The Correspondence Artist (16 page)

 

 

I sent this in the aftermath of the fiasco. While it's true that immediately afterwards Djeli had shown uncharacteristic warmth and solicitude, within a couple of weeks he'd slipped back into his customary role of unreliable, sporadic correspondent. I was really worried about how my sores were going to heal once all the scabs had fallen off. My doctor here in New York was vaguely reassuring but since he didn't have a lot of experience with tropical diseases, I wasn't sure he was the best source. Djeli had mentioned that his sister Kadidia had suggested a very effective herbal cream and she'd be happy to send some. He'd also spoken with his own GP in Bamako, Dr. Touré, and he also thought this cream would be helpful. Djeli, naturally, never followed up on it. I asked him if he could. I also asked him if he'd heard anything about Fabienne's health.

In my recuperation period, I read a lovely little book by Harry Mathews about masturbation and I asked Sandro to mail it to Djeli when I was done. I also knit a lot of socks. I began making
a beautiful pair for Djeli with a pale green wool fingerling yarn, but handmade socks really need to be made to measure. I asked Djeli for his shoe size.

A letter to the editor had recently come out in a music magazine that took issue with one of the wacko political statements that Djeli occasionally makes. The author of the letter had perhaps not fully understood the implicit irony in Djeli's comment, or maybe he'd actually understood it perfectly and still found it idiotic. In any event, he called Djeli a “dreadlocked SpongeBob SquarePants.” Djeli seemed to like this.

So, as the days passed, there was no word on the cream, no thanks for the book, no reassuring news regarding Fabienne, and, to add insult to injury, no indication of the size of Djeli's foot. I was stuck wondering whether to bind off the toe, or add another half inch. When I couldn't wait any longer, I sent him the three choices. He wrote back saying that all three were good. He talked about some other news but didn't actually answer any of my questions himself. I went with a European size 43. I assumed Fabienne was okay, since I was. Djeli never sent the cream. My sores healed just fine. I was left without a scar.

 

 

 

Sometimes when Djeli takes a while to write me, or writes something vaguely questionable, I write him, “Hm.” He once asked about this. He wanted to make sure he was understanding it correctly. He said that in French, one sometimes said, “
Hmm
,” as an alternative to, “
Bah, oueh
…” but that it wasn't generally written out in prose. He said when he read it in my messages, he imagined me smiling slightly and looking a little distrustful. I said, yes, that that was the appropriate reading. I said my “hm”s also implied a raising of one eyebrow. We had a similar exchange about the word
ahem
.

On account of his increasing reticence, I wrote him last month:

 

 

 

 

 

Djeli answered right away, a charming, warm, and informative message. Then he disappeared again.

You will have noticed the reference to a temper tantrum. Actually, that was the “I'm irritated with you” message. It's true that hormonal fluctuations may have some small impact on the tone of my correspondence. But for the first three years of my relationship with the paramour, I managed to keep this relatively under control. In fact, I don't think my crankiness had that much to do with my menstrual cycle. I think maybe I was just getting kind of tired of this.

I realize that you may be thinking, “It took her three years to wake up and smell the coffee?” I know that from what I've reproduced here, it might appear that my diligent commitment to the correspondence was all that was keeping it alive. But I'm not showing you what Djeli wrote me. I can only tell you that when he was good, as the saying goes, he was very very good. In fact, sometimes, in his lyrical, sideways style, he'd be so loving, I wasn't sure how to respond.

It's funny, I'm curious about what Nelson Algren wrote to Simone de Beauvoir, but I'm kind of glad I can't read it.

 

 

 

There was a pain and it was like a needle in the back of my eye and there were sharp colors and there was a smell. There was a knock and then a thud and the pain behind my eye and there was a woman standing over me and she was speaking French but I was understanding.

