Beyond Babylon

by Igiaba Scego

  Anyway I bought new shoes for the party. You’ll never believe it, they have heels! I want to feel like a woman tonight. A cabaret singer. I loved the shoes from the moment I saw them. A thunderbolt. Shock to the system. They used all their seductive power. I couldn’t resist. I was prancing in the heels, drooling. I found them on Ebay. Yes!! On Ebay! I don’t know how they ended up there. Leather clogs, pointed, in soft faux fur, with spotted pony details. Original Docs, box included (!!), drawstring dust bag, and warranty. Used, but still perfect, like in the photo. They came in three days. I’m wearing them tonight. Also because, dear (BRACE YOURSELF), my pilgrim arrived. Yes, the one I was waiting so long for. He arrived unexpectedly. The shoes are also to celebrate his arrival. I’ve got to be careful, though. Mama Africa won’t want me if I share her party with someone else.

  Kisses, my friend, and don’t freeze up there.

  Yours always, Zuhra

  CLICK, SENT.

  Suspenseful minutes. The girl closes all the programs. She clicks the Xs. She’s like a pianist, running quickly over keys of ebony and ivory. At a certain point, darkness. The curtain falls. The computer shuts down. First it announces, flashing, that the darkness is about to submerge the light. That afterward, there will be only blackness.

  She created that obscurity. She is pleased. She stands. She has a stomachache, cramps gnawing at her lower gut. She’d ignored them while typing the message to her friend. But the letter is finished, the computer is off. She has no more excuses for postponing. The bathroom is in the back of the house. The house almost doesn’t have a back. It’s small. A squirrel’s burrow. It is Saturday. She bought many newspapers. She buys an armful on Saturdays. All the inserts are there. They cost more. Saturdays are very colorful. She grabs one at random. She goes into the bathroom and slips out of her underwear. She doesn’t look at them. She doesn’t like them. She sits. Her stomach hurts. She starts leafing through the magazine. She hopes it can help her with her work. She flips. Too many interesting articles in the insert. She doesn’t want to start reading them. Those are best read at the writing desk. Perhaps even underlined and analyzed. What do you want to learn while you eject the residues of yourself? She flips, flips, flips. She needs one of those gossip magazines, where the faces are fake and the romances only a frontispiece. She feels overwhelmed. She cannot expel. Undecided on the reading, she flips again. The photographs are moving, the colors a métissage. She is struck by something unforeseen. A flame. She fixates on the center of that heat. It’s a picture of a man in a Hawaiian shirt. She begins to read.

  The man tells of a frog. The man is from Burundi. He’s a story collector. There are those who gather pears. Those who, exploited, gather tomatoes. This man, however, places words into his sack. He shares them so as not to lose them. During the harvest one day, he found a small frog. It had fallen in a bucket of milk. Surely it would drown. Dead without anyone knowing. But she, the frog, did not want to die. She hadn’t yet lived. She hadn’t yet fallen in love. So she starts to think. She thinks for as long as she can. “I like my life,” she says to herself. Yes, she liked her life, more than anything else. It was then, after this thought, that the frog began flapping her legs. Slowly at first, then faster. She doesn’t want to die. She hasn’t been in love yet. Her legs churn. Fast. Faster. They kick as hard as they can. They float. The milk stirs. It dances. It wobbles. A tumultuous wave. The frog kicks. She sees that, on the surface, a dense, crude substance has formed. Less watery. It’s butter. The frog thinks, “Maybe it will save me.” She starts kicking hard again, fiercely. The milk dances and totters. More tumultuous waves. More butter. It goes on like this for a while and, finally, all the milk becomes butter. The frog stops kicking. The butter is solid. A tall mountain. The frog leaps on top, hop, hop, hop. And she leaves the bucket. Saved, finally saved! The small frog steps happily into her life again, as though nothing had happened.

  The man from Burundi often speaks of this frog, the magazine says. He gathers stories. The girl forgot where she was sitting. She traveled with that man. Without realizing it, she has evacuated. She sets the magazine down. Goodbye, and thank you to the man from Burundi. She still has cramps. She looks down. She looks for where she tossed her underwear. She lifts them. Stands. They’re dirty. A wet, expansive stain. It looks like a star. Perhaps it is.

  Her star is red. Somewhat damp, but beautiful. It emanates light. A menstrual star that shines only for her, infinitely. The shapes scatter. The star broadens. A constellation. Inside the constellation, her woman’s story. And within her story, the story of others before her and others after. The stories entwine, at times converging, often searching for one another. Each one united by a color and a feeling. Her cramps diminish. Expulsion feels good. In one moment the constellation dissolves. It vanishes, leaving a ring of red. And if love in Rome is that way? An undertone of red?