Baking Cakes in Kigali

13


THERE WERE TWO things that pleased Angel the following Sunday morning, and one thing that jumped around anxiously in her mind like a monkey in a wire cage.
The first thing that pleased her was that, on the way home from church that morning, the family had seen a man at the side of the road selling bags of senene. They knew the senene had finally arrived in Kigali for their second visit of the year because, for the past two nights, they had seen them swarming around the streetlights on the tarred road next to their compound. Last night they had taken the paraffin lamp that they kept for use during power failures, and they had put it outside in the dark yard to attract the bright green grasshoppers. Daniel and Moses had had a great deal of fun—though very little success—trying to catch the insects in their hands and put them into the empty Toss jar that Faith held for them with a piece of cardboard covering the top. Faith did not mind holding a jar full of bugs, and she did not mind sliding the cardboard aside for another to be put inside—but whenever one of them flew into her or actually landed on her, she would scream and drop the plastic jar, allowing all of them to escape. At last Angel and Pius had called a halt to the children’s fun by summoning them in, concerned that the lamp might be attracting mosquitoes as well as grasshoppers. At that stage there were only eight senene in the bottle: one for each member of the household.
But now they had bought a whole bagful of them, and their lunch was going to be delicious! Pius had pulled off all the wings and legs for Angel, and she had already simmered them in salted water for half an hour. The final step in preparing them would be to fry them, but Titi would do that just before the meal so that they would be crispy and piping-hot.
Alone in the apartment now, Angel looked at her watch. What was she going to do for the next half hour or so? Jenna had gone to church with them that morning, and when they had found the senene-seller on the way home, Angel had offered to cook some grasshoppers for her—but Jenna would not hear of it. If she had accepted, Angel could have been busying herself with their preparation right now. But unfortunately she would have to find something else to occupy her time.
Without wanting to be there, she found herself standing at her work table, looking down at the cake that she was to deliver that afternoon. No cake had ever disturbed her quite as much as this one. Okay, it was not the cake itself that disturbed her. In fact, it was a very beautiful cake indeed: a round vanilla sponge in two layers, iced in pure white with a sprinkling of tiny red roses with green leaves across the top. What disturbed her was the occasion for which the cake had been ordered: the cutting of a girl.
Of course, she had heard of this practice, although it was not part of her own culture. Catherine had told her—in response to Angel’s discreet enquiry—that it was not something that happened in Rwanda; yet it seemed that some groups of people who practised it at home in their own countries were also practising it here. It was not an idea that Angel liked at all, and she would certainly not choose it for Grace or Faith. To cut out and stitch up a girl’s private parts to make them look more attractive to a man was surely not a reasonable thing to do. And people said that it made sex painful for the girl when she grew up, so that she would not be tempted to do it with anyone other than her husband. But what kind of husband would be able to achieve pleasure for himself, knowing that what he was doing was causing his wife physical pain? There were many complications from the practice—even from the less severe form, where less of the girl was cut—and if the girl did not die from an infection, her baby could easily die during delivery if there was nobody there to cut her parts open again to let it out.
So why had Angel agreed to make this cake? She was still not entirely sure, although she knew that her reasons were complicated. Okay, she could have refused. She had refused to bake a cake for Captain Calixte, because if he became her customer, professional ethics would not have allowed her to warn Sophie about his intentions. But in this case, who was she going to warn that the girl was going to be cut? The girl herself? She had no right to do that. The Rwandan authorities? She could not do that to the girl’s family. And in any case, she had been sworn to secrecy even before she had agreed to make the cake, so she would not have been able to tell anyone, even if she had refused the order. Eh, this would be a very difficult ethical dilemma for the Girls Who Mean Business to discuss!
But something else gnawed at Angel like a monkey chewing away at the bars that restrained it: was the reason why she had accepted the order because she was … curious? She had been invited not just as a cake-maker but also as a witness. Was her curiosity about the idea of cutting more important to her than the girl’s pain? Eh! That was a question she might not want to know the answer to. She must stop thinking about it immediately, otherwise she was going to give herself a headache.