“Did you fall? I came to clean the room.
Est-ce que vous êtes malade?
”

There was a smell and the pain and I felt cold and hot all at once and then there were two other women and one of them was whispering,
“C'est la dengue, c'est la dengue.
”

My bones hurt and my eye hurt and the light was hot and sharp and the floor was hard and someone said,
“Comme elle gémit, c'est la dengue.
”

Somebody was lifting me and lifting me and my panties were wet and cold and I was cold but I was hot and someone wrapped a sheet around me and it smelled like bleach. And then she brushed my hair from my eyes and said, “It's okay, we're taking you to the clinic, it's just a fever, it's okay.”

And they carried me and then there was the smell of gasoline and rubber and everything was shaking and my head felt like it was going to explode and I felt all my bones, it was like my bones were full of fire, and I was hot and I was cold and it smelled like rubbing alcohol.

And there was a bed and it was white and there was a curtain and it was white and it was blowing a little and the light was like a knife in my eyes and I closed them and a woman said,
“Comme elle gémit
, poor thing,
c'est la dengue.
”

There was a television near the ceiling and there were noises that hurt my head and there were shapes and colors but I
couldn't see what they were supposed to be and the light was like a knife in my eyes and someone said, “Fabienne, you have a new roommate,” and the girl named Fabienne moaned, and someone said,
“Comme elle pue.
Tell Fanta to clean her up.”

It was night and the dark was moving like shapes, like animals, and I was afraid and I started to cry and Fabienne moaned and someone came and put some little pills in my mouth and made me swallow some water, and my skin felt like needles were going in it and I felt sick and I leaned over the bed and I was sick and Fanta came back to clean me up again and I slept.

In the morning the light was moving on the wall, it looked like leaves, and someone tried to feed me something but I had a hard time swallowing, I thought I was going to be sick again, and someone said, “
Comme elle bave
,” and it smelled like leaves.

And I peed in my bed and someone lifted me and someone cleaned me up and they put me back in a bed and it smelled like bleach and my head was heavy and I cried.

 

 

 

I'll spare you any more of my bad Faulkner impersonation. You get the idea. I had dengue fever – like everybody and his brother in Bamako that week. It was a raging epidemic, over almost as quickly as it began. My timing was impeccable: I'd gotten to town just as Djeli'd had the good sense to get the hell out. I spent five days in the hospital with my little roommate, Fabienne, a 12-year-old girl, coincidentally the daughter of a friend of Djeli's, with a case as bad as mine. The hotel maid had discovered me, passed out in the bathroom, the morning after my dinner at the Bar Bla Bla.

During my hospitalization, Sandro was blissfully ignorant. He told me afterwards that he didn't even miss getting my little harassment text messages about homework and piano. He figured I was just having too much fun with my Malian rock star. When
I didn't answer Florence's e-mail, she figured the same thing. Djeli, of course, was worried when I didn't turn up in Paris. He finally called the hotel and found out what had happened.

After three days of very trippy fever, diarrhea, and vomiting, I began to recognize my surroundings. Then came the rash. It started on my legs and wrists, then the red spots started coming out on my chest. They itched like crazy. There was pus coming out.

If you can avoid getting dengue fever, I'd recommend it.

 

 

 

Nothing like having scabs all over your body to make you feel de-eroticized. It was a while after that before I felt compelled to send another dirty picture to Djeli. But our correspondence isn't all about eroticism. As evidenced by the bits I've reproduced, a lot of it is about books and films, and politics. I think Djeli likes it that I sometimes challenge him on his wacky political positions. That is to say, many people have criticized him in the press about some of the seemingly contradictory things he's said, but in his day-to-day social life, he tends to surround himself with people who are willing to brush things aside on account of his lyricism and his personal charisma, or maybe (this is a more cynical assertion) his fame.

It's interesting that while people love to compare him to other national music icons, no one has ever called him “the Bob Marley of Mali.” In point of fact, despite his hairstyle, Djeli has serious doubts about Rastafarianism. In his critique (in keeping with his critique of pretty much all organized religion), he never fails to raise the question of gender and sexual politics. That's all well and good, except that Djeli has a very cagey way of skirting the issue of his own relationship to these things. Cagey may not be the best word. Let's say, his argumentation is often circuitous. He's so smart, and his thinking is so subtle and complex, it's very
hard to tell exactly what he's saying. He gave