Makass E-Book

James A. Levine

• Herausgeber: NYLA
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 124

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

In 2010, Dr. James A. Levine was commissioned by Doctors Without Borders to travel anywhere in the world where they have a station and write about the experience – in an effort to give a voice to people who would otherwise have none. The novella was published, along with nine other major international authors, in Italian, in the anthology, Dignità, for Doctors Without Borders' 50th Anniversary. Dr. Levine traveled to Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo where he visited AIDS clinics and witnessed the remarkable medical care that's being provided. He almost wrote about that. Until he spent time with some of the people living in HIV-positive communities. There, he met Paulit, an extraordinary woman living with AIDS, who refused to be victimized, a woman whose capacity for love will be an inspiration to all. Now, for the first time in English - this is her true story.

Leseprobe

Makass

James A. Levine

Contents

Publishing History

Disclaimers and Acknowledgments

Introduction

Makass

Praise for The Blue Notebook

Excerpt from The Blue Notebook

Discover More by James A. Levine

About the Author

Copyright

This ebook is licensed to you for your personal enjoyment only.

This ebook may not be sold, shared, or given away.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the writer’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Makass

Copyright © 2011 by James A. Levine

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-64197-053-2

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

No part of this work may be used, reproduced, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without prior permission in writing from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

NYLA Publishing

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http://www.nyliterary.com

Publishing History

Makass was originally published in the collection, Dignità (Feltrinelli Editions). Dignità is an anthology compiling the writings of nine major international authors who participated in one of Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) projects – and sought to document the experience, in an attempt to give a voice to people who otherwise would have none.

The Italian edition of Dignità is available through retailers.

Disclaimers and Acknowledgments

All of the events and people described in this novella are real. Names and locations have been changed to protect identity. The narrative is in the mind of the author alone.

I thank, Marina Berdini, Corinne Benazech, Robin Meldrum, Papa Clement and the staff of the Kinshasa Unit for Médecins Sans Frontières, Doctors Without Borders. My gratitude to Papa Jean Lukela, President, RNOAC-Gs/PVVH – an organization that builds cooperatives for survivors who live with SIDA in Kinshasa.

Introduction

I was giving a lecture at the Turin Book Fair when a woman asked to talk with me.  I had just published my first novel, The Blue Notebook, in 2009.  It was fictionalized memoir of a child prostitute I had met in Mumbai, India.  Her name was Batuk.  That book accomplished as much in 242 pages as the prior twenty-five years of my life working in science.  The Blue Notebook impacted policy, attitudes and child reclamation programs.  For me too my life changed, I started to work with organizations around the world to help release prostituted children; I now serve on the Board of the International Center of Missing and Exploited Children.  Fiction, I learned, can impact the collective mind.  It is the collective mind, like the human brain, that determines the actions of humankind.

The woman in Turin who wanted to talk with me was from Doctors Without Borders.  We went to a Turin café and spoke for an hour.  She asked if I would travel on behalf of Doctors Without Borders to anywhere in the world where the organization has a station and from there, write a novella for them.  I would not be paid or compensated.  The novella would be put in an anthology for Doctors Without Borders 50th anniversary celebration.  Without hesitation I said yes. 

I decided to travel to Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo.  I visited the HIV clinic and saw patient after patient who had come to receive AIDS drugs, paid for by the Global Fund.  With resources a hundredth of what I knew of in the United States, the medical care was exemplary; the doctors inspirational.  I almost wrote about that.

However, one evening I said to the head of the clinic that I wanted to visit patients in Kinshasa living with AIDS.  Two days later with Papa Jean, 6 foot 3 inches tall, always ready with a smile, we went to visit people across Kinshasa living with AIDS.

People in Democratic Republic of Congo who have HIV are excommunicated from society.  Husbands throw HIV-positive wives into the street – even though they are the ones who infected their wives.  The only way for HIV-positive people to survive is to cluster into groups.

Groups of HIV-positives and AIDS survivors have emerged in Kinshasa to form isolated communities scattered across the city.  The groups function as stand-alone units; the members farm together, take their HIV medication together and live as one.  Whatever food is not eaten, is sold.  These communities make money and have medical care, which is more than most people living in Kinshasa, where a typical wage is nothing.  These HIV-positive AIDS communities have become so successful, people pretend to be HIV-positive to join.

