Scent of the rains First chapter of a novel by Khadi Fall

Copyright notice

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...My desire to express myself in Sotho was so strong that every time I picked up a pen to fix any idea or any memory in writing, I felt I had to do it in Sotho, the language of my childhood, the language of my adolescence. It was the only tongue in which my mother and I had ever communicated, first when we lived in South Africa and after that in Ghana and later in Guinea. Yet even then I had a lot of trouble writing in Sotho; my failing memory often refused to reconstruct in the words and speech of Sotho certain long-ago images which seemed to be part daydream. I had not yet figured out for instance, an equivalent in Sotho of certain words which first offered themselves up to me in Wolof and whose meaning I then tried to figure out in European languages such as English, French, or German. However, it had been nearly twenty years since I had spoken Wolof, a language which I had not studied as a written subject in the way that I had studied the written language of Sotho. It was in effect regrettable that I was not able to learn in the school of my host country the rules of writing in the principal language spoken there. I thus decided to put everything into French with the risk, in that way also, of being unable to express in the language of Voltaire all the situations and images that haunted me, in particular the atmosphere that I had experienced in all the countries of Africa.

...All this had started three years before. It was one evening at the Dakar-Yoff airport where I had gone to meet my son Aziz who was returning from a trip to Cameroun.

It was 11:40 pm. A light drizzle persisted, yet even had it kept up all night it would not have been able to quench the earth's deep thirst. Any other time it wouldn't have bothered me. In fact, it would have been quite pleasant to feel the raindrops on my skin, provided that I were safe at home, lying quietly on a chaise lounge on my balcony or strolling calmly in the inner courtyard of my house, sheltered from prying eyes. It was on that day I realized just how pleasant it was to be at home, especially at night!

...It was more than an hour since the plane was supposed to land. Surely it must have been delayed leaving Douala. It can't have been a high-jacking; that kind of thing is almost never a problem with this airline.

Had there been an accident? I began to wonder. Such a possibility could not be ruled out; but in such case,we would very soon know about it, or so I tried to reassure myself.

Why entertain such gloomy thoughts? This wasn't the first time Aziz was travelling by plane! Why was it happening on this evening in particular, when I had never wanted so badly and never waited so intently for his return?...Perhaps I should try to get some information from the young customs officer pacing up and down just on the other side of the barrier. But how could I catch his attention? He wasn't looking my way...It would be better to cross to the Air Afrique counter on the other side of the concourse. There the hostess would surely be able to tell me how long I would have to wait for the Boeing flying the Brazzaville-Dakar route, stopping off in Douala, Lagos, Abidjan...as long as the delay wouldn't be more than two hours! Otherwise, I'd be out of my mind. I had only myself to blame for getting into such a situation. Was I never going to change?! Otherwise, how could I have come to the airport without first even checking to be sure I had enough money with me? When was I ever going to have the serenity and composure of a person of my age? And still I worried that I didn't have enough fuel in my car's petrol tank. Obviously with that damn low fuel red light not working these past few days it was difficult to estimate how much petrol I had left. Can you imagine? It waited till I had almost reached the airport to run out of gas: just what I needed! Fortunately for me, the jalopy got me to the petrol station in Ascena. And this stupid young man wouldn't listen to a word; all that and he called himself a "modern pumper". What an idiot! My items of identification weren't enough to convince him that I was trustworthy! What more could he have wanted?

- With a little luck, you will just get to the airport parking lot. But once you get there, I seriously doubt you will be able to start the engine again without a few more drops of juice.

What a fool!

Really! I had no one but myself to blame after all since he and his friend, straining every muscle, helped me to get my car out of the petrol station. It would be better to understand why he didn't trust me. Once I started out thinking about this lack of trust, I began to feel ill. Badu wouldn't be back from his business trip for two weeks. This was part of the reason I was so anxious to meet Aziz. At least Aziz trusted me; more so than his father. Aziz continued to confide in me and I could always speak freely with him without needing to watch my words. Yet he had grown somewhat taciturn of late, ever since he came asking me to tell him about Bintu, his real mother. Before that I was his real mother. At least, I wanted to believe it so since I had taken care of him since his birth, soon after Bintu passed away. I told him how affected I had been by his mother's death, even how I had felt a little responsible for it. What possessed me to say such things that day? Why had I run the risk of setting Aziz against me? As if it weren't enough having his sister Woré as my adversary --fortunately, she didn't live with us. In spite of all this I felt a little relieved to have made this confession to Aziz. He reassured me. Contrary to all my worries, Aziz hadn't seemed the least bit put off. It was with the calmest air that he urged me to banish this thought from my head. He added that he had heard this absurd idea somewhere before. He thought it was at one of his maternal aunts'. I knew that his sister Woré thought exactly like that aunt as she never missed an opportunity to make allusions in certain conversations in my presence. I had to content myself with turning a deaf ear to avoid friction with her in front of Aziz. As for Badu, he had slipped off indifferently. First he had tried to ignore the subject and then just withdrew to his office. When she saw that nobody was ready to listen to her, Woré went back to her aunt's house, her mother's cousin who had taken care of her after Bintu's death. For Aziz all this was ridiculous; I shouldn't feel guilty anymore. And he had continued calling me Yaay, or simply Anita. Yet a week after our conversation he called me "aunt", just as his sister and girlfriend Bandel did. I felt a certain distance that he wanted to put between us. That made me sad. Aziz understood this and immediately came to give me a kiss and whispered:

