The Wrap Dress Given to Mam’Soko
I listen more and more to the radio, even while I’m writing these lines. I sometimes tell myself that perhaps I’m writing to kill time during the wait, which weighs on our shoulders. Yes, I write so as to bring our departure closer.
Daybreak comes, and there I am, sitting, my nose in my notebooks. Sometimes I fall asleep—my pallet is right next to me. It takes an effort even to look out the window at the plants waking up. I go down into the orchard to pick a handful of fruit. I also take vegetables. My daughter knows how to cook, and she prepares the dish we’ll eat. We set aside a plate, which Maribé takes over to Mam’Soko.
I no longer notice the old lady moving to and fro behind our house. From time to time Maribé wanders outside and joins her in the orchard. That comforts me. She’s getting used to this place.
The other day, Maribé went to wash the old lady’s dusty wrap dresses in the river. Mam’Soko protested. She thought it was a waste of time; she said she no longer attached any importance to such everyday chores. Why should she wash her clothes?
“After all, we’re nothing but dust! It’s too bad—instead of just living with it, we spend our lives sweeping it away, hunting it down, pushing it from ourselves, only to return to it, against our will, the day we die.”
Coming back from the river, Maribé spread out Mam’Soko’s clothes on the grass alongside the house to dry.
Clothes? Rags, rather. Old styles in Dutch wax. From among our things I took out a new wrap dress, which I gave to the old lady. She examined it curiously. I knew she could no longer tell colors apart. That was why she spent a long time feeling the garment. She smiled. All at once her face lit up. She was thinking about something. She tapped her cane three times on the ground. That meant she was thanking us for the gift.
Yet up to now she hasn’t used the new wrap. When I tried to insist that she put it on, she answered calmly: “I’ll wear it in the next world. On that day, I’ll make myself beautiful for my husband, Massengo. For him alone. He’ll be surprised to see me coming, walking through the clouds, with angel’s wings.”
The Warning
The bulletins put out on national radio are military orders barked by zealous journalists who support General Edou’s cause. I listen for hours as the general speaks in a monotone. The radio cannot restrict itself to broadcasting only extracts from these “messages to the nation.” The president is not to be interrupted while he’s talking. On what basis would a journalist permit himself to select the most important passages from the head of state’s speeches? Everything he says is good and useful, even if he’s talking gibberish.
In his broadcasts the general repeats that there will be no compromises. That this is no longer the time for speeches or for forgiveness. That he has returned to politics to decontaminate the country, to “sweep clean the house of Vietongo, in front of which there is a pile of refuse, growing daily, that prevents the people from breathing.” It’s his duty, that of the commander in chief of our army. “So then, the Negro Grandsons of Vercingetorix are wrong to think of themselves as unconquerable Gauls,” he says. You can hear him hammering his fist on the table. He calls on the southern rebels to listen to the voice of reason, to lay down their arms unconditionally and give themselves up. He even promises to incorporate those rebels who surrender into the national army, and not to prosecute the offenders and criminals in the South. He says nothing on the subject of Vercingetorix, holed up in Batalébé, or His Excellency Lebou Kabouya, who is in exile in Europe.
Christiane’s Advice
Vercingetorix did not come to the house again. Christiane and I discussed his surprise visit, which had made my husband so happy. We were in the middle of the crowd in the marketplace. The way people looked at us had changed. We’d realized that our friendship bothered the local residents. Yet Christiane remained a lifeline to me. Her presence comforted me.
Right up until our departure, I ignored Kimbembé’s prohibition. I continued to see my old friend. What reason could I have given Christiane for no longer visiting her? Of course, Christiane thoughtfully put herself in my place.
She cautioned me: “I think we need to stop meeting. Your husband is aware that we spend time together.”
“I’m not going to give in to his cowardice,” I retorted.
“It’s not a question of cowardice, Hortense. It’s not for nothing that Vercingetorix came to your place: he wanted to see you in person.”
“Me?”
“Yes, a bit like the way a criminal checks out his next victim. If he’d wanted to work undisturbed with your husband, he’d have summoned him to the Palaver House. From now on, get used to the idea that you have only one solution: to leave the district the first chance that presents itself. Believe me, I know what that man is capable of.”