Joseph, who no longer often attended family evening gettogethers, was clearly ill at ease. With his eyes glued to the television screen, he crossed and uncrossed his legs. From time to time, he scratched his head frantically, as if it were covered in lice.
Then, as if suddenly attacked by an itch in his pants, he got up, went over to the little bar, and served himself a large shot of whiskey, then sat down between his nephews on the couch. Across from him, his wife stared at a spot on the wall, deep in her own thoughts, judging by the different expressions on her face.
Between two gulps of whiskey, Joseph shot furtive glances at his wife. When his glass was empty, he refilled it. Sitting directly in front of the television, Eyang turned several times toward the couple, whose behavior amused her.
As for Roxanne, reprimanded then neglected by everyone, she rushed over to the pile of newspapers stashed in the basket next to the television. With unusual calm, she scattered them around her without her owners noticing. Once she had finished, she crouched down and got comfortable, her eyes staring maliciously at Eyang, who was focused on a film starring Romy Schneider and Lino Ventura. Yvon was the first to notice the prank the animal had just played. In shock, the child watched as the dog laid down another turd, this time on the tiled floor. Satisfied with her ruse, she chewed on the pile of newspapers and was getting ready to drag it across the living room when the little boy finally shouted:
“Look! Roxanne went poo-poo, and she wants to show it to us.”
Everyone stood up, except Emilienne.
“Dirty animal!” the kids screamed and chased after her.
“Look at that! How can you live in a house with a dog?” Eyang commented, curling her lips, looking disgusted.
“Mama,” Joseph said, “you seem to have forgotten that this poor animal has been cooped up all day. It is astonishing that no one thought to open the door for her when she was trying to get our attention.”
He got up to pet the animal, who was so overjoyed she clung to his pant leg. Then Roxanne rolled around on the floor and finally lay down with her paws up in the air, her snout dripping with slobber.
“That’s a good dog; let’s go take a walk outside now.”
The master and his dog headed toward the door, the former reeling along thanks to the half bottle of whiskey he’d just emptied, and the latter wiggling her hips.
When the door opened, a violent gust of wind blew into the house, knocking over the flowerpot that sat on the table. This time, Emilienne got up to pick up the pot and clean the floor. Joseph and Roxanne came back almost immediately.
“I have never seen such strong wind. Several branches have been ripped off of trees, and the plants are uprooted. Still, Roxanne was able to poop a second time. She truly couldn’t hold it in anymore.”
He moved toward his wife, grazing her deliberately when she stood up, the scrub brush in one hand and the floor cloth in the other. The young woman stopped short when her husband’s foot stomped down on the broom.
“Stop sulking,” he said to her in a derisive tone.
She looked him up and down and waited for him to lift his foot. Nomé and Yvon jumped on the animal. All three of them rolled around on the floor. Joseph joined them. The children and the dog climbed all over him, the former laughing and the animal barking. Joseph cried out like Tarzan.
Emilienne sat back down and bit her lips. Eyang fidgeted as she listened wrathfully to the giggling and yells of the three rolling around. She removed her glasses, rubbed her eyes vigorously, and then pulled at her lower lip, flapping it against her chin.
Emilienne clenched her teeth, amused by the impromptu scene. Finally something out of the routine was happening in this house! This Joseph, rolling around on the floor, reminded her of another who, during the first years of their marriage, had been a hysterically funny, cheerful soul, who naturally attracted friends. Any person he met, whether man or woman, loved being around him. With him, the dinners with their friends were never morose. That pleasing side of his personality had disappeared over the years. The only thing that remained of the sparkle and vivaciousness in his eyes were glimmers of mockery, unless he was in a good mood and away from home. Right then, he seemed to be letting off steam.
