SONG 9
How plentiful they are, placed on our path to awaken us,
Coming together at the opening of a breach in our consciousness;
Plentiful they are, these true beings, bringing hardship to widen the cleft
Erasing the blows we suffered without disturbing the scabs of our indifference,
Yet constantly relighting the golden thread, like a strand
Between our various levels of perception, like other ways to exist.
Minta, Master Sunkang, if you weren’t the matchstick, you were
At least its herald, its prophet.
But how much dead space
Between one feeling and another,
Between a memory and a state of oblivion,
Between a death and a new life—
And then comes the day of a new departure:
A new death or another birth
That truly knows how to make the difference.
Sarah and Isma Mbeï, if you were not its path,
At least you were one of its footbridges.
Death here is rebirth elsewhere,
And being born here equals dying elsewhere.
This time it was a Sunday. That Sunday . . .
I’m overwhelmed by an irresistible need to isolate myself. Everything seems noisy, irritating, and intolerable to me: The children are clinging to my feet or climbing on my back, reminding me of little monkeys; their squealing is like that of the weaverbirds in the high noon sun. All I want to do is chase them away and escape from them, and although usually they are my energizers, my support, they’re smothering me like a weight on my chest.
Sunday at noon.
Having finished the cooking and the household chores, I vanish and retreat behind the clinic into the large cocoa plantation, where I never venture because its density scares me so. This particular noontime it seems to be the only possible refuge, one where no one would think of looking for me. I don’t go very far because I quickly find a place I like, which I dust off before lying down.
Soon the memory of my mother’s healing ritual comes back to me. A new depth comes to my images and sense of the forest where Yèrè Baoura, the genie with the face of my late friend, and his entourage of small bissimas show me plants. But I also remember the words of Master Sunkang when he told my father that if he didn’t personally take care of me and repair the “cracks” that the first mystic trance had produced in me, I’d run the risk of being eternally troubled, incessantly wandering. I try to repress a mad desire to set off and break with everything I’ve known until now. Obviously, the genie Yèrè is flooding my head again. I have a sense of being watched, and jump up.
Indeed, two young people—a boy and a girl—are looking at me through the foliage. Aware that they’ve been discovered, they flee, singing provocatively, the way children do when they’re trying to get a reaction. I recognize the language as Bassoo, old Rebecca’s mother tongue. Amused, I run after them, trying to imitate the song and sound. They run faster to put some distance between us, forcing me to exert myself so I won’t lose sight of them. A sudden about-face reverses the roles, and it’s their turn now to do their utmost to catch me. Finally they make me fall and jump on top of me, laughing in the same tone, with the same expression in their small slanted eyes, which clearly shows they’re brother and sister. I try to extricate myself while they attempt to hold me to the ground, and we roll around on top of one another like children, beneath the cocoa trees, for what seems like an eternity. Finally exhausted, we stop and try to make sense of things.
I had never seen the boy before in the village, but I recall having noticed the girl several times at the so-called creek of the drummer girls, where I used to go when we first came to the village. Unfortunately for me, she never dared speak to me, just like the rest of the girls in Libông. I would greet them, and they’d respond with a respectful curtsy, as is proper when faced with one’s elders. They played the water like a drum or watched me play, but then they’d leave, very discreetly. Had I been in school with them it would all have been much easier. But since I was a “nurse,” they saw me as the older one, the adult, and they wouldn’t have allowed themselves to come closer to me. I would have had to take the initiative in breaking down the barriers. With my complicated and busy life, I didn’t have the time.
After the spontaneous play we have just enjoyed, I realize that since Yèrè’s death I haven’t had a single friend among the children of Libông! I’m spellbound by the irresistible innocence and charm of these two. They introduce themselves to me: “I’m Sarah Mbeï,” the girl says, “and this is my brother Isma Mbeï.”
“We’ve tried more than once to approach you and offer you our friendship, but each time we were afraid you might dismiss us. And now,” the brother continues, “I’m really sorry that we wasted so much time, since we have so little left.”
Quite surprised, I interrupt: “Why do you say that? Do you have to leave the village?”
“No, unfortunately, but we’ve just heard that you’re going to be leaving Libông for good,” the girl says, instantly sad. “We’d like to have a correspondence with you, at least, after you go. Would you be willing to write us? We’ve never in our lives received any letters.”
“If you’re willing to be our friend,” the boy adds, “you’d open up the world to us. Of course, we understand that it may seem a bit silly to you, who travel with your father all the time. But we beg you to recognize that we can never even hope to have such an experience, not with parents like ours, in any case. So we must create our own ways of making the dream of traveling come true; it’s been haunting us ever since you came to Libông.”
“So,” the girl picks up, “we’ve been watching you since this morning, waiting for a chance to talk to you. I’ve called you with all my powers and, see, you came. Am I not a talented sorceress?”
