by Gaile Parkin
“There was a swimming pool at the hotel in Ruhengeri and at the hotel in Gisenyi,” said Grace. “Efra knows how to swim. Can I learn, Baba?”
“We’ll see,” said Pius.
“The vet had a monkey sitting on his shoulder, not like the monkeys they sell here. It was black and white with a long tail. He said it came from Nyungwe Forest.”
“There was a disco at the hotel in Gisenyi. Efra and I watched all the people that were coming to dance. One man was dressed like Michael Jackson!”
“The vet let his monkey sit on my shoulder. Eh!”
“Efra’s going to get a new nose in Paris. She showed me a photo that a computer made of her face with a smaller nose.”
“Every gorilla has a different nose-print, just like every person has different finger-prints.”
“We had steak and chips in the hotel, and for breakfast we had eggs on toast.”
“Gorillas eat senene too, but of course not cooked. And ants. But mostly they eat leaves.”
“Omar’s Land Rover has air-conditioning.”
“Can I get a monkey, Baba?”
“Can I get a new nose, Baba?”
After lunch, Pius—who would hear of neither a pet monkey nor a new nose—settled down for a nap, and Titi took the children down to play in the yard while she tried to beat the dried mud out of their clothes.
Angel kept an eye on her watch, not wanting to be early or late for the cutting. She was still not sure that she wanted to go—or, if she did want to go, why. Quietly, so as not to disturb Pius as he dozed on their bed, she stood in front of her open wardrobe and examined its contents. What was a person supposed to wear to a cutting? The black dress that she wore to funerals? No, nobody had died—and the family obviously saw it as a happy occasion, because they had ordered a cake. Cakes were for celebrations. She must wear something smart, but not too smart: she did not want her outfit to suggest in any way that she approved of what was happening. Finally she settled on the comfortable boubou in emerald green with tie-dyed swirls of lime green that she had bought from one of the clothing stores in Avenue de Commerce, and her smart black sandals with kitten heels.
After a final cleaning of her glasses, it was time to leave. She picked up the small, square board on which the round cake stood, and left the apartment, closing the door behind her so that no one would wander in and disturb Pius as he slept. Then she walked up one flight of stairs and knocked at Amina’s door.
“Angel, karibu!” Vincenzo smiled broadly as he opened the door and made an exaggerated gesture to usher her in.
Angel almost dropped the cake when she saw the other guests who were sitting in Amina’s living room. Fortunately Amina had rushed forward to take the board from her.
“Eh, Angel, this is a very beautiful cake,” declared Amina. “Look, everybody.”
Safiya, Dr Rejoice and Odile got up from their chairs and came to look at the cake, declaring it to be one of the most beautiful they had ever seen. Angel tried hard to concentrate on making sense as she answered their questions about how she had made the tiny red roses, but her mind was in turmoil with questions of her own. Dr Rejoice and Odile? Why were they here? How could they be comfortable with the cutting of a girl? It was not part of the culture that either of them belonged to. Angel stopped talking in mid-sentence when it struck her that they might be asking themselves the very same questions about her. Perhaps their answers were as complicated as her own.
“Angel?”
“Hm?”
“You were about to tell us what we would find inside the cake, between the two layers,” said Dr Rejoice.
Angel recovered quickly. “That,” she said, forcing a smile, “is a surprise. You will know that only when you cut it.”
“And speaking of cutting,” said Vincenzo, “shall we begin?” He gestured for everyone to sit around the coffee table.
Eh, thought Angel, were they going to cut Safiya right here? Right here on the coffee table? But Safiya sat on one of the chairs.
Vincenzo placed his Qur’an in the centre of the table. “Now, I’m sure you know that what will happen here today is not understood everywhere, and in some places it is even illegal. But it is part of our culture, and that is something that people have no right to question. No right at all. But still there are those who might want to persecute us—or even prosecute us—for this practice. So I’m going to ask you all to swear that you will never tell anybody about what happened in this apartment this afternoon. Nobody: not husbands, boyfriends, friends, parents, children. Nobody at all. Never.”
