Chapter 3

The ships are lying in the bay,

The gulls are swinging round their spars;

My soul as eagerly as they

Desires the margin of the stars.

—Zoë Akins

When the plane reached Lomé, a slender woman boarded and sat next to me. She fell asleep almost immediately. About an hour later, as we were about to land in Douala, she woke up and looked at me for the first time. Navy-blue pumps matched the cloth wrapped around her waist, making her look even more elegant in her traditional attire.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“Kinshasa.”

“So am I. My name is Citoyenne Nbutongi. Call me Marie Madeleine.”

“Iris Odys. Pleased to meet you. Is Citoyenne your first name?” I asked, even though I knew the French word meant citizen in English.

The question brought a smile to her face. “The titles mister, miss, and missus are for foreigners. Zairians are either citoyen or citoyenne,” she explained. “We also must use our African names. But I like the name Marie Madeleine.” She studied me briefly and asked where I was from.

“The United States,” I said, wondering why she would introduce herself as Citoyenne Nbutongi if the word citoyenne means madame or mademoiselle.

The stewardess served drinks then rolled the cart away. “I wanted to be a stewardess,” Marie Madeleine said, looking pensive.

“Why did you change your mind?”

“I didn’t have the connection to make it happen.” She rested thoughtful eyes on me then asked if this was my first trip to Kinshasa.

I told her yes and she continued to examine me. A few seconds later, she said, “Then you must work for your embassy or an American company, because you don’t look like a missionary.”

“I will be working for the National Arts Institute. What do you do?”

“I am a businesswoman.” She took a sip from her glass.

“What kind of business?”

“I am a mbana mbana.”

“Meaning?”

“I buy and sell whatever I can get my hands on. This is a business trip for me. Prices are good in Lomé. So I go there to buy merchandise.” She finished her drink. “That’s what most of the women on the plane do.”

Glancing around the plane I noticed that, indeed, most of the travelers were women. As the stewardess walked down the aisle collecting empty cups, Marie Madeleine watched her.

“What is it like in the United States?” she asked.

“Compared to what?”

“I don’t know. Everyone dreams of going there. I’ve heard people can make a fortune just like that.” She snapped her fingers. “Everyone there is rich, right?”

“It’s not like that,” I stated.

“You must invite me there. I am a hard-working woman. I could become a millionaire in no time.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, in approximately ten minutes we will land in Kinshasa’s N’djili Airport . . .” the rehearsed voice of the stewardess reverberated throughout the plane.

“Someone’s picking you up?” Marie Madeleine asked, looking into a pocket-size mirror, powdering her face.

“I guess the director. I sent him a telegram.”

“A telegram! Do you know if he got it?”

“I hope so.”

“Stay with me until you see him,” she urged. “Things can get nasty at this airport.”

 

* * *

 

When the plane finally landed in Kinshasa, the women became restless. Men in military uniforms, rusty rifles in hands, pulled them to the side. A woman who had wrapped cloth on her back, pretending she was carrying an infant, raised a defiant hand to attack the soldier who tried to take her cloth away. Two women held her back. The soldiers continued pulling women aside, trying to seize their merchandise. One of them looked me up and down before taking away my carry-on luggage. He said something in Lingala, the widely spoken Bantu language in the city of nearly seven million people. Marie Madeleine told me he said the bag looked heavy so it probably weighed more than the five-pound limit. He wanted me to pay a tax.

“This makes no sense,” I said.

Marie Madeleine whispered, “I’ll handle this.”

Again, the man spoke to me in Lingala.

“Excuse me,” Marie Madeleine replied in French, taking quick steps, while pointing a finger at the soldier. “My sister isn’t going anywhere without me. She doesn’t deal with people like you. She grew up with civilized people.” She then turned to me. “Come along, my dear.”