She went and sat on the sofa with her feet up on the coffee table and gave her glasses a good polish with the edge of her kanga. As she did so, she felt heat rising up her throat to her face. She closed her eyes and examined the sensation: it was not because she felt ashamed about what she was going to do that afternoon, and it was not because she was bothered by her unclear motives. No, she was simply flashing again. Really, this was becoming very tedious indeed—although, in truth, it had been happening less and less. She must remember to ask Dr Rejoice exactly how long it was going to go on. Surely a woman could not be stuck in the Change for ever? Surely she would eventually arrive at a point where she had … well … Changed? Angel mopped the perspiration from her hot face with a tissue and decided to think about something happier.
Her other reason to be delighted that day—apart from the senene—was that very soon Grace and Benedict would be home after spending two nights away. She cast her mind back a few days and recalled how it had come about that they had gone away for the weekend.
She had just come back into the building after going out to buy sugar at Leocadie’s shop, where Leocadie had shown her the beautiful wedding veil that the sewing class in Biryogo had made for her. The cloth that they had used was the bed-net that Sophie and Catherine had given her when Beckham was born, and that Leocadie had never used.
“They told me my baby must sleep under that net every night,” Leocadie had said, shaking her head. “Eh, these Wazungu! Do they think that mosquitoes live only in our bedrooms and bite us only when we’re sleeping?”
“Wazungu are very afraid of malaria,” Angel had answered.
In truth, one or two Wazungu had succeeded in persuading her at least to consider putting nets above the children’s bunk beds; and when she had discussed the idea with Dr Rejoice during Benedict’s last bout of malaria, the doctor had told her something that had convinced her that it was a very good idea indeed. Dr Rejoice had explained that, if a mosquito that was not carrying malaria bit Benedict while he had malaria, that mosquito now carried malaria because of Benedict. Then that mosquito could take Benedict’s malaria and give it to somebody who was too sick to fight the disease—somebody who already had AIDS, for example. That had made Angel see malaria in a new light—and she did not want anybody in her family to be responsible for somebody dying because their body was weak with AIDS. It was not just a matter of protecting her family from malaria; it was a matter of protecting the health of others in the community as well. She had gone the very next day to the pharmacy to ask about the bed-nets that Dr Rejoice had told her to ask for—the ones that had the special mosquitocide on them—but they were much too expensive. The pharmacist had told her that they were priced high for Wazungu, because only Wazungu bought them. She had resolved to buy some in Bukoba when they went home for their holidays at the end of the year, because they would be cheaper there.
But she had not told Leocadie any of this, because she had not wanted the girl to feel badly about using the bed-net to make her wedding veil—which was, after all, very beautiful.
As Angel had come back into the building with her bag of sugar, Omar and his daughter had been coming down the stairs. She had already met Efra, who had spent some time in the Tungarazas’ apartment watching a video with Grace and Faith. She was a slight girl who could have been gorgeous had it not been for the replica of her father’s enormous nose dominating her face. Unfortunately, it was not possible to forget about her nose by not looking at her face, because her voice seemed to come out of it when she spoke, in the same way that her father’s did. But at least her laugh came out of her mouth—and did not make people think about animals that were mating.
“Angel!” Omar had trumpeted. “I’m so glad that we saw you. Efra has decided that she would like to go and see the gorillas this weekend, and we wondered if a couple of your children would like to join us?”
“Eh, Omar, that is a very nice idea, thank you. But it’s very expensive to see those gorillas …”
“Oh, it’ll be my treat! It won’t cost you anything; I’ll cover the cost of the permits, the hotel, everything. It’ll be my pleasure. And Efra would love to experience it with other children. Please say yes!”
“How can I say no to that, Omar? Thank you very much. Let me speak to them tonight and see who would like to go.”
“Just two of them, Angel, if that’s not going to cause too many arguments. There won’t be room for more in the Land Rover. Sophie will be joining us, too.”
“Sophie?” Angel’s surprise had been obvious.
Omar’s laugh had reverberated around the entrance hall and hurtled out of the door, where it had stopped a boy who was walking down the road with boiled eggs to sell. He had looked towards the entrance of the building with both surprise and fear, as though a fully-grown hippopotamus might lumber out of the doorway and attack him at any moment. Angel had noticed Efra’s embarrassed, downcast eyes.
