The Fury and Cries of Women

by Angèle Rawiri

  TheFuryandCriesofWomen

  CARAF Books

  Caribbean and African Literature Translated from French

  Renée Larrier and Mildred Mortimer, Editors

  Angèle Rawiri

  TheFury

  andCries

  ofWomen

  Translated by Sara Hanaburgh

  Afterword by Cheryl Toman

  Originally published in French as Fureurs et cris de femmes

  © L’Harmattan, 1989

  University of Virginia Press

  Translation and afterword © 2014 by the Rector and Visitors of the

  University of Virginia

  All rights reserved

  Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

  First published 2014

  ISBN 978-0-8139-3602-4 (cloth)

  ISBN 978-0-8139-3603-1 (paper)

  ISBN 978-0-8139-3604-8 (e-book)

  9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the

  Library of Congress.

  Cover art: Clive Watts/Shutterstock

  Contents

  I Disintegration

  II Nameless Despair

  III Drifting

  IV Emilienne’s Isolation

  V A Decision That Comes with Time

  VI The Last Resort

  Afterword by Cheryl Toman

  Bibliography

  TheFuryandCriesofWomen

  I dedicate this novel to my friend Rita Berthier,

  who died before giving birth to the baby

  she was carrying and so desired.

  I

  Disintegration

  She rolled over onto her sore belly. Despite the fact that time was passing, immobile on this rainy and gloomy morning, she wrapped herself in her sheets, dampened by a nightmare-ridden sleep. Forgetting her abdomen for a brief moment, she thought of how many job applications were piling up in her office. Then, with a wave of her hand, she swept aside a thought so extraneous to her growing anguish.

  She stretched slowly, as if that would suppress the panic progressively invading her. An ironic smile pursed her lips, dry and sore from being bitten, and she massaged her belly nervously. For she knew perfectly well this suffering that inevitably preceded the flow of large gushing blood clots. After two weeks of delirious hope, it almost always happened like this: the fetus absorbed itself, and when it did, she would withdraw in complete silence, which would intensify with her foul mood. All of her senses would then tune into that part of her body which, like a well-regulated clock, announced with precision the fatal hour when the foreign body would expel itself.

  Once again, the child that Emilienne had so desired these past twelve years refused to form and to implant itself in her womb.

  Her wide eyes turned toward the ceiling, as if she were staring at a haunted place, she glided her right hand over the side of the bed where her husband usually slept. A humiliating chill ran through her arm, which she pulled back with a sense of dread. In order to warm it, she wedged it, like a distended lump, between her thighs, pulled the sheet back over her head with the other hand, and, as if it were a cumbersome object, placed it awkwardly against the other.

  Curled up like the little girl she wanted to be again, Emilienne felt shivers darting through all her wounded limbs. Her eyes, suddenly stinging, moistened. Spitting with rage, she clenched her teeth, a movement that only aggravated her state of mind, unable to hold back the stream of tears which in the past had poured silently down her ravaged cheeks over two premature wrinkles. This morning, a nervous twitch took hold of her eyelids, starting the flow with one treacherous tear from each eye. The two tears now joined, forming one large warm drop, and streamed slowly down her neck, then separated again, each one settling into a wrinkle. Emilienne, who for an instant had had her head propped between two pillows, abandoned herself to her grief.

  How long had she been crying? She didn’t know. And did not care. Besides, nothing mattered to her now, not even the time that had passed while she had been waiting . . . the time! The time! How long it is to wait for the one thing you most yearn for when you believe you no longer have time . . .

  She jumped when someone knocked at the door. Before opening to that look of curiosity, to that face she hated more than anything, she had just enough time to run to the bathroom and splash water on herself. It was definitely her emotional state that the other’s half smile seemed to peer into questioningly. Emilienne shot her a look of fury.

  In order to get rid of her, she pretended to have a bad migraine and closed the door, not waiting for any comment. Overcome, belittled, and disgusted by the walls and objects in her room, witnesses to her emotional defeat and the deterioration her body had undergone, she had the feeling she no longer belonged to this world, as though she belonged to another. As when she suffered her bouts of depression, her troubled and agitated thoughts always brought her back abruptly to the one thing that was certain: she had to safeguard her marriage. No matter what the price, she needed to win back her husband who was drifting away from her.

  She lay down again, this time on her left side, her tears flowing over the hollow of her ears before they fell onto the sheet. It was the tick-tock of the clock that brought her back to herself, reminding her that outside, life carried on. She stretched out again, but this time cracking her knuckles, and at last managed to drag herself out from under the sheets, pulling through this painful torment she was allowing to eat away at her like a person surrendering to a death sentence.

  Emilienne tottered toward the window, drew the curtains, and raised the blinds. A misty rain was falling delicately upon the leaves of the almond trees along the fence. After last night’s storm, dead leaves and almonds were strewn about the lawn.

