The next page of my destiny is turned to one lazy evening. I finish all my chores with time to spare now that I have no baby clothes to wash or meals to prepare for my child.
It is meeting day at Kingdom Hall, and a special day because my stepfather is to give a lecture. For the occasion my mother has come home from the market early. Both of us are ready and waiting for the return of the master of the house. His bath water is warm for him in the washroom, his afternoon snack carefully placed on the table.
A lazy and extraordinary evening. My mother has spread a mat on the veranda and is lying down to get some air and rest her back. I sit down beside her. What an exceptional moment! We have so many things to say to each other that we don’t know where to begin, and especially where and how to end. The master of the house will soon arrive and, without ever having mentioned it, we know he won’t like to see us close. One of us will have to get up at any moment, as we normally do quite spontaneously when the hour of his return approaches so that he won’t find us together. Today, though, neither of us feels like moving. On the contrary, the intense conversation makes us forget the time and all precaution.
An indolent, bewitching evening . . .
I lie down next to my mother on the mat. She puts her arm under my neck like a pillow. We are so comfortable. . . .
“Mama Naja, do you think my son will be all right over at Tata Roz’s?”
“Of course. Your aunt has always been good at raising children. At this time in his life your son couldn’t be in better hands. You see how little I am available to you and you know how that bothers me. Let’s thank Jehovah for having softened your aunt’s heart enough to help us. Everything will be fine, you’ll see, don’t worry.”
“And you, Mama, will you be all right?”
“Calm yourself and don’t worry about me. Only God knows how to reward our efforts. When he considers them sufficient he’ll help us out of our trouble. And then we’ll see things clearly, we’ll understand everything, and we’ll find our balance again. . . .”
“Aha! Because you lost it, and where might it be, that balance of yours, dear ladies. . . .” He thinks his humor is irresistible, the hoarse voice of the converted brute.
Startled, my mother springs up.
“Ah! Hello, Brother. You’re early. You must be nervous. Your water and snack are waiting for you. If you hurry up we’ll even have time to listen to a practice reading of your lecture, just us, so we can give you some feedback. That way you’ll feel more relaxed when you’re there, what do you think?”
Instead of reacting to all her attention, he attends to the one person who pays him no mind, and that is me.
“And the other rude ‘grand lady,’ isn’t she planning to move?”
“We’re both ready, just waiting for you, now,” my mother says hastily to avoid a squabble.
“She’s ready to go with her hair all a mess like that? Get up and do something about that hair. . . .”
At that very moment I believe we all knew the irreparable had come knocking on the door. I feel my veil of refusal cover my entire body, suddenly heavy as a stone. My mother moves forward and tries to get her husband away from me, but he pushes her roughly and plants himself on his two legs like a fishwife expecting an answer from a fellow gossipmonger.
“What’s the matter? Are you deaf? I’m telling you to get up and do something about your hair. Didn’t you hear me?”
“And what’s wrong with you?” I hear myself reply. “I thought the lecture was about ‘greatness through tolerance.’ Did the subject change—was it replaced by a different one about my hairdo?”
My voice takes us all by surprise and, truth be told, scares us with its calm gravity. It sounds like someone else’s voice. We’re all wondering who spoke. Of the three of us I am the most astonished, for I am casually lying down as if I weren’t the one being addressed. On the inside I tell myself to get up and go to my room to defuse the situation, at least, but unfortunately my body won’t listen anymore. It is completely under the control of my refusal, now as hard as marble.
Mama pulls her man to their room like an obstinate mule and locks the door behind them. I leap up, intending to pick up my suitcase and flee into the city before he finishes his bath and food. Just at that moment, however, the “fiancé” shows up, smiling from ear to ear: He is bringing me a present that is both useful and nice. “An umbrella for the stormy season,” he says, looking inane.
I manage to hide my bad mood and accept the gift in a friendly manner. I open it right in the living room and try to entertain him with mimicry and silly postures, as a way of thanking him. He laughs loudly, but comments that I have a funny look. I tell him I’m hungry. He gives me ten francs to go and buy doughnuts. Just as I’m about to close the umbrella, the stepfather’s voice comes at me in volleys, instantly deflected by my shield of refusal that I hadn’t yet lowered completely. I stand motionless, in the center of the living room with the fully opened umbrella.
“What kind of sorcery is this, opening an umbrella inside the house!”
“Come now, Brother,” says the fiancé in greeting, “that’s just a superstition. She was merely trying it out. I just gave it to her as a present.”
“Well then, she’d better close it or try it outside!”
I don’t know how, but I find myself outside with the umbrella that had suddenly become the embodiment of my refusal. When my stepfather, dressed to the teeth, finally and ceremoniously appears to read his lecture on the veranda, I stay under my umbrella. He can’t bear it: He’s hardly begun reading when he interrupts himself and orders me to close the umbrella.
“I don’t see why; we’re outside now, it’s my present, and I’m already on my way to Kingdom Hall. Besides, there I’ll hear what the umbrella might keep me from hearing of the lecture you’re giving now, which in any case wasn’t planned and isn’t even obligatory.”
Then he tells me that if I care about going to his lecture I must close the umbrella and go inside to do my hair. Mama and the fiancé have the courage to state that they frankly don’t see why my hairdo is so important, but he categorically silences them: “I make the decisions here! Either she changes her hair or she’s not going to the lecture!”
“Fine! I choose not to go to the lecture.”
“Why?”
