Baking Cakes in Kigali (21 page)

“Eh, Auntie! I think you did not feel safe with that soldier in your house. Did you think he was going to shoot you when you refused to make his cake?”

“No, of course not; his gun was outside with Modeste. But he made me feel very uncomfortable. I think he’s not right in his head.”

“Why, Auntie?”

“Why? Bosco, have you not listened to my story? How can you ask me why I think he’s mad?
Eh
, Bosco! Please go more slowly on these corners, otherwise my cake will be spoiled.”

“Sorry, Auntie, it’s only that I want you to arrive at the school on time. I promise that I won’t let your cake be spoiled. It’s very, very beautiful.”

“Thank you, Bosco.”

“Of course I listened to your story, Auntie. It was the story of a boy who was forced to become a soldier and to do terrible things. Now he wants to escape from that into a better life. What is mad about that, Auntie?”

Angel thought about it. Bosco’s summary made Captain Calixte sound perfectly sane. “But he really expected her to agree to marry him!”

“Auntie, do you think he’s the only man here who would like to marry that girl? Even Mr Akimoto likes her; it’s only that he already has a wife in America. I would ask her to marry me myself; it’s only that I don’t love her.”

“Of course I’m not saying anything bad about her; I’m sure there are many men who would like to propose marriage to her. But this soldier had gone as far as planning everything.”

“So when a man plans to do something that other men only dream of doing, then that man is mad?”

The conversation was not going well for Angel. “You’re confusing me, Bosco,” she said, and then was quiet for a while.

Eventually Bosco said, “Auntie knows that there are many girls here who want to marry
Wazungu
so that they can have a better life somewhere else. And girls like that are not just here; they’re in Uganda, too.”

“You’re right, Bosco. In Tanzania, too.”

“Are those girls mad, Auntie?”

“Eh, Bosco! I can see that you want me to say no, those girls are not mad. And then you’re going to ask why do I say a man is mad when he wants the same thing.”

Bosco laughed. “Exactly, Auntie.”

Angel found herself smiling. “You know, Bosco, I think that maybe you’ve been giving too many lifts to Sophie and Catherine. I can see that they’ve taught you not to accept one idea for girls and another for boys.”

“It isn’t Sophie and Catherine who have taught me that, Auntie.” Bosco grinned broadly.

“Ah,” said Angel. “Alice.”

“Yes, Auntie.”

“When am I going to meet this Alice, Bosco? You keep telling me I’ll meet her soon.”

“Very, very soon, Auntie.” Bosco drew to a halt where another dirt road crossed the one they were on, and checked directions to the school with a man who was pushing a bicycle with a heavy basket of potatoes strapped behind its seat. They turned left.

“Anyway,” said Angel, “I’m glad that the soldier came to see me today, because his visit gave me another idea for my talk this afternoon. You know, Bosco, I’ve never before refused to make a cake. Okay, once or twice I’ve had to say no because somebody has asked me too late, like they ask me at lunch-time and they want the cake that afternoon. But I’ve never
before refused. And I’ve never before even thought that one day I might get an order that I would refuse. So it’s good that it happened today, because now I can talk to the girls about my personal experience of ethics.”

Pius spoke often about ethics, and would occasionally try to stimulate discussions on the subject with the children.

“Let us say,” he would say over supper, “that the Tanzanian national soccer team needs a sponsor because they cannot afford to travel to play in the Africa Cup. Now, let us say that the makers of Safari beer offer to sponsor our national team. Is it right for the national team to accept that sponsorship?”

The boys would say yes, and then Faith, seeing her grandfather’s reaction to the answer yes, would say no.

Grace would have a reason. “No. Because if the players drink the Safari, they won’t be able to play well and they’ll lose.”

Titi would have a more general answer. “Beer is not a good thing, Uncle.”

