Baking Cakes in Kigali (34 page)

“And,
Mama
, there was a baby!” said Benedict. “The guide said it was born in July. The mother was sitting on the ground with her back against a tree, and she was holding it just like Leocadie holds Beckham.” Benedict mimed a mother cradling and rocking her baby.

“
Eh!”

“We stayed in Gisenyi last night,” said Omar. “Your children said they’d never been to Lake Kivu before, so we decided to drive there yesterday after we’d finished with the gorillas, rather than spending another night in Ruhengeri.”

“
Eh
, Omar, you’ve been too kind to them!”

“Not at all. I was happy to treat them, and it was good for Efra to have their company. But let us leave you now and they can tell you all about it themselves. Come, Efra.”

“Yes, I must go, too,” said Sophie, “if my legs can get me up those stairs. Honestly, Angel, I thought I was fit, but trying to walk on all that slippery vegetation at high altitude really took it out of me. My legs felt like jelly for hours afterwards!”

A few minutes later, Angel went into the kitchen where Titi was stirring a large pot of
ugali
to accompany the
senene.
She carried in her arms the clothes that the children had worn when they had climbed up the mountain to see the gorillas.

“Just look at these, Titi!”

“
Eh!”
Titi stopped stirring and covered her mouth with both hands, staring with big eyes at the filthy garments. Caked in mud that had hardened, they were stiff like cardboard.

“Now how are we going to get these clean?” asked Angel.

Titi thought for a minute, tentatively touching one of the garments. “After lunch I’ll take them outside, Auntie. I think if I hang them on the washing line and hit them, a lot of this mud will fall off.”

“That’s a good idea.”

“Then we can rinse them in water to get more of it out, and soak them in Toss until tomorrow morning.”

“That sounds like a good plan.
Eh!
But you must see their sneakers! Those I’ve put outside on the balcony. I don’t want to think what those children looked like when they came down from the mountain dressed in these clothes!”

“Ooh, uh-uh,” said Titi, shaking her head and picking up the wooden spoon again. “I think they looked like the
mayibobo
in our Dumpster.”

“Uh-uh!” Angel shook her head. “I hope not.”

Lunch was indeed delicious, and the family happily tucked in to the
ugali
and
senene
as Grace and Benedict told them all about their adventure.

“We had satellite TV in the hotel,” said Grace. “And we telephoned the kitchen from our room and they brought us tea!”

“
Eh!”
said Titi.

“The big gorilla,” explained Benedict, “the one who’s the boss of the group that we saw, his name is Guhonda. He’s called a silverback because he’s old and the hair on his back is grey.”

“Like
Baba’s?”
asked Moses.

Benedict looked at Pius. “Yes, but on his back.
Eh!
He was very big, even bigger than
Baba.”

“Were you not afraid?” asked Angel.

“The gorillas didn’t want to hurt us,
Mama;
they’re gentle and peaceful.”

“There was a swimming pool at the hotel in Ruhengeri
and
at the hotel in Gisenyi,” said Grace. “Efra knows how to swim. Can I learn,
Baba?”

“We’ll see,” said Pius.

“The vet had a monkey sitting on his shoulder, not like the monkeys they sell here. It was black and white with a long tail. He said it came from Nyungwe Forest.”

“There was a disco at the hotel in Gisenyi. Efra and I watched all the people that were coming to dance. One man was dressed like Michael Jackson!”

“The vet let his monkey sit on my shoulder.
Eh!”

“Efra’s going to get a new nose in Paris. She showed me a photo that a computer made of her face with a smaller nose.”

“Every gorilla has a different nose-print, just like every person has different finger-prints.”

“We had steak and chips in the hotel, and for breakfast we had eggs on toast.”

“Gorillas eat
senene
too, but of course not cooked. And ants. But mostly they eat leaves.”

“Omar’s Land Rover has air-conditioning.”

“Can I get a monkey,
Baba?”

“Can I get a new nose,
Baba?”

After lunch, Pius—who would hear of neither a pet monkey nor a new nose—settled down for a nap, and Titi took the children down to play in the yard while she tried to beat the dried mud out of their clothes.

