For A Long Time, Afraid Of The Night

by Yasmine Ghata

  After leaving the farm, you roamed around for a long time, moving away from the paths. At the entrance to the village of Musange, black smoke was polluting the deep green soil. Jeeps were crisscrossing the streets, the armed passengers scrutinizing the passersby. The town was filthy, trash piling up at every crossroad, the streets littered with plastic bags. Drained from the long hours of walking, you sat down on your suitcase behind a gate. As you squatted on the ground, sleep got the better of you, you woke up when it became dark, the only living soul in the maze of the paths. A curfew followed by a whistle had emptied the streets and sent the inhabitants running home. You hid beneath some sheet metal, your ear flat against the wall of a house, listening to the conversations. The cries of a baby clamoring for the breast reminded you of your very small sister crying, sounds of dishes being washed, a smell of cooking reached your nostrils and made you salivate. The metal sheet that sheltered you couldn’t conceal your feet, but before daybreak you would be gone.

  A door opened, conversations faded, heavy footsteps rushed down the low stairs of the house. A smell of tobacco wafted around, the footsteps stopped, you heard the sighs of an old man muttering very quietly. You didn’t see his body or his face, just his feet.

  He hadn’t seen anything, too busy looking at the stars and exhaling the smoke through his nostrils. He walked along the alleyway. At that moment you remembered your father, his stern voice that in less than a second would stop the children’s hustle and bustle in the house. You couldn’t keep from weeping as you thought of the sharp movements of his mouth and his index finger urging you to help your mother or to just calm down. You weep and that comforts you. But you’re hungry, the whiff of red beans and onions makes you forget your tears. You’d like to knock on their door, but fear holds you nailed down underneath the scrap metal. You don’t budge. Your belly screams its furious need to eat; your hands pressed on your stomach aren’t adequate to appease it. The door opens again, the visible feet are tiny, very slender, a tunic hiding bony knees. You close your eyes, hoping that you can’t be seen that way.

  A long moment of silence, you’ve put your breath on hold because you’re afraid. When you open your eyes again you realize that other equally wide-open eyes are looking at you. You’re scared, you’d like to run, but the face smiles at you and you relax. It’s a young girl, with a very, very beautiful face. Her finger across her mouth summons you to keep quiet. She holds out her hand to you, gestures for you to come with her. She wants to hide you in a junk room behind the outhouse, a safer place than this skimpy cover. Your suitcase takes her by surprise, but she quickly ignores it. She’s in a hurry, lowers her head so no one inside can see her. She stops, opens her hands out into a fan, wanting you to do the same, she’s making sure that nobody suspects there’s anything going on outside. You’re both walking on tiptoe. The junk room is much more than a hovel, a stall and tools hanging on the wall in the back. Exhausted, you put your suitcase on the floor and make an eating gesture at her. She laughs soundlessly and leaves.

  She didn’t come back, even though you were waiting, hoping to see her beautiful face and her smiles of complicity again. Wedged into a corner of the junk room, you examine the ray of light coming in from outside, the noises around no longer hold any secrets for you. The inhabitants of the house are busy doing household chores; they’re washing, wringing, sweeping. You close your eyes, imagining you’re home with the same domestic sounds, your mother’s, your father’s: those everyday gestures that marked the beginning of a new day mingling with the hubbub of children. Your grandmother would sit on a stool all day long, plucking, shelling, dissecting, and hulling. You were in charge of helping her to get up, a delicate procedure, her back and hips were as rigid as wood and her knees would creak. Every day she’d thank God for having given her a grandson like this. The hug lasted only a few minutes: her arms spread wide she’d let herself be carried, deferring the weight of many years and many tasks to Arsène’s sturdy shoulders.

