I hadn't noticed Brigitte until we pulled up to the curb in downtown Ouagadougou and she leaned over and tapped me on the shoulder. "If you don't have a place to stay during your visit," she said with breathless timidity, "you are welcome in my house."
I was used to sudden changes in plans and to West Africans' amazing, nearly overwhelming hospitality. I'd just finished a six-month stint as a volunteer in Ghana and was on my way to Mali to visit a friend. I hadn't planned to stop in Burkina Faso's sprawling capital, but after two days and nights in a packed minivan, I needed a rest. My cream-colored T-shirt and olive skirt had turned road-dust gray, and my shorn hair -- the only part of my body retaining any natural oils -- was plastered to my scalp. Something odd was going on in my body, which for days had produced the sensation of sweating, though no actual moisture appeared. I felt like a kettle that rattles and shakes, but never quite manages to sing.
I stood guard over Brigitte's cloth-tied bundles while she used the phone box outside the upscale Httel de l'Indipendance to call her husband. Oceans of motos swerved around me; the air was thick with dust and exhaust. Brigitte was in her mid-20s and had a plump figure and a perky, impish face with round, shiny cheeks and eyebrows that leapt and danced when she spoke. She had managed to stay astoundingly clean on the long journey from Ghana, where she'd gone to visit her cousin. Her bright orange and green print dress still looked as though it had been freshly pressed. A matching cloth wrapped her head.
"I'm bringing a friend home," I heard her say. She paused for emphasis, then added, "a white friend," her voice simmering with excitement.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
An expensive taxi ride took us to the outskirts of town, to a neighborhood where solid cinder-block houses with clean-swept dirt yards alternated with vacant lots filled with rubble. She lived in one of the cinder-block rectangles with her husband -- a mid-level customs official -- their three children and two servant girls. In the open-air bathroom a mud wall separated the neatly swept section where a board covered a hole in the ground from the area where you carried your bucket of water to bathe. With a television, boom box and telephone inside the house, it was a solid middle-class home.
It was love at first sight for me and little Rod, who stood shyly at the gate with her three middle fingers in her mouth, twisting her upper body back and forth as the taxi pulled up. As I swung my bulky pack out of the overhead rack, she was already at my side, and I swerved off-balance to avoid hitting her. When I flopped onto the couch in the tiny living room, she came and sat silently on my lap.
Rod was 5 years old and had silky skin, the color of fresh coffee grounds, kept creamy by her mother's daily applications of shea butter. Her small face was a perfect oval with grave, wide-set eyes so dark you couldn't separate iris from pupil. She seldom spoke, but always stayed within a few steps of me, often slipping a hand into mine as I sat writing or talking in the yard.
"This one's too quiet," Brigitte said, holding Rod at arm's length and brushing dust off her pink skirt with a brusque hand. "Here comes the smart one." Her face lit up with a smile as a chubby 2-year-old careened through the doorway while a stocky teenager followed a step behind. The older girl's clothes were oversized and shapeless, her feet bare.
"Lidia already speaks French, don't you?" Brigitte said to the little one. "Tu parles frangais?"
"Oui!" the baby shouted, and Brigitte laughed with delight. She barked a command at the teenager, who rushed out into the yard. "I've told her to get water for your bath," Brigitte told me. Brigitte and I spoke French, while she usually spoke to the children and servants in her native Mossi. She turned back to the crowing Lidia.
"This one," she said, smiling, "this is my girl."
Her son Constantin came home a few hours later, dragging a book bag behind him, his school uniform covered with mud.
"Tintin -- did you greet our guest?"
He slid to a halt in front of me, a 9-year-old bundle of kinetic energy; hands, knees, feet trembling to go.
"Pleased to meet you," he murmured, sneaking a glance from lowered eyes.
"My pleasure," I said.
He flashed me a smile, dropped his bag in front of the couch and took off running out the door and through the gate.
"Change your clothes," Brigitte called as he tore around the corner. "Did you see him? That one is bad," she said to me. "Bad."
I never met Brigitte's husband, who arrived home that night after we went to
bed, and left early the next morning on a business trip. When I asked her
about him, she simply shrugged her shoulders.
"He's not mean," she said.
That day Brigitte and I wandered together through le Grande Marchi, an
enormous market housed in a blocky cement building. "It used to be outside,
the African way," Brigitte said with disdain.
Brigitte wouldn't let me pay for anything, insisting on playing the perfect
hostess. She bargained fiercely to get the price of a woven bracelet I wanted
down from 65 cents to 40. When she began buying vegetables for lunch, I
stopped her.
