Baking Cakes in Kigali

10

AS ANGEL SAT in the unfamiliar living room sipping at a cup of tea made the bland, English way, she prayed silently for forgiveness. There were a number of things for which she hoped to be forgiven. Above all, it was a Sunday morning, and on a Sunday morning she should, of course, be in church with her family. Today her family had gone to a Pentecostal service in the big blue-and-white-striped tent that was home to the Christian Life Assembly church. Right now they would be singing hymns and praising the Lord, while Angel was sitting here, in this house that she did not know, aiding and abetting a deception. Well, three deceptions, really—one of which might possibly cancel out the sin of the second, though she was not entirely sure about that. First, while not actually lying to Jenna’s husband, she had participated in allowing him to believe that, this morning, his wife would be safely at Saint Michael’s Catholic Church—near the American Embassy—with the Tungaraza family; and yet, here was Jenna in this unfamiliar living room with Angel and two strangers instead. But perhaps it was not wrong to lie to the CIA about his wife being at church, because he himself was lying to his wife and was—in all probability—lying in bed with his neighbour Linda at this very moment. Of course, by providing somewhere else for his wife to be, Angel was aiding that deception; and that was the second reason why she needed forgiving—although deceiving a deceiver was perhaps not so much of a sin. Third, there was the extremely troubling matter for which Angel asked forgiveness every Sunday: the matter of not telling Jenna about her husband’s infidelity—although Angel felt sure that if she were to tell Jenna, that would also be something for which she would need to ask forgiveness. It was a very complicated situation indeed.
So Angel prayed for forgiveness; but prayer was also a time to give thanks, and she gave silent thanks now for a number of things as she took another sip of the rather insipid tea. As always, she was grateful for a new customer—in this case Kwame, the man in whose living room she now sat. A few days earlier, Pius’s Ghanaian colleague Dr Sembene had come to see Angel to order a cake on behalf of Kwame, who would be hosting a small gathering that Sunday afternoon. Kwame’s wife, Akosua, would be visiting from Accra, and a number of Ghanaians would be coming to greet her and to hear news from home. Of course, Angel had tried to get as much information as possible about Akosua from Dr Sembene in order to design the perfect cake for her—but, never having actually met Akosua, Dr Sembene was able to tell Angel only one fact about her. That had meant three things: that the cake that Angel had brought with her this morning, while both colourful and much-admired, was rather non-specific; that Angel and Jenna would have to pretend to be going to church while spending time with Kwame and Akosua instead; and that Angel had another reason to give thanks. Yes, the one piece of information that Dr Sembene had been able to give Angel was very important indeed: Akosua was a trainer of literacy teachers.
Jenna and Akosua were so caught up in their conversation that they had not noticed when Kwame’s cell-phone had rung and he had stepped out into the garden—filled with colourful frangipanis and canna lilies—to take the call, apologising to Angel for interrupting their conversation. Kwame had been telling her about his work as an investigator for the trials that were taking place in Arusha, in Angel’s country. The suspects awaiting trial there were accused of planning and leading the killings in Rwanda, and Kwame was part of the international team that was gathering evidence and witnesses against them.
Angel put down her cup of tea and reached down to the ground for the plastic bag at her feet. It contained two more reasons to give thanks. Akosua had brought with her from Accra a large number of lengths of beautiful cloth to sell, produced by a group of women who supported themselves by buying cheap cotton fabric, dyeing it, then printing special designs and patterns on it before selling it for a healthy profit. Akosua had told her that each of the patterns had a special meaning, and that in the past only men had been allowed to use those patterns, always printing them in black on a limited range of colours. What the group of women was doing was both traditional and modern.
Angel fingered and admired the two lengths that she had bought. The fabric of one was a light orange colour, printed in bright yellow and gold with a design that was about people cooperating with one another and depending on one another. Akosua had told her what that pattern said: Help me and let me help you. This was the cloth that would become her dress for Leocadie’s wedding to Modeste.
“You have chosen two beautiful pieces,” said Kwame, who had come in from the garden and was easing himself back into the chair across from Angel.
“Eh, but it was difficult to choose! They’re all so beautiful. At first I wanted to choose that green one, because Akosua told me that the pattern on there said: What I hear, I keep. I like that, because I’m a professional somebody and I know about confidentiality. But I’m sure you know about that in your work, too.”