If I call you Anita, Tembi, Aunt or Yaay, that doesn't change anything in the way I feel for you, since you are my mother. Aren't you, Anita?

Both of us smiled and then hugged. Since then Aziz calls me nothing but "Yaay", but he has become less effusive than before. Ever since my friends Jaaretus and Absa had, as one says, turned on me, Aziz had become in a way my only comfort, particularly during his father's frequent absences. As for Bersi, my closest friend, her ex-mother-in-law had good reason for confirming that she should be quite self-sufficient from here on in. It seemed that it was God that she was searching for and apparently she had found Him. Since then she had divided her time between her husband's secretarial work and saying her rosary; she gave the impression of no longer being available to anyone. Not even for her own children who, fortunately, from that time on, could get by without her. My own son, Abdul Karim Nelson, had left for summer camp. Far away for practically the whole school year, shut up in boarding school at Saint Louis and then finally, when his vacation comes, his father sends him even further away; this time to Morocco for four weeks. His father found him a little cissy. I was to blame he said. He didn't want to make him into another Aziz, always on the verge of tears, which wouldn't do for an adolescent youth of his age: whereas I liked him very much just as he was. He was just sensitive and quite humane. If this was too feminine for a man I think all men would profit by being like this, if only to get along better with women and live in greater harmony with their environment. Nelson on the other hand, or rather I should say Abdul Karim Nelson (his father insists on calling him by all three names, no doubt to please his uncle, Abdul Karim), was, according to my idea, a little too harsh for a boy of fourteen. Not a single letter for the two weeks since he left. He no doubt thought that I would manage to get some news of him. And that remark he made to me the last time I phoned him:

- You don't have to phone all the time. You shouldn't interfere all the time.

It wasn't easy to understand what was going on. Shunned by everyone, or nearly everyone, that is; that's what I was thinking that evening at the airport.

No one ever trusted me. Obviously you could say that there was my clientele, but that's not the same thing. What's more, they were becoming increasingly rare; more and more often one had to take work without pay in order not to forget the art of arguing a legal case. What's more trust improves when it's mutual. What was most difficult for me at that moment was that I had no shoulder on which, without any ulterior motive, I could rest my head, eyes closed, spirit relieved.

