One evening, while Madame Kan was out at a gala, Hawa was allowed to use the house library. A locked room full of old books and dust-covered memories. Maman Abé had slipped her the key, saying: “Go educate yourself a little. You work well, you may read, but put everything back as you found it.” Awa entered the room with respect.
There was a smell of old paper, leather, and something moving, as if the walls themselves were keeping secrets. She ran her hand along the spines of the books and then suddenly, between two pages, found something more intimate. A young woman, much younger, seated in a chair, her hand resting on a rounded belly, her gaze blurred, alone, without a smile. That face, she knew it.
She saw it every day. It was Madame Kan, pregnant. Awa’s heart stopped for an instant, not from fear but from shock. She gently closed the album, put it back, then left the room as one leaves a dream, breath short. She did not know what to think. Perhaps it was nothing. An old photograph, forgotten, without a story.
That night, she hardly slept. The next day, she doubled her attention in her work, as if to prove to herself that she had seen nothing. But her movements were no longer as automatic. Her mind circled around that image. An image that awakened childhood memories without clear shape.
One afternoon, one of Madame Kan’s old aunts arrived without warning. A tall, full-bodied woman wearing a perfume of incense and black soap. The moment she came in, her gaze fell on Hawa. She observed her for a long time without saying anything. Then, in a corner of the living room, she pulled Maman Abé aside. That girl there, she whispered, I have seen her somewhere.
She is a maid, Maman Abé replied cautiously. Do not lie to me, Abé, she has the face of our family. Can’t you see her cheekbones, her eyes, even her hands, they are like Kanny’s grandmother’s. You speak too loudly, Yayé. Do you think God sleeps? Do you think the children we throw away do not come back to walk in our footsteps? Look at that girl carefully, look at her.
She is not here by chance. And she walked away, leaving Maman Abé with an even heavier weight on her chest. In the days that followed, Hawa felt that the looks were changing. Not with malice, but with discomfort, suspicion. As if they were waiting for her to discover something that she alone still could not see.
She decided to write another letter. This time not to Maman Sira, but to herself. There is a mystery here. I feel it, I breathe it. But why am I afraid to ask the right questions? Do I have the right to know who I am? Is searching a betrayal? Sometimes, I feel in that woman’s eyes something like regret, something she does not say, something that frightens me and at the same time draws me in.
She tucked the letter under her mattress. The next day, she decided to go see Father André, the man who had sent her there. The old priest lived in a modest presbytery, surrounded by books and medicinal herbs. “Awa,” he said when he saw her. “What are you doing here, my child?” “Father, why did you send me to that house?” He looked at her for a long time, then sighed.
Because I obeyed a calling I did not understand myself. Sometimes God pushes his children where truths are sleeping. And you, Awa, carry a truth that no one will be able to keep buried for long. Do you know who my mother is? He looked away. I know that love can be frightening and that old wounds can close the mouths of the bravest.
But I believe that you will find by yourself what you came to seek. And on that day, you will have to choose, to forgive or to flee. Awa came out of there troubled. She had not received a clear answer, but she felt that everything was converging. Something was approaching like a slow, silent, irresistible tide. When she returned to the house that evening, Madame Kan was alone in the garden.
Seated beneath the mango tree, a rare thing, while the sky turned orange. The sun melted onto the leaves. Awa approached slowly. Madam, would you like me to bring you some tea? Madame Kan raised her eyes. She looked at her for a long time, then said, “No, just stay there, sit down for a moment.”
Leave a Comment