Waiting for the Waters to Rise

by Maryse Conde

  It was obvious that nobody was interested in listening to my explanations.

  “Bambara and Dyula, they’re both the same!” someone interrupted.

  The eyes gazing at me were now increasingly hostile. Deeply distraught, I left without further ado. What was going on between Hassan and Marie? Visibly, their marriage was no longer working. A letter was waiting for me when I got home. My landlord was asking me to pack up and leave as soon as possible. This man, usually polite, whose baby I had delivered a few months earlier, was now becoming rude, and wrote that he had no intention of renting his house to a foreign swine like me. All at once, I saw the world in a spin. No work. No house. My friends on the run.

  The following days went by in a blur. I had no idea what was going on around me. I didn’t dare go out. Moreover, go out to do what? To go where? Night after night whole neighborhoods went up in flames. Gangs of youngsters dressed in rags, brandishing Kalashnikovs, tore down the streets shouting mysterious slogans. I believe they were Dioclétien’s private militia, called the Patriots. I never understood whether the regular soldiers, recognizable by their combat uniform, were at odds with them or whether they encouraged the Patriots to foment chaos. Daytime was no better. If you got it into your head to step outside, you had to show your ID at every crossroads to patrols of soldiers or Patriots. If they found out you were from the North, you were packed into a truck and driven God knows where. Rumors claimed you were summarily executed.

  Despite my landlord’s letter, I had no intention of looking for another house and was content to lock myself up at home, watching on television the events about which I didn’t understand a thing. As the days passed, it appeared the victims were no longer merely Africans from other countries or Northerners, but any foreigner, even the massive numbers of French who had been there for years. Some days it was the Lebanese or the Greek. One evening, Irena, whom I had lost sight of since the start of the troubles and who, I must confess, had slipped my mind, sent me a letter, as the telephone had long been out of service. Like thousands of other foreigners, she had decided to flee the country and join her sister or good friend, I don’t know which, in Dakar. She begged me to drive her to the airport, which had just reopened, as she didn’t dare go out alone. I therefore set off in my car and went to fetch her along the road to Bassora where she lived in a residence ironically called Cité Paradis. She was waiting for me in the hall, together with a couple and numerous mixed-blood children like herself.

  “For nights,” she told me, “I’ve been too scared to sleep at home. I took refuge at their place; they’re good friends of mine.”

  “We’re leaving tomorrow,” the man said, shaking my hand. “We finally managed to get tickets. By using the good old method of greasing palms. And what about you?”

  I confessed I hadn’t thought about leaving and they looked at me as if I were mad.

  The number of candidates flocking to depart was unimaginable. Some were in tears since they had lived in the country for years, had gotten married and brought up children there. They were ruined as they were leaving behind all they possessed. When we arrived at the airport a semblance of order reigned; planes were taking off and landing approximately on time. I kissed Irena, surprised that my eyes were brimming with tears.

  “Take care of yourself,” she whispered with the same emotion. “What are you waiting for to go home?”

  Home? Where was that? I had always thought it was with Hassan. Now he was gone, I was homeless.

  Irena was wearing an orange dress that suited her perfectly and I realized I had never noticed how beautiful she was. I watched her disappear with a deep feeling of abandonment. I sensed a chapter of my life was ending and I had not known how to take advantage of it. Disconcerted, I walked slowly back to my car. I sat down behind the wheel and gently drove off. Night had fallen. The air had cooled and up in the sky the doelike eye of the moon gazed down at the folly of mankind.

  It was then a group of youngsters, armed with machine guns, machetes, and clubs, loomed up in the headlights and signaled me to stop. Who were they? Patriots? All I can say is that they were very young, aged seventeen or eighteen at the most. Some were dressed in combat uniform, others in jeans and T-shirts, and yet others in ragged shorts.

  “ID!” one of them shouted.

  I took out my passport from my jacket and passed it to him. At that very moment another boy dealt me a vicious blow to the face with his gun for no apparent reason. Sparks danced in front of my eyes from the pain and I felt the burning sensation of gushing blood.