Eyang visibly disapproved of the spectacle and Joseph’s participation in it. After she’d contorted herself in vain, she made a perilous jump several inches up in the air and fell back on one foot, slipping on the other, which had gotten tangled beneath her armchair. Without meaning to, Eyang, too, had ended up on the tile floor. But since no one had noticed her fall, she immediately picked herself up. Then, with her hand on her hip, she rushed over to the chaos. The children, seeing her coming, dispersed. Even quicker than the children, Roxanne had already made it to the other side of the room. Sitting on the floor, Joseph stared at his mother, who stood immobile in front of him with a disapproving look on her face.
“Don’t you think you’re well past the age to be horsing around on the ground?” she shot at him. “How are your nephews going to respect you after seeing you do that?”
“You are becoming really annoying,” retorted her son sharply. “Nothing can happen when you’re around without you getting involved. You are not a mother; you’re a police-woman, my word!”
He got up. Three lines formed on his forehead.
“When are you going to treat me like an adult? Because I don’t consider myself a kid playing with my nephews.”
Her hand still on her hip, Eyang raised her head to look her son square in the eye. Then, with an angry movement, the mother whisked the scarf off her head.
“Do you intend for those words to remind me that I am not in my own home? Anything I say or do in this house irritates you, isn’t that right?”
She got close to the chair and leaned on it.
“My son, you forget a little too quickly that without my sacrifices, you would be a failure of a man. I want you to remember that when you speak to me. Neither the food nor the clothes you give me will make up for the sacrifices I’ve made to make you the man you’ve become.”
Exhausted, she sat back down.
Troubled by her words, and at the same time feeling a little guilty, he lowered his head. He saw himself . . . He saw himself when he was a little child, his mother carrying him on her back, wrapped in a pagne as she gathered brush or planted manioc roots under a burning sun or heavy rain. Another more powerful image stood between him and his mother: it was after his father’s death when her income had been cut off—she had to sell all of her jewelry and clothes in order to feed and clothe his sister and him.
Those memories, so alive in his mind, brought an ashamed smile to his face. He walked hesitantly over to his mother and held her in his arms.
EMILIENNE GOT UP and ran into the kitchen to get a piece of cake, which she gobbled down in her bedroom.
“Don’t get yourself all worked up, Mama. What did you do, anyway, that caused that swelling in your ankle and that pain in your hip you keep massaging?”
Her face set, his mother blinked her eyes.
“Don’t move. I’m going to get your Chinese balm. You’re right, you know, it does work miracles.”
He disappeared into the bedroom and came back with a small, flat, red box. Very carefully, he rubbed her ankles and handed her the little box.
“You’ll see, by tomorrow, you won’t feel anything anymore. Put a little of it on your hip.”
Finally, Eyang sighed, and her maternal gaze fell, reassured, on her son; she spoke in a low voice:
“My son, seeing you crawling around on the floor like a child earlier made me remember when you were little. I think I suddenly felt bad that I could no longer pick you up in my arms, or be the only person in the world you need. I see that I am useless to you now. What will happen to me if you cast me out of your home? You are the only one among my children I can still count on; your sister doesn’t care about me. Take care of me, don’t abandon me for that barren woman,” she whispered, kneading her ha
nds.
Two giant tears rolled down her creviced cheeks.
V
A Decision That
Comes with Time
Most of the time when we see people in the street, we are not able to gauge the sum of their pain. We often think that the rocky periods they are going through are not as bad as our own. And even when we get closer to them and learn of the tragedies they’ve suffered, we are still convinced our sorrows weigh more heavily than theirs.
Who, then, could understand Emilienne’s self-absolution, which for those around her was merely a sign of her egocentrism? For her, her life was in all respects like climbing a mountain with sharp, jagged ridges under the oppressive heat of the sun. For a long time, she had tried desperately to hold on to those ridges, but instead had badly scraped her hands and feet.
Still, she clung to life, having decided that in order to confront all those who scorned her, she would scale that mountain again, tackling it from another side where she didn’t know the obstacles. As the saying goes, we carry the weight of the world on our shoulders, and Emilienne was conscious of her own size and strength! She managed to climb that mountain, her guarded optimism leading her to regain her will.
