Chapter 9

Let every bird sing its own note.

It is hard to get two heads under one hat.

All bread is not baked in one oven.

All feet cannot wear one shoe.

—Proverbs

I hadn’t heard from Bolingo since his driver had picked us up at the airport a week ago and taken me back to my villa. A pervasive anxiety took hold of me while I struggled with my desire to dial his number. I remembered Mom used to tell me to read the Bible to find strength in moments of distress. Even though we didn’t live a religious life, the Holy Book was respected in our home. However, in this moment of uncertainty, this is the prayer that emerged in my mind.

 

Forgive me, Lord.

I want to call, see, smell, and feel him.

Pardon me, Lord.

I want to sin, ignore, forget, and forgive him.

Thank you, Lord.

I will not call, see, smell, and feel him.

Please, Lord, stay near and comfort me.

 

My anxiety escalated as I imagined someone had found out about Bolingo’s party and had turned him in to the maréchal, who conveniently arranged his disappearance. I watched the news on television, listened to the radio, and read the newspapers. Nothing about Bolingo. Then it occurred to me that if the maréchal had done something to him, it would never be breaking news. He would just disappear, and no one would ever know what happened. I stared at the lawn. Its thirst for rain reminded me of Bolingo’s absence from my life. Caught in the maze of moments we had shared, I felt like a fish on shore, waiting for the waves of a rising tide. I hoped for the healing that would bring me salvation and take away the sadness engulfing my heart. The times we spent together continued to occupy my mind. The memories of each instance seemed greater and more sublime than the actual moments themselves. I feared the time when those memories would become a figment of my imagination, too distant to resemble reality. My distress turned into restlessness. To avoid the cloister of my thoughts, I walked around the residential streets of Limété. The flaming color of flamboyant trees and the sight of children playing in front of their villas brought life to my heart.

“Mundele! Mundele!” cried a boy no more than six years old, pointing at me. He was calling me a white woman, probably because I had on jeans, a T-shirt, and sneakers. The maréchal’s brainwashing process was at work.

Someone shouted my name, waved an arm, and a taxi came to a stop. A tall, slender woman stepped out.

“Marie Madeleine!”

“Eh! Mama! I thought I’d never see you again.” She kissed me on the cheeks. “Where are you off to?”

“Just taking a walk. I don’t live far from here. Would you like to come over?”

“Why not? I was going to visit my uncle. But I don’t even know if he’s home,” Marie Madeleine said, adjusting her wrapper.

I opened the door to my villa and invited her in.

“Mama nangai!” Marie Madeleine cried out. “This is a very nice place.”

“Let’s sit on the veranda. It’s warm inside.”

She ran her fingers through her loose braids. “Things worked out with this dancing job?”

I told her about Bolingo’s secretary “losing” my messages and delaying the start of the dance job.

“Mama-é-é!” she cried when I finished my story.

“Would you like something to eat?”

“In a little while.”

“Would you like a drink?”

“How about some palm wine?” she asked, kicking off her shoes.

“I don’t know what that is.”

“You can’t be in Africa and not know what palm wine is. I’m sure your servant knows where to find some.” She put her shoes back on, followed me to the kitchen where the servant was washing vegetables and humming a tune from a top ten album.

 

Mama siba ngai

sinon je vais

rater mon avion . . .

 

Marie Madeleine cleared her throat. “Mbote, papa. Ozali malamu?”

He returned her greeting, and she asked him to get us some palm wine.

“I went to your house after I moved here,” I said, sitting back down on the veranda. “I saw your mother at the gate. She started yelling at me in Lingala. I was too scared to go back.”

“I’m sorry. I should have told you she’s sick.”

“What’s wrong with her?”

“I was born when she was fourteen, and my sister Huguette five years later. She eventually married the man who is now her husband.” Marie Madeleine lit a cigarette. “My mother found out the same day she gave birth to their first child together that only a day earlier he had a child by another wife. The worst thing is that she didn’t even know there was another woman.” She puffed on the cigarette. “My mother jumped out of bed in a fit, wailing. She tore her nightgown to shreds, threw herself to the ground. From that day on, her husband makes sure she gets pregnant every year. She goes crazy for two or three months after giving birth and is aggressive to any woman who isn’t immediate family.”

