In Chapter Four of my diary, I introduce you to our mutual friend Jesus Ndongo. He is a young man, who lost his parents through political violence in his native Equatorial Guinea, dropped out of school and is now peddling revolutionary ideas in the streets of Madrid, dreaming of the day the guns of liberation will, as he likes to say, “roar down the streets of my precious Malabo” and “dislodge the lies of oppression that have been sucking the blood of our people.” Bassey and I hold him in high esteem. Here he is.
Yesterday afternoon, I joined Bassey and his girl-friend Conchita in “Zara”. Many blacks hang out there. It is a small café-restaurant run by two Colombian brothers a short distance away from the throbbing “Brother Wolf”. “Zara” attracts Africans from all walks of life: from pipe-puffing diplomats, who turn a disdainful look at you when you walk in with a beautiful girl in your arms, to shabbily-dressed students and exiles who, for the most part, preach an incoherent form of revolutionary doctrine which, they all claim, could help save Africa from corruption, oppression and dictatorships.
When we walked in yesterday afternoon, there were fewer people there than usual. We sat down at the counter and I ordered a beer, Bassey ordered a Cuba Libre and Conchita a coke. We were sipping our drinks quietly when my ear caught what sounded like an animated debate, or was it a monologue?, coming from one corner. Indeed, above the chinks of glasses and bottles and the raucous voice from the age-beaten jukebox, rose the familiar voice of one individual.
“Who do you think that is?” I asked Bassey, pointing to the dimly-lit corner from where the voice was coming. Bassey listened for a while, turned round and peered into the corner.
“That is Jesus, of course. When did he come back from Barcelona?”
“But when did he go to Barcelona?”, I asked, a little surprised because I remember meeting him only the other day.
“Barely three days ago or so”.
“That boy’s struck with a roving syndrome”, I said, laughing.
“Another Io?” asked Conchita, the student of Greek and Roman literature at the Universidad Complutense here in Madrid.
“Perhaps an African Io this time, not the Greek one we know of”, Bassey said before rewarding his girl-friend with a noisy kiss on her upturned lips.
I didn’t feel like sitting there to watch Bassey kissing his girl-friend, so I told them I was going to talk to Jesus. Bassey and Conchita said they were going to watch a film that was the talk of the city then. They wished me good luck and walked out hand-in-hand. I picked up my bottle of beer and walked over to the table where Jesus was fist-punching the air in his excitement as he drove home a point.
“Then and only then”, he was saying, “would you talk of a true revolution in Africa. Mind you, it must not be one remote-controlled by those docile so-called intellectuals who shake hands with crafty, scheming, rotten politicians from whose fingers drips the blood of your and my loved ones. Those so-called intellectuals are the traitors of our people”. The young man Jesus was talking to seemed to be completely overwhelmed by the violence of Jesus’ Marxist rhetoric.
If you don’t know him, his Marxist-Leninist phraseology can be rather scary. He cannot sit still for a minute. His hand is always clutching at something in the air. He picks up his glass of beer and just as he is about to bring it up to his lips, an idea strikes him and he brings the glass down on the table with a bang.
“The unity that Africa needs is revolutionary unity which must come from the grass-roots level”, he told his visibly uneasy listener, who was nodding his head up and down like a lizard on a warm rock.
“Our leaders in Africa today are busy stuffing their bank accounts here in Europe because they know that the dike holding back our people’s frustration is near breaking point. Our people are fed up, man. Really fed up and can take it no more.”
“This young man is fed up with your political rambling, Lenin”, I said, taking a seat next to him. Jesus looked up in surprise, then recognising me, he screamed: “Leinteng, my friend! Take a seat, my brother, take a seat.” I was already sitting down. He tried to take hold of my hand and almost fell on the floor. I held him and felt a tremor run throw his arm. When he drinks, he’s hardly ever steady on his feet. The young man he was talking to took advantage of my presence to slip away.
“How are you, brother Leinteng?” Jesus asked, a big belch hitting him in the process.