“Absolutely. No witness wants to come forward without some kind of guarantee of confidentiality. But it’s very difficult here, because if somebody sees somebody talking to me, then automatically they assume that that person has revealed something to me about somebody else, and then there can be threats of reprisals. Although, of course, many people feel more comfortable talking to an investigator who belongs to neither this group nor that. Still, confidentiality remains a very big problem. By the way, if you had taken that green piece with the confidentiality pattern, it would have given you two very different outfits. Those pieces you have chosen are quite similar.”
“Yes. But as soon as Akosua explained this other one to me, I knew I had to have it.” Angel indicated the second of her two pieces, a pale lemon yellow printed with gold and bright orange. “This pattern talks about reconciling and making peace. As soon as I heard that, I knew that I must buy it for a special wedding dress, and then I must have this other one that is like it, rather than the green one, because I’m going to be the bride’s mother at that wedding.”
“Oh, your daughter is getting married? Congratulations.”
“Thank you, Kwame. She’s not my daughter; my daughter is unfortunately late. But I’m the bride’s mother for the wedding. It will be a special wedding, an example of this reconciliation that everybody is talking about here.”
Kwame shook his head sadly. “Oh, Angel, that is a wedding that I need to witness! My job makes it very difficult for me to believe in reconciliation, even though I fully want to believe in it. I need to believe in it.” Kwame glanced towards his wife, who was talking animatedly with Jenna, and lowered his voice a little. “I was here before, you know.”
“Before?”
“In 1994. I was one of the UN blue berets. Our job was to keep the peace, but of course there was no peace to keep. And we had no mandate to create peace by preventing or stopping the killing because we could not use force. In effect, we were here simply as witnesses. That’s why I’ve come back here now to do this job. I want to find a way to put things right, to contribute, to make up for my powerlessness, my uselessness before. I feel for these witnesses. I know that their silence might protect them from harm by others, but it can also destroy them from the inside. The counsellor who helped me afterwards told me that sometimes you need to dig deep into a wound to remove all the poison before it can heal. These people need to tell what happened; they need to get it all out. Of course it wasn’t my own people’s slaughter, my own family’s slaughter, that I witnessed—so there’s no way I can claim that I was a witness in the same way that these people were.” Again Kwame glanced towards Akosua to make sure that she was not listening. “Actually, I’ve never told my wife about the things I witnessed here.”
Angel spoke in a low voice, too. “Not even when you first got back home?”
“No. I didn’t know her then. We’ve only been married a short while. If she had known me then, she would never have married me. I was a mess. And if she knew what I’d seen she’d never have let me come back here. Absolutely not. She would have worried too much about me.”
Angel was quiet for a moment. She wanted to say that it was important to tell the truth, but then she remembered her own lies, the ones for which she had been asking forgiveness just moments earlier. Then she thought of her daughter, who had concealed from her the truth that her marriage was over, leaving Angel to discover by accident from the household help over the phone that Baba-Faith had not lived there for months, and she thought about what other truths Vinas may have concealed, and about what Thérèse had said about a lie holding love in its heart. Then she thought about the testimony that witnesses might give about Leocadie’s mother in the prison in Cyangugu, and about Odile, and what she might have witnessed and experienced. And then she did not want to think anymore.
“Sometimes,” she said with a sigh, “life can be too complicated. But, Kwame, you must come to this special wedding that I’m organising. I’ll be sure to give you an invitation. Perhaps what you’ll witness there will help your own wound to heal.”
“I hope so, Angel.”
A loud hoot sounded on the other side of the gate. Pius was on his way back from church with the red microbus full of happy and excited children, and it was time to go home. On the way, Jenna was more animated than Angel had ever seen her.
“Oh, Angel, thank you so much!” she kept declaring. “Akosua’s helped me to see where I’ve been going wrong with my literacy class, and how to put it right. And it’s great to know that I’ve been doing at least some things right!”
“Jenna, you need to calm down,” Angel warned. “Remember that when you get home, you need to look like somebody who has been talking to God. You need to look like you have peace in your heart.”
AFTER a satisfying lunch of spicy beans cooked with coconut and served with sweet potato and cabbage, Pius retired to the bedroom for an afternoon nap, and Angel settled with Titi, the children and Safiya in front of the television. Ken Akimoto had recently returned from one of his trips home to America, bringing with him a new collection of films that his family had taped for him. Angel had chosen one of them that Sophie had said would be fine for the children to watch.