Angel kept an eye on her watch, not wanting to be early or late for the cutting. She was still not sure that she wanted to go—or, if she
did
want to go, why. Quietly, so as not to disturb Pius as he dozed on their bed, she stood in front of her open wardrobe and examined its contents. What was a person supposed to wear to a cutting? The black dress that she wore to funerals? No, nobody had died—and the family obviously saw it as a happy occasion, because they had ordered a cake. Cakes were for celebrations. She must wear something smart, but not too smart: she did not want her outfit to suggest in any way that she approved of what was happening. Finally she settled on the comfortable
boubou
in emerald green with tie-dyed swirls of lime green that she had bought from one of the clothing stores in
Avenue de Commerce
, and her smart black sandals with kitten heels.

After a final cleaning of her glasses, it was time to leave. She picked up the small, square board on which the round cake stood, and left the apartment, closing the door behind her so that no one would wander in and disturb Pius as he slept. Then she walked up one flight of stairs and knocked at Amina’s door.

“Angel,
karibu!”
Vincenzo smiled broadly as he opened the door and made an exaggerated gesture to usher her in.

Angel almost dropped the cake when she saw the other guests who were sitting in Amina’s living room. Fortunately Amina had rushed forward to take the board from her.

“Eh, Angel, this is a very beautiful cake,” declared Amina. “Look, everybody.”

Safiya, Dr Rejoice and Odile got up from their chairs and came to look at the cake, declaring it to be one of the most beautiful they had ever seen. Angel tried hard to concentrate on making sense as she answered their questions about how she had made the tiny red roses, but her mind was in turmoil with questions of her own. Dr Rejoice and Odile? Why were
they
here? How could they be comfortable with the cutting of a girl? It was not part of the culture that either of them belonged to. Angel stopped talking in mid-sentence when it struck her that they might be asking themselves the very same questions about her. Perhaps their answers were as complicated as her own.

“Angel?”

“Hm?”

“You were about to tell us what we would find inside the cake, between the two layers,” said Dr Rejoice.

Angel recovered quickly. “That,” she said, forcing a smile, “is a surprise. You will know that only when you cut it.”

“And speaking of cutting,” said Vincenzo, “shall we begin?” He gestured for everyone to sit around the coffee table.

Eh
, thought Angel, were they going to cut Safiya right here?
Right here on the coffee table? But Safiya sat on one of the chairs.

Vincenzo placed his
Qur’an
in the centre of the table. “Now, I’m sure you know that what will happen here today is not understood everywhere, and in some places it is even illegal. But it is part of our culture, and that is something that people have no right to question. No right at all. But still there are those who might want to persecute us—or even prosecute us—for this practice. So I’m going to ask you all to swear that you will never tell anybody about what happened in this apartment this afternoon. Nobody: not husbands, boyfriends, friends, parents, children. Nobody at all. Never.”

“Safiya, that includes you,” warned Amina. “Remember that we spoke about this? You are not to tell
anyone.”

“I swear,
Mama.”

“Right, let us swear on the Holy
Qur’an,”
said Vincenzo, placing his hand on the book on the table. Everyone followed his lead. “Now, swear that you will never tell.”

Each of the women swore aloud, in her own way, that she would never tell.

“Now,” continued Vincenzo, removing his
Qur’an
and placing it behind him on the sofa, “your Holy Bible, please, Odile.”

Odile produced her Bible from her bag and placed it in the centre of the table where the
Qur’an
had been. Each of them placed a hand on the book and swore again never to tell.

“Right,” said Vincenzo, “now that you’ve sworn on both our holy books, you may continue. Safiya, come and give
Baba
a hug. I’ll wait for you all in the kitchen; I’ll have our coffee ready when you’ve finished.”

Angel followed the girl and the other women into Safiya’s bedroom, Dr Rejoice carrying her doctor’s bag with her. When they were all in the room, Amina closed and locked the door. Angel felt her heart beginning to beat a little faster. She
was nervous now about the unfamiliarity of the practice, and it unsettled her that people were involved whom she knew. Okay, she would probably have been even more anxious if the people who were involved were strangers. But she would never have expected
these
people to be involved. “Where shall I sit?” she asked.

