Tram 83 by Fiston Mwanza Mujila

Street confirmed the hypotheses according to which many men perished in the clashes of 1990, while others joined the military. Result: more women than men, over whom the girls with eggplant-breasts, the busgirls, and the waitresses fought tooth and nail.
    â€œDo you have the time?”
    The publisher questioned. The publisher recounted. The publisher explained. Lucien, who already saw himself on the shelvesof a library, didn’t even sip his beer. He got out his notebook, wrote his rubbish.
    â€œHow did you guess I’m not from around here?”
    â€œVery easily. Evening, sir. May I sit here? And then the tip you gave the girl. In here, you just plump your ass down. Period!”
    â€œYou seem absorbed by your interview!”
    â€œThese girls friends of yours?”
    They introduced themselves, brusquely.
    The rappers continued their ranting.
    â€œDo you have the time?”
    The chitchat continued for quite a while. The two girls, who pulled all sorts of faces, quieted down. “Hot water always cools in the end,” as Requiem said, quoting a Zairian musician. RULE NUMBER 17: don’t lose your nerve in front of our girls, they’ve got no alternative but to grovel; the latest statistics confirm what we all know: there are more girls than us, fancy footwork, fancy footwork, fancy footwork. Malingeau bowed out with the carnival. Every Saturday, the Brazilian tourists improvised a carnival that visited the liveliest spots of the City-State.
    â€œI love the carnival! Monday, same time, to talk about your reading, and doubtless the publication.”
    â€œDo you have the time?”
    Meanwhile, the musicians of the International Congo Society, with their dreadlocks, polished shoes, colorful suits, mechanical gestures, and broken French. Lucien stayed with the girls, discussing love, the songs hummed by the guys whose backs buckled as they built the railroads, baby-chicks, miners trapped by cave-ins, easy money, New Mexico, Los Angeles, Dallas, Philadelphia,Brooklyn, Lagos … His tiredness, his nausea, his worries had disappeared. The publisher embodied hope, the start of something. The two single-mamas congratulated him on his show that was now in sight. Astrid escorted a feller who had bawled his eyes out as the Amazonians moaned on. He and Émilienne crossed the train tracks, all loved up, and made their way along the main road to Vampiretown, groping each other as they went. If bliss had a name, it would be called Tram 83.

7.
    STRATEGY MEANS RESOLVING A GIVEN SITUATION INTELLIGENTLY .
    Out front of the building, a salsa atmosphere reigned. Young women in bloom badmouthing Christelle. Kids playing hopscotch. Teenage boys recounting their first sexual experiences in whispered tones. Dogs, cats, chickens, wandering goats. There is nothing bad whatsoever about relentlessly pursuing a baby-chick or playing hopscotch or chatting between buddies. But doing it at three in the morning denotes amateurism for people supposed to wake at four so as not to miss the one and only train that crosses the City-State. He walked past them with the girl. They haughtily expected a greeting from him. There’s no age for arrogance. Lucien blurted out “morning” and “evening” to several, but they did not reply. Lucien had hardly been expecting a warm welcome. If he’d made the first move, it was merely as a formality. But the kids sulked because they’d detected from his nonchalance that he wasn’t from around here. They couldn’t tolerate a guy showing up at the building with girls, when half the building’s populationwas composed of girls waiting — like one waits for Christ, pointed out Requiem — for a gentleman suitor.
    Light in the apartment. Requiem was already back. He lay, convulsing, on the couch, complaining of awful pains in his abdomen. He groaned, voice hoarse from getting plastered or from arguing with the diggers he employed. Between two