Less than half an hour into the film, someone knocked on the door. Not welcoming the interruption, Angel went to the door instead of simply calling for the visitor to come in. It was Linda, saying that she wanted to order a cake.
“I can see that you’re busy, though, Angel, so maybe I should come back another time.”
“No, no, Linda, I’m never too busy for business. But we can’t talk in here. Would you like to go out into the yard?”
“Not a good idea with these sudden rain storms—and it’s probably still muddy out there from the last one. Come upstairs to mine.”
“Okay, let me just get what I need and tell my family where I’ll be, and I’ll see you up there in a minute.”
Angel gathered a Cake Order Form, her photo album, her diary and a pen, and set off up the stairs to Linda’s apartment, trying very hard not to think about what Linda might have been doing in her apartment that morning while Jenna had been out. As she ascended the final flight of stairs, she decided that it would be easier to focus instead on Bosco, and the desperate love that he had once felt for Linda; there was nothing awkward or unethical in that story to make her feel uncomfortable. In fact it was a happy story now, because Bosco had decided to love Alice instead.
She found the door open and Linda inside opening a bottle of Amstel. A sleeveless black T-shirt stretched tightly across her full breasts, ending about ten centimetres above where her short denim skirt began, and exposing a silver stud in her navel. Her long, dark hair was tied back loosely in a ponytail.
“Come in, Angel, have a seat. Would you like a beer? Not that local Primus or Mützig rubbish. They say Amstel’s illegally imported from Burundi so they’re cracking down on it. It’s really hard to get now, but somehow Leocadie still manages to find it.”
“No, thank you, Linda. I don’t drink.”
“You’re not a Muslim, are you?”
“No, I’m not a Muslim, I’m just somebody who doesn’t drink.” Angel settled herself into a familiar-looking chair.
“You don’t know what you’re missing, Angel. This place is so much easier to take when you’re not stone-cold sober all the time, believe you me! Can I make you some tea instead?”
“That would be very nice, thank you.”
Linda moved across to the far end of the living room, which served as the kitchen area, and switched on an electric kettle. Her apartment had only one bedroom, and Angel was relieved that the door to it was shut. She did not want to be faced with the sight of an unmade bed or any other evidence of the morning’s activities—sinful activities that Angel herself had made possible.
“I’ve just come from having lunch with friends at Flamingo. Have you eaten there?”
“The Chinese? No, it’s too expensive for us to eat out. We’re a family of eight. Eight!”
“Oh, but you should go out sometime just with your husband. Leave the kids with your Titi and get him to take you to the Turtle Café one Friday night. Great live music, sexy Congolese dancing.” Linda swivelled her hips provocatively.
“Eh, Linda, I’m a grandmother!” Angel laughed. “That is not a place for people as old as Pius and me.”
Linda smiled as she poured boiling water on to a teabag. “Maybe not. But I’d go mad if I had to eat at home all the time. Milk? Sugar?”
“Yes, please. Just three sugars. But I’ve been with Pius to functions at a few places here: Jali Club is very nice, and Baobab. And a colleague of his had a small birthday dinner at Carwash. A friend of mine has a restaurant in Remera called Chez Fran?oise. Do you know it?”
“No, I don’t. What kind of food do they serve?”
“Barbecued fish and chicken, brochettes, chips, that kind of thing. And if you want to hold a party there, Fran?oise can order one of my cakes for dessert.”
“Oh,” said Linda, handing Angel her mug of tea and sitting down opposite her with her bottle of beer. “Now, that sounds interesting. What kind of place is it?”
“It’s like a garden, with tables and chairs under shelters made of grass. And the cooking is done there outside as well, over a fire.”
“That sounds like just the sort of place I’m looking for. I want to throw a small party next weekend, but this flat’s too small and I don’t want to cook. I thought of asking Ken if I could use his place, but it’d be nice to go somewhere different.” Linda lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply.
“Go and have a look at Chez Fran?oise and see if you like it. Bosco knows the place; he can take you there.”
“Bosco? Who’s Bosco?”
Eh! thought Angel, and she knew at once that she could never, ever tell Bosco that Linda did not know who he was. Aloud she said, “Bosco is Ken’s driver.”
“Oh, right. But I’ve got my own car, I’ll just get some directions from you.”