“Sophie has forgiven me since we spoke about our little misunderstanding concerning a certain spice. Thank you so much for explaining things to her, Angel. I know a volunteer can’t afford a trip to the gorillas, so I offered to take her with us at my expense to compensate for any embarrassment that I caused her.”
“Eh, you are a very generous somebody, Omar!”
“Not at all. No need to let me know which two of your children are coming. I’ve booked two suites at the Hotel Muhabura in Ruhengeri; boys will share with me, girls with Efra and Sophie. We’ll leave after school on Friday afternoon and come back Sunday morning. I’ll have them back before lunch, guaranteed.”
That evening, Angel had discussed Omar’s offer with Pius before saying anything to the children. They had agreed that it would be best for them to choose which two would go, rather than to let the children decide amongst themselves. It would be best, they had reasoned, for Grace and Faith to go; they were the eldest, and they had already made friends with Efra. They had told the girls about Omar’s generous offer just before putting them to bed.
Later that night, when Angel and Pius had turned off the television after the nine o’clock news in English and were about to retire to their room, Faith and Benedict had slipped quietly into the living room.
“Mama,” Faith had appealed to Angel, “I don’t want to see gorillas.” She had been on the verge of tears. “They are very big, Mama, and I’m still small.”
“Baba,” Benedict had appealed to Pius, “please let me go instead of Faith! I want to see the gorillas. Please, Baba. Please let me go!”
And so Grace and Benedict had gone—which was good, Angel and Pius had reasoned after the children had gone back to bed: the eldest two children of their son Joseph would have a small holiday together, and perhaps it would help to create a closer bond between the two.
Now, sitting on the sofa in her empty apartment and fanning her hot face with a Cake Order Form, Angel waited for them to return. A quick jolt of excitement shot through her as she heard a vehicle drawing to a halt outside the building, but then she recognised the sound of the engine: it was Pius in the red microbus, back from sending emails from his office computer. Upstairs with Safiya, Faith heard the vehicle, too, and ran down the stairs, only to be disappointed when it was not her brother and sister who walked in through the building’s entrance. Both Pius and Faith joined Angel in the living room. No sooner had they sat down than the sound of children’s voices came in from the street. Faith ran to the building’s entrance and was disappointed again: it was Daniel and Moses coming back from the Mukherjees’ with Titi.
At last, when Faith was nearly out of patience with waiting, and Pius was nearly out of patience with Faith’s restlessness, Grace and Benedict arrived home in a flurry of excitement. Omar, Efra and Sophie came into the Tungarazas’ apartment with them.
“How was the trip?” asked Pius, shaking Omar’s hand.
“Excellent!” declared Omar. “Great fun! I think your two enjoyed it, especially Benedict.”
“He was like a different person,” said Sophie. “I couldn’t believe it, Angel! Normally he’s so quiet, but he hardly stopped talking all day yesterday. He talked to our guide all the way up the mountain, and to one of the trackers all the way down the mountain. Then at the Park headquarters we met a vet who treats the gorillas and we could hardly tear Benedict away from him.”
Angel was surprised. “What was he talking about?” “You’ll have to ask him,” said Sophie. “They were speaking Swahili.”
“And did you see any gorillas?” asked Pius.
“Oh, many,” answered Omar. “How many did we count, Efra?”
“Eleven,” Efra said through her nose. “But we’re not sure, because we might have counted the same one twice. It’s hard to tell them apart, but the guide knows all their names.” “Eh! They have names?”
“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.”
“That was a very bad day for me,” said Amina. “I was young, a few years younger than Safiya is now. Nobody told me what was going to happen. Nobody prepared me. Suddenly I was called in from playing outside and my mother held me down on the ground and a woman I didn’t know cut me with a razor-blade. Eh, I cannot describe that pain to you! And the shock!” Amina covered her face with both hands for a few seconds before continuing. “When my daughter was born, I promised myself that I would never, never let that happen to her.”
“I understand,” said Angel. “But how is it that Dr Rejoice and Odile are here? I didn’t know that you knew one another.”