  Her name is Assia, she has the most beautiful eyes in the world. Her skin is blacker than yours, her hair frizzier. You had very quickly understood that you’d found refuge among ‘the others’. This family seemed to live by the same rules as yours. The father’s voice resounds between the walls. Assia doesn’t speak, she mimes what she wants to say. Is she mute? You don’t know so you respond with gestures without using your voice. Sometimes a few syllables come out of your mouth and that makes her laugh. Speaking out loud would reveal her betrayal, so she works in silence, brings you things to eat, to drink, no more than twice a day. When she brings you food she watches you eat and lick your fingers. She has a smile on her lips as she studies you, she could watch you for hours on end, but her mother needs her in the house.

  The door of the storage room squeaks every time she comes and goes, which makes you jump or else suddenly awakens you. At the end of the second day, she signs to you with her fingers that it’s time to go, you must follow her; she knows a safe place sheltered from everything. Her index and middle finger imitate walking legs. You have to wait a few hours before you can leave the storage room, she’ll come and get you later with food supplies and a blanket. She puts her hand on yours to reassure you, you needn’t worry, she’ll take care of everything. Then she gets up, stretches one leg after the other, says goodbye with a motion of her hand, and goes out. She’s been careful to leave you some water, leftover bread, and a very ripe piece of fruit. You look through the gaps between the wood at what’s going on outside. A chicken is hanging around near the storage room, a little boy runs after the poultry roaring like a lion. Assia is sitting on one of the steps, staring at your hiding place, she’s watching over you, she’s protecting what only she in the whole family possesses: a secret. Before you came, she’d never had one.

  The light is fading. Her footsteps creak near the storage room. You open the door gradually, not leaning on the hinges, your suitcase is there, ready for its new destination. Your heart is beating louder. She signals you with her hand, she even proves to be stern with you, but you comply without any trouble. Together you cut through hedges, go around undergrowth, and lower your head when you’re near neighboring houses. The barking of dogs stops as soon as you’re out of their territory. While you run you realize that one of the straps of your suitcase has given way, you’re concerned, slow down, but Assia grabs your arm forcefully and urges you to move on. The sunset covers you, your eyes sweep the surroundings the way wild animals do when they’re afraid of turning into prey. You come to a rocky crest with a deep recess. Assia lights a lantern to show you your new home, small but large enough for you. She makes the gesture of sleep, head down and her two hands clasped at the level of her ears. She’s in a hurry to get back home, her absence could arouse suspicions. She already has her back turned when, breaking the silence, you hastily say:

  ‘Thank you.’

  Assia stops, her hand on her chest, she bows to you, blinks her eyes and quickly dashes down the rocky slope.

  You sit down on the ground. The lantern no longer gives any real light, an object shimmers next to you, you go over to it. She’s left you a small sharp knife, not considering it necessary to mention it to you so she put it there, close to the lantern, to protect you from wild animals. Assia doesn’t explain anything but anticipates everything. Your heart grows warm when you think about her. It’s time to go to sleep now. As always, the suitcase serves as your defense, you lie down behind it, back to back, happy it’s there beside you once again.

  It’s the eleventh night you’re spending alone without your parents and this night, more than any other, you have truly grasped the fact that they’re no longer of this world. This night you’ve perceived reality the way it is, without any further illusions. All you are from here on in is a wandering orphan, not knowing where to go, an empty suitcase your sole companion that escorts you like a faithful family member.

  Suzanne hurries down the boulevard, anxiety making her heart beat faster. She reaches the building o
f her childhood, the freight elevator obstructs the entrance. A moving crew is methodically emptying the third floor. They’re hoisting, lifting, and stacking a whole array of boxes and small pieces of furniture covered in felt blankets. The truck is collecting objects that have lived a long life. Suzanne’s eyes are like daggers as she looks at them, she climbs the stairs, and loudly calls the landlord. The comings and goings of the movers bustling about the apartment make her even more nervous. Intrigued by the young woman one of them stops, a box in his hands, and hastily explains:

  ‘The old lady has gone to a rest home. Her children are clearing out the apartment, so it can be sold.’

  ‘Thank you, sir. Do you know how I can find her?’

  ‘No earthly idea, Madame.’

  Suzanne paces through the rooms of the apartment, her steps slow, like those of a frightened animal.