“Okay.” Angel took a sip of her tea, the second time she had had to drink English tea that day. At least she had had a good cup of properly-made tea when her family had got home that morning. “Is it a party for your birthday, Linda?”
“God, no, it’s a much more important celebration than that. I just heard yesterday that my divorce is now final.”
Linda raised her bottle in the gesture of a toast and took a large gulp of beer.
Angel did not know what to say. Wazungu these days did not take their marriages seriously. Divorce meant that you had failed in your marriage, and to fail was never a good thing. How could failure be a reason for celebration? Really, it should be a reason for shame.
“Oh, don’t look at me like that, Angel. My marriage was a bloody disaster. Mum and Dad bullied me into it. They wanted their daughter to marry a nice conservative career diplomat, the son of their nice conservative friends. Trouble was, he was as boring as hell, so I rebelled and got involved in human rights work, which of course was an embarrassment to his precious career.”
Angel wondered if Linda’s human rights work could not also be an embarrassment to the CIA. But perhaps it did not matter if they were not actually married. Certainly Jenna’s work as a literacy teacher could not embarrass him—although of course it would embarrass him if his bosses ever discovered that one of their agents was not able even to detect a covert operation that was under way in his own home.
“So, do you think that your husband is also going to celebrate this divorce?”
“God, yes. He certainly won’t be crying into his sherry, that’s for sure. Now he can find himself a wife who’ll keep her mouth shut and be totally uncontroversial, a sweet hostess for embassy functions.”
Angel thought of Mrs Margaret Wanyika, who was exactly the kind of wife that an ambassador needed: well-groomed, unfailingly polite and always in agreement with her husband and her government’s policies. She tried to imagine Mrs Wanyika wearing a tight, short T-shirt and a mini-skirt that showed off a pierced navel, sitting opposite a guest at the ambassador’s home, smoking a cigarette and drinking beer from a bottle in the middle of the afternoon, speaking her own mind after a morning in bed with her neighbour’s husband. No, nobody would recognise her as an ambassador’s wife if she behaved like that—and Ambassador Wanyika would certainly chase her away before anybody confused her with a prostitute.
“I can see that you two were not a good match.”
“We were a bloody disaster. Thank God we recognised that before we brought kids into the world.” Linda lit another cigarette. “So this party, Angel. It’s to celebrate my escape, so I want a cake that suggests escape or freedom in some way.”
“Do you want to look through this to get some ideas?” Angel offered her photo album, but Linda waved it away.
“I’ve seen loads of your cakes at Ken’s. I’ll leave the design up to you. I’m sure you’re much more creative than I am.”
“Okay, I’ll think about it very carefully so that I don’t disappoint you. But I’ll need to know how many people will be at the party so that I know how big to make the cake, and then we can work out the cost.”
“Fine. Whatever.”
Linda opened another bottle of Amstel as they filled out a Cake Order Form, and then she opened her purse and counted out the total price. Angel saw that her purse was extremely full of banknotes.
“I couldn’t be bothered with deposits, Angel. Now I know I’ve paid you and I don’t owe you anything.”
“Thank you, Linda.” Angel folded the proffered banknotes and tucked them into her brassiere. “You know, it’s interesting that you’ve told me about a divorce today, because I was planning to come and tell you about a wedding.”
“Oh? Whose wedding?”
“A wedding of two people that everybody in this compound knows.”
“Oh God, don’t tell me. Let me guess. Omar’s going to marry Eugenia? Prosper’s going to marry your Titi? Dave the Canadian is going to forgive Jeanne d’Arc and marry her?”
Linda collapsed into laughter and Angel joined her, laughing harder than she had in a long time. Her laughter forced tears from her eyes, and she had to delve into her brassiere for a tissue. It was quite a while before she was able to speak.
“No, none of those, Linda. No, Modeste is going to marry Leocadie.”
“Oh, great. Doesn’t she already have his baby?”
“Yes. Beckham. But they’re not people with family; they’re alone. So I’m going to be the mother of the wedding and I’m asking everyone in this compound and this street to help out with a contribution, because all of us are their family.”
“Of course I’ll contribute.” Linda stubbed out her cigarette and reached for her purse again. “Do we get an invitation to the wedding if we make a donation?”
“Yes, of course.” Angel could see that Linda was deciding how much to give. “You Wazungu who are earning dollars are able to contribute very well. It’s nothing to you, but it’s everything to people who have nothing.”
