1 · The Unmoving Forest
There was a humming sound, the chassis humming, the tires grinding against the ground. The ground was full of potholes, ruts dug by multi-ton trucks from the nearby mines. But the Chinese had already left. I asked why, and they said—the situation was unstable, society in turmoil. I asked why they left, because if you can buy guns you can continue to employ me.
To my west lies Congo Brazzaville, where I gaze at the sunset daily. The ground is cracked, water scarce in the suburbs, the earth brittle and brittle with drought. Africa is the outskirts of civilization, I know that, I wonder when I can finally leave.
The suburban earth is cracked by drought. The African land is splitting, merging, splitting, splitting. Next to me is Brazzaville, the “Republic of the Congo.” And I am in Kinshasa, the capital of the “Democratic Republic of the Congo.” Two identical people, two people who once shook hands.
We used to love each other and talk on the phone. The phone call comes in. Sasha Bernard, she calls, she doesn’t call often. I don’t want to answer anymore.
My last correspondence with the Chinese: Give me a gun, just one is enough. I can aim well, ten bullets are enough, three points and a straight line, you know I know it.
Spot check! Remember: Keep your eyes, sight, and target in a straight line. This straight line is for correcting the bullet’s trajectory. Pay attention to wind direction and speed and always be aware of the wind’s effect on the bullet’s movement.
Only the Chinese can afford spiral bolts. If the bolts on a gun are worn out or incomplete, the bullets will fly around, all lost, and the gun will either need to be re-bolted or scrapped. If they gave me the gun, they would need replace the bolts.
There, twenty meters away, there, the gangster, soot blending into his skin. There I could see him with the whites of my eyes. Twenty meters away, nothing really, just enough.
What if there’s a witch, Twenty meters away? Run! Even rhinos don’t dare approach a witch. Thirty meters away?
Forget it, Boss Chen. A hundred meters?
That’s no problem if the witch is a hundred meters away. She wouldn’t have time to open the strange and deadly soul-snatching powder. A hundred meters away, she is the last coordinate of three points in a straight line.
(I can combine the two kinds of knowledge. I am an excellent gatekeeper. The witch’s black blood sprays and condenses in the air. When it encounters coal dust and floating soil, it condenses into particles and does not splash onto the door.)
The phone keeps ringing.
Boss. Hey! Boss Chen! Please speak louder. It’s very noisy and I can’t hear you.
Enzo! Can’t you silence your phone?
She called. Forgive me, boss. I didn’t want to miss it.
My phone has the best speakers and can play the loudest music. When I play it at home, she hears the lyrics: When you are sad, sing this song!
The music is the loudest on the whole street.
She knocked on the door with her father, she is mixed race and her father is white.
When you’re naked, what parts of your body do you cover? That was his first question. My heart is burning, beautiful girl, where are you looking? came from somewhere, I couldn’t hear it clearly, my pocket, the phone continued to play in my pocket. What’s your name? a pair of two blue eyes asked me at the same time. I counted their long eyelashes. When I reached fifty-six, when the lashes became too sparse, too foreign, I said My name is Enzo, and I’m twenty-one. Finally, I spent forty-seven hours counting from one to a hundred thousand. Old Bernard, overcame, married his daughter to me.
I answered and first before anything he asked me When you’re naked what parts of your body do you cover? and I couldn’t hear it clearly the phone continued to play in my pocket and What’s your name? and a pair of blue eyes and I counted their long eye lashed and reached fifty-six and I’m twenty-one and Old Bernard married his daughter to me and I spent forty-seven hours counting from one to a hundred thousand my name is Enzo and she was Sarah.
French is really strange. The numbers from one to sixty are normal, but after sixty, it’s “ten plus seven, ten plus eight, ten plus nine”. After sixty, it’s “sixty plus ten, sixty plus ten plus seven…” Trailing off, unsure. You don’t want to rot in this hot place forever, do you? always said blue eyes. Go to France, why go to France? The Congo also speaks French, no problem. Sixty blacks do the work of sixty, so what’s this about ten more? Sixty plus ten, sixty plus ten blacks can only do the work of, forty? Ten absentees take away ten more, and there are still ten slacking off.