  “Traoré? A cockroach from the North!” the first youngster barked.

  I managed to answer him calmly that I was originally from Segu in Mali.

  “The same scum!” a third boy shouted, and for good measure spat in my face.

  Ten pairs of hands then pulled me out of my car, threw me onto the tarmac, and beat me black and blue. Even today I wonder why they didn’t kill me but left me agonizing and disjointed on the road. It must have been a few hours before I managed to open my eyes. It was not the first time I had been a victim of gratuitous violence. When I was at school in Bamako, the older pupils grabbed me by the throat and almost strangled me, ordering me to admit that my mother was a witch. I did not admit anything of the sort—so they beat me up.

  But I had never experienced such a raging brutality as that evening. Finally, I managed to get up and cautiously drive myself home. The whole city seemed to have fallen prey to a noisy and frenzied carnival where mad snipers had replaced the inoffensive samba schools. My old caretaker summarily bandaged my wounds, then, despite the surrounding chaos, managed to find a doctor who stitched me up. He objected to the terms Northerner and Southerner.

  “We are all Africans,” he insisted. “Here you are, scarred for life, my poor fellow! You should go and file a complaint with the police. You have nothing to do with our ridiculous quarrels.”

  The police! He must be joking.

  The following days, things started to pick up. The television announced that a new army had formed called “Resistance Forces from the North,” whose headquarters were located in the district of Danembe. Its aim was evident: march on the South, conquer town after town and form a government composed exclusively of Northerners. One evening, a messenger armed to the teeth, riding a powerful motorbike, brought me a letter from Hassan. I tore open the envelope with a trembling hand and learned that Hassan had taken command of the Resistance Forces and was asking me to join him at Danembe. Once I arrived at a certain address, trusted emissaries would take me to him.

  “The victory is now, within arm’s reach,” he wrote. “I can foresee a radiant future for all of us.”

  Had he gone mad? What was he talking about? What more did he want for someone like himself who had everything? What victory, what radiant future was he talking about? What more could he desire? I felt myself getting mixed up in a quarrel that didn’t concern me and that I didn’t understand. In spite of that, I didn’t hesitate for a second and decided to leave for Danembe on the spot.

  That night, in my dream, it was the first time I had really quarreled with my mother.

  “You’re going to war without a stick, as they say where I come from,” she said angrily. “You don’t even know why those people are fighting.”

  “Is it my fault I am who I am? If I don’t understand a thing, it’s because you never taught me to consider what’s essential,” I replied.

  “Power!” she spat. “Essentially, it’s the thirst for power. It all boils down to that.”

  “I don’t know what that’s like,” I said furiously. “Perhaps it might be worth a try after all.”

  She shrugged her shoulders and vanished in a huff. She sulked throughout my stay in Danembe, appearing without a word and refusing to let me caress or hug her.

  The very next evening I paid my caretaker three months’ wages, turned the key in my door,
and went straight to the appointed place, a quiet residential villa in a suburb of Eburnéa. Two armed men greeted me as if they knew me and didn’t ask questions. After a frugal supper and a few hours’ sleep, three armed youngsters came to fetch me and had me climb into a covered truck. They were hardly older than those who had left me for dead on the road from the airport. They made me feel as if we were playing war games; yet I was well aware the danger was real. Bursts of gunfire constantly rang out. Fires glowed just about everywhere and whole neighborhoods were going up in flames. The deserted streets reeked with the stench of the rotting flesh of mutilated bodies. Once we had managed to leave the town, we passed a steady stream of men and women encumbered with children of every age fleeing the fighting. The sight of them broke my heart. Why so much suffering? Who was profiting from it?

  In order to pick up other combatants who were joining the resistance fighters we stopped in Gaymael, the birthplace of the late president. What would he think of the chaos into which his country was plunged after his governing for thirty-three years? But perhaps he was responsible, after all. Despite appearances, hadn’t he bequeathed his descendants a poisoned heritage?