A man in a green uniform led us inside a room and slammed the door behind him. He dropped my bag onto the floor, sat behind a desk, and took out a piece of paper that he handed to Marie Madeleine; she ignored it. “I do not deal with people like you. Get your superior on the phone and tell him Colonel Bangawa’s wife would like to speak to him. If it is trouble you want, I’ll give you trouble.”

The man put the paper down, scratched his head. “Citoyenne, pardon, eh. I don’t want any trouble,” he said in hesitant French.

“I didn’t think so,” Marie Madeleine replied, and signaled for me to follow her as she picked up my bag on her way out.

Ngwendu was not at the airport, so we took the first taxi in sight. As I closed the back door of the brown Peugeot, I let out a huge sigh of relief. Marie Madeleine pushed down the lock and asked me to do the same on my side.

“Papa, démarrez!” She told the taxi driver to pull out.

“So your husband is a colonel?” I asked when the taxi turned onto the main road.

“I don’t have a husband,” she said and laughed.

Night had spread its black shawl over Kinshasa and its outskirts. Palm trees rose like El Greco’s elongated figures, hovering above, like spirits in the shadowy night.

At the Intercontinental Hotel on Avenue Batelela I was given a room that faced the pool on one side and overlooked Brazzaville, Kinshasa’s twin city, on the other. After a long shower I slipped between the ironed sheets and fell asleep wondering what had happened to Ngwendu.

 

* * *

 

Two days later, Marie Madeleine picked me up in a taxi to take me to her home for lunch. The vibrancy of the crowded cité reached me as soon as the car turned onto Kasa-Vubu Avenue toward the Matongue district, where most of Kinshasa’s inhabitants lived. Unlike the people of Senegal, who were predominantly Wolofs, usually with a deep chocolate complexion and a tall lean frame, the people of Zaire were of varied shades, height, and shapes. Through the taxi’s open window, I could hear loud conversations and electrifying music. On potholed streets, the car bounced to the rhythm.

When Marie Madeleine opened her gate, a multitude of children came running to greet her. Even though it was Saturday, they wore their Sunday best. Two of the children were hers; the others were her younger brothers and sisters. She led me to her living room furnished with four chairs and a coffee table with a vase of plastic flowers on it.

A woman in her late forties sat erectly on one of the four chairs. When she saw me standing behind her daughter, she rose to shake my hand. “So this is l’Américaine,” she said, showing yellowish teeth. “My daughter is lucky to have an American friend.” She continued to study me with a strange gleam in her eyes.

Marie Madeleine turned to the children, who sat on a long bench. “Go get Huguette,” she told them.

Immediately, I saw the resemblance between the two women. “My younger sister Huguette is studying law at the university.” Pride shone in Marie Madeleine’s eyes.

Huguette wiped her hands on the wrapper tied around her waist and accepted the hand I offered. “Please excuse me,” she said, “I must go. I don’t want to burn the food.”

The children stared at me and snickered as Marie Madeleine ordered them out of the living room and announced that she was going next door to buy us drinks.

She left me with her mother who, only seconds later, leaned forward and lowered her voice in confidentiality. “Can people really find money in the streets where you come from?” The intensity in her eyes made me uncomfortable.

“There are poor people living in the United States too.”

She cast an incredulous look at me and remained silent until Marie Madeleine came back with beer and soft drinks for the children. On the other side of the living room Huguette set the dining table for her sister and me. She and her mother ate outside with the children. I was hungry and helped myself to the mashed plantain topped with a spicy meat sauce and cassava leaves.

As she cleared the table Huguette asked, “Did you enjoy the food?”

“The beef was so tasty.”

“That was monkey meat.”

“Oh!”

Marie Madeleine pushed the coffee table away and turned up the music. “This is Zaiko Langa Langa.” She started to dance, moving her forearms up and down. Her mother and sister soon joined in. The children followed. They suddenly turned to me. “Bina! Bina! Bina!” they cried, clapping their hands.

“They want you to dance,” Marie Madeleine explained.

I joined in without inhibition. Even Marie Madeleine’s mother, whom I initially thought of as sullen and stiff, loosened up.

