Baking Cakes in Kigali (35 page)

“That was a very bad day for me,” said Amina. “I was young, a few years younger than Safiya is now. Nobody told me what was going to happen. Nobody prepared me. Suddenly I was called in from playing outside and my mother held me down on the ground and a woman I didn’t know cut me with a razor-blade.
Eh
, I cannot describe that pain to you! And the shock!” Amina covered her face with both hands for a few seconds before continuing. “When my daughter was born, I promised myself that I would never, never let that happen to her.”

“I understand,” said Angel. “But how is it that Dr Rejoice and Odile are here? I didn’t know that you knew one another.”

“Don’t think for one minute that Amina is the only woman
who has ever done this,” said Dr Rejoice. “In Kenya there are many women who are refusing. I helped a few of them there, including a few from Sudan.”

“Yes,” said Amina, “and by chance I met one of those women in the market some months back. I could see that she was Sudanese and we talked and became friends. She’s the one who told me about Dr Rejoice, and then the doctor introduced me to Odile. Okay, they’re not from our culture, but I knew that Vincenzo could never object to a doctor and a nurse performing the cutting. I decided we must do it this weekend, because Ramadan will start sometime next week, and when it’s over, who knows where new contracts will take us in the new year? It wouldn’t be easy for me to find such friends to help me in a new place.”

“Yes, it wouldn’t have been easy,” agreed Dr Rejoice, “but you would have found them, my dear. We’re supporting one another more and more. It’s like we understand now that we’re much stronger when we stand together, especially in places where we’re being beaten down.”

“Yes, like bread,” offered Odile, and everyone looked at her, not understanding what she meant. “I mean like the ingredients for bread,” she whispered. “I’ve watched the women making bread at the centre. The ingredients do nothing on their own, but when they’re all together, they stick together and rise. They get beaten down and they rise again.”

“Exactly,” whispered Dr Rejoice. “But, Angel, you’re not looking happy.”

“Well, I’m just trying to think if anything bad can come from this in the future—because it’s always wise to think ahead to the consequences of our actions. Of course, none of us will ever tell …” everyone murmured agreement, “… but there is one person who is sure to find out.”

“Are you thinking about the husband I’ll marry, Mama-Grace?”

“Yes, Safiya, I am.”

“I’m not going to marry a man who wants a wife who has been cut. I’m going to marry a man who is modern.”

“Yes,” agreed Amina. “If we were living in Kismaayo, where I was born, or even in Mogadishu, where I grew up and was cut, then it would be difficult. But we spend a lot of time in Italy, and we live wherever Vincenzo works. There’ll be many opportunities for Safiya to meet a man who is modern.”

“And maybe,” suggested Dr Rejoice, “by the time Safiya is ready to marry, all men will be modern, and we’ll no longer need to pretend to obey them.”

They all laughed at that idea, covering their mouths with their hands so as not to make a noise.

“But, my dears, it is time for us to begin,” said Dr Rejoice. “Let us be serious now.”

“Have you all finished your sodas? Okay, Safiya, lay the empty bottles back on the tray and slide it back under the bed. I’ll take them from there tomorrow when
Babas
at work.”

Remaining in her chair, Dr Rejoice reached into her bag and removed a rolled-up white doctor’s coat. As she slid her arms through the sleeves, Odile reached into the bag for two pairs of surgical gloves. She and the doctor put them on. Then Odile handed Dr Rejoice a swab and a syringe needle in sterile packaging.

“Come and sit here on my knee, my dear,” Dr Rejoice said to Safiya. “Good girl. Now, I’m going to prick your finger, because
Baba
must see your blood. It will hurt a little bit, but I want you to cry out as if it’s hurting a lot. Do you understand?”

Safiya nodded.

“Scream nicely for
Baba,”
instructed Amina. As Dr Rejoice jabbed the needle into the girl’s finger and immediately withdrew it, Safiya let out a wail so convincing
that Angel had to stifle a maternal urge to hold her and comfort her.

“Good girl,” Dr Rejoice encouraged, squeezing a few drops of blood from Safiya’s finger on to the swab. “Okay, now the other hand. Odile, see to that finger, please.”

