The Fury and Cries of Women Read online

  Rondani washed her hands quickly, wiped away the sweat that beaded her forehead, and carelessly threw the apron on the stool she’d just gotten up from.

  Joseph, all the while, was familiarizing himself with the things around the house. Everything inside seemed to date back to another era: the armchairs with bamboo vines drooping along their contours, ceramic plates dulled by time, and hazy photos in plastic frames.

  “Hello, Son.” Rondani held out her hand to Joseph.

  A glimmer in her eyes and a wide smile lit up her face, making her look a good ten years younger.

  RONDANI RAN OVER to an old wooden cabinet, opened it with a clatter, and took out a bottle of whiskey and three glasses. When she bent over to place the tray down, she stumbled on the foot of the small serving table. She lost her balance and would have ended up flat on the floor if Joseph hadn’t hurried to catch her. The glasses and bottle clinked against one another but did not break.

  The shot of whiskey she served Joseph spilled on the cloth embroidered with butterflies that covered the table.

  “Excuse my clumsiness, dear children, it’s not every day that I host a future son-in-law,” she said ironically.

  Emilienne smiled at her mother and squeezed Joseph’s hand gently. Rondani began the process again, this time with more control over her movements. She asked the two newly engaged to raise their glasses. She drank hers in one gulp—she never drank alcohol when she was alone but didn’t hold back when she had visitors.

  Calmly, the young man began to speak:

  “I am very happy to meet you, Mama Rondani, and am sorry that Papa Openda is not here. I don’t know if we should wait for him to come back from work or save this conversation for another day.”

  Perked up by the alcohol, Rondani studied Joseph closely. “This young man is very fine,” she concluded, rubbing her hands together conspicuously.

  “As you’d like, my child, but I believe he’ll be coming back late tonight. Since he became a doctor, he sees certain patients at their homes after his work at the hospital. He doesn’t even rest on the Lord’s Day anymore. One thing I don’t agree with him on. Anyway! My daughter has just told me you want to get married. What is your name, Son, and which part of the country do you come from? It’s becoming difficult these days to distinguish between those who come from the North, the Central region, or the South. You speak only French these days, even with family.” She smiled at Joseph as she settled comfortably into the armchair.

  “My name is Eyang Joseph, and I am from the North. My mother . . .”

  He stopped speaking when he saw Rondani’s shoulders slump. The look in her eyes, confident and full of delight a few moments earlier, became shifty. The smile frozen on her lips made her look dazed. Her only response to what he had said was to get up and order her daughter curtly to follow her into the bedroom.

  “What is wrong with you? Has he cast a spell on you or what?” she began after she’d shut the door and flopped on the bed. “Don’t tell me that you want to sully our lineage by marrying a foreigner. None of your ancestors married a woman from that region. Even my grandfather, who couldn’t keep his pants on and left bastard children all over the country, didn’t go that far. He never, do you understand me, ever unbuttoned his fly in front of a woman from that region. As you can well imagine, that would be known; it’s perfectly simple, he would have been the first to tell. And you, my daughter, a university-educated young woman, you’re the one who wants to poison our pure blood! Do you know that the children you have, if you have children with him, wouldn’t even be yours?!”

  Faced with her daughter’s mocking smile, Rondani went on: “For those people, children belong to their fathers and uncles. You see, my daughter, it’s better to forget this idea right now and not get into such a degrading situation. And that’s not all; I’m going to explain something else to you: they marry our daughters out of revenge. Yes, yes, it’s no laughing matter; they’re retaliating for having been our slaves. My great-grandfather had hundreds of them. It’s not by . . .”

  “Stop, already,” Emilienne chided, standing up. “Tell me, Mama, wouldn’t that make you yourself the great-grand-daughter of a slave? And, anyway, do you even know where you’re from? Maybe from a grandparent who supported the slave trade by trading his own brothers for bad tobacco and a gun with no ammunition? You don’t know what you’re saying anymore. It’s because I am a woman of my time that I don’t want to get caught up in these issues straight out of the Middle Ages. We’re in the 1980s now, and you are still talking to me about the slaves your great-grandfather might have had. We have got to move on!”

  She was pacing around the room, her arms crossed behind her back—a habit she got from her father.

  “You’re in a good position to know that men from here are very authoritarian—which, I’d like to point out, is not true of Joseph—and they have the unfortunate habit of walking all over their women. Such behavior in no way implies vengeance on their part. I don’t understand you.”

  Before continuing, she went over, sat down next to her mother, and stared into her eyes.

  “Can you tell me what your precious ethnicity has that is better than any others’? In the social setting that you defend so aggressively, constantly extolling its so-called virtues, I see nothing but a superiority complex fed by selfishness and jealousy. The children we will have—and we will have them, whether you like it or not—will be ours. I am determined to marry a man and not a family. I want you to understand once and for all that I love him and that it is with him that I intend to share the rest of my life. What is the problem, then, that you and Joseph’s mother have? She is suffering from an inferiority complex, while you look down on other citizens of your own country, propped up on a pedestal that you’ve created in your head. There is something really wrong in our society. And to say you call yourself a Christian! You make me want to throw up.”

