Chapter 10

Hang your hat where you can reach for it.

—Haitian proverb

I sat in the backseat of Ana’s burgundy Renault, whose engine spewed smoke. She and Marie Madeleine were on their way to collect money from clients, and I went along for the ride. We visited the homes of women who bought on credit fancy cloth, shoes, and eau de toilette that they couldn’t afford. Each one had an excuse for not paying her debt, and each one promised to come up with the money by the following month. When we reached the fifth house, a petite woman, whose generous smile revealed a gap between her upper front teeth, welcomed us. Her name was Solange, and just like the other women, she could not pay her debt. Her husband, she said, didn’t give her the money he had promised her.

Moments after Solange left to buy drinks, an older, sturdier woman came into the living room holding a toddler. She was an imposing presence and not only because of her height. There was something about her that commanded respect. It was her erect posture, her raised chin, and her piercing eyes.

Marie Madeleine’s face lit up when she saw her. “Auntie! What are you doing here?”

“I came to see my nephew,” the older woman said, smiling at the child she was holding. “This is your brother, your stepfather’s child. And she is the mother,” she added, pointing to Solange, who had returned to the living room, carrying a tray of beer and soft drinks.

As she stood up, Marie Madeleine’s eyes widened. Her hands clasped on her hips, she spoke in an angry voice: “So you’re the bitch who’s making my mother’s life miserable. I’m the one who’s got to support her and her children, you know.”

“How dare you insult me in my own house?” Solange exclaimed. “Mama e-e-e-e-e!” she screamed, raising her arms. “Since earth became earth, no one has heard such a thing.”

“My mother can’t even feed her children,” Marie Madeleine went on, speaking as loudly as Solange, who looked at her defiantly.

“Do you think I have an easy time with mine, huh?” Solange said.

Moving quickly to stand between the two women, Ana quietly beseeched, “Calm down. Yelling at each other isn’t going to solve the problem.”

I slouched in my chair, wondering how far the argument would go. The woman Marie Madeleine called Auntie rocked the baby as she watched and listened, then slowly undid the cloth on her head and used it to tie the toddler to her back. “Sit down, both of you,” she ordered. “You’re making fools of yourselves.” Catching her breath, she continued, “Let’s face it. Most of our men will never have just one woman.” She wiped her forehead with a bare hand. “I don’t understand all the talk about authenticity when you’re not willing to live the way our ancestors did.”

“You spoke very well, Auntie,” said a woman standing at the threshold of the door, leaning on its frame. Her bleached skin left reddish spots on her face that was three shades lighter than the rest of her body.

Solange introduced her as her younger sister.

“You’re the dance teacher from America!” she exclaimed when she heard my name. “I’m sorry I was transferred out of Citoyen Bolingo’s office before we had a chance to meet.”

Marie Madeleine cast a knowing look at me, while Solange played a cassette on a boom box. As she served us drinks, the sounds of electric guitars and bouncing bass lines vibrated in the room. Marie Madeleine’s auntie started dancing with the toddler on her back. She pulled Marie Madeleine up from her chair, inviting her to join in. Their upper bodies bounced as they repeatedly moved one foot to the side then brought the other close to it.

 

L’argent appelle l’argent.

Mbongo esengi mbongo.

 

Money draws money. They sang the French and Lingala lines from the song that told the story of a man who needed to borrow money, but the bank told him they couldn’t give him a loan because he had no money.

 

* * *

 

Usually I drove to the institute, but that morning I had taken my car to get a tune-up. While I waited for a taxi, two men dressed in olive-green army uniforms stood a few feet away. One of them was short and stout, the other tall and skinny. Their uniforms had holes and looked like they couldn’t stand another washing.

“Citoyenne, yaka wa,” the tall one said.

I knew enough Lingala to understand he had asked me to come here. They looked me up and down with stern faces as I approached them; the foul smell of stale perspiration made me want to step back.

“Don’t you know women aren’t supposed to wear pants in this country? Are you defying authenticity?” The short man moved closer to me as he spoke.

I realized only then that I had on jeans and that I had forgotten I was going to take a cab when I got dressed. Otherwise, I would have worn a dress or a skirt to avoid this kind of complication.

“I’m not Zairian,” I told them in French. “I’m American.”

“Your papers!” the tall one cried out.

I happily took out the navy-blue booklet from the bottom of my bag, handed it over. I smiled when I saw they were holding it upside down. The smile, however, disappeared from my face when the short one asked me how much money I was going to give them.

“Money for what?”

“For beer,” the same one answered.

“I’m not giving you a cent.”

“Come with us then!” the other one ordered.

“No problem. But you’re going to regret this,” I managed to say in a neutral voice, recalling Marie Madeleine’s kaponaj the night we arrived at the airport.

They spoke to each other in Lingala, but I couldn’t understand most of what they were saying because they talked too fast. As their voices grew louder, I gathered they were arguing over what to do with me. Arms crossed over my chest, I waited for them to come to a consensus and tried to collect enough nerve to tell them I was Citoyen Bolingo’s wife. But I didn’t have Marie Madeleine’s guts.

“Mademoiselle Odys!” called a voice.

Three of my students walked up to the scene. Once I told them what was going on, they confirmed that I wasn’t Zairian. Still, the soldiers wanted beer money.

“Give them ten zaires,” one of the students pleaded.

“I will do no such thing,” I said, even though the sum was only the equivalent of two dollars.

“Give them the money,” another one insisted. “It’s not worth the trouble.”

I stubbornly shook my head.

The three young women searched their bags. Together they came up with eight zaires that they gave to the men, who smiled and returned my passport. I paid the students back and told them they shouldn’t encourage corruption.