“Safiya, that includes you,” warned Amina. “Remember that we spoke about this? You are not to tell anyone.”
“I swear, Mama.”
“Right, let us swear on the Holy Qur’an,” said Vincenzo, placing his hand on the book on the table. Everyone followed his lead. “Now, swear that you will never tell.”
Each of the women swore aloud, in her own way, that she would never tell.
“Now,” continued Vincenzo, removing his Qur’an and placing it behind him on the sofa, “your Holy Bible, please, Odile.”
Odile produced her Bible from her bag and placed it in the centre of the table where the Qur’an had been. Each of them placed a hand on the book and swore again never to tell.
“Right,” said Vincenzo, “now that you’ve sworn on both our holy books, you may continue. Safiya, come and give Baba a hug. I’ll wait for you all in the kitchen; I’ll have our coffee ready when you’ve finished.”
Angel followed the girl and the other women into Safiya’s bedroom, Dr Rejoice carrying her doctor’s bag with her. When they were all in the room, Amina closed and locked the door. Angel felt her heart beginning to beat a little faster. She was nervous now about the unfamiliarity of the practice, and it unsettled her that people were involved whom she knew. Okay, she would probably have been even more anxious if the people who were involved were strangers. But she would never have expected these people to be involved. “Where shall I sit?” she asked.
Amina surprised Angel by speaking in a whisper. “Anywhere is fine, Angel.”
Then, instead of lying down on her bed as Angel had expected, Safiya knelt down on the floor and reached under her bed. She slid out a tray on which several bottles of soda lay, alongside a bottle-opener. This was very confusing indeed.
Amina gave a quiet laugh, stifling it in the palm of her hand. Then she spoke in a whisper again. “Eh, Angel! You should see your face!”
Dr Rejoice and Odile began to giggle, too.
“Angel, did you think that we were really going to cut Safiya?” whispered Odile.
“I’m sorry, Angel,” Amina said softly, taking her hand. “Come and sit here with me.” Angel sat next to Amina on the bed, while Safiya began to open bottles of soda. Still holding Angel’s hand, Amina whispered, “I couldn’t tell you the truth until you had sworn on your holy book that you would never tell. I’m sorry, my friend. I know that you’re a professional somebody and you know how to keep a secret, but this is a very big secret, one that could break our family apart. Safiya understands that, don’t you, my dear. You know that Baba must never know that we didn’t cut you?”
“I understand, Mama. I’m happy that you’re not going to cut me. Will you have Fanta or Coke, Mama-Grace?”
“Thank you, Safiya, a Fanta, please.”
“I’m sorry we have to drink out of the bottles,” Amina said to her guests. “But Vincenzo would have been suspicious if he’d found glasses missing from the kitchen.”
“I want to be sure that I understand,” said Angel, as Dr Rejoice sat down on a chair next to the bed, and Odile and Safiya settled on a small rug on the floor. “You are not going to cut your daughter, but you are going to let your husband believe that your daughter has been cut?”
“Yes,” said Amina.
Angel shook her head, still confused. She took off her glasses and reached into her brassiere for a tissue to clean them with. Lies—or at least deceptions—betw
een a husband and a wife were not a good thing. She knew that now from what had been happening in her own marriage. Okay, she had not been lying to Pius, she had simply been lying to herself. But the two of them had been avoiding the truth—and, really, it was such a relief for them to be communicating honestly again now. Surely it would be better for Amina to be honest with Vincenzo? “But why did you not just refuse, Amina? Why did you not say to your husband that you would not let your daughter be cut?”
“Eh! If I had refused, Vincenzo would have taken Safiya to somebody behind my back, and she would have been cut!”
“But could you not have persuaded him that cutting was not a good idea?”
“Angel, he has been talking about cutting Safiya since she was very small, and I kept telling him that, as her mother, I would know the right time for it. I could not delay any longer, because very soon Safiya will become a woman. If I had even once argued with him or told him that I didn’t agree, then he would have taken her to be cut. Or he would have been suspicious of me. But I’ve never once told him that I won’t do it, so he will not think of suspecting anything.”
