at the smoke-blackened thatch of the roof. His sentences were interspersed with heavy pauses.
“I only had my mother,” he continued.
“And the others?” she snapped.
“What others?”
“Other boys your age . . .”
“What about them?”
“Few of them got to know their fathers. They only had their mothers. That doesn’t mean they worship them as if they’d invented the world. Am I right?”
Banda exhaled deeply. Was he going tell her everything? He was overwhelmed by weariness, as he was whenever he faced an impossible task.
“No, it’s not the same thing,” he said, looking at her pleadingly. “Listen carefully.”
He had turned toward her; while he spoke, bracing himself on one elbow, he gesticulated wildly with his free hand, as if to give his explanation more plausibility. In the face of her dark and ardent stare, he soon realized that she would never understand. He therefore promptly rolled onto his back, stretching out full length, losing his gaze in the thatch. One would have thought that he was now speaking for himself, or at least an invisible audience.
“I love my mother. Aiiii! I love her in a way you couldn’t possibly understand. Have you ever loved someone? When my father died, I was only a couple of years old. My mother took on the task of raising me; she gave this responsibility all her attention. She did absolutely everything for me, you hear? She stuffed me with food. Good food. She administered a colonic once a week. Every night she put me into an enormous kettle of warm water and scrubbed my entire body. Three times a week she sent me off to the catechist . . . I was better dressed than those kids my age who had fathers. We slept on bamboo cots on either side of a fire that my mother stoked continuously while she told me stories, or spoke of my father, or of her own childhood, or of the country where she was born, or of my grandmother who died shortly before I was born. On some nights we would hear an owl hoot or a chimpanzee howl; I would curl up in my bed and my mother, laughing all the while, would say, ‘Don’t be scared, son. He’s not going to come get you while I’m here . . .’ On other nights, the rain drummed on the roof while violent gusts of wind swept through the courtyard, shaking the trees outside the village; then my mother would say: ‘My God! Listen to the mangoes fall. Aren’t you going to be happy tomorrow? Am I right?’ Oh, she punished me often and without mercy, all right. But the memory of those whippings makes her all the more precious.
“Everything she was became clear to me the first time I suffered. My mother had registered me at the city school. From then on I was away from her five days a week. That day, I cried in a way I’ll never cry again.” He leaned over and spat on the floor. “I finally got used to this new existence: but in the beginning it was very difficult; because of my mother’s jealousy I wasn’t used to being around other children. At school, I was stubborn, gloomy, timid, always close to tears. This always annoyed my playmates and led to frequent punishment . . .
“Every Saturday, my mother came to the city. On Sunday, she’d take me to mass, where I’d just yawn. She would leave at the end of the day, but not without a few tender words, that she loved me, that she constantly thought of me, and that she prayed God that nothing bad would happen. Nevertheless, without my knowing it, I was growing up, getting tougher. I was becoming a man. I had already begun to think less frequently about my mother. I had other worries. Her visits, her words, her piety, began to embarrass me. She was fully aware of the changes happening in me. But, precisely because of my age, her sense of propriety prevented her from criticizing me for certain things. How she must have suffered! I only figured this out much later.
“I had been laboring away for eight years in their school, planting, harvesting potatoes, never doing what one normally does at school. Finally, they decided that I was too old and they kicked me out, without a diploma of course.
“Because my mother had stopped visiting, I hadn’t seen her in a while. Once I was reunited with her, I could barely recognize her. She was already ill with the strange sickness that continues to drain the life out of her. She had sacrificed too much in raising me. And I had given her so little thought! If she remained in this hostile country among my father’s half-brothers, people who despised her because they knew she didn’t have any respect for them, it was for me.” Once more, he leaned over and spat on the floor. “To think that she could have returned to her native country where she had relatives. But no, my father wanted me to take up the family land in Bamila. She didn’t have the right to leave, to deprive me of my own land. Frankly, I was wracked with remorse. Thinking back, I imagine her bent over in the baking sun, resolutely scratching the earth with a miniature hoe or going to the market loaded down with a basket of vegetables; all this for me, and I had forgotten her so quickly . . .
“I wanted to redeem myself. I started arguments with those I thought had made her life difficult since my father’s death. I was strong . . . The result? Everyone in the village hates me now, and I’m glad. Nothing is greater than the love of a mother for her child. Perhaps I’m exaggerating; but my mother loved me too much for me to think otherwise.”
He paused at length. His chest suddenly expanded more than usual and he let out a violent breath. Seated at the very edge of the bed she continued to observe him with the same curiosity tinged with reserve.
“It’s true. My mother will soon be dead. When that happens I’ll simply go to the city. It isn’t that I want my mother to die. No, that’s not what I want. Still, she’ll be dead soon. And then I won’t be able to continue living here; there won’t be any reason for it. I’ll leave the country, the village, and I’ll go try my luck in town.”
“What will you do in the city?”
“I’ll try to work. But don’t be misled; it goes without saying that I won’t marry you. I won’t disobey my mother even if she’s dead. The dead walk among us. It’s true that I haven’t been a model son, but at least in that respect. . . .”
“And the kid? Does your mother like her?”
“Well, she came to the house, my mother took a look at her; all she said was, ‘She’s a beautiful woman.’ That’s it. She doesn’t particularly like her.”
She was panting a little, as if she’d run to catch up with Banda, who she sensed was irrevocably escaping her grasp. The same person she always thought of as a big baby was now crushing her. Their eyes locked. She commented without much conviction:
“Would you really pay that much for that miserable waif?”
His stare was almost severe, almost condescending as he answered her.
“The fact is that I like her . . . Don’t you get it, my child? It’s because of my mother. She wants me to wed before she dies. It will be her dying joy. I can’t deny her that pleasure. And since this is the only woman that my mother hasn’t explicitly rejected . . . “
Outside, the morning was already bright with sunshine and blue sky. Banda was suddenly ready to leave . . .
“Tomorrow,” he announced, “I’m going to the city to sell my cocoa to the Greeks. I hope those sons of thieves will give me enough money for the business I have in mind. On the off chance that you needed something . . . “
Without really knowing how, she understood that it was finally over. She didn’t express any particular need.
Now alone, she couldn’t help but feel sorry for herself. That