“We’re not encouraging anything,” one of them explained. “It’s better to avoid unnecessary trouble.”

Now that I think about it, she was right. After all, it would take a lot more to change the way people thought or acted in a country where the olive-green uniform meant power over civilians, just like the blue denim did for Dieudonné and the other Tonton Macoutes of Haiti.

 

* * *

 

The humidity was unbearable on that particular morning. The merciless golden sunrays penetrated our skin. We assembled in the auditorium, where there was not even the slightest breeze. Students fanned themselves with newspapers, pieces of cardboard, colorful wicker fans, or whatever else they could use for relief from the heat. Two hours earlier, I had asked Ngwendu if we could postpone the rehearsal until the weather was less humid. “There are only two weeks left until the performance,” he had said. “I must make sure that it is appropriate for the maréchal to see. If it’s not, you will have enough time to make adjustments.”

When he showed up in the stuffy auditorium at exactly eleven o’clock, the dancers reluctantly left their seats to assume their positions backstage.

When the music began, the dancers and musicians felt each other’s energy and immediately forgot the heat, proving that they were dedicated artists. The director sat next to me, motionless, totally absorbed in the magic of the music and the dancers’ movements.

“Mon Dieu!” he exclaimed. “I’m so impressed. Imagine how much greater the impact will be with complete décor and lighting.”

Concerned that the dancers were dehydrated, I couldn’t bask in the glory of his words and excused myself to distribute the water, oranges, and bananas that I had bought to replenish the carbohydrates and electrolytes they had lost while performing in the punishing heat.

 

* * *

 

When I recognized Amba’s voice on the other line, I tried to hide my disappointment. I was hoping the call would be from Bolingo, who had traveled to China the week before.

“Oh, you’re home. That’s good,” she said, ignoring my greeting. “I’ve been delegated to fulfill an important duty.”

“What is it?”

“I can’t tell you right now. I’m coming over in about an hour with two important guests.”

“The general and your fiancé?” I joked.

Amba had told me some time ago that her aunt had arranged a marriage for her with someone from her hometown. A medical student in Rome, her fiancé planned to return home in a year to start a practice and marry her. But that had not stopped her from seeing the general.

“Don’t be silly,” she said in an authoritative voice I didn’t recognize. “Be on your best behavior,” she added, and hung up before I could say anything more.

The sun had set, and a cool breeze had chased the heat away. Amba arrived with Ngwendu and a man in his sixties who reminded me of Bolingo, though a few inches shorter. He turned out to be his uncle.

Confused by his presence in my home, I led them to the living room and invited them to sit. “Can I offer you something to drink?” I asked, after a moment of silence and smiles. The director held up a hand. As for Bolingo’s uncle, I wasn’t sure that he had heard my question since he didn’t react.

After small talk about the weather, Bolingo’s uncle spoke. “I’m sorry to have to talk to you directly and not to a member of your family, as I should. Since you’re not from here, we have to do things differently.” He studied me as he spoke, and I wondered where his words were leading.

He took three kola nuts and a bottle of palm wine out of a brown bag. Amba returned from the kitchen with four glasses. The uncle ceremoniously broke a kola nut, gave a piece to the director, one to Amba, one to me. He kept the last for himself. We chewed on the bitter nut and sipped palm wine without talking. Then he suddenly turned to Ngwendu. “Citoyen, since you represent Mademoiselle Odys’s family here, I’m here to tell you one of my roosters saw a chicken with the most beautiful feathers in your yard. He has asked me to talk to you so you can close the gate and keep other roosters away.” Amba and the director nodded as he spoke. “My rooster needs your chicken; such is the law of nature and of our ancestors.”

Then it was Ngwendu’s turn to speak. “Mademoiselle Odys, Citoyen Bolingo has asked me and your friend to represent your family,” he explained. “The woman is not usually present at this kind of meeting, but Citoyen Bolingo said you had to be, given that you’re not from here and everything.”

“My nephew is a man of honor. He will fulfill his duties toward you and your family, I assure you. If he fails to be correct, he will shame the whole clan. We won’t let that happen.”

“Citoyen,” Ngwendu said. “As you know, the chicken belongs to a family in a faraway place. We have to wait until your nephew can personally go to them to make the commitment final.”

“I understand that,” Bolingo’s uncle said. “We also need to know Mademoiselle Odys’s customs so we can conform.” He stood up, formally bowed before me. “We will leave you with your friend now.”

 

* * *

 

“I knew Citoyen Bolingo had good intentions,” Amba said, watching the car drive off. “You’re happy now?”

“I don’t know,” I replied. “This is so sudden. I need to let it sink in before I can say anything.”

“What do you have to eat?”

I took a bowl of tuna salad from the refrigerator and placed it on the coffee table, along with some crackers. “Why didn’t the man just tell me what he had to say, instead of all the talk about a rooster and a chicken?”

“We speak like that.” Amba put some of the tuna salad on a plate. “Now, if you agree to become Bolingo’s wife, you’ll have to invite his family over for dinner. That’s the second step.”

I handed a glass of beer to Amba. “What happens next?”

“The family comes back with the dowry and there is a reception.” She took a sip from her glass. “They’ll bring money, a goat, jewelry, and palm wine. Some rich men nowadays may even buy a house for the woman’s family.”

“I thought the woman’s family is supposed to give a dowry.”

“Not in our culture,” Amba said. “When a woman is married, she belongs to her husband’s family. The dowry is to say thank you for the good daughter they raised.”

“How come Bolingo never said anything about any of this?”

“He told me he was going to talk to you about it the night before he left for China. But I guess he changed his mind.”