The phone keeps ringing. I don’t want to answer it. She told me not to leave, to stay here. What can Africans become? The continent has no shortage of cheap liberals. Cheap suits are best, and they don’t hurt when they get ripped. The only extracurricular reading material I had in school as a kid, Jules Verne’s Journey to the Centre of the Earth, worn out because it’s been passed around so many times.
Old Bernard wanted me to go out and explore the world, but young Bernard didn’t want me to leave. Jules Verne said that beneath this vast earth lies an upside-down world. From the other side of the deep pits in the mines, the upside-down pits look like tall trees. With so many pits, there must be a forest beneath the ground, and deeper still, there must be more, springwater we can’t find, trickling somehow between the two.
It flows slowly, slowly beneath South Kivu, sometimes falling like a still rain. The witch hunts have already resulted in the burning of eight witches, but the Chinese don’t seem particularly interested. Every morning they stand in the hall for their meetings, like a motionless forest. What are they doing?
Boss Chen, Boss Li, please take me away from here, anywhere is fine.
2 · The Waveless Isle
I don’t speak Chinese very well. I’ve been here for a few years, but I don’t know much. A few simple Chinese and English sentences are enough to get by. Or as a colleague said, that in China foreigners don’t need to speak.
“Hey, foreigner, 你好.” “Ah, 你好.”
“你好吗?” “好”
“你来自哪里?”
“Africa, I speak Chinese.” They laughed.
“Foreigners are just funny.” “What’s that mean?”
He gestured and shrugged and told me: “有趣的, humor.” “I know that.”
(He grabbed my hand and looked at it carefully, rubbing it. The more he rubbed it, the whiter it became.
“You are white, where do white people come from in Africa?” “I’m not white, I’m Arab.”
“White skin means white people.” “Okay, okay.”)
Wearing a chef’s hat, I only have to say one thing – when I’m questioned about a problem, I come forward and say one thing: “How can I help you, sir?”
That’s how I got a job. In a Western restaurant, I didn’t have to do anything except act white.
There is a large glass in the kitchen, and I always look to the other side of the sea, not far away, and there there are no waves. The glass here is not nearly as big as the one in our store. You’re quite childish, came the reply.
She had short black hair, just like me. Chinese people aren’t petite. It wasn’t until I came to China that I realized they’re much richer than we are.
Everything in the books is outdated. Oriental women are different from us.
I was fascinated by her. She was indifferent and calm. “I’ll have a martini,” calm.
Do you think I’ve talked too much? Let me tell you something fun, something I think you’ll like. We’re in Xiamen, right? The island across the sea is called 鼓浪屿. When I first arrived in China, I didn’t understand Chinese. 鼓浪屿, my colleague translated it on his phone. Kulangsu, I remember it. Ku-lang-su, I remember it clearly. Every day I see it and see myself going there.
“Yes, 鼓浪屿 Island.”
I kept thinking about ‘Kulangsu’. One day, when I finally had some free time, so I called a friend, also a foreigner, who often played as a black person in the park. I said we were going to play over the river in the place called ‘Kulangsu’. We took a taxi and asked several drivers what it was. The drivers all said it was that, nothing. Nothing?
I later found out that “Kulangsu” is the Hokkien pronunciation, and the driver only spoke Mandarin.
When we got there they said it was 150 yuan. I was shocked. It’s so expensive, my friend said. “I don’t understand. I don’t understand Chinese. What does it mean?” But the man knew how to use translation software, unworried. Still, “then what? I asked.
“Then it was my turn. I pointed to my mouth and whimpered and ahh-ed for a long time. I pretended to be mute.”
“Then what?”
“In the end, I was given 50 less.” “So where are you from?”
“Casablanca, Morocco, North Africa.” “Where?”
“Casablanca, you’ve heard the song.”
“I’ve heard the song before, and there really is such a place?” “Of course.”
Time passes. “What’s your name?”
“Murad.”
She sighed. The bar lights flickered yellow, and then red, onto the table and onto her face. Stuttered like, as if they were slower than they should’ve been. The slow yellow light shone on her face, and her lips appeared darker than her lipstick. It was indeed a small mouth, like thinking of becoming open, as if she were about to say something.
