The Shameful State Read Free Page B

the shirt need not fear the hot water.” 1
    His heart filled with shadows, the heart of a prophet, the heart of a father, in the majesty of the human dream, from where you can contemplate our late General Also de Nonso donning his tiger-hunting gear, with full military stripes and plumes, gold tassels, exotic, magical medals heavy as gates, row upon row of military decorations across his chest because my people expect things to be eye-catching; ah Vauban, this is the country for people who are eye-catching. He starts telling Vauban the tragic story of our late brother Grabanizar during the shameful years of the Labinto regime that our people went and made a hero of the fatherland; we live in a nasty country and there ought to be a sign with gold-leaf lettering as you enter the port of Zouhando-Norta:
Nasty country
. That’s how it is Vauban, since there are no wars, our infantrymen wreak havoc. Havoc because we’re the world center for cowardice, the world capital for shame and sin, because we’re the masters of lying and maliciousness Mom. . . . As for Vauban, listening attentively to him, with his pale courage that tried to save the world, you can see how much he loves this land while National Lopez, kaki giant that he is, sporting the nation’s drama, the country slung over his shoulder, and that’s enough bullshit, up rue Nolavinto, rue Fantar, past the café Les Rate-Bonheurs, overto the other side of the Place de la Patrie, to the sound of Plazzinni Delaroux’s music, you’d think that Delaroux guy was French but he’s actually the product of racial mixing: French face, American manners, walks like an Arab, but with a body typical of our region; today, he’s performing in the Oulanso-Mondia Gardens, in heavily accented French:
    Open your body
    To this fear
    Of the world
    The earth is a public good
    But your own turn is now
    So make sure you don’t miss it
    In life
    Accomplish your part
    In this flesh between heaven and earth
    For us the future is now
    Sing your nerves and dance your heart
    There aren’t that many ways
    Of being alive
    Long live you and so long live me
    â€œMy people are so beautiful when they dance to my poems!”
    â€œThey are, Mr. President.”
    Rue Fortio, rue Amela, rue Fontaine, this city, ah this city, rue Foreman, boulevard ex-Duchaillu. . . . He reaches the banks of the “Rouviera Verta” and God damn it this city’s stunning at this time of day! He then starts telling the story of how that pig Oxbanso, on the very day I appointed him Minister of Imports, tried to sleep with National Mom, but I didn’t kill him for that. You see Vauban, this is Satan’s village, only he whom you love can betray you. . . . His slippers are covered in mud. A dead dog has been abandoned in the middle of the road; doesn’t anyone work around here:he moves the dead dog out of the way. Zamba-Town, a city in the south, even hotter at midnight than at noon, with its muddy swamps, breeding grounds for mosquitoes, where those who’ve managed to escape the stifling heat of their hut make love out in the open which is why you can hear the darkness groaning panting weeping and coughing. Zamba-Town, its symbolic hand extended out in peace, rue Gaza and the lingering signs of the latest curfew (now lasting sixteen months). And on the opposite bank of Lake Oufa: the Cité-du-Pouvoir, as exquisite as a love dream, oh how beautiful my hernia is, a monument built to them: thirty-five million dollars and now a patrimony of the state, a valued possession for them to enjoy today and in the future when my hernia has passed away. Well done to the nation!
    It’s still not quite that hour when the loudspeakers left behind by our late Colonel Pouranta Ponto start pouring my speeches into my people’s ears; this innovation is hardly new, it was National Laountia’s in fact, and Manuelo Sanka kept it up.