“You certainly are, my dear. But is that any reason to claim that you know something about me I don’t know myself? There’s no question of my leaving here so soon. I’m going with my father to the plantations while I grow up and wait to be married; he said so himself!”
“We heard your stepmother tell our mother, who delivers your fresh vegetables. She says you’re a witch who’s starting to be harmful to her children in her own house. But we know you, and we told our mother that your stepmother is lying; everyone in the village sees it and says so, and even she herself knows. She can’t stand your being there anymore because it makes her too ashamed, and so she’s invented some reason to send you back to your village. She says she doesn’t have time to supervise you and, what’s more, that you’re too brazen and already looking at men, even though you’re only thirteen and a half! So you’re supposed to go back to your grandmother, who’s the only one with any influence over you, or else your fiancé won’t find you to be a virgin.”
I hear them, but I am not listening anymore. The spell is broken, and I’d like to be somewhere else, where I would know nothing about the plot they’ve so brutally revealed to me. My stepmother has really made up her mind, then, to get rid of me for good, sending me away from my baby once and for all. I am overwhelmed with despair.
I’ve lost Yèrè, the only friend I ever had. Now, barely do I meet some young people my own age when I hear that I will be taken away from them. Foolishly, I begin to sob, and they start weeping with me. We cry so much that in the end, huddled on top of each other beneath the cocoa trees, we fall asleep; when we wake up, we are surprised to find that it’s afternoon. I run home, praying to heaven that my father won’t be home yet. Thank God, his car isn’t there. Just as I am about to enter the kitchen without being noticed, Mam Naja pulls at my back and begins to hurl insults at me right there in the courtyard, calling me a vagabond and a tart just like my mother. A loudly honking horn keeps me from leaping at her. It’s the sub-prefect, trying to be more jovial than usual to lighten the atmosphere, which he recognizes is about to explode. Then my father arrives, parks his Land Rover, and the two men draw us into their false cheerfulness as they take us into the house, each one holding his woman by the hand. Just before we cross the threshold, I pull the gentleman back and beg him to follow me. A kind of soundless rage crawls up my spine.
What strange coincidence brings all these people together? What moment was it that I conceived of what was coming out of my mouth?
“I just heard that my stepmother’s going to send me back to the village and I know the reason—she wants to take revenge and get rid of me. I also know that you’re using me to cover up your affair with her. You pretended to ask my father for my hand just to delude him. But you can’t fool me: I’m going to tell him everything now, and I’m just letting you know so it won’t take you completely by surprise.”
“You’re not serious, I hope. You’ll provoke a tragedy, and I don’t believe that’s what you really want.”
“The tragedy rests in your lies and your duplicity toward both my father and me. All I’m doing is bringing them to light, because I refuse to be the only one to pay the price. But you might be able to prevent all that.”
“How, pray tell? I’ll do anything to avoid the worst.”
“Well, then, you’ll have to help me do something important in the next two days. I need money, a lot of money. I’m going to find another wife for my father to marry, and I’ll need to pay a dowry for that.”
“Is your father aware of this? Is he sending you to trap me this way? How could he drag such a young daughter into such wheeling and dealing? Speaking of duplicity!”
“You’re wrong. My father knows nothing about it for the simple reason that I only just came up with the idea myself, when I heard about my stepmother’s cowardly plan to send me away, catching all of us off guard—you, my father, and myself. I want to act faster than she does, and it is God himself who wants to spoil her plan by letting me know about it beforehand. So, will you give me the money? I’m warning you, if you refuse the only thing left for me to do is tell my father everything.”
“Wait, calm down. How much do you need?”
“I don’t know. Enough to pay a complete dowry: pagnes, a sheep, tobacco, beverages, and cash. Weren’t you supposed to pay a dowry for me sometime soon?”
“Yes, of course. I agreed with your father that I’d go to your village next month to present them with your dowry.”
“And how much did you expect to give as my dowry?”
“Oh, a most respectable one, maybe three hundred thousand, at least. . . .”
“Good, let me have half of that.”
“What, right here and now? But I don’t have that!”
“Well, too bad for us all.”
“No, wait, I beg you. I’ll see what I have on me. I’ve just received a sum of money from the district chief, I don’t know exactly how much.”
He goes through his pockets, pulls out all his money, and quickly starts counting as he glances around, panic-stricken. He counts out a hundred and thirty-five thousand francs and hands them to me. I take them and wrap them inside my shawl, then run to hide them under a pile of old palm trees in the cocoa plantation. The whole transaction has taken no more than fifteen minutes. We go back to the house where my father had set up a turntable and is playing a record. I’m enchanted, relaxed, beaming, and perfectly content. So is Mam Naja. She has used my absence to set her own transaction in motion: She’s convinced my father to send me back to the village. She looks radiant, like someone who has managed to accomplish a desperate mission, and throws me a triumphant look. But my serenity worries her, and in the end her pleasure is marred, while I patiently wait. My father takes the floor.
