I was 45 when you came into my life, Béa. A child of desire, you took your own sweet time before you arrived on earth with fanfare.
I never had a little cuddly animal made of straw or cardboard when I was a child. I was not a healthy, strong, well-nourished baby like you. I was skinny and sickly. To stop my crying, there was often only one solution, which my mother had discovered totally by chance. Great scientific discoveries like aspirin or pasteurization are the daughters of chance, God knows why. One evening, when she was sick of hearing me moaning, my mother plunged me into a white basin filled with cold water, in the shade of the veranda. Today, I replay this scene in my mind with some emotion. I can feel my body shivering again as I tell it to you. Tears are not very far away.
Before I landed in the basin, my throat was so tight I felt like I was suffocating. The scene always ended the same way: I would shiver with cold as the freezing water softened my skin. If my mother was reduced to this radical solution, it’s because she had used up every possible ruse and still couldn’t manage to calm down the frightful cry-baby that I was. At night, before setting me down on my little mat, she’d tell me all kinds of stories. Tales about obedient children, others about docile animals or affectionate plants. The stories came one after the other. While the whole city was sound asleep, we were the only two people stirring.
At your birth, Béa, a detail caught my eye: you had big ears, a little like Barack Obama. Your little face was hidden under your long eyelashes. You kicked around a lot. Trembling, I examined your limbs. You were a healthy baby, thank God.
Churned by pain, still in a daze, your mother finally emerged from her foggy state to ask me what the baby’s sex was. 11
And I, proud as a peacock, announced, ‘It’s a girl!’
And you cried out for the second time.
It had become a habit of yours.
You would yell at the drop of a hat.
You insisted that your mother and I obey you hand and foot. As an explosive mixture, you sure are the all-category champion. To the Swiss-Milanese-Sicilian blood of your mother, you must add my African blood—not lazy at all, for my ancestors were nomads and to this day, they keep beating everyone at running.