“Fine, Lenin,” I said, giving a firm shake to the hand he was stretching out to me. He burst out laughing when I called him “Lenin”, a name he adores. He is known to most Africans here as el revolucionario or Fidel Castro africano or Che Guevara guineano; but he says he prefers “Lenin”. I remember getting really bored one day with his revolutionary rambling. I then told him that revolutions were never made in cafés, thousands of miles away from the scene of action. He had replied that prior to the great Russian Revolution, Lenin could be seen in bars in many European cities organising the struggle. I thought that was a neat answer and began from then on to call him “Lenin”. He says being equated with the man he calls the “Father of the Soviet Union” is a compliment he can hardly turn down.
“Who was that young man you were talking to a few minutes ago?” I asked, as the young man’s back disappeared out the door.
“Do I know him, my brother? He’s just one big fool, that’s what he is. No idea of the seriousness of the struggle in Africa. I try to retrieve brothers like him but he’s a lost case”, he said, dismissing the fellow with one wave of the hand.
“But from the way you were talking, Lenin, I could’ve sworn you’d known that bloke all your life.”
“No, man,” he said, laughing loud. “That was just a revolutionary tactic. You have to know how to tell African brothers and sisters of the urgency of the struggle back home. You won’t make any impact by talking in low tones. No, man. You have to project your voice. And even then, how many of them ever hear your plea. They must wax in their ears or something.” He looked a little disappointed with the attitude of Africans towards what he likes to call “the struggle back home.”
He reached for my packet of cigarettes. I gave him one cigarette, stuck one between my lips and struck a match. I held it up to his cigarette and its tip reddened beautifully. I saw his hands trembling and felt sad for him.
*********
I met Jesus for the first time in that same café some months back. When I walked in that afternoon, he was sitting at the counter, rocking back and forth and singing alongside the raucous voice filtering out of the age-ruffled juke-box. His eyes were closed and he seemed very absorbed in the music. He looked so much like a Cameroonian friend of mine, Jules Mbarga, once a neighbour of mine in the Cité Universitaire in Paris, that I almost called him Jules. Those relatively thin lips, that small mouth and that rough, unkempt goatee all had something very familiar about them.
“íHombre!, qué tal? What’s up, my man?” I asked, as I sat down next to him, my bottle of beer in hand. He opened his eyes and I was struck by the mist that seemed to hand in them.
“Oh, fine, I guess”, he said, switching on a warm smile and I thought: “Oh, how very much like my buddy, Jules!”
“Look, my man, call me Leinteng, okay? That’s my name. If you feel like adding another one, Basha will do just fine,” I said, feeling the soothing sensation of beer fondling my stomach.
“Leinteng is fine with me”, he said in a gentle voice, a far cry from my buddy, Jules, whose voice sounds like a thunderclap in the sky.
“From what part of Equatorial Guinea are you?” he asked. That question caught me by surprise.
“Can’t you tell from the way I speak Spanish that I’m not from a Spanish speaking country?”
“No, hombre. Que va! Your Spanish is really good, believe me.”
“You know what you’re saying is not true. Just cut it out’, I said, almost shouting. He looked a little surprised at the sound of finality in my voice. He laughed a little too loudly for the occasion and his breath hit me harsh with alcohol. It was only later that I learnt of his weakness for drugs as well, although that did not come as a surprise to me.
“I’m sorry I sounded so rude”, said I gently. The young man who reminded me so much of my buddy, Jules, seemed to be having some problems.
“That’s okay, my man”, he said, shaking my hand firmly.
“Now, tell me your name”, I said.
“My name is Jesus. If you want a second one add Ndongo to it and what you have is Jesus Ndongo.” That name caught me by surprise.
“How on earth can anyone call himself Jesus?” I asked, almost to myself.
“Jesus is my name just as Lei... Lai.. Lentang, is it?”
“Leinteng”, I came to his rescue.
“Just as Leinteng is yours. Am I not entitled to my name?”
“Of course, man, I’m sorry. Just that I’ve never heard anyone call himself Jesus before”, I said, truly intrigued.
When I left him that evening, I was still a little puzzled. From his shabby dresses, unkempt hair and rough goatee, Jesus could very well have been one of those numerous prophets one meets in many African cities with intriguing biblical names. But then I wasn’t sure any of them would dare call himself “Jesus”. However, I have since learnt that “Jesus” is a common name in Spain.
