The Story of the Cannibal Woman (17 page)

They crossed the yard, forcing their way through the crowd still gathered in front of the sculptures.

“Have you seen my work?” he asked. “I was very surprised to be invited to this festival. I hadn't got much attention until
The New York Times
wrote a few lines about me, and now things are starting to change.”

A helping hand, that's what I need! Who will give me a helping hand? To bring me out of the shadows where I am foundering. The wings of an artist need to be caressed by the light, otherwise they fold and wither like stumps.

There's an unexpected charm about this neighborhood. They crossed a majestic avenue. Then he guided her through a maze of streets filled with little girls showing their chocolate-colored legs as they jumped rope, little boys running across imaginary baseball fields and old folk clutching walkers, and finally, they reached a restaurant called Nature. Yes, kids often took him for Michael Jordan and asked for an autograph. But once they had deciphered his signature, they went away disappointed. Sometimes young girls insisted on taking their photo with him. They often accepted a rendezvous. When he told them his real name they would shout insults at him as if he had wanted to cheat them. One of them had even tried to sue him.

Anthony had invented a substance that was a mixture of clay, resin, melted metal, ground glass with shards of flint and quartz, baked in an oven at a very high temperature. He used it to sculpt animals and creatures of his imagination, trees, and plants. Never humans.

He changed his tone of voice and became serious.

“I listened carefully to what you said…”

What did I say? Rosélie had merely repeated Ariel's theory: Art-is-the-only-language-that-can-be-shared-on-the-surface-of-the-planet and blah, blah, blah. Nothing very original.

“I don't agree at all on what you said about nationality, especially race. Aren't you proud to be black?”

Me? Proud?

I'd like to be a Hindu princess combing her long hair from a window in the palace. The prince passes by on horseback and tramples on this billowing stream that flows into the forest.

He took offense.

“Don't you ever feel bitter when you think of all the evil they have done us?”

My good friend, I'm an egoist. I am more concerned about the failure of my present than the wounds of our past.

“I'm not talking about the past. They're still doing us so much harm.”

They're not alone. They are joined by a cohort of those who wear the same skin color as ours.

He lost his temper.

“Don't you think it's time for us to take our revenge?”

Revenge? Revenge is not for me. I fear I would never succeed, since I'm in the category of losers.

“That's why I never sculpt humans. I create a world where they and their brutality, their craving for discovering, conquering, and dominating don't exist. A world without Adam and Eve and their descendants of ruffians.”

Rosélie livened up. But this world without perpetrators, and therefore without victims, is basically no different from the one I dream of. Without race. Without class. Without borders.

“Utopia!” he said severely, shrugging his shoulders. “Come back to earth.”

Then, quite illogically, looking straight into her eyes, he took her hands and asked sweetly, but solemnly:

“When can you visit my studio? Be my guest. It's situated in the very middle of the Detroit ghetto. I bet you've never seen anything like it. It's like a war zone. Sometimes junkies scrounge a few dollars off me. Just to get a fix. My best friend Joe got twenty years for a rape he didn't commit. In the end, his DNA saved him. He didn't harbor any grudge. Allah came to him in jail and now he's a fervent disciple. His dream is to convert me.”

There was an aura of immense seduction about him. How tempting to imagine oneself naked, screwed between his massive thighs!

No! Never again! Rosélie firmly shook her head. They would not see each other again!

And yet Rosélie and Anthony Turley saw each other a few weeks later at an exhibition on the Dogons of Mali. Ever since Marcel Griaule spent the night at Sanga over seventy years ago, the Dogons rank number one in the hit parade of African peoples. To what can we attribute this fascination? Whatever the explanation, the Soho Museum had re-created the famous cliffs at Bandiagara and shipped by plane three emaciated old men, exact replicas of Ogotemmeli; apart from the fact that their guns had not gone off in their faces while shooting at a porcupine, their eyes were still intact and “their brown tunics, drawn at the seams, were frayed by wear like an old battle flag.” The exhibition curator was explaining to a group of visitors the metaphysics and cosmogony of the Dogons, as rich as Hesiod's, when Anthony and Rosélie bumped into each other in front of a “household mask.” They exchanged that loaded look tinged with longing of those who had wanted to go to bed together and hadn't, then awkwardly shook hands. She could make out the surprise at the back of his eyes.

