Baking Cakes in Kigali (28 page)

Angel shook her head and was silent for a while before she spoke. She put her glasses back on. “Françoise, my friend, you have educated me today. These things have not been easy for me to hear, but now I understand better. Thank you for telling me.”

“No, Angel, I am the one who must thank you. Thank you for being someone who has ears that want to hear my story and a heart that wants to understand it. And thank you for sending a big group of
Wazungu
to
Chez Françoise.”
Françoise flashed her teeth in a wide smile, and Angel found herself smiling back. What they had spoken about had already been put away, like potatoes that have been brought home from the market and placed inside a cupboard in the kitchen.

“I’m sure it will be a very good party, Françoise. Those
Wazungu
will enjoy themselves, and they’ll tell others to come here.”

“
Eh
, and when they see your beautiful cake they’ll tell others to come to you.” “Let us hope.” “Yes. Let us hope.”

IT
was shortly before noon when Angel eased herself out of a packed minibus-taxi at Kigali’s central station. The sun was extremely hot now, but Angel did not have to meet Odile
until twelve forty-five, so there was no need to make herself any hotter by hurrying. She walked slowly up to the traffic circle at
Place de la Constitution
and headed in the direction of the post office, looking for a place where the road was safe to cross. She passed the row of men who sat on chairs placed on the unsurfaced roadside, each behind a small desk and typewriter, preparing documents for the clients who stood over them dictating or issuing instructions. Beyond them she was approached by a few money-changers, the overflow of the large crowd who operated outside the post office.
“Change, Madame?”

“
Non, merci.”
Actually, she did want to change some money—the hundred-dollar note that the Canadian had given her—but she wanted to do that at the bank, even though she would get a much better rate from the money-changers on the street.

She crossed the road and made her way back around another section of the outer perimeter of the traffic circle, turning right into
Boulevard de la Révolution.
On the corner was the
Office Rwandais du Tourisme et des Parcs Nationaux
, where people went for permits to visit the gorillas in the rainforest in the north. She was not sure why anybody would want to do that, but it was popular enough amongst
Wazungu.

The
Boulevard
was wide and shady, lined with tall eucalyptus trees, and Angel appreciated its coolness as she approached another, smaller traffic circle, the
Place de l’Indépendance.
Here she found a young man sitting at the roadside selling secondhand shoes. She greeted him in Swahili and he returned her greeting, jumping to his feet. The shoes were laid out neatly in pairs on the ground. Angel scanned them keenly, searching for the perfect shoe to complement her dress for Leocadie’s wedding. Alas, there was nothing here that would do.

“Are you looking for something special, Auntie?”

“Yes, but I don’t see it here. It must be yellow or orange, or at least white. Smart-smart.”

“Wait here, Auntie,” instructed the young man. Shouting instructions in Kinyarwanda to a boy who stood on the other side of the road, he raced up the road on his bare feet, whistling, shouting and gesturing frantically.

The boy on the other side of the road eyed Angel and then, bending to pick up what lay at his feet, he crossed to where she stood. He bent again, and placed his bathroom scale at her feet.

“
Deux cents francs, Madame,”
he said.

“Non, merci,”
said Angel.

“Cent francs, Madame.”

Angel shook her head.
“Non, merci. Non.”
The degree to which her skirt strained across her buttocks and thighs already told her as much as she wanted to know. Why should she pay a hundred francs to stand on that scale and find out a number that would only add to the weight that she carried? The boy moved his scale away and squatted down sulkily next to it, eyeing Angel to make sure that she did not try to make off with any of his friend’s shoes.

Within minutes, the shoe-seller was back, panting towards her with two other men in pursuit, each carrying a large sack over one shoulder. They rushed towards her, each desperate to be the first to reach her, and spilled the contents of their sacks at her feet, talking non-stop in Kinyarwanda. Scrabbling amongst his wares, one retrieved a white shoe with a high heel and a strap across the top secured at the side with a gold buckle. Angel could see at once that it would be too small for her. She shook her head.

