The Story of the Cannibal Woman

by Maryse Conde

  From then on, weekends were spent at Constantia, where Raymond’s villa stood not far from the home of Bebe Sephuma, who could be seen driving past at the wheel of her Porsche.

  In actual fact, Raymond was the soul behind the association with Faustin. He was the one who had managed to sell as far as Pietersburg a type of garbage can called an Afri-bin. The huge orange ones took pride of place at crossroads. Smaller versions, green or blue, clung proudly to the backs of the garbage trucks. Raymond could talk forever on the subject.

  “The major problem of Africa is that there is no public opinion. So a handful of crooks can systematically bleed the continent dry. So why isn’t there a public opinion? Because people have no strength left. And why haven’t they any strength left? Because of the garbage. They throw it anywhere. Walk into a popular district of Yaoundé or Madagascar, for instance, and you’re swimming in garbage: on the sidewalks, at street corners, in the gutters, everywhere! The sun turns it into a terrible stench, but above all a powder keg of germs that the stray dogs tote from one end of the city to the other. So babies get sick; children’s sores become infected and fester. All sorts of epidemics spread among the grown-ups. Since the sick, the helpless, and the feeble are too poor to get treatment, the dictators take advantage of them and lay down the law. With Afri-bin, that’s history! Practical, cheap, easy to handle, and airtight! Garbage smack into the bin! People become healthy and, consequently, critical.”

  When he had finished boasting of his merchandise, he clapped his hands and a cloud of domestics in dubious white uniforms emerged from the kitchen. They poured pink champagne into blue-stemmed flutes and served koki on silver gilt plates under the doleful eye of Thérèse. Thérèse was as apathetic as her husband was bursting with energy. Every day she leafed through Divas and Amina. Or else she watched Egyptian and Indian films on her state-of-the-art DVD player. She missed her children. Except for Berline, her latest little girl, constantly clinging to her breast despite her twenty-four months and her two rows of incisors, the five others lived in Montreal with her sister—for their education, she explained.

  Thérèse felt nothing but antipathy for South Africa. Everything antagonized her: the crudeness of the Afrikaners, the arrogance of the coloureds, and the xenophobia of the blacks. Once she had gotten that out of her system, she consented to forget about Rishi Kapoor and Neetu Singh in Zahreela Insaan and join Rosélie to watch the adventures of Jackie Chan in Shanghai Kid. Then she drank gallons of Rooibos tea before returning to her two favorite subjects of conversation: her love for her children and her hatred of South Africa. When Rosélie withdrew with Faustin, Thérèse and Raymond gave them a smile of complicity, like lenient parents toward a couple of youngsters they had taken in.

  “Good night!”

  In this hurriedly furnished and badly maintained villa, Faustin had been given a studio apartment that opened out onto the rusty waters of a swimming pool. The domestics, busy doing nothing, seldom paid it a visit. Since the windows were never opened, the air was musty. Faustin changed the sheets himself. Making frenzied love in such a decor, on this uncomfortable, lumpy mattress, Rosélie regained the verve of those happy, younger days with Salama Salama when they used to hide from the concierge and the rent they owed. She got the impression that having come full circle, she had been brought back to square one.

  At times she was crushed by a feeling of guilt. It had only been three months, and she was already cheating on Stephen, whose nails were still growing under the earth. If he could see her, how he would suffer! Fortunately, the dead see nothing. The worms are at work under their eyelids draining the eyeballs to the bone. Other times, her thoughts took a completely different direction. She asked herself on what unconfessed frustrations, on what bundles of dirty washing shoved day after day into a corner of her inner self she was taking revenge. In fact, had Stephen been her benefactor? Sharing his existence, living in his shadow had perhaps caused her enormous damage and prevented her from becoming an adult.

  One year, Stephen, who never gave up, got it into his head to organize an exhibit at the Espace des Amériques, a gallery flanking the university. During a dinner party, he had placed her beside Fina Alvarez, the Venezuelan woman who ran the gallery. They had taken to each other, even more so because they had both been regular customers at a Brazilian restaurant in Paris, savoring the same feijoada during the same years.