I visited three of these AIDS communities.  At each site I was greeted as a dignitary and deeply humbled.  Wherever we went we sat, talked, ate and drank soda. I was fed by people who earned less in a year than I make in an hour.  Never would the community take money; instead they wanted my advice; “How can we build a school?” “Do you know about irrigation?”

At the third community I met Paulit, the heroine of Makass.  By then it was night.  Her community of seventeen survivors was located in the hills to the west of the airport.  Paulit towered over everyone.  She was as a mountain; possessed of divine force.  The whole community, Papa Jean and I sat in a circle of white plastic chairs and together we ate and drank.  Paulit spoke little but stared at me constantly.  Quite suddenly, she left and returned with a Pyrex plate on which were three leaf-wrapped finger-shaped objects.  I was given the plate and I ate the fingers.  The leaves were bitter and raw.  The filling was sweetened vegetable.  I sipped orange Fanta, smiled and nodded at her; “Thank you,” I said.  Then, and only then, she smiled at me and happiness spread across her face.

Papa Jean interpreted so that Paulit could tell me her story.  Her community listened.  The moon was giant.

“Makass,” she said when she was done and pushed her fist into the air.  The community responded, “Makass!” and thrust fists on thin arms skywards.  Paulit told me, “Makass is the power inside your fist.”

James A. Levine

For Paulette

Makass

From the French.

I wrote this, so that you will find me.

Mammon was more pleased than me. She sang in the street, in the market - anywhere that ears heard; “Paulit is marrying a captain. Paulit is marrying a captain." My little sister, Natalie, thought Mammon was ill. It was not normal for Mammon to be happy, especially with me. I felt Mammon’s bursting happiness, but it was nothing compared to my ecstasy.

I married a captain. Mammon called him "Captain Antoine.” Natalie called him "Your Love-Love-Captain.” Not only was my husband a captain but he was the son of wealth and so he was wealthy too. His family lived in Kintambo where the bourgeoisie live. We lived in Kasa-vuba with the poor.

I met Antoine by chance; “Miracle,” Mammon called it.

The miracle was this. Yvette was my friend. Her father worked for one of the unions. He got promoted and gave Yvette 20-dollars to celebrate. She wanted to take Saadyah and me to Bandal - music, beer and boys. The 20-dollars was enough for the three of us. I agreed to go. This was unusual for me. Most of the time, I preferred to be alone. Somehow destiny called into my isolation – “Paulit go to Bandal.”

"Be back by 10:00," Mammon said.

Natalie sang like an idiot,

"Paulit will find a lover,

He will kiss her on the bank,

They will have four babies

Her little-girl heart is sunk."

I left Mammon’s house wearing jeans and a blue T-shirt with ‘World Cup 2002’ on the front. I was barefoot. But I arrived at the Taxibus stop, one kilometer away, in a bright yellow skirt (below the knee), a D&G T-shirt so tight my sweat showed and black shoes with heels. I hid my jeans and World Cup 2002 T-shirt behind Enrique’s Coiffure. At the bus stop, boys stared but none dared speak. I looked just right; a long panther ready to hunt.

I got to the Taxibus stop first. Yvette and Saadyah, when they got there, looked good but only half as good as me. Saadyah had nail paint, lipstick and scent. While we waited, she shared them with me. By the time I crammed into the Taxibus, I was a panther, primed, painted and perfumed.

In Bandal we cruised the Boulevard. We went from bar to bar. We swung our hips and after the third bar our child-like giggling stopped; our embarrassment was gone. The fourth bar was upscale; The 3615. It has a main level and an upper level Disco that overlooks the street. We went upstairs, me last. By now, Yvette and Saadyah were ready to feed.

The upstairs bar was almost full. But soon after we sat down, a group of army boys saw us. All girls know about army boys. All girls know what girls do with army boys. Yvette was that type of girl. In ten minutes, she left us. She went with a tall thin army boy with one stripe on his shoulder. She looked grown up pushing her leg between his as they danced. The soldier boy stroked her and soon they vanished. I never got his name. When I saw Yvette the next day neither did she. For Yvette, her father’s promotion had paid her.