 

* * *

 

A few days later, Marie Madeleine called me from the hotel lobby and invited me to come downstairs and have a drink with her and her friend.

As their eyes roamed the room, both women maintained fixed but friendly smiles. They wore much too much makeup.

“You should come with us to Un-Deux-Trois,” Marie Madeleine said as her eyes continued to survey the bar.

“What’s that?”

“It’s the place where Franco, our famous musician, and his band perform. Every Friday is ladies’ night.”

Moments later, the two exchanged words in Lingala then asked to be excused. “We’ll be right back,” Marie Madeleine said as she walked away, adjusting the wrapper with precise movements around her hips.

An Asian man in a dark Maoist suit stared at me intently, forcing me to look away. Very shortly, a waiter came to me and said, “That Chinese man wants to know what you’re drinking.”

In a curt voice, I responded, “Tell him nothing.”

Looking around the hotel bar, I suddenly realized that I was the only woman there. The Asian man walked up to my table and in heavily accented French asked if he could sit down.

“Excuse me?” I said in English, hoping to discourage him.

“You American?” he continued in English, as he sat down on a chair across from me. “I lonely Chinese man looking for company.” He broke into a smile that was more like a grimace, revealing brownish teeth.

“I don’t want company.”

As he stood up, his smile disappeared. It was then that I noticed he was only about four feet tall.

When she finally returned to the table, Marie Madeleine asked, “What are you thinking about?”

“I talked with the director yesterday. He said he wasn’t at the airport because he had not received my telegram.”

“You’ve been here a week, and he’s only returning your call now?” There was suspicion in her voice.

“He said he was visiting his family in Kikwit,” I told her. “He asked me why you didn’t take me to a more modest hotel.”

Marie Madeleine ordered another round of beer, then lit another cigarette. “What’s going to happen now?”

“I’m waiting to sign the contract.”

“Kinshasa is a nasty bitch. People here only get a good job when they have influential family members. You’re not even from here.” She blew out smoke. “I bet you don’t have a contract because the men in the offices are waiting for you to become so desperate you’ll do anything for a job.”

I held up a hand.

“You think I’m kidding, but that’s how it works here.”

“I don’t think you’re kidding.”

“I guess it’s not the same for you. You’re an educated foreigner with American dollars.” She puffed on her cigarette. “Anyway, I don’t understand why you left a country like the United States to come to a place where life has nothing to offer but misery, especially for women!”

The waiter brought the beer Marie Madeleine ordered. “The Asian man said to put it on his tab.”

Marie Madeleine turned her head, smiled, and winked at the Chinese man. She then poured the chilled beer into tall glasses. “Some women must swallow their pride to get or keep a job. Do you think going to Lomé to buy merchandise is enough for me to support myself, my two children, and my younger brothers and sisters?” She flicked ashes from her cigarette. “Where do you think Ana is right now?”

“I don’t know.”

“Working.”

“Working?”

“Yes, working!”

It took a second or two, but I finally understood what she meant. “I hope you girls use condoms.”

“Come to think of it,” she said abruptly, “you probably shouldn’t hang around me. The big shots in town know who I am. You don’t want them to think they can buy you the way they buy me.”

“Come on!”

It was now her turn to hold up a hand. “I know what I’m talking about.” She paused for a moment and said, “I’m leaving for Lomé again in two days. I’ll be gone a week or two. When you leave this hotel, give your address to Huguette. And by the way, you can tell the director I chose this hotel because it is where foreign people with foreign currencies come. Unless I can prove to the desk clerk that I know somebody staying here, he would want a cut from the money that I make on my back.” Suddenly she stood. “Take care of yourself,” she said, and kissed my cheeks before walking over to the Chinese man’s table. I couldn’t hear what she said to him but saw that she sat down. I wondered if I would ever see her again.

The shadow of the night swiftly settled. In its embrace, I fell into the deep sleep of a disillusioned soul.