I had difficulty to imagine I heard my name. I have been waiting for many hours already for the arrival of Sali, and I despaired to see her again before my departure for Paris.
- "Mister Marco please, you are requested at the kiosk of information."
- "There she is, she is finally here," I said to myself.
My heart had start beating suddenly. I was afraid she would
not come to this rendez-vous. There she was, finally. As she did yesterday, she made me
wait so long, endless hours waiting for her and fantasizing over these last
moments spent with her before my premature departure for America. I suddenly
forgot this long wait, knowing that I was going, for a second time, to impregnate myself from her ebony body of sensual African girl.
- "I repeat, Mister Marco due to leave for Paris, you are requested at the kiosk
of information please."
The voice of the speaker, from the kiosk of information, reverberated on the
solid walls of the large hall; I could only hear that voice that masked the
deafening rumors of the crowd that already agglutinated there for many hours, into
the waiting hall of the terminal of the Ouagadougou airport. The neutral and
functional voice of the attendant at the kiosk of information, sounds to my
ears like a caress full of sensuality. Sali was there close by, I could almost touch
her, I vibrated in my body, just like before a sexual intercourse.
She let herself called Sali but her real name was Salimata. I only knew her
since yesterday, but her presence was already familiar to me. I had to leave her
already, before even having really known her: beautiful and bewitched African
girl to furnish, for ever, my exotic dreams of loving adventures.
She was there like every afternoon at the swimming pool of the hotel Ran where
I stayed. I never talked to her. Nevertheless, she was familiar
to me, and I worried inside myself, when she was absent. She became a
friend whom we look at from far away, and whom we hope to know better.
Clumsy siren Girl, she tried to master the low deep waters of the swimming
pool of the hotel Ran, every afternoon after 13 hours, during the daily siesta
I avoid regularly, only to watch her silently displaying her magnificent
dark body of young African girl. I choose her among all the actors of
this strange faunus that passed by the hotel, the pedantic Occidentals always in a
hurry, the beautiful tourists-women with their misled pace, the
beautiful Africans women elegantly dressed up for love, the careless
employees, all of them available to succumb to my sexual impulses; but I choose Sali who appear not to be there for that purpose, I could not know really
why, but I already loved her from a distance.
I was there, standing up and immovable, my hand luggage surrounding me, lost among
the colored and undisciplined crowd that blocked the main hall of the
Ouagadougou's terminal. I was despair not being able to see her at
last, before my departure for America. She fixed that rendez-vous with me. And now, she was
there, somewhere among the dense and animated crowd. I felt shudders in my body like if I was still a teenager and nevertheless I knew it, there could not be, beyond this rendez-vous,
any sort of sexual adventure. I was taking the plane this same evening.
I wasted so many days of my time pretending to cooperate in the technological development
of Africa; they endure my assistance and that of my companions of enterprise even so they already know what they wanted, but this way, they could obtain those useful green bank notes distributed by the international cooperation agencies.
All these moments of idleness wishing for the carnal collision with this all black flower among all these other flowers of ebony colors, spread out
from everywhere like multicolored butterflies, playing and romping about, to
let themselves loved; they allowed you to forget the banality of the city,
the sadness of the country, the insignificance of the male, the dust that
fills up your throat, the finicky bureaucracy; are these flowers, the reason for Africa to
ever exist?
We dined the day before, at the restaurant The Garden. She proposed the place to me; this date which makes us meet for the first and sadly, for
the last time. We eat, sitting at a table in a discreet corner of the garden.
Beautiful and enterprising African girl that I kissed with passion. She
planned everything, I could sense it, and she savored the moment as much as I did.
I waited impatiently for her, for many hours, in the gardens of the Ran hotel,
hopeless that she would come soon, then she was there when I despair to see her coming; I finally understood that, to be a woman is also to let herself be waited for. She was radiant, she kissed me as if we had known each other for a long time. We paced the dark and deserted streets of Ouagadougou,
by-passed the gardens of the Ran hotel, followed the deserted market place,
walked along the large sinister boulevards, walked across the place of the
Revolution where, she said with a sad tone, her brothers died, sacrificed for
a useless Revolution. We walked through the deserted streets, hand in hand; the
anonymous and dusty city, for one night, seems to belonged to us; I
felt like a kid who discover for the first time, the sexual passion.
Marco Polo or the imaginary journey (Contes et légendes, translated from french, décembre 1999) © 1999 Jean-Pierre Lapointe
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