The servant returned with the palm wine and poured two glasses. Marie Madeleine raised her glass. “Chin-chin. It’s good to see you again.” We drank in silence for a while. “When she gets crazy like that, he spends extra time making love to her to keep her calm, or maybe it’s because people of his tribe believe sleeping with crazy women brings good luck and good fortune to a man.” Marie Madeleine sighed, then went on with her story: “He hardly gives her money. As the oldest, I have to support her, her children, and my own. Now you know why I sleep with men for money.” She smashed the cigarette butt in an ashtray.

I looked at her with feelings of both condemnation and understanding. “Maybe your mother should be on medication,” I suggested for lack of anything better to say.

Marie Madeleine waved a hand, dropped her shoulders. “The first time she lost her mind was around the time my children’s father left me.”

“What’s the story with him?”

“He was a medical student when we were together. As soon as he finished his studies and started making money, he married a woman from a better family and forgot about us.”

“Where is he now?”

“Last thing I heard, he was in the Shaba region. But luckily I have Ana,” she said and smiled.

“Ana?”

“My friend who came to the Intercontinental Hotel with me.”

The palm wine gourd was now empty. The servant served us white rice and chicken cooked in a peanut butter sauce. Marie Madeleine was in a better mood after she ate, and she asked me if I wanted to go dancing.

“Tonight?”

“Now.”

“It’s only four thirty in the afternoon.”

“Here in Kinshasa we dance twenty-four hours a day.”

 

* * *

 

The owner of the nganda, a hefty woman with beady eyes, was good at manipulating men to buy jewelry and the other goods she sold. Her older sister was the cook; her two daughters were waitresses; her son was in charge of the music. Lower-class diamond traffickers, men who bought and sold foreign currencies on the black market, met at the nganda, alongside poor women looking for men with some money to spare to help feed their children. They gathered in a room decorated with pictures of the maréchal holding a chief’s cane. Glued to their destiny, the leader of the nation hovered over their heads with the treacherous eyes of a leopard, watching them get drunk with local beer, palm wine, and the sounds of soukous.

Proud to have an American in her “home,” the owner sat with us. She had a beer with us while keeping a close watch on the shoe box that served as cash register. “Do you know Muhammad Ali?” she wanted to know.

I shook my head.

“What about George Foreman?”

She seemed disappointed that I didn’t and went to sit at another table. Marie Madeleine and I soon joined in with the dancing crowd.

“Ep-a-a!” She rhythmically clapped her hands, encouraging me to move to the beat of a frantic soukous. “Miri, miri, miri, miri! Asanga té! Asanga té!” she exclaimed as I executed Kinshasa’s latest dance. Feet firm on the ground, my hips moved in a circular motion, going down as far as I could, then back up again.

I left the nganda happy to have gotten out of my house for a bit, to have had some fun, and to have seen Marie Madeleine again.

 

* * *

 

An early-morning storm woke me from deep sleep. My body yearned for Bolingo’s touch, craved the inner bliss he provided. I listened to the screeches of passing cars, tried not to succumb to the desire to call him. I finally put the words that floated in my mind on paper.

 

Dearest Darling,

I watch crystal raindrops beat against my bedroom window. I close my eyes to better listen to the murmur of rain and the splashing sound of cars. I long to lie next to you, to feel your protective arms around me. I watch the rain and hope the sun is on its way.

 

I miss you,

Iris

 

I asked the servant to take the note to Bolingo, insisting that he deliver it to him personally. “If he’s in a meeting, just wait for him. Here’s the cab fare,” I said, even though he never took cabs. He didn’t mind riding crowded buses and preferred to pocket the difference. Soon after I returned to my bedroom, I changed my mind about sending the note. But the servant was already gone.

About an hour later, the phone rang. “Allô, oui.”

“Bonjour, Iris. I tried calling you last night. I finally gave up a little before nine. Were you with Amba?”

Hearing his voice again made my heart jump, but I tried to contain my happiness. “I went dancing with my friend Marie Madeleine.”

“I wish you would be more careful with the friends you make here.”

“I’m a big girl, remember?”

“Whatever you say. Can we have dinner tonight?”

A ray of sun penetrated through the window, bringing warmth to the bedroom and to my heart. “I’ll be ready,” I said, showing more eagerness than I intended, forgetting to ask him why he hadn’t called in so many days.

 

* * *

 

“Why do you always reserve the same table?” I asked Bolingo, looking for something on the menu I hadn’t tried.

“I like the sound of water from the grotto. It reminds me of your voice, Mama Nzari.”

