Temps de chien
I
am a dog. Who else but me can acknowledge it with such humility?
Because I don’t blame myself for anything, “dog” becomes no more than a
word, a name: it’s the name men have given me. But there you have it: I
eventually accommodated myself to it. I eventually came to recognize
myself in the destiny in which it decked me out. From then on, “dog”
became part of my universe, because I made men’s words mine. I digested
the construction of their sentences and the intonations of their
speech. I learned their language and flirted with their way of
thinking. To the point of arrogance, I put up with their orders. Who
could even have imagined it in the olden days? I perform without any
rage when my master calls me, even if I always shuffle along a little
while I do it.
It wasn’t always so. At the very beginning, I
would feel wounded by even the most innocuous of men’s words. Any order
would turn my gaze bloody. I would even sometimes hear my name as an
insult, mistake a call for snotty spit. “Dog” was, at the time, one of
the countless human things that strangled me, beheaded me, disemboweled
me, broke my teeth, smeared me with mud, killed me, buried me. For what
it meant to me was men’s arrogance in naming the world, in giving a
place to the things around them, and giving them notice that they had
orders to be quiet. Every time it was uttered with regard to me, it
meant that I was part of the human universe, that I had ceased to be
who I really am, that I had no right to speak.
With age, I grew
accustomed to the degrading name with which men refer to me. To be
completely honest, I truly became used to it the day my master, Massa
Yo, took me to the veterinarian to have me cured.
“Mr. the veterinarian,” he said tearfully, “my dog is ill. When I call him, he jumps on me and tries to bite me!”
The
veterinarian didn’t ask anything else. He said one or two sentences,
out of which I only heard the word “rage,” and pulled out a long black
needle. On that day, I understood that I had to answer to my name to
survive. I wagged my tail, lowered my ears, closed my eyes and
stretched my back. I even stood on my hind legs and started dancing.
The veterinarian, surprised, stopped his needle and caressed my head
and back. Then he laughed, amused by my acting. He said I was a good
dog, and I purred with pleasure. He didn’t inject anything in me. He
established a long list of flavored stews that were supposed to soothe
my nerves. Above all, he recommended cans of dog food that my master
would be able to buy at Score for five hundred francs. Massa Yo
scratched his head, thought for a moment, but said that he still had
the means to feed me:
“As long as my salary keeps flowing in,” he stressed.
The
name my master gave me is in fact “Mboudjak,” which means: “hand that
searches.” I do not know why I am flattered by this name, or why I
prefer it to that of “dog.” In truth, it too should have disgusted me
because, like “dog,” it does not free me from the long human leash.
Doesn’t it presuppose that I too have a hand? Doesn’t it presuppose
that I am my master’s hand? Nevertheless, we dogs also have our vain
side. Because, all things considered, I prefer “Mboudjak” to “dog” out
of sheer vanity: this name gives me a certain ascendancy over my
master. It makes me into not just his enlightened guide but also and
above all his infallible hand, his arm that leads the way, omniscient
of the danger to come, and this makes me happy. I feel honored by the
feeling my name gives me, of showing men truth’s modest hiding place,
and of being in charge myself.
I might be a dog, but I’m not
stupid. I know I have never guided anyone. I know that only my master
decides which path we take and how long the course we follow will be
each time he goes out with me after work for a walk toward the Quarry.
Never does he tell me before our walks where we will be going. Never.
And even once in the forest, I can frisk about all I want before his
footsteps, run all I want as advance guard to his stroll, I can already
hear him cry out my name when I step away from the path he has mapped
out in his head only:
“Mboudjak, come here!”
Sometimes,
Massa Yo is happy even just whistling: hwew! I don’t know why this
reflex brings me right back to him. Most of the time, in any case, my
movements are limited by a chain that ties me to his will. Because I am
his dog, you see. Still, I must admit that my diligent strolls make the
dogs in our neighborhood bark with envy. “Isn’t it your master has
money?” they bark when we go by. “You have already seen what.”
And, amused, I answer them:
“Is a big one a small one.”
Once,
during our walk, a neighborhood dog came and sniffed my behind. His
skin was streaked with mange and an escort of flies made his presence
diabolical. It was as if they were peeling him alive. My master chased
him away viciously.
“Bo-o, you do that with him?” the mangy dog asked me after he reached a safe distance. “Why does he love you like that no?”
He
barked a laugh full of irony. Haughtily, I averted my eyes. He didn’t
stop laughing. He said I certainly was my master’s wife, that no man in
Madagascar1ever strolled with his dog, that within stray dog
memory he had never seen this. He said that only I knew the price of my
favored treatment. He added that I could shut up if I wanted, that my
ass said what my mouth wanted to keep quiet, that my behind wa-wa was
the proof of my condition. Such slander needed to be nipped in the bud.
I jumped to my feet. My master had me on the leash. I began one
sentence. I began a thousand sentences all at once. I shook my head and
preferred to keep quiet. Yes, what one can’t say, one should simply
keep quiet. I refused to listen and continued my stroll, behind my
master.
Me, his dog.
1Working-class
district of Yaoundé, never to be mistaken in the text for the country
of the same, of which the poet Jacques Rabemananjara sings.
From Temps de chien (Paris: Serpent à Plumes, 2001). Copyright Patrick Nganang.