~ ~ ~
My parents are having yet another row. And as usual I can hear them from my bedroom. Maman Pauline’s sobbing, she thinks the white doctor they’ve seen is no good because she’s still not pregnant. My father is calm, he says they must be patient, babies can’t be made to order, that they always take their time and come along if you don’t think about them every day.
My mother’s talking very loud, she wants to give up her business. She brings up the question of Maman Martine’s children and the Mutombos’ children again.
My father raises his voice. ‘I’m sick of you always bringing up the other children! It’s not Martine’s fault you and I don’t have children! Michel’s a child isn’t he? His sisters and brothers love him, they’ve never once said the kid isn’t their brother. Why do you go and say things like that, when we’re trying to find a way out of this situation?’
‘I’m giving up the business! I don’t care! Why should I spend my whole life working when I haven’t any children? Who am I working for?’
‘Great! Ok, then, you give up your business, and let’s hear no more about it! Maybe then we’ll have some children!’
Maman Pauline hated him saying that. I can hear her breaking things in the bedroom. I think to myself: If Arthur’s listening to this and watching this performance, I hope he’s not disappointed by it.
I sit on the bed for a few minutes. I must do something. I can’t let them go on rowing all night.
I get up and draw the mosquito net aside and go towards the living room. They’ve heard me. Papa Roger half opens the door of their bedroom. ‘You go and sleep now, little one, it’s all ok, your mother and I are just having a bit of a talk, nothing serious, she’s just telling me how things are going with her business.’
I go back to my room and hide under the sheets. I don’t want to see my surroundings. My room’s like a coffin that’s too big for my little body, I think. I’m suffocating in it. If that happens I’ll go back to the planet I came from. I’ll be in peace, then, in my own world, I’ll grow roses. I’ll water them every morning with water as green as the river that flows in Geneviève’s eyes. The drops of water on my roses will be diamonds, sparkling in the sun. I will be a happy gardener because whatever I plant, even in the desert, will just grow. I’ll walk about my field of roses, and even the butterflies will be rose-coloured. I will live in a world full of laughing, playing children, children with no mother, no father. We’ll all be children because that’s what God made us, and God is our Father. He’ll say to us: ‘Now children, you be quiet, I’m having a sleep’. And we’ll be quiet because when he’s sleeping, God always dreams up nice surprises for children. But He’ll never have to raise his voice to tell us. He’ll never have to whip us, because He can’t whip what He’s created in his own image. And we’ll live happily, far from adults with their problems which have nothing to do with us. I will be the big brother of all the children. I’ll walk ahead, to protect them. And if anyone attacks us, my muscles will swell up, and my chest too, I’ll grow taller than two metres, and my fist will be bigger than a mountain.
…..
My father’s calmed down and my mother’s listening to him. I come out from under my sheets again and creep towards the wall. I want to know what they’re saying to each other because when adults are saying mean things about someone they often lower their voices. I think: Perhaps if they’re talking quietly they’re plotting something against me.
‘We’ll try a different solution.’
‘What?’ my mother replies.
‘There’s a fetisher come to work in the Voungou district, just across the Tchinouka. Everyone say’s he’s very good. The wife of the local chief was sterile and he cured her. He even got a ten-year-old child who’d never spoken a single word to talk.’
‘What’s he called, this fetisher?’
‘Sukissa Tembé. He’s from the north. Apparently he was personal fetisher to the President of the Republic. That’s the only reason the President and his wife have a child, thanks to Sukissa Tembé.’
‘Except people say that child’s actually the President’s nephew, and…’
‘Pauline, listen to me, people can say what they like! They’re just jealous, and jealous people get what’s coming to them! There’ll always be people who speak ill of others in this world. Sometimes they’re people we try to help, and they get sly and hypocritical and cynical to hide their unhappiness. What matters is that the President and his wife have a child now, thanks to the fetisher, and that’s all there is to it! We’ll go and see him on Saturday!’
‘But it’s only Monday today. Saturday’s ages away!’
‘I know, but you have to have an appointment.’
‘What? You have to have an appointment to see a fetisher now, like for a white doctor?’
‘Everyone round there goes to see him, even people looking for work and people who want their children to do well in their exams. Not counting the ones with chronic diarrhoea or painful periods and the rest. It’s a difficult thing we’re asking, we’ll need a half-day appointment, at least.’
Maman Pauline’s stopped crying. She’s reassured by this suggestion. But I’m thinking: What’s all this about? Can a fetisher catch children who go directly to heaven without stopping off on earth? Is a fetisher more powerful than God?
I’m frightened for Maman Pauline. I have a feeling she’s heading for another disappointment. I don’t want her to be disappointed yet again, and have her crying for weeks and months to come when no baby turns up in her tummy, which has not been lived in since I came into the world.
Outside there are dogs barking. I don’t like that. They say that if dogs bark at night it means the bad spirits are in the neighbourhood and that some of them are on their way to market to sell the souls of people who are about to die. People think there’s no one at the market at night, but in fact the bad spirits are there with their goods to sell, waiting for customers till four in the morning, when they go back to the cemetery. If the bad spirits heard what my parents were saying they’d make quite sure no baby ever came to our house.
I say a prayer to my Sister Star and My Sister No-name under the sheet:
Dear Sister Star
Dear Sister No-name
Please make it so Maman Pauline stops crying
Make it so Papa Roger doesn’t get tired of it all
Make it so the bad spirits don’t hear what my mother and father are saying
Make the fetisher Sukissa Tembé do for my parents what he did for the President of the Republic and his wife
Let a baby come to this house
Make it so the Shah of Iran doesn’t die, make it so he recovers from cancer and the Ayatollah stops bothering him all the time
Make it so no country in the world will accept the Shah’s extradition.