Tram 83 by Fiston Mwanza Mujila Page B

to another guy who entrusted it to another — suffice to say, it was the shoddiest sort of awareness-raising. The audience, who had not received the lowdown on this event, took Tram 83 by storm as was their custom.
    The evening commenced gloomily, following the cave-in of an underground gallery in a diamond mine. The news spread by word of mouth. Everyone knew the diggers who’d just been engulfed by the earth. All fifteen of them would end their day, which startedwith the crow of the cock, the angelus bell, or the fatwa from the minaret opposite, by rushing aboard the train, snubbing the students, and fetching up at the Tram, where they would clink glasses, entice the single-mamas, head off in foursomes to make love in the mixed facilities, sweat like pigs, burst into laughter, insult the busgirls, dance the polka, peddle bad news around, converse with the tourists, smoke ganja, masturbate openly, buy everyone a round, battle each other at Russian roulette, bark out songs their grandfathers and great-grandfathers would strike up while digging out the same mines, carting around pneumonia and other yet-to-be-classified diseases, share dog kebabs, start fights, have a go at the musicians, and split the same way they showed up, dirty, irascible, cocky, ebullient, and contemptuous. They spread havoc but were cherished all the same. The rumors grew increasingly confused, giving way to an indescribable muddle. According to reliable sources, they’d been searching through gravel, found a concentrated diamond deposit, and followed the beast without covering their asses. It had happened late morning. Six bodies had been retrieved from the rubble, including that of Boubacar, Boubacar who threatened to hang himself each time his mother forbade him to head down the hole. Boubacar had escaped more than eight cave-ins. The last but one earned him the nickname Lazarus. According to the talk in Tram 83, Boubacar had emerged unscathed from a cave-in that had taken a huge number of human lives. The same talk related how he had apparently eaten the raw flesh of his colleagues who had died on the spot. They’d been entombed for four days and four nights, and Lazarus was the only one to emerge from the filth. One hundred and fifty-six peopleperished, including the baby-chicks and slim-jims who’d gone down to lend a hand. Baby-chicks are girls aged twelve to fifteen who prostitute themselves in the quarries, walk in single file, and don’t hesitate to band together and alert the soldiers should a customer refuse to pay the agreed rate. The slim-jims are barely adolescent boys who toil as casual laborers: extracting, carrying, and washing the gravel to separate out the diamond crystals.
    It was the month of December. This explained everything, as cave-ins quintupled as Christmas approached. “The witch doctors set traps to get meat to gorge on and blood to guzzle during the end-of-year festivities,” summarized the Negus, his hand down his pants. The fifteen deceased were operating fraudulently in the Polygon of Hope Mine. The dissident General didn’t authorize anyone to excavate except for tourists, his biological family, and his closest associates. He had proclaimed himself “Father of the Nation.” He rejoiced at these cave-ins, which he blamed on divine sanction against us his children who transgressed the word of the “Father.” Truth be told, the whole of the City-State rejoiced when the earth devoured. Cave-ins cause considerable damage but allow the stone to grow, whispered the sages of Tram 83. In the days following a cave-in, the stones could be gathered everywhere, from the Tram to the station whose metal structure… and from the brothels to the Cuba Club.
    Outside, baby-chick poetry.
    â€œYou are my prince charming, I feel like cuddling you, I’m super horny, randy as hell, take me by the arm and let’s travel far away from here, to Perugia, I want to see Nantes, that