  EMILIENNE WATCHED her mother, who with each sentence she uttered was gradually reaching her breaking point. Never before had she been so bold and disrespectful toward her. And she already regretted having gone so far. It was vital, however, to set forth her view with a compelling argument.

  Rondani swallowed her saliva noisily and answered with unwavering resolve.

  “If I’ve heard you well, the mother of your fiancé”—the word was pronounced in a disdainful tone that made her daughter’s head spin—“is also against your marriage! Well, I am not surprised. Anyone in her right mind would not go against her beliefs and customs and abandon her pride simply in the name of love.”

  Unlike her usual demeanor in such circumstances, Rondani had remained relatively calm. It was not a good sign. The calm she maintained was more cause for alarm than if she had broken out in a fit of undue anger. Emilienne wanted to finish this conversation as quickly as possible.

  “Listen to me carefully. I will marry Joseph despite everyone’s objections. It’s about time we change our attitudes. If you’re surprised that we continue to be exploited by all the foreigners who come to this country, attitudes like yours provide the reason. If we aren’t even in a position to build solid bonds between citizens of our own country, how can we hope to see a nationalist sentiment emerge in our capital city of Kampana? How can we find people motivated by the same spirit in the interest of our country? I wonder why I say all these things to you if you can’t even understand. I am saddened to have to go against you, Mother. I don’t expect Father will approve either. When you change your mind, you’ll know where to find me, if I haven’t gone back to France. Good-bye!”

  She rushed out into her bedroom, throwing her clothes pellmell into her suitcases. Her heart throbbing, feeling hurt and powerless, Rondani watched her daughter make her dramatic exit.

  Emilienne’s eyes glazed over as she recalled this long string of bitter memories. “The least one can say,” she thought, “is that my marriage was doomed from the beginning.” She parked her car in the garage reserved for administrators at the National
Headquarters for Administrative Building Maintenance (NHABM). This large office building essentially oversaw the maintenance and repair of all of Kampana’s administrative buildings. Consequently, it had local branches in all the big cities. No need to point here to the large sums of money that filled its coffers. Of course, all the company’s managerial directors enjoyed hefty financial and material benefits.

  To be a director at the NHABM was to have made it professionally and socially. The general manager was better paid than a secretary of state. As in all state-run companies, people were hired by presidential decree and released by another decree, either to be promoted to a higher—usually political—position or to lose everything and become a complete nobody.

  Emilienne had gotten her job as managing director of administrative affairs through her connection with an old university colleague, originally from the region where she was born, who had become a government minister. When a new general manager was named a year ago, company output fell slightly and, consequently, so did revenue. When replacement of lower management with members of his own family and protégés of influential men wasn’t enough for him, Monsieur Poutou embezzled money from the company and slowed business down. Some had said that in a few years—or even a few months—the company would be on the verge of bankruptcy. While awaiting the petition for bankruptcy, the supervisory staff, well aware of the situation, was helping itself to the money while naturally taking all necessary precautions.

  As Emilienne passed through the halls of the NHABM, she noticed half of the offices were closed. Only the expats were at their desks. Clearly, they’d left their doors open intentionally. The locals always came to work an hour or even two after the official opening time.

  In her managerial capacity, the young director had tried, in vain, to institute discipline among the personnel by leaving memos and warning letters.

  One day, a company executive came to see her and roughly said the following:

  “It is entirely to your credit to seek to reform the employees. I, too, had principles when I arrived at this office. I firmly believed that each employee was to carry out his task with discipline and work efficiency for the good name of our company. In addition, I used to tell myself that I was working not only for myself but, more important, for the nation, which needs the help of all its children. Favoritism and the injustice of our leaders taught me a lesson quickly, however. Now, I am happy doing my work without diligence and without doing more than I have to. I learned that I alone would not change people’s ways. And neither will you. Let me to give you some advice: file your good intentions away in one of your desk drawers.”

  Two days later, Emilienne was the object of intimidation. The higher-ups barely even attempted to mask their threats. They made sure she understood it was in her interest to look the other way, shut her mouth, and close her ears to certain situations that had no impact on her own duties. As the old adage goes, a single finger cannot wash the whole face.

  After serious reflection, Emilienne decided it was better to keep her position. Unemployment of the university-educated workforce was no longer limited to industrialized countries; it was already affecting the Third World. This fact got one of the company’s employees going, his comments seizing Emilienne’s attention so firmly that she reflected upon them for a long while. The gist of what he said was this:

  “What would our states do if those with a head well filled and a hollow stomach waved placards in the streets? One thing’s for sure: such a protest would paint the sociopolitical landscape a different color, and many a country would suffer grave repercussions no one wants to see.”

  SHE SAT DOWN in her office. The room was large with a bay window. The beige textile mural, the furniture, and the brown carpeting all contributed to the sense of a rigid work environment.