(I love you. We’ve known each other for so long, I will love you like a Band-Aid, I will be your Band-Aid.)
“In Morocco there’s a wife and kids.”
The best Band-Aid stays on you covertly, silently. It makes you forget it’s there just up to that point when you’re in the shower, lights off or only half on, cleaning yourself, reaching back and touching something touching you back. Then you’ll know, remember.
Where did you get that from? TikTok? I asked, Where in China are you from?
Local, from back there, whatever. My family has gone to New Zealand. Come with me.
Umm, time passes.
I ordered a glass of tomato juice, a last drink before landing. Why did you agree to get on the plane? She’s right next to me, lips bright red.
Get some sleep. We’ll be there in half an hour. It’s hot in Auckland.
“Name?” We were taken into a small dark room by customs, and after a bit a proper immigration officer came. I coped with broken English.
Murad. Mohammed?
No, Murad. Murad.
I’m sorry sir. What’s your last name? Mohammed. I handed over my passport.
Moroccan citizen. Why no visa, sir?
I want to apply for asylum, a refugee.
Your partner is Chinese, from Fujian. This is not easy to handle, sir. We have very strict immigration control for Fujianese. You know, too many people are undocumented.
I’m applying for asylum. What’s the reason?”
I suffer severe discrimination and persecution.
Can you tell me more about that?” asked the immigration officer. They all said I was white.
What’s the problem with that, sir?
It’s a long story. I hate white people. During World War II, my great-grandfather opened a barbecue restaurant in Casablanca. An Englishman had just walked in and sat down when a Russian walked in. The Englishman called my great-grandfather in to take his order. He wrapped his hand in his coat, and my great-grandfather felt a chill. A gun was pressed against his side. He whispered, “Keep an eye on him, old man.” The Russian called in his order, and then a German came in. A gun was sticking out of his trouser leg. The German entered the restroom, and the British and Russians immediately stood up and followed him. Next to the restroom was a barbecue pit, and somehow, three more people were there too. Great-grandfather lit a fire, a very large one, and no one used that place as a surveillance site anymore. Grandfather returned home, and great-grandfather would always tell him to eat more white meat and less red meat, as it had high cholesterol. So your grandfather ate those three spies? Of course not, sir. They’re like passerby in the night, like fish in the sea. After the war, a fire broke out in my great-grandfather’s shop for some unknown reason. A hole appeared in the ceiling of the wooden house, and smoke spiralled upward from it. The particles were black and white, mixed with ashes. The North African wind came from the Sahara Desert, spreading the smoke and dust flat, covering the sky. The smoke in the hole was like a tornado. Waterspouts continuously fed the sea of smoke. The wind was sometimes strong, sometimes weak, and sometimes there were huge waves on the sea. My grandfather always told me that people can’t fight against huge waves. When someone came to put out the fire, they asked, “What happened?” My grandfather always said that eating too much chicken would make you dumb. My great-grandfather coughed twice at the firefighters, opened his mouth, pointed at his throat, but only a “huhuhu” sound came out.
“Okay, and your partner?”
She pointed to her throat, opened her mouth a few times, and made a humming sound.
I’m very sorry about all this, ma’am. You may enter now.
3 · Sea Gate
Walking into a Chinese home red couplets posted on the door plants and pots meticulously tended with fresh water droplets shining through. It was Murad’s first time entering a Chinese home, and it felt like a hermit’s cave. She held his hand tightly, and her skin was transparent in the afternoon sun. She left and when she came back she took him home.
Why did you bring a foreigner back? Does he have a green card?
Murad was eager to prove himself. People say Morocco is like God’s overturned palette, a riot of colour. You’ll see every colour once you enter the city. Chinese homes are similarly colourful, but they don’t have green cards. The Chinese have mountains in their homes, and from them water flows quietly, a faint gurgling sound. Murad was disturbed by the drowsy sound eating dumplings and a few bowls of noodles in a daze. The flowing water was like the roar of an airplane, a low roar, a dumb roar, a crippled roar, the roar of losing oneself in the crowd, the roar of a broken hand, the roar of a tow-boat, the roar of the void, the gentle roar of the leaves outside the house, just now blowing through and through, the faint hum you hear on a plane. And once you get used to it, you lose it. The house is by the sea, and you can see it as soon as you go out. Take him for a walk and look at the sea. She doesn’t talk much, and she didn’t say much on the plane.