A three-stripes soldier in dark glasses sat on the chair Yvette warmed. He was strong, short and squat and more handsome than God. I knew immediately he was interested in me. He took off his glasses and beret. I was surprised by how light his eyes were and how brightly they spiraled into me.

Mammon was a baker; when she opened her oven to take out the loaves, there was a heat blast. That was how I felt with Three-Stripes; that heat blast blew through me. "What is your name, Cheri?" Three-Stripes asked. I looked down at my shoes. "Paulit," I said. Saadyah shuffled. I looked up at him. I waved my hand casually, "She is Saadyah," I said. He looked at her for less than a second and grunted.

When he looked back at me, his hand was on my thigh. "I am Captain Lemoyne;" he touched the three stripes on his shoulder. I pushed his hand back; long fingers for his short body. He laughed a second and lifted his eyebrows. "You don't like me," he said. I looked down, "I think you are fine," I said. For a sixteen year old, I was not nervous. I played this game like a panther swatting sand in the heat; it was natural.

"You Kinshasa?" The captain said.

"I am from," I was about to say Kasa-vuba but changed my mind, "East Side," I said. I waved my hand at Saadyah, “Both of us.” But Saadyah was not paying attention. She looked for her own prey. The Captain pushed his hand back on my leg. Again, I pushed it off. “Uh,” he said and smiled.

A man; heavy, red shirt, grin, bad skin, thirty something, came up to Saadyah. He had a Primus in his left hand. Soon she went and Antoine's hand returned onto my thigh. "So what you think about being with a captain?"

I answered sharp, "I was once with a general." I do not know why I said that.

He took his hand off me. His thick eyebrows frowned, to shade the light of his eyes and his weakness. He tightened his mouth. He looked like when Mammon took something away from my youngest brother. Antoine Three-Stripes was easy to read and fun to tease. He was handsome for sure. His stripes defined him. You cannot be a zebra without stripes. Antoine was my prey.

I looked up at him and smiled. "I was joking you. I like being with a Captain."

Antoine smiled a large grin. His teeth were like piano keys. He put his hand high onto my leg (third time) and pushed up high. I knew this sleek, long soft panther would taste her first captain. I let his hand feel my thigh. My body answered his touch with the thirst of woman.

I got back to Kasa-vuba long after 1:00 a.m. I crept into the house. Mammon burst out of the bedroom; she woke up when a fly landed on the table. She started, "Where have you been? Why is your T-shirt filthy?" I was back in boring clothes – if I had not changed back behind Enrique’s, a bomb would have blasted.

Mammon went straight into her speech about what a useless mouth I was. "Natalie does more than you do and she is only ten." I had heard it a hundred times. I almost said, "That is not true," but I was not in the mood for fighting with Mammon. I wanted to get in bed and feel the wet tail of the Captain inside me.

I slid under the blanket, and pushed against Natalie. She tickled my waist. "Shhh,” I scolded her. "Quiet," Mammon grunted from the other side of the bed. There was more room than usual. In the morning I found that Philippe, my eldest brother, was out all night. Mammon did not say a thing about that.

In the day, I went to St. Pius School; 20-dollars a month. Mammon, “I bake at 4:00 a.m. to pay for that,” was her favorite reminder. Usually, before school, I took a bucket and washed. But that morning after the Captain, I smelled him on my body and did not wash. I wanted him there with me – in French, I.T. studies and Prayers. I lived our night in my head, second-by-second. In the eyes of my memory, I feasted on my captain in the back of the truck.

I thought of as him a child pretending to be man; much like I was, girl pretending to be woman. He was harsh and had rough hands but his kiss was gentle like a boy. His roughness greased the gate to his true passion; inside him was dark house of hopeless want. He hungered for the breast. I whispered, close to his ear, "You are my lord.” He gave himself to me with a prayer to God. The more he sunk in my mind, the more I wanted him. That day in school, one voice in my head said, "You know what soldier boys are like," and the other voice replied, "Your Lord is a captain."

At St. Pius, we are not allowed to have mobiles switched on. But that day, it was – the captain had my number on the back of his cigarette pack. After first lesson, I took out of my phone to look. Nothing. Later in the day I heard a ring; I ripped it from my bag to find false hope. “Paulit!” the mathematics teacher shouted.