I try not to feel anything,
Sure that I shall suffer less that way.
And, indeed, I do not feel any real discomfort,
Not as much as I had feared, at least.
Certainly, a flash of fleeting pain cuts straight across my body
In the space of time it takes a lightning bolt to cut across the sky,
But the water, ever faster and more forceful in this time of floods,
Quickly eases it, erasing it as if by magic,
In its battle against my father’s liana arms,
Now trying to tear me away from him,
Then forcing me again flat up against him.
Our pagnes float around us everywhere,
Like the multiheaded hydra’s tongues in our ancestral tales.
My father, a tree immutably planted in the riverbed, does not move other than to keep himself in place and resist the force of the current. But some part of him has planted itself inside me like a hard living root, and vibrates somewhere inside my belly. My imagination tries to find a first sign of understanding: Perhaps his arm, made longer by the knife, seeks to deposit his blood somewhere.
Perhaps part of his hand opened earlier,
Already lets his blood flow into my belly.
Could it be that he is pouring out all of his giant tree’s sap
To make me his irrefutable double, I wonder.
I’ll have to show him everlasting gratitude for life.
For a moment he trembles as violently as I do, then he pulls me away from him, lifts me up, puts me on his back like a basket and goes back to the water’s edge. Phew! I can’t wait to get out of this hellish and terrifying riverbed.
“That’s it, my little sprite, well done, you may open your eyes now. I hope it didn’t hurt too much. In any event, you were very brave. We’ll win the case, you’ll see.”
I hug him tightly with all the strength of my love. I’m so pleased that he’s proud of me and, even more, I’m proud not to have disappointed him.
A warm liquid spurts from between my legs when my father puts me down on the riverbank. I’m terrified at the thought of jeopardizing the test results, but he reassures me. Still, I close my legs very tightly so as not to let this precious blood get lost. I wouldn’t want to have to start the harrowing ritual all over again.
We arrive at the relocation camp with the back of the car loaded with huge papayas, guavas, and mangos we have picked on our way back, in what was once an orchard. My father goes into the house and comes out with a basket that he fills up, then places in front of Grand Madja, who is sweeping the courtyard.
“That’s for Papa and you,” he tells her. “I don’t know when you’ll see such fine specimens again, because I don’t know when I’ll be back.”
Grand Madja clasps her son to her breast as if to keep him from leaving. It is barely half past six, but already spirals of blue smoke are escaping from every rooftop and mixing with the early morning mist, as fleecy as the low-hanging white clouds that enveloped us in the forest.
What a magical morning, and how different everything seems. Is it because of my father’s uniform? Strangely, even the looks given him by those people who normally throw hostile glances seem new to me, almost supportive, like the approval of a clan for its wrestlers when they bring home a hard-won victory. Their looks are filled with fear and admiration. They greet us with lowered gaze or a slight bow. Even my Aunt Roz looks at me with a touch of envy in her eyes, the way one looks at initiates who have come through their ordeals with flying colors. I take this to mean that she is well aware of the ceremony, and approves. She has prepared a bag with my things and those of my little sister. Apparently she supports her brother in his battle with my mother and her family, she who has always been my mother’s friend, and it surprises me a little.
My father goes straight to school to alert the teacher that my sister and I will be absent. The teacher is distressed to release my little sister, who is repeating the third grade and will now risk failing again. But there is no other choice; these are court orders.
As for me, I didn’t come anywhere close to making a connection between what had just happened to me and what I thought I knew about sexuality, through Aunt Roz and her husband Ratez or Grand Pa Helly and Grand Madja. Maybe it was because of our position in the middle of the river. I honestly believed it concerned a blood transfusion to make the tests work out. In fact, they were successful. I spent all my time in prayer and contemplation until the court session where we were told the results. God had to have heard my entreaty: I had obeyed my father and, what was more, I had been brave, for it is written: “Honor thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.”
The court clerk opens a sealed envelope.
He places some of the documents to his right and others to his left. My father’s hand in my left hand and my sister’s in my right are tightly clutching mine. We hold our breaths. An incredibly long silence follows, as if all are still waiting and not believing their ears. The end result is that only two of the six daughters (the youngest one and I) and my oldest brother are my father’s; the others turn out to be the offspring of a different sire.
Timidly, my little sister lets go of my hand. Her sobs rip through the room as if she’s been given a death sentence, or as if her soul has been damned. I feel all the more helpless as I look at her because her grief doesn’t quite manage to disturb my personal delight, our delight—my father’s and my own. Our hands stay welded together, and our eyes beam as we glance at the others, without really being able to imagine their feelings. Happiness makes us inattentive, superficial, and self-centered.
I cannot remember my mother’s eyes or those of the rest of the family that day. Looking back, I still tremble at what they might have thought, perceived, or said on my account. How did we separate, how did we travel? What happened until the day that the trial’s outcome was decided? In my memory there is only the sense of a period of victorious bliss.
All the children are present at the new trial. The court decides that my father’s children will be in his custody and the rest will stay with my mother. Then she begins to shriek the way a dying dog howls. Not knowing what to do anymore, the judge requests that with the exception of the two youngest ones the older children select which of the two parents they prefer to live with. They all choose our mother—other than myself, of course.
For I, Father, remember that I am everything to you; just before the trial began you repeated that again. I don’t have the courage to abandon you. Still, I suddenly feel a very strong urge to align myself with all my brothers and sisters, to change my home address, and, more than anything else, to be with my mother again, who, something tells me, will never come back to you this time.
The last one to be questioned, I proclaim categorically: “I want to stay with my father, and nobody can stop me.”
Right away, my little sister comes back to me and clutches me like a little monkey clinging to its mother. That is how we find ourselves alone with you until the next verdict—for you appeal the decision again, of course. Having come to court at Grand Madja’s urging, Grand Pa Helly wants