“Don’t think for one minute that Amina is the only woman who has ever done this,” said Dr Rejoice. “In Kenya there are many women who are refusing. I helped a few of them there, including a few from Sudan.”
“Yes,” said Amina, “and by chance I met one of those women in the market some months back. I could see that she was Sudanese and we talked and became friends. She’s the one who told me about Dr Rejoice, and then the doctor introduced me to Odile. Okay, they’re not from our culture, but I knew that Vincenzo could never object to a doctor and a nurse performing the cutting. I decided we must do it this weekend, because Ramadan will start sometime next week, and when it’s over, who knows where new contracts will take us in the new year? It wouldn’t be easy for me to find such friends to help me in a new place.”
“Yes, it wouldn’t have been easy,” agreed Dr Rejoice, “but you would have found them, my dear. We’re supporting one another more and more. It’s like we understand now that we’re much stronger when we stand together, especially in places where we’re being beaten down.”
“Yes, like bread,” offered Odile, and everyone looked at her, not understanding what she meant. “I mean like the ingredients for bread,” she whispered. “I’ve watched the women making bread at the centre. The ingredients do nothing on their own, but when they’re all together, they stick together and rise. They get beaten down and they rise again.”
“Exactly,” whispered Dr Rejoice. “But, Angel, you’re not looking happy.”
“Well, I’m just trying to think if anything bad can come from this in the future—because it’s always wise to think ahead to the consequences of our actions. Of course, none of us will ever tell …” everyone murmured agreement, “… but there is one person who is sure to find out.”
“Are you thinking about the husband I’ll marry, Mama-Grace?”
“Yes, Safiya, I am.”
“I’m not going to marry a man who wants a wife who has been cut. I’m going to marry a man who is modern.”
“Yes,” agreed Amina. “If we were living in Kismaayo, where I was born, or even in Mogadishu, where I grew up and was cut, then it would be difficult. But we spend a lot of time in Italy, and we live wherever Vincenzo works. There’ll be many opportunities for Safiya to meet a man who is modern.”
“And maybe,” suggested Dr Rejoice, “by the time Safiya is ready to marry, all men will be modern, and we’ll no longer need to pretend to obey them.”
They all laughed at that idea, covering their mouths with their hands so as not to make a noise.
“But, my dears, it is time for us to begin,” said Dr Rejoice. “Let us be serious now.”
“Have you all finished your sodas? Okay, Safiya, lay the empty bottles back on the tray and slide it back under the bed. I’ll take them from there tomorrow when Babas at work.”
Remaining in her chair, Dr Rejoice reached into her bag and removed a rolled-up white doctor’s coat. As she slid her arms through the sleeves, Odile reached into the bag for two pairs of surgical gloves. She and the doctor put them on. Then Odile handed Dr Rejoice a swab and a syringe needle in sterile packaging.
“Come and sit here on my knee, my dear,” Dr Rejoice said to Safiya. “Good girl. Now, I’m going to prick your finger, because Baba must see your blood. It will hurt a little bit, but I want you to cry out as if it’s hurting a lot. Do you understand?”
Safiya nodded.
“Scream nicely for Baba,” instructed Amina. As Dr Rejoice jabbed the needle into the girl’s finger and immediately withdrew it, Safiya let out a wail so convincing that Angel had to stifle a maternal urge to hold her and comfort her.
“Good girl,” Dr Rejoice encouraged, squeezing a few drops of blood from Safiya’s finger on to the swab. “Okay, now the other hand. Odile, see to that finger, please.”
With another swab, Odile wiped Safiya’s pricked finger with surgical spirit and then pressed hard on the tiny wound with the swab to stem the bleeding. Dr Rejoice was ready to prick a finger on Safiya’s other hand.
“Scream nicely for Baba again,” coached Amina. “He’ll be so happy when he hears it.”
Safiya’s second scream was louder and even more sustained than the first.
“Now some crying please, my dear,” instructed Dr Rejoice as she squeezed more blood on to her swab. “Okay, Odile, over to you.”
Odile took care of the second finger exactly as she had done the first.
