Mami walks through Dalston market. The bright colors of the fruit and veg bowls contrast against the gray, brooding sky above. Bodies pass by her, to the left and to the right, as if she is walking through a forest of trees. The cacophony of market traders booms in the background like a familiar symphony orchestra; “Come an’ ’ave a look please” and “Poun’ a bowl, poun’ a bowl,” in G major, the most popular pieces. Mami carries a bag of makemba, frozen pondu, makayabu, and kwanga, which she will prepare later in the evening. She places them all in a granny cart; her hands tremble far too often now for her to carry the bags in between her fingers the way she used to.
Mami finishes her shopping and makes her way to the aboveground station, Dalston Kingsland. The next train will arrive in four minutes. She struggles with the weight of the granny cart down the steps. A multitude of people rush past her, until a young Black boy in gray tracksuit bottoms and a hooded sweatshirt approaches her and says, “Aunty, can I help you?” Mami smiles at him. His familiar face brings a sadness to her heart. He carries the granny cart to the bottom of the steps and waits with it until she arrives. Mami thanks him profusely, “God bless you, dear. God bless you.” The young Black boy skips back up, taking two or three steps at a time, feet light like a gazelle’s.
Mami arrives home, unloads the shopping, and starts cooking right away while listening to Congolese gospel; “Tata Nzambe, sali sa biso, Tata Nzambe, sali sa biso, na ba mpasi oyo, toko monoka.” She still makes the same portion of food, enough for many mouths, yet she eats alone. She sits down to watch her favorite evening soap operas, cursing at the television, at the young man who is cheating on his wife to be with her best friend, a familiar storyline. The night comes slowly and quietly. Mami first falls asleep on the sofa, head leaning back, mouth wide open and snoring from the fatigue of having to survive another long week. She wakes in the middle of the night and goes to her bedroom, where she will have another restless night, tossing and turning. The sleeplessness brings back the terrors she thought she escaped; in the darkness she sees, hears the screams of strangers, the sounds of the crack of bones on pavement and the tanks rolling over them, of bullets ricocheting, empty shells lying on the road like fallen leaves, or pebbles on the beach, shining like the gifts that we keep, of babies crying to the background of violent winds, violent rains, violence, trees swaying against a blazing sky—it passes by until it all falls down, down, down, into the immutable silence.
Mami wakes up, bones heavy as bricks. She pulls the curtains open, letting the light break through. She has been falling asleep more and more during the day; some days not getting out of bed at all. No matter how bright it is outside, the lifeless gloom in the apartment remains the same; and has been the same, ever since Michael left. Mami tries not to think of him. She’s placed every framed photo of him in the apartment facedown, preparing her heart for the news she knows she will not be able to take. “Don’t worry. He’s a young man, he needs time to figure things out. It’ll be fine.” Others tell her this, but Mami remains unconvinced; her gut stirs and stirs knowing it is something more, something deeper. She’s received his letters; she keeps them in a drawer beside her bed. The last letter read:
Mami,
This is the last letter I will send you.
I’m writing to say I’m sorry. I’m sorry for all the pain that I have caused you. For not seeing sooner, how much you had to sacrifice for me, just so that I could have at least the little bit that I had. I did not see your struggle. I did not think about how it must have felt, night after night, to worry about so many things, and then to add me on top of it.
I never ever intended to cause you pain. I just need you to know this. I was simply looking for a way to get some quiet, some peace. And it hurts me that even now, I am hurting you, but there’s nothing else I can do. What’s done cannot be undone. But I will forever be grateful to you for everything; I hope I did not disappoint you. I hope you can still find space for me in your heart. And that one day, we’ll meet again.
With Love,
Your Son,
Michael
But all of this only accentuates her pain, only makes her stomach feel as though it is swimming in acid. This is a dizzying test of her faith, as though she were placed on top of a tower and forced to jump by someone who told her that if she believed enough, she could grow wings along the way down. She keeps holding on.
