Baking Cakes in Kigali

by Gaile Parkin

  Jenna looked at Angel with big eyes. In the silence that followed, Angel finished her tea and swallowed the last bite of her cupcake. When she had finished, Jenna was still looking at her.

  “What on earth would I teach them?”

  “How to read.”

  “I don’t know how to teach that.”

  “But you know how to read yourself. It’s a skill, just like making a cake. I can teach somebody how to make a cake, even though nobody has taught me how to teach somebody how to make a cake. And you can look on the internet for advice on what to do. I’ve heard that that is a place where you can find any information on any topic.”

  “But where would I get my students from?”

  “I’ll find them for you,” answered Angel. “Leocadie at the shop can read very little, mostly numbers for prices. And Eugenia, who works for the Egyptian, struggles to read. That’s two students already. I won’t have to go far to find a small class for you, maybe just four or five. They’ll all be women that I know, not strangers. You’ll tell me when you’re ready to start teaching, and I’ll bring the students to you.”

  “I … I don’t think Rob would like it …”

  “How will he even know that there’s something for him to like or not? You can teach for maybe an hour or so each day when he’s at work. He won’t even know.”

  “But if I don’t tell him what I’m doing, that would be dishonest …”

  “Jenna, do you really believe that honesty is so important to your husband?”

  Angel watched Jenna as she looked distressed and reached for her tea. She took a sip and swallowed it. Then she looked at Angel, and a smile began to play on her lips, stretching wider and wider until she was laughing out loud. Angel laughed with her. Even she had to admit that she had had a very good idea indeed.

  “Angel, you’re a genius!”

  “Eh, thank you, Jenna. I’m not a genius, but I am very, very good at making cakes. So let’s discuss the independence cake that brought you to me this afternoon.”

  AFTER Jenna had gone and Angel had cleared the tea things off the coffee table, she removed the Nigerian video from the VCR and hid it away on top of the wardrobe in her bedroom where the children could not find it and watch it by mistake; there would be no time for her to watch it now before her family started arriving home. And before they all came in with their clatter and their noise and their stories of the afternoon, she must climb the stairs to the top floor of the building and get a tablet from Sophie to take away the pain that had now moved into her head with its boxes and was beginning to hammer nails into the walls for its pictures.

  But Sophie and Catherine were both out and nobody answered her knock. Ken had helped her out with Tylenol before, but on a Saturday afternoon he was sure to be playing tennis at the Umubano Hotel. One flight down from Sophie and Catherine’s apartment was Linda’s, but Angel was not going to knock on Linda’s door because who knew what might be going on behind it? What if she saw Jenna’s husband in there with Linda? That would be very awkward. Across the landing from Linda’s flat was Jenna’s. Well, it was Jenna who had invited the pain into her head, so perhaps Jenna owed her a painkiller. She knocked on the door.

  The CIA opened it.

  Angel opened her mouth but no sound came out. “Oh, hi, Angel. You okay?”

  She cleared her throat and told herself to behave normally. “Hello, Rob, I’m sorry to disturb you, I was just wondering if you could give me something for my headache. Sophie usually helps me, but she’s out.”

  “Sure, come on in. Jenna’s just been telling me about visiting you this afternoon. I hope she didn’t give you the headache!”

  “No, no,” assured Angel, walking into the apartment past Rob and seeing a slightly anxious-looking Jenna. “Actually, I think it was your flag that gave me the headache. We had to count all the stripes and all the stars in the picture in the children’s atlas to be sure that I don’t make a mistake with the cake. Do you know how difficult it is to count stripes? Your eyes tell you one number, meanwhile your head tells you a different number.”

  Rob laughed. “Well, I think we owe you a painkiller. Honey, go and see what we’ve got in the bathroom. Angel, sit down, take a load off.”

  “No, thank you, Rob, I can’t stay. The children will be home very soon.”

  “Hey, you know your cakes are really great. We’ve had them at Ken’s.”

  “Thank you, I’m glad you like them. Ken is one of my very best customers.”

  Angel noticed that Rob’s hair was damp and he smelled of soap. Kigali was not a hot place like Dar es Salaam, where you sweated a lot and had to shower in the afternoon; the altitude here was too high for that. Of course, Angel sweated a lot herself occasionally—but Rob was definitely not having to deal with the same problem. She did not want to think about why he might have needed to shower at the end of a Saturday afternoon that he had not spent with his wife.

  Jenna came back from the bathroom rattling a small plastic container of pills. “There are only a few left in here, so you may as well take the lot with you. Then you’ll have something to take next time you get a headache. We’ve got plenty more.”

  “Oh no, Jenna, thank you, but Pius and I don’t keep tablets at home. It’s too dangerous … for the children. You know how children can think a tablet is a sweet. Just give me one to take now.”

  “You’re very wise,” said Jenna. “Tell you what, I’ll keep these pills here for you and you can come and get one any time you need to. I’m here every day.”

  “Thank you very much. I’ll remember that. Thank you, Rob, I’m sorry I disturbed you.”