  To this day, Emilienne could not figure out her husband’s attachment to these trees, so messy they needed cleaning up after almost every day. It must be the shade they provided. Though, if the company that employed her didn’t tend to the maintenance of their villa, they wouldn’t have been able to afford all of their domestic help. The way of life in Kampana required executives to have their own household staff and security. The high-level executives didn’t think twice about hiring, in addition to the cook, a gardener and a driver for school-aged children. Emilienne and her husband had all such help working for them, except the driver. The gardener took care of garbage collection and watered the vast lawn during the dry season. Twice a week, the landscaper and his helpers came to mow the grass and trim and care for the plants and the various flowerbeds.

  “What good is all of this to me?” the young woman asked herself, moving away from the window. “I live behind the walls of my problems, and all the rest is nothing but décor.”

  She scanned the room with a melancholy gaze before stopping on the triple mirror that covered an entire wall and reflected, on the opposite wall, two large wedding photos and a nude by a mysterious painter who hadn’t thought it necessary to sign his work.

  She raised her eyes and imagined it was night. At the same time, a soft, filtered light shone in from the false ceiling covered with gathered fabric spread out like a fan. Emilienne lowered her head and turned, with regret, toward the hollow left in the mattress by her body. The flowered bedspread in shades of green matching the fabric on the ceiling trailed on a pale green, fluffy carpet. A miserable smile formed on her lips when her eyes considered the nightstands, the bed frame, and the chest of drawers all made of white lacquered particle board with polyester varnish: an order placed with Furniture France to mark the “spectacular” significance of their first paycheck. For everything to have matched in their room, they would have had to change the wood frames of the win
dows and closets and painted them glossy white.

  EMILIENNE SEARCHED her failing memory feverishly for the pallid ghosts of the passionate love they’d once shared, which had sometimes brought tears to her eyes and at other times provoked cries of passion. Sadly, only fleeting images of these intimate moments—now so distant—remained. A few, however, were more vivid. One night, in the elevator of a small hotel, Joseph, who was only her lover at the time, had ripped off all her clothes in a fit of passion, and, covering her with sensual kisses, carried her into an anonymous room decorated entirely in white. He had then placed her delicately on the carpet before demonstrating all his talents as a lover. The pleasure was so intoxicating it almost brought her pain.

  During the following months, Emilienne had such a glow that her close friends watched her with wonder. Her complexion was more radiant, her health sound, and her energy contagious. She took on an enchanting self-assurance. “Only love can bring about such a transformation in a woman,” her college friends noted observantly. These remarks made Emilienne feel on top of the world. She not only thought but knew that nothing could threaten her happiness, not even death. To reassure herself that this intoxicating love was real, she would literally jump on Joseph and kiss and touch him all over each time they would meet. Like a cat on its mistress’s lap, he would coo and purr and shimmy all over.

  EMILIENNE SHOOK her head vigorously in an effort to blot out the devastation these memories brought upon her; she turned away from the bed and headed into the bathroom. In the shower, the cold water revived her body. She would have stayed under the water if she hadn’t had to get to the office. And so, with reluctance, she stepped over the edge of the tub. And even before she had managed to bring her other foot over, her weight had nearly sprawled her out across the tile floor. How many pounds had she gained since she married? Each time she looked at the scale, she was seized with anxiety. The scale had become a toy on which the children hopped on and off, those rare times they entered her room. She would have thrown it away long ago if her husband hadn’t objected.

  With vexation she faced the mirror framed with spotlights and fiddled with the soft, fatty flesh hanging from her arms, belly, and thighs. She truly could not bear the sight of this other self, with whom she did not identify. She moved away from the mirror, a bad taste in her mouth, and went to get a white pleated skirt suit from the closet. Turning her back to the wall-length mirror, she undid her braids, combed her hair back to the nape of her neck, and rolled it up, holding it in place with small hairpins. The feel of this dull, dry hair, which at one time had been a major asset, worsened her mood. It didn’t matter whether the bun was tied neatly at her neck; she didn’t want to see herself again in a mirror for the rest of the day. Quickly she applied a layer of lipstick, put on her black shoes, and took a shoulder bag of the same color out of the closet.

  As she opened the door, she found herself face to face with Eyang, her hand raised, about to pound on the door. A habit she was not about to break in spite of her son’s reproaches, which always ended on the same note:

  “Good grief! You really are deaf. Don’t you ever hear us when we answer? One of these days I’m going to have to bring you in to get your ears checked.”

  “Oh, but you are going to work, aren’t you! Your silence made me worry.”

  She managed to poke her head through the half-open door just as Emilienne, infuriated, was closing it again.

  She looked at her cunningly and replied in a dry tone, “He didn’t come home last night. Didn’t you notice earlier? Just take a look in the garage.”

  Eyang retreated, shoulders back, giving an elusive look. “Why, it seems she wants to avoid the conflict this morning!”

  Emilienne slammed the door and locked it, then, with an angry spring in her step, left the house.

  ONCE INSIDE THE CAR, she placed her hand again on her belly. The pain was worsening near the navel, more acute, as if a razor blade were cutting into her inner organs. “Between now and this evening it will have completely disintegrated,” she grumbled to herself. “There will be nothing left but my useless uterus.” With her elbow on the car’s windowsill and her other hand absently stroking the steering wheel, Emilienne waited patiently on Charles de Gaulle Boulevard for the light to turn green.

