Panic-stricken, the old woman pushed open the gate and found herself outside of the compound. Roxanne ran behind her and took off toward the trees, where some mangy dogs were gathered around an old bone. Eyang trotted along behind the animal, which had disappeared from her sight once he’d sniffed out the bone. Eyang retraced her steps and came back to the topic that was preoccupying her. She suddenly felt very weary and felt an aversion to everything, to herself especially. She knew well that feeling of uneasiness that would erupt in her from time to time. It came from her childhood, from the memory she had of her poor mother. She was a kind, gentle woman, but was terrified of her husband, who would beat her with a stick at least twice a week. Her whole life she had injuries and bumps and bruises all over her body. Before she had died at an early age, her husband had managed to blind her in one eye and had broken all five fingers of her right hand, making it useless up to the day her soul was laid to rest. Eyang had promised herself that she would never allow herself to be dominated by a man—which she had succeeded in doing effortlessly with a husband who was far too easily swayed—and that she would choose her children’s partners according to very specific criteria. She had not managed to tame her rebellious daughter and had left her to take care of herself, and with her son it was not going to be easy. And now the cook was complicating things as well.
Suddenly, a bright glimmer lit up her melancholy eyes. She had just come up with the only solution that would keep Godwin quiet once and for all.
With a renewed sense of enthusiasm, Eyang returned to the house with a quickened pace. Frantically, she pushed open all the doors that blocked her path. When she reached her bedroom, she knelt down in front of her trunk, and with trembling hands untied the cord she kept around her waist, then pulled out an old tarnished key and inserted it hurriedly into the keyhole of the thick padlock.
With both hands, she emptied out the trunk, throwing its contents all around her. At the bottom was a port bottle filled with bank bills. She grasped it around the neck and threw it with all the remaining strength she could muster so that it crashed and shattered against the wall. Shards of glass, bills, several papers with scribbling on them, and her marriage certificate went flying. Eyang grabbed the wad of bills, took out several of them, and ran out of the room.
“Here,” she said and hurled the money against the cook’s chest. “This time you are going to keep quiet. Understood!”
“Oh, yes, Madame Eyang,” Godwin answered, delighted, and with a look of malice. “Well, what a nice surprise; you are very rich! I swear by my mother’s good name, and she is your age, not to tell anyone what I know.”
“Okay! Okay!”
Eyang returned to her room calmed and with a smile.
WITH EMILIENNE, Godwin was sometimes hostile, and sometimes he displayed a false kindness, which disconcerted the young woman more and more.
That Saturday morning, when she came back from the market, Godwin came running to unload the groceries from the trunk of her car.
“You’ve done quite the shopping, Madame Emilienne! Have you noticed how the prices have gone up? Soon the poor won’t be able to eat anymore. And we are surprised by all those store robberies and the blackmailing of the rich.”
Emilienne stopped in her tracks and looked quizzically at her cook. Since he’d worked for her he had never put three sentences together in a single conversation. Godwin lowered his head, a smirk on his face, and took out two bunches of bananas and a box of sea bream, marlin, and an enormous tuna. In the kitchen, he feverishly put away the vegetables, fruits, meat, and fish.
“If you want,” he went on, jumping from one foot to the other, “I can get you some good fresh fish for a good price. I have a good connection, you know.”
He straightened up and put his hands in the pockets of the new beige pants he’d put on under his work shirt so as not to dirty them.
“Is the investigation into your daughter’s death moving forward?” he asked, moving from futility on to grave subjects, his facial expression mirroring the transition. It seems that the police never find the murderers of children. People don’t know why. But then, what good would it be for you if they did, eh! They’re not going to give back your child. And remember, those killers will never be happy.”
He was getting ready to go out of the kitchen when Emilienne ordered him not to move.
“Let this be the last time you use that tone when speaking to me, and don’t ever look at me in that insolent way again. Just keep to your work; the rest does not concern you.”
“Yes, Madame, I do apologize.”
He gave a slight disdainful smile and went out dragging his feet.
Flabbergasted, Emilienne watched him go out. Her cook’s self-important air made her think of the stories she’d heard a thousand times about household staff who wielded strong influence over their employers by using fetishes.
Most cases were about cooks who worried about keeping their jobs with high society employers. In order to do so, they would mix together special concoctions and put them in the food they prepared so they could dominate and manipulate their employers as it suited them. Before long their masters were satisfying all of their needs without the slightest hesitation. The lady of the house would become the cook’s lover. Having fallen in love with her employee, she could leave her husband to go live with the cook in the master’s house, the latter choosing to leave so as not to bother the lovers.
Those stories had always seemed absurd to Emilienne, although now she admitted that anything was possible in Africa, this land of mysteries. She decided therefore to be vigilant, paying particular attention to what the cook tasted on the menus before serving them.
FOLLOWING THE EUPHORIA after her reconciliation with her mother-in-law, an overwhelming feeling of melancholy took over Emilienne. The physical inner emptiness she felt was so profound that even the attention her other family members gave to her, and the delightful change in Eyang, could not console her.
