Maryse Conde - Who Slashed Celanire's Throat? - A Fantastical Tale

Ana had gotten her used to such food, and now she had a natural liking for these spicy dishes and their rough, barbaric taste.

6

In the end Bingerville recovered in next to no time from the death of Charlotte. Too many major events followed the tragedy, one after the other. On the French side, Karamanlis finally managed to commit suicide, by drowning. The Father Templar died from a heart attack. Their beloved Father Rascasse left for the colony of Oubangui-Chari. No sooner had it been built than it was announced that Bingerville was going to lose its rank as capital of the colony to Abidjan-Santey. What had been the point of so much trouble and effort? For the Africans, their concerns were all too clear: corvée and taxes had been increased, and then there was the news that Tanella, Mawourou’s murderer, had been acquitted by the court in Dakar and was returning to the Ivory Coast. Acquitted! The jury had decided she had acted in self-defense. No doubt about it, the white man’s world was walking on its head! In short, it wasn’t long before everyone had something else to think about. In the markets, the gin bars, the factories, the trading houses, and the offices, in the residential districts as well as the poto-poto neighborhoods, conversation turned to other things.

One morning, a messenger brought Hakim another letter from Celanire. She apologized for harping on the subject. What must he think of her? But she had learned — nothing was a secret in Bingerville — that he had fallen out with Betti Bouah. Under the circumstances, wouldn’t he like to reconsider her offer, to which, in fact, he had never replied? Sadly enough, Celanire was speaking the truth. Betti Bouah and Hakim could no longer bear the sight of each other. Betti Bouah realized that Hakim was a very different person from what he had imagined. When it was a question of badmouthing the French, Hakim was only too ready. But when it came to working as hard as they did, he was nowhere to be seen. He had demanded a five-day workweek, plus weekends off as was the custom in England and the colonies of the Crown. He insisted on being paid a commission on his sales. And that he was entitled to two days off for the feast of Tabaski, since he had declared himself Muslim. Naturally, Betti Bouah had not given in to any of his demands, and Hakim had sent him a stinging letter, calling him an exploiter. Betti Bouah had got a laugh out of that. Exploiter! Here was a new word! Apparently the traditional chiefs were just as much exploiters as the whites. Ever since, the two men had ignored each other and limited any contact to the business of palm oil. No more hot chocolate at four in the afternoon, no more discussions on “pacification,” no more exchange of books. Hakim thought of writing a letter, this time a letter of resignation. What held him back was that once his pride had been satisfied by this act of bravado, there would be nothing or nobody to help him fill his belly. The mission would no longer want him as Mr. Philosophizer. So he would have to return to Soudan, and in order not to starve to death, he would have to live off his grandfather or one of his uncles on his mother’s side.

He therefore plucked up his courage. To accept Celanire’s offer was the last thing he wanted, but it was the only thing preventing him from descending into destitution.

With his mind made up, he set off for the Home one Sunday. Mass had just finished. The pupils, in freshly starched white uniforms edged in green, were filing out of the chapel, chaperoned by their monitors, now rid of their nurses’ garb and dressed in identical wrappers with identical motifs, for apparently Celanire liked her surroundings to be symmetrical. Hakim took the arm she offered him. What a chatterbox! She never stopped for one minute. Without waiting to get her breath back, she told him how she had trained a choir to sing the Beatus Vir and the Nulla in Mundo Pax Sincera by Vivaldi, her favorite composer. The choir had been invited to Grand-Bassam in a month’s time for the inception of the new bishop. Considering her four pupils, one of whom was a girl, had passed the native certificate for elementary studies and were preparing to become grade-five office clerks, she had every reason to be proud. Hakim remained silent. In Bingerville gossip had begun to circulate openly about the true nature of the Home. Some of the nurses whispered that once the children had been put to bed, they were paired off with those nice, gentle white officers and soldiers who gave them all sorts of presents and caresses. No comparison with those rough, lascivious Africans. Never an unkind word, a clout, or a thrashing! The first French words they learned therefore, were “cherí” or “mon amour.”

Celanire and Hakim entered a drawing room furnished in exquisite taste. There she whirled around to show off her costume. For she was dressed in a fashion he had never seen before. A full gown of rich, dark red silk was gathered at the waist over a white lace petticoat with three flounces. Her neck was encased in a collaret of frilled lawn similar to the ruffs portrayed in old engravings. Her hair was frizzed out, rolled into coquette bobs over her ears. She swamped him with explanations in her self-satisfaction. This Guadeloupean costume was called a matador gown. She had given it a personal touch by adding the collaret and leaving out the madras head tie. The traditional jewelry was also missing — the gold-bead choker and the earrings. Suddenly she stopped her hollow talk, and her face took on an expression of reproach. He had put off accepting her offer, and now Betti Bouah had let him down. Didn’t he realize that once the Africans had hoisted themselves up level with the whites, they would prove to be even more wicked? Envious, that’s what they were, only set on taking their masters’ place. Colonization would be followed by worse events, and the name neocolonialism would be invented to describe them. Hakim said his mea culpa. He now wanted to turn the page and start working for her as quickly as possible. What would she like him to do? At that moment he bravely turned to face her.

Celanire stared at him like a cat about to devour a mouse or a python about to swallow its prey, before uncoiling itself to digest it in voluptuous pleasure. She stretched out her arm and stroked his neck, winding a lock of his hair around one of her fingers. Hakim stammered out the terms of her letter as a reminder. She had promised him: no love, no sex. She laughed, revealing her white teeth and blue-black gums. And he had believed her? Only a fool would trust the words of a woman, especially if she were in love! She edged closer to him and whispered in his ear. She knew of his preferences, his desire for Kwame Aniedo. Nothing shocking about that. Everyone does what he likes with his body. She herself swung both ways, as the popular saying goes. But let her show him how she could get him to like other things than boys. Thereupon she grabbed his shirt and unbuttoned it. It was this offhand manner, this way of hers of treating him like a sex object, that infuriated Hakim. He shoved her away brutally and hammered her breasts. They rolled over on the floor. As agile as an eel, she climbed on top of him and pressed her mouth against his. Disgusted, he felt sucked in by this dank cavern. He reversed the situation, nailed her under him, and in his rage, grabbed her by the neck as if he wanted to strangle her. His fingers got caught in her collaret, ripped it off, and threw it away. She uttered a shriek and clasped her hands to her throat while her eyes dimmed, like a dampened firebrand. He remained speechless, stunned by what he had uncovered.

A monstrous scar.

A purplish, rubberlike tourniquet, thick as a roll of flesh, repoussé, stitched and pockmarked, wound around her neck. It was as if her neck had been slashed on both sides, then patched up and the flesh pulled together by force, oozing lumps all the way around.