Baking Cakes in Kigali

5

DESCENDING THE STEPS that led down to the Chinese shop on Rue Karisimbi in central Kigali, Dr Rejoice Lilimani successfully deflected both a woman intent on selling her some baskets hand-woven from banana-fibre and a man who was urging her to buy one of his small stone carvings of mountain gorillas. She was on the point of entering the shop’s busy and shadowy interior, crammed with shelves of kitchen and household goods, when somebody called her name.
She turned and looked back up towards the road from which the steps descended. Crowds of Saturday-morning shoppers weaved their way past the cars that were parked on the unsurfaced verge, while behind them packed minibus-taxis raced along the road in the direction of the post office, on their way to the central minibus station on Rue Mont Kabuye.
Seeing no one who was paying her the slightest bit of attention—apart from the man with the stone gorillas, who was beginning to descend the steps towards her in the belief that she had changed her mind about making a purchase—the doctor turned and entered the shop.
She heard her name again: “Dr Rejoice!”
She stepped out of the shop and looked up the steps again, and as she did so the man with the stone gorillas paused in his descent and looked back down at her hopefully.
“Who is calling Dr Rejoice?” she asked, a look of puzzlement furrowing her brow.
“It’s me,” said a voice. “Here I am.”
The doctor became aware of a movement to her left, where scores of brightly-coloured plastic goods—enormous bowls, basins, dustbins and wash-baskets—lined the landing at the bottom of the steps outside the doorway into the shop. Above a purple dustbin a hand waved a piece of white tissue. Dr Rejoice took a step forward and peered around the dustbin into the patch of shade in which Angel sat on a tiny wooden stool.
“My dear! Hello! What are you doing sitting there?”
“Hello, Dr Rejoice.” Angel smiled as she dabbed at her face with the tissue that had attracted the doctor’s attention. “You didn’t see me!”
“How was I to guess that you were sitting behind a purple plastic dustbin?” laughed Dr Rejoice. “Are you okay, my dear?”
“Oh, I’m fine, really. I was inside the shop when I began to feel hot like someone had thrown a blanket over my head, so I had to come outside. They brought me a stool to sit here in the shade till I feel better.”
“Then let me ask them to bring a stool for me, too. I’ll sit with you a few minutes.” Dr Rejoice went into the shop, returning moments later with a man carrying a plastic chair. He put it down next to Angel.
“Murakoze cyane!” Dr Rejoice thanked him in Kinyarwanda as she sat down. Then she addressed Angel. “Now tell me, my dear. Are you simply flashing, or are you ill?”
“Oh, I’m fine, really, Dr Rejoice. I’m just flashing. But I’m happy to see you, because I want to thank you. You sent me a new customer.”
“Oh, yes, and you made a delicious cake for her! I was at the party for her brother Emmanuel.”
“Odile is such a nice girl,” said Angel. “I’m very happy that I met her because she’s going to teach my girls about the virus.”
“She’ll do an excellent job,” Dr Rejoice assured her.
“She’s encouraged me to learn about it, too,” said Angel. “I’ll go and spend some time at that place where she works, and I’ll speak to the people who go there. My son would have been like them, Dr Rejoice. He was positive, but then he got shot. I never warned him about it when he was a child. I didn’t even know about it then. None of us did. It was only later, as others around us began to get sick and die, that we learned what it was and what to call it. So when Joseph brought his children to us in Dar from their home in Mwanza, and he told us that AIDS had come to his house, then I knew that we were going to lose him. It sliced through my heart like a machete, Dr Rejoice. I felt somehow that I had failed him as a mother because I hadn’t warned him.”
“Eh, my dear!”
“Now my heart will stop beating if I fail my grandchildren, too. As a grandmother, it’s my job to be wise. But how can I be wise if I don’t educate myself about this disease that’s infecting people in every country on our continent?”
“You are very wise to think that way, my dear. Next time you’re at the clinic I’ll give you some information to take home to read.”
“Thank you, Dr Rejoice. You know, I’m not even going to wait for next time when one of the children is sick. I’ll come to the clinic to fetch that information on Monday.”
“I’ll leave it with the nurse at reception in case I’m busy when you come. You know how crazy it is there! I hope we can get another doctor soon; it’s too much to expect just one doctor to treat all the students and all the staff and all their dependents. Now, what did you come here to buy, my dear? I’ve come for an extra blanket because some members of my family are coming to visit from Nairobi. I don’t want you to go inside and feel again like someone has thrown a blanket over your head. Would you like me to shop for you?”