I had the feeling that my shoulders were large enough for supporting several heads at the same time provided they wanted to involve me. On the other hand, the shoulders of my husband were becoming less and less available even at those times when he was here. That's not to say that he acted with indifference. Quite the opposite, he returned from his trips and covered me with more gifts than ever. Yet eight months ago he brought me a wonderful string of pearls from Rabat and I tried, as I often did on such occasions, to express my gratitude. I was surprised by his lack of responsiveness: he who had never before turned down my seductions. On the contrary, that day Badu retreated quite shamelessly from those charms of mine which before had always been unfailing. Before asking him anything, I first asked myself some questions. For some time I had been thinking that I was in part responsible for his uneasiness. I then thought that I should spend less time on my legal dossiers which monopolized my time at home and instead decide to put more effort into our relationship. To do this I started to throw myself into my exercise regime so as to maintain my figure, at least as much as the joints so stressed by the blight of ageing would allow. And along with that I pushed myself always to look beautiful, always to act gracefully. I found time to prepare and serve Badu his favourite dishes. I concocted new dishes that were even more original and savoury to excite his palate and mine as well. At the same time I employed all sorts of tricks: eccentric beeco and gongo, incense from Mali enhanced with fine ilang-ilang flowers, beads of jal-jalli. I tried everything but without success: Badu remained sadly inert. After many such vain attempts to reignite the flame of yesteryear, I ended up admitting to myself the unsettling reality that shouldn't have resulted in such qualms. Exactly like Jaaretu's last husband, Badu had less and less mastery of his virility, or more precisely, rather that he wasn't able to master his virility at all. At the beginning of this affair, Badu, who ordinarily possessed a quite jovial and cordial temperament, could hardly contain his anxiety. A sort of morbid sense of modesty which I would never have suspected in him made his increasingly frequent sexual lapses seem like a shameful disease; one which prevented him from broaching candidly the subject which preoccupied him as much as it did me. All my attempts at making him drop his reserve were unsuccessful. I had no better luck when I adopted a cheerful, detached tone in persuading him that there was no reason to get panicky. So I invited him, in the most loving and reassuring manner, to visit a traditional healer who would be as effective as she would be discreet. I had in fact succeeded in obtaining a few addresses of traditional sexologists from my friends by convincing them that this was for some distraught clients who had come and revealed their cases to me. It would certainly not occur to those of the feminine persuasion that this man, Badu Siis, who at one time was called the "playboy", could one day sink to seeking out this type of practitioner. What Badu didn't tell me and what I ended up hearing from his colleagues and friends, was that for some months before he had been paying out a considerable sum to sexologists, both traditional and modern, without evidence of any notable improvement. On the contrary, the little warning signs which at the beginning were passed off to fatigue began to increase, lasting for days and then entire weeks. Badu talked with me about everything except this. He even became superstitious: to speak with a woman about a problem such as this would be the equivalent of knowingly casting a hex on oneself. He was persuaded that what had happened to him now was only temporary: a passing phase; a condition threatened by the awesome power of the spoken word to settle on him for all eternity. And to ward off the hex, Badu had intoned, all the while pulling on his ears with his fingers:

God protect me from this! God protect me from this!

After a short silence he repeated:

It would be better if we avoided speaking of this problem between you and me Tembi, because "lammin tooke la! Lammin tooke la! lammin tooke la!"

I wanted to know if this virulence was due to the feminine word. And this was enough to really annoy Badu who then decided not to answer me. Not only then, but also later, he refused to respond each time he thought to have discerned in my remarks any word, even in an allusive way, that might cause him to be reminded of his condition: a condition which in his eyes was worse than a person with a truly physical handicap. Badu was gradually tortured by this powerful obsession. His work suffered. I tried, in his presence, to take care with my words, to banish from my speech anything that could arouse in him those nagging regrets. It was a situation as trying for him as it was for me, but I didn't want him to regard me as the enemy that I was not and never wished to become. How do you make the person whom you have chosen understand that you would still like to live the rest of your life with him, even if he is unable to live up to the sexual promises made in days of yore? That you don't need to create stress for yourself in adjusting to a new situation created by new and uncontrollable circumstances? Wasn't it sad to observe how much male pride blinded Badu and prevented him from seeing that apart from the phallus there were other sources of satisfaction and more real reasons to be proud?

...I was caught completely unawares at the airport by that "modern pump attendant" who refused to trust me and who told me that he had received orders from his manger. Don't trust anyone, his manager had told him and especially not people all decked out who come offering their identity cards... You could say we were entering an era in which one called into question the old adage that "clothes make the man". The brightly-coloured "grand babou" in batik with its chic patterns from the Jaari Boutique, the triangle of silk also in batik that I threw over my shoulder, my malachite jewellery set in gold and silver, all that had, in the end, only aroused distrust in the "modern pump attendant". What a story! And in to what state of lassitude and doubt did I find I myself suddenly plunged! All things considered, the "modern pump attendant" and his manager were not altogether wrong in being distrustful. No one could ever really claim without risk of being mistaken, that I was Anita Tembi Mkwanazi, wife of Siis. I had no idea and still have no idea of what happens to others, but for me I often found myself in situations in which I asked myself if I really was the person I claimed to be. I felt odd, as if I were a stranger to myself. This kind of feeling had bubbled up for the first time when I was living in Johannesburg, but it had become more acute in the days following my mother's burial in Conakry...

When I thought back on the route I had driven from home to the airport, I had only God to thank that I hadn't run out of gas in the stretch between the casino and the airport. Otherwise, what kind of story that would have turned out to be! All alone on that dimly lit road, thumbing a ride from some kindly motorist. It would be better not to think of such things! Anyone kind enough to stop wouldn't have believed a word of my story anyway: "I ran out of gas and have no money on me because I forgot my wallet when I changed handbags".

My age and the way I was dressed that night would have led more than one motorist to question my true intentions. There would be no doubt in the minds of the hoodlums on the prowl for amorous company as to what kind of women this one in her fifties belonged: one who in bygone days worried little about her virtue and who, repenting too late, abandoned themselves to their mid-life crises. They would have concluded that on that night of the first Saturday of August, I must have pulled out all stops trying to snare a male out for a pickup. Only the frantic search for the momentary company of lonely men would, for them, explain my presence on the streets that night...