"Why don't we go to a restaurant?" I said. "I'll treat."
"Restaurant?" She looked hesitant.
"Come on," I said. "We passed one yesterday when we got off the bus."
Still skeptical, she followed me to La Grotte, a restaurant in the
international section of town, close to the chichi Httel de l'Indipendance.
Its white plastic tables were set up in a leafy garden, shaded by large
umbrellas. Rotating fans provided a light breeze. The clientele was mostly
white.
From the moment we entered, Brigitte grew quiet, looking around her with
widened eyes. She sat with her hands in her lap, not picking up the menu the
waiter placed in front of her.
"Don't you want to order?" I asked her.
She shook her head. "I'm not hungry," she said, her eyes flicking back and
forth.
"Are you sure?"
She nodded.
"At least have a drink, OK?"
She nodded
again.
"You can share my food," I added.
I ordered a chicken dish with tt, the staple of the area, a firm porridge
made of cornmeal and water. When the waiter asked Brigitte her order, she
mouthed, "Coca-Cola."
"Excuse me?"
She cleared her throat, "Coca-Cola."
"Why do you order this dish?" she asked me, when the waiter had gone.
"What do you mean?"
"This isn't your food."
"I'm in Africa. I want to eat African food."
She shook her head with incredulity. "This food is too plain. I wouldn't
serve you this food."
She continued to shake her head as I paid the $5 bill.
"A bit of a splurge," I said. She was silent all the way home.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
-
But sitting in the yard the next morning, Brigitte was full of plans.
"You will find me a job in your country," she said. "I can do
anything. I
can cook, I can clean. All kinds of African dishes. I worked for a German
family; they were very content with my work." She paused, then continued. "You'll find me a family. They can send the plane ticket, then when I work,
they don't pay me until it's paid for. They can get a visa for me."
"What about your children?" I asked.
"They'll stay with my mother," she said. "It's only two, three
years. I'll
make a lot of money, then I come back. I'll open a restaurant, my own, like
the one yesterday. Cook African food; white people will come."
"And your husband?"
"He doesn't mind." She flipped her hand. "He's not mean. You
will find me
a job?"
"I don't think ..."
"I know it's not sure."
"It's really not ..."
"You will try?"
I shrugged helplessly. "I'll try."
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
-
"How did she get the name Rod?" I asked that evening over a dinner
of savory
chicken soup. Rod had pulled her chair as close to me as possible, so that
our knees touched as we ate. Lidia sat at a small table by herself, her face
covered with food. Constantin had eaten quickly and dashed off to play with
his friends.
"A white man," said Rod, in perfect French.
I looked at her in surprise. Brigitte started to giggle.
"What white man?" I asked the little girl.
"Mama's boyfriend," she said, and went back to eating her soup.
"An American, named Rod," said Brigitte. "Peace Corps. He wanted
to marry
me, but my mother said no. I was only 17, and I was scared. If it was
now, I would go with him. I would go like that."
"So you gave her his name? Your husband doesn't mind?"
She shrugged again, a bored expression crossing her face. "I told
you ..."
My voice joined hers, "He's not mean."
I'd originally planned to stay two or three days. A week had gone
by, and I
was expecting my visa from the Malian embassy any day. As the time for my
departure approached, my conversations with Brigitte developed an urgency, as
though there weren't time for her to say everything she wanted to say before I
left. Rod became more affectionate than ever, clinging to my hand, sitting on
my lap, hanging onto my legs. I sat with her sometimes from afternoon through
evening, stroking her hair, singing.
One evening I sat next to Brigitte on her bed while she worked the
sleeping
Lidia's hair into tight little braids.
"She never lets me do it when she's awake," she explained.
I watched her fingers fly, dipping into oil, then sectioning, braiding,
sectioning again.
"I don't love my husband," she said to me. "I used to love him,
but now I
don't. He goes with other women."
"How do you know?" I asked.
"I've seen the woman. My friend has pointed her out to me." She
made a
disgusted face. "It makes me sick. And he doesn't give me money."
I looked around. "How do you buy things?"
"Oh, he pays for food, you know. School things. But anything for
me, my
clothes, my hair, I have to get it for myself. He's giving it all to her.
But he won't let me get a job. And he wants me to have more children." She
pulled another face.