  The bare walls show marks left by the many paintings and mirrors that hung in those same spots for thirty years. The rooms still resound with male voices between walls and windows, hardwood floors and mantels.

  Suzanne sits down on one of the few remaining chairs, looks at the piles of cardboard boxes going down. The hands are powerful, strong, efficient, the gestures rhythmic; inside the containers the story of a life is neatly packed away. Gradually the apartment is emptied out, erasing the long years of a middle-class couple’s time together.

  Thirty years earlier Suzanne had helplessly witnessed the same scene. At eleven, she saw the framework of her childhood become undone. Furniture fleeing down the stairs, rounding the corners with difficulty as if to indicate their resistance. Busy sorting, throwing out, tidying up, the mother was moving from one room to the next without looking at her distraught daughter. What Suzanne felt that day was of an unbearable violence. She was losing her father a second time. Crouching in her father’s junk room, full of his old things, she wept bitter tears. Over time, the smell of mothballs and hunter’s trophies had been replaced by the smell of the deceased. Together with other special objects, Suzanne had hidden his old razor and his shaving cream in one of the drawers. Taking them out of their hiding place amounted to bringing him back, close to her. Panic-stricken, she looked for her father’s many relics: pipe accessories, old tobacco pouch, and his toiletries. In a few more hours this place would no longer belong to her. She’d be forced to leave it the way you leave a classroom at the end of the schoolyear.

  That’s when she had the idea of leaving something in the apartment, took a piece of paper and wrapped a handful of tobacco in it, which reminded her of her father’s breath, and the words ‘FAREWELL PAPA’ written in capital letters as if to signal the importance of the moment. It was her way of leaving a trace of herself, a trace of him.

  Little Assia apparently took great care of you, crossing the piece of wasteland on the edge of the rocky spur several times a day. It was the hiding place of the village children. Your eyes are turned toward the light outside. Being with Assia fills your heart with hope, watching her leave pains you. Her arms are always filled with food, not too much so that her mother, who’s in control of the house, won’t grow suspicious. Assia has five brothers and sisters who’re swarming around interminably until sunset. Getting away from all this commotion calms her, she who’s only ten years old can stop playing second mother for a few hours a day this way.

  You don’t talk, but your looks are enough. One evening, before Assia leaves you, you put your hand on hers, she smiled, blushed, and laughed to hide her embarrassment. She asked you to undress, closed her eyes and picked up your dirty clothes. There you are, wearing her brother’s clothes. She always turns around when she runs off to go home, it lasts no more than three or four seconds, but you wouldn’t want to miss those few seconds for anything in the world. Assia comes back at the end of the morning and in the afternoon when her parents are resting. In the meantime, you keep from being bored by carving graffiti on the wall with a stone, you draw images of your wandering across the hills using patterns. The character you picture head on or in profile is holding a rectangle with a handle. Drawing the farm that gave you shelter for a few days is nothing more than some lines: childish shacks with people lying on the ground in the shape of a star. You remember that strong smell: from here on in you recognize the reek of the neglected dead.

  After hours spent carving into the rock, you’re tired, you fall asleep with your head on the edge of the suitcase, convinced it is your grandmother’s lap. You think you feel the breath of the lullaby she used to sing to you when you were little. Half-dream, half-reality, you clearly hear the syllables, you feel her right palm caress your neck in rhythm with the refrain. You let yourself go without a struggle, this visit overwhelms you with joy, opening your eyes would mean breaking the spell of the encounter. The gentle voice warms your heart, soothes your flesh with every stroke of her hand. Your grandmother visits you to give you courage, she lets you know she’s proud of you, of the road you’ve walked so far. Changing the words of the verse, she also whispers to you that it’s time to leave without saying goodbye, that the girl is in as much danger as you are. They will find you both, they will punish you. Your last words of the ballad are: ‘Disappear, disappear’, barely uttered, barely articulated. The voice grows dark, dies out, the chest no longer rises to find its breath, the knees have turned into a simple ledge of stone.