  She leafed through the letters and memos her secretary had typed up. Speaking of her, a year after being hired, the secretary had come by her office one night before closing and recounted an anecdote that made Emilienne smile. When a few employees had gotten together in one of their offices, the youngest made the following comment:

  “Don’t you have the impression that our manager’s work consists solely of writing memos?”

  “So I’m not the only one who noticed!” exclaimed another. “She’s up to her nine hundredth memo. We will have to suggest a party when she reaches the thousandth.”

  Quickly, Emilienne signed the few letters that were typed correctly, put the others in a file folder, and opened the voluminous dossier of job applications. To each, with a few short sentences wrapped up neatly with some polite formalities, she had to express her regrets and advise the applicants to reapply at a later date. Even though she knew that the new positions, if ever one were to open up someday, would be distributed discretely among those who were already close to the company’s group of managing directors.

  Very quickly, she composed a form letter. It was up to the secretary to personalize each version by adding the name of the applicant and the desired position. While she wrote, she half-heartedly ate a croissant, which her secretary had left on her table a short while ago, as she did each morning. And before the weekly meeting with the other managers, she called her secretary, who came right over, swaying her hips and walking on her tiptoes even though the heels she wore didn’t really make her any taller. Stuffed into a snug, see-through white dress, she put on a big smile and stood immobile in front of her boss.

  “Good morning, Madame!”

  “Good morning, Dominique. You couldn’t find more decent clothes to wear this morning?”

  “Oh, Madame! I was in such a hurry that I grabbed the first outfit that jumped out at me,” she replied in a shrill voice.

  Only this morning Emilienne couldn’t help herself from looking with awe at this young woman whose complexion and body were so nearly perfect her traits and silhouette would inspire more than one photographer.

  “Dress more decently from now on,” she said abruptly. “We are not here for a fashion show. Here, all these texts must be retyped,” she added, passing her the heavy file folder. “Type this text up for me quickly.”

  She handed it to her, already absorbed in the local paper.

  “Will do, Madame. I wanted to tell you I won’t be coming back to work this afternoon. I have to take my daughter to the hospital.”

  Emilienne looked up, her mind elsewhere, then brushed this news aside and sent her secretary on her way. She had hired her on the urgent recommendation of her husband, who had explained that he needed to repay a very good friend who had helped him out in the past. He didn’t give any further details about why he owed him, nor did he mention who this friend was.

  Helping out this friend, who until then she didn’t even know existed, was the first important favor her husband had ever dared to ask of her, and she couldn’t refuse. And anyway, she thought, absolving herself of any guilt about it, what would be wrong with pulling a few strings on her application in light of the arbitrary hires she witnessed so regularly?

  To avoid any ridicule for her choice, she took charge of the young woman’s training. Although the result was not outstanding, she was satisfied with the efforts her protégée had made. She certainly had not become an excellent typist, nor was she any better a secretary. Her work was often careless.

  Emilienne arrived in the conference room just as the general manager walked in. She took her seat between the director of human resources and the head of finance.

  Having difficulty speaking over the loud drone of the air conditioner, Monsieur Poutou, in his thin, reedy voice, announced the day’s agenda, which everyone knew already: to review personnel promotions by rank—despite the report the HR director had already prepared. Having never been able to speak in front of more than two people, he shook as he presented each employee’s career plan, with both hands wedged between his legs.

  Distracted, Emilienne listened with half an ear, scribbling notes on her notepad as her colleagues commented on the qua
lity of personnel performance. She knew by force of habit that half of what was said would not go on record. Then, just as she decided to speak, a horrible pain jolted her, as if she had been pricked with a long needle piercing through her navel. With a violent thrust she bent over in her chair, put two hands over her belly, and held back the cries of the pain that were rising inside her. A distressing sensation quickly overcame her entire pelvic area. Her forehead was beaded with sweat.

  “Uh . . . are you okay, Madame?” the human resources director asked, leaning over her.

  “Are you sick?” inquired the general manager in turn. He stood up; then his colleagues did the same.

  “I am not feeling well,” Emilienne muttered, still doubled over, her teeth clenched. “Please allow me, gentlemen, to excuse myself,” she managed to add as she stood up with great difficulty.

  “Of course,” Monsieur Poutou continued, “go home. You are clearly having a malaria attack. Take good care of yourself, and don’t forget that this illness can still be fatal these days.”

  Her teeth and fists clenched, she stood up courageously and left, her legs unsteady. She was upset at herself for having been the object of such a spectacle. Through the day, everyone would learn that she’d felt ill at this meeting. The managers were known for a certain lack of discretion. That was how they kept up on idle gossip around the city.

  The pain was spreading—to her pelvis, spinal column, and knees. Emilienne arrived at her office right as Dominique was placing the work she’d just finished on the table. With one last effort she gave her secretary some tasks to do and shut the door.

  SEATED ON a folding chair in the garden, Eyang had dozed off under a pale sun. When she heard the sound of the car, she quickly scurried over to the hallway leading to the bedrooms and hid behind one of the doors. She placed her hand over her heart, which was beating loudly after such a hurried walk. Once she regained her calm, the old woman walked toward Emilienne as she headed straight for her room.