ON THE MORNING of her appointment with Dr. Pascal, Emilienne got up earlier than usual. Through the blinds, the radiant yellow sun’s light refracting through the thick foliage of the trees produced a dazzling green. Birds were singing, perched upon the fence.
She took two deep breaths and drank a tall glass of mineral water. Despite her physical and mental agony, she applied her makeup carefully and was attentive to how she dressed. Ready two hours before her appointment, to clear her head, she decided to organize her bedroom. Perhaps she would feel more at ease placing herself in the hands of the gynecologist once her bedroom, which was part of her intimate world, was in order.
She began with her husband’s walk-in closet and wardrobe, which were both nearly empty. Out of forty or so ties and thirty shirts, less than half remained. Six suits and most of his underwear had been moved into the other’s house, her rival’s house. With the calm and composure she did not know she had, she methodically folded and arranged her husband’s clothes before attending to her own. She took out a set of silk sheets for the cleaning lady, who should arrive at any minute. Today was the day she would do a full cleaning of their bedroom and iron the laundry that had been washed the day before.
It was time to leave. Satisfied, Emilienne closed the swinging doors to the closet.
SHE ARRIVED at the clinic just as those who had worked the night shift were getting ready to leave. Emilienne got a little lost in the clinic, which had expanded undoubtedly in response to its growing clientele. In order to be examined by Dr. Pascal, who was renowned well beyond the city, appointments had to be made two months in advance. Emilienne had to convince the office that her medical condition was grave in order to get in as soon as possible, and that meant after only two weeks.
There were about twenty patients awaiting their turn when Emilienne sat down in the waiting room. Dr. Pascal Moukambé’s examination room opened onto a long, narrow hallway in front of the waiting room. The incessant comings and goings of medical personnel, the squealing wheels of stretchers, the shuffling feet, and mumbling of the sick made the whole scene a little frightening. It was really quite a squalid place for the sick, where people would go with a feeling of guilt, fright, and the kind of embarrassment that was really an admission to others of their illness, which they viewed as a weakness.
Left in the hands of the subaltern personnel whom in normal circumstances they would look down upon, some patients showed their antipathy and acted out violently. On the other end of the spectrum was the doctor, who became the Lord savior, the one who understood them without judgment and who had the power to heal. The fear and respect he inspired were commensurate with his wisdom and his ability to perform the miracle of healing. That was why, even today, the doctor is the man or woman most respected in society and to whom one remains grateful for the rest of one’s life. Even when he sometimes fails at this tall task, for the patient, he remains a special human being.
The number of women waiting to be seen increased every fifteen minutes. Some, with bulging bellies, had distressed, grievous looks on their faces. Others, more serene, seemed distracted as they leafed through the magazines that were left out for them. One of them, certainly the youngest one there, studied her elders closely, looking at them respectfully, yet with a derisive smile on her lips. How many of them wished to have a child?
Emilienne’s worried look lingered on a lady with a flat stomach, over forty, who sat right next to her. She wore thick black glasses and seemed terribly troubled by the fact that she was there.
I hope she hasn’t contracted AIDS, she thought. She was so thin and so tired! The young woman trembled. The campaign about AIDS that had echoed throughout Western countries lately was so frightening, it left no one indifferent. Having originated in an African country, in a certain species of monkey, AIDS had been ravaging African populations for a dozen years. In point of fact, who had definitive proof of its origin? Whatever it may be, we would no longer attribute all those mysterious deaths to witchcraft.
Emilienne wore a slightly saddened smile as she thought about the harsh words of Pastor Oyabé, a friend of her parents: “These days, people engage in sexual relations as often as they have a meal, and they use all orifices. Because of these sins, man is giving a death sentence to innocent fetuses. He has not understood that everything in this universe and in his own life rests in a balance, which, if upset, brings about catastrophe. If, to this sexual orgy, we add terrorism, crime, and perversity, how can we be surprised by man’s decline! Faced with such horrors, God has but one way to purify the world: he sends all sorts of calamities. Let us not be mistaken, it is not a punishment that God is inflicting upon his creation, but rather he is showing us the impact of our thoughts and actions in the form of airplane, train, and car accidents, of drought, famine, and earthquakes. Since there is not going to be a Third World War, as some believe, there must be powerful phenomena that will force men to regain their good senses and their dignity. And that can only be done with the sacrifice of a great number of individuals. Those who are saved will undoubtedly return to noble sentiments.”