With another swab, Odile wiped Safiya’s pricked finger with surgical spirit and then pressed hard on the tiny wound with the swab to stem the bleeding. Dr Rejoice was ready to prick a finger on Safiya’s other hand.

“Scream nicely for
Baba
again,” coached Amina. “He’ll be so happy when he hears it.”

Safiya’s second scream was louder and even more sustained than the first.

“Now some crying please, my dear,” instructed Dr Rejoice as she squeezed more blood on to her swab. “Okay, Odile, over to you.”

Odile took care of the second finger exactly as she had done the first.

“Right, it’s done,” said Dr Rejoice with a smile. “Now you can tell people that your daughter has been
circumcised.”
Dr Rejoice made quotation marks in the air with her fingers, in the same way that Omar had done. “When you do that with your fingers, they’ll think that you mean that
circumcised
is not the right word for what happened to your daughter because female genital mutilation is nothing like the circumcision of a boy. But really your fingers will mean that it did not happen. But they won’t know that.”

“Eh, that is a very clever trick!” exclaimed Angel, grateful to have an honest way to tell Pius about this—should he ask—without breaking the vow that she had sworn on the Holy Bible. “I must remember that in the future.” She stood up as the others did the same. “But, Amina, are you sure that you and Safiya will be able to hide the truth from Vincenzo?”

“Vincenzo has asked us not to tell him the truth,” explained Amina, doing her best to look innocent. “Vincenzo himself made us swear that we will tell
nobody
what happened here. If we tell him, then we’ll be breaking the oath that we swore on the Holy
Qur’an.”

The women giggled softly, and Safiya, who had been wailing plaintively, found it difficult to continue.

“Right,” said Dr Rejoice. “Odile and I will go out first. Safiya, when we sit to drink our coffee, you need to pretend that it’s a bit painful. Okay, everyone?”

Everyone nodded and then Dr Rejoice unlocked the door. She left Safiya’s bedroom and headed towards the kitchen, where Vincenzo was sitting on the counter.

“Vincenzo, my dear, do you have a spare plastic bag?” she asked, making sure that he noticed the bloodied swab and the syringe needle that she carried. “I forgot to bring one.”

Vincenzo produced a used plastic bag that had been folded away in the cupboard for use as a bin-liner later on. He held the bag as Dr Rejoice dropped in the swab and needle, then peeled off her surgical gloves and put them in, too. Then Odile placed her own bloodied swab in the bag, making sure that Vincenzo saw it, and peeled off her gloves.

“Everything went smoothly,” Dr Rejoice assured him with a smile. “Your daughter is very brave. Thank you, Vincenzo, I’ll take this bag and dispose of it properly at the clinic.”

Vincenzo went into the living room and hugged his daughter and then his wife. “I’m so very happy today,” he beamed. “Come, sit,” he said to everyone. “Coffee is ready.”

“May the doctor and I use your bathroom to wash our hands?” asked Odile.

“Of course, of course, it is there, next to the kitchen.”

He rushed back into the kitchen while Amina carried the cake over to the coffee table. Dr Rejoice and Odile came back from the bathroom and sat down just as Vincenzo came back
with a tray filled with steaming cups of coffee, some small plates and a knife.

“This cake looks so beautiful,” he said. “It’s almost a pity to cut it.”

“But it
must
be cut,
Baba,”
said Safiya, smiling sweetly at her father as she perched right on the edge of her chair trying to look uncomfortable. “That is what a cake is for.”

The women did not dare to look at one another.

“You’re right,” declared Vincenzo, leaning over and kissing Safiya on her forehead. “Amina, would you like to cut it?”

“No, no, Vincenzo.” Amina busied herself with the coffee so that she did not have to look at her husband. “You cut it. I think the rest of us have already finished with cutting.”

Throwing back his head, Vincenzo let out a loud laugh. With relief, the women joined in. “That’s very good, Amina,” he said. “Okay, I’ll cut for everyone.”

“Yes, let’s see this special surprise that Angel has put in the cake for us, between the layers,” said Dr Rejoice.

With a dramatic gesture, Vincenzo plunged the knife into the cake and pushed it down all the way through to the board. Then he moved the knife a few centimetres and did the same again. As he slid the blade of the knife under the slice, everybody watched in silent anticipation. He drew the slice sideways out from the cake. Between the two layers was a thick layer of bright green icing. Then it was deep red. Then green again. Then red.