“She’s right, Angel,” said Dr Rejoice. “You know how men are. If they tell us, say, that we must never drink alcohol—eh, forgive me for this example in a Muslim household, Amina—but if they tell us we must not drink alcohol and we say Who are you to tell me that? or I will drink alcohol whenever I want to, or even What is your reason for saying that? then they will always be smelling our breath and looking in our cupboards for bottles. They won’t trust us if we question what they say. But if they tell us we must never drink alcohol and we say Of course, my husband, I will do as you say, I will never drink alcohol, then we can drink alcohol right in front of them and they will not see it.”
Odile stifled a laugh. “You are right, Dr Rejoice. I remember that I used to have an uncle who didn’t want his wife to grow cassava because he didn’t like it. He wanted her to grow only potatoes. Every planting season she would tell him that she was not going to plant cassava, and every season she planted it. He would walk in his fields without noticing it; he never saw it because he believed it was not there.”
Angel put her glasses back on. “You’re right,” she whispered, knowing now how blind she had chosen to be herself. Then she looked at Safiya. “Eh, Safiya, you’re learning some very good lessons while you’re still young!”
The girl smiled shyly. “Yes, Mama-Grace. I’m happy that I’m not going to be cut like Mama was.”
“That was a very bad day for me,” said Amina. “I was young, a few years younger than Safiya is now. Nobody told me what was going to happen. Nobody prepared me. Suddenly I was called in from playing outside and my mother held me down on the ground and a woman I didn’t know cut me with a razor-blade. Eh, I cannot describe that pain to you! And the shock!” Amina covered her face with both hands for a few seconds before continuing. “When my daughter was born, I promised myself that I would never, never let that happen to her.”
“I understand,” said Angel. “But how is it that Dr Rejoice and Odile are here? I didn’t know that you knew one another.”
“Don’t think for one minute that Amina is the only woman who has ever done this,” said Dr Rejoice. “In Kenya there are many women who are refusing. I helped a few of them there, including a few from Sudan.”
“Yes,” said Amina, “and by chance I met one of those women in the market some months back. I could see that she was Sudanese and we talked and became friends. She’s the one who told me about Dr Rejoice, and then the doctor introduced me to Odile. Okay, they’re not from our culture, but I knew that Vincenzo could never object to a doctor and a nurse performing the cutting. I decided we must do it this weekend, because Ramadan will start sometime next week, and when it’s over, who knows where new contracts will take us in the new year? It wouldn’t be easy for me to find such friends to help me in a new place.”
“Yes, it wouldn’t have been easy,” agreed Dr Rejoice, “but you would have found them, my dear. We’re supporting one another more and more. It’s like we understand now that we’re much stronger when we stand together, especially in places where we’re being beaten down.”
“Yes, like bread,” offered Odile, and everyone looked at her, not understanding what she meant. “I mean like the ingredients for bread,” she whispered. “I’ve watched the women making bread at the centre. The ingredients do nothing on their own, but when they’re all together, they stick together and rise. They get beaten down and they rise again.”
“Exactly,” whispered Dr Rejoice. “But, Angel, you’re not looking happy.”
“Well, I’m just trying to think if anything bad can come from this in the future—because it’s always wise to think ahead to the consequences of our actions. Of course, none of us will ever tell …” everyone murmured agreement, “… but there is one person who is sure to find out.”
“Are you thinking about the husband I’ll marry, Mama-Grace?”
“Yes, Safiya, I am.”
“I’m not going to marry a man who wants a wife who has been cut. I’m going to marry a man who is modern.”
“Yes,” agreed Amina. “If we were living in Kismaayo, where I was born, or even in Mogadishu, where I grew up and was cut, then it would be difficult. But we spend a lot of time in Italy, and we live wherever Vincenzo works. There’ll be many opportunities for Safiya to meet a man who is modern.”
“And maybe,” suggested Dr Rejoice, “by the time Safiya is ready to marry, all men will be modern, and we’ll no longer need to pretend to obey them.”
They all laughed at that idea, covering their mouths with their hands so as not to make a noise.
“But, my dears, it is time for us to begin,” said Dr Rejoice. “Let us be serious now.”