Angel laughed. “Thank you, Dr Rejoice, but I’m fine now, really. I’ll come in with you. I need to buy another mixing bowl for my cakes, because my orders are increasing.” Angel looked at her watch and started to get up from the tiny stool, using the arm of Dr Rejoice’s plastic chair for leverage. “My husband has gone to the market for our weekly groceries. He always manages to get a better price than I do. He says I’m unable to concentrate only on the price of the sweet potatoes that I want because I look at the seller and I think about the work that she has done to clear the land and to plant the seeds and to harvest the sweet potatoes, and I know that she has children to feed. My husband says that as soon as you look at the seller, the seller is going to get more from you. He says that you must ignore the seller and see only what she is selling.”
“Your husband sounds like an economist,” said Dr Rejoice with a smile. “Are you sure he doesn’t work for the World Bank?”
Angel laughed. “Eh! If he worked there he wouldn’t need to negotiate a fair price; he’d have money to waste. But let’s go in now. I must be waiting for him outside the German butchery when he’s finished at the market.”
IN the afternoon, Angel looked forward to some peace and solitude. Titi had already taken the boys to play with their friends who lived down the road, and the girls were busy dressing up for Zahara’s birthday party. Pius had gone to his office to send some emails, but he would be back shortly to take the girls—and Zahara’s aeroplane cake—to the party. From there he would go straight to a colleague’s house to watch soccer on TV.
Angel had borrowed a Nigerian video from the wife of one of Pius’s colleagues. Such videos were generally unsuitable for children, and she had been warned that this one was particularly full of witchcraft, adultery, betrayal and vengeance. An afternoon alone in the apartment with a good film was exactly what she needed.
“Are you ready, girls?” she called. “Baba will be here very soon and you know he doesn’t like to wait.”
The girls came out of the bedroom looking so pretty in their party dresses that tears began to prick the back of Angel’s eyes. Grace was tall, with long thin arms and legs that seemed to have little more than bone in them. Her skinny neck seemed barely able to support her head, yet she was fit and strong. Neat cornrows controlled her long hair, ending today in pale blue ribbons that matched her blue and white dress. Angel noticed that there was an even greater distance between the hem of her dress and the lace tops of her white socks than the last time she had worn the outfit. Was this child ever going to stop growing?
Though just a year younger, Faith was a good deal shorter and much rounder. She liked to keep her hair short, and this could make her cheeks appear rather chubby. While Grace looked like a girl on the verge of blossoming into a beautiful young woman, Faith still looked very much like a child. Her lilac and pink party dress stretched tight across her belly.
Physically, the two girls could never be mistaken for sisters. But even though they had barely known each other until they had suddenly found themselves part of the same household a year ago, they had become closer friends than many sisters that Angel knew. In fact, all five children got on well with one another—which was rather a relief, as it would have been very awkward if there had been problems between the two sets of siblings. Benedict was a bit of a worry, though: he was still struggling to find his niche in his new family. He was closer in age to the girls than he was to the younger two boys, and while he found much of his brothers’ play somewhat childish, he did not share his sisters’ interests either. This made him a rather lonely child, and Angel suspected that his frequent bouts of illness were at least in part a way of calling some attention to himself. Not that he pretended to be ill (Angel was sure of this, and Dr Rejoice always took his symptoms seriously), but perhaps he was simply more susceptible to germs because he did not feel emotionally strong.
“I wish Safiya could come with us to Zahara’s party,” said Faith. “I wish she could see Zahara’s lovely cake.”
“She’ll see the photo of the cake in Mama’s photo album later on,” said Grace. “And maybe Mama-Zahara will take photos at the party. Safiya can see those, too.”
“And maybe Safiya is right now taking photos of Kibuye to show you,” suggested Angel, who was herself looking forward to seeing photos of the town on the eastern shore of Lake Kivu: perhaps the lake was less beautiful there than it was at Cyangugu. It was a popular place to go for weekends—as Safiya and her family had done this weekend—only about two hours’ drive almost directly west from Kigali. On very good roads, Vincenzo had said.
Pius arrived back from his office, bringing with him Dr Binaisa, who had escaped from home to the campus, as the busyness and excitement of party preparations had made it difficult for him to concentrate on his students’ essays. Pius had found him there a few hours later, and it made sense to bring him to the apartment to collect the cake and then to deliver him to his own home along with the girls.
