Facing the Son, A Novel of Africa

by M L Rudolph

  From beside him on the ground, Jean-Louis picked up one of the nutty brown fruits fallen from the tree. “As a child I helped my grandmother harvest these.”

  He flicked the outer shell.

  “The shea nut. You’ve seen women along the road carrying them. We would spend days gathering nuts from the fields around our farm. Then spend days drying and shelling and roasting. Then washing, smashing, kneading. All that work to make a few kilos of butter that we would sell by the road. I did it all, every step, as a good boy should, listening to my mother and grandmother sing and talk.”

  Matt took hold of the hard brown nut.

  “But I saw how little they earned for that butter, for all their days and days of work. Raw materials have no value. Money comes from trade, not crops. I can make more money in two weeks at Le Grande Hôtel than my family farm makes in a year. That is why I fill my trunk to bring home the things they cannot afford.”

  Something caught the children’s attention. They scurried up to the wall and climbed on top to look toward the road.

  A rattling grumble of an approaching vehicle drew the children through the archway and up the path.

  “It does not take much to make them happy,” Jean-Louis said, more in lament than in boast. “That is why our progress is so slow. We are still a slave economy in many ways.” He stood up and slapped dirt off the seat of his kaftan. “They must have found our radiator.”

  The children buzzed with curiosity as the strong-armed mechanic dropped the tailgate of his flatbed truck and pulled out a heavy object wrapped in mud cloth. Next he sorted through a large open tool box for a pair of wrenches.

  Many of the girls lost interest and drifted back toward the enclosure; most the boys took up positions in the afternoon shade to watch.

  Madaadi stood on the truck bed and handed a case of bottled water down to Jean-Louis.

  Matt grabbed another case and followed Jean-Louis to Madaadi’s hut where they stacked the cases inside. The old man pulled a bottle opener out of his clothes, popped the cap off a liter bottle for Jean-Louis, then one for Matt.

  Jean-Louis drank deeply then said to Madaadi, —What did you learn?

  —Tonight, the old man answered.

  “He hopes to tell you where your son is by tonight.”

  “What?” Matt said, taken by surprise. “How could he know anything about Karl?”

  “We learned much about your wife and son. You not only walked all night. You talked all night.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You talked without stop. You did not always make sense, but as long as you kept walking we didn’t interrupt. Your story was very…honest.”

  Matt had a fuzzy recollection of slogging about in the dark, as well as a compulsive urge to explain himself, to get at what bothered him, to repair the past. He remembered Melanie, and possibly Karl? He remembered being confused about Melanie being two places at once.

  Madaadi interjected. —Karl Reiser, the American working in Upper Volta, will be easy to find. Some men from our village work on construction projects with the Americans and the French. The boy will wait at the doctor’s house in Koudougou until he learns about Karl Reiser.

  “What is he saying about Karl?” Matt said, impatient for the translation.

  Jean-Louis explained. “A big man like Karl will be easy to describe and find. If he is in Upper Volta, Madaadi will locate him.”

  “But how, I mean, why is he doing this?” Matt expected to be hit up for a stiff price, like they just went through with the mechanic, and with the border guards, and with anyone who provided any type of service. There was always a price and the old man wasn’t stupid. He had a lot of kids to care for.

  Plus, Jean-Louis knew how much money he had. No secrets there. They’d clean him out knowing he’d pay whatever they asked.

  “Your story touched the old man. He has no family other than the children in this village, most without fathers. He sees every day what it’s like to live without a father or to lose a son.”

  “But what did I say that made him want to help me?”

  Jean-Louis translated, —He wants to know why you would help him. He was robbed in Abidjan. He is skeptical.

  —I can tell you my story if you like. We have time.

  Chapter 35

  Madaadi and several of the youngest children gathered within the shade of the shea tree. Matt sat across from the old man, two of the boys now comfortable with Matt climbed into his lap as Madaadi began his tale, in Bambara, with a running translation into English by Jean-Louis.

  “I was born on a farm much like this one in what today is northeast Mali. When I was still a boy we lost our cattle and our farm failed due to drought. I was not yet ten when my father sent me west with my older brother and our family’s strongest camel to journey to the Niger and trade jewelry for food. On the way we met a trader who needed to take his firewood to the Bamako market. We traded the service of our camel for a portion of the earnings from the firewood.

  “This was during World War II. A dangerous time. Even here we had to choose between Vichy and Free France though this meant nothing to me then. The French colonial government here was Vichy. But many of the people supported de Gaulle and the Free French. My brother and I did not support anyone. We only wanted to take food back to our family.

  “On the way to Bamako, my brother was arrested by French soldiers and the camel with its firewood and jewelry was taken from us. I was beaten and left in a field where I woke up alone looking at the stars, listening to the howls of the night. I ran to a village and hid, scared of being eaten by animals and scared of being beaten by the French. I hid until morning. When the people of the village found me, they made me leave. The people of the next village also made me leave. My indigo robe meant I was not from the Bamako region and people feared my presence would anger the soldiers. I did not know where to go. I had lost my brother and the camel and had nothing to trade. I could not go back to my family with nothing to give them.