** **
As I talked with Jesus Ndongo this afternoon, the story of his life came back to mind. I had pieced it together from different sources and what came out was something like this: Up until only three or four years ago, he was a student of modern history at the ‘Universidad Complutense’ here in Madrid. A very brilliant, sharp young man, some had said of him. A promising leader of tomorrow, others had predicted. But then, misfortune struck.
One evening, he walked into “Brother Wolf” with a girl-friend of his and found an official of the Embassy of Equatorial Guinea towering over bottles of beer, singing lewd songs and threatening to deport any Equato-Guinean whose face he didn’t like. He saw Jesus and his friend and ordered him to bring her over to his apartment or face deportation. Jesus angrily retorted that he was not a pimp; that his girl-friend was not a whore and that diplomats of his calibre were certainly a disgrace, not only to their individual countries, but to Africa as a whole. The stunned diplomat then told Jesus that he would be hearing from him “very soon”.
Word soon reached home through diplomatic channels that Jesus was planning to overthrow the government of Macias Nguema with the aid of mercenaries recruited in Madrid.
One morning, a group of armed young men, ten in number, arrived in Jesus’ village not far from the frontier with the Republic of Cameroon. They hastily assembled the stunned villagers in an open field, dragged out Jesus’ father and his brother, men in their seventies, from the group and accused them of subversion.
The gun-toting men claimed that the old men were trying to topple the government and make their son, Jesus, who was hiding in Madrid, the President. They even claimed that the old men had been heard boasting that his brother and he would become ministers in their son’s government. Eye-witnesses did not fail to mention that the two men were stark illiterates who did not even know what words like subversion, ministers ... really meant.
“Capital punishment for these traitors of the “Glorious Guinean Revolution” was the verdict of what the State-run radio later called “The Trial of the Century”. The young men’s automatic weapons jerked and coughed for several seconds and the two old men could be seen spinning around like marionettes before crashing into the lush grass, staining it with blood. The shocked villagers were ordered to dump the corpses in shallow graves and warned that any of them plotting to overthrow the “legitimate government” of Equatorial Guinea, would face the same fate.
Jesus has never recovered from the shock of that news. He dropped out of the University and began to drink rather excessively. The drinks didn’t help him forget that family tragedy and so he bowed to drugs. Today he is irretrievably a drug-addict. When Madrid became too much of a reminder of what had happened to him, he left for Valencia where the police picked him up for vagrancy and possession of drugs. He served a six-month jail sentence and left Valencia for Barcelona where he loitered for a few months before coming back to Madrid. A friend whispered to him that drugs were easier to come by down south and he left for the southern city of Malaga. He wasn't there for long before coming back to Madrid.
He is the most vocal champion of African liberation I have ever had a chance to talk to. He says that his personal tragedy is just a microcosm of the tragedy that has struck, and is still striking, many a poor African family in Africa.
Jesus is twenty-six years of age but you’ll likely give him twice that age. He hasn’t combed his hair in over a year. I haven’t seen dreadlocks as dreadful as Jesus’. He tells me the only time he’s going to put a comb through his hair will be the day the guns of liberation start roaring down the streets of Malabo. The comb that will go through his hair, he likes to boast, will be the comb of liberation that will also dislodge the lice of injustice and oppression that are sucking not only the blood of his people but that of Africans in general.
He is a tall and lean young man, much taller and leaner than I am. He has one faithful companion he carries with him all over Madrid and wherever he goes. It’s a military-type bag he bough in the fleece market in Barcelona. All you need is patience as he fidgets in it and his hand will bring out a crumpled up piece of paper, at times so faded that reading it is quite mind-taxing.
That bag is also Jesus’ toilet kit. It contains his towel, a piece of soap wrapped in a small plastic paper, his tooth-brush, a small-size toothpaste and a few toothpicks. That is the boy whom many had said was destined to be a great leader of tomorrow. Jesus Ndongo. Where do you expect to see him in the morning? Hard to say, really. Perhaps on the highway heading out of Madrid for God alone knows what destination.
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Dear reader, stay tuned, Chapter Five is coming up.
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