When he saw the cake waiting on Angel’s work table, Dr Binaisa let out a low whistle. Appearing to float above the deep blue sky with white clouds that decorated the cake-board was a magnificent grey aeroplane with wings and tail fins. A pale blue window across the front indicated the cockpit, while both sides of the fuselage were lined with oval passenger-windows in the same pale blue. Across the centre of each wing ran a diagonal band bearing narrow stripes of black, yellow and red—the colours of the Ugandan flag—and on either side of the vertical tail fin, written with the red Gateau Graffito pen, were the words Air Zahara. Two rows of candles, five in each row, fanned out from behind the tail within a stream of white icing smoke.
“When you light the candles it will look like the plane’s engines are firing,” explained Angel.
For a moment—but only for a moment—Dr Binaisa was lost for words.
“This is a very fine cake, Mama-Grace,” he managed. “A very fine cake indeed. You know, the day after I placed the order for this cake I began to feel uncomfortable about the price. I told myself it was a lot of money to pay for a cake for a child who is only ten. A girl. I didn’t discuss the price with my wife, of course, because financial matters are not a woman’s concern. And I didn’t want to ask anyone else what they thought about the price, because I didn’t want to appear foolish for having agreed to such a high price. But now that I’m looking at the cake, I’m thinking that Mama-Grace has surely charged me too little for all this work.”
“If just one person comes to me to order a cake because they like this one that Dr Binaisa ordered for his child, then I will not think that I charged too little,” replied Angel.
“I’ll make sure that many come to you, Mama-Grace,” assured Dr Binaisa.
“I’m glad you’re happy, Baba-Zahara. I think this is a cake that will be talked about for many weeks.”
“No, Mama-Grace, you are wrong. It is a cake that will be talked about for many months. But I’m worried that Zahara will love it too much. She won’t want to cut it and eat it.”
Angel laughed. “Baba-Zahara must tell her that it’s a chocolate cake. Eating it will be the best part.”
A few minutes later, after she had seen the cake safely into the red microbus and waved goodbye to everyone, Angel put the Nigerian video into the video machine and settled into a chair with her feet up on the coffee table. She was about to press play on the VCR’s remote control when somebody knocked on the door.
“Karibu!” she called, taking her feet off the table.
But nobody came in. Instead, they knocked again.
“Karibu!” she repeated, more loudly this time. But the person on the other side of the door was either deaf or unable to understand plain Swahili. Angel pushed herself up out of the chair and went to open the door. She was hoping that it would be just a passing beggar or someone intent on trying to sell her something—although it would be unusual for such a person to get past Modeste and Gaspard. Perhaps it was one of those Congolese men who were always trying to sell wooden masks and statues to the Wazungu in the compound. The Egyptian bought things from them quite often, so perhaps Modeste had let one of them in to go up to his apartment; but Angel had never encouraged them herself, so there was really no reason for one of them to be knocking on her door, disturbing her quiet Saturday afternoon. In any case, she hoped it was somebody who was going to go away quickly.
She opened the door to find a woman standing there, someone with whom she had exchanged greetings often, but who had never before knocked on her door.
“Hello, Angel,” said Jenna, the CIA’s wife. “I hope I’m not disturbing you. I saw you saying goodbye to your family outside, so I thought you’d be alone and that it might be a good time to call.”
“You’re not disturbing me,” lied Angel. “You’re welcome, Jenna. Please come in.” She led her guest to the sofa and indicated that she should sit down.
“Thank you,” said Jenna, perching on the edge of the sofa and clasping her hands together in her lap.
Angel looked at her guest. She was an attractive young woman with short dark hair and big green eyes. Her smart cream-coloured trousers and long-sleeved white blouse indicated that this woman knew how to dress respectfully in a country where women were modest. Her only piece of jewellery was a delicate gold cross that hung from a thin chain around her neck.
“These apartments all look the same,” she said to Angel, her eyes darting around the room. “We all have the same furniture and the same curtains.”
“Yes,” agreed Angel. “Sometimes when I’m with Amina, after a while I find myself thinking that it’s time for her to leave so that I can go into the kitchen and start baking. But then I realise that it’s me who must leave because we’re in Amina’s apartment, not mine.”
Jenna laughed. “I’ve made that same mistake myself. Sitting on the couch at Ken’s or Linda’s I could just as well be sitting on the couch in my own apartment.”
