The Fury and Cries of Women

by Angèle Rawiri

  Emilienne thought long and hard. A piece of advice from her sister—“You can get anything from a man, but you’ve got to know how to play his feelings”—was running through her mind like a revelation. She decided to change her strategy, maintaining, however, what was essential. She smiled and moved toward her husband, embracing him.

  “Darling, you have pushed me all the way. I admit I have no right to deprive you of your children. From now on, you will visit them once a week and you will spend all your nights here. For all those years, in a way I encouraged your infidelity. Now, though, I want you with me. I will never forget all the pain and suffering you’ve caused me, and I don’t know if I can forgive you for it. I am nonetheless ready to give us a second chance.”

  As she whispered those words in his ear, she unbuttoned his shirt and placed her right hand on his hairy chest and with the other dried her hair with the towel draping her shoulders.

  “It would be difficult to . . . to . . .” Joseph muttered, thrown off balance.

  “Yes, I know, my darling. Let’s still try. In three months, we’ll assess the situation. Okay?”

  She slid down his pants zipper, opening it slowly.

  “My career, as rewarding as it is, does not soothe my sexual desires and my maternal instinct,” Emilienne said to herself as she looked for a spot to park her car in front of her hypnotist’s building. “Exchanging caresses with another woman won’t fill the absence of Joseph’s carnal contact, nor will it replace this complicity we have had in the past. My rebellion, my anger, and my pride won’t change anything in this reality. I need him, and now I know how to keep him. I won’t let anyone take him from me again, and soon I will force him to reveal the name of this woman to me.”

  AFTER SEVERAL MANEUVERS, she managed to park between two cars. She was here for her eighth session. Encouraged by a feeling of serenity she hadn’t felt since the birth of her daughter, Emilienne hadn’t missed a single appointment. Thanks to her magnetism sessions, she was cured of her bulimia and her drunkenness. In order to detoxify her body, she drank eight glasses of water a day and rode her bicycle every morning.

  She was thus very relaxed when she let Monsieur Chevalier magnetize her.

  “Have you noticed that your pimples have disappeared and that you have a better complexion, Madame?”

  “Yes, and I can even tell you that my hair isn’t brittle anymore. I am less irritable and I feel stronger. You have transformed me, Monsieur Chevalier.”

  “You can see I am very happy about that, Madame. Don’t forget that a sudden stop to the treatment can destroy all of our hard work. I would advise you to change to two sessions a month until you’re pregnant. After that, we’ll see.”

  After she’d been magnetized standing up, Emilienne undressed and lay down on the bed.

  “Magnetism has the advantage of curing all pain,” Monsieur Chevalier added as he passed both of his hands up and down the young woman’s body. I have healed stuttering, mental illnesses, shyness, and so on. You aren’t the first person who has talked to me about transformation. After several sessions, the patient’s character changes as the illness is cured.”

  “It would have been good if my husband had also had a few sessions, not because he has a bad character, but just to rethink his ideas.”

  “You would be doing him a big favor, for it could only do him good. Bring his photo to me.”

  “Are you telling me that you can magnetize him via his photograph?”

  Emilienne straightened up, excited.

  “Lie back down, Madame Eyang. Remote telepathy is done by cosmic transmission. For that all I need is to position the photo of the patient on the bed, to visualize him lying down facing me, and to make exactly the same gestures as those I perform on a patient who’s in front of me. It is not necessary to inform the patient about the process, especially if they’re skeptical. It is obviously easier to remotely magnetize a patient whom you treat ordinarily, wherever he is, as long as you agree upon the place and the time he will be there. I have happened to magnetize from my office one client who was in a train and another in the United States.”

  “Lie down on your stomach,” the magnetizer went on. “Relax completely and breathe deeply. Before you leave, leave your ovulation dates for me. I’m going to magnetize you remotely during that time. And speaking of that, I’ve prepared some magnetized cotton for you to put under the mattress in the spot where you sleep. If you don’t feel well, take a little of that cotton and put it in your ears. When you wake up, moisten those cotton balls and then throw them out. Leave half of that cotton in a plastic bag, and apply it from time to time to your belly or any another part of your body where there is pain. I’ve also prepared a bottle of magnetized water. Put some in a vaporizer and vaporize your face every morning. You can also drink the equivalent of three teaspoons if you have to be at an important meeting. Turn back over onto your back.”

  At the contact of the magnetic waves that Monsieur Chevalier’s hands gave off, Emilienne felt, first, a strong heat on her back, then an intense pain in her pelvic region. She told the magnetizer, who then, with his eyes closed, passed his hands again several times over the painful part of her abdomen. The pain intensified. Emilienne grimaced.

  “There is definitely something wrong in the fallopian tubes and uterus.”

  He concentrated more and, with the back of his right hand, repeated the same magnetic passes, while with his left hand, he gently massaged her lower abdomen. He stopped three minutes later.

  “How do you feel?”

  “The pain stopped.”

  To conclude, he massaged the soles of her feet and passed his hand quickly over each limb from the top down to the extremities.