After thinking it over I wondered if there really was such a difference between those women of the streets and me? Could I really proclaim myself apart from that category of women, even if I had never actually accosted someone out on the streets? For these past years haven't I waited as though I were standing on hot coals for a man to come or even to call for me? Those women must have travelled some pretty harrowing paths before ending up on the streets of Dakar. Like me, they must have slaved away before ending up like that. What distinguished me from them was, first of all, the opportunity I had to do work which earned more respect, and also that for these many years I had endeavoured to work my charms on no one but my husband. At this moment I didn't want to be mistaken for someone I was not nor could have been... However it may be, I had no wish to ride with those hoodlums who thought a women deserved whatever treatment she got. It would have been too silly trying to explain my situation to them. They would not have even bothered to listen to my explanations but would have simply kept a smile on their lips and pretended to listen while they hurried me off to some hotel room or other place for such liaisons...

... I had just learned that I wouldn't see Aziz for another three hours. The Boeing 707 wouldn't land before 2.30 for reasons the hostess failed to explain. What would I do for all that time? And what if for whatever reason Aziz did not arrive by this flight? And me, forced to spend the night at the airport, sitting on the bench waiting for daybreak. What a nightmare! Take a taxi by myself and pay him when we got there? Out of the question! I would never manage to master my fears! Borrow a hundred frank coin from a passer-by so that I could phone one of my friends to come and get me. I didn't dare, and even then, anyone who could come to pick me up wouldn't be in Dakar on a weekend. I thought of calling Bersi, because at least she stayed in Dakar, but the dolt, she couldn't even drive and I was sure that her chauffeur had gone home by now.

How to call, how to call...when I didn't have a single dime. I wasn't about to start begging. I was too afraid of being snubbed, of being taken for an old harlot...What's more, I was fed up with it all! Suddenly I felt funny. It must have been that awful nausea threatening to overcome me again. I felt a suffocating heat rising from the depths of my stomach which climbed slowly and in spasms. My God, I hope it doesn't rise any higher! I'll never get used to this! How to disagree with Badu who, after seeing one of these dizzy spells, decided that I was unfit to take anywhere. It was easy to recall times when I almost fell into a swoon...

For a moment it seemed as if the hot flush was beginning to ease. Then suddenly it once again started its slow progression. It was there, trapped in my chest. It crept up, moving like a stream of lava, transforming everything in its path to a soft paste. My stomach felt drained. The paste swept along, through my intestines, my liver, my stomach...everything turning into a thick, sticky gruel. It crawled higher, into my throat, strangling me, reaching the very edge of my mouth. It had me by the throat. The newspaper seller near me stared at me with a furious expression. So long as my lava didn't disgorge itself on his display of magazines. I realized what he was worried about and moved away, reeling.

- "The ladies' room, it's straight ahead", the newspaper seller called out.

Right, the ladies' room! Would I have time enough and strength enough to go downstairs and reach the toilet? I saw an empty seat and made my way towards it with certain steps. I collapsed in the chair and realized I should take off my shoes. They were new and a little too tight. They were probably the thing that was making me so dizzy. I managed to kick one off -- it slid across the tile floor, far away from me. I quickly opened my handbag and emptied its contents out on my lap. A few things rolled off onto the floor, but I didn't worry about them. Fortunately the handbag was fairly spacious. I stuck my face into it and, plop! The lava spurted out. I didn't close the bag right away. I raised my head a bit and then examined the gruel as if to discover some hidden substance in its lukewarm, acrid-smelling syrup...It was there, half-swallowed in this mucousy marmalade, remnants of the garr and the lemon papaya and buttermilk that I had eaten only a few hours earlier. Not at all put off by the rotten cheese smell that was emanating from my bag, I lifted it slowly between thumb and forefinger without taking my eyes off it. There seemed to be absolutely no difference between these shreds of flesh inside here and the other auricles and ventricles already disgorged there in the country of my origin at the extreme south of Africa. I interrupted my ruminations to let a little greenish slice of meat fall into the dense, syrupy liquid. I rummaged through my things on the ground for my compact mirror and when I picked it up and looked at my reflection, I didn't even recognize myself. My eyes looked bloodshot. My face was puffy and oozed an opaque fluid that was a mixture of sweat, vomit, mascara and blush. I was missing an earring. My headscarf was crooked. I picked up a tissue, intending to clean up my face a little, when suddenly I realized that a crowd had gathered around me. There were three men, a woman and a child. All of them were looking at me with curiosity. I tried to smile at them, but instead of a smile it seemed as if an awful grimace fixed itself on my face. I still had the mirror in my hand when I heard one of the men remark casually to another:

- Ndey saan! Kii de dof bu bees lay may nirool.[1]

His companion retorted:

She certainly looks like it. But this kind of thing has become quite common of late. You meet new loonies like this practically every day. Because of our troubles old man, because of our troubles.

