Read Online Allah is Not Obliged by Ahmadou Kourouma - Free Book Online
Authors: Ahmadou Kourouma
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every single second, all of them bending over the body and acting all sad as if people didn’t go round slaughtering lots of innocents and children every day in Liberia.
That night, the funeral vigil started at nine o’clock after the Muslim prayers and the Catholic prayers. Nobody knew Kid’s religion, on account of no one knew if his parents were Catholic or Muslim. It’s
kif-kif
, same difference. The whole village was there for the vigil. There were lots of storm lanterns. It was spellbinding. (‘Spellbinding’ is a big word I found in the
Larousse
, it means something that is magical.)
Two women started a chant and then the choir and everyone else joined in. Once in a while, so as not to fall asleep, and so as not to be eaten alive by mosquitoes, they’d get up and shake their elephant tails. Because the women had elephant tails and they danced in a lewd way! In fact, it wasn’t lewd, it was demonic. (According to the
Petit Robert
, ‘lewd’ means ‘indecent or obscene’.)
Suddenly we heard a cry from some unfathomable depth.The cry announced that Colonel Papa le Bon had joined the dance, that the master of ceremonies had entered the circle. Everyone stood up and took off their headdresses because he was the boss and the lord of the whole place. And we saw Colonel Papa le Bon completely transformed. Totally!
Walahé!
No shit!
He was wearing a multicoloured headwrap and he was stripped to the waist. He had muscles like a bull and it made me happy to see such a strong well-fed man in famine-starved Liberia. He had a bunch of medals hanging round his neck, from his arms and from his shoulders and in the middle of all the medals was his kalash. He had the kalash on account of there were tribal wars in Liberia and people were being killed like they weren’t worth an old grandmother’s fart. (In my village, when something’s not worth much, we say it’s not worth an old grandmother’s fart. I explained that before and now I’ve explained it again.) Colonel Papa le Bon walked round the body three times then came and sat down. Everyone sat down and listened like a bunch of arseholes.
He started off by telling the events of how Captain Kid got killed. The two young men on the motorbike were possessed by evil spirits and fired on him without warning. The devil had got into them. The captain’s soul flew off and we shall mourn him. We could not exorcise the devil from the hearts of every passenger in the convoy or from the minds of the men responsible for the captain’s death. It just was not possible. That’s why we had to kill some of them, but seeing as God says thou shalt not kill too much, or at least thou shalt kill less, we stopped killing, and left the othersjust as they came into the world. We left them naked. This is what the Lord has said: when people truly injure you, kill less but leave them naked they came into the world. Everything in the trucks and all their possessions were brought here to the camp. These things should be given to the captain’s parents, but since no one knows who the captain’s parents are, they will be distributed, shared out fairly between the child-soldiers, between Captain Kid’s friends. The child-soldiers can sell off these things and make a couple of dollars. With the dollars they can buy lots of hashish. God will punish the people who committed the evil deed that killed Captain Kid.
Next, Colonel Papa le Bon told us what had to be done. Walahé! The devourer of souls had to be exposed. The devourer of souls who had gobbled up the child-soldier, Captain Kid,
djoko-djoko
. (According to the
Glossary, ‘djoko-djoko
’ means ‘by fair means or foul’.) He had to be hunted down in whatever form he had taken. There would be dancing all night and if necessary all the next day. The dance would go on until the devourer of souls had been unmasked. Until he had made a clean breast. (According to the
Larousse
, ‘make a clean breast’ means when someone confesses his
That night, the funeral vigil started at nine o’clock after the Muslim prayers and the Catholic prayers. Nobody knew Kid’s religion, on account of no one knew if his parents were Catholic or Muslim. It’s
kif-kif
, same difference. The whole village was there for the vigil. There were lots of storm lanterns. It was spellbinding. (‘Spellbinding’ is a big word I found in the
Larousse
, it means something that is magical.)
Two women started a chant and then the choir and everyone else joined in. Once in a while, so as not to fall asleep, and so as not to be eaten alive by mosquitoes, they’d get up and shake their elephant tails. Because the women had elephant tails and they danced in a lewd way! In fact, it wasn’t lewd, it was demonic. (According to the
Petit Robert
, ‘lewd’ means ‘indecent or obscene’.)
Suddenly we heard a cry from some unfathomable depth.The cry announced that Colonel Papa le Bon had joined the dance, that the master of ceremonies had entered the circle. Everyone stood up and took off their headdresses because he was the boss and the lord of the whole place. And we saw Colonel Papa le Bon completely transformed. Totally!
Walahé!
No shit!
He was wearing a multicoloured headwrap and he was stripped to the waist. He had muscles like a bull and it made me happy to see such a strong well-fed man in famine-starved Liberia. He had a bunch of medals hanging round his neck, from his arms and from his shoulders and in the middle of all the medals was his kalash. He had the kalash on account of there were tribal wars in Liberia and people were being killed like they weren’t worth an old grandmother’s fart. (In my village, when something’s not worth much, we say it’s not worth an old grandmother’s fart. I explained that before and now I’ve explained it again.) Colonel Papa le Bon walked round the body three times then came and sat down. Everyone sat down and listened like a bunch of arseholes.
He started off by telling the events of how Captain Kid got killed. The two young men on the motorbike were possessed by evil spirits and fired on him without warning. The devil had got into them. The captain’s soul flew off and we shall mourn him. We could not exorcise the devil from the hearts of every passenger in the convoy or from the minds of the men responsible for the captain’s death. It just was not possible. That’s why we had to kill some of them, but seeing as God says thou shalt not kill too much, or at least thou shalt kill less, we stopped killing, and left the othersjust as they came into the world. We left them naked. This is what the Lord has said: when people truly injure you, kill less but leave them naked they came into the world. Everything in the trucks and all their possessions were brought here to the camp. These things should be given to the captain’s parents, but since no one knows who the captain’s parents are, they will be distributed, shared out fairly between the child-soldiers, between Captain Kid’s friends. The child-soldiers can sell off these things and make a couple of dollars. With the dollars they can buy lots of hashish. God will punish the people who committed the evil deed that killed Captain Kid.
Next, Colonel Papa le Bon told us what had to be done. Walahé! The devourer of souls had to be exposed. The devourer of souls who had gobbled up the child-soldier, Captain Kid,
djoko-djoko
. (According to the
Glossary, ‘djoko-djoko
’ means ‘by fair means or foul’.) He had to be hunted down in whatever form he had taken. There would be dancing all night and if necessary all the next day. The dance would go on until the devourer of souls had been unmasked. Until he had made a clean breast. (According to the
Larousse
, ‘make a clean breast’ means when someone confesses his
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