Over the years, I’ve had the occasional surprise package from Canadian publisher Véhicule Press, usually from their Esplanade Books imprint. As a result, I’ve enjoyed several vicarious visits to Quebec, but today’s choice, a recent arrival in the post, takes us a little further afield. Yes, we do visit Montreal (and L.A.), but most of the action in this one takes place somewhere in Africa – and when I say action, well, that’s an understatement…
*****
Blaise Ndala’s The War You Don’t Hate (translated by Dimitri Nasrallah) opens at the Academy Awards in 2002, where one of the coveted statues is about to be given out:
After making sure that her lips were the focal point for all those eyes hungry for surprise, the presenter with the crew cut and oval glasses clears her throat, winks, and inhales a velvety gasp.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the Oscar for best documentary film goes to…”
“…Véronique Quesnel of Canada, for Sona: Rape and Terror in the Heart of Darkness.”
p.11 (Esplanade Books, 2024)
As the filmmaker and (eventually) the star of the piece make their way to the stage, there’s thunderous applause from the crowd, aware of the nature of the film, and the horrors depicted therein.
However, the scene soon switches to somewhere a long way from Tinseltown, the town of Kapitikisapiang in the heart of Africa. Here, the story is continued by a fascinating narrator, a young man who goes by the name of Master Corporal Red Ant. A child soldier in a brutal civil war, he’s now recuperating in a settlement camp after the end of the conflict, watching trashy reality TV and talking to his friend, Miguel, a Spanish doctor working for the UN. Having been given a yellow notebook by the good doctor, Red Ant decides to write down what he remembers of the past few years in order to work through his feelings, but just what does this child soldier have to do with the Canadian filmmaker? Patience – this is a long story, and our friend Red Ant has a lot to say about it all…
I’ve been deliberately vague in locating the story, and there’s a reason for that. Ndala is originally from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the fighting here is based on the Second Congo War, a brutal conflict around the turn of the millennium. However, the names of people and places have been changed for the novel, with the Democratic Republic of Cocagnie the scene for Ndala’s version of the war.
The key to the book is the voice of Red Ant. He narrates much of the novel, relating his experiences in the camp and conversations with Miguel and his cousin, Baby Che (a more intellectual, revolutionary soldier). His slightly rambling recollections are carefully set down in his notebook:
In any case, in this notebook where my blue pen has conferred on me the status of one and only commander, there will be no philosopher, no prophet perched on a pedestal, only Truth strutting around naked from one page to the next. (p.28)
As you can imagine, there’s a lot of humour to be found in these pages, and the style reminded me of a writer from a neighbouring country, Alain Mabanckou (Broken Glass, Memoirs of a Porcupine), also known for his spiky, entertaining voices.
So charming can our friend be at times that he almost makes us forget just what he is, or was, a boy soldier in a bloody conflict. As he shoots the breeze with his cousin and the doctor, looking forward to watching the next European football matches on television, he (and Ndala) lulls the reader into a false sense of security, which makes the occasional change of pace even more unnerving. Every so often, we’re jarred by mentions of atrocities, unspeakable crimes – in some ways, his illness and suffering can be seen as the price he’s paying for them…
A wider theme of The War You Don’t Hate involves African politics and society, with the writer exploring the corruption underpinning the state of Cocagnie, and the conflict:
You were in charge of supervising the exploitation of coltan in a mine that had come under the Front’s control, you had the right to seize half of the production. You could then sell it to officers from the enemy’s camp, who in turn sold it off to their protégés. The latter paid cash and prayed that the rumours of peace wouldn’t spoil the climate for business. Every day the sun rose in the east and began its march westward. Life followed its course, as did the war. (p.133)
Red Ant has personal experience of corruption. His father was killed in a mining accident, and the compensation the mine’s owners were forced to cough up was pocketed by the government (the same one that announces elections that never eventuate…).
While the story is mostly told by Red Ant, there are occasional switches back to Quesnel and her documentary. It’s hard to see at first, but we gradually sense a link between the Canadian film-maker and the soldiers. There’s a secret behind the film, one Red Ant and co. are aware of, but this only becomes clear towards the end of the story, when we learn just what Quesnel got up to in Africa, and who with.
It’s all nicely done for the most part, but for me Ndala’s novel is perhaps a little longer than necessary. One subplot features the trials and tribulations of Rex Mobeti, a world-class footballer born in Cocagnie but now naturalised French, and a hero with feet of a distinctly clay-like nature. The football-mad Red Ant follows his troubles from afar, but for me this strand was a little superfluous. In addition, the film plot never really engaged me, and I found these parts a little flat, merely breaking up the flow of the main ‘action’.
Still, Red Ant’s ranting and raving makes for an enjoyable read, an opinionated voice always ready with his catchphrase of ‘dot to the line’ when he brooks no arguing with his opinions. The War You Don’t Hate is a book that skirts around the war at its heart, only occasionally confronting the reader with the horrors committed by the boys dragged into it. Yes, as we see, some might profit from the war, but despite his bravado, Red Ant, and those like him, is unlikely to come out unscathed…