“Right, it’s done,” said Dr Rejoice with a smile. “Now you can tell people that your daughter has been circumcised.” Dr Rejoice made quotation marks in the air with her fingers, in the same way that Omar had done. “When you do that with your fingers, they’ll think that you mean that circumcised is not the right word for what happened to your daughter because female genital mutilation is nothing like the circumcision of a boy. But really your fingers will mean that it did not happen. But they won’t know that.”
“Eh, that is a very clever trick!” exclaimed Angel, grateful to have an honest way to tell Pius about this—should he ask—without breaking the vow that she had sworn on the Holy Bible. “I must remember that in the future.” She stood up as the others did the same. “But, Amina, are you sure that you and Safiya will be able to hide the truth from Vincenzo?”
“Vincenzo has asked us not to tell him the truth,” explained Amina, doing her best to look innocent. “Vincenzo himself made us swear that we will tell nobody what happened here. If we tell him, then we’ll be breaking the oath that we swore on the Holy Qur’an.”
The women giggled softly, and Safiya, who had been wailing plaintively, found it difficult to continue.
“Right,” said Dr Rejoice. “Odile and I will go out first. Safiya, when we sit to drink our coffee, you need to pretend that it’s a bit painful. Okay, everyone?”
Everyone nodded and then Dr Rejoice unlocked the door. She left Safiya’s bedroom and headed towards the kitchen, where Vincenzo was sitting on the counter.
“Vincenzo, my dear, do you have a spare plastic bag?” she asked, making sure that he noticed the bloodied swab and the syringe needle that she carried. “I forgot to bring one.”
Vincenzo produced a used plastic bag that had been folded away in the cupboard for use as a bin-liner later on. He held the bag as Dr Rejoice dropped in the swab and needle, then peeled off her surgical gloves and put them in, too. Then Odile placed her own bloodied swab in the bag, making sure that Vincenzo saw it, and peeled off her gloves.
“Everything went smoothly,” Dr Rejoice assured him with a smile. “Your daughter is very brave. Thank you, Vincenzo, I’ll take this bag and dispose of it properly at the clinic.”
Vincenzo went into the living room and hugged his daughter and then his wife. “I’m so very happy today,” he beamed. “Come, sit,” he said to everyone. “Coffee is ready.”
“May the doctor and I use your bathroom to wash our hands?” asked Odile.
“Of course, of course, it is there, next to the kitchen.”
He rushed back into the kitchen while Amina carried the cake over to the coffee table. Dr Rejoice and Odile came back from the bathroom and sat down just as Vincenzo came back with a tray filled with steaming cups of coffee, some small plates and a knife.
“This cake looks so beautiful,” he said. “It’s almost a pity to cut it.”
“But it must be cut, Baba,” said Safiya, smiling sweetly at her father as she perched right on the edge of her chair trying to look uncomfortable. “That is what a cake is for.”
The women did not dare to look at one another.
“You’re right,” declared Vincenzo, leaning over and kissing Safiya on her forehead. “Amina, would you like to cut it?”
“No, no, Vincenzo.” Amina busied herself with the coffee so that she did not have to look at her husband. “You cut it. I think the rest of us have already finished with cutting.”
Throwing back his head, Vincenzo let out a loud laugh. With relief, the women joined in. “That’s very good, Amina,” he said. “Okay, I’ll cut for everyone.”
“Yes, let’s see this special surprise that Angel has put in the cake for us, between the layers,” said Dr Rejoice.
With a dramatic gesture, Vincenzo plunged the knife into the cake and pushed it down all the way through to the board. Then he moved the knife a few centimetres and did the same again. As he slid the blade of the knife under the slice, everybody watched in silent anticipation. He drew the slice sideways out from the cake. Between the two layers was a thick layer of bright green icing. Then it was deep red. Then green again. Then red.
Vincenzo placed the slice on a plate and tipped it on to its side so that everyone could see the squares of red alternating with green that filled the space between the layers.
“Eh, Angel,” said Amina, “that is very clever. How did you do it?”
“Do you think I’m going to tell anybody my secrets?” demanded Angel.
“It’s beautiful,” said Odile. “Everybody has heard of decorating the outside of a cake, but I’ve never seen something like this inside a cake.”
