Читать книгу Tram 83 - Fiston Mwanza Mujila - Страница 10
ОглавлениеAT REQUIEM’S PLACE WITH THE SINGLE-MAMAS AND THEIR MASSIVE-MELON-BREASTS.
Requiem lived in Vampiretown, a bourgeois neighborhood that stood on the road leading from the station to the town center. The apartment he rented was quite spacious for a modern day bachelor. Vampiretown dated from the colonial period. Built to demarcate the area, using sturdy materials and terra cotta tiles, its wide boulevards lined with flame trees, pines, and frangipanis. The first Europeans to settle here died from the effects
“You guys live alone?”
“Yes!”
“We give good head.”
of the dodgy sanitary and weather conditions, as they were wont to do. The place had to be adapted at all costs: build suitable walls, fight the feeling of exile and uprooting that adversely affected their “transactions,” guffawed Requiem, he who bore the blood of a Russian shipowner come to seek his fortune in the scorching tropics. The Tram 83 gossip of July 1972 speculated upon his Slavic origins. The Tram 83 gossip of February 1982 speculated upon his Vietnamese origins. The Tram 83 gossip of September 1992 speculated upon his Comorian origins. According to legend, a foundry was established to
“Call me Astrid. I can’t live without caresses.”
“Émilienne, I’m as free as the ocean.”
“Requiem …”
“Talk, I’m listening.”
extract copper ingots. And it wasn’t far from this venture that they chose to site the new town. The foundry workers lodged in the surrounding area. Administrative offices, banking, postal services, all sprang up around twelve miles away. They … In the beginning the stone, and the stone, the railroads, and the railroads, and the arrival of men of diverse nationalities speaking the same dialect of sex and coltan. Drunk on sex and easy money, perverts they were, born adventurers, capable of trying any lead as long as it paid, as long as it earned them money and sex, and even more money!
“I’m not going to screw. I’m fucked for tonight.”
“That’s a sleazy joke.”
Round about the years 1910-1920, the segregation between the Europeans and Africans translated into urban planning. The newcomers, shouldering their universities, schools, hospitals, and churches, were careful to stay in town,
“The Far West?”
“Why?”
“We are of the railroad civilization …”
“What is it with my breasts?!”
obliging the others, natives of their species, to live in the suburbs. The only ones to penetrate the closed circles were a few musicians, their repertoire spiced with gospel from Southern Africa, places like Northern Rhodesia or Nyasaland. Same for the lackeys and a few right-hand men. For reasons that were more or less vague.
“What is it with my breasts?”
They crossed a dozen rails, stepping from one to the next, and walked down the main road for a good half hour, groping each other.
“I love money. Who hates money?”
Arrived. Negotiated the rates, first up then down. Smoked nicotine after nicotine. Manufactured heaven in pasture and cloud. Even traced out straight lines and oblique angles. In other words, pleasures of the underbelly.
“Cuddle me …”