The women added:

That's for certain! With all these troubles, or rather, all these things they do in trying to solve their problems -- mystical practices or gulping down a heap of drugs...

The third man added in turn:

This one doesn't seem to be the type to be one of those new mystics who runs around invoking the name of Allah the All-Powerful. No, she looks rather like one of those poor buggers who is always denying the existence of God, who believes in nothing but themselves and who suddenly becomes disoriented at the failure of their sacrosanct logic.

To the woman, I looked like a drug victim. They only had to look at my eyes to see this. Either I had swallowed down some pills, or shot up...It wasn't unreasonable to imagine me indulging in drugs perhaps, but certainly not to have ended up crazy...Whatever had happened, I elicited nothing but pity ...

To the man who had first spoken, the reasons for my madness were not of immediate concern. The pressing need was to figure out how I could be removed from the premises. He added:

If such a thing had happened to a man, I would have felt sorry for him. But this is a woman; that means that in spite of, or maybe even because of her indiscretion, she could easily fall prey to filthy scoundrels who could not only take advantage of her but even might not hesitate to kill her.

The third man wanted to know what his friend thought they should do. He reminded him why they had come to the airport in the first place. If I really were a drug addict, there was he decided, no reason to pity me. Just looking at the way I was dressed it was obvious that I belonged to the upper echelons of society. So my friends from that strata should take care of me...

The plane for which my audience was waiting had landed. They had to go to meet their guest. After that they would come back with him to see how they could help me. The man who had spoken first convinced his companions that they needed to come back and try questioning me as to where I lived and who my family were. He felt it would be better at this hour of the night to deliver me to my family rather than handing me over to the security officer, who would take a long time to show up anyway...

I felt much better physically after having disgorged myself, so my discomfort at having been as sick as a dog in public was not limited to the horrible appearance I presented to passers-by. However, after a moment my embarrassment had slowly given way to a new feeling which made me experience a certain kindliness, a sort of affection for this novel face, for this new person I had discovered in the mirror I held in my hand. I no longer felt embarrassed to be thought of as mentally unstable. On the contrary, I took rather a morbid pleasure in this singularly privileged position of the so-called lunatic who enjoys listening to those around discussing him with such scorn. Thus I discovered that I could be someone else...that I was in fact someone else, someone who had nothing to do with Anita Tembi Mkwanazi the barrister, originally from South Africa. The expression I discovered in her eyes, in my eyes, at that moment when I was thinking of the behaviour that had me being thought of as a "dof bu bees" (someone who has just lost her mind): the awesome power of words! It was not an expression of terror, but rather a total lack of expression, a kind of emptiness of emotion and of feeling peculiar to those beings who, as a result of some violent upheaval, no longer feel concern for what goes on around them and to them...I could not stop wondering about the mysterious force behind the expression. Were there rules of conduct dictated by this force? If so, which rules? Was it possible for me to discover them? After that I suffered tremendously in my confusion while trying to maintain that distance, to maintain a certain faculty of reason which just moments before had allowed me to appear unfazed and therefore regarded as a sane person. I was convinced I had to take some action to escape from their eyes, from this gaze that reflected back at me from the mirror; to shatter the mirror for instance. I hesitated doing so since I could only imagine how people around me would react. First of all the reaction of the newspaper dealer who had been touchy from the start. I would no longer be thought of as a harmless crazy lady and therefore tolerated by all. But with that one gesture I would become a mean old woman and be thrown out of the airport lobby, or else led away with bound wrists so as to prevent me from attacking those civilized people who had come peaceably to the airport to welcome their friends and family.

I couldn't hold the mirror in my hand forever. It had become the evidence for my neurosis which I feared had settled on me forever. I let it fall into the open handbag. I took up my tissues again and started wiping my face and after using up a whole packet of Kleenex, I threw them into the handbag, closed it and set it on the ground. Then I stood up, careful not to drop the things from my lap that I had collected in my boubou. Without a word the newspaper salesman, who had missed nothing, brought me a plastic bag. I emptied my things into it and thanked him with a nod of my head. He helped me to gather the things from the floor along with my other shoe which I had lost sight of...

© Khadi Fall, 1998.