“So what is it that has broken inside me that has brought on the calamity of my barrenness?”
She didn’t have the time to answer the question she’d just asked herself; instead, she jumped when the woman next to her stood up. Soon it would be her turn. Emilienne was overcome with a sense of mounting panic. Twenty minutes from now, she would have to answer the embarrassing questions the gynecologist would ask, and in a few days she would know what she had until now subconsciously refused to confront: the truth. Doubt is a secure state behind which you can hide in order to protect yourself and demand the understanding of others. Knowing the truth knocks down the fortified walls you have built and leaves you to yourself and to the judgment of others.
WHEN HER TURN CAME, Emilienne was led into an enormous office that smelled of cold rubbing alcohol. She sat down opposite the gynecologist. Above his head, on the wall, she could read this inscription: “The role of your doctor is to treat you; don’t be ashamed to talk with him about your illness.”
The young woman finally looked at the doctor. He was a man of about fifty years of age with a dry face, each side marked with a deep crease. His inquisitive yet reassuring look troubled Emilienne. Dr. Pascal Moukambé was one of the very top gynecologists in the country. Before buying this clinic, he had worked for a long time at the state hospital. His clientele had grown very quickly, and he took considerable business away from his colleagues, who were not at all happy with his fame. As arguments and negative reports about him multiplied, he took out a loan from the bank, added his own considerable contribution, and bought the Modern Clinic from a prominent colleague who had been trained at the Paris School of Medicine and was retiring after twenty years of loyal
service in Africa. His patients followed him.
After having probed Emilienne’s brain with his piercing eyes, as if to discover her most intimate secrets, which were likely to help him with his diagnosis, Dr. Pascal finally spoke in a soft and measured voice.
“Do you have a file here?”
“No, Doctor. It’s my first time here.”
Then began the usual preliminary questions asked at any first consultation. Trust established, Emilienne explained the reasons for her visit. The gynecologist followed up with additional, more precise questions regarding her state of health, asked if she had contracted any venereal diseases, the frequency of her menstrual cycles, and her spontaneous abortions. He noted the young woman’s responses carefully in her file then told her to undress and lie down on the examination table behind a white curtain about two or three yards away from the office. Without moving, Emilienne let him examine her external genital area and take samples of her vaginal discharge. The young woman got dressed again and found herself handing over a consultation form with illegible writing on it.
“Bring me the results of these blood and urine exams as soon as possible, as well as the X-ray of your uterus and fallopian tubes. I will have your vaginal swab analyzed here in the clinic.”
EMILIENNE LEFT the clinic more relaxed, albeit a little ill at ease for having allowed herself to be intimately probed by a man. It was the first time she had turned to a male gynecologist, luckily one of great renown. The only female gynecologist that had followed her progress during her pregnancy and delivery of Rékia was a French woman who had returned home seven years ago. There was no female gynecologist in Kampana, to the great dismay of many husbands.
EMILIENNE FELT RELIEVED. As she drove her car, she began to dream of a miracle that would make her a mother again. Yes, why not, for once, place herself among those miraculously cured?
How difficult it can be for a woman to acknowledge what it is she has that’s essential, whether in relation to society, her partner, or even herself. Soon, she might no longer be able to boast about motherhood. If doctors’ laboratory experiments proved successful and if governments gave their okay, in a dozen years or so, men would be able to carry pregnancies to full term and give birth. As if, their reign in politics and business not enough, they were slyly attempting to rob women of their only power. The precarious equality of the sexes that we talk about today would be challenged yet again by such a medical revolution.
The Fury and Cries of Women Page 13
