented on by a crowd of political scientists, sociologists and psychologists during highly learned debates. Despite their many disagreements, the experts agreed at least on one point: the tear of the President being out of his right eye and not his left eye, the economic situation was bound to improve. We had really approached the catastrophe. the President’s tear coming out of his right eye and not his left eye, the economic situation was bound to improve. We had really approached the catastrophe. the President’s tear coming out of his right eye and not his left eye, the economic situation was bound to improve. We had really approached the catastrophe. … (c) Boris Boubacar Diop |
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