Read Online Tram 83 by Fiston Mwanza Mujila - Free Book Online Page A

lines in his notebook: “They think only of satisfying their belly and their underbelly. The dogs bark, the trains loaded with gold bars move on. They’ll wake up one morning and realize the City-State no longer exists. The City-State will be a distant memory, the vestige of a … Even now, the City-State exists only in name. The heavens belong to the higher deities and the earth to the tourists and the dissident General as they excavate without breaking a sweat. What will they do when they no longer have their country and their minerals that sprout like wild mushrooms?”
    It was not until two in the morning that they succeeded in convincing the assembled company of the necessity of literature in a nightclub.
    â€œDo you have the time?”
    The publisher introduced the event, championing this writer he had discovered in “the wreckage of this city that is losing its greenery when it would be better off opting for a behavior worthy of a modern city. Lucien is a supremely talented author. For the sake of the future, your future, back this man, invest in him.”
    Lucien stepped forward to take the floor. He remembered hislast time on stage: Back-Country, applause. That show had later cost him a seventeen-month suspended sentence, with a two-year ban on practicing a profession, for aggravated assault, breaching national security, and planned and systematic incitement to revolt. He extracted his texts from a portfolio. He took a serious stance. He opened the ball after having requested a minute’s silence in memory of the victims. He was trembling like a dead leaf. He emphasized certain words, raised his voice. He hadn’t counted on the audience trying to trip him up. One minute too many, one sentence out of place, and he’d find out what they were made of. Which wasn’t long in happening, as the imprecations began to rend the heavens.
    The whole Tram as one:
    â€œGet off, Lucien!”
    Then as a scattered choir:
    â€œDon’t you preach at us!”
    â€œYou’re hot, I want you!”
    â€œAlligator!”
    â€œShow-off!”
    He was determined to complete his reading. He clung to his words. He fixed his gaze elsewhere. He held fast to a childhood memory. He thought about his friend, Porte de Clignancourt. He transcended himself. He skipped certain paragraphs. He was even tempted to procure some relief in the mixed restrooms.
    â€œHave you ever looked at yourself in the mirror!”
    Back at university, he’d been told: “If you have difficulty concentrating, imagine yourself on a cot with an outrageously well-stacked girl, curves in all the right places, who begs you to thrustyour cock into her. Hold, hold, hold fast to that idea, for God’s sake, and that’s maybe where you’ll find salvation.” He imagined himself with a buxom creature on Requiem’s divan. The abuse crescendoed. The Tram, the whole Tram as one, then disjointed voices, then as one, then disjointed voices, then as one …
    Requiem laughed until he cried. Quite normal, considering the animosity that bound the two bastards close. The publisher, at a loss to know what to do, stoically downed his vodka. Seized with pity, the busgirls and the waitresses enjoined him to beat it. The single-mamas took advantage of this incident to break ranks, push through the crowd to hunt down a potential client, entice others, or go change — either in the mixed facilities, or in the darkest corners of the room. No harm in a little digression: the girls arrived wearing dignified attire which they modified as the night drew on, or according to the mood of the clientele, in such a way that they appeared almost naked at strategic times, three in the morning, say, or four. The guys who’d been singing up the Cuban revolution bluntly began retuning their instruments. But Lucien held out, raising his voice above the din.
    â€œDo you have the time?”
    â€œYou’re