So Long a Letter

by Mariama Bâ

  I knew about it. Modou knew about it. The whole town knew about it. You, Aissatou, suspected nothing and continued to be radiant.

  And because his mother had fixed a date for the wedding night, Mawdo finally had the courage to tell you what every woman was whispering: you had a co-wife. 'My mother is old. The knocks and disappointments of life have weakened her heart. If I spurn this child, she will die. This is the doctor speaking and not the son. Think of it, her brother's daughter, brought up by her, rejected by her son. What shame before society!'

  It was 'so as not to see his mother die of shame and chagrin' that Mawdo agreed to go to the rendez-vous of the wedding night. Faced with this rigid mother moulded by the old morality, burning with the fierce ardour of antiquated laws, what could Mawdo Bâ do? He was getting on in years, worn out by his arduous work. And then, did he really want to fight, to make a gesture of resistance? Young Nabou was so tempting. ...

  From then on, you no longer counted. What of the time and the love you had invested in your home? Only trifles, quickly forgotten. Your sons? They counted for very little in this reconciliation between a mother and her 'one and only man'; you no longer counted, any more than did your four sons: they could never be equal to young Nabou's sons.

  The griots spoke of young Nabou's sons, exalting them: 'Blood has returned to its source.'

  Your sons did not count. Mawdo's mother, a princess, could not recognize herself in the sons of a goldsmith's daughter.

  In any case, could a goldsmith's daughter have any dignity, any honour? This was tantamount to asking whether you had a heart and flesh. Ah! for some people the honour and chagrin of a goldsmith's daughter count for less, much less, than the honour and chagrin of a Guelewar .

  Mawdo did not drive you away. He did his duty and wished that you would stay on. Young Nabou would continue to live with his mother; it was you he loved. Every other night he would go to his mother's place to see his other wife, so that his mother 'would not die', to 'fulfil a duty'.

  How much greater you proved to be than those who sapped your happiness! You were advised to compromise: 'You don't burn the tree which bears the fruit.'

  You were threatened through your flesh: 'Boys cannot succeed without their father.' You took no notice.

  These commonplace truths, which before had lowered the heads of many wives as they raised them in revolt, did not produce the desired miracle; they did not divert you from your decision. You chose to make a break, a one-way journey with your four sons, leaving this letter for Mawdo, in clear view, on the bed that used to be yours. I remember the exact words:

  Mawdo,

  Princes master their feelings to fulfil their duties. 'Others' bend their heads and, in silence, accept a destiny that oppresses them.

  That, briefly put, is the internal ordering of our society, with its absurd divisions. I will not yield to it. I cannot accept what you are offering me today in place of the happiness we once had. You want to draw a line between heartfelt love and physical love. I say that there can be no union of bodies without the heart's acceptance, however little that may be.

  If you can procreate without loving, merely to satisfy the pride of your declining mother, then I find you despicable. At that moment you tumbled from the highest rung of respect on which I have always placed you. Your reasoning, which makes a distinction, is unacceptable to me: on one side, me, 'your life, your love, your choice', on the other, 'young Nabou, to be tolerated for reasons of duty'.

  Mawdo, man is one: greatness and animal fused together. None of his acts is pure charity. None is pure bestiality.

  I am stripping myself of your love, your name. Clothed in my dignity, the only worthy garment, I go my way.

  Goodbye,

  Assitou

  And you left. You had the surprising courage to take your life into your own hands. You rented a house and set up home there. And instead of looking backwards, you looked resolutely to the future. You set yourself a difficult task; and more than just my presence and my encouragements, books saved you. Having become your refuge, they sustained you.

  The power of books, this marvellous invention of astute human intelligence. Various signs associated with sound: different sounds that form the word. Juxtaposition of words from which springs the idea, Thought, History, Science, Life. Sole instrument of interrelationships and of culture, unparalleled means of giving and receiving.

  Books knit generations together in the same continuing effort that leads to progress. They enabled you to better yourself. What society refused you, they granted: examinations sat and passed took you also to France. The School of Interpreters, from which you graduated, led to your appointment into the Senegalese Embassy in the United States. You make a very good living. You are developing in peace, as your letters tell me, your back resolutely turned on those seeking light enjoyment and easy relationships.

  And Mawdo? He renewed his relationship with his family. Those from Diakhao invaded his house: those from Diakhao sustained young Nabou. But---and Mawdo knew it---there was no possible comparison between yourself and young Nabou; you, so beautiful and so gentle, you, whose tenderness for him was so deep and disinterested, you, who knew how to mop your husband's brow, you, who could always find the right words with which to make him relax.

  And Mawdo? What didn't he say? 'I am completely disorientated. You can't change the habits of a grown man. I look for shirts and trousers in the old places and I touch only emptiness.'

  I had no pity for Mawdo.

  'My house is a suburb of Diakhao. I find it impossible to get any rest there. Everything there is dirty. Young Nabou gives my food and my clothes away to visitors.'

  I did not listen to Mawdo.