I watched her fingers, now layering the braids into overlapping
arches. "When I find someone else, I'm going to divorce him. I just have
to find
someone first. I don't want to go around, going on dates. A woman isn't safe
that way. But I must hurry, before another baby comes. Can you find an
American husband for me?"
"I can't even find one for myself," I joked.
"I want an old man," she said. "Young men are too complicated. I
want one
who'll appreciate me. I'll give you a picture of me to give him and he can
send a picture, and if we like each other, then he'll send me the plane ticket
and I'll come."
I pointed out that the visa might still be a problem.
"He'll get it for me," she said. "If he's hot, he'll do it."
She took her
hands from Lidia's hair and ran her palms up and down the sides of her body,
across her breasts, her arms, her thighs. She closed her eyes. "An old man,
who'll treat me well."
I said nothing. After a moment, she opened her eyes and went back
to her
hair sculpture. Lidia started for a moment, opened her eyes and whimpered.
Then, seeing her mother, she closed them again, drifted back to sleep.
"What about your children?" I asked. "What will they do if you go
to the
U.S. and marry some old fart?"
She shrugged impatiently. "Their father will take them. I'll send
money.
It will be better for them."
I stared at her. "If I ... If I had children like yours," I looked
down at
the sleeping baby. "I could never leave them."
She looked at me and for a second, anger crossed her face. She
looked away
and shrugged, a quick, violent jerk.
"They'll be OK," she said.
We sat in silence. Her hands, on Lidia's head, lay still.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
-
"In your city, will you show me around?" she asked me that night
as we lay
side by side on her white-sheeted bed, under the gauzy canopy of the mosquito
net.
"Sure," I said, eager to reestablish our intimacy. "We'll go dancing
together, go shopping, to the movies."
"Oh yes," she said, "yes, that's it. I'll be in the movies.
That's the way
to make money."
I laughed, and she turned her head sharply toward me.
"That's not so
easy," I said.
"Oh, but I can do it!" she said, and in the dark, I could feel the
motion as
her hands stroked the sides of her body, her head thrown back. "I can do the
movies like that, the love scenes ... I know how to do it." She stopped
abruptly. "Of course, if I had a husband, he wouldn't let me. On my own, I
could make some money."
"Your husband probably wouldn't stop you. In the U.S., it's normal
for women
to work. Most women work."
"Oh yes?" she said. "Good."
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
-
When I got back from the Malian embassy the next afternoon,
passport and visa
in hand, I found Brigitte in the smoke-filled kitchen, waving a large stick at
Yolan and Nyanga, the servant girls, who clung to one another in fear.
"They're bjtes!" she shrieked, when she saw me, using the French
word that
means both "stupid" and "beast."
"What? What happened?"
"Bjtes! I had some mayonnaise, did you see the mayonnaise? I
bought it --
it was supposed to last until Easter -- and yesterday, they served it all to
the people that were here. All of it. Il faut economiser. I don't earn the
money here, it's my husband who earns the money. What's he going to say?
Stupid beasts!" She held the stick above her head, her face livid. The
girls, huddled in the corner, began sobbing. My eyes teared in the heavy
smoke.
Behind Brigitte, Constantin appeared in the doorway, an odd smile
on his
face. I approached Brigitte slowly, holding out my hand for the stick.
"Everyone makes mistakes," I said.
"The same stupid mistakes, again and again."
"We all make mistakes," I said again. "I'll buy you some more
mayonnaise."
The look Brigitte gave me was unreadable. In the corner, Yolan wailed.
Constantin laughed loudly, and ran off. Slowly, Brigitte lowered the stick.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
-
At 11 o'clock that night, Brigitte and I sat on the couch in
the living
room, drinking beer. It was my goodbye party. Brigitte got up, went to the
tape recorder, and put in a tape, a funky, bluesy groove. She pulled me up
off the couch, and we started to dance. After about 20 minutes, I
collapsed back onto the couch, my head swimming from the heat. Brigitte kept
dancing, her eyes closed. I stared at her, mesmerized by the extreme grace of
her bulky frame. Her hips seemed to move independently of her upper body,
which hovered above them, regal and still. Her behind
taunted the beat, tantalized it, waiting till the last possible instant, till
I thought she wouldn't make it, couldn't, then it snapped into place,
twitching and popping like corn in hot oil.
Over the rhythmic thump of the music, I heard Rod's voice coming
from the
bedroom, soft and plaintive. "Mama. Mama. Mama. Mama."
I don't know whether Brigitte heard her or not. I stayed on the
sofa. She
just kept dancing.
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