Maryse Conde - The Story of the Cannibal Woman

But to get back to the subject, any murderer acts for a motive. What motive did Bishupal have for attacking Stephen? What fool kills the goose with the golden egg?

The Inspector’s mask cracked completely and the fraternal face hidden underneath emerged. Nevertheless, he didn’t mince his words.

“Your husband had a liaison with Mr. Limbu for over two years. It would seem he did not keep his word, especially about settling in England. Hence the constant quarreling. My theory is that one evening in February one of these quarrels, particularly violent, ended the way we know.”

I’m sorry, Inspector, some people call imagination the mother of invention.

“I’m not inventing anything,” he went on gravely. “Everything I’m telling you has been verified. I must admit we haven’t found the murder weapon, despite our searches at Mr. Limbu’s. He lived in a studio apartment in Green Point. You remember that telephone call to your husband at seventeen past midnight?”

Rosélie, crushed, didn’t remember a thing.

“We interrogated the neighbors,” Lewis Sithole continued. “They knew your husband, he was a regular visitor, and they can testify to the almost daily quarrels that disturbed their peace. Plus the music, plus the drugs.”

Drugs? And what else? It was Stephen who cured me of my marijuana habit. He advocated its liberalization, but he hadn’t smoked a single joint for eighteen years.

“A few weeks before your husband’s death,” the Inspector continued, “the tenants sent a petition to Kroeger and Co., the proprietors of the building. They demanded Mr. Limbu’s departure. They won their claim and in May Mr. Limbu was evicted. He took refuge in Mitchell Plains with the mother of his new friend, Mr. Kronje.”

His new friend? Nobody in fact seemed to mourn Stephen very long! Me! Bishupal!

The Inspector shook his head.

“Bishupal Limbu and Archie Kronje were in a relationship about a year before Mr. Stewart died. They met playing football, their favorite pastime. They immediately became inseparable and Archie moved into Green Point. Apparently, your husband took it very badly. The couple’s quarrels became a three-sided slugfest.”

Who are we talking about? The man I lived with for twenty years, whom I thought my savior, whom I always admired and respected? The man in whom I had complete trust? Stephen mixed up with two boys, crudely fighting over possession of one of them!

“It’s a tragic case of jealousy, the details of which are not yet clear,” Lewis Sithole concluded.

A sordid affair, that’s what it is!

At that moment, loaded with their loot, Laurel and Hardy came out of the study. The Inspector stood up and, in a tone that was meant to be reassuring, asserted:

“I believe Mr. Limbu will soon confess. He’s a very sensitive individual. Not like that little thug Kronje, whom we’ve arrested several times for burglary and drug dealing but have had to release each time for lack of evidence.”

Oh yes! Bishupal was considered by one and all to be an exceptional individual!

“Believe me,” Inspector Lewis Sithole said, “he won’t be able to keep it secret for long. Then this nightmare will be over for you.”

Over? It’s only just beginning. All my memories, all my convictions have been shaken to the core as if by a hurricane. The peasant emerges from his hut, miraculously intact, and no longer recognizes his surroundings. He walks among a field of ruins. Here, there were trees, guava, lychee, and hog plum. There, banana groves. Now everything is torn up and gone. The earth lies belly-up. The roots slither like snakes.

Despite appearances, my life resembles Rose’s. All women’s lives are alike: victimized, humiliated, or, failing that, abandoned. Simply, unlike Elie and so many others, Stephen had done it with elegance.

The coward does it with a kiss

The brave man with a sword.

Dido appeared among the bougainvillea, carefully balancing a cup filled with a steaming liquid.

“Drink!” she ordered. “This will make you feel better. It’s an herb tea made with shoots from an Egyptian fig tree and Madagascar violet petals.”

She would have done better to drink her potion herself, she seemed so exhausted, red-eyed and swollen eyelids. Rosélie obeyed feeling the welcoming warmth of the brew spread throughout her numb body. Dido sat down opposite her and stammered:

“Are you angry with me?”

About what? I’m simply angry with myself, for being a coward.

Dido began to cry.

“You seemed to put so much trust in him.”

Yes, I was trusting, happy, in my own way! Some people assert that happiness is never anything but an illusion. So why be angry with Stephen? He gave me that illusion for twenty years.

Stroking Dido’s hand, which lay on her knee, Rosélie gave the order:

“Let’s not talk about it anymore.”

For the moment, grief and revolt were boiling inside her. The time had not yet come when she would be able to reexamine her life impassively, like rereading a book whose pages you have turned over too quickly and failed to understand. Like listening to music again that contains a leitmotif you hadn’t heard the first time. When would this salvation begin to dawn? All she could see in front of her was a quagmire of pain to be crossed.

“I think I’m going to leave,” she murmured. “Nothing’s keeping me here any longer.”

She had made up her mind at that very moment while she was talking. What was the point in fact of staying in Cape Town, playing the vestal virgin in a desecrated temple? Her position was not only improper but ridiculous.

To go home!

After the infinity of the ocean the plane flies over the mangrove, bristling with white birds, the cattle egrets. The crowd of unruly passengers jump to their feet before the plane has come to a complete standstill, despite instructions from the flight attendants. I have never seen the new airport of glass and concrete designed to handle the increasing number of planes. That’s progress for you. Unfortunately, the island has recently been given over to all sorts of violence. They are holding up the Ecomax supermarkets. The backpacker tourists are at a loss as to where to buy their packets of cooked ham. They are fleeing this paradise, so different from what they were promised. Where are the madras headscarves and ties of the crowds who used to wave farewell to the ocean steamships? Where are the doudous with their shiny hair? Masked men carrying sawed-off shotguns have replaced them. As a result, the airline companies are folding their wings. The hotels are shutting up shop.

Aunt Léna is waiting for me at the airport. She looks more and more like Queen Mary, to the extent that a mulatto woman from Guadeloupe, a sort of Indian half-caste, can look like English nobility. Her hair, always carefully waved around the ears, is white, completely white. What’s more, she no longer drives. She sold Papa Doudou’s Citroën DS 19 ages ago. She’s an old lady now, a dowager. She has called on the services of a great-nephew in charge of communications with a big company in Jarry who “returned home” last year and got lucky finding a job on an island with 35 percent unemployed. He has a mustard-colored Twingo, absolutely horrible, like all French cars; apparently it’s easier to park. He’s looking at me as if I landed from Mars. You can read what he’s thinking: I don’t believe it! That’s her?

Once again Dido burst into tears.

“If you leave, if you leave me, I’ll be all alone.”

“Come now,” Rosélie attempted to joke, “you’ll have Paul as a consolation.”

Dido cried even harder.

“Paul! Didn’t you hear he’s just moved in with Gabriella?”

Gabriella was a cousin of hers, a widow as well, mother of three. She too was taller than Paul and had wide hips. But her smile and hazel eyes had kept the demureness of her younger years. Her voice was gentle and she spoke with her eyes lowered. In short, she was the complete opposite of Dido. Her sisters had warned her: women should never wear the pants.