  'Somebody told me he'd seen you with Aissatou yesterday. Is it true? Is she around? How is she? What about my sons?'

  I did not answer Mawdo.

  For Mawdo, and through him all men, remained an enigma to me. Your departure had truly shaken him. His sadness was clearly evident. When he spoke of you, the inflexions in his voice hardened. But his disillusioned air, the bitter criticisms of his home, his wit, which railed at everything, did not in the least prevent the periodic swelling of young Nabou's belly. Two boys had already been born.

  When faced with this visible fact, proof of his intimate relations with young Nabou, Mawdo would twist with anger. His look was like a whip: 'Look here, don't be an idiot. How can you expect a man to remain a stone when he is constantly in contact with the woman who runs his house?' He added as illustration: 'I saw a film in which the survivors of an air crash survived by eating the flesh of the corpses. This fact demonstrates the force of the instincts in man, instincts that dominate him, regardless of his level of intelligence. Slough off this surfeit of dreamy sentimentality. Accept reality in its crude ugliness.'

  'You can't resist the imperious laws that demand food and clothing for man. These same laws compel the "male" in other respects. I say "male" to emphasize the bestiality of instincts. ... You understand............. A wife must understand, once and for all,

  and must forgive; she must not worry herself about "betrayals of the flesh". The important thing is what there is in the heart; that's what unites two beings inside.rsquo; (He struck his chest, at the point where the heart lies.)

  'Driven to the limits of my resistance, I satisfy myself with what is within reach. It's a terrible thing to say. Truth is ugly when one analyses it.'

  Thus, to justify himself, he reduced young Nabou to a 'plate of food'. Thus, for the sake of 'variety', men are unfaithful to their wives.

  I was irritated. He was asking me to understand. But to understand what? The supremacy of instinct? The right to betray? The justification of the desire for variety? I could not be an ally to polygamic instincts. What, then, was I to understand?

  How I envied your calmness during your last visit! There you were, rid of the mask of suffering. Your sons were growing up well, contrary to all predictions. You did not care about Mawdo. Yes, indeed, the
re you were, the past crushed beneath your heel.

  There you were, an innocent victim of an unjust cause and the courageous pioneer of a new life.

  13

  My own crisis came three years after your own. But unlike in your own case, the source was not my family-in-law. The problem was rooted in Modou himself, my husband.

  My daughter Daba, who was preparing for her baccalauréat , often brought some of her classmates home with her. Most of the time it was the same young girl, a bit shy, frail, made noticeably uncomfortable by our style of life. But she was really beautiful in this her adolescent period, in her faded but clean clothes! Her beauty shone, pure. Her shapely contours could not but be noticed.

  I sometimes noticed that Modou was interested in the pair. Neither was I worried when I heard him suggest that he should take Binetou home in the car---'because it was getting late,' he would say.

  Binetou was going through a metamorphosis, however. She was now wearing very expensive off-the-peg dresses. Smilingly, she would explain to my daughter: 'Oh, I have a sugar-daddy who pays for them.'

  Then one day, on her return from school, Daba confided to me that Binetou had a serious problem: 'The sugar-daddy of the boutique dresses wants to marry Binetou. Just imagine. Her parents want to withdraw her from school, with only a few months to go before the bac , to marry her off to the sugar-daddy.'

  'Advise her to refuse,' I said.

  'And if the man in question offers her a villa, Mecca for her parents, a car, a monthly allowance, jewels?'

  'None of that is worth the capital of youth.'

  'I agree with you, mum. I'll tell Binetou not to give in; but her mother is a woman who wants so much to escape from mediocrity and who regrets so much her past beauty, faded in the smoke from the wood fires, that she looks enviously at everything I wear; she complains all day long.'

  'What is important is Binetou herself. She must not give in.'

  And then, a few days afterwards, Daba renewed the conversation, with its surprising conclusion.

  'Mum! Binetou is heartbroken. She is going to marry her sugar-daddy. Her mother cried so much. She begged her daughter to give her life a happy end, in a proper house, as the man has promised them. So she accepted.'

  'When is the wedding?'

  'This coming Sunday, but there'll be no reception. Binetou cannot bear the mockery of her friends.'

  And in the evening of this same Sunday on which Binetou was being married off I saw come into my house, all dressed up and solemn, Tamsir, Modou's brother, with Mawdo Bâ and his local Imam . Where had they come from, looking so awkward in their starched boubous ? Doubtless, they had come looking for Modou to carry out an important task that one of them had been charged with. I told them that Modou had been out since morning. They entered laughing, deliberately sniffing the fragrant odour of incense that was floating on the air. I sat in front of them, laughing with them. The Imam attacked:

  'There is nothing one can do when Allah the almighty puts two people side by side.' 'True, true,' said the other two in support.

  A pause. He took a breath and continued: 'There is nothing new in this world.' 'True, true,' Tamsir and Mawdo chimed in again.