  The dense fronds of the majestic coconut and date palms lining the boulevard were swaying gently and with an irregularity in sync with the wind and a misty, capricious rain. The first morning customers and late workers, hunched under their umbrellas, were running swiftly across streets and past storefronts. On the road, the line of cars stretched endlessly, as happened each time it rained. The most impatient drivers honked restlessly, causing a racket that aggravated the young woman’s already tried nerves. Luckily, she forgot the traffic and noise quickly, locking herself into thoughts of her past, which did not take long to emerge clearly in her mind. Her love story streamed before her as if projected on a giant screen. She had fully retrieved the memory.

  AFTER DATING for a year during their university studies in Paris, the young couple had decided to get married. In accordance with custom, they went to each of their families during vacation to announce their news.

  The bride- and groom-to-be, having planned to meet in a bar in the city, went first to the home of the widow Eyang. She was about fifty years old at the time, full-figured and full of vitality. She dressed simply but wore her clothes with a dignified grace. Besides, she was naturally distinguished, a refinement noticeable in the way she held her head, the way she walked and gestured with slow and steady movements. Her facial features, offset by a page boy cut, were rather ordinary. Her husband had just passed away, and she clung desperately to her son, who, up to that point, had been purely a source of great pride and fulfillment.

  Joseph adored her, and if he performed well in his studies, it was in part to keep from disappointing her. She was living in a working-class neighborhood with her daughter, five years younger than Joseph. The wooden house had good ventilation and was neat and tidy. The furniture, modest yet well maintained, took on a certain value in such a setting. After Joseph introduced his fiancée to her, she reacted in a fit of rage that her son had never known her capable of.

  “You will not marry a girl from that ethnic group as long as I live!”

  To emphasize her disapproval, she’d hissed loudly, directing her disdainful gesture at the inside of her son’s legs. The lovers had exchanged stunned looks.

  “If it is truly I who created you and carried you in this belly for nine months,” resumed his mother, vigorously tapping her midsection several times, “I forbid you to see that person ever again. Do you not know that those people look down on us and believe they are more sophisticated than us? I wonder sometimes if they’re not sick in the head. We have pretty, well-educated girls, too. They’re waiting for you to take an interest in them instead of setting your eyes on that . . .”

  The incomplete sentence barely out of her mouth, she’d looked Emilienne up and down and with a brisk gesture pulled the flowing fabric of her dress between her thighs. The chair she was sitting on creaked each time she shifted her weight. She resumed her knitting furiously.

  Emilienne, who understood their language perfectly well, could barely contain her exasperation. She blinked her eyelids heavily. Joseph smiled and gave her a knowing wink. She composed herself. Teeming with rage though remaining outwardly calm, Joseph responded:

  “Such disgraceful behavior is beneath you, Mother. I am ashamed. I’ll marry Emilienne as soon as we get back to France. Do you realize you’ve just lost a son? Unless you apologize, I will no longer speak to you. Don’t worry; I’ll continue to live at home until I leave, for appearances’ sake.”

  For a brief moment Emilienne had thought she’d seen Eyang’s short hair stand on end and her hands shake. When she was about to turn back toward Joseph, she saw the old woman brandish the knitting needle and hurl it at her son, who dodged it in the nick of time. The needle had pierced the wooden wall.<
br />
  On the side of the road, where they were waiting for a taxi, the young woman, still deeply unnerved, snuggled up to her fiancé.

  “If she wasn’t your mother, I would have given her a good slap.” Then, altering her tone, she asked, “What are we going to do? What if she curses us?”

  “Don’t worry; she can’t do us any harm. I love my mother a lot, but I had to react the way I did. Let’s see your parents instead. Were they at home when you left?”

  “They were there at two o’clock. In any case my mother will be there. She hardly ever goes out.”

  “I hope they aren’t cantankerous as well.”

  THE TAXI had dropped them at the entrance to the doctors’ residential community, which was surrounded by a wire fence. The villas were enormous modern constructions. Brick footpaths separated rows of houses. Some tenants had planted a hedge of flowers in order to create a sense of privacy for their homes.

  The kitchen door, which faced an outdoor courtyard, was wide open. Passersby could see Rondani crushing bananas with a pestle and mortar from outside. Emilienne entered the kitchen alone; the aroma of wild boar stock simmering on the stove filled the air.

  “That smells good!” the young woman exclaimed, opening the lid. “I have a feeling I’m in for a treat tonight. Can you wash your hands and take off that apron for a moment, Mama? I want to introduce you to someone.”

  “It’s not the time to receive company, my child; and who is it you want to introduce to me?”

  “My fiancé,” Emilienne announced, bearing an enigmatic smile.

  The mortar had slipped out of her mother’s hands and rolled onto the floor.

  “It’s about time, my child. I was beginning to worry about your lack of interest in marriage. Have him come in through the other door. He mustn’t see me like this.”