Yet again, Emilienne had to admit that her joie de vivre and her hopes could not come from a single person, not even the one she loved and would love forever.
Her sadness carved out space first for her sinking spirit, then for mortal anguish. She felt like a prisoner with a life sentence who was destined to suffer through all her emotions in a narrow cell lit only by a small overhead window. The agonizing life Emilienne was living was unbearable. Multiple torments had accumulated and were resurfacing all at once. There was her fear of no longer being loved, the anguish of never having any more children, the fear of separating from her husband, and above all, the jealousy that was eating her up like a flame licking up dry straw.
Until this moment, she had refused to imagine her husband in the arms of another woman. In fact, she had never given the woman a face or a body. She had been a shadow which very well could have been her own—it did seem that some men looked for lovers who shared traits with their wives. And then for no apparent reason, that shadow was filling in quite distinctly and that other person did not resemble her. She saw her as more beautiful, flirtatious, charming, and very elegant. At times in her inner turmoil, she made her repulsively ugly and delighted in the fact that her husband would make such an absurd choice. Ah, if only she could surprise them in each other’s arms, she would strangle the woman with her own hands. She would be the first woman to commit a crime of passion in this country where people usually settled their scores on the sly.
“What does she have that I don’t?” she asked herself for the hundredth time since that morning. “Is it my infertility that is making him run away? Why does he need me to have children to love me? My illness, if that’s what it is, is not contagious and should not rob us of our love. No, I cannot believe that Joseph loved me for the children I was supposed to give him after our wedding. I don’t want to believe that all he saw in me was this woman who was to become the mother of his children. No, that idea is unbearable to me. I am a woman and I will be a woman no matter what happens. And I am n
ot completely barren since I did give him a beautiful little girl. Is it my fault that she died, that it was our destiny that she be taken from us! And through all of this I have not changed, I am still me, the one he loved, I am still a woman, his wife! Am I still his wife, now that he has another woman? What is she like? I must see her. I will follow him the next time he comes around.”
THIS DID NOT take long. It was 8:15 p.m. when she began tailing him, and what she saw would forever remain etched in her memory.
A few minutes before he had gone back out, Joseph had torn apart the closets, searching high and low for a silk handkerchief that matched the tie he had taken off the rack. The whole time he spewed insults left and right, swearing every five minutes. He even told his mother to go to hell when she suggested she help him look for it. Of course, Emilienne figured out right away that he was on his way to an important dinner. Clearly, he was not going alone and was going to change his clothes at his mistress’s. And since for some time now people had been saying that he made a point of being seen everywhere with the same woman, it was likely she would be with him this evening as well.
After he’d taken down all the hangers and dumped out all of the drawers, even those that belonged to his wife, he left, muttering to himself.
Before he had even got into his car, Emilienne had taken the keys to her Subaru, and she waited behind the gate for him to turn on the engine; then she, too, pulled out. Her two hands gripping the wheel, she followed behind him. Joseph drove swiftly, not bothering to stop at red lights. The young woman stayed close behind so as not to lose sight of him. The smooth flow of traffic made it easier for her since, by 7 p.m., the major avenues of the city were deserted. This didn’t keep Joseph from braking suddenly and coming to a halt in the middle of the road. Emilienne had just enough time to veer to the right and speed past without him spotting her.
She parked almost half a mile ahead at a poorly lit curve in the road. She knew he would have to pass by there, so she waited a good ten minutes. It started to seem like a long time, and Joseph still hadn’t come. What had happened to him? Had he turned back to take another road?
Emilienne got out of the car and walked back to where the street started to curve. From where she was standing, she could see that beyond there the road straightened. A car was parked on the sidewalk, and its occupant seemed to be holding the hand of a woman who was struggling to defend herself in an argument. Emilienne thought she recognized the woman’s silhouette. It was no doubt just a resemblance; certainly there were many petite women, and from this far away, she couldn’t really tell. To confirm her suspicions, she decided to get closer to them. And in order to keep them from seeing her, she left the sidewalk and walked along the side of the road, which was muddy and strewn with pebbles. In the semidarkness, she tripped over a large rock and found herself sprawled on her back in the mud. Without losing her will, she bravely got back up and continued her way toward them, taking small steps.
She felt a burning sensation on her leg, where she had grazed it on the sharp corner of the low table in her living room. Her scab had definitely reopened; it didn’t matter—a little wound, no matter how deep, wasn’t going to stop her. She walked on her tiptoes, feeling the ground as it crunched under her shoes. In order to pick up the pace, she hiked up the bottom of her dress, stuffed it into her slip, and took her shoes off, but not for long, because walking over the loose stones hurt the soles of her feet. She continued a few steps farther and, heart beating, raised her head. There was no doubt. She recognized Joseph’s metallic grey Renault 5. The woman, whom she still could not make out clearly, started yelling and fighting more aggressively. But she could see her husband’s head and his shirt. What was all this about? Her legs like jelly, Emilienne ran, and fell again. She got back up just as the woman dove into the car. Emilienne started running again, and climbed onto the sidewalk screaming her husband’s name. The car pulled away.