“Your mother wants you to be with your grandparents to better prepare yourself for your marriage, and I do think she’s right. You’ll go with your cousin, who’ll be leaving in three days, so that you won’t have to make that long trip all by yourself. Besides, it will be more honorable if your fiancé goes there to ask your grandparents for your hand. What do you think?”
“It seems fine to me. But I’d like to travel with two of my friends, if their parents allow it, of course, so if you wouldn’t mind, please come with me, father, to ask for their permission. My friends will come back either with my cousin when he returns or with me when my fiancé comes to pick me up, which won’t take too long, I hope.”
“Of course, I’ll be glad to go with you and ask the parents’ permission, but I didn’t know you had any friends close enough that you’d want them to come with you.”
“Our friendship is very new but very strong. It would be really hard to separate us now, especially because we haven’t had time to prepare for it.”
In her relief at knowing she will be rid of me in barely three more days, and at getting off so lightly, Mam Naja asks no questions at all. Usually the one to make a scene every time my father opens a bottle of wine, she now generously gives him one. He takes it without batting an eye, just as amazed as his wife that I have been so easily convinced. Their shared relief grows into downright glee as they drink their wine.
The sub-prefect remains silent, something that would have been of concern under normal circumstances; but now I’m the only one to notice, afraid he might say something untoward. Soon he makes his excuses to leave, and I relax at his departure. Not understanding my tranquility and cheerfulness, Mam Naja decides on her own, and to my father’s annoyance, to turn off the record player. It’s a good opportunity for me to ask him to come with me to meet my friends and their family.
It is one of the most reckless, dazzling ventures of my life.
Along with my father, I land in the middle of a family whose children I’ve only known for five hours, in a house that’s been pointed out to me from a distance and with parents I’ve never met before. Without waiting for permission, I begin to speak to “defend our friendship, which is much too precious to be sacrificed,” thereby justifying our decision to leave together.
“And so I’ve come to try to persuade our respective families to seal a lasting alliance. I’m asking for the hand of my friend for my father once she is grown up. And I’d like to turn over the dowry as a necessary guarantee without any further ado, leaving it to my father to round it off later on.”
My father has had few occasions in his life to be this astonished; he can’t find a single word to say. He really is taken off guard today, but my new friends are even more surprised, and also can’t find anything to say other than to nod their head in agreement to every one of their parents’ questions. With all the formalities included, the transaction lasts exactly an hour. It is agreed that I’ll be leaving the day after tomorrow with my friend and her brother. They only ask me to postpone bringing the dowry until the following day, so that they’ll have time to alert the family.
My father begins to laugh heartily when we leave. He holds his sides, coughs, and begins to laugh even louder, unable to ask me any of the many questions he tries to articulate. They’re all cut off by his irrepressible, mad laughter. The moment he begins to quiet down, and I wonder how I’ll escape from an interrogation that may be hazardous to my plans, Mam Naja calls us from afar: “Ah, there you are, you two! May one know what you’re so happy about, and why? Perhaps you’re planning to party it up under the full moon until dawn?”
We join her, wholly in her clutches again and obliged to change our conversation. At the house, social demands take over, and my father and I have no further opportunity to talk privately before the next morning, when we again meet with the family of my friends.
During the day, I had managed to buy a demijohn of wine, five chickens, five pagnes, and a sheep, and drop these off at my friends’ place. I have a hundred thousand francs left in cash and give this to the parents.
At the time, a hundred thousand francs was a large sum of money for such an underprivileged family, and to them it was a gift from heaven. Uncles and aunts greet us, and each one of them pronounces blessings and gratitude to the spirits of the ancestors. Finally, the father’s older brother speaks more solemnly: “My daughter, your sister who is here with us belongs to you and to you alone, from this day onward and until the day she has reached the age of womanhood. At that time both of you must return here, together with the man in your family whom you have chosen to be her husband, as long as he consents, of course. We don’t think it will be your father, who seems to be monogamously married and who hasn’t spoken a word since we’ve been discussing this. It is clear to us that you alone have initiated this affair, and that you have the support of our children in their great desire to get away from the poverty we live in. But we bless our children and we thank heaven for the grace that it is now being granted them,” he says, and asks my father with tear-filled eyes for permission to let me sleep one night with his children in their humble home.
To our great joy, my father consents, and so I feel like I have already left my stepmother’s home. I won’t have to spend another night in the house of the woman whom I will hereafter always see as a traitor and an overt enemy. I know she’ll find out soon enough what I’ve just done, and she won’t ever forgive me.
She was to hear it the day after our departure, and until the eve of her death, many decades later, we would remain sworn enemies, always fighting at the slightest provocation.