“They should not accept,” Pius would explain, “because those of our players who are Muslim will not agree to play for a team that is paid for by alcohol. It would not be ethical for them to be part of that team. And so to accept that sponsorship would be to exclude players of a certain religion. And that in itself would not be ethical.”

The children and Titi would look at Pius with big eyes.

Angel would change the subject.

But today Angel was grateful for those discussions because they had helped her to know what to do this morning. Obviously she must warn her friend about Captain Calixte; it would be wrong not to. But Captain Calixte was her customer, so she was obliged to be professional and to keep her conversation with him confidential; therefore it would not be right to tell her friend. Clearly, she could not have the girl as a friend
and
the soldier as a customer. But if she did not
accept the soldier as a customer—if she refused to make a cake for him—it was possible that he could persuade other people not to do business with her. And if she
did
accept him as a customer, he might send a lot of business her way from his friends in the army. So which was more important: friendship or business? That was going to be a good question to discuss with the Girls Who Mean Business.

At the school gates, two girls in smart school uniform were waiting to welcome Angel and to lead her to the classroom where the club was meeting and where Sophie was waiting for her. Angel tried to insist that Bosco should go home because without the cake to carry it would be fine for her to travel home in a minibus-taxi, but Bosco was vehement about waiting there for her.

The talk went very well indeed: the girls were excited and interested, and there was not a single problem with language that could not be overcome. Some were grateful to discover that Angel had a business
and
a family, as they had imagined that they were going to have to choose one over the other. And Angel’s story about ethics—she made sure that they recognised that she was not
naming
the soldier or anyone he spoke about as that would not be ethical even though he had not become her customer—sparked a lively debate. The cake, of course, was a tremendous success.

At the end of the talk, the president of the club stood up and gave a short speech, thanking Angel in particular for her practical tips which were so welcome after Professor Pillay’s theoretical analysis, and Angel was presented with a gift: a small picture-frame woven from strips of banana-fibre. The applause warmed Angel’s heart, more than making up for her difficult morning.

Leaving Sophie to gather up her books and lock the classroom, Angel walked to the Pajero carrying the now empty cake-board at her side, with her photo album tucked under
her arm, and holding in her other hand the slice of cake that she had saved for Bosco. He was not in the vehicle. She looked around and saw him sitting in the shade of a tree, talking to a girl in school uniform. Leaving the cake-board leaning against the Pajero and the photo album on the vehicle’s roof, she made her way towards the tree.

Seeing her heading towards him, Bosco scrambled to his feet, brushing down his trousers to rid them of any leaves or dirt that they may have picked up.

“Hello, Auntie. Did it go well?”

“Very!
Eh
, I’ve enjoyed myself this afternoon!”

Bosco indicated the girl, who had picked herself up and dusted herself down much more delicately than he had. “Auntie, please meet my friend Alice.”

“Eh! Alice!” said Angel, shaking the girl by the hand. “I’m happy to meet you.”

“I’m happy to meet you, too, Auntie.” The girl spoke to her in English. “I’m sorry that my Swahili is not good, but I have a good English teacher.”

“Miss Sophie is your teacher?”

“Yes, Auntie. We are very lucky to have an English teacher who has come to us from far away in England.”

“Very lucky,” agreed Angel. “Bosco has been telling me for a long time that he will introduce you to me soon.”

Bosco grinned. “This afternoon I told you it would be very, very soon, Auntie.”

“That is true, Bosco. So, Alice, I believe you are the friend of Odile’s brother’s wife’s sister?”

“Yes, Auntie. My friend is here at this school with me, and it is her older sister who is married to Odile’s brother Emmanuel.” The girl’s pretty smile transformed her rather plain face.

“And are you not a Girl Who Means Business?”

Alice laughed. “No, Auntie, I am a girl who will study at university.”

“That is very good.
Eh
, Bosco, I saved a piece of cake for you, but now I see that I should have saved two pieces.”

“No problem, Auntie,” said Bosco, taking the piece of cake that was wrapped in a paper napkin and giving it to Alice. “I’ve tasted Auntie’s cakes before, but now it is Alice’s turn.”