“You haven’t called me Mama Nzari in a while.”

He raised his eyes from the menu. “Because you keep slipping through my fingers.”

“What have you been doing since we came back from Paris?”

“Following up on my plan to send students to France. I’m serious about having them learn about the French Revolution,” he said, smiling. “But I have something important to discuss with you.”

The waiter approached the table and the conversation stopped. Two members of the government stopped at our table, and Bolingo invited them to join us.

“So, this is our sister from America,” one of them said.

“I hope you’re enjoying being in our country,” said the other.

As I wondered how they knew about me, the waiter returned to take their orders. They spoke to Bolingo about the last cabinet meeting in a coded language. I gave up trying to figure out what they were saying. But the conversation became interesting when the man in black said the maréchal’s two wives weren’t getting along these days and that he had heard them fight.

“He has two wives?” I asked, raising my eyebrows.

“Twin sisters,” said Bolingo.

“Twin sisters!”

“The Ngbandis believe a man with means must marry the widow of a close relative, to make sure she’s cared for. Bobbi is the official wife. Her twin sister was first married to the maréchal’s uncle.”

“What’s unusual,” said the man in beige, “is that she was the maréchal’s lover while married to the uncle.”

“He loves Bobbi so much he can’t resist anybody who looks like her,” the man in black said, bringing laughter to the table.

“The maréchal was married to Marie-Antoinette when Bobbi became his deuxième bureau,” Bolingo said. “They had four kids together before Marie-Antoinette died.”

“How did she die?” I asked, increasingly interested in this family.

“He literally killed her,” the man in beige said. “When Marie-Antoinette heard Bobbi had lost a child, she and her friends celebrated with champagne and music. The maréchal got angry and beat her so hard that she started spitting blood. He rushed her to a hospital in Switzerland, but she didn’t survive.”

My fascination with the maréchal and his women turned into horror. “How long did he wait before he officially married Bobbi?”

“I’m not sure,” the man in black said. “His family had someone else in mind for him, but he wanted Bobbi.”

“Why didn’t the family want her?” My curiosity was on the rise again.

“They were afraid of her strong character,” the man in beige explained.

“I think they were mostly afraid of her because she’s a twin. Twins are supposedly natural sorcerers,” Bolingo added. “Anyway, people say the woman his family chose suddenly went blind. They took her to Europe to be treated. She regained her sight, but when she returned home, the maréchal was officially married to Bobbi.”

Changing the subject, the man in black asked Bolingo if he was ready for his trip to China.

“What difference does it make?” Bolingo said. “Ready or not, I have to go.”

I thought that must have been what he wanted to tell me.

“Where did the maréchal get the idea of taking the whole cabinet with him every time he leaves the country?” the man in black asked, burying a spoon in crème brûlée.

“I really don’t know,” the other said, “but it’s probably to make sure no one stages a coup d’état in his absence.”

The three men laughed. But I didn’t find the situation amusing. I watched Bolingo laugh with them, awed that he could so easily live the double life of a government official and an underground opposition leader. An inflamed awareness of the dangerous life that was his seized me. In order not to betray the emotions that rose inside me, I decided to join in the conversation again.

“Is this your first trip to China?” I asked Bolingo.

“I was there in 1980 when the two countries signed a cultural agreement,” he said. “I was new at my post then.”

As we enjoyed a cognac after the meal, one of the two men lit a pipe. The smell of the smoke, though different from Lamercie’s, took me back to Monn Nèg, and I wished I knew the name of the village where Nlunda a Kinkulu came from. But all I knew was that she spoke Kikongo.

“Where is the Kikongo language spoken?” I asked.

“In the western part of the country, the Bakongo,” Bolingo replied. “That’s where my mother’s family is from.”

“It is also spoken in Congo-Brazzaville and in Angola,” the man smoking the pipe commented.

Their answers made it clear that there was no hope of finding my ancestral roots. The waitress brought the check and we left. As Bolingo drove away from Gombé to the suburb of Limété, I asked him why he had stayed away from me.

“I thought you wanted space.”

“Why do you say that?”

“That was how I interpreted your behavior.”

“It’s just my way of dealing with pain.”

“You mean a lot to me. Don’t ever forget that.”

Back in my villa, I rubbed away the tension in Bolingo’s shoulders, happy to smell, see, touch, and hear him again. A burgeoning hope infused me with a burst of anticipation for better days.