The other man produced a bright yellow sandal that would fit Angel well enough. She took it from him and examined it thoughtfully. The colour was good, but the heel was very
flat, making it too casual for the wedding. She handed it back, shaking her head.

As both men continued to scrabble about for the perfect shoe for her, Angel became aware of a child’s high-pitched shouting, rapidly gaining in volume. Looking to her right, she saw a very small boy hurtling towards her, clutching something gold and shiny to his chest. Reaching her, the boy drew to a halt and, gasping for breath, held up what he had been carrying. It was a pair of gold pumps, clearly second-hand but still smart, with a heel that was not too high and not too flat, in a size that would fit Angel and look beautiful with her wedding outfit. Having regained his breath, the small boy was now babbling ceaselessly up at her in Kinyarwanda.

“What is he saying?” she asked the original shoe-seller in Swahili.

“He says his mother is selling that shoe for a very good price, Auntie. He wants you to go with him to pay his mother. She is selling on the street just before the pharmacy.”

“Thank you. Please thank these other gentlemen for me and tell them that this boy has brought me exactly what I’m looking for. I’m sorry that I cannot buy from all of you.”

The young man smiled. “No problem, Auntie. Maybe next time.”

Angel took the small boy’s hand and allowed herself to be led to where a woman sat at the side of the road with a few pairs of shoes laid out before her. They negotiated a reasonable price, and Angel handed over some money from her brassiere while the woman placed the shoes in an old plastic bag. Seeing somebody with money to make a purchase, several sellers of pirated music cassettes approached Angel, but she waved them off with a smile and crossed the road to the entrance of the
Banque Commerciale du Rwanda
, where a bored security guard checked that her plastic bag did not contain a gun before allowing her to enter.

Once inside the plush modern building, she made her way around to the foreign-currency section of the bank. As usual, there was a large queue of people waiting at the Western Union money transfer section, but the other cashiers were not too busy. She stood behind the stripe on the floor where people were supposed to wait until the cashier was free. There was just one customer busy at the window ahead of her, a large man in West African attire who was waiting patiently for paperwork to be completed. At last he signed, took his own copy and, thanking the cashier, walked away.

Angel approached the window, removing the hundred-dollar note from its place of safety inside her brassiere. The cashier was still busy putting the previous client’s paperwork together with a paper-clip and had not yet looked up at her. When he did, his eyes lit up above his reading glasses and a large smile spread across his face.

“Angel!”

“Hello, Dieudonné. How are you?”

“
Eh
, I’m very well, Angel. And how are you?”

“Fine, fine. How are your mother and your sister?”

“Oh, everybody is very well, thank you. And how are your children and your husband?”

“Everybody is well, thank you, Dieudonné.”

“
Eh
, I’m happy to see you. You’re lucky that you came just at this time, because in a few minutes I’ll be on lunch.”

“Yes, I thought so. I’ve just brought some dollars to change into francs, and then I’m meeting a very good friend for lunch, a lovely Rwandan girl.”

“That is very nice.” Dieudonné took Angel’s single banknote and began counting out a large pile of Rwandan francs.

“Dieudonné, it would make me very happy if you would join us for lunch. I like my friends to know one another, and I’m sure that you two will like each other.”

Dieudonné laughed as he handed the money over to Angel.

“Then I would like to meet her! But I have only one hour for lunch.”

“No problem. I’m meeting her nearby, at Terra Nova, opposite the post office. They have a buffet, so we can get our lunch quickly.”

“In fact I go there quite often. Shall I meet you there in ten minutes?”

“Perfect.”

Angel tucked the wad of francs into her brassiere and headed out of the bank with her gold shoes in their plastic bag. She made her way back down the shady
Boulevard
, greeting the shoe-seller with a smile as she passed him, and then rounded into
Avenue de la Paix
before crossing the road at the post office, where the crowd of money-changers assailed her.

“
Change, Madame?”

“
Madame! Madame! Change?
”

“
Non, merci.
”

She entered the yard of the outdoor restaurant where a waiter was settling Odile at a white plastic table in the shade. She smiled when she saw Angel, standing up to kiss her left cheek, then her right, then her left again.