“Because I already know every word you’re going to say; I’ve heard it all many times, forgotten it all just as fast, and never seen you put any of it into action or make it into living examples in this house. So, I promise to be a good girl and wait in my room, using the time to read the last issue of the Watchtower.”
“Oh, no! If you’re staying here it will be outside. That will teach you to taunt your elders even though you don’t even have a home of your own yet. Besides, who’ll guarantee you’ll ever have one? Disobedient as you are, you’re certainly going to spend a lot of time wandering around outside. Maybe you’ll starve to death or have an accident on some sidewalk where dogs will eat part of your body and the firemen will barely rescue what’s left, leaving me in charge of a disgraceful burial.”
He spills his guts, vomits his hatred and curses, gesticulating wildly as he starts all over again for the benefit of the neighbors and onlookers who have started to congregate. My poor mother has once again withdrawn to weep alone in her room. The fiancé, totally undone by the intensity and scope of his anger, barely manages to once or twice stammer a dismayed, “I don’t understand, Brother.”
The presence of a public, enabling him to feed me to the lions once again, makes me explode, and for the first and last time in our lives my stepfather sees and hears my rage.
“You have no right whatsoever to curse me. You are not my father. I’ve worked for you with great devotion without ever getting anything in returnno consideration, no respect, not the slightest salary to give me some dignity. You will never bury me. At the hour of my death people will have forgotten your name and your existence. For always wanting to belittle each of my efforts and initiatives, remember this day when you’re about to preach on the topic of ‘greatness through tolerance.’ From this day forward my efforts will start to bear fruit, for from a single dry kernel of corn a huge cornfield can be grown. They will beg me to come and open the door to let you out of prison, the door you are now closing in my face, the prison you are bound to be locked up in one day, and they’ll have to jump through hoops to have you set free. . . .”
And to get him out of my life, I left.
Like a joke, a gag,
As if to frighten us all;
I headed for my destiny with
Ten francs in my pocket and an umbrella in my hand.
I left for a world unknown,
Prepared to live a life without a tomorrow. . . .
• • •
Passages from my stepfather’s prison journal:
How many lawyers does it take to intervene in this affair? How much money has she already paid, that Fitini Halla, who will never be my daughter and who apparently won’t leave my life until I’m dead? What magic spell binds us somehow? Why did it have to be she who has to get me out of prison?
After all, wasn’t she the one who cast the evil fate on me, predicting I would go to prison? Let her figure out how to get me out of this, or else she’ll never have any peace! It must torment her, otherwise why would she go to such great lengths? She’ll never like me, she has way too much contempt for me. This I know; I’ve always seen it in her eyes. And with the business that sent me here, I’m nothing more than a common thief to her as well. As if they don’t know who the real thieves in this country are! Why did I have to get caught, anyway, and go to jail, just for a few meters of lace, some little bags of buttons, and a few other odds and ends! And all that while the tax collector has been diverting tons of money for decades and getting away with it.
I fell in a trap. A trap set by the Baffi, past masters in the art of settling accounts, falsifying books, and gradually spiriting away receipts, one cent at a time, without attracting anyone’s attention. And to think that I never paid any mind to the small amounts of missing money, the intangible pennies that in the end, after two decades, make holes of several million.
I’ve seen that Baffi tax collector with his gang of cousins and nephews sweep offices, cart away boxes of garbage that were, in fact, merchandise carefully swiped from previously delivered packages. I saw them in the market unobtrusively replace the merchandise at lower prices, earn tiny amounts of money, acquire “shopping carts” and patiently make these yield a profit, one cent at a time. I’ve seen a small organization make fortunes, like termites in an anthill, each member of a large family of them methodically doing his small part for the success of the group.
I’ve admired the skill of others, appreciated their ingenuity, solidarity, and patience. I’ve wanted to act like them. But all I took were old packages, already opened, that had been there for who knows how long. Surely the sender had died. Moreover, the tax collector made it very clear to me that he was getting ready to liquidate any packages that had never been claimed and had no return address. He practically donated them to me. I told myself that I, too, would start a little business, adding a penny at a time every day for as long as I had until my retirement, which was eight years. I fell into a trap set by the Baffi, for they were the ones who rushed off to the police, who caught me red-handed.
What lousy luck! I had entrusted the merchandise to my nephew Benoît so that he could unload it quickly in the market without leaving any traces. But the good-for-nothing chose to keep it, claiming he was going to open a shop! Everything was still around when the investigation began. I can’t help but think of that very peculiar Fitini Halla, although she would certainly have been more efficient and discreet if I had handed the business over to her. But just seeing her has always driven me crazy. She’s a witch, a seer, an evildoer, and a sexual poisoner who in some impulsive and unpredictable way makes you forget God and religion. You hardly have the time to realize what you’re doing before the harm is already done. She’s not a woman; she’s a genie or a seductive devil.
I can’t believe I’m in prison just because of that wretched package, and they gave me twenty years. The Baffi asked for the death sentence, showing that during my twenty years of service I had filched several million! Me! What would I’ve done with it? Their investigations couldn’t bear it out. The trap is as big as a house, but the judges still sentenced me to twenty years!
The truth is that the curses of that witch brought me bad luck. And to top it all off, she has to be the one to fight to get me out of here. She must be elated that her spell worked. Everything she predicted on that fateful day that she rebelled is actually happening to me, but I’m not done with her yet. We’ll see what happens when she meets the witchdoctor spy, who was in our cell and was set free by the president yesterday. I’ve made arrangements for him to meet her. He will turn her luck around. She must lose her husband and then . . . he who laughs last laughs best.