  “I walked to Bamako, which was then only a few huts along the river. But it had a market, with people from many places. I already spoke Bambara, and like magic I learned the languages of the traders who spoke in Senoufo, Kita, Bozo, and Arabic.

  “I learned French, too, by overhearing the French soldiers. I learned to warn people where the soldiers planned to raid supporters of Free France.

  “I became valuable in the market. I earned a little food for my services.

  “Eventually, the French noticed me and one day some soldiers took me south by jeep all the way to Abidjan where I was put to work as an interpreter.”

  “And English?” Matt asked, wondering if the old man hid his English like Kolarik hid his French.

  “No,” Jean-Louis continued translating.

  “They beat me if they heard me say even a word of English. They would trick me to see if I understood. They did not want me to be tempted to betray them to the British. It was a way to control me. I still dreamed every day of taking food back to my family, so I closed my mind to English. I forced myself not to learn. It was a matter of survival.”

  “But that was long ago.” Matthew addressed the old man directly in English, looking for a glimmer of understanding. “You must understand me a little.”

  The old man smiled and answered Jean-Louis, who translated, “He says whatever you said sounded like so much rain to him.”

  “If he speaks so many languages, what is he doing here in this poor village? He must have been paid. Saved some money. What about his family?”

  “You know so little,” Jean-Louis interrupted Madaadi to answer Matt. “The French stole everything from us. Either by taxes. By fees. By appropriations. Whatever they called it. They took everything from our people. Our cotton, our coffee, our culture. They conquered us, forced their language on us—then at independence, paff,” he backhanded as if brushing away a mosquito, “they just went home. They forced us to depend on them and when we dared ask for equal partnership,
they destroyed anything they could not carry back to France.”

  “Does he hate the French as much as you?”

  “Madaadi?”

  —He asks if you hate the French, Jean-Louis translated.

  The old man shook his head, smiling his gap-toothed smile.

  “He once did, but the hate made him weak, he says. He learned to look ahead.

  “We all have the same story,” Jean-Louis continued. “All countries are corrupt. Even yours. You think your country is not corrupt, monsieur? Does not steal from the less powerful? Your leaders are just more sophisticated than ours. You call it a tariff. A subsidy. A loan. Nothing has changed. Just because you do not see the dirty hand does not mean the axle is not greased.”

  Jean-Louis switched to Bambara and addressed the children, telling them as far as Matt could gather that they should never forget how the French ruined their country. The old man engaged Jean-Louis in what appeared to be friendly and lively disagreement, causing some of the older children to laugh at moments. Until Jean-Louis, disarmed by the old man’s sparkling eyes and wit, resumed the translation of his tale.

  “I stayed in Abidjan after the war. In a clean room in a newly built house in Treichville. Near the factories and the warehouses. Where many of the workers lived.

  “I worked as a liaison with a major French trading company and carried messages between the French bosses and their local workers. Everyone respected me. I was trusted. And I was proud of my skills. I gave up my indigo robes for the dress of the bosses. I wore nice clothes, shoes instead of sandals. Learned to read and write. Spoke French every day. Dreamed in French at night. I gradually forgot my sorrow for failing to return to my family. There was much work, all day long, every day. And the excitement of independence was unforgettable. The years flew by.

  “I strived to assimilate, as it was called. The bosses dangled the possibility of French citizenship. For some very few favored workers, assimilation was a possibility. It became my dream to become a French citizen. Go to Paris as all the French people did every year.

  “I spent thirty years of my life trying to be French. I watched Côte d’Ivoire grow wealthy from its timber, and cocoa, and cotton, and I saw the town of Abidjan become a city with skyscrapers and with ships bound for France and the rest of the world.

  “Then came the drought of 1972. And that changed everything for me.

  “During the drought, all the goods coming by boat to Abidjan stayed in Abidjan. Even though there was so much suffering up north from where the raw materials came. None of the new wealth from independence helped those people. The land dried up and thousands of families came to the city in search of food and shelter.

  “Every time I saw a ship leave port my heart broke because I knew all the profit would stay in the city. My boss told me I must look at things as a Frenchman, but I became discouraged with the old promises and eventually stopped believing in them.

  “One day my boss called me into his office and told me I was going to be retired. He gave me a ribbon with a small medallion and thanked me for my many years of service.

  “I stared at the ribbon as I was escorted outside into the street. I walked in circles for I don’t know how long trying to understand what had happened.”

  “When was that?” Matt asked.

  “Five years ago.

  “I left behind everything I accumulated—my nice clothes and my few sticks of furniture. And my ribbon.

  “I decided to come home. I walked through the drought, past dead beasts in the fields, past the jackals and the hyenas and the vultures, past the flies on the carcasses. Past dust and destruction everywhere.

  “I followed the path I took south so many years earlier with the French Army.

  “I stopped in villages and traded scraps of paper with written verses from the Koran for food and shelter. Such scraps are thought to have healing power. And to bring good luck. Everyone needed good luck then, and my presence was usually welcomed.