“How are you, my dear?”

“I’m well, Angel. Thank you for suggesting that we meet here for lunch. Usually I just eat at the restaurant at work, but it’s nice to take a break like this, especially at the end of the week.”

“It’s nice for me, too. Usually I eat at home with the children, but I thought it would be nice to spend some time with my friend away from her work—and away from my work, too. The children are safe without me because Titi is there.”

A waiter brought a cold Coke for Odile, levered open the bottle and poured it into a glass. Angel asked him for a cold Fanta
citron.

“Odile, I hope you don’t mind. I’ve just bumped into another friend of mine, and I invited him to join us for lunch. He’s a very nice young man. Very nice indeed.”

Odile smiled nervously. “Angel! What are you trying to do?”

Angel smiled back. “I’m trying to introduce two of my friends to each other. I want them to know each other; that’s all. They are under no obligation to like each other.”

In any event, though, Odile and Dieudonné
had
liked each other, and Angel found that extremely satisfying as she sat in her cool living room later that afternoon, fanning her face with a Cake Order Form and appreciating the looseness of her
kanga
and T-shirt. Her bare feet were up on the coffee table, her ankles swollen from the heat and the busyness of her day. The girls were working on their homework with Safiya upstairs while the boys were out in the yard with Titi, kicking their ball around half-heartedly in the heat.

Half dozing, Angel assessed that, overall, it had been a successful day: people had admired her prison-escape cake; she had gained a new perspective on the matter of survival; she had found exactly the right pair of shoes for Leocadie’s wedding; and, best of all, Odile and Dieudonné had found plenty to talk about over their plates of delicious
matoke
, rice, fried potatoes, cassava leaves, carrots, beef and chicken.

There were two troubling aspects of the day, however, and it was these that now prevented her from succumbing fully to sleep. The first was the unsettling comment that Françoise had made about living life in Hell and then being stuck there again after death. That was an idea that would not simply lie down and sleep. The second troubling thing was what had happened when Angel had returned to the compound after lunch. As she had slid down from the back of the
pikipiki
where she had sat sideways with one arm around the rider’s waist and the other clutching her gold shoes in their plastic
bag to her breast, she had noticed immediately that Modeste was holding a semi-automatic rifle.

“Modeste,” she had said, paying the driver of the
pikipiki
, “what are you doing with that gun?”

“It is not mine,
Madame.
It belongs to Captain Calixte.”

“
Eh!
Captain Calixte?”

“Yes,
Madame.”

“Where is he?” Panic had begun to pound at the walls of Angel’s heart.

“Inside,
Madame.”

“But did I not tell you that if he came here looking for Sophie, you must tell him that she is out?” “Yes,
Madame.”
“So why is he inside now?”

“He is not visiting
Mademoiselle
Sophie,
Madame. Mademoiselle
Sophie is out. He is visiting
Mademoiselle
Linda.”

“Eh? Linda?”

“Yes,
Madame.”

“Is Linda at home?”

“Yes,
Madame.”

“I see. It’s good that you didn’t let Captain Calixte into the building with his gun, Modeste.”

“Yes,
Madame. Madame
said that I must not if he came again.”

“I’m glad that you remembered. But now I’m worried about Linda. How long has Captain Calixte been inside?”

Modeste shrugged his shoulders. “Not long, I think.”

Angel was debating with herself whether she should ask Modeste to leave the gun with Gaspard and come upstairs with her to knock on Linda’s door, when Captain Calixte himself emerged from the building’s entrance. When he saw Angel, he pointed at her angrily.

“You!” he shouted. “This is your fault!”

Modeste moved closer to Angel in a protective gesture, and out of the corner of her eye she saw Gaspard detach himself from the shadows of the trees on the other side of the road and cross towards them.

“Hello, Captain Calixte.” Angel kept her voice calm. “What is it that is my fault?”

“That
Mzungu
upstairs refused me!” The soldier spat the words out between his chocolate-coloured teeth. “If I had taken a cake, she would have accepted my proposal, I’m sure of it. It’s your fault that she refused me.”