His Majesty Boranu rules a small kingdom in northern Cameroon. He was forced to accept the position due to his family’s imposition. According to local tradition, three branches alternate rigorously on the throne. If you miss your turn, you’ll have to wait years before it’s your turn again. The elders concluded that he was the most suitable. He obeyed because he did not want to arouse the anger and curses of his people. But he is not happy.
Before being summoned by the family council, he lived quietly near Paris. When he was young he emigrated to France. He settled there and started a family. He had a good job at the French Post Office and his wife ran her own hair salon. They lived well. All three children were studying at university. All his dreams of progress were coming true. Furthermore, he never forgot his people in the town. He built a large family home, sent money and helped pay for schools, weddings and funerals or any other demand that came his way.
He never imagined that the last request would be so bitter. It meant leaving the life he had built for years and returning to his town, a forgotten place among the mountains. Even so, he had no choice but to obey and assume the role that the family entrusted to him.
His wife and children have never understood his decision. They have banished him from their lives. They were present during the coronation and have not returned. They don’t want to know anything about that lost village where there are only fields of millet and goats. They don’t talk to him. They don’t even answer your calls. He has stopped insisting.
His Majesty Boranu lives in the royal palace. A labyrinthine succession of patios and adobe rooms with tin roofs that need to be renovated. No electricity or running water. It subsists on the taxes it collects. Furthermore, the young men are obliged to work the royal fields and take care of their flocks. That is the only wealth of the king.
Every day, His Majesty sits on the throne listening to the complaints and pleas of his vassals. Advise and make judgments. Issues of land, livestock, infidelities or breaking traditions are the most frequent cases. He confesses to being bored of always hearing the same thing.
He has four concubines, daughters or granddaughters of the elders of the kingdom, who offered them to him so he could be related to the royal house. He claims that he only calls them to his room to fulfill his mission of generating new heirs to the throne that give more power to his family branch, but he finds no pleasure in it.
In the afternoons he walks, followed by two guards, through the town’s fields. He dreams of returning to his life in Paris, recovering his family and sitting in a bar having a beer with friends. But it’s impossible. If he resigned from office, the family curse would follow him wherever he went. He has no choice but to accept his fate.