  'Some things we may find to be sad are much less so than others………'

  I followed the movement of the haughty lips that let fall these axioms, which can precede the announcement of either a happy event or an unhappy one. What was he leading up to with these preliminaries that rather announced a storm? So their visit was obviously planned.

  Does one announce bad news dressed up like that in one's Sunday best? Or did they want to inspire confidence with their impeccable dress?

  I thought of the absent one. I asked with the cry of a hunted beast: 'Modou?'

  And the Imam , who had finally got hold of a leading thread, held tightly on to it. He went on quickly, as if the words were glowing embers in his mouth: 'Yes, Modou Fall, but, happily, he is alive for you, for all of us, thanks be to God. All he has done is to marry a second wife today. We have just come from the mosque in Grand Dakar where the marriage took place.'

  The thorns thus removed from the way, Tamsir ventured: 'Modou sends his thanks. He says it is fate that decides men and things: God intended him to have a second wife, there is nothing he can do about it. He praises you for the quarter of a century of marriage in which you gave him all the happiness a wife owes her husband. His family, especially myself, his elder brother, thank you. You have always held us in respect. You know that we are Modou's blood.'

  Afterwards there were the same old words, which were intended to relieve the situation: 'You are the only one in your house, no matter how big it is, no matter how dear life is. You are the first wife, a mother for Modou, a friend for Modou.'

  Tamsir's Adam's apple danced about in his throat. He shook his left leg, crossed over his folded right leg. His shoes, white Turkish slippers, were covered with a thin layer of red dust, the colour of the earth in which they had walked. The same dust covered Mawdo's and the Imam's shoes.

  Mawdo said nothing. He was reliving his own experience. He was thinking of your letter, your reaction, and you and I were so alike. He was being wary. He kept his head lowered, in the attitude of those who accept defeat before the battle.

  I acquiesced under the drops of poison that were burning me: 'A quarter of a century of marriage', 'a wife unparalleled'. I counted backwards to determine where the break in the thread had occurred from which everything had unwound. My mother's words came back to me: 'too perfect ' I completed at last my mother's thought with the end

  of the dictum: '....... to be honest'. I thought of the first two incisors with a wide gap

  between them, the sign of the primacy of love in the individual. I thought of his absence, all day long. He had simply said: 'Don't expect me for lunch.' I thought of other absences, quite frequent these days, crudely clarified today yet well hidden yesterday under the guise of trade union meetings. He was also on a strict diet, 'to break the stomach's egg,' he would say laughingly, this egg that announced old age.

  Every night when he went out he would unfold and try on several of his suits before settling on one. The others, impatiently rejected, would slip to the floor. I would have to fold them again and put them back in their places; and this extra work, I discovered, I was doing only to help him in his effort to be elegant in his seduction of another woman.

  I forced myself to check my inner agitation. Above all, I must not give my visitors the pleasure of relating my distress. Smile, take the matter lightly, just as they announced it. Thank them for the humane way in which they have accomplished their mission.

  Send thanks to Modou, 'a good father and a good husband', 'a husband become a friend'. Thank my family-in-law, the Imam , Mawdo. Smile. Give them something to drink. See them out, under the swirls of incense that they were sniffing once again.

  Shake their hands.

  How pleased they were, all except Mawdo, who correctly judged the import of the event.

  14

  Alone at last, able to give free rein to my surprise and to gauge my distress. Ah! yes, I forgot to ask for my rival's name so that I might give a human form to my pain.

  My question was soon answered. Acquaintances from Grand Dakar came rushing to my house, bringing the various details of the ceremony. Some of them did so out of true friendship for me; others were spiteful and jealous of the promotion Binetou's mother would gain from the marriage.

  'I don't understand.' They did not understand either the entrance of Modou, a 'personality', into this extremely poor family.

  Binetou, a child the same age as my daughter Daba, promoted to the rank of my co- wife, whom I must face up to. Shy Binetou! The old man who bought her the new off- the-peg dresses to replace the old faded ones was none other than Modou. She had innocently confided her secrets to her rival's daughter because she thought that this dream, sprung from a brain growing old, would never become reality. She had told everything: the villa, the mon
thly allowance, the offer of a future trip to Mecca for her parents. She thought she was stronger than the man she was dealing with. She did not know Modou's strong will, his tenacity before an obstacle, the pride he invests in winning, the resistance that inspires new attempts at each failure.

  Daba was furious, her pride wounded. She repeated all the nicknames Binetou had given her father: old man, pot-belly, sugar-daddy! ... the person who gave her life had been daily ridiculed and he accepted it. An overwhelming anger raged inside Daba.

  She knew that her best friend was sincere in what she said. But what can a child do, faced with a furious mother shouting about her hunger and her thirst to live?

  Binetou, like many others, was a lamb slaughtered on the altar of affluence. Daba's anger increased as she analysed the situation: 'Break with him, mother! Send this man away. He has respected neither you nor me. Do what Aunty Aissatou did; break with him. Tell me you'll break with him. I can't see you fighting over a man with a girl my age.'