Amina surprised Angel by speaking in a whisper. “Anywhere is fine, Angel.”

Then, instead of lying down on her bed as Angel had expected, Safiya knelt down on the floor and reached under her bed. She slid out a tray on which several bottles of soda lay, alongside a bottle-opener. This was very confusing indeed.

Amina gave a quiet laugh, stifling it in the palm of her hand. Then she spoke in a whisper again.
“Eh
, Angel! You should see your face!”

Dr Rejoice and Odile began to giggle, too.

“Angel, did you think that we were really going to cut Safiya?” whispered Odile.

“I’m sorry, Angel,” Amina said softly, taking her hand. “Come and sit here with me.” Angel sat next to Amina on the bed, while Safiya began to open bottles of soda. Still holding Angel’s hand, Amina whispered, “I couldn’t tell you the truth until you had sworn on your holy book that you would never tell. I’m sorry, my friend. I know that you’re a professional somebody and you know how to keep a secret, but this is a very big secret, one that could break our family apart. Safiya understands that, don’t you, my dear. You know that
Baba
must never know that we didn’t cut you?”

“I understand,
Mama.
I’m happy that you’re not going to cut me. Will you have Fanta or Coke,
Mama-Grace?”

“Thank you, Safiya, a Fanta, please.”

“I’m sorry we have to drink out of the bottles,” Amina said to her guests. “But Vincenzo would have been suspicious if he’d found glasses missing from the kitchen.”

“I want to be sure that I understand,” said Angel, as Dr Rejoice sat down on a chair next to the bed, and Odile and Safiya settled on a small rug on the floor. “You are not going to cut your daughter, but you are going to let your husband
believe
that your daughter has been cut?”

“Yes,” said Amina.

Angel shook her head, still confused. She took off her glasses and reached into her brassiere for a tissue to clean them with. Lies—or at least deceptions—between a husband and a wife were not a good thing. She knew that now from what had been happening in her own marriage. Okay, she had not been lying to Pius, she had simply been lying to herself. But the two of them had been avoiding the truth—and, really, it was such a relief for them to be communicating honestly again now. Surely it would be better for Amina to be honest with Vincenzo? “But why did you not just refuse, Amina? Why did you not say to your husband that you would not let your daughter be cut?”

“
Eh!
If I had refused, Vincenzo would have taken Safiya to somebody behind my back, and she
would
have been cut!”

“But could you not have persuaded him that cutting was not a good idea?”

“Angel, he has been talking about cutting Safiya since she was very small, and I kept telling him that, as her mother, I would know the right time for it. I could not delay any longer, because very soon Safiya will become a woman. If I had even once argued with him or told him that I didn’t agree, then he would have taken her to be cut. Or he would have been suspicious of me. But I’ve never once told him that I won’t do it, so he will not think of suspecting anything.”

“She’s right, Angel,” said Dr Rejoice. “You know how men are. If they tell us, say, that we must never drink alcohol
—eh
, forgive me for this example in a Muslim household, Amina—but if they tell us we must not drink alcohol and we say
Who
are you to tell me that?
or
I will drink alcohol whenever I want to
, or even
What is your reason for saying that?
then they will always be smelling our breath and looking in our cupboards for bottles. They won’t trust us if we question what they say. But if they tell us we must never drink alcohol and we say
Of course, my husband, I will do as you say, I will never drink alcohol
, then we can drink alcohol right in front of them and they will not see it.”

Odile stifled a laugh. “You are right, Dr Rejoice. I remember that I used to have an uncle who didn’t want his wife to grow cassava because he didn’t like it. He wanted her to grow only potatoes. Every planting season she would tell him that she was not going to plant cassava, and every season she planted it. He would walk in his fields without noticing it; he never saw it because he believed it was not there.”

Angel put her glasses back on. “You’re right,” she whispered, knowing now how blind she had chosen to be herself. Then she looked at Safiya. “Eh, Safiya, you’re learning some very good lessons while you’re still young!”

The girl smiled shyly. “Yes,
Mama
-Grace. I’m happy that I’m not going to be cut like
Mama
was.”