  “You can get dressed, Madame, and don’t forget to note down the dates I asked you for on the notepad on my desk,” he said as he went to wash his hands in the adjoining room.

  “You talked about cotton and magnetized water,” the young woman reminded him when he reappeared.

  “Of course.”

  He took them out of one of his drawers.

  “For how long do I have to keep the cotton under the mattress?”

  “Three to four weeks. Wet it before you throw it out so that you destroy the magnetic current.”

  “Thank you,” Emilienne said, getting up. “I hope that with all of this it won’t be long before I’m cured.”

  “Stay resolutely optimistic. Your sterility is without a doubt psychosomatic; your cure thus depends a lot on you. I’ll see you again in two weeks,” he added as he walked with her to the elevator.

  EMILIENNE CAME out of Natalys with her arms full of packages. Tonight, after the UN-sponsored conference to which she was invited, she would stop by to bring them to her sister, whose delivery was imminent.

  For this child who was going to be born, Eva had resolved to reuse her last child’s layette. And to be nice to her sister, she had ended up allowing her to buy a few clothes for newborns and for six months to one year. Although Emilienne had promised her not to get carried away and spend a lot of money, she had not resisted the temptation to also buy a playpen and a variety of baby products a little while ago in the toy store.

  Her joy was so great that she hummed an old song she’d remembered from the last decade. At the same time, a fleeting shadow dampened her joy. She had just then thought of her relationship with her secretary. “Starting tomorrow, I’m putting an end to these lackluster sexual encounters. Hey! What if I asked Joseph to find work for her somewhere else! He could just as well hire her as a secretary in his company. I am going to have to weigh my words carefully so that I don’t give the girl the opportunity to exploit this dirty chapter in my life. She is not trustworthy. How could I have fallen so low?”

  EMILIENNE SAT DOWN in the row reserved for the Kampana delegation. The UN-sponsored international conference on “the emancipation of the African woman” was about to begin. The agenda items dealt with three themes:

  —women and work;
<
br />   —how to reconcile professional life with family life; and

  —marriage legislation in African societies.

  With the mass education of women came their concern for independence and their desire to be considered as full economic agents. It had to be acknowledged nevertheless that that sociocultural economic upheaval, provoked by women’s entering the workforce, didn’t always get politicians’ support. International organizations’ support of women’s movements in the four corners of the continent was always needed.

  The interest shown by the UN, UNESCO, and, to a lesser degree, the OAU regarding the problems of the African woman took concrete form at meetings like this one, which represented one more step toward a fair and equal society.

  After the opening speech by the president, and the welcome speech by the secretary of state for women’s affairs, work groups were put together, led by two representatives of each country in attendance.

  Emilienne chose the subcommittee under the heading “women and work,” made up of about thirty women.

  The opening of the conference was broadcast on television. The president of the subcommittee, a petite middle-aged woman, invited her sisters to give the best of themselves throughout this conference in which each new idea, she stated, constituted a pillar for the edification of the continent.

  Designated as a spokeswoman, Emilienne noted the proposals that came out of the heated debate. After four hours of discussion, they ended the session to meet again the following day.

  Despite the evident interest the women present at the conference had, if one considered the array of proposals that had been formulated, Emilienne noticed very quickly that none of the recommendations intended to make the leaders of the countries in attendance conscious of rural women. “Because,” she went on, “I am not sure that the awareness campaigns that will follow our work will reach these women, who are bogged down by certain old-fashioned traditions which bring along with them living conditions that are still difficult.”

  Her speech aroused applause and everyone’s approval. One of the delegates proposed that when the awareness campaigns were launched, the national commissions go through every region of each country. Another suggested the creation of radio and television programs, as well as informational magazines. This task of creating awareness would be the responsibility of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs or of leadership groups from the political parties.

  In her report, Emilienne concluded: “There can be no social evolution without radically changing the mentalities in all categories of our population. Woman’s exploitation runs counter to the process of development initiated during independence. We no longer want sectorial integration; we want to include all occupations and we also wish to hold positions of responsibility, according to our abilities, which have been reserved for men. We no longer accept the passive and verbal acknowledgment of a pseudo-influence determinative of woman in society and in her home. We are calling for the complete revision of all socioprofessional laws. We ask for the unconditional application of measures that have already been confirmed but that remain unheeded, and ask for the diffusion of legal texts by each departmental unit, which must rapidly be formed. Finally, we urge all women to take recourse to the laws of their country each time that the texts are not respected.”

  After reading all the recommendations to the general assembly, a dozen women, including Emilienne, were invited to a debate broadcast simultaneously on radio and TV to support the president of the African Feminist Movement of the UN and the secretary of women’s affairs in Kampana.

  FROM HER ARMCHAIR, Eyang could not help feeling great pride in the idea of knowing that the whole country was watching and listening attentively to her daughter-in-law. Even though she didn’t understand the erudite words the latter was using, she was convinced that her ideas would one day contribute to change certain things in this country, things that were apparently important, judging by the seriousness of the debate.