Angel experienced a sudden feeling of discomfort at the mention of Linda, whom Bosco had seen kissing Jenna’s husband. She must change the subject at once. “I’m happy that you can feel at home in my apartment!” she declared, smiling warmly. “Let me make some tea for us to drink.”
“Oh, no, Angel, I don’t want to disturb you for very long. I only came to order a cake.”
“But ordering a cake is something that takes time and care,” countered Angel. “It’s not a matter to rush. And when you’re bringing me business, then you’re not disturbing me at all. Here, let me give you my photo album to look at while I make tea. You can see pictures here of other cakes that I’ve made.”
“Thank you. But do you have coffee instead? We’re not big on tea in the States.”
“No problem. My husband prefers coffee sometimes. I’ll make you some coffee that comes from my home town of Bukoba, on the western shore of Lake Victoria. It’s very good.”
When Angel returned to the living room with a mug of coffee, another of sweet and spicy tea, and a plate of cupcakes, Jenna pointed to a few of the photos in the album. “I’ve seen these cakes,” she said. “I’ve eaten them, too. At Ken’s place.”
“Ken is one of my best customers,” said Angel. “I’ve almost lost count of the number of cakes I’ve made for his dinner parties. Do you want to order a cake for a dinner party of your own?”
“Oh, no, I’m not a good cook. I couldn’t possibly give a dinner party. If Rob wants to invite people, then we take them out for dinner. No, I’m actually here to order a cake on behalf of the American community.”
“Eh, that’s an important job, to speak on behalf of the American community.”
Jenna laughed. “Yes, I suppose it is important. I hadn’t thought of it like that!”
“And why does the American community want a cake?”
“It’s for our Independence Day celebrations. We want a big cake decorated to look like the American flag.”
“Eh, that’s a good flag!” declared Angel. “It has red and blue and white, and there are stripes and stars. It’s not boring like the Japanese flag. Did you see that photo? I made that cake for Ken.”
Jenna found the right page in Angel’s photo album. “Oh, I was wondering about that cake. It looked different than all the others. Now I see it’s the Japanese flag. This one here is nice, though.”
Angel looked at the photo that Jenna was indicating. “That’s the flag of South Africa. It’s a very fine flag; it has six colours. Six! That cake was for someone who works at King Faycal. There used to be many South Africans working at that hospital, but most of them have left now. They say there was some embezzling or something like that. You know, one thing I enjoy about Kigali is that you can meet people from all over the world here.”
“Yes, it’s possible to meet people from all over the world here,” agreed Jenna. Then she hesitated for a few moments before adding, “But it’s not like that for everyone.”
Angel was confused. “What do you mean?”
“Well, I’m sure people from everywhere come and order cakes from you, and your husband probably has colleagues from everywhere, and I guess anyone who has a job here is able to meet people from everywhere. But I don’t have a job.”
“What kind of job are you looking for?”
Jenna gave a small, strained laugh. “Oh, I can’t take a job. Rob doesn’t like me to leave the compound without him. It’s not safe.”
Angel had been about to swallow a large sip of tea. She fought the shocked urge to spray the tea out of her mouth and, swallowing it badly, she began to cough. Jenna tutted with concern. Eventually Angel managed to calm the coughing with a few small sips of tea, but by then her face had grown very hot and her glasses needed a polish.
“Are you okay, Angel? Shall I bring you some water?”
“I’m fine, really.” Angel dabbed at her face with a tissue before rubbing her glasses with the edge of her kanga. “It’s only that I was surprised when you said it’s not safe here. Personally, I’ve found it very safe.”
“Well, Rob has told me not to go out without him,” shrugged Jenna.
“And when you go out with your husband, where is it that you go? How is it that you’re not meeting people from everywhere in those places that you go?”
“Oh, we go to the American Club every Friday night. That’s when all the people from the States get together. Others are welcome, of course, but usually there are just a handful of people from other places—England or Canada, mostly. And often we go for dinner or parties at the homes of other Americans, or we take them out for a meal. And of course there are Ken’s parties here in the compound.”
“And what is it that keeps you busy when you’re not out with your husband?” asked Angel.
“Oh, I read a lot,” replied Jenna. “My family sends me books and magazines from home. And I have a laptop, so I spend hours emailing friends and family back home. And I’m on the committee of wives who organise social events for the American community. We meet in my apartment over coffee every two weeks.”
