Free Allah is Not Obliged by Ahmadou Kourouma

Papa le Bon, which means ‘the good father’ on account of how he gave food to the street kids.
    His work made international repercussions happen and people all over the world wanted to help him and everyonewas talking about him but some people weren’t happy, especially the dictator Samuel Doe who was still in control in Monrovia. The dictator sent assassins to kill Papa le Bon but he escaped by the skin of his teeth and managed to get to Taylor, who was Doe’s sworn enemy. Taylor made Papa le Bon a colonel and gave him lots of power. He put him in charge of a whole district in Zorzor, where he was responsible for collecting the duties and taxes for Taylor.
    There were three districts in Zorzor: the top district up in the mountains was where Colonel Papa le Bon ruled everything, the district where the natives’ straw huts were, and the refugee district. Refugees had it easier than everyone else in the country because everyone was always giving them food, the UNHCR, NGOs, everyone. But they only allowed women, kids younger than five and old people. In other words I wasn’t allowed in.
Gnamokodé!
    The top district was sort of a fortified camp, a compound with human skulls on stakes all round the border and battle stations protected with sandbags. Every station was manned by four child-soldiers. The child-soldiers got lots of good stuff to eat, because if they didn’t eat well, they might fuck off and that would be bad for Colonel Papa le Bon. The top district had offices too, and an arsenal, a temple, living quarters and a prison.
    The top thing in the top district was the arsenal. The arsenal was sort of a bunker right in the middle of the camp. Colonel Papa le Bon had the keys to the bunker on the belt of his soutane. They were never out of his sight. There werelots of things that were never out of Colonel Papa le Bon’s sight: the keys to the arsenal, his kalash and all the grigris he wore to protect him from bullets.
Faforo!
He ate and slept and prayed and did sex stuff wearing the kalash, the keys to the armoury and the grigris that protected him from bullets.
    The second most important thing in the top district was the prison. The prison wasn’t a real prison. It was a reeducation centre. (In the
Petit Robert
it says ‘re-education’ means the act of re-educating, in other words ‘re-education’.
Walahé!
Even the
Petit Robert
sometimes takes the piss.) In the middle of the prison was the place where Colonel Papa le Bon would cast out the magic from the devourers of souls. It was a centre for exorcism.
    There were two separate prisons, one for the men that looked like a real prison with real bars and guards and everything. Protecting the men’s prison, like everything important that had to be protected, was manned by child-soldiers, virgins. (Virgins are boys who have never done sex. Like me.)
    In the prison, everyone was mixed in together: prisoners of war, political prisoners and ordinary prisoners. There was even a category for prisoners that didn’t fit into any category at all: these were the husbands of women that Colonel Papa le Bon had decided to love.
    The centre for casting out women was a guesthouse. A luxury guesthouse. Except that the women weren’t allowed to come and go whenever they wanted.
    The women had to undergo rituals for casting out magic. Colonel Papa le Bon did the casting-out rituals himself, one on one, for hours and hours. Some people said during therituals, Colonel Papa le Bon took off his clothes and so did the women.
Walahé!
    The third most important thing in the top district was the temple. The temple was for every religion. Every Sunday, everyone in the district had to take part in the papal mass, that’s what Colonel Papa le Bon called it. A papal mass because he used the pope’s staff. After the mass everyone would listen to Colonel Papa le Bon’s sermon.
    The sermon was about witchcraft and the evils of witchcraft, about the treachery and the crimes of the other