“Have you all finished your sodas? Okay, Safiya, lay the empty bottles back on the tray and slide it back under the bed. I’ll take them from there tomorrow when Babas at work.”
Remaining in her chair, Dr Rejoice reached into her bag and removed a rolled-up white doctor’s coat. As she slid her arms through the sleeves, Odile reached into the bag for two pairs of surgical gloves. She and the doctor put them on. Then Odile handed Dr Rejoice a swab and a syringe needle in sterile packaging.
“Come and sit here on my knee, my dear,” Dr Rejoice said to Safiya. “Good girl. Now, I’m going to prick your finger, because Baba must see your blood. It will hurt a little bit, but I want you to cry out as if it’s hurting a lot. Do you understand?”
Safiya nodded.
“Scream nicely for Baba,” instructed Amina. As Dr Rejoice jabbed the needle into the girl’s finger and immediately withdrew it, Safiya let out a wail so convincing that Angel had to stifle a maternal urge to hold her and comfort her.
“Good girl,” Dr Rejoice encouraged, squeezing a few drops of blood from Safiya’s finger on to the swab. “Okay, now the other hand. Odile, see to that finger, please.”
With another swab, Odile wiped Safiya’s pricked finger with surgical spirit and then pressed hard on the tiny wound with the swab to stem the bleeding. Dr Rejoice was ready to prick a finger on Safiya’s other hand.
“Scream nicely for Baba again,” coached Amina. “He’ll be so happy when he hears it.”
Safiya’s second scream was louder and even more sustained than the first.
“Now some crying please, my dear,” instructed Dr Rejoice as she squeezed more blood on to her swab. “Okay, Odile, over to you.”
Odile took care of the second finger exactly as she had done the first.
“Right, it’s done,” said Dr Rejoice with a smile. “Now you can tell people that your daughter has been circumcised.” Dr Rejoice made quotation marks in the air with her fingers, in the same way that Omar had done. “When you do that with your fingers, they’ll think that you mean that circumcised is not the right word for what happened to your daughter because female genital mutilation is nothing like the circumcision of a boy. But really your fingers will
mean that it did not happen. But they won’t know that.”
“Eh, that is a very clever trick!” exclaimed Angel, grateful to have an honest way to tell Pius about this—should he ask—without breaking the vow that she had sworn on the Holy Bible. “I must remember that in the future.” She stood up as the others did the same. “But, Amina, are you sure that you and Safiya will be able to hide the truth from Vincenzo?”
“Vincenzo has asked us not to tell him the truth,” explained Amina, doing her best to look innocent. “Vincenzo himself made us swear that we will tell nobody what happened here. If we tell him, then we’ll be breaking the oath that we swore on the Holy Qur’an.”
The women giggled softly, and Safiya, who had been wailing plaintively, found it difficult to continue.
“Right,” said Dr Rejoice. “Odile and I will go out first. Safiya, when we sit to drink our coffee, you need to pretend that it’s a bit painful. Okay, everyone?”
Everyone nodded and then Dr Rejoice unlocked the door. She left Safiya’s bedroom and headed towards the kitchen, where Vincenzo was sitting on the counter.
“Vincenzo, my dear, do you have a spare plastic bag?” she asked, making sure that he noticed the bloodied swab and the syringe needle that she carried. “I forgot to bring one.”
Vincenzo produced a used plastic bag that had been folded away in the cupboard for use as a bin-liner later on. He held the bag as Dr Rejoice dropped in the swab and needle, then peeled off her surgical gloves and put them in, too. Then Odile placed her own bloodied swab in the bag, making sure that Vincenzo saw it, and peeled off her gloves.
“Everything went smoothly,” Dr Rejoice assured him with a smile. “Your daughter is very brave. Thank you, Vincenzo, I’ll take this bag and dispose of it properly at the clinic.”
Vincenzo went into the living room and hugged his daughter and then his wife. “I’m so very happy today,” he beamed. “Come, sit,” he said to everyone. “Coffee is ready.”
“May the doctor and I use your bathroom to wash our hands?” asked Odile.