Linda reconsidered and fingered an additional note.
“And let us not forget that even now, on a Sunday afternoon, it is Modeste who is outside guarding your vehicle from thieves.”
Linda took another note from her purse.
“And Leocadie is the one who is able to find Amstel for you when it is very difficult.”
Linda took two more notes from her purse and handed the money to Angel, who tucked it into her diary to keep it separate from the cake money that was in her brassiere.
“Thank you, Linda. You’re a very generous somebody.”
————

LATER that evening, Angel found herself seated in another of the compound’s one-bedroom apartments, this time on the top floor of Ken Akimoto’s side of the building. So far she had visited all of the people in the compound whom she already knew well, and she had collected a sizeable amount of money from them for the wedding. Sophie had given her a big brown envelope in which to keep it all so that she did not have to walk around with banknotes bulging out of her diary. But Sophie and Catherine had surprised her with their reluctance to contribute money—and their reason was not that they were volunteers with little money to give.
“How can you ask us to contribute to bride-price, Angel?” Catherine had asked, looking appalled. “Why should we contribute to the purchase of a woman by a man?”
“Or at least, the purchase of her womb and her labour,” Sophie had clarified.
“No, no, that’s not how it is,” Angel had hastily explained. She had forgotten about the sensitivities of Wazungu, especially Wazungu who were feminists. “I’m just saying bride-price because that’s what people here understand. But Modeste has no family who want to buy Leocadie for their son, and Leocadie has no family who want to sell her. This money that I’m collecting is for Leocadie and Modeste and Beckham, to pay for a nice wedding and to give them a good start as a family.”
Satisfied, Catherine and Sophie had contributed generously.
“Leocadie did bring me a Coke when she heard that I was in bed feeling nauseous the other day,” Catherine had conceded.
“And Modeste does keep Captain Calixte away from the apartment,” Sophie had added.
Then Angel had called upon several of the families she knew who lived in the houses lining the dirt road on which the compound—and Leocadie’s shop—stood. Starting at the far end and working her way back towards the compound, she had avoided the homes where she did not know the people; those she would tackle during the day rather than in the gathering darkness of evening when people might be suspicious of somebody they did not know asking for money. She would also wait a few days before approaching them so that news of her collection for the wedding could have time to reach them from the neighbours who knew Angel and had already contributed. Of course, some of the people she knew had been out that evening, and she would have to remember who they were so that she could call on them another time. But her memory was not very reliable these days; she would make a note of their names in her diary as soon as she got home.
As she went from house to house in the street, she thought about what Catherine and Sophie had said about bride-price. She had never felt that Pius had bought her—or her womb, or her labour—in any way. He had merely approached her parents in the traditional, respectful way to ask for her hand in marriage; and he had compensated them for the expenses that they had incurred in raising her. But she did have a cousin in Bukoba who had not been able to conceive, and the girl’s husband had returned her to Angel’s uncle and demanded the return of the cows that he had paid. Angel could see that that had been no different from buying a radio that does not work and then taking it back to the shop for a refund.
The Tungarazas’ own children had been both traditional and modern when it came to bride-price. Pius had handed over the cash equivalent of a reasonably-sized herd to the parents of their daughter-in-law, Evelina. Vinas, on the other hand, had said she could not be bothered with anything like that; she was happy enough to be marrying a man she loved, whose family had already invested everything they had in helping him to qualify as a teacher-trainer, and whose father was in any case already late. Angel and Pius had been satisfied enough with both of these arrangements—and although they had never discussed it, Angel felt that they would be glad if their three grandsons grew up to be more modern; they could certainly not afford high sums to be negotiated for the wives of three more boys.
As she had emerged from the yard next door to the Mukherjees with yet another contribution tucked into her envelope, she had met two men ambling towards her in what would now be total darkness were it not for a small sliver of moon. They wore long white Indian shirts over trousers and sandals, and their smiles glowed whitely as they greeted her.
“Mrs Tungaraza, hello!”
“Hello, Mr Mukherjee, Dr Manavendra. Have you been for your evening walk?”
“Yes indeed,” said Mr Mukherjee. “But we do not normally see you out walking in the evenings. Are you alone? Is Tungaraza not with you?”
