Senegal, 1947
60. THE DAY MANSOUR WAS BORN, Kiné had a song in her head. A piano tune that traveled the full breadth of the instrument. Something like Ahmad Jamal, an artist Mansour would play for Mama many years later, but certainly not a song Kiné would ever have heard, in her village in 1947. Nonetheless, it found her, a sound she heard in her mind. It persisted as she went about her morning, squatting before the little fire she’d made for morning tea. She’d been bedridden for a couple of days and was grateful that she could get on her feet and help out Mame, the hundred-something-year-old relative who lived in the village and was hosting her birth when no one else would. Mame still ran and swam and cooked her own meals but hadn’t spoken a word since the passing of her daughter some thirty years before. As Kiné observed the woman, she began to admire the freedom that her muteness had begotten: the way she was and wasn’t in the world.
Even before she was shamed for her pregnancy, Kiné often thought of disappearing. Not in the way of dying, of disappearing forever, but in the way of merging with her twin. She had early memories of playing a hiding game with neighborhood children and never losing because she pretended to be the other.
“If they catch you, just say you’re me,” her sister would say, and so when Kiné was caught, which didn’t take long, Kiné would give Mama’s name and keep playing. Kiné never took her own beatings or made her own friends. And as she matured, she was unsettled by the truth that certain features distinguished her. She had a beautiful singing voice and a calm, easy manner that made her more popular with boys, and, by and by, without any effort, Kiné eased into the spotlight. Mama, who was surprised but not resentful, embraced the new distance between them, but Kiné couldn’t cope with her independence. She needed her twin, needed the comfort of becoming her. Kiné began to suffer.
That’s when her fantasies about dying began. Soft, calming thoughts, far more soothing than sleep. They called her away from the house. Called her to trail off at night. Called her to come barefoot, to come alone, to the cool, quiet desert where the sand was dense and faultless. Called her to the fetid edge of the bush, where the entangled, thorny vines and the cracked shells of freshly devoured birds warned her that she’d arrived. And then there was her summoner: a tall lion, a pride male, approaching her through the sandy wind. His large head moved in a circle, and the wind spread open his mane, making his head alone nearly the scale of her body. He spoke in her mind, a whisper, the way he’d done every time before, telling her to come closer. She listened. The bush was tingling, her hands were tingling, the sand at her feet felt like pins. And then she heard the song—the Ahmad Jamal melody. It dizzied her, tickling her up and down like a feather was being dragged from her forehead to her soles, a gentle seizure that made the desert night turn green.
When she awoke from swooning, the lion was smiling like a dog; his eyes revealed his youth. He was guarding her, resting at her feet.
Kiné’s family soon sought the help of the Marabout. He had medicine, but his medicine was not pure. He could take away illnesses, but he could not destroy them. He could only transfer them to a different vessel, so he placed them, without her knowledge, into her womb. There was no child at the time, but the darkness was patient.
About a year later, like a cloud, made dark as earth by holding in a year of rain and needing to release itself, the darkness forced its vessel, Mansour, into the world two months before he was due. As she stood at the stream gathering water for Mame’s bath, Kiné heard the song again. She collapsed and wailed as the child entered the world. Kiné’s darkness—which Mansour would learn to call seizures—entered the world with him.
After washing Mansour one day in the stream, Kiné and Mama started back to Mame’s. Kiné stumbled, her legs weak, struggling to walk under the blazing sun. The heat was visible: a thick white haze in the air like a laser. It gave the world a violent, crackling brightness that made Kiné want to close her eyes.
“Take him,” she said, holding up Mansour’s bright-red body as she struggled to stay on her feet. Mama carried the baby home.
Kiné tried to leave Mansour with Mama as much as she could, but Mama started to catch on.
“Kiné Ndoye! Is this not your child?”
Mame snapped her fingers all day and night, pointing toward the baby, whom Kiné, overwhelmed by his presence, tended to leave on the tables and stools like a pillow.
Mama laughed. “Ay Kiné!”
When the child cried, the sound was in tune and sort of pleasant. It was a cry like a howl, solemn and steady. A sound that you could sleep through if you tried hard enough. The rooms stayed dark and cool, but Mama always woke up covered in sweat, rushing to him. Sometimes, for a moment she’d stare up at the intricate pattern of the woven grass ceiling, waiting and hoping that Kiné would stir, but she never did.
Mame wanted Mama to step back and let Kiné care for her own child. But Mama knew that Kiné needed the help. Mama held a sleeping Mansour to her chest as the old woman walked in the direction of her room and gave a glance that beckoned Mama to follow. Once inside, Mame untied a knot of black cloth to reveal a small calabash. Mama sat on the edge of the mat in the center of the room, respectfully. Mame took the contents of the calabash out and placed them on the ground beside her one by one. The last thing she pulled was a small linen pouch. It was white but had oxidized over many years to a pale yellow, and when Mama went to open it, Mame shook her finger no. The old woman helped Mama put Mansour down and grabbed both of Mama’s hands into her own, a firm, strong hold, and shook them.
She pointed to Mama’s chest. You, she mimed. Take this. She put the pouch in Mama’s hands and held them closed. Be free. She threw her hand up into the air, and Mama was stunned by the quicksilver sparkle that flickered in the woman’s eyes.