The only thing Mami hasn’t touched is Michael’s room, not since she was last in there and found the note he left for her. She has made of his room a shrine, preserving every memory into something ancient and sacred.
Mami goes into the kitchen and makes the breakfast she should have eaten hours ago; the food she has not been eating lately, though people compliment her, saying she’s lost weight, not knowing it is because of the stress and strain she’s been going through. She returns to the living room, switching on the television to watch the monotone dullness of the faces on the screen. She zones out, letting the droning noise of the television transport her into a place void of any feeling; a place vacant of all she is, a barren wasteland of the imagination—the safe place of nothingness.
The buzzer rings once from downstairs; someone trying to get into the building.
Mami ignores it. The buzzer rings again, for the second time, but cuts out halfway through. After a few moments, there is a knock on the door. Mami takes a while to respond, as the knocking persists. She shuffles across the floor, each step heavier than the last.
“Who is it?” Mami asks.
“It’s Detective Peterson and Inspector Lawson, from the Metropolitan Police. Can we speak to Mrs. Kabongo?” Mami watches through the eye hole as the police officers—the man, Peterson, dressed smart and boring, and the woman, Lawson, beside him, in her uniform—wait patiently on the other side.
“I am Mrs. Kabongo,” Mami says, as she opens the door.
“Mrs. Kabongo, would we be able to speak to you inside?” Detective Peterson says.
Mami does not move.
“Please, Mrs. Kabongo. It would be best if we went inside,” the woman says, her face layered with empathy. Mami trusts her, she trusts her face, more than the man’s, there is something honest about her, a visible pain showing that this is something more meaningful to her than just a job. Mami moves aside, and lets them in. They sit in the living room, TV muted in the background, Detective Peterson and Inspector Lawson on the adjacent sofa.
“Mrs. Kabongo, thank you for welcoming us into your home.” Inspector Lawson speaks with mild apprehension. “I’m afraid we have some news to bring to you.” Mami sits up. She reaches for the remote and switches off the TV. She can hear her own heart beating, pounding as if there is a bass drum echoing in the middle of the room. She looks over at Detective Peterson and Inspector Lawson, trying to read their faces; hoping she can anticipate the news, and maybe feel less shock.
“The body of Pastor Baptiste was found hanging in his home. It appears to be a suicide; he has taken his own life. There was no note, or any indicator. Nothing he left behind.”
Mami does not move. Her eyes do not blink, her hands do not tremble, her lips do not quiver, her body does not shake. The shock she feels renders her to an immoveable stillness, a consuming paralysis.
“We are so very sorry to bring you such tragic news. We worked as fast as we could to establish next of kin, relatives and close friends. And so, we reached you only as fast as time could allow. We know that the pastor was dearly loved by his church community, and that this must come as a total shock to you. Do you have anyone who you can call to come and stay with you? Friend or family?” Mami thinks of Michael. “We just don’t think it is best for you to be left alone.”
“No, it’s okay.” Mami stands up, gesturing them to also stand as she shows them to the door.
“It is fine. I will be okay,” Mami says, interrupting Inspector Lawson as she speaks.
“If you ever need to talk, or if you just have any questions”—Inspector Lawson stops at the door, reaches inside her uniform jacket, and places her card in Mami’s hand—“you can reach me directly here.”
Mami sits back on the sofa, staring, into empty space, into the nothing that is in front of her. The silence consumes her like a plague. She tries to think of the last time she saw Pastor Baptiste, but her mind is too frazzled to recollect any memory. She just remembers the distance, how she had slowly started to pull away from him, but only because she was pulling away from herself. He should have been at Friday prayer, and so should she, but there they both were, dying a different kind of death. Mami laboriously stands up from the sofa. She shuffles across the floor to her bedroom, wailing, tears dripping along the way.
Morning comes. Mami sleeps through it. The night was heavy on her; she spent it crying the well of her spirit dry. Mami had switched off her phone as soon as she got the news, so that no one could reach her. She could already feel the intrusive questions that would be asked: Did you not know? Couldn’t you tell something was wrong? How could you let this happen? Questions she has already asked herself a thousand times over, as if she were somehow responsible.