“You know, Jenna, I’ve always found that tea and cake make a meeting run more smoothly, and I’m sure that for Americans coffee and cake can work just as well. You can order a plate of cupcakes like these from me any time. I can even make the cupcakes taste of coffee, or I can make the icing taste of coffee.”
Jenna laughed. “I’ll remember that, Angel.”
Angel continued to rub gently at her glasses with the edge of her kanga. They were not yet clean. “Tell me, Jenna, do you like to stay in your apartment so much? Do you never wish that you could just go out by yourself?”
Jenna breathed in deeply and gave a long sigh. “Sometimes. Sometimes I feel like I’m going to go mad with boredom. Sometimes I wonder what on earth I’m doing here. But I knew when I married Rob that his work would take him all over the world. We talked about it, and he made it clear that he wanted me to travel with him, he didn’t want a wife who was going to insist on staying at home in the States. He told me it wouldn’t be easy for me. He was married twice before, you see, he’s quite a bit older than me, so he knows about life and about the world, and he knows what to expect. But I’m just a small-town girl. I lived at home with my mom and dad the whole time I went to college, and then I married Rob, and this is the first time I’ve ever been out of the States. So he did warn me it wouldn’t be easy. I can’t complain. And he would never let me do anything that would put me in any danger, because he really loves me. So if he says it’s not safe for me to go out, then I have to respect that. He … he knows a lot of stuff.”
Angel thought that it was only to be expected that the CIA knew a lot of stuff, because knowing a lot of stuff was the CIA’s job. But she also thought that he might be making up a lot of stuff to make his wife believe that it was not safe to leave the compound. That way he could be certain that she was never going to be in the car park of the Umubano Hotel when he was there kissing Linda.
“Okay,” said Angel, “let’s imagine just for a moment that your husband didn’t bring you here to Kigali. Instead, you went with him to another place, any other place, and he said that place was safe and you could get a job there. What job would you look for?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Jenna thought for a while. “At college I got a degree in modern languages: French and Spanish. But I married Rob as soon as I graduated, so I’ve never worked—except for teaching kids at Sunday School.”
“So maybe you’d like to teach languages at a school?” suggested Angel.
“Oh, no, I don’t think so. I know this’ll sound crazy, but to be honest, I don’t like kids much. Before we got married, Rob told me that having kids just wasn’t going to work for him … in his line of work … I mean, with all the travelling … and that was a relief to me, because I don’t want kids myself. But I think I could be a good teacher to adults. I thought of offering to teach French to some of the American wives here, but Rob said it wasn’t a good idea. He said if I became their teacher, then I couldn’t be their friend. He said they’d have all kinds of expectations of me as a teacher that I might not be able to meet because I’ve never taught before, and then they’d feel awkward around me and it would make things difficult for me socially. He said his second wife tried something like that and it ended in disaster for her. He said he doesn’t want me to make the same mistake.”
Still not sure that her glasses were properly clean, Angel continued to worry at them with the corner of her kanga. “And what is it that you say, Jenna?” she asked with a smile. “You’ve told me many things that your husband has said, but he’s not the one who’s sitting here with me this afternoon. You told me that you’re here on behalf of the American community, but you didn’t tell me that you’re here on behalf of your husband.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Well, imagine that I was sitting here telling you that my husband says what-what-what, my husband thinks what-what-what, my husband knows what-what-what. Then you’re sitting there telling me your husband’s what-what-what. Then our husbands may as well be sitting here talking together instead of us. Really, we would just be mouths to speak our husbands’ words.”
Jenna looked surprised and did not speak for a while. Then she said, “I guess I do spend a lot of time repeating what Rob says. I never noticed that before.”
Angel put her glasses back on. “That’s why I’m asking you about Jenna, because it’s Jenna who is visiting me now, not her husband. What is it that Jenna says? What is it that is in Jenna’s mind? What is it that is in Jenna’s heart?”
Jenna opened her mouth to speak but no words came out. Her eyes began to well with tears and to become as red as Prosper’s after too much Primus. Angel was alarmed: making a customer cry could surely not be a good thing; she must try to fix her mistake at once.
“Eh, Jenna, I didn’t mean to upset you, I’m very sorry. Let me make you another cup of coffee and we can talk about other things. You can tell me all about the independence party that the American community will have.”