“Oh, thank you, Bosco. Thank you, Auntie. I will not share this with my friend because she has already had a piece; she is a Girl Who Means Business. I will hear from her everything that you said, Auntie.”

“That is good.” From the corner of her eye, Angel saw Sophie walking towards the Pajero to get a lift back to the compound with her and Bosco. She shook Alice by the hand again and told Bosco to take his time saying goodbye to Alice as she wanted to hear Sophie’s opinion of her talk. Bosco gave her the keys to the vehicle.

As soon as the two women were settled inside the Pajero, Angel turned around to face Sophie and said, “That friend that I did not name when we were talking about the ethical question of that soldier that I did not name?”

“Mm?”

“Sophie, that friend is you.”

THE SEASON OF
small rains had come to Kigali, settling the dust and bringing short and sudden showers that the dry red soil drank thirstily. But the rain had done little to improve the water shortage in the city, and for the past hour or so the taps in Angel’s apartment had failed to yield as much as a drop. Fortunately the Tungarazas kept a yellow plastic jerry-can in the kitchen which was always full of water so that tea could still be made under such circumstances.

Angel and Thérèse now sat sipping their tea in the shade of the compound’s yard as they waited for the results of the baking lesson to cool. Thérèse examined the notes that she had been making on a sheet of paper.

“So, if a four-egg cake needs two cups of flour and a cup each of sugar and Blue Band, can we say that for each and every egg there must be half a cup of flour and a quarter of a cup each of sugar and Blue Band?”

“Exactly, Thérèse. And half a teaspoon of baking powder. You mustn’t forget the baking powder, because without it the
cake will not rise. When I came to your house to test your oven, that mixture that I brought with me had only two eggs and one cup of flour. That was a very small cake, but it’s wasteful to make a big cake in an oven that might not work.”

“I was so happy that it worked!” declared Thérèse. “I remember as we waited for that cake to bake, I was afraid that it would come out in one of the ways that you had warned me, that it would burn on one side or rise higher on one side than the other. But it came out just perfect and
eh
, I was relieved.”

Angel had met Thérèse during one of her visits to the centre in Biryogo where Odile worked. Thérèse had sought her out as she sat chatting to a woman who lay on a mat on the floor of the small hospice area at the back of the centre.

“
Madame,”
Thérèse had said, “I believe you are the lady of the cakes.”

“Yes, I am. My name is Angel.”

“I am Thérèse.” They shook hands. “Nurse Odile told me that you were here.”

Angel glanced at the woman lying on the mat; she was now drifting towards sleep. “Please sit with us, Thérèse. I don’t want to leave this lady alone.”

Thérèse lowered herself to the ground, sitting opposite Angel with her legs stretched out in front of her. Unwittingly, she blocked from Angel’s view the mother and baby who had unsettled her like a hundred startled frogs leaping into a still pond. For a moment—just a brief moment—the mother and her desperately ill little one had looked like Vinas and her third baby, the one who was late after only a few months.

Angel smiled with relief at the woman who now offered those hundred frogs the opportunity to climb back on to dry land and to settle there, allowing the water in the pond to be still again. “Tell me about yourself, Thérèse, and tell me why you have come to talk to the lady of the cakes.”

Thérèse smiled back. Something about her reminded Angel
of her granddaughter Grace: she was tall and slight, but with an air of strength.

“I am sick, Angel, but I am well. I’m lucky that the centre has chosen me to receive the medication. I have two young daughters and I must remain well to look after them until they grow big.” Angel found herself having to concentrate: Thérèse spoke with the rapid fire of an AK-47. “My husband is late and also my youngest child, a boy, but my girls are well; they are not sick. It’s my responsibility to earn money to feed us all and to send my girls to school. If they can complete their schooling, then one day they’ll be able to live in a better part of Kigali than Biryogo.”