经济学人下载:刚果出租车司机皮埃尔·曼贝尔(1)

Congo's wheels
刚果的车轮

Pierre Mambele, taxi-driver, died on June 8th, aged 74
出租车司机皮埃尔·曼贝尔于6月8日去世，享年74岁

Since the best place to pick up a fare in Kinshasa, Congo's capital, was outside the Grand hotel (for a time, the Intercontinental), that was where Pierre Mambele usually parked his car. There he would wait, with a bottle of Sprite, under the trees for shade. His car was nothing fancy. It was a dark blue 1976 Fiat which had seen service on plenty of bad roads. The side mirrors and wind-screen-wipers had long gone, good riddance to them. The front doors could fly open at speed, so sometimes had to be tied to the chassis with plastic bags. The exhaust trailed. This car limped from one criminal mechanic to another, but as long as it ran, and people were willing to pay him for a ride, he wasn't bothered. His clothes were nothing fancy either. On most days in fashion-proud Kinshasa he wore a greasy t-shirt and dirty jeans.
因为刚果首都金沙萨最好的搭载乘客的地方是大饭店外面（有一段时间是洲际饭店），所以那里是皮埃尔·曼贝尔经常停车的地方。在那里，他会拿着一瓶雪碧，在树下阴凉处等待。他的车并不豪华。他开的是一辆深蓝色1976年的菲亚特，这辆车已经行驶过很多糟糕的道路。车上的侧镜和风挡雨刷早就不见了，谢天谢地。车的前门在速度快的时候会飞快地打开，所以有时必须用塑料袋绑在底盘上。车的排气很落后。这辆车拉着一个又一个刑事技工缓慢行进，但只要它能跑，而且人们愿意付钱让他搭一程，他就不会感到烦恼。他的衣服也不精致。在以时尚为豪的金沙萨，大多数日子里他都穿着油腻的T恤和脏脏的牛仔裤。

His thick glasses, mended with Sellotape, had never been much use. Yet he drove crazy-fast, pedal to the floor, roaring round the city. He was not a Kinois himself, one of that snooty so-sophisticated lot, and the other drivers outside the Grand called him "Kisangani" after the city where he was born, in the east. He spoke Swahili as well as Lingala. But he had been a taxi-driver in the capital for decades, and knew the ramshackle place like the back of his hand. Kin-la-belle, now Kin-la-poubelle, as everyone said. Driving fast also showed his contempt for any sort of authority. Soldiers toting guns in the road were a joke: pas sérieux, quel cinéma! As for the roulages, the yellow-helmet traffic cops who would leap out to bang on his windscreen and demand money for some offence he hadn't committed, he would shout and argue with them until it came to fists, and they gave up. A cop got in his way once when he was doing a three-point turn outside a grocery store. He just kept going, with the idiot spreadeagled on the bonnet.
他那副粘着透明胶带的厚眼镜从来没有多大用处。然而，他却疯狂地开车，踩着踏板，在城市里呼啸而过。他本人并不是金沙萨人，也不是那种傲慢而又世故的人，格兰德外的其他司机都叫他“基桑加尼”，这个名字来自他出生的东部城市。他讲斯瓦希里语和林加拉语。但他在首都开了几十年出租车，对这个摇摇欲坠的地方了如指掌。金-拉-贝尔，现在是金-拉-波贝尔，就像大家说的。开快车也显示出他对任何权威的蔑视。在路上携带枪支的士兵是个笑话：别担心，我是奎尔电影院的！至于戴着黄色头盔的交警，他们会会跳出来砸他的挡风玻璃，为了一些他没有犯过的过错向他要钱，他会大喊大叫，和他们争吵，直到大打出手，他们才罢休。有一次，他在杂货店外做三分转弯时，一个警察挡住了他的去路。他继续往前开，那个白痴像个大字型摊在引擎盖上。