  “Can you believe how long it took for us to meet?” lamented Fina. “Perhaps we were sitting next to each other. Perhaps you got up to go to the rest room and said ‘excuse me’ to me.”

  Fina boasted of a black grandmother, a humble illiterate peasant, who had been a past master in the art of storytelling. The songs and tales she had heard when a child had been at the root of her artistic talent. Trembling at her judgment, Rosélie had invited her to her studio.

  “You are a genius,” she had assured her, smoking cigarette after cigarette as she strode past the canvases. “Believe me, it’s not just talent you’ve got. It’s genius. Sheer genius!”

  In spite of these hyperboles, Rosélie had remained uncompromising. No exhibit at the gallery to comply with Stephen’s schemes. Fina openly approved.

  “You’re right. One must succeed on one’s own terms.”

  She knew what she was talking about. She had divorced two men who, she claimed, had upset her temperament by forcing her to cook for them twice a day. Apparently, the separation hadn’t helped her, since after publishing three collections of poems and a novel by Actes Sud, she had given up and made do with a teaching job, which is the opposite of creativity. Fina was also a great walker. Every day, once she had finished striding through Riverside Park with Rosélie, she would accompany her back to 125th Street. But black grandmothers, although godmothers of creativity, are not a cure for bourgeois faintheartedness. Fina absolutely refused to venture any farther and left Rosélie to explore the forbidden territory of Harlem. Rosélie knew she would never be anything but an outsider. The articles in Ebony and Essence were not for her. Her name would never flash in neon lights in the pantheon of immortals. She would never be invited to those galas of self-celebration where the black creators take their revenge on centuries of Caucasian blindness. When nostalgia got the upper hand, she would go and eat grits and tripe at Sylvia’s, breathing in the intimacy from which she would forever be excluded. Back at the Riverside apartment, she would lock herself in her studio, the only place that was actually hers in a place filled with Stephen’s books, Stephen’s CDs, Stephen’s workout equipment, and his entire intrusive personality.

  One day Fina introduced her to Jay Goldman. This former lover, still her good friend, as is the norm among intelligent people, dashed around Africa, squandering the fortune earned by the sweat of former generations on unusual artifacts. He was particularly proud of a collection of Luo water vessels in leather, calabash, wood, and tin; of Yoruba spinning tops, one of which was the size of a thimble; and of Pygmy bows and arrows, some of them still coated with their formidable poison. In a more serious vein, his collection included a number of Gauguins, Braques, and Picassos. Not only did Jay Goldman not spare his superlatives, but without bargaining he bought a series of paintings from Rosélie he named Nocturnal Dogs. He offered to organize a private exhibition for her in his loft, just steps away from the apartment of John-John Kennedy, who had not yet made his fatal dive into the icy waters of the Atlantic Ocean. He would take care of the publicity, the invitations, and the reception. He also mentioned he was the friend of a well-known producer of an arts program on TV.

  Rosélie, who was in seventh heaven, couldn’t remember how she came back to earth with a bump. How she had found out that although Jay had perhaps shared Fina’s bed in the past, and neither of them could remember much about it, he was in fact an old friend of Stephen’s. He had lived at his place in N’Dossou. Together with Fumio, the two men had started out on a search for Ashanti gold weights and driven in a jeep to Kumasi in Ghana. The tires had burst three times and they h
ad slept two nights out in the open under the canopy of centuries-old silk cotton trees. At the end of their journey they were admitted to an audience with the Asantehene in his palace, and this visit had been worth all their tribulations.

  In short, everything boiled down to a friendly plot behind her back. It dealt a serious blow to her friendship with Fina, and for the first time she thought of leaving Stephen. Lycées and colleges were mushrooming in Guadeloupe. Then there was France. She was bound to find some school where she could teach art. For weeks, Fina sent her delirious messages, as if they had had a homosexual affair.