Jenna dabbed at her eyes with a tissue that she had retrieved from the pocket of her smart cream trousers. “I’m sorry, Angel. It’s not your fault that I’m crying, really it’s not. It’s … well, it’s Rob. You asked me what’s in my mind and my heart, and … and I know I talk about him all the time, but … but …” She sniffed loudly and then blew her nose. Then she took a deep breath. “Angel, I suspect … I suspect that my husband …”
Jenna did not finish her sentence, but Angel could have finished it for her: I suspect that my husband is having an affair. This was a suspicion that needed some very sweet tea. “Jenna, I am going to let you sit here and calm down while I make tea for both of us. I know that you prefer coffee, but really, when someone is upset it is only tea that can help. When someone is unhappy, tea is like a mother’s embrace.”
Angel went into the kitchen and set about boiling some milk, leaving Jenna on the sofa to blow her nose and to take deep breaths. She was visibly calmer when Angel returned with their mugs of tea.
Jenna took a sip. “Hey, this is good. Spicy.”
“It’s how we make our tea back home.”
A short silence followed, during which Jenna savoured the tea and prepared herself to speak, and Angel nibbled at a cupcake and prepared herself to register surprise at what Jenna was about to reveal.
“Can I speak to you in confidence, Angel?”
“Jenna, you are my customer and I am a professional somebody. I do not spread my customers’ stories. Tell me what is in your heart.”
“Thanks, Angel. It’s a real relief to have someone to talk to about this. I don’t even know if what I suspect is true or if I’m just imagining it, and I know that if I voiced my suspicion to anyone in the American community, the news would spread like wildfire. God knows what would happen …”
Angel thought of the gun that Bosco was sure Rob had. “It’s always wise to confide in the right person,” she said.
“Yes.”
“So what is it that you suspect, Jenna?” Angel put down her mug of tea so that she would not spill any when she pretended to be surprised.
Jenna sighed heavily. “I suspect that my husband has been hiding something from me, Angel. I think he’s been lying to me about where he’s been and what he’s been doing. And you know, he always told me that he left both his previous wives because he caught them having affairs, but now I’m sure they were the ones who left him. I bet they both found out for sure what I suspect now.”
Angel wanted the surprise to come, and to be over. A pain was beginning to knock quietly on the door of her head, asking to be let in. She wanted her tea. “And what is it that you suspect?”
“Do you swear not to tell anyone?”
“I swear.”
“Oh God, Angel, I suspect … I suspect that my husband is working for the CIA.”
Angel did not need to pretend. Surprise shot through her body like a bolt of lightning, causing her to jump in her chair and knock the coffee table with her knees so that tea slopped out of both mugs and the cupcakes shook violently on their plate. “Eh!” she cried, getting up and rushing into the kitchen for a cloth, and “Eh!” again as she mopped up the spilt tea. Then she sat down again and took a big swallow of tea before she could look Jenna squarely in the face. “The CIA?”
“Yeah. I know it sounds crazy, and I keep trying to convince myself that I must be wrong, but I’ve overheard bits of phone calls and I’ve seen Rob locking documents in his briefcase, and I’ve often felt one hundred per cent sure that he’s lying to me when I’ve asked him where he’s been. His colleagues have let slip at socials that he’s been one place when he’s told me that he’s been another place. Like he’s had meetings at night that he told me were with a particular colleague, but then I hear from that colleague’s wife that she and her husband were at someone’s house for dinner that night. And Rob won’t ever discuss his work with me, he won’t ever tell me about his day. He’s so secretive.”
Was it really possible that Jenna only suspected what everybody else knew? Was the woman really so naive that she did not think that all these signs could be telling her that her husband was having an affair? Angel took her glasses off and looked at them. Did they really need cleaning? She put them back on again. This was a very awkward situation indeed.
“Eh, Jenna, I don’t know what to say.”
“Yeah, it’s a shock, isn’t it?”
“Eh, I am truly shocked.” Angel reached for another cupcake and slowly peeled away its paper casing. She thought carefully before she spoke. “You know, when I was at school in Bukoba, I had a teacher who told us that when you see smoke you can always be sure that it is coming from a fire.”
“You mean there’s no smoke without fire?”
“That’s what our teacher told us. But, you know, it wasn’t the truth. When I grew up, I found that there is something called dry ice. Do you know it?”
“Sure. It keeps ice-cream cold out of the fridge.”