What the hell are you doing with this white guy?

If only he knew the truth! She almost burst into tears.

“What a stud! How did you meet him?” Stephen asked in surprise.

F
iela, we are on the fifth day of your trial and you still haven't said a word. Public opinion is mounting against you. The experts have made their reports. How could they possibly assess you? You haven't opened your mouth. They maintain, however, you are sane of mind. Apparently you are of above-average intelligence. It's true at the mission school you carried off all the first prizes. Very early on, however, you had to abandon your studies. You who liked to read. At age fourteen the nuns found you work. As a domestic. The Afrikaner woman who employed you took a dislike to you, said you were a sly little thing. It's true you confided in no one, since no one was interested in you. I know what that feels like. What's the use of talking if nobody listens? It's like a writer whom nobody reads. In the end, he gives up writing.

Rosélie escorted her patient to the street.

In actual fact, Joseph Léma was a former musician. In his country, at a time when he was intoxicated by fame and believed himself to be untouchable, he had composed an opera,
Where Have All the Gazelles Gone?
A genuine masterpiece, wrote the specialists, a combination of rock and traditional rhythms. In it he had dared criticize the dictatorship of the single party. The response had been swift. In the predawn hours, exactly at the time when gazelles go to drink, a band of henchmen had snatched him from the arms of his new mistress. He had then broken rocks for eight years in a camp up north, famished, humiliated, and beaten every day. He owed his salvation to the president's eldest son, who had murdered his father by sprinkling a colorless, odorless, tasteless poison, as dangerous as curare, in his groundnut stew. This reprehensible deed, denounced by the international community, except for the United States, who backed the son, that is, the murderer, in the name of democracy, had at least one happy consequence: thousands of political prisoners were released from jail, something Amnesty International had never managed to do. Hiding out in Cape Town, where his wife and three of his concubines had followed him, Joseph was not only homesick, he was also crippled with pain. At times he could neither stand nor sit. Other times he was unable to walk. Nevertheless, Rosélie believed that his weekly visits—he didn't miss a single one—were above all caused by the need to chew over the past. Every time she listened to him she was amazed. Who was the naive person who claimed that life is a long, slow-rolling river? On the contrary, life is a raging torrent, embedded with rapids, strewn with pitfalls. She watched him hobble back up the street, stiff as a poker, squeezing his butt as if he had a case of diarrhea.

On that particular morning, like a student slipping past her teacher's watchful eye, she escaped from Dido. She decided to walk across Cape Town. Measure its pulse by the sound of its arteries. Breathe in the stench of its markets, the fragrance of its gardens, and the salty smell of the wharfs. She had seldom experienced such happiness, since she had never dared walk on her own. Even Stephen, who was far from timid, advised her against it.

She walked down Orange Avenue and crossed the Company's Gardens, reveling in the scarlet splendor of the canna lilies and the ragged, motley crowd of junkies, jobless, homeless, beggars, and pickpockets looking for a gullible victim to rob.

Fiela's trial was getting people so worked up that as a precaution the courthouse, a massive brownstone, typically Dutch construction, had been cordoned off. Only the lawyers, witnesses, and journalists were seen going up and down the steps. Behind a police line, idle onlookers were stamping with impatience. At one street corner, television cameras had been set up and journalists were aiming their microphones.

“What's your opinion about the case?”

“I think it's terrible!”

“And what else?”

“Terrible, terrible! It puts our country to shame.”

People have really nothing to say!

About twenty fanatics were waving banners to bring back the death penalty. Some people never miss an opportunity! Members of a sect, blacks and whites united in the same madness, dressed in identical flowing robes, predicted the end of the world. Here, they believed, were the first unnatural acts announced in the Scriptures.

“And men shall go into the caves of the rocks and into the holes of the earth, from before the terror of the Lord and from the glory of his majesty when he ariseth to shake mightily the earth.”

Others, more learned, jargoned in Latin.