  Falvarez@hotmail.com

  to

  rthibaudin@aol.com

  I’ve never stopped loving you. I didn’t betray you.

  Fina

  As for Stephen, he poked fun at her hostile reaction.

  “Why are you blaming us? Because we wanted to help you? We could have been open about it. It could have been done lightheartedly and enjoyably, but you are so proud you forced us to lie.”

  Proud?

  Before slamming the door and running down the stairs, for he never took the elevator, exercise oblige, he concluded:

  “You know, you’ll never make it on your own!”

  How right he was! She had stubbornly persisted. One year later, she had succeeded in organizing an exhibition in a seedy-looking gallery in Soho. A disaster! After three days, the owners, two first-rate crooks, cleared out. Notified by Stephen, who bore no ill feeling and was always ready to intervene in the event of a catastrophe, the police recovered three of her paintings. The others had vanished! Oh yes, she had sold one picture to a Spanish museum for their collection of primitive art of the Americas! Another to the museum of womankind in Coyoacán. The M2A2, nothing alarming, just the acronym for the Martinican Museum for the Arts of the Americas, sent her an urgent request for a contribution. In short, at the age of fifty, she found herself to be an illustrious unknown. Her canvases were gathering dust by the dozens in the attic. She had been washed up on a foreign shore and she had no idea whether she loved it or hated it.

  NINE

  Fiela, all this time I have neglected you in my thoughts. What was I thinking of? Love, pleasure, like a sixteen-year-old who has gone to bed for the first time. For me, perhaps it’s the last. Soon it will be the day of your trial. Do you have a lawyer? Is he gifted? Good or bad, how can he manage to defend you if you don’t tell him a thing? If you keep everything locked up inside?

  One bright, peaceful morning when the sun was gamboling across the light wooden floor, Faustin suddenly announced he was leaving for the airport. She wouldn’t see him for several days. He had to be in Johannesburg for a meeting of paramount importance concerning his nomination, he explained in a mysterious voice. Ah, the famous nomination. Nominated to what? Nominated by whom? Nominated for what? Rosélie knew nothing about it. Yet, hearing him constantly mention it, she had begun to wish it for Faustin, like you wish for rain on cracked, parched earth, crying out from drought.

  Johannesburg was somewhat mythical, the forbidden city. Unlike Cape Town, clinging to its whiteness, it now belonged to the blacks. Businessmen, reputable and disreputable, crooks, small and big time, artists, real and alleged, and creators of all sorts streamed into the city. In came the jobless tired of being out of a job in the former bantustans, the miners tired of scraping the belly of the earth, and the farm workers tired of working themselves to the bone on the white man’s farms. A hybrid and dangerous population had come into being. In Johannesburg life was no blue chip. Anything went.

  Stephen went there every May to attend the annual conference of the James Joyce Association.

  Oh yes, they discussed Ulysses and Finnegans Wake in Jo’burg!

  Once the workshops were over, the international specialists barricaded themselves in their three-star hotels. One time Stephen had strayed from the beaten path and had only managed to escape with his life from four strapping muggers by handing over his wallet, his gold signet ring, a present from his father at the age of seventeen, his chain bracelet, and his watch, which, although purchased duty-free at Frankfurt Airport, had cost him a fortune. Despite these misadventures, Rosélie was convinced Stephen was only too glad to spend a few days alone. What did he do over there?

  To make up for this unexpected departure, Faustin kissed her tenderly, claiming:

  “I won’t be away for more than a week.”

  Such an assurance didn’t mean a thing. Unlike Stephen, whose every movement was programmed in advance, you could never predict Faustin’s next move.

  Life then resumed its former rhythm. Dido, who, in her possessiveness, had not taken kindly to being deprived of her morning conversations, set off again for the bedroom with her tray, her heady cups of coffee, and her newspapers. She opened the shutters triumphantly, then began reading the Cape Tribune and other dailies.

  Fiela’s trial had started. She still had not opened her mouth. Two young white defense lawyers, officially appointed to the case, did not look like much, but were bravely struggling to do their best. They called to the stand a number of witnesses who testified to the good works of their client. They gave evidence, for example, that she cured hopeless cases with the remedies she dispensed free of charge.