  “After months of wandering, I came to this Bobo village where I sensed I was needed. There were many orphans here. Most the men had left in search of work. The people here accepted me as an elder to help watch over the children. These boys and girls,” he spread his arms, “they are my family now.”

  Matt took a closer look at the children, in their tattered scraps for clothes, scraps which at home he’d tear into strips and use for rags. These children, full of the promise and potential of youth, were bunched up and entangled with one another, distracted by the heat and thrown together by the shade, tugging poking nudging and rolling around the tree trunk and challenging each other. How would any one of these children fare in a community like Harrison High where clean water, teachers, a library, and sports fields were available to all? Matt couldn’t avoid comparing these children to those he knew and taught every day.

  “If I could help any one of these boys or girls find a lost father or bring back a mother who died,” continued Madaadi, “imagine how much happiness I could make. Most these children have never had two parents, some have never known one.

  “If even you who come from a rich country can lose your son, you who come from a place where all the families have jobs and food and money….”

  Jean-Louis stopped translating and let the old man struggle, apparently stammer, to complete his thought. Then he summarized, “He means to say, he used to blame the misfortune of the Sahel on the accident of history. On the invasions of conflicting foreign powers over the centuries which developed a culture that concentrated power among the rulers in the south at the price of ongoing poverty for the people of the north.

  “But meeting you and hearing how you lost your son not through poverty but through your own actions….”

  Matt’s scalp prickled at the turn of phrase.

  “…he must rethink how he attributes blame. Perhaps many of these parents chose to leave their children, not because of the demands of life in an expensive and crowded city—which he himself knows very well—but because they simply chose not to be parents.”

  “But I didn’t choose not to be a parent,” Matt objected. He couldn’t imagine what he could have said to give that impression. He must have blabbered about what a foolish choice he made when he left Melanie for Joy, a mistake he’d paid for ever since. He thought he could balance two homes; he hoped Karl would see how happy Joy made him and they’d all benefit from that happiness. That it hadn’t worked out like he planned, well, that didn’t mean Matt had chosen not to be Karl’s father.

  “You asked why he wanted to help you,” Jean-Louis continued. “You made a bad choice that cost you your son. But you have come a long way and suffered great hardship to find your son. That is the beginning of joy.”

  The old man ended with his gap-toothed smile.

  Chapter 36

  —Who wants to start the car? Jean-Louis said to the children gathered to watch. By late that afternoon, the mechanic had ripped out the old radiator and installed the new one behind the banged up grill of the Mercedes.

  Sensing the moment could use some flair to match the air of anticipation, Jean-Louis saluted the mechanic and slid into the front seat. He left the door open and made a show of situating himself behind the wheel, then leaned over and called for the children to gather close. He grabbed the smallest girl, nearly lost in the commotion, and swept her into his lap under the pale glow of the interior overhead light. He put the key into the girl’s tiny fingers and guided her hand to the ignition.

  —Hold on tight. Jean-Louis turned to the eager faces. —You saw the broken car. The mechanic, there, our hero from Koudougou. He had to study long and practice hard to learn his trade. Do we think he did a good job?

  The young heads poking in the windows nodded and youthful voices agreed. Bolting parts and fitting hoses might not be magic, but compared to fixing a bike or a scooter, operating on a complex German car represented wizardry for these onlookers.

  —Good. I think so, too. So let’s see if our mechanic is a
s good as we think he is.

  Jean-Louis looked down into the sweet face of the little girl on his lap. —Do you think the car will start? She gripped the key but didn’t know how to answer.

  —If all the parts are in the right places, the car will start running and keep running. —But, he raised a finger, —if the mechanic put in a wrong part, the car might start but then break down. And if the car breaks, it might never be fixed because it would need new parts that we don’t have.

  By now, Jean-Louis commanded the attention of his makeshift classroom. Even Matt who couldn’t understand a word appreciated the suspense when Jean-Louis motioned to the mechanic that this was his moment of truth. The sweaty man played along and raised his muscular arms toward the darkening sky indicating it was out of his hands now.

  Jean-Louis sat in silence for a moment longer, let the tension build until one of the boys hooted at him, then all the children joined in a collective shout of impatience.

  —Okay, okay, Jean-Louis lowered a palm to quiet the group. He gave the gas pedal a tap and helped the little girl on his lap turn the key.

  The engine whined briefly then roared to life and everyone whooped it up. The little girl grabbed the steering wheel and wiggled with delight.

  The mechanic, who of course had already run the engine as part of his test, looked for signs of stress he may have missed. The bumper bowed inward, smashed up against the body where one side of the grill had broken away; the new radiator, though partially exposed up front, performed as it should, which meant it did nothing noticeable; it did not leak fluid.

  Matt laughed despite himself, caught up in the celebration of a simple car repair. He had to reach far back for a time of such simple joy, back to Karl as a toddler when every day offered such moments of wide-eyed innocent discovery.

  Jean-Louis flipped on the headlights, shooting one low beam into the dirt, and the other beam at an acute angle into the brush. Aligning headlights wasn’t part of the mechanic’s deal.