Vincenzo placed the slice on a plate and tipped it on to its side so that everyone could see the squares of red alternating with green that filled the space between the layers.

“
Eh
, Angel,” said Amina, “that is very clever. How did you do it?”

“Do you think I’m going to tell anybody my secrets?” demanded Angel.

“It’s beautiful,” said Odile. “Everybody has heard of
decorating the outside of a cake, but I’ve never seen something like this
inside
a cake.”

“No,” said Dr Rejoice, “when you look at the outside, this is not what you expect to find inside. It’s a nice surprise, isn’t it, ladies?”

“It’s really nothing,” said Angel, although she was very happy to be complimented.

In truth, she had been so confused about her feelings about what the cake was for that she had felt the need to apply the principle of Ken Akimoto’s yin-yang symbol to the idea. Recalling the red and green yin-yang cake that she had made for Ken, she had mixed up some red and green icing—which were in any case the colours that she was going to use to make the roses and leaves for the top of the cake. But she had recognised two things: first, that she could not put a yin-yang symbol inside Amina’s cake, because some people would get slices with green in the middle and others would get slices with red in the middle, which would have been difficult for her to explain; and second, that her feelings about the issue were too complicated to separate into yin and yang. So, starting with a red dot in the middle of the lower layer, she had piped concentric circles of green alternating with red. As she piped each green circle she had tried to think of positive things, such as the loyalty that she felt towards her friend Amina, and the importance of preserving cultural traditions. And with each red circle she had allowed herself to fret about things such as the oppression of women and the pain that Safiya was going to suffer. She had found the concentric design more interesting than the yin-yang symbol—and also more confusing, because each new red circle was bigger than any of the circles that it enclosed and could therefore outweigh all the green circles inside it. She had been relieved—though not totally comforted—that the last circle to fit on the cake had been a green one.

“This coffee is from Italy,” Vincenzo boasted as he handed a cup to Angel. “The finest coffee in the world.”

Angel added some milk and a large amount of sugar. “I’m sure it’s very fine coffee,” she said, “but I know without tasting it that it’s not the finest in the world. That is the coffee that comes from my home town of Bukoba, on the shores of Lake Victoria.”

As they drank their coffee and ate their cake, the conversation flowed freely and the mood was light. Every now and then a sharp look from Amina reminded Safiya to look uncomfortable on her chair. When Safiya and Amina started to talk about the coming Ramadan and Dr Rejoice got trapped in a conversation with Vincenzo about road-building, Angel took the opportunity to speak to Odile.

“I want to thank you, Odile,” she said quietly. “You’ve been very kind and slow with me, helping me to be ready to see what was already clear to you about my daughter.” Odile acknowledged her words with a quick nod of her head and a sympathetic smile. Angel continued, keeping her voice low. “But this is not the time for that particular conversation. People are saying that you have a boyfriend, Odile.”

“
Eh!”
Odile looked down, embarrassed. “Are people really talking about me?”

“You know this country better than I do, Odile. Pius says that gossip is the national sport.”

Odile smiled and shrugged. “He’s right, Angel, and I think we could probably win a gold medal at the Olympics. But, yes, I’ve been seeing your friend Dieudonné.”

“I’m very happy to hear that. I knew that you two would like each other.”

“
Eh
, I was a bit angry when you planned for us to meet at Terra Nova. But now I forgive you!”

“Good.”

“Oh, I meant to tell you. Your friend Jeanne d’Arc came
last week to have the confirmation dress altered. I did as you asked, Angel. I explained to her that the sewing classes were for sex workers, to help them to earn a living in a safer way.” “Was she interested?”

“She seemed to be. She had her two sisters and a little boy with her, but she said she would come back again another time.
Eh
, that little boy is a darling! Have you met him?”

“No.”

“He’s very small; he looks only about six years old. But he must be older, because he was already walking when Jeanne d’Arc found him.”

“What’s his name?”

“They call him Muto; it means ‘small.’ When they found him, he didn’t know his given name.”

“Is he okay? I mean, I think he’s small from not getting enough food.”

“Physically he’s fine, and there seems to be no damage mentally. In fact, Dieudonné thinks he’s a bright child.” “Dieudonné has met him?”