  Eyang waved her arms about and kneaded her fingers. She trembled for Emilienne each time she took the floor. Her smile widened. All those who knew Eyang would soon come to congratulate her. She would no longer go unnoticed, and for good reason; it isn’t every mother-in-law who can pride herself on having a daughter-in-law as educated and respected as hers was.

  “She is incredible!” Joseph thought, smiling at his wife on the screen.

  AS SOON AS she opened the car door, smiling faces greeted her at the door.

  “My girl!!” Eyang exclaimed. “The telephone has not stopped ringing since the program began. Your parents, your sister, and even my cousins called, your friends and colleagues as well. I am sure that some members of my family who don’t have telephones at home will come to congratulate us tomorrow.”

  “My girl,” she continued, “you must be tired. Give me your purse and go sit down with your husband and the children. Ah! What a day! When I think that you didn’t say anything to me about being on television. Anyway, even if I didn’t understand anything, I know that you said important things.”

  “Give it a rest, Mama,” Joseph broke in. “Go keep an eye on your pans on the stove.”

  He sat down next to his wife, his eyes glimmering. Their nephews in turn sat down on the divan. After they’d congratulated her, he commented on the various points she’d made. Eyang, who was moving about between the kitchen and the dining room, came beaming to announce that the table was ready.

  “Sit down, my girl. I prepared that eggplant dish for you that you like so much,” the old woman declared with a jaunt in her step. “I wonder why your sister-in-law, Antoinette, hasn’t called; she must have gone out to eat at a restaurant with her husband.”

  Eyang trotted into the kitchen and came back with a bottle of champagne, which she handed to her son.

  “You have forgotten the champagne that you yourself put in the refrigerator. No point in ogling the eggplant,” she said to the children. “I didn’t prepare it for you.”

  “They can have some, Mama Eyang; I won’t eat it all by myself. Thank you for your concern.”

  Finally, Eyang sat down.

  “My son, you are lucky to be married to a great lady. May the good God bless you, children.” Her eyes were suddenly moist, and she looked tenderly at Emilienne.

  Overcome with emotion, the young woman got up and went over to give her mother-in-law a hug. Eyang bowed her head, an embarrassed smile at the corners of her mouth.

  Throughout the entire dinner, the whole household laughed and talked at the same time. The conversation constantly came back to her television performance. Moved and at the same time a little uncomfortable with everyone’s sincere happiness, Emilienne felt unsettled and, so as not to burst out sobbing, left the table hurriedly and went into the kitchen.

  She did not believe her eyes and ears. Was she living a beautiful dream that would end when the sun rose? And if her suffering, all of her anguish were to end with this event that had taken on the appearance of a family victory she had never dreamed of! This unexpected happiness that she had vaguely sensed since she’d gotten out of the hospital suddenly made her fearful. Her sorrows had become almost normal in her eyes. She had come to believe that sooner or later she would have to learn how to cope with them. And, although she felt revived after a few magnetism sessions, she was far from thinking that her family environment was also going to change for the better. However, she had refused to have her husband telepathically magnetized, so as not to cause a misunderstanding later.

  Emilienne was shaking. This window of happiness was really unsettling to her. What was going to happen in the days and weeks to come . . .?

  For a minute she let herself get trapped in a sort of indefinable fright she had never known before. This new sensation was unbearable, because it was keeping her from living fully in the present. If only she could discipline her mind, she would live these moments intensely that she so desired.

  In any case, she realized that her husband’s return home would be for the
long term, if not for good, if, on her part, she cleared up the dark spot that was still clouding her newfound serenity.

  As SHE PARKED the company car in front of the imposing building of the National Headquarters for Administrative Building Maintenance, Emilienne was more determined than ever to put an end to the compromising extraprofessional relationship she’d been having with her secretary.

  Before she’d even opened the door, Dominique got out of the back of a new BMW, a young man dressed in white having just opened the door for her. The young secretary, with a triumphant air, smoothed out the creases in the sky blue silk skirt suit she was wearing, then, flipping her head, pulled her long braids back against her neck. And, after she’d taken the car keys from her driver’s hands, she ran to catch Emilienne, who was heading for the elevator.

  “Good morning! Why didn’t you park your car in the lot reserved for company management? Did you see mine? Do you like it? It was delivered to me with the chauffeur. It’s a gift from my boyfriend.”

  “Bravo! I see that your boyfriend has a lot of money. Is it still the married one?”

  “You have nothing to fear. He’s a very rich businessman and I don’t see why I shouldn’t benefit from his money. Plus, he owes me this little gift; I gave him beautiful children, which I knew would make him happy.”

  The two women stood still as they waited for the elevator, each adopting an air of secrecy that the other tried to penetrate. Just then a young boy came out of the stairwell carrying a flowerpot in his hands.

  “Five hundred francs for the flowerpot,” the boy announced, planting himself behind the two women, who turned around.

  “Don’t you go to school?” Emilienne asked him.

  The little flower vendor stared at his bare feet and answered timidly:

  “I only go to school in the afternoon. Buy my flowers please, Madame; I need money to buy notebooks and a schoolbag.”