“No,” said Dr Rejoice, “when you look at the outside, this is not what you expect to find inside. It’s a nice surprise, isn’t it, ladies?”
“It’s really nothing,” said Angel, although she was very happy to be complimented.
In truth, she had been so confused about her feelings about what the cake was for that she had felt the need to apply the principle of Ken Akimoto’s yin-yang symbol to the idea. Recalling the red and green yin-yang cake that she had made for Ken, she had mixed up some red and green icing—which were in any case the colours that she was going to use to make the roses and leaves for the top of the cake. But she had recognised two things: first, that she could not put a yin-yang symbol inside Amina’s cake, because some people would get slices with green in the middle and others would get slices with red in the middle, which would have been difficult for her to explain; and second, that her feelings about the issue were too complicated to separate into yin and yang. So, starting with a red dot in the middle of the lower layer, she had piped concentric circles of green alternating with red. As she piped each green circle she had tried to think of positive things, such as the loyalty that she felt towards her friend Amina, and the importance of preserving cultural traditions. And with each red circle she had allowed herself to fret about things such as the oppression of women and the pain that Safiya was going to suffer. She had found the concentric design more interesting than the yin-yang symbol—and also more confusing, because each new red circle was bigger than any of the circles that it enclosed and could therefore outweigh all the green circles inside it. She had been relieved—though not totally comforted—that the last circle to fit on the cake had been a green one.
“This coffee is from Italy,” Vincenzo boasted as he handed a cup to Angel. “The finest coffee in the world.”
Angel added some milk and a large amount of sugar. “I’m sure it’s very fine coffee,” she said, “but I know without tasting it that it’s not the finest in the world. That is the coffee that comes from my home town of Bukoba, on the shores of Lake Victoria.”
As they drank their coffee and ate their cake, the conversation flowed freely and the mood was light. Every now and then a sharp look from Amina reminded Safiya to look uncomfortable on her chair. When Safiya and Amina started to talk about the coming Ramadan and Dr Rejoice got trapped in a conversation with Vincenzo about road-building, Angel took the opportunity to speak to Odile.
“I want to thank you, Odile,” she said quietly. “You’ve been very kind and slow with me, helping me to be ready to see what was already clear to you about my daughter.” Odile acknowledged her words with a quick nod of her head and a sympathetic smile. Angel continued, keeping her voice low. “But this is not the time for that particular conversation. People are saying that you have a boyfriend, Odile.”
“Eh!” Odile looked down, embarrassed. “Are people really talking about me?”
“You know this country better than I do, Odile. Pius says that gossip is the national sport.”
Odile smiled and shrugged. “He’s right, Angel, and I think we could probably win a gold medal at the Olympics. But, yes, I’ve been seeing your friend Dieudonné.”
“I’m very happy to hear that. I knew that you two would like each other.”
“Eh, I was a bit angry when you planned for us to meet at Terra Nova. But now I forgive you!”
“Good.”
“Oh, I meant to tell you. Your friend Jeanne d’Arc came last week to have the confirmation dress altered. I did as you asked, Angel. I explained to her that the sewing classes were for sex workers, to help them to earn a living in a safer way.” “Was she interested?”
“She seemed to be. She had her two sisters and a little boy with her, but she said she would come back again another time. Eh, that little boy is a darling! Have you met him?”
“No.”
“He’s very small; he looks only about six years old. But he must be older, because he was already walking when Jeanne d’Arc found him.”
“What’s his name?”
“They call him Muto; it means ‘small.’ When they found him, he didn’t know his given name.”
“Is he okay? I mean, I think he’s small from not getting enough food.”
“Physically he’s fine, and there seems to be no damage mentally. In fact, Dieudonné thinks he’s a bright child.” “Dieudonné has met him?”
“Yes, he came to eat lunch with me at our restaurant when Jeanne d’Arc was there. We looked after Muto while Jeanne d’Arc and her sisters were sorting out the alterations.”
Hope shot through Angel’s body like the pain of treading on a sharp stone with bare feet: it was sudden and intense, but it faded rapidly.
She must not allow herself to hope for too much.