Maryse Conde: The Story of the Cannibal Woman

Rosélie thought she saw Stephen slip between the deep red chintz drapes. In the past, leaning against the piano, he would hum along in his nice, melodious voice. The Indian waiters knew all about the crime that had made headlines in every paper, even the very serious Manchester and Guardian , more geared to political analysis than brief news items. They never approached her, however, to present their condolences. Despite their reserve, something in their silence testified to their compassion.

One afternoon she was pouring herself a second cup of tea when a white man greeted her. Tall, with a slight paunch, a shock of black hair, gray eyes, and tanned cheeks. In answer to his polite request, she nodded that he could join her.

“My name is Manuel Desprez, but everyone calls me Manolo because I play the guitar. You don’t recognize me, do you? I used to teach at the university with Stephen. We got on very well together. He told me so much about you I have the feeling I know you. What’s more, I have spent several evenings at your place.”

In Cape Town, like in N’Dossou and New York, Stephen would organize such lively and successful dinner parties, they never ended before dawn. Ever since an Australian, a Keats specialist, took her for the maid, Rosélie no longer attended them.

“You’re making a lot of fuss about nothing,” Stephen shrugged it off. “David is so absentminded he wouldn’t recognize his own mother if she was standing in front of him.”

She was by no means convinced and locked herself in her studio. Quite a few students came to these parties. Stephen assured her it was both a reward for the best in the department and a sure way of breaking the ice between professors and students, in other words between whites and blacks. When masters and disciples get drunk together, it’s something they never forget. Rosélie bumped into these young things, awkward and embarrassed, as they came out of the toilet, and quickly withdrew so as not to embarrass them even more.

Manuel Desprez was still talking.

“I’ve been away in France on a sabbatical and when I got back at the beginning of the week I heard what had happened. I was about to come and see you.”

She closed up. He was probably going to spout some commonplace remark, bemoan the absurdity of the crime, and find fault with the local police. It was true, in fact, that despite Inspector Lewis Sithole’s constant visits and the notes he kept jotting down, Stephen’s murderers seemed to have disappeared into thin air. But instead of uttering the predictable, his question was direct, even brutal:

“Aren’t you going to return home?”

Home? If only I knew where home was.

Chance had it I was born in Guadeloupe. But nobody in my family is interested in me. Apart from that, I have lived in France. A man took me to Africa, then left me. Another took me to the United States, then brought me back to Africa, and he too left me stranded, this time in Cape Town. Oh, I forgot I’ve also lived in Japan. That makes for a fine charade, doesn’t it? No, my only country was Stephen. I shall stay wherever he is.

Despite the insistence of his half brothers — his mother had passed away some months earlier — Rosélie had refused to take his body back to the family vault in Verberie. Stephen, who loathed Europe, would have certainly preferred to remain in the country he had chosen.

“South Africa is such a tough place,” Manuel insisted.

The whole world is a tough place. They take potshots at you on the sidewalks of Manhattan as well as in London’s Chelsea. You’re not safe in the deadly Twin Towers, symbol of American capitalism. Almost three thousand dead, killed in a single morning. They rape old ladies in the east of Paris. They tell me that even my little Guadeloupe is keeping up with the times.

“I’m not talking just about violence.”

About what, then? Racism? Let’s talk about racism. I could write volumes on the subject. If racism is more deadly than AIDs, it is also more widespread, more commonplace than flu in winter.

I’ve always dreamed of writing a book on racism. “Racism Explained to the Deaf and Hard of Hearing.”

He became confused and changed the subject.

“They tell me you’re a painter.”

Rosélie stammered out a yes. This type of question always embarrassed her. As if she had been asked to put on a swimsuit, despite her cellulite, and pace up and down the stage of the Miss Guadeloupe contest. Manuel called a waiter, ordered a single malt, then went on to explain:

“My sister has a gallery on the rue du Bac in Paris. If I can help you in any way, I shall only be too pleased.”

The tone was sincere. The things he must have heard at the university! Doris, the coloured secretary, entertained her audience with her hissing voice:

“They’re not married, you know.”

I was the one who refused. He proposed regularly. Without any real desire, in my opinion. Like a broker offering comprehensive car insurance.

“If something happens you’ll be covered.”

It’s true that if I had listened to him I wouldn’t be where I am today! Worrying about how to make ends meet.

“So of course she’s not entitled to a pension,” Doris hissed excitedly. “Since she can’t do anything except paint ghastly pictures that nobody would want in their house, she’s bought a crystal ball and calls herself a medium.”

Split between hysterical laughter and commiseration, the circle of teachers gasped:

“No, you must be joking!”

The more generous-hearted proposed collecting donations. The idea didn’t meet with general approval: giving money or a check, it’s humiliating. The gesture might hurt her.

Before Stephen, few people had taken Rosélie’s ambitions seriously. Elie would throw a fit whenever he saw her wasting her time messing about with paint instead of revising her math or science for the baccalaureate. If she couldn’t be a lawyer, he’d like her to be an economist. No Guadeloupean can boast of a daughter as economist at the World Bank. As for Rose, who was never short of compliments, she whined for an explanation:

“What does that represent, darling? Is it a person, a tree, or an animal?”

Those members of the family who had visited the Louvre museum in Paris once or twice shook with hysterical laughter. She thinks she’s that painter who was fascinated by Tahiti and also spent time in Martinique. What was his name?

In the eyes of Salama Salama, Rosélie’s penchant for painting was incomprehensible and exasperated him. Stephen’s behavior was radically different. She hadn’t been with him for three months before he began to take charge of her affairs, as he did with everything else. She lacked technique because painting is like singing, cabinet making, or masonry: it’s not something you make up, it is governed by rules. So he got her admitted to the National School of Beaux Arts, the latest gift from France to N’Dossou, a place of extreme material poverty but spiritually very rich. The two are not incompatible. On the contrary. The Antillean proverb is mistaken when it claims: Sak vid pa kienn doubout . In other words, those who have an empty belly are only preoccupied with filling it. Not at all, they are devoted to the creation of Beauty and Spirituality. A French government minister had inaugurated the school in great pomp a few months earlier. The director was a friend. Stephen had no trouble whatsoever.

N’Dossou’s entire population is no bigger than a district of Manhattan. Moreover, the entire country numbers fewer than a million inhabitants. The dense forest and fevers have got the better of it. The rumor quickly spread through the residential areas and suburbs that Rosélie had no business being where she was.