  On leaving the town, I sat in wonder as we drove through the forest, which I was seeing for the first time. I felt suffocated from its penetrating smell of armpit. The trees frightened me, looking like enormous pachyderms thundering towards me. Fortunately, the forest gradually gave way to the savannah.

  The North is another land; it’s not surprising that it has a whole different way of life. Gone are the damp and humidity of the forest. Gone too are the ponds and pools brimming with deep, greenish water. Nature regains its bright colors. The sun spreads its rays over the land and the savannah covered in thick grass ripples as far as the eye can see. Huts, huddled around their mosque like puppies around their mother’s belly, dot the landscape. Danembe was a nondescript village that the war had suddenly put in the spotlight. The only picturesque element was its overly ornate colonial-style railway station, from which a train left for Ouagadougou three times a week. On arrival I was told that Hassan had had to leave for Korè, twenty kilometers away, for his father had died; an army truck drove me there.

  My grandparents were simple people and devout Muslims. Earth to earth and dust to dust in all humility. But nothing had prepared me for what I was about to see. It was as if the years had been turned back. On entering the village, an ensemble of musicians composed of drummers, balafon players, and buru horn blowers were making a terrible racket while a group of men strangely dressed in animal skins were firing guns, which thundered in every direction. Women were rolling in the dust and screaming. Others were lacerating their faces and disheveling their hair while griot praise-singers were stationed at every crossroads beating on their underarm drums and chanting the genealogy and achievements of the deceased. I found Hassan in his father’s hut surrounded by men and women. The hut was situated in the center of the huge compound, for during his last years the Old Man, as he was called out of respect after having lived in Western-style palaces, had returned to a traditional way of life. Hassan was seated next to the body, which lay on a straw mat. A Koran lay open on his knees. I thought he looked handsomer than ever, dressed as he was in combat fatigues.

  While the servants brought in huge dishes of chicken, barbecued lamb, and millet couscous, which caused a great scramble among the attendees, I managed to whisper to Hassan, “Why did you never tell me you were interested in politics?”

  “How could you not know?” he asked. “My entire life is centered on politics.”

  “I never noticed it,” I whispered, disconcerted. “For me you were an aesthete, fond of women and music.”

  “One does not preclude the other,” he shrugged.

  Then he added mockingly, “What have you ever noticed? Nothing at all. You live in a world of your own, indifferent to everything that is not you.”

  Me, indifferent? Was he oblivious to the way I was attracted to him? The unfairness of the reproach hurt me.

  I went into the next room to convey my condolences to the widows, all five of them, seated in a row, wearing identical mourning garb. Over sixty years old, the first wife, the bara muso as she is called, could have been the youngest wife’s grandmother. How had these women accepted each other? What had been their real relationships? Hatred or, on the contrary, tolerance? Polygamy is a genuine mystery!

  My mother was fond of telling a story on the topic she thought exemplary. Back when I was a small boy, a polygamous family lived opposite us in Tiguiri: Sékou, the husband, a rich merchant dealing in dates and salt, and his four co-wives, Fatou, Marième, Bintou, and Alya. Although the first three were nothing much to look at, the last and youngest, Alya, came from Mauritania, a light-skinned Arab beauty with almond-shaped eyes and silky black hair that tumbled down to her waist. Despite these differences, on the surface nothing appeared unusual. Dressed in identical wrappers and twittering like a flock of schoolgirls, they attended the same ceremonies together, enjoyed the same forms of entertainment, and went together on the same visits. When my mother, intrigued by this harmonious facade, questioned my father, he launched into one of those great tirades he was so fond of.

  “The co-wives are sisters. Polygamy is as old as Africa itself and is never seen as a problem. Our women are devoid of this feeling of possessiveness that is the cause of so much havoc in the West. They know how to share their love. I would even say that their love is on the same scale as their sense of loyalty.”