  You open your eyes, look all around. Your grandmother has left her fragrance, the wind makes sure to diffuse it. You try to guess what direction she’s taken to flee. In a few seconds her fragrance is gone.

  You get up, throw the suitcase roughly down the crest, scurry down the rocky spur on your bottom. You will obey your grandmother’s very last directive as you’ve always done. You run without really knowing which direction to take, your legs are running but your mind has stayed in the cave waiting for Assia. Your steps speed up, the suitcase thrashing around, going in every direction as if to prevent you from pressing forward. You say farewell to Assia as you run, as if she were going to listen to you from hundreds of meters away. You take the direction of the setting sun, the direction away from the town, you head for a new hill, it will guide you as they have always done.

  You are sorry to leave like a thief without thanking her, the girl who’s fed you for several days. She won’t believe her eyes when she sees the empty lair, the fruit she’s brought you will fall from her arms, she’ll surely wipe away a tear when she sees the countless drawings carved into the rock. She will recognize one of them. And she will forgive you.

  Arsène’s eyes are staring intently, he’s stopped talking. A long silence sets in at the table of the noisy café. Suzanne looks over her notes without a word, she waits, showing no impatience to hear the rest of the story. Perhaps Arsène has lost the thread of his nomadic life, the random direction of his steps. He’s looking for his words the same way he used to look for the hills, the only ones to inspire him with confidence, rounded, maternal shapes where he would find refuge. Arsene goes around reliefs, walks across folds of earth.

  Suzanne realizes that he’s spent three days and two nights not knowing where to go, the suitcase always serving as his bed from nightfall to dawn. She picks up the text where she left off a few days before:

  You don’t even remember your hunger anymore, your thirst, your exhaustion, which would knock you out after many long hours of walking.

  At last you sat down on the edge of a road, decided not to go any further, the wind had stopped blowing. You sat down cross-legged on the edge of the road turning your back to the rocky plain. The view is clear. What’s the point of going on? What can you hope for if you just keep walking and walking? None of it makes any sense to you anymore. You stay there, stretched out on the road with your head on the edge of your suitcase, and you close your eyes. Whispering prayers, you beg your grandmother to send you a sign from up there. You fall into a deep sleep, dream so vividly that it feels real. You see your brothers and sisters running around, your mother and your father side by side smiling at yo
u with a radiant smile, as if words no longer served any purpose.

  You feel the dream coming to an end, but you don’t want to let go of it, you close your eyes so tightly that you manage to call back the image, feel the presence of your family without being able to touch them. The ground shakes, trembling beneath the suitcase. You still cling to your dream, but your knees and ankles vibrate where they touch the road, you feel as if the ground is quaking with waves that are coming steadily closer to you. The noise is so loud that you’ve lost the image, lost your people, your mind returns to the road but opening your eyes would destroy the link between these two worlds. You keep them so tightly closed that it hurts your eyes. The sound is deafening. There you are, lying on the road. The noise has reached an extreme and then suddenly stops. A handbrake is applied, a door violently opens. Huge shoes twist and turn around you. It is a French detachment. A hand touched your forehead, your neck, to take your pulse. Words are uttered out loud:

  ‘Seriously dehydrated.’ Then:

  ‘He’s Tutsi.’

  Your eyes are still closed. Powerful hands lift you up, carry you to the vehicle. The suitcase is no longer there, the contact is broken. Where is it? You yell, opening your eyes this time to find it. It’s on the ground and you, you’re in the arms of a burly man wearing a helmet. You clamor for your suitcase, shouting, index finger pointing at the ground. You see the man in the helmet open your one and only possession and you hear him say these words:

  ‘But there’s nothing in it.’

  He hoists the suitcase into the jeep, pours water for you in a tin cup.

  ‘Thank you very much.’

  Then dizziness overtakes you, takes you far away, you’re engulfed, you let go, relaxing your muscles one after the other. For two weeks you’ve been wandering from one point to the next, getting fresh supplies wherever you could. These two weeks are part of you, part of your story. Flight is in your genes, the lost paradise is, too.