Free Mount Pleasant by Patrice Nganang Page A

joke, he has dreamed my dream.”
    Thanks to Charles Atangana’s ability to dream the colonizers’ dreams, in 1921 the Cameroonian capital was moved from the mountains of Buea to Yaoundé, and he was chosen to supervise its construction. Ongola, the city center, was his home base. What more could he ask? Still, it wasn’t enough for him; he spread his arms and told the streets of his hometown—bush tracks, really—that he imagined a “City of Seven Hills.” Those who still share his dream have clung to the nickname he gave it, trying to keep the chief’s fantasy alive in our poor neighborhoods, to invent a different future for this stupid, chaotic city that is, in reality, so sad and so dirty. Mount Pleasant was itself a name plucked from the chief’s flamboyant vocabulary. Curiously, over time, people forgot it. I’ll come back to that. (Yes, I promise.)
    Charles Atangana and Njoya? Whatever it was that made the men cross paths—the coercive borders of a nascent country or the intrigues of a chief who invited both local and colonial authorities into his hometown to secure his own place in the heavens—it was friendship that exploded in the sultan’s chambers each time Charles Atangana was there. There was laughter, raucous voices, a whole rosary of debates—too many to number, and yet never too much for the chief. It was life at its best.
    Still, it was always the chief who had the most to tell: how hard it had been to get a license plate for his car (“Do you know why? Because it’s an American car!”), his trip from Yaoundé to who knows where (“But not on horseback, like when I traveled to Kousseri with Hans Dominik, you know…”), and so on.
    Finally, late at night, the car disappeared, leaving behind it unlikely tracks, words that bloomed in phosphorescent dreams.

 
    15
    Talking About Hell …
    After the chief’s departure Nebu couldn’t close his eyes. He was entranced, and far into the night, the symphonies of Lisbon and Hamburg rang in his ears. That evening he hadn’t had to help undress the sultan. Two of Njoya’s wives, Mata and Pena, his current favorites, had stayed with him. So the child headed back to the matron’s, whistling as he went. He lay down on his mat and covered his eyes with the palms of his hands, the better to see far-off places.
    The day had left a smile on his lips that he couldn’t quite explain; a taste of happiness surged sporadically through his veins. Bertha was already asleep. Her rhythmic breathing filled the room. Nebu thought about what it meant to be a slave. He wondered why the joy of two powerful men came at the cost of a little girl’s damnation. He also wondered what would have happened if the sultan had refused to come to Yaoundé. Would Sara have had a different life?
    Would Yaoundé have been different?
    And history? Would its course have changed?
    Ah, history! Is it inevitable? A series of knots in the weaving of a gigantic braid, isn’t that what it is when all is said and done? Terror flooded his mind. He saw Uncle Owona’s dark eyes again and understood that he would have to accept the truth of his life: Sara. Nebu heard the little girl crying. A shout. He felt his uncle’s hot breath in his ears and suddenly opened his eyes. What was it? One thing was certain, it wasn’t Sara who was screaming. The boy shut his eyes again, but the cry kept coming: strident, scattered. Then there were hurried steps. And someone calling, “Ngosso!”
    It was the sultan’s voice. It kept going: “Ngosso! Samba! Manga!”
    Nebu jumped from his bed and ran outside. In Mount Pleasant’s main courtyard he met a terrified Pena. Her head was bare and her face panic-stricken. She ran toward the house of Mount Pleasant’s chief doctor. The boy immediately understood that something awful had happened. Without even thinking, he