  “Hakuna matata, as you people say. No problem.” Rob put his arm around Angel’s shoulder as he led her to the door. The intimate gesture surprised and shocked her. She barely knew this man; how could he insult his wife by embracing another woman while his wife was standing there watching? Okay, he was an American; Oprah was an American, and Oprah embraced people all the time on her show. But surely in his CIA training he had learned what was acceptable behaviour in other countries and cultures? He was so close to Angel that she could smell the dampness in his hair. The intimacy made her feel as though a fat snake was slithering slowly over her bare feet and she had to remain absolutely still even though her instinct was to scream and run. With nowhere else to go, panic and revulsion gathered in her stomach, mixed like bicarbonate of soda and water, and threatened to bubble all the way up her throat, bringing with them sweet tea and cupcakes. She had to fight this man, even if only in a small way.

  Breaking away from his encircling arm, she said, “Oh, I almost forgot. Rob, I know that you’re not a churchgoer yourself, but my family would very much like to invite Jenna to worship with us one Sunday. Just up the road here at Saint Michael, near the American Embassy. It’s a very safe area, and a beautiful service, in English. I was wondering, would it be okay for her to join us one Sunday morning to celebrate our Lord God?”

  Rob looked reluctant. Angel persevered.

  “Of course, I’m probably asking too much of you. I’m sure that you work very hard during the week, and at weekends you simply want to spend time with your wife. I’m sure you wouldn’t like to be without her for some two hours on a Sunday morning, left alone and looking for some way to fill that time.”

  Rob’s face lit up as if he had just had a very good idea. “I’m sure I could manage, Angel. Of course Jenna can join you any time she wants. You’d like that, wouldn’t you, honey?”

  “I’d love it,” said Jenna. “Thank you, Angel. Thank you.”

  As she went down the stairs, Angel carried with her the uncomfortable knowledge that she both deserved and did not deserve Jenna’s thanks.

  EVERYONE AT La Coiffure Formidable!, just a short walk from the compound where the Tungarazas lived, was deeply impressed by the invitation card. It had been passed around from hairdressers to clients and back again, and was now in the hands of Noëlla, who took care of Angel’s hair for a discount
in gratitude for the good price that Angel had given her on her wedding cake. Noëlla ran the tips of her long, delicate fingers over the Tanzanian coat of arms, exploring its ridges and dents.

  “In English that’s called embossed,” said Angel, rather more loudly than was necessary over the hum of the hairdryer under which she sat with her hair in green plastic rollers. “That picture is the emblem of my country. Do you see there, in the middle of the shield, there’s a small picture of our flag? And do you see that the shield is standing on top of our famous mountain, Mount Kilimanjaro? There’s a man and a woman holding that shield there on top of the mountain. That’s because in my country women are supposed to be equal with men. And do you see there it is written Uhuru na Umoja, freedom and unity? That’s my country’s motto. It means that we’re all one people, united and free and equal.”

  “Eh!” declared Noëlla. “You have a very fine country.” Giving the invitation back to Angel, she switched off the dryer and lifted it away from her client’s head.

  “We’re trying to be like that here,” said the young woman seated next to Angel who was having long braids woven into her hair by Agathe. “We’re striving to be united and equal. We are all Rwandans now.”

  “Exactly,” agreed Noëlla, unwinding the rollers from Angel’s hair. “It doesn’t matter if in the past some of us thought we were this and some of us thought we were that. There is no more this or that now. Now we are all Banyarwanda. Rwandans.”

  “That is a very fine thing to be,” said Angel, who was always heartened by such talk of unity. But she had noticed that this was usually the talk of groups; it was possible for the talk of an individual away from a group to be quite different. She was grateful when the woman seated on the other side of her, whose hair Claudine was relaxing, changed the subject.

  “So tell us, Madame, because we are all anxious to hear. What is it that you will wear to this important party at your embassy this evening?”

  “Yes, and who has made it for you?” added Noëlla.

  Angel laughed. “I’m sure you’re expecting me to complain that Youssou has made a dress that’s too tight for me!” Angel had once re-enacted for the three hairdressers an argument that she had had with Youssou about his tape measure being dishonest. Noëlla and Claudine had laughed until tears had rolled down their cheeks, and Agathe—who spoke no Swahili—had joined in when Claudine had translated for her.

  “Eh!” said the woman being relaxed. “I’ve heard about this Youssou, although I’ve never been to him. But don’t think that he’s the only tailor in Kigali who makes clothes that are too tight; they all do it. It’s because they want to accuse you of gaining weight between when they measure you and when your dress is ready. Then they can charge you extra for the alterations. You know, my neighbour has taught me a very good trick which you must try. You must take a friend with you when you go to your tailor because you cannot do this trick when you’re alone. When the time comes for the measuring, you must position yourself so that your friend can stand behind you while the tailor is standing in front of you and you are holding your arms up away from your body like the tailor tells you to do. Without the tailor seeing, your friend must slip two of her fingers between the back of your body and the tape measure wherever he measures. So the tailor will write down a number which is bigger, and then when he makes a dress that is smaller than that number, it is the right size for your body.”

  A collective eh! echoed around the small salon as the women looked from one to another with wonder on their faces.