  Thécla kept her objections to herself.

  One afternoon while the neighborhood dozed during the siesta hours, they were awakened by the sort of scream that made your blood run cold. While Alya slept, her co-wives had heated up a basin full of groundnut oil. They had then crept in and poured the contents of the basin over the poor girl. According to my mother, Alya had died in agony. Fatou, Marième, and Bintou finished their days in prison while Sékou took a fifth wife. Since my mother was never lacking in imagination, I have always wondered whether this story, too good to be true, was genuine.

  Back at the camp, I soon noticed that Hassan was living with a young woman, a Northerner of course, by the name of Maboula. I learned in amazement that they had known each other since Eburnéa, where she had abandoned her practice as a lawyer to join Hassan. What had happened to the love story with Marie? Truly, what could I have been thinking? Hassan was right, I was thoroughly blind!

  Despite the pompous name they went by, the headquarters of the Resistance Forces from the North were nondescript. A series of dilapidated, rudimentarily constructed buildings that housed a few hundred soldiers, a thousand at most, generally youngsters barely out of their teens. They were nevertheless remarkably equipped, armed with the most sophisticated weapons thanks to the aid of friendly countries. Who were their suppliers? We shall never know for sure. With the exception of a few privileged individuals such as Hassan who were housed in villas in town, everybody else was lodged together in dormitories on uncomfortable wooden planks. Meals were taken in common under tents. As I said, I never managed to be alone with Hassan and sometimes I wondered why he had asked me to come and join him in Danembe. Gone were the days in Montreal when we were one and the same! When we ate together, when we studied together and both of us relished the gems of the Tengir-Too ensemble.

  Hassan had always been full of his own importance, convinced he belonged to an exceptional race because of his origins. Yet there had been a time when he had kept a sense of humor as well as a certain derision. Now things had gotten out of proportion, since everyone was at his beck and call. They had nicknamed him “Almany the Second” in reference to his famous ancestor, the empire builder, whose portrait with turbaned head decorated every wall of the camp.

  I worked at the general hospital. As a physician I wasn’t technically a soldier but nevertheless wore the uniform of the Resistance Forces from the North. Every morning I slipped on these clothes
with the impression of assuming an identity that for me was not only totally foreign but was also becoming loathsome. What on earth was I doing here? At Danembe, as you can guess, it was no longer a question of delivering babies and facilitating their arrival into this world, but helping the dying push open the heavy doors that led through to the unknown. From dawn to dusk we treated the wounded brought back from the combat zone. The official propaganda claimed that the Resistance Forces were beating, hands down, the army from the South. It listed the towns that had fallen under their control and the prisoners they had taken. Triumphant bulletins were posted just about everywhere. Perhaps it was true, but from where we were, we witnessed only suffering, bodies bled dry, mangled and mutilated, whose young age broke my heart. A whole generation had been mowed down. And for what? I felt like shouting my rage and my revolt. At their age, you make love, certainly not war.

  Moreover, although the military was equipped with the most sophisticated weapons, we the doctors lacked basic necessities such as cotton wool, surgical spirit, bandages, and compresses. We operated without anesthetic. Like butchers, we chopped off arms and legs. We ripped open thoraxes. What struck me was that despite this terrible environment and hard labor, my colleagues found enough strength, once their work was over, to go into town to down beers and chase girls. In the evening the latter filled the camp’s reception room with their perfume, their laughter, and their suggestive behavior. Then they disappeared into the rooms with their procurers. I would go to bed alone, sad and exhausted.

  At the end of a particularly arduous week—a mysterious epidemic had seriously complicated our work—I watched the soldier Ahmed die in terrible agony, a seventeen-year-old brought back from the front in Mani. It was more than I could bear. At the end of my tether I pushed open the door to Hassan’s office. He was conversing lovingly with Maboula, who was sitting, or rather sprawling, in an armchair. I saw then that she was pregnant. The contrast between this couple who had everything and the suffering of those I was treating appeared scandalous.