by Mariama Bâ
He never accepted any honour without associating his wife with it. He involved her in his political actions, his numerous travels, the various sponsorships for which he was canvassed and which increased his electoral constituency.
Before leaving, Farmata, the griot woman of the cowries, had said: 'Your mother was right. Daouda is wonderful. What guer 17 gives five thousand francs today! Daouda has neither exchanged his wife nor abandoned his children; if he has come back looking for you, you, an old woman burdened with a family, it is because he loves you; he can look after you and your family. Think about it. Accept.'
All the trump cards! But what do these count for in the uncontrollable law of attraction! So as not to hurt him under my roof, I sent Farmata, the griot woman of the cowries, with a sealed envelope for him, with the following instructions. 'This letter must be given to him personally, away from his wife and children.'
For the first time, I was turning to Farmata for help, and this embarrassed me. She was happy, having dreamed of this role right from our youth. But I always acted alone; she
was never a participant in my problems, only informed---just like any 'vulgar acquaintance', she would complain. She was thrilled, ignorant of the cruel message she was bearing.
Daouda's clinic was not far from the Villa Fallene. There was a stop for the cars rapides just a few metres from his doorstep.
This clinic, set up with a bank loan granted by the state to those doctors and pharmacists who expressed the desire for it, enabled Daouda Dieng to continue practising his profession. He had understood that a doctor could not abandon his call: 'A doctor's training is slow, long, taxing, and they are not two a penny either; they are more useful in their profession than anywhere else; if they can combine their job with other activities, so much the better; but what insensitivity, to give up looking after others for something else!' Thus would Daouda explain himself to our mutual friends, such as Mawdo Bâ and Samba Diack, his colleagues.
Farmata, therefore, patiently waited her turn and, once in front of Daouda in the consulting room, she handed the envelope over to him. Daouda read:
Daouda,
You are chasing after a woman who has remained the same, Daouda, despite the intense ravages of suffering.
You who have loved me, who love me still---I don't doubt it---try to understand me. My conscience is not accommodating enough to enable me to marry you, when only esteem, justified by your many qualities, pulls me towards you. I can offer you nothing else, even though you deserve everything. Esteem is not enough for marriage, whose snares I know from experience. And then the existence of your wife and children further complicates the situation. Abandoned yesterday because of a woman, I cannot lightly bring myself between you and your family You think the problem of polygamy is a simple one. Those who are involved in it know the constraints, the lies, the injustices that weigh down their consciences in return for the ephemeral joys of change. I am sure you are motivated by love, a love that existed well before your marriage and that fate has not been able to satisfy. It is with infinite sadness and tear-filled eyes that I offer you my friendship. Dear Daouda, please accept it. It is with great pleasure that I shall continue to welcome you to my house.
Shall I hope to see you again?
Ramatoulaye
Farmata, who had smiled in handing over her letter, told me how her smile soured on her face as Daouda read. Then instinct and observation brought a look of sadness to her face, for Daouda wrinkled his eyebrows, creased his forehead, bit his lips and sighed.
Daouda put down my letter. Calmly, he stuffed an envelope with a wad of blue notes. He scrawled on a piece of paper the terrible words that had separated us before and that he had acquired during his medical course: 'All or nothing. Adieu.'
Aissatou, Daouda Dieng never came back again.
'Bissimilai! Bissimilai! 18 What was it you dared to write and make me messenger of? You have killed a man. His crestfallen face cried it out to me. You have rejected the messenger sent to you by God to reward you for your sufferings. God will punish you for not having followed the path towards peace. You have refused greatness! You shall live in mud. I wish you another Modou to make you shed tears of blood.
'Who do you take yourself for? At fifty, you have dared to break the wolere . 19 You trample upon your luck: Daouda Dieng, a rich man, a deputy, a doctor, of your own age group, with just one wife. He offers you security, love, and you refuse! Many women, of Daba's age even, would wish to be in your place.
'You boast of reasons. You speak of love instead of bread. Madame wants her heart to miss a beat. Why not flowers, just like in the films?
'Bissimilai! Bissimilai! You so withered, you want to choose a husband like an eighteen-year-old girl. Life will spring a surprise on you and then, Ramatoulaye, you will bite your fingers. I don't know what Daouda has written. But there is money in the envelope. He is a true samba linguere 20 from the olden days. May God satisfy, gratify Daouda Dieng. My heart is with him.'
Such was Farmata's tirade on her return from her mission.
She thoroughly upset me. The truth of this woman, a childhood companion through the long association of our families, could not hold good for me, even in its logic of concern Once more, I was refusing the easy way because of my ideal. I went back
to my loneliness, which a momentary flash had brightened briefly. I wore it again, as one wears a familiar garment. Its cut suited me well. I moved easily in it, despite Farmata. I wanted 'something else'. And this 'something else' was impossible without the full agreement of my heart.
Tamsir and Daouda having been rejected, there were no more barriers between the suitors and me. I then watched filing past and besieging me old men in search of easy revenue, young men in search of adventure to occupy their leisure. My successive refusals gave me in town the reputation of a 'lioness' or 'mad woman'.
Who let loose this greedy pack of hounds after me? For my charms had faded with the many maternities, with time, with the tears. Ah! the inheritance, the fat share acquired by my daughter Daba and her husband and put at my disposal.
They had led the fight for the distribution of Modou's estate. My son-in-law laid down on the table the advance for the SICAP villa and five years' rent.
The SICAP villa went to my daughter, who, with the bailiff's affidavit in hand, listed the contents and bought it.
The story of the Villa Fallene was easy to relate: the land and building represented a bank loan granted ten years ago on the security of our joint salaries. The contents, renewed two years ago, belonged to me, and to support this claim, I produced the receipts. There remained Modou's clothes: those that I recognized because I had chosen and cared for them; and the others ... from the second part of his life. I found it difficult to imagine him in this get-up of a young wolf........................................................................................................ They were distributed to his
family.
The jewels and presents given to Lady Mother-in-Law and her daughter were theirs by right.
Lady Mother-in-Law hiccoughed, cried. She was being stripped, and she asked for mercy. She did not want to move out. ...
But Daba is like all the young, without pity.
'Remember, I was your daughter's best friend. You made her my mother's rival. Remember. For five years you deprived my mother and her twelve children of their breadwinner. Remember. My mother has suffered a great deal. How can a woman sap the happiness of another? You deserve no pity. Pack up. As for Binetou, she is a victim, your victim. I feel sorry for her.'
Lady Mother-in-Law sobbed. Binetou? Indifference itself. What did it matter to her what was being said? She was already dead inside ever since her marriage to
Modou.
22
I feel an immense fatigue. It begins in my soul and weighs down my body.
Ousmane, my last born, holds out your letter to me. Ousmane is six years old. 'It's Aunty Aissatou.'
He has the privilege of bringing
me all your letters. How does he recognize them? By their stamp? By their envelope? By the careful writing, characteristic of you? By the scent of lavender emanating from them? Children have clues different from our own. Ousmane enjoys his find. He exults in it.
These caressing words, which relax me, are indeed from you. And you tell me of the 'end'. I calculate. Tomorrow is indeed the end of my seclusion. And you will be there within reach of my hand, my voice, my eyes.
'End or new beginning'? My eyes will discover the slightest change in you. I have already totalled up my own; my seclusion has withered me. Worries have given me wrinkles; my fat has melted away. I often tap against bone where before there was rounded flesh.
When we meet, the signs on our bodies will not be important. The essential thing is the content of our hearts, which animates us; the essential thing is the quality of the sap that flows through us. You have often proved to me the superiority of friendship over love. Time, distance, as well as mutual memories have consolidated our ties and made our children brothers and sisters. Reunited, will we draw up a detailed account of our faded bloom, or will we sow new seeds for new harvests?
I hear Daba's footsteps. She is back from the Blaise Diagne secondary school, where she has been representing me in answer to a summons. A conflict between my son, Mawdo Fall, and his philosophy teacher. They clash frequently when the time comes to return corrected essays.
I feel an immense fatigue. It begins in my soul and weighs down my body.
Ousmane, my last born, holds out your letter to me. Ousmane is six years old. 'It's Aunty Aissatou.'
He has the privilege of bringing me all your letters. How does he recognize them? By their stamp? By their envelope? By the careful writing, characteristic of you? By the scent of lavender emanating from them? Children have clues different from our own. Ousmane enjoys his find. He exults in it.
These caressing words, which relax me, are indeed from you. And you tell me of the 'end'. I calculate. Tomorrow is indeed the end of my seclusion. And you will be there within reach of my hand, my voice, my eyes.
'End or new beginning'? My eyes will discover the slightest change in you. I have already totalled up my own; my seclusion has withered me. Worries have given me wrinkles; my fat has melted away. I often tap against bone where before there was rounded flesh.
When we meet, the signs on our bodies will not be important. The essential thing is the content of our hearts, which animates us; the essential thing is the quality of the sap that flows through us. You have often proved to me the superiority of friendship over love. Time, distance, as well as mutual memories have consolidated our ties and made our children brothers and sisters. Reunited, will we draw up a detailed account of our faded bloom, or will we sow new seeds for new harvests?
I hear Daba's footsteps. She is back from the Blaise Diagne secondary school, where she has been representing me in answer to a summons. A conflict between my son, Mawdo Fall, and his philosophy teacher. They clash frequently when the time comes to return corrected essays.
Your parents work hard so as to merit their sacrifices. Cultivate yourselves instead of protesting. When you are adults, if your opinions are to carry weight, they must be based on knowledge backed by diplomas. A diploma is not a myth. It is not everything, true. But it crowns knowledge, work. Tomorrow, you will be able to elect to power anyone of your choice, anyone you find suitable. It is your choice, and not ours, that will direct the country.
Now our society is shaken to its very foundations, torn between the attraction of imported vices and the fierce resistance of old virtues.
The dream of a rapid social climb prompts parents to give their children more knowledge than education. Pollution seeps in through hearts as well as into the air.
'Phased out' or 'outdated', perhaps even 'old fogies', we belong to the past. But all four of us were made of stern stuff, with upright minds full of intense questionings that stuck within our inner selves, not without pain. Aissatou, no matter how unhappy the outcome of our unions, our husbands were great men. They led the struggle of their lives, even if success eluded their grasp; one does not easily overcome the burdens of a thousand years.
I observe the young. Where are those bright eyes, prompt to react when scorned honour demands redress? Where is the vigorous pride that guides a whole community towards its duty? The appetite to live kills the dignity of living.
You can see that I digress from the problem of Mawdo Fall.
The headmaster of the school certainly understands the Mawdo Fall-teacher conflict. But you try to side with a student against his teacher!
Daba is here beside me, lighthearted, smiling with all her teeth at a mission successfully accomplished.
Daba does not find household work a burden. Her husband cooks rice as well as she does; her husband who claims, when I tell him he 'spoils' his wife: 'Daba is my wife. She is not my slave, nor my servant.'
I sense the tenderness growing between this young couple, an ideal couple, just as I have always imagined. They identify with each other, discuss everything so as to find a compromise.
All the same, I fear for Daba. Life holds many surprises. When I discuss it with her, she shrugs her shoulders: 'Marriage is no chain. It is mutual agreement over a life's programme. So if one of the partners is no longer satisfied with the union, why should he remain? It may be Abou (her husband); it may be me. Why not? The wife can take the initiative to make the break.'
She reasons everything out, that child................... She often tells me: 'I don't want to go into
politics; it's not that I am not interested in the fate of my country and, most especially, that of woman. But when I look at the fruitless wranglings even within the ranks of the same party, when I see men's greed for power, I prefer not to participate. No, I am not afraid of ideological struggle, but in a political party it is rare for a woman to make an easy break-through. For a long time men will continue to have the power of decision, whereas everyone knows that polity should be the affair of women. No: I prefer my own association, where there is neither rivalry nor schism, neither malice nor jostling for position; there are no posts to be shared, nor positions to be secured.
The headship changes every year. Each of us has equal opportunity to advance her ideas. We are given tasks according to our abilities in our activities and organizations that work towards the progress of women. Our funds go towards humanitarian work; we are mobilized by a militancy as useful as any other, but it is a healthy militancy, whose only reward is inner satisfaction.'
She reasoned everything out, that child ... She had her own opinions about everything.
I look at her, Daba, my eldest child, who has helped me so admirably with her brothers and sisters. It is Aissatou, your namesake, who has taken over from her the running of the house.
Aissatou washes the youngest ones: Omar, eight years old, and Ousmane; your friend. The others can manage well enough on their own. Aissatou is helped in her task by Amy and her twin sister Awa, whom she is training.
My twins are so similar that I sometimes confuse them. They are mischievous and play tricks on everybody. Aminata works better than Awa. Physically so similar, why are they so different in character?
The upkeep and education of young children do not pose serious problems; washed, fed, cared for, supervised, my own are growing well---with, of course, the nearly daily battle against sores, colds, headaches, in which I excel, simply from having had to struggle.
It is Mawdo Bâ who comes to my aid during the serious illnesses. Even though I criticize him for his weakness, which broke up your relationship, I praise him very sincerely for the help he gives me. Despite his friend Modou's desertion of our home, I can still wake him up, at no matter what hour.
23
My grown children are causing me a great deal of concern. My worries pale when I recall my grandmother, who found in popular wisdom an appropriate dictum for each event. She liked to repeat: 'The mother of a family has no time to travel.
But she has time to die.' She would lament when, despite her sleepiness, she still had to carry out her share of the duties: 'Ah, if only I had a bed on which to lie down.'
Mischievously, I would point to the three beds in her room. In irritation, she would say: 'You have your life before and not behind you. May God grant that you experience what I have gone through.' And here I am today, 'going through' just that experience.
I thought a child was born and grew up without any problem. I though one mapped out a straight path and that he would step lightly down it. I now saw, at first hand, the truth of my grandmother's prophecies: 'The fact that children are born of the same parents does not necessarily mean that they will resemble each other.'
'Being born of the same parents is just like spending the night in the same bedroom.'
To allay the fear of the future that her words might possibly have aroused, my grandmother would offer some solutions: 'Different personalities require different forms of discipline. Strictness here, comprehension there. Smacking, which is successful with the very young ones, annoys the older ones. The nerves daily undergo severe trials! But that is the mother's lot.'