“Do you know that when you put water on dry ice it makes smoke?” Jenna nodded. “So it’s possible to see smoke and to think that there is a fire, but really the smoke is from dry ice that has got wet.”
Jenna thought for a moment. “Are you saying that I might have jumped to the wrong conclusion about Rob?”
Was Angel saying that? No. Rob did work for the CIA; everybody knew it. That was not a wrong conclusion. But at the same time, Jenna had not reached the right conclusion, the conclusion that her husband was having an affair.
“Really, Jenna, I’m not sure what I’m saying. What you have said to me has come as a shock, and it has certainly confused me.” Angel took a bite of cupcake and chewed and swallowed it without even tasting it. “Maybe what I’m saying is simply that you must think very carefully about what you’ve seen and heard, and what it might mean.”
“I’ve done nothing but think about it for weeks. It’s not like I have much else to do with my time.”
“It must be very difficult. But I see from the cross around your neck that you’re a Christian. Perhaps if you pray for guidance at church tomorrow …”
“Oh, I don’t go to church here. Rob isn’t a churchgoer and he says it’s not safe for me to go without him. And if it’s true that he’s with the CIA, he must surely know how unsafe Kigali really is. That’s why he doesn’t let me do what other husbands let their wives do. The other husbands don’t know what he knows.”
Really, this was becoming too complicated. The pain was inside Angel’s head now, walking around in heavy boots. It was time to move away from all of this and head back towards the safer business of ordering the cake.
“You know, Jenna, I cannot give you God’s guidance, but I can give you my own—and I think that’s why you’ve spoken to me about this. Number one, you need to find out the truth about your husband. Number two, you need to decide what to do with the truth that you find. Those are both things that are between you and your husband. But there is also a number three, and I think I can help you with number three. Number three, you must find a way to keep yourself busy at home to stop this thing eating at your mind like a plague of locusts. You have said that you want to teach adults, and your husband has said that you cannot go out of the compound and you cannot teach the American wives. To me, the answer is clear: you must teach Rwandan women, and you must teach them at home in your apartment.”
Jenna looked at Angel with big eyes. In the silence that followed, Angel finished her tea and swallowed the last bite of her cupcake. When she had finished, Jenna was still looking at her.
“What on earth would I teach them?”
“How to read.”
“I don’t know how to teach that.”
“But you know how to read yourself. It’s a skill, just like making a cake. I can teach somebody how to make a cake, even though nobody has taught me how to teach somebody how to make a cake. And you can look on the internet for advice on what to do. I’ve heard that that is a place where you can find any information on any topic.”
“But where would I get my students from?”
“I’ll find them for you,” answered Angel. “Leocadie at the shop can read very little, mostly numbers for prices. And Eugenia, who works for the Egyptian, struggles to read. That’s two students already. I won’t have to go far to find a small class for you, maybe just four or five. They’ll all be women that I know, not strangers. You’ll tell me when you’re ready to start teaching, and I’ll bring the students to you.”
“I … I don’t think Rob would like it …”
“How will he even know that there’s something for him to like or not? You can teach for maybe an hour or so each day when he’s at work. He won’t even know.”
“But if I don’t tell him what I’m doing, that would be dishonest …”
“Jenna, do you really believe that honesty is so important to your husband?”
Angel watched Jenna as she looked distressed and reached for her tea. She took a sip and swallowed it. Then she looked at Angel, and a smile began to play on her lips, stretching wider and wider until she was laughing out loud. Angel laughed with her. Even she had to admit that she had had a very good idea indeed.
“Angel, you’re a genius!”
“Eh, thank you, Jenna. I’m not a genius, but I am very, very good at making cakes. So let’s discuss the independence cake that brought you to me this afternoon.”
AFTER Jenna had gone and Angel had cleared the tea things off the coffee table, she removed the Nigerian video from the VCR and hid it away on top of the wardrobe in her bedroom where the children could not find it and watch it by mistake; there would be no time for her to watch it now before her family started arriving home. And before they all came in with their clatter and their noise and their stories of the afternoon, she must climb the stairs to the top floor of the building and get a tablet from Sophie to take away the pain that had now moved into her head with its boxes and was beginning to hammer nails into the walls for its pictures.