“I’m alone, Mr Mukherjee, but I’m on my way home to my husband. I usually see you walking in the evenings with your wives. Where are they this evening?”
“Ebola!” declared Dr Manavendra. “Our wives won’t leave the house until the scare is over.”
“But that’s in Uganda,” said Angel, “far from here. And yesterday in New Vision it said that nobody had died from it there for twelve days now.”
“Yes, it’s nearly over in Uganda,” said Mr Mukherjee with a laugh. “Soon the hysteria in our house will be over, too. At least I managed to insist that the boys should go back to school. By the way, Mrs Tungaraza, the cake you made for my cousin-brother was excellent.”
“Excellent,” agreed Dr Manavendra.
“I’m so happy that you liked it.” Angel’s own smile gleamed in the moonlight. “I’m happy, too, that I met you here on the road this evening so that I don’t need to disturb you at home.
I’m collecting dowry contributions for Leocadie, who works here in the shop. She wants to get married but she has no family to help her. I’m acting as her mother for the negotiations and the wedding.”
“Oh, very good,” said Mr Mukherjee, reaching for his wallet in the back pocket of his trousers.
“Yes, yes,” said Dr Manavendra, mirroring his colleague.
Angel held out the envelope with the mouth of it open so that the two men could place their contributions directly inside it.
“Thank you very much. It’s very difficult for people who have nothing and no family, especially when those around them are earning dollars.”
“Very difficult,” agreed Mr Mukherjee, closing his wallet and replacing it firmly in his back pocket. “But, Mrs Tungaraza, you must go home now. It’s not safe for a lady to be out on her own at night; there’s always a possibility that eve-teasing can occur.”
“Always a possibility,” agreed Dr Manavendra. “Let us escort you home.”
“Oh, I’ll be fine, really.”
“No, we insist. Come along.”
The two men walked with Angel past Leocadie’s shop and past the big green Dumpster that was already filled to overflowing again with the neighbourhood’s rubbish.
“Oof, this is smelling very badly,” said Mr Mukherjee.
“Very badly,” agreed Dr Manavendra.
“On Thursday or Friday last week I saw them removing that Dumpster up the hill, that one just near the kiosk for international phone calls,” said Angel. “So maybe they’ll get to this one this week.”
“We hope,” said Dr Manavendra.
“Yes, we hope,” echoed Mr Mukherjee. “There’s nowhere for us to put our rubbish without making mess.”
They left Angel within a few feet of the entrance to her building, when Patrice and Kalisa had greeted her and it was clear that she was safe, and turned back towards the home that their families shared.
Despite the cool night air, Angel’s head was feeling very hot, so instead of going inside immediately, she sat herself down on one of the large rocks that lined the walkway to the entrance and fanned her face with the envelope of money, careful to hold it closed so that she did not shower banknotes out into the night as she did so.
The compound’s owner had recently made an attempt at beautifying the front of the building with a few shrubs and some plants in enormous clay containers. Just next to the entrance was a large bush of a plant that flowered only at night, small white blossoms with a very strong perfume. The plant exhaled its perfume as Angel sat on the rock beside it, and her fanning brought its scent right to her nostrils.
Immediately—almost violently—the smell brought back a flood of memories: Vinas phoning to say she was too busy to come to Dar with the children for the school holidays, she would send them alone on the plane; Vinas phoning to check that they had arrived safely, to hear Pius’s and Angel’s assurances that no, her two were not too much for them on top of Joseph’s three who already lived with them; Vinas’s friend phoning in a panic to tell them about the headache that no number of pain-killers would take away, about using her key because Vinas had not answered her knock, about rushing her to Mount Meru Hospital where the doctors had shaken their heads and told her to summon the family urgently; finding Vinas already cold in the morgue when they arrived; gathering the children’s things to take back with them to Dar; sitting on the edge of Vinas’s bed, trying to imagine the intensity of the pain that had pushed so many tablets out of the empty bubble-packs on her bedside table; needing fresh air, going out into Vinas’s night-time garden, sitting under just such a night-blooming bush, gulping in the same perfume, sobbing because God had not felt it enough to take only their son.
“Madame? Vous êtes malade?” Patrice stood before her, peering into her face with concern.
“Non, non, Patrice, ?a va. Merci.” Angel reached into her brassiere for a tissue and dabbed at her eyes and her hot face. Then she added, “Hakuna matata. Asante.”
