Gone by the C

By Osée Kamga

When moving up the corporate ladder depends on the success to the second language proficiency test, an employee’s anxiety could reach a dramatic height.

“The funny part about Perdida’s cry was the tears. Normally, except for Black Africans, people’s tears run through their noses. Don’t ask me why. That really baffles me. On the other hand, African people’s tears come directly out of their eyes and quietly run through their cheeks before vanishing somewhere in the beard, for those who have one. Perdida’s tears were following the latter pattern. Was she some kind of a repressed Black African? Hard to say. But for sure, she didn’t look Black at all. With her blond hair, her blue eyes, and her shining light complexion, she must have been of Swedish descent. I ventured toward her classroom, wondering what was actually going on.”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Nov 10, 2023
• ISBN: 9781638294467

Osée Kamga

Osée Kamga is a Ph.D. in communication, a university scholar, an essayist and a fiction writer. He is the author of: Jacques le narrateur, 2000 La tourterelle noire, 2004 Le licencié, 2006 Et si le développement nous trompait—Le modèle ivoirien en point de mire, 2006 Mère porteuse, 2012 Presse écrite—Outils pour débutants, 2017

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Gone by the C

Osée Kamga

Austin Macauley Publishers

Gone by the C

About the Author

Dedication

Copyright Information ©

Acknowledgment

About the Author

Osée Kamga is a Ph.D. in communication, a university scholar, an essayist and a fiction writer. He is the author of:

Jacques le narrateur, 2000

La tourterelle noire, 2004

Le licencié, 2006

Et si le développement nous trompait—Le modèle ivoirien en point de mire, 2006

Mère porteuse, 2012

Presse écrite—Outils pour débutants, 2017

Dedication

To my big brother, Jérémie T. Kamga, an exceptional person.

Copyright Information ©

Osée Kamga 2023

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher.

Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Ordering Information

Quantity sales: Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address below.

Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data

Kamga, Osée

Gone by the C

ISBN 9781638294450 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781638294467 (ePub e-book)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023904503

www.austinmacauley.com/us

First Published 2023

Austin Macauley Publishers LLC

40 Wall Street, 33rd Floor, Suite 3302

New York, NY 10005

USA

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Acknowledgment

Teaching French as a second language to Canadian federal public servants is an experience that is rewarding in its successes, funny in its incongruities and rich in those memorable encounters it allows. My few years in the profession at InSitu—Services Linguistiques have laid the foundation for this story. I pay tribute to all the students and teachers I have met, with whom I have experienced both exhilarating moments and sad ones, and of whom the fictional characters in this novel are but types.

Look, Marsha, the subjunctive usually expresses a wish, a desire, an order, a doubt, an advice, or even a supposition. It’s about an action not carried out at the time of speaking.

Marsha looked dazed. Everything I had just said sounded like pure and simple Chinese to her. True, the words sounded like English, but that was about it. She looks on the left and the right to make sure she was the only other person in the room to make sure that I was actually talking to her. This strange lesson, she had apprehended it for a long time. She knew that they would come one day or another. Many of her colleagues who had failed their test had often pointed to the subjunctive as the source of their misfortune. On the first day of her lessons with me, she wanted to know what was subjunctive. I simply told her that we would eventually get there. So, she knew that it was coming. After the genre of common nouns, the subjunctive was probably the grammatical value that caused most problems for the federal public servants to whom we were teaching French. I took off my glasses, cleaned them with a bathroom tissue I had kept in my pocket for that purpose. Marsha remained pensive for a while. What could be going through her mind right at that moment? After about a minute, she came back to reality. I don’t understand, she said.

What don’t you understand? I asked.

This subjunctive thing. When do you use it?

Well, most of the time, it is used in a subordinate clause, introduced by the conjunction ‘que.’ It’s actually quite easy to use or recognize.

Do we really need it? I mean, we don’t have it in English, and nobody complains. Could you imagine, English is the most spoken language in the world and it works just fine with the subjunctive.

Nuance; the most internationally spoken.

Whatever. But it doesn’t need subjunctive.

Well, English actually has subjunctive. It is used normally to describe non-actual possibility.

What do you mean by non-actual possibility?