But Sophie and Catherine were both out and nobody answered her knock. Ken had helped her out with Tylenol before, but on a Saturday afternoon he was sure to be playing tennis at the Umubano Hotel. One flight down from Sophie and Catherine’s apartment was Linda’s, but Angel was not going to knock on Linda’s door because who knew what might be going on behind it? What if she saw Jenna’s husband in there with Linda? That would be very awkward. Across the landing from Linda’s flat was Jenna’s. Well, it was Jenna who had invited the pain into her head, so perhaps Jenna owed her a painkiller. She knocked on the door.
The CIA opened it.
Angel opened her mouth but no sound came out. “Oh, hi, Angel. You okay?”
She cleared her throat and told herself to behave normally. “Hello, Rob, I’m sorry to disturb you, I was just wondering if you could give me something for my headache. Sophie usually helps me, but she’s out.”
“Sure, come on in. Jenna’s just been telling me about visiting you this afternoon. I hope she didn’t give you the headache!”
“No, no,” assured Angel, walking into the apartment past Rob and seeing a slightly anxious-looking Jenna. “Actually, I think it was your flag that gave me the headache. We had to count all the stripes and all the stars in the picture in the children’s atlas to be sure that I don’t make a mistake with the cake. Do you know how difficult it is to count stripes? Your eyes tell you one number, meanwhile your head tells you a different number.”
Rob laughed. “Well, I think we owe you a painkiller. Honey, go and see what we’ve got in the bathroom. Angel, sit down, take a load off.”
“No, thank you, Rob, I can’t stay. The children will be home very soon.”
“Hey, you know your cakes are really great. We’ve had them at Ken’s.”
“Thank you, I’m glad you like them. Ken is one of my very best customers.”
Angel noticed that Rob’s hair was damp and he smelled of soap. Kigali was not a hot place like Dar es Salaam, where you sweated a lot and had to shower in the afternoon; the altitude here was too high for that. Of course, Angel sweated a lot herself occasionally—but Rob was definitely not having to deal with the same problem. She did not want to think about why he might have needed to shower at the end of a Saturday afternoon that he had not spent with his wife.
Jenna came back from the bathroom rattling a small plastic container of pills. “There are only a few left in here, so you may as well take the lot with you. Then you’ll have something to take next time you get a headache. We’ve got plenty more.”
“Oh no, Jenna, thank you, but Pius and I don’t keep tablets at home. It’s too dangerous … for the children. You know how children can think a tablet is a sweet. Just give me one to take now.”
“You’re very wise,” said Jenna. “Tell you what, I’ll keep these pills here for you and you can come and get one any time you need to. I’m here every day.”
“Thank you very much. I’ll remember that. Thank you, Rob, I’m sorry I disturbed you.”
“Hakuna matata, as you people say. No problem.” Rob put his arm around Angel’s shoulder as he led her to the door. The intimate gesture surprised and shocked her. She barely knew this man; how could he insult his wife by embracing another woman while his wife was standing there watching? Okay, he was an American; Oprah was an American, and Oprah embraced people all the time on her show. But surely in his CIA training he had learned what was acceptable behaviour in other countries and cultures? He was so close to Angel that she could smell the dampness in his hair. The intimacy made her feel as though a fat snake was slithering slowly over her bare feet and she had to remain absolutely still even though her instinct was to scream and run. With nowhere else to go, panic and revulsion gathered in her stomach, mixed like bicarbonate of soda and water, and threatened to bubble all the way up her throat, bringing with them sweet tea and cupcakes. She had to fight this man, even if only in a small way.
Breaking away from his encircling arm, she said, “Oh, I almost forgot. Rob, I know that you’re not a churchgoer yourself, but my family would very much like to invite Jenna to worship with us one Sunday. Just up the road here at Saint Michael, near the American Embassy. It’s a very safe area, and a beautiful service, in English. I was wondering, would it be okay for her to join us one Sunday morning to celebrate our Lord God?”
Rob looked reluctant. Angel persevered.
“Of course, I’m probably asking too much of you. I’m sure that you work very hard during the week, and at weekends you simply want to spend time with your wife. I’m sure you wouldn’t like to be without her for some two hours on a Sunday morning, left alone and looking for some way to fill that time.”
Rob’s face lit up as if he had just had a very good idea. “I’m sure I could manage, Angel. Of course Jenna can join you any time she wants. You’d like that, wouldn’t you, honey?”
“I’d love it,” said Jenna. “Thank you, Angel. Thank you.”
As she went down the stairs, Angel carried with her the uncomfortable knowledge that she both deserved and did not deserve Jenna’s thanks.