She gave a reassuring smile and Patrice retreated. Really, she must pull herself together. All of that was well over a year ago now, and dwelling on it was not going to bring her daughter back. It was not helpful to be sad when she needed to be strong. There were five children—five!—in her care now, and that was where her attention should be.
And she had a wedding to organise. Leocadie and Modeste were going to have a perfect day: nobody was going to weep because their cake was unprofessional. There was so much to do! It was time to make a start on the residents of the compound whom she did not know well, and that was going to be a challenge.
And so it was that she found herself sitting in the Canadian’s one-bedroom apartment, watching him enjoy one of the cupcakes that she had brought with her to sweeten her request. He was a tall man, somewhere in his late thirties, with very short brown hair and rimless spectacles. Angel noticed a gold band on his wedding finger.
“I’m not even going to be here for this wedding,” he said, his mouth still full, “so it’s hardly my responsibility to help pay for it. I’m only here on a short-term consultancy.”
“What exactly is it that you are consulting about, Dave?”
“I’m helping the government to prepare its interim poverty-reduction strategy paper for the IMF.”
“Eh, that is very interesting. Do you have some good ideas for reducing poverty here?”
He laughed and shook his head. “That’s not my job. I just have to make sure these guys write the paper the way they’re supposed to write it. Their job is content, my job is form—although I’m finding myself having to assist with the sections on frontloading priority actions and mechanisms for channelling donor resources to priority programmes.”
Angel thought for a moment. “Is that a way of talking about how to give money where it’s most needed?”
His smile was condescending. “In a way.”
“And tell me, does it ever happen that a donor gives money for one thing only to find that the money is used for something else instead?”
“All the time. It’s expected—or, at least, it’s not unexpected.”
“It’s expected? Then why does the IMF give the money if it expects that it will not be used for the right thing?”
“Ah, but the IMF doesn’t give money. It lends money. Ultimately all that matters is that it gets the money back, with interest. If the country doesn’t use it the way it said it would, or if it uses it the right way but the project turns out to be a failure, that’s not our concern; it’s not our responsibility.”
“I see.”
“So anyway, Angel, I’m meeting some people for dinner tonight at Aux Caprices du Palais, and I need to get showered and dressed. This wedding you’re organising doesn’t concern me, so I don’t think it’s right to expect me to contribute. Rwandans are always holding their hands out asking for money.” He stood up.
Angel remained seated. She spoke without looking up at him. “Yes, there are many beggars here. It’s unfortunate that their poverty has not yet been reduced so that they can stop doing that. Those beggars are very inconvenient for visitors, especially for visitors who can afford to eat their dinner at the most expensive restaurant in the city. But those who have jobs are not begging, and this is a marriage of two people with jobs. The job of a security guard for this compound is very important. If something bad happens here, it’s the security guards who will protect us. For example, if somebody steals money from us, it’s the security guards who will stop that thief in the street outside and prevent that thief from running away with our money. They are the ones who will make sure that we will get our money back. They are the ones who will solve our problem for us before the police become involved and before there is any embarrassment to our families.”
The Canadian stared hard at Angel. Then he threw his head back and laughed out loud, clapping his hands together.
“Bravo, Angel! You really are good! You know, I don’t give a damn about all this reconciliation crap you spouted about this wedding, and I don’t feel I owe anybody anything, certainly not the money that I work damn hard for. But I do admire your tactics, I really do.” He turned and went into his bedroom. Angel watched him go to the wardrobe and take out a box. He removed a banknote and then replaced the box in the wardrobe and came back into the living room. Angel stood up.
“I don’t suppose you’ve got change for a hundred-dollar bill?”
“Of course not,” said Angel, taking the note and tucking it into her brassiere.
“Of course not,” echoed the Canadian.
“Thank you, Dave. I hope you enjoy your dinner at Caprices.” Angel put her hand out. Reluctantly, the Canadian shook it.
As she walked down the stairs Angel put that same hand over her breast and felt the shape of the money in her brassiere. She had not put it with the rest of the money in her envelope because it was not going to go towards the wedding. She was going to give it to Jeanne d’Arc, one Rwandan to whom the Canadian most certainly did owe his money.
Of course, she had asked for the money for one thing and was going to use it for something else. But that was not unexpected.
Still, it was undoubtedly a lie. Silently, she offered up another prayer for forgiveness.