Some crafty devils were selling portraits of Fiela they had sketched during the hearings, hinting at horns above her forehead. Although the argument for cannibalism had been more or less ruled out, there was no doubt Fiela had indulged in satanic rites on Adriaan's body. The prosecuting attorney had called in neighbors who maintained exactly the opposite of what the preceding witnesses had said. Fiela terrified them. She never smiled. She had never given birth. Her breasts contained a bile that soiled her clothes during her diabolical suckling. Instead of intestines, her belly writhed with snakes. In the graveyards she parleyed with the dead. She took in wild beasts and trained them to do evil. A raven with wings the color of soot followed her wherever she went, faithful as a dog.

Rosélie bought a pile of newspapers and settled down in the back of a café. The
Cape Tribune, The Herald
, and
The Guardian
ceaselessly maintained that Fiela was a witch. There was nothing new in that! Haven't women always been accused of witchcraft? Ever since the Middle Ages in Europe.

Fiela had deceived everybody by playing the model wife and stepmother. Only
The Times
took the trouble to report on the accuser, Julian, the other side of the triangle. Its version was explosive. Burning with an incestuous love for Fiela, who hadn't reciprocated, Julian had murdered his father, and out of revenge put the blame on his stepmother.

Bravo! Only a Greek tragedy can offer such a web of intrigue.

The peaceful atmosphere in the café was soon interrupted by two nutcases, ready to come to blows because of Fiela. Rosélie wisely asked for the check.

For no particular reason, she headed for the Threepenny Opera. She hadn't been back since her fruitless visit almost a month ago. Like everyone else, Mrs. Hillster had her nose in the newspapers. Going her own sweet way, she had formed her own opinion, radically different from the editorials. According to her, it was a case of legitimate defense. Fiela had discovered a terrible secret concerning Adriaan and murdered him. What secret? What can cause a wife to murder her husband?

Don't tell me it's adultery!

Rosélie got the strange impression Mrs. Hillster was giving her a shifty look and was speaking about
her
. It was as if Rosélie was discovering for the first time this frosty powdered face whose razor-thin lips dripped Revlon-red. A strange gleam danced in her mauve-colored eyes. It was as if a spitefulness had been released, up till then hidden under the smiles and polite small talk. Mrs. Hillster had launched into the tale of a husband who kept a woman in Cape Town, another in Jo'burg, a third in Bloemfontein, and a fourth in Maputo. Here he was known under such and such a name, over there under another, and elsewhere even a third. It must be said to his credit, however, that in each home he showered his many wives with equal tenderness and consideration, and their joy knew no bounds.

After all, isn't that the main point? thought Rosélie. Why try and unmask the face others are hiding from us?

Misfortune comes from knowing the truth.

Fortunately, she kept her uncalled-for thoughts to herself. Mrs. Hillster continued to condemn these women, who are blind to the facts and do not deserve to be called victims. There are certain telltale signs in a couple: the smell of perfume on a jacket lapel, a reluctance to make love, contradictions, and incoherent stories.

“Something like that could never have happened to me,” she maintained. “Simon could never have pulled the wool over my eyes. I've got a sixth sense.”

Rosélie felt increasingly ill at ease. She was being targeted, she was sure of it.

Mrs. Hillster finally changed the subject. She couldn't find a serious buyer for her villa and shop. Nothing was selling in Cape Town, whose reputation got worse by the day. And then people preferred the coast.

Although she felt distraught, Rosélie couldn't help noticing the presence of a young coloured sales assistant, with a mane of hair like Absalom was said to have. Beneath this ragged frieze, his face was the very picture of vice and brutality, despite a certain animal charm. A perfect contrast with the angelic features of Bishupal. Had he already left for England?

“Oh no! He sent me this friend Archie because he's ill,” Mrs. Hillster replied, with a painful look. “He's been ill now for some time and refuses to see a doctor. I'm very concerned about him for he's like a son to me. He's so sensitive, so intelligent.”

Stephen too maintained that Bishupal was an exceptional boy. He had given him novels and then poetry to read. Bishupal had adored Keats and the odes, especially “Ode to a Nightingale.”

Not surprising. It's the one everyone likes!

As for Rosélie, she was incapable of giving an opinion on his intellectual qualities. Whenever she was around, Bishupal's mouth opened and shut in silence like a carp's. Dido treated him like a leper and never let him inside the house. He would stand waiting for Stephen to come back in front of his office. When standing got to be too much, he would crouch on his heels like a snake charmer. Only the rattlesnake was missing.