(This time he flew the plane himself. I have a relative mining in Africa. He’s African, too, so why not go there and make some money before coming back?)
The sun was too strong at the beach, and Murad couldn’t stand it any longer. She kept silent. She turned and looked behind her. Her father stood at the door, it painted red and he wearing a green sweater. After hearing those words (what were they?), he never again passed through the door facing the sea. When Murad first laid eyes on the tall, thin black man, he felt as if he had emerged from the ground. Everything about him blended in with his surroundings. His moon pale palms were covered in dust, as black as the outside world. This made him wonder, aren’t all black people’s palms white?
The two stood near the pits, ankles buried in the sand.
French? I can speak French. Okay, brother, the Chinese are gone. And if the mines aren’t operating, I have nothing to do. So what are you still doing here? Waiting, I want to leave, anywhere is fine. I want to make money here. When my Chinese girlfriend comes to see me, she will help me get a job.
She has relatives working in the mines. Do you have a passport? Yes. Let’s make a deal. What? Lend me your passport and I’ll go to Morocco. You can stay at my house. When your girlfriend comes, she can stay here too.
But the photos are different. Just black it out. My name is Murad Muhammad now. You’re Enzo. Enzo, Murad Muhammad.
Unfortunate news has come. How can I get rid of my longing for you, my dear?
Hey, man, open the door, it’s me! Oh, I tried a million ways, but I still couldn’t forget you. So fast? Murad opened the door and saw the black boy standing at the door, showing his white teeth and still covered in dust.
Why are you back after only two days? Oh, our past, it keeps repeating in my dreams! Murad turned off the music. Enzo waved his hands helplessly, I didn’t get through the door, my gun was confiscated, and I was sent back.
Why did you bring a gun into the country? This gun was issued to a Chinese person, so it must be well protected. I’ve been learning this for months. Spot check! Report: Yes, the eyes, yes, sight, yes, target in a straight line. Murad interrupted him, Give me back my passport. What passport? Is that true? Enzo patted Murad and said to him, It’s okay, brother. Just wait for your Chinese lover. They can do anything. There are pits here, many pits. We can find the underground world. And the two of them stayed there, quietly waiting for the Chinese to return. Sometimes they played cheerful songs at home, songs the whole street could hear. Sometimes, when they played sad songs, only the two of them could hear it. And so it’s been half a month.
Why haven’t the Chinese come back yet? Let’s make a phone call. Boss, when will you be back? Oh, Enzo, not for now. There are too many witches in Congo lately, and too many witch hunts. Let’s wait until things stabilize. Change someone. Dear, why don’t you come to Congo to see me? Congo, I’m in Congo. Where are you? Why didn’t you come to see me? The call ended. I called again. Hello, hey, where are you? I’m in Congo, Congo, don’t you understand? But I didn’t see you. The Republic of Congo has been here for a long time. Hey, hey Enzo, which Congo are we in? The Democratic Republic of the Congo! Not the Republic of the Congo! The phone hung up.
Feeling down, eh. Try sending a message.
Murad: You’re just going to leave me like this? You said it was like a Band-Aid. Dear: The Band-Aid was washed away in the shower and you probably didn’t notice it. Brother, it looks like she’ll never come back. What do I do now? That’s not right, Mura, think about it carefully, think about what’s wrong. Ah? Hey brother, how could a Chinese man like you if he’s so rich? You must be bewitched. Witches all have white skin, think about it, right? I think so. Really? Right, think about it carefully, right? Indeed, she is quite fair, and her lips are bright red. Murad took a drag on his cigarette and exhaled heavily. “It seems so. Yes, my wallet is empty and my passport is gone. Hey, there’s really no way back here. Is it smoke, dust, or the witch’s magic powder that covers this continent? When will it disperse? I don’t know. There’s the sea all around us. Brother, we can’t get out of this damn place.
Here, spring turns to summer, summer turns to autumn, autumn turns to winter, winter turns to spring. Night falls, moon rises, moon sets, night falls, sun rises, sun rises, sun falls.