  Curandera like me. When did you discover this gift of healing? Did you put it to better use than me, safeguarding your loved ones from misfortune?

  One photo showed her on the bench of the accused. Sitting straight as an i. Her face impenetrable. Not in the least aggressive. Her incomparable eyes sparkled. Over the rest of her face there sat a mask of indifference, as if all this agitation was none of her business. For the first time there was a photo of her stepson, the accuser. A twenty-two-year-old unemployed with a mop of hair whom she had raised and treated like her own son, all the witnesses agreed. What had happened for him to turn against her in such a way? He could only speak of her with words of hatred and bitterness.

  Dido folded the paper and went on chattering. Willem, come to bury his father, wanted to take his mother back to Australia. He had made his money selling hardware in Sydney. Sofie refused to follow him: she couldn’t abandon Jan lying under the oaks at Lievland. So Rosélie was not the only one to feel herself tied to a land because of a dead man. What a grip the deceased have!

  That week Rosélie paid more attention to her patients.

  Like you, Fiela, I have neglected them. I ought to be ashamed of myself. What can I expect of this man? I won’t get anything more than I’ve been getting. A little pleasure, let’s say even a lot. And that’s all.

  One morning, dressed in her magician’s finery, carefully starched and ironed, she received Emma and Judith, her favorite patient, although she had put her off twice.

  Patient No. 12

  Judith Bartok

  Age: 8 years old

  Schoolgirl

  Judith, daughter of Emma and cousin to Doris, was her mother’s pride and joy, although life had been hard on both of them. Judith was all Emma had left from a man who, having sponged off her for ten years, had cleared off to Maputo. There he had found a job that paid well and a woman to spoil him. One afternoon when Judith was coming home from kindergarten, although she had been told never, ever talk to strangers, she had accepted a piece of chewing gum from a man. He had immediately piled her into a car with his accomplices and dragged her to a plot of waste ground where she was then raped half a dozen times. The police had never even traced, much less identified the gang. As a result, she had been struck mute. If you touched her, she would curl up like a sensitive plant and cry. Her calvary lasted a year. All on her own, Rosélie had returned her speech to her and brought back, at times, a semblance of a smile to her lips. Do we need compassion and love in order to heal? Are miracles made of that? When she ran her hands over the little abused body, endeavoring to establish an equilibrium, Rosélie relived the scene where the girl’s childhood had been lost, and her eyes brimmed with tears.

  How can we escape the circle of our h
ell?

  We are broken and crushed and our hair turns white before its time.

  Fiela, you had no friends. Like me. You made do with the herbs from your garden. You met Adriaan one Sunday at church. He was very different from you. Always joking. He made you laugh. He looked at your body. For the first time, a man took an interest in you. I know what it’s like. You were in seventh heaven. Nevertheless, two years after your wedding he gave a belly to the neighbor’s daughter. Martha, a girl of fifteen. You suffered the martyr, but you didn’t show it. You took the baby in, baby Julian. You raised him. You made a man out of him to the best of your ability.

  While Emma sat down in the kitchen with Dido for a cup of coffee, both berating the wickedness of life and its constant surprises, the session with Judith began. The allotted time never varied. While measuring by touch the flow of her energy and redistributing it where it was needed, Rosélie questioned her. About school and its daily ennui. About catechism and its weekly ennui. About piano lessons and the torture of scales. About dancing and the torture of points. At least she loved karate, which, according to Emma, taught you how to defend yourself. Halfway through she would regularly ask for a story in her acid-drop voice. Rosélie had already embroidered endlessly on the adventures of Rabbit and Zamba and Ti-Jan L’Orizon, which Rose used to recount to her in her childhood on those evenings when Elie, having deigned to dine at home, was getting ready to sleep in her bed and probably make love to her. At those moments, gone were the tears and instead, her voice soared up from the first floor to the attic, light and joyful: