“Is it already noon?” she asked, surprised, standing in front of her daughter-in-law.
“Let me by,” Emilienne murmured as she opened the door.
Eyang entered the room with her. Completely sapped of energy, she grabbed onto one of the closet doorknobs to support herself. Without waiting for her mother-in-law to leave, she unbuttoned her jacket, fingers trembling, and then stood facing Eyang, who, seeing her face contorted with pain, took two steps back.
“You still have your migraine?”
“Yes,” the young woman said harshly, through clenched teeth.
“That’s not all,” Eyang went on brusquely. “The children have got to eat when they return from school.” She carried on, her feet planted firmly on her spot on the carpet: “The cook and the housekeeper didn’t come this morning. There is no food ready. I did the housecleaning and, believe me, with my rheumatoid arthritis, it isn’t easy for me. I don’t know why Joseph wastes money paying those people.”
EMILIENNE’S ONLY ANSWER was to show her mother-in-law the door. Once she was alone again, she let go of the door handle and locked herself in the room. The sound of a saucepan crashing onto the floor filled her ears as she slipped on a night-shirt. As she headed slowly toward the bed, she tripped over the clothes Joseph had left strewn across the floor. She hadn’t seen them when she came in. “Well!” she actually had the time to think as she stumbled, “He came home to change, anyway.”
In thirteen years of marriage, her husband still hadn’t learned to put his clothes away. At the beginning of their marriage, his sloppiness had really irritated her, and she had tirelessly called him on it. He had made a noteworthy effort for a few years, but the old bad habit had crept back since he’d been spending time with his mistress. It seems a lover’s role is not to mold a man. In any case, Emilienne made up her mind. She picked them up when she felt like it, and when she was in a rebellious mood, she asked the housekeeper to do it.
In pain, she gripped the bed’s headboard, then knelt down in order to regain her strength. She managed to grab the pillow, burrow her head down into it for a few moments, and, still on her knees, put her head—still sunken into the pillow—on the bed.
Her stomach was heating up and burning at the same time. Her limbs, chilled, tingled. She was uncomfortable in this position. It only accentuated her pain. She had to move, and her feet refused to comply! The messages her brain was sending were not reaching her limbs anymore. Would she be able to climb onto this bed? Who would have thought that she, Emilienne, would find herself one day in such a state of physical affliction? Why was she suffering so? We must never mock the misfortunes of others, her father always said. The same thing could happen to us when we least expect it.
The memory of a terrible act she had committed as a carefree child brought a grim smile to her face! One day, while playing with her friends on the riverbanks of the village where she’d been born and raised, a puny old man with a proverbial hernia passed by. You could see the weight of this heavy load—unusual for a man—dangling back and forth at the crotch of his pants as he walked along. Emilienne ran to find a sharp twig, then, approaching the old man, stuck it in the ground and used all her might to break it. The old man jumped about three feet in the air, holding his intimate parts with both his hands. Doubled over in agony, he wailed a distorted cry of pain. That was one of the sorts of malicious acts kids would innocently perform in the village. How he must have been miserable, how he must have suffered, Emilienne thought.
She moved one knee forward, then the other. They were against the bed now. Picking herself up, she gently raised her left foot, placed it on the bed, then proceeded to do the same with the other, and forcefully heaving her body, shifted toward the middle of the bed.
The effort she’d just made caused her to sweat profusely, and the sweat absorbed instantly into her pillowcase. She remembered she had some sedatives in the drawer of the night-stand. She needed a glass of water to swallow them. Too bad! She would have to endure the pain. After all, didn’t she deserve this suffering? Doesn’t the saying go, we reap the seeds we sow? What seeds could she have sown so badly in her life to deserve such a rotten harvest? Her torment was not a result of the excruciating pain a woman feels giving birth, one that disappears and is replaced by the sense of extreme joy the mother feels when she holds her child in her arms. No, her torment was barren and left her only with a feeling of insurmountable guilt. It was the kind of pain that makes a woman uglier, makes her wither, makes her bitter and mean because she has failed where others have succeeded.
Once again, overcoming her pain, Emilienne asked herself the only questions that would take her mind away from her body for an instant. “What do I have to do to get him back? Would the birth of a second child make him abandon that woman? Oh, God! What wouldn’t I try to straighten out our marriage, to make it pure and everlasting! I am lacking in strength and shrewdness. How do I fight when I am unaware of what the end of this battle will look like and how it will come about? But yes,” she told herself nodding her head ardently, “that’s exactly it.” She tossed and turned and wrung her hands in despair. “I must give him a son who looks like him.” She rubbed her forehead against the pillow as if it would destroy the sharp pangs in her stomach. “So how do I bring him into the world when I am incapable of facing and fighting whatever it is that seems to be crushing my innards and every fetus that forms inside of me?! I’ve tried every imaginable concoction prescribed by the best traditional doctors in this country: I’ve had my fill drinking and eating all their potions.” The very last one she’d gone to see, at her mother’s behest several years ago, told her after six months of fruitless treatment: “My child, your enemies have more strength than my plants. There is a devouring animal inside your stomach, and as soon as you begin to form children, it gnaws them to bits. It would be dishonest of me to continue your treatment. Try to go to Benou. Most women who come back from there become pregnant within a month or two.”
That evening, Emilienne had come back home determined never to spend another cent on her stomach. But now, the need to procreate was once again becoming a priority. And hidden behind that need was the relentless desire to win back her husband. Although it wasn’t even clear whether she herself knew which took higher priority.
SUDDENLY, A VIOLENT wrenching brought her back to her body. Was it her uterus or her cervix? She couldn’t tell. It doesn’t matter, she thought, biting her lips to stifle the scream mounting in her throat. She felt a kind of heaviness descend in her, and before she could find a comfortable position for this expulsion she’d felt coming since the morning, the warm, sticky liquid flowed dully between her thighs, stiff and slightly apart.
In a movement of restless revolt, Emilienne folded her knees and crossed her feet. The sticky liquid continued to seep out ceaselessly, covering the area around her vagina and anus and spreading on the sheets. Panic-stricken, she thrashed about, kneaded her belly, which would betray her to the very end. Yet nothing could stop the flow. Her strength diminished and her nerves at their end, she finally relaxed her body and allowed herself to empty out. The room began spinning around her. For a brief moment, the bed appeared to be suspended from the ceiling, her head turned toward an abyss. Keeping her eyes closed, she clung to the edge of the bed, when, all of a sudden, she jolted as vomit made its way up from her chest, came rushing into her throat, and, finally, invaded her mouth. She forced herself to open her eyes and make a run for the bathroom. She did not make it in time. The acidic liquid spurted out of her mouth all over her sheets. Small chunks of croissant mixed with her blood on the sheets made her vomit deep brown in color. The odor gave off a putrid and foul stench she could not bear, causing what seemed an endless cycle of continuous nausea and vomiting.
Emptied out at both ends, Emilienne allowed the bubble that was blocking her throat to burst, and she bawled. And long after her tears had dried, she continued to moan. From time to time, she used the back of her hand to wipe away the mucous
drizzling from her nose toward her mouth. She had a sallow look in her eyes, which fell indifferently onto her soiled sheets, spattered with the debris of fetal remains.
She stayed there for a long while, sitting with her knees still scrunched up by her chin, tapping and caressing her legs with her fingers. As she raised her head slowly to stifle this pitiful image of herself, she was seized with great panic. She did not see herself in the mirror. She rubbed her eyes vigorously, opened them wide. No! The curves of her body, hunched over, did not appear in front of her. Did she still have a body, an image, a reflection? Was everything within her in the process of disintegrating, disowning, and repudiating her? Her blood, her tears, the content of her stomach, and even her image!
Observing this void, Emilienne had the impression she was floating, disappearing. She had become what she had never ceased being without noticing: an ethereal body. At that moment she had the distinct sensation that her soul was abandoning her physical body. It was not that her spirit was rising so that she would reach a state of utter happiness. Was she dying? She remembered stories about certain dead people who had come back to life after their spirit had hovered for some time above their body. Hers, she didn’t even see. Nor did she have the feeling of being happier or more serene. Quite the contrary; she now had the impression she was struggling, fighting off frightful forces. And what if she were one of these wretched souls destined to wander eternally in a whirlwind of anguish? At least she would be able to boast of having known hell, not only on earth, but between earth and heaven! As if one can take pride in suffering . . .
After that unending moment of drifting, of struggling, the young woman, little by little, regained her five senses. She could once again feel her flesh. In turn, the objects around her returned to normal. As she could not stay sprawled out on her bed for the rest of the day, she decided to get up, drew the drapes, and, staggering, headed toward the bathroom. A thick, blackish blood clot poured out of her onto the floor tiles, leaving her with a feeling of emptiness in her stomach. She felt lighter, though, very light, like a dry leaf. With a detached and resolute air, she took a cloth out of the cabinet to clean the floor and wiped up the slimy puddle. For the second time, she stepped over the edge of the tub, and this time sat down.
“What is the use of taking care of my body when it can’t carry out its most fundamental task?” she grumbled as she adjusted the water faucets. “Everything in me is emptying, drying up and falling apart. Soon, I will be the mere remains of my reflection. And to say in spite of it all that I should take care of this barren flesh. For whom and for what must I put up with all these petty annoyances? The man I love no longer even notices my shadow. In such circumstances, how could he even describe the clothes on my back when in the rare moments we’ve actually crossed paths in this house he has turned his back on me? Am I not merely part of the décor now, décor that he is so used to seeing that he no longer pays attention to it and could just throw away without thinking twice about it!”
THE THOUGHT that it wouldn’t be long before he got home made her jump. For she knew he would come back. Every time he came back to change clothes in the morning after spending several days and nights at his mistress’s, he picked up the kids at school and brought them back to the house. A good way for him to make himself—or make himself think he is—useful. “Why aren’t they back yet? So, it isn’t 1:30pm yet?! Fine, I must hurry. For nothing in the world will I let him see the sheets soaked with my decomposing feminine waste.” Very quickly she dried herself off and ran to remove any trace of the waste expelled from her body. The mattress, luckily, was not soiled, thanks to the rubber sheet protecting it—Joseph had been against this measure, which reminded him of his childhood. His mother had put it on his bed until he was fourteen.
Rummaging through one of the dresser drawers, she found an old plastic bag and hurriedly stuffed the stained sheets in it. Still racing around, she threw on a housecoat, remade the bed, and went out to throw her bulky package into the trash.
Joseph’s car idled in front of the gate.
II
Nameless Despair
Leaning against the kitchen door by the garage, watching him get out of the car, she was suddenly overcome with emotion. Everything around her faded away.
Emilienne’s eyes examined every part of his body. A beige gandoura from Senegal draped naturally over his six-foot-one frame, leaving visible only the bottoms of his pants of the same color. Beige rubber sandals protected his delicate feet. He had been wearing African garb for a long time now. “It makes me feel cooler,” he liked to say, “and it is my way of returning to our roots.” His short, wavy hair had a brilliant sheen.
When he raised his eyebrows, three creases would form on his forehead, making him look virile and irresistible. His grey eyes fell coldly upon his wife, his short, straight nose flared, and his full lips quivered. Emilienne, on the watch for this look, grew tense. Nevertheless, she gave him a sincere smile, because she was truly happy to see him again, although she was also still a little annoyed.
They had last seen each other three weeks ago, and only for two hours. He had made love to her like a drunkard throwing himself at a prostitute he’d picked up off some obscure roadside. Emilienne didn’t hold it against him. There are some humiliations that only a woman can withstand, with stubbornness, if she wants to achieve a specific goal she has set for herself. All she had wanted was the physical contact that, as it turned out, had just now resulted in some blood clots on a couple of white sheets thrown into a small plastic bag, now at the bottom of a waste bin.
Oblivious to her welcoming smile, Joseph asked point-blank:
“Didn’t you notice that your daughter isn’t with the other children?”
Emilienne continued to smile, but this time scornfully. “Unbelievable. Where does he get this confidence?” she thought to herself before responding:
“Seems like you are not happy to be home, Joseph. As for Rékia, no, I don’t think she’s back, or she’d have come to my room to give me a hug.”
“That’s all you have to say. You’re not even worried. I can’t believe this. I must be dreaming!”
“Come on, that is not the only thing I have to do!” Emilienne hurled back.
“She hasn’t come home,” Eyang added, following the couple’s quarrel intently from the kitchen.
“I can see that you’re taking good care of your daughter,” Joseph bellowed. “As a matter of fact, I really wonder what you still care about in this house. Your daughter hasn’t come home, and you in your haughtiness don’t seem to care. Your self-centeredness is seriously starting to get on my nerves.”
Emilienne’s heart beat so fast it was almost deafening. Even though she recognized the truth in her husband’s remarks, she could not help striking back:
“I find it unacceptable that you would use this tone with me in front of your nephews and your mother. And besides, you are not in any position to tell me what I should be doing,” she retorted and turned away, her blood boiling from his fierce look.
Joseph, scandalized, slammed the car door, which until that moment he had held ajar, and came over and stood in front of his wife.
“I wonder what would become of the children if I were not here. Every time I come home, there’s some kind of problem.”
He avoided brushing against her as he entered the house.
“Oh please!” his wife cried, “how egotistical!”
The Joseph who returned in a few minutes was calmer, concerned.
“Where can she be at this hour?” he worried aloud, stroking his head.
Emilienne, who up to this point had not moved, turned toward him, her face also marked with worry and concern. Their alarmed looks weighed on one another, each with a gaze that penetrated the other and turned away. The pale sun that had loomed a moment ago went down. A thick veil of clouds passed over the house. Their dog, as if sniffing a threat, curled up between the legs of his mistress.
“Well, what are we waiti
ng for?” his wife said, breaking the silence. “Let’s look for her. Mama Eyang, give the kids something to eat!”
As though aware of the general sense of panic around her, Roxanne left Emilienne and went over to her master, nuzzling his pant legs. His forehead wrinkled with worry, Joseph half-opened his mouth, then thought better of it, seeing the look of dread on his wife’s face. “I hope nothing’s happened to her! She is the only thing still holding us together,” he thought to himself.
“Let’s go,” he said aloud.
Roxanne turned in circles, whimpering.
“Come, Roxanne,” Nomé called, drawing her attention to him.
Finally happy that someone in this house was showing her some attention, Roxanne pawed at him teasingly as the little boy petted her tenderly.
In this family, the dog held an important position. She was the silent witness to their sadness and quarrels, the confidante who would listen as they poured their hearts out and the beneficiary of all the tenderness that men, her masters, no longer knew how to give one another. Of course there were also times, like today, when she was ignored, but such indifference never lasted long.
NO SOONER HAD Emilienne sat down next to Joseph in the car than they were off. They headed toward the high school in silence, each lost in his and her thoughts, which eventually brought them both back to their child. As if imploring the heavens to return her child unharmed, Emilienne raised her eyes toward the somber sky just as lighting streaked it, followed immediately by the rumbling of thunder. Soon large drops of water were pelting the roof of the car as they drove through deserted streets.
They passed several vehicles of high-ranking state officials and business executives who were returning home. Finally, they parked in front of the imposing entrance to the high school grounds.
“Wait for me in the car. There’s got to be someone inside who can tell me something.”
The Fury and Cries of Women Page 3