Mami wakes up in the darkness of her room. She struggles to tell whether her eyes are open or closed. As she lies there, she sees Pastor Baptiste’s face, again and again and again, floating in the darkness beside her. The memories she has of him wade in; long walks in the park during sunset, holding hands, drinking milkshakes, meals at quiet, dimly lit restaurants, the morning breakfasts, the brisk cold air she had formerly only felt on her way to work—all of the ways in which others did not know him, and everything that was to be. She hears his voice, she feels his touch; it comes close, closer, until, in an instant, it disappears.
Mami pulls the Bible from the drawer beside her, and clutches it to her chest, seeking comfort, but it does not come. Her faith is the thinning air and she is struggling to breathe. For her the world has become a wasteland from which nothing can emerge. She rips the pages and throws the Bible across the room and begins to wail. She curses, blasphemes into the dark, screaming “What kind of God?! What kind of God?!”
The morning passes. Mami lifts herself out of the bed. She drags her feet across the corridor to the bathroom and then goes into the living room, where she will sit for most of the day. Later, there is a knock on the door. Mami wonders if it is people from the church. They have come, in their swarms, to see her. Rather than waiting or asking her questions on the phone, they have decided to bring their questions to her face, feigning their sorrow, as if they too could feel what she feels right now. Another knock echoes from the door; it repeats.
Mami feels a frustration grow within her, an explosive chemical reaction between her tragedy and sorrow. She screams “Leave me alone!” but her voice is a feeble gust of wind, unheard. She groans and lets out a sigh of exasperation. The sound of the knocking on the door transforms itself into the headache she feels pounding against her forehead. The knocks continue. Mami places her hands on her knees and pushes up against herself to stand. She ties her kitambala around her head, closes her homely cardigan, and takes reluctant, lead-heavy steps toward the door.
“Okay. I’m coming. I’m coming,” Mami says as she approaches the door. She opens it. There is a man standing in front of her, who appears as though a ghost; a man whose face has changed but remains ever the same.
“Michael!” Mami gasps, her eyes widening at the sight of him. She breaks down into tears, holding her face in her hands.
“I’m home,” Michael says, as he hugs Mami and holds her in his arms tenderly. She sobs while standing enveloped in his presence. “Michael, Michael,” she repeats again, again, again, as if it could not be true.
And this is life’s journey, though we understand it not. We move, in our stillness, from solitude, from loneliness, and longing. We move, from fear, from the times we forget ourselves, because there is no one to tell us of who we are. We move, from sinking, from drowning, from trapped beneath, from trapped within, to the moment we realize this is not how it has to be; there is always another way.
Always. We move, from this, to love and being loved, to dying in the night, and waking in the morn, to realizing we are of minute insignificance in the vastness of the universe, and never forgetting how important we truly are; we who are everything within it, and everything within it is us. To finding joy in the sorrow, beauty in the despair; the strength of our hearts letting go and the softness of our hands holding on. This unheard melody; oh, quiet yearning, gentle sorrow, art in our mind’s eye, dreams of our future. The flutter of the butterfly in flight, the stutter of nervous lips proclaiming joy. This is the redemption, reconciliation, and revival. The revelation, that you are not driftwood, you are the ocean. The caterpillar realizing it does not need to change to be beautiful; self-acceptance is the true transformation; the makeover, the glow-up is the you who you have always been. The new beginning that comes with the end, from day to night, darkness to light. And back again. This is the bird’s nest, angel feathers, the moon, the poet and the poem, the dance and the song, the prayer, the hymn. This is radical hope; that we believe better will come, no matter the situation. And above all, it is love, that spark of bright light, that dazzling flame, ephemeral or eternal, may it find us, may it be us, the will that carries us forward, the bond that brings us back, from beyond this lonely feeling, to healing; the selfless act of breathing.