After a while Rosélie, feeling hurt, took her leave. Mrs. Hillster used to revolve around Stephen like the earth around the sun. Now she seemed suddenly to be turning her back on him, even rising up in arms against him.

Back home, a letter was waiting for her.

Short, scribbled on cream-colored stationery from the Royal Orchid Sheraton in Johannesburg (three hundred dollars per night). Faustin informed her that, God be praised, he had finally obtained his nomination. As a result, he had to go straight to Rome to sign his contract and make urgent administrative arrangements. He had no time to come back to Cape Town to say good-bye. But he was expecting her in Washington as soon as possible.

“Don't worry. Raymond will take care of everything.”

Rosélie was hurting.

Given her state of mind, she was quite convinced that this missive was a way of breaking up without him getting his hands dirtied. It never occurred to her that Faustin had perhaps so little intuition, so little consideration of who she was and what her life was like that he was sure a word or sign from him would send her running to meet him wherever he was.

So, except for Ariel, the men in her life, Salama Salama, Stephen, and now Faustin, had ditched her in one way or another without further ado. What was wrong with her to arouse such offhand behavior? She looked back on the episodes of her life she had preferred to forget. All those wounds infecting under the scab!

Salama Salama, the original wound.

Surrounded by admirers, Salama Salama had flashed the smile of a star sitting on the terrace of the Maheu café in Paris. Not only did he have the dreadlocks of Bob Marley, but his exceptional talent set him apart, dazzling his growing number of fans. He had given a long whistle of approval when Rosélie sat down at a nearby table, holding a Dalloz law manual to give her a sense of composure and not idle her time away smoking menthol cigarettes and lapping up the air on the boulevard. Her love life had been meager up till then, that we know. One or two cousins, the son of a good friend of Rose's. Few kisses, nothing but platitudes. Suddenly she found herself wanted, desired, and treasured. She hadn't heeded the warnings:

“My dear, be careful. Africa's a wicked stepmother.”

“You'll end up waiting for happiness.”

She had followed him to N'Dossou, where his family had welcomed her with open arms, his mother even finding that she looked like the reincarnation of her young sister, carried away by typhoid fever. Not surprising. The legend, one of those legends close family ties beget about their family tree, had it that their ancestor came from Guadeloupe. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, Sylvestre Urbain d'Amélie, a merchant from Nantes, owner of a plantation at Grippon, Petit-Bourg, and warehouses at La Pointe, together with Eusèbe, his Creole slave, born on the plantation, old enough to be his son, but in actual fact his lover—at that time people had no morals, not like today—had anchored off N'Dossou to load a cargo of precious red timber. Many a book has been written about the red timber of Brazil. But N'Dossou's was just as good. When Eusèbe got lost in the forest, Sylvestre, after weeks of fruitless searching and half crazed with grief, reluctantly gave the order to his crew to depart. He never got over Eusèbe's disappearance and died the following year clutching to his heart a locket with Eusèbe's portrait painted by Dino Russetti, the Florentine who had settled in Guadeloupe in 1704. Eusèbe, however, was not dead. He had been picked up by the Pygmies, who had taught him their music and how to hunt elephants. Unfortunately, the great trees, the lianas, the miasmas, and insects were anathema to him. Born on an island, he was a lover of water. Together with the wife they gave him, he reached the estuary of the Adzope River, where he founded a family. Ever since that day, the Urbain-Amélies—with Eusèbe the particle “de” disappeared—considered themselves apart, not quite natives, yet not quite foreigners either. They had always colluded with the colonizer whose language they practiced. The men, often hardened sailors, brought back with them girls picked up in faraway ports. Back in N'Dossou, these women mingled their customs with that of the tribe, and that's how things came to be. Thus Salama Salama's grandmother Lina, on his father's side, came from the Cape Verde islands, from a whorehouse in Mindelo. Apart from French, the Urbain-Amélies spoke Portuguese, Cantonese, which they got from Yang-Li, a Chinese great-great-grandmother, and N'Dossou's one hundred and three national languages.