Chapter 16

The river can stop you from crossing

but can’t prevent you from turning around.

—Haitian proverb

My heart somersaulted when Bolingo turned the key in the lock. I greeted him at the door, eager to tell him what I had to say, afraid that seeing him might make me reconsider.

“How are you feeling?” he asked, kissing my forehead.

“I’m fine,” I said and followed him to the bedroom.

The smell of his cologne and the sight of his broad shoulders made my decision even more difficult. After a moment of deliberation, I told him we had to talk.

“We don’t have much time,” he said, glancing at his watch. “Don’t we have to meet Pépé and Antoine soon?”

I composed a stern look on my face to let him know I meant business. “I won’t be long.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “I’ve thought about my life as a second wife and decided I can’t do it,” I blurted out.

Hurt registered on his face. He slipped his arms into a polo shirt, and gazed at me with a tightened jaw as impatience shone in his eyes. “Why is it so difficult for you to make a decision and stick to it?”

“This time my mind is made up.”

We walked out of the apartment and waited for the elevator in total silence. I watched him from the corner of my eye as the elevator descended. He stared straight ahead at the red light illuminating each floor number as if it were an object of great interest.

At the restaurant I tried to focus on the conversation around the table, but the words were like a distracting noise to me. Bolingo, Antoine, and Pépé talked about the new influx of African immigrants to New York City, and I thought of what Bolingo and I had said to each other and what remained to be said.

“Isn’t that true, Iris?” I heard Pépé say.

“Yes, of course,” I answered in a distant voice. A forced smile flashed across my face.

“What’s the matter?” Pépé asked, and the two men turned to look at me.

“I’m fine, really. Just a bit tired.”

I held back the tears that frequently came to my eyes lately. The others went on with their conversation. Though furious that Bolingo looked relaxed, I had to admit I found his calm and his ability not to display emotions admirable.

 

* * *

 

Exhausted from the strain of emotions, I went to bed as soon as we returned to the apartment. When I awoke, Bolingo was in the living room, talking on the phone. The puffiness underneath his eyes suggested he had slept little.

“How are you?” he asked, putting the phone back in its cradle. The ticket on top of the open Yellow Pages made me realize he had been talking to an airline agent. “Let me have your parents’ phone number again. I want to say goodbye and thank them for their hospitality.” There was no trace of anger in his voice. As he wrote down the number, the door buzzed from downstairs. “It’s the driver,” he said. “Tell him I’m coming down.”

The ambassador of the mission usually put his driver at Bolingo’s disposal, so I thought he was going to a meeting or to run an errand. But as I reached for the intercom, I saw his suitcase in front of the door.

“You’re leaving now?”

His skin glowed under the patch of soft sunlight coming through the window. He looked at me hard with eyes filled with hurt and disappointment. “I’m leaving for Brussels late this afternoon. I want to go shopping before my flight.”

My knees weakened when he hugged me at the door. I watched him walk away in his confident stride, listening to his footsteps down the hall. Feeling empty after his sudden departure, I looked in the closets and drawers to find something he might have left behind, something that belonged to him that I could feel or smell. I finally came to terms with the fact that the only thing left behind was the life growing inside me. A bird landed on the windowsill. Our eyes met, and it flew away.

 

* * *

 

I agreed to meet Paul for lunch. It is true that we didn’t agree on the issue of Africa, but I still thought of him as a friend. I remembered the movies, the plays, the concerts, the conversations, and the walks in Central Park.

He waved at me from a table in the back of the restaurant, decorated with paintings of boats and fishing scenes. He turned red and his mouth dropped when I got closer to him. He stood up to greet me, looking like he was waking up from a nightmare.

“Look at you!” he said, hugging me lightly.

“How are you doing?” I asked, taking the seat across from him.

“I’m up for a big promotion soon, so I’m working my butt off.”

“Good for you!”

“How about a lobster?” he proposed when the waiter came to the table.

I welcomed the suggestion and ordered a garden salad as well.

Paul stared at my bare ring finger. “So, are you married?” he asked with a sarcastic smile.

I shook my head.

“Then how come you’re in the family way?”

The waiter approached and momentarily saved me from the awkward question. I smiled politely, dipped a chunk of lobster tail in melted butter. “You don’t need me to tell you about the birds and the bees,” I said, feeling uncomfortable.

He took a sip of bottled water and peered at me. “If this is what you went to Africa for, I could have managed.” There was resentment in his voice. “Is the father some wild African who got you back to your roots?” he asked after a brief silence, his deep blue eyes still set on me.

“There’s no need for name calling,” I replied, wiping my fingers with a napkin.

“I didn’t mean to offend you,” he apologized. “I picked up a copy of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness after you left for Zaire. I wanted to have an idea of the place where you were living.”

“And?”

“It’s hard for me to imagine you among those savages.”

“Kinshasa is a city,” I said, piqued. “Besides, Africa is stereotyped in that book.”

“Perhaps. But the character named Kurtz makes it clear that one can become a savage living among them.”

“You’re missing the point. According to that book, Africans are irrational and violent,” I said, clearly annoyed, “which is not at all true, not from my experience anyway.”

He raised his shoulders. “I’m sure there are exceptions.”

“Is that book your only reference?”

He offered no answer.

“What do you have against Africa?” I asked, looking at him with fiery eyes.

“Nothing.” He reached for my hand across the table. “I’ve thought about you often and always hoped that you would one day admit leaving was a mistake.” Leaning closer to me, he continued, “It’s not too late, you know. I will take you back even with someone else’s child.”

“Thanks for your generous offer. But it is too late. I’m in love with the baby’s father.”

He arched his eyebrows. “Why didn’t he marry you?”

I imagined Paul’s reaction if I were to tell him about Bolingo’s proposal to become a second wife. “We are getting married,” I said, then felt guilty for lying.

“Then there’s nothing left for me to say.” He signaled for the check.

 

* * *

 

Days later, I sat in Latham’s loft, watching him set the table for dinner. “Margaret says you’re going to have the baby here,” he said.

“I’ve changed my mind.”

“Is that so?”

“I miss Kinshasa.”

“You miss Bolingo!”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

“I usually tell people I never married because being a vieux garçon helps me keep the exciting freedom of youth,” he said, serving coq au vin over noodles. “But the reason is because of a disappointment. I was in love with a woman who married someone else.” He filled his glass with red Bordeaux. “The worst part is that I had no idea there was someone else in her life.” He ate a mouthful of noodles. “She just sent me a letter one day, saying she was getting married in a month and that we should stop seeing each other.”

“Who was she?”

“An African girl I met in Paris.”

“From what country?”

“Gabon.” He sipped from his glass. “Sometimes love hurts more than it brings happiness,” he concluded.

“I couldn’t agree more.”

“I haven’t been in a serious relationship since.” His confession was a surprise, and I wanted to hear more about it. But he said nothing else.

I was drawn toward a nearly completed portrait of a woman, whose features suggested a quiet strength of character. Her ebony eyes were a sea of unspoken miseries; her smile, though timid, accentuated her high cheekbones. I looked at the painting with growing intensity and thought of the photograph on my night table back in Kinshasa.

“She looks divine,” I said to Latham, who had come to stand next to me.

“I’ve wanted to paint Hagathe that way since the day I heard she passed away. That’s going to be my gift to you when you become a mother.”