Memoirs of a Porcupine Read Online Free PDF

was raining that day, once I got halfway there I was obliged to shelter for the night in a cave, till the next day, I should say that I don’t like rain much, a number
of my fellows have been swept away into the Niari waterfalls and drowned, and inside I found nothing but toads and small mice, whom I was able to intimidate, I got to the outskirts of Mossaka the next day at sunset, and when I finally reached the gates of the village, exhausted, dribbling at the mouth, barely able to keep my eyes open, I went to sleep at the back of a house not far from a river which I had not seen till now, it was a branch of the Niari which cuts the region in two, and there I rested, thinking I would take my time staking out the Kibandi house the next morning, because by night there’d be the risk of hunters or Batéké dogs, and in the middle of the night I felt a strong draught of air, dead leaves were rising upwards, then a strange noise as though something was coming towards me, ‘for porcupine’s sake, it’s a man, it’s a man, he’s seen me and he’s going to kill me, I must flee’, I said to myself, panicking suddenly, I was determined to leave my hiding place as quickly as possible, and save my skin, but alas I was paralysed, I couldn’t move any of my feet, as though I’d been put to sleep, I was wrong in fact, it was the noise of an animal moving about, so I put up my quills without first identifying the animal, which was coming closer and closer, I hoped he’d be stupider than me, that he’d be scared of quills, I was ready to throw them if necessary because unlike most of my kind I know how to, but I didn’t have to go that far, the cake wasn’t worth the candle, I took a deep breath, and was reassured when I finally saw the animal before me, I almost burst out laughing, almost proved the governor right when he said that during the first few months of my life I would panic even if I saw a baby lizard, there was no need to freak out that day, it was just a lousy rat that looked as though he’d taken a wrong turning and found himself face to face with me, I took
pity on him, maybe he wanted directions, I couldn’t help him, I didn’t know the place myself, and then I thought better of it, the rat seemed pretty strange, he moved at a slug’s pace, a sign of age, perhaps, which had robbed him of the use of his back legs, this was not a rat like other rats, he was there for a reason, perhaps to kill me, stop me getting to the Kibandi child, he was challenging me now, with his protruding eyes, he drew back his lips, I stayed still as marble, so he would see I was not frightened of a mere rat from Mossaka, that I’d seen far scarier ones than him in my time, and he circled round me, sniffed my sex, licked it, then vanished through a hole in a shack about a hundred metres away, and I finally realised that this was the shack I was looking for, the old rat was the harmful double of Papa Kibandi, he had come to make sure of my status as double to his son, this was the end of the transmission process which had started with the absorption of the initiatory drink, and that’s how transmission takes place, first between the humans, from initiator to initiate, with the absorption of the mayamvumbi , then between the animals, the animal double of the initiator must lick the sex of the animal double of his young initiate, in fact the double of Papa Kibandi had wanted to make sure that the animal who would live with his son was courageous, an animal who could keep his cool when faced with danger, if I’d had shown the slightest sign of panic, if I’d tried to make a run for it he’d have wiped me out, not a moment’s hesitation, and things had turned out well for him, dear Baobab
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    it was now four days and four nights since I left the bush for Mossaka, and the news spread among the animals in our neck of
the woods, then a rumour went