  “That is a very fine trick,” said Angel. “I wish I had known about it before. But let me tell you another trick that I have discovered. I have found a group of women at a centre in Biryogo who are learning how to sew. You can go to them and they’ll measure you correctly and they’ll sew your dress carefully, and all the time their work is being supervised by their teacher, so it’s good. Okay, they’re not yet experts like the tailors; they cannot yet make a dress from a picture. But if you take them a dress that you already have, they can copy it and make it in a different colour or a different fabric, and they can even make some small additions or changes like adding some frills or making the sleeves wider than they are on the original dress.”

  “How are their prices?” asked Noëlla, who was now styling Angel’s hair delicately with a wide-toothed comb so as not to destroy the shape of the curls.

  “Eh, they’re much cheaper than a tailor,” assured Angel. “They’ve made my dress for tonight’s reception and it fits perfectly. I’m going to look very beautiful amongst all those smart ladies.”

  Of course, when Mrs Margaret Wanyika complimented Angel’s dress that evening—as a hostess must—Angel was not going to tell her that it had been made by women who not only prostituted themselves, but might or might not be infected. If she were to do so, she was sure that Mrs Wanyika’s hair would turn white immediately, and an emergency appointment would have to be made at the expensive salon in the Mille Collines hotel. She did not share this thought with the women in this salon, though; Mrs Wanyika was, after all, her customer.

  When Noëlla walked Angel out of the salon and stood with her in the morning sun for a brief chat before her next client arrived, Angel took the opportunity to ask her about Agathe. Noëlla confirmed that Agathe had never been to school.

  “Do you think she’d like to learn to read?” asked Angel.

  “Of course she would! She’s often said that it’s embarrassing for her when her children come home from school and they want to show her what they’ve written that day. But she cannot go to school herself at her age, and anyway she needs to be at work: she has to feed and educate her children.”

  “Do you give her time off for a break every day? Maybe to eat her lunch?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “Now what if I told you that she could go to school to learn to read during that time every day?”

  “What?” Noëlla looked sceptical. “Where? How would she pay for it?”

  “The school is free and the teacher knows French. Agathe would learn to read in French. It would be nearby, in my compound. She would just have to walk two streets along and then two streets down and she would be there.”

  “Agathe!” called Noëlla loudly, her voice filled with excitement.

  A FEW moments later, Angel was on her way back two streets along and two streets down. She was just passing a half-built house that had never been completed because the people who had planned to live there had not survived, when Ken Akimoto’s vehicle slowed beside her.

  “Hello, Auntie!” called Bosco. “Eh! What are you doing walking in the street with such a beautiful hairstyle? A lady with such a hairstyle must travel in a car with a driver.”

  Angel laughed. “Hello, Bosco! Are you offering me a lift?”

  “Yes, Auntie. I’m on my way to your compound but I can take you anywhere.”

  “Thank you, Bosco, I’m on my way home.” Angel opened the door and struggled to climb up into the Pajero without splitting the long skirt that was already straining over her expanding hips. Really, these big vehicles with their high seats were not designed with ladies in mind; it was almost impossible for a lady to remain elegant as she got in. How did the big women in government manage? She must remember to ask Catherine if the Minister she worked with had any tips on how to get in and out of a big vehicle with dignity while wearing a skirt. It was an important thing to know how to do, especially if a television camera might be watching you—or a photographer from Muraho! magazine. Angel thought she might also use the opportunity of tonight’s embassy function to observe ladies’ techniques; there were bound to be many big vehicles there. Fortunately the children always thought it a great honour to be the one chosen to sit up in the front of the Tungarazas’ red microbus, and Angel was happy to sit on one of the seats in the back part that could be entered via a more manageable step.

  “I’ve been shopping at the market for Mr Akimoto,” explained Bosco, noticing Angel gla
ncing at the big cardboard box of vegetables in the back as they set off towards the compound. “He’s having guests for dinner again this weekend.”

  “I know. I’ll be making a cake for him again. But tell me, Bosco, how is Perfect?”

  “Eh, Auntie, she’s a very, very nice baby! She’s quiet and still, not like Leocadie’s baby. Eh, that Beckham can cry! And he’s always hungry or else he’s wriggling around and moaning about something. When Perfect cries, you can be sure it’s not for nothing.”

  “That’s the difference between boys and girls, Bosco. But remember that Perfect is still very small. Maybe when she’s bigger she’ll become more like Beckham.”

  “No, Auntie, don’t tell me that! I used to think I wanted lots of babies, then I met Beckham and I thought uh-uh, babies are not a good idea. But then Perfect came, and she’s very, very good, and I can see how much Florence loves to be her mother, so I thought again that babies were a very, very good idea. You’re confusing me now, Auntie.”

  Angel laughed. “I think you’re confusing yourself, Bosco. You haven’t even met the lady yet who will help you to get all these babies.”

  Bosco pulled the Pajero to a stop outside the compound and turned to look at Angel with a big happy smile on his face.

  “Bosco?”

  Bosco continued to beam.

  “Eh, Bosco! Have you met the girl who is going to become your wife? Tell me!”

  Bosco looked shyly down at his left trouser leg, where a speck of dirt needed attention. “I have met a very, very nice girl, Auntie.”