AS HER EYELIDS grew heavy, urging her whole body to fall into a state of oblivion, Emilienne remembered she was still wearing the dress she’d just dragged through the mud. Too bad, she said to herself. Getting up again would make her conscious of her physical state and, consequently, relive the painful scene she had witnessed moments before. What would she gain from suffering more from a situation that had taught her nothing?
In a state between sleep and wakefulness, she continued, despite herself, to rationalize the situation and to try to be rational about it. But she would have really liked to sleep. She turned over in bed. The roughness of her legs bothered her. What had really just happened? It had all unfolded so quickly! And with that she started thinking again, which was exactly what she wanted to avoid. How then was she to stop the string of sentences filling her head and instead make her mind go blank to avoid the pain? At that moment, her brain was like an alarm clock set to go off after an undetermined amount of time, ticking away the hours, minutes, and seconds without end. They say that a man’s negative thoughts are his worst enemy. They join together, invade you, and lead you to a place you don’t want to go. They are uncontrollable and elusive. They torture you, tear you to shreds, and then destroy you. They are more destructive than that which provoked them. Although their effects on one’s health are obvious, we cannot help but get sucked in. At that very moment, Emilienne could not stop the painful explosion that came from her heart, reached her inner core, then ran down her legs. The localized pain worked together with the muddle in her head, which she was incapable of controlling.
“What use is it, getting myself into such a state? I will not be able to change it. It’s an illusion to think someone can transform a person limited by his convictions. I am sure he never dreamed of the harm he could do me. Since it is his wish to behave this way, I should, according to him, be thankful for him and happy with him. But even if I were a saint, I wouldn’t be able to, nor could I avoid the inevitable effects of his love affairs.”
“How strange it is the way things always happen by chance and yet so profoundly change the course of our lives! Everything that had been anticipated, planned, in the utmost detail, is crumbling like a staircase made of sand. Will I at least be able to control my own pain despite these recent events?”
She jumped at the muffled hum of a car outside. She ran to the window and saw Joseph opening the gate. She ran as fast as she could into the bathroom to put on a housecoat and leapt into bed. She settled into bed, propped up against the headboard with a book on her chest, and closed her eyes. Joseph opened the door surreptitiously. Emilienne opened one eye then closed it immediately. Though it was long enough to notice the new grey suit he was wearing and the tie and silk handkerchief as well, a handkerchief he had no doubt found at his mistress’s. In a few minutes, the room was filled with a strong odor of whiskey.
“Since when do you sleep in a housecoat?” he muttered as he flopped down onto the bed.
“Oh, no! You are definitely not going to sleep here in your drunken state. So why did you come back? Don’t tell me your mistress threw you out after your quarrel on the road.”
His forehead wrinkled, and he wavered as he turned around toward his wife.
“What do you mean?” he grumbled. “As usual, you come up with the craziest bullshit.”
His drunken breath filled his wife’s nostrils, and she turned her head away, pinching her nose. Her angry voice boomed over the humming of the air conditioner.
“Listen, Joseph! Don’t think I am naïve. I know that you picked up a whore on Independence Boulevard around 8:30 p.m., after you quarreled passionately with her. I want to know who she is, do you understand?”
“Screw you! Nobody can say they saw me pick up a whore on the street around 8:30 p.m. because at that exact time I was having a drink with friends. You saw Pierre. I loaned him my car. He had a date with a girl. Call him tomorrow, he’ll confirm that for you.”
He dozed off.
Emilienne shook her head and smiled in despair. How could she have been so naïve as to think he would ad
mit everything to her? He wasn’t lying to spare her from pain; it was purely out of habit. If they were still together in ten years, he would repeat the same lies.
Why did this man, who was so straightforward and open in other respects, love to weave a web of lies whenever it came to his relationships with his mistresses? Joseph was not the only man who cloaked his extramarital affairs in lies and enigmas. Even the most disrespectful husband lacked the courage to reveal his intimate secrets to his wife. No doubt, for them it was the intoxicating mystery of it all that they needed.
IV
Emilienne’s Isolation
Weeks passed, each the same as the last. But all the same, Emilienne had noted a change in her mother-in-law’s behavior toward her. You could say that her usual feelings toward her had returned.
For once, Emilienne did not dwell on the downturn in their relationship and made a deliberate effort not to try to make it better. If for a long time she had allowed Eyang’s provocations to get to her, she was firmly committed to ignoring her from here on.
IN ORDER to snap out of the depressing monotony of her conjugal life, that Saturday afternoon she was going to her parents’, whom she had not seen in over a month. Thanks to them and to her sister, she had been able to cope with the death of her daughter. However, she did avoid talking to them about her love life even though she knew they were aware of her unhappiness. And it was exactly because of their silence, the pity she saw in their eyes, that she had stayed away from them these past six weeks. Pity was the one feeling she could not stand, especially coming from her family.
Before she had even parked her car, her nephews had run over to greet her, throwing their arms around her neck as she opened the gate. Although they were as happy to see her as the others, the two oldest greeted her with just a kiss on each cheek.
The Fury and Cries of Women Page 10