For example, when you say, ‘It is important that I succeed,’ you are actually using the subjunctive.

No way. It is just the present tense. Like I succeed, you succeed, etc. No subjunctive, mister professor.

I understand your point. But look, the problem is that in English, the subjunctive is not inflectional, so it borrows the bare form of a verb obviously used in other constructions.

I don’t understand. Inflectional, conjunction, non-actual possibility. What are you talking about?

That’s alright. Let’s don’t argue about English. I would simply insist that in French, you really need subjunctive. We will work on it. You will see, it’s not that complicated.

Marsha stopped earlier that day because she had to welcome her daughter at her coming back from school. Their babysitter had caught the flu and couldn’t show up to work that day. I have to go, Touré, she said while packing her things in her gigantic schoolbag, if I am not there at the school bus stop, the driver would bring her back to school, and I would have to pick her up myself, besides paying the fees incurred for the time she would have spent there.

"Il faut que je pars," she said.

"Il faut que je parte," I corrected.

Oh. Because I am a woman.

No. Because the verb needs to be conjugated at the subjunctive.

I see. Anyhow, enough of the subjunctive for today. I have to run. See you tomorrow.

When she left, the room looked spontaneously dim, as if two of the three neon lights that illuminated it had burnt out in one shut. I raised my head to the ceiling, but nothing had changed. The polyester curtains on the window were completely raised, allowing all the sunlight filtering through the mustard clouds of the summer noon to enter the room. Was it my eyesight that had suddenly weakened? At the foot of the cheap replica of Edvard Munch’s Cry, a tiny inscription indicated the name of the printer. In spite of the two meters that separated us, I could read it easily. No, it wasn’t my eyesight. As I was putting my things in my bag and getting ready to leave, I couldn’t help but smile inwardly. What if Marsha was a light!

*

I don’t know why Perdida was crying. The strident of her lamentations escaped through the glass doors of her classroom and wrapped the fourth floor in an atmosphere of mourning. What could have happened to her? Usually jovial, her presence alone was a mood enhancer. Her laughter had brightened the school corridor for weeks, and more than one student could attest to the optimism that Perdida’s cheerful voice had restored in their hearts. And here she was, crying her throat out and disturbing the entire school. English Canadians are funny. They do not rush to the scene to inquire about what is happening. They stay in their rooms, begging silently that quietness returns. They stay away from it, not interested at all to get involved. What if they were called to testify? What if that person was contagious? And who knows what can happen? English Canadians think and keep their distance, determine not to let an unhealthy curiosity affect their lives. If this were happening in Africa, if the fourth floor were somewhere in Africa, the whole school would have rushed toward the source of that horribly sad noise. There is in us a kind of jouissance in the sight of the misfortune of the other. A scream somewhere, and we rush there. An accident and here we are not necessarily for the purpose of assisting, but mostly to see the spectacle of the tragedy, to enjoy the tragedy, to laugh at the matter and mock the victims. For most people, the motto seems to be ‘each for himself, God for all.’ One or two learners left their class for a moment and went outside of the school ‘to get some fresh air.’ They will come back only some 45 minutes later.

The funny part about Perdida’s cry was the tears. Normally, except for Black Africans, people’s tears run through their noses. Don’t ask me why. That really baffles me. On the other hand, African people’s tears come directly out of their eyes and quietly run through their cheek before vanishing somewhere in the beard, for those who have one. Perdida’s tears were following the later pattern. Was she some kind of a repressed Black African? Hard to say. But for sure, she didn’t look Black at all. With her blond hair, her blue eyes, and her shining light complexion, she must have been of Swedish descent. I ventured toward her classroom, wondering what was actually going on. Through the glass, I waved to Kourouma, her professor, who immediately joined me outside, making sure to close the door behind him.

What’s the matter? I asked Kourouma.

She is crying, he replied. Can’t you see that she is in pain?

"I can see that she is crying. Everybody can. She can be heard three miles away from here. That’s not my question. And she is perfectly in her right to cry. I don’t think there is anything in the Constitution that forbids that. What I am asking you is why she chose to do it here and at this very moment? She could have done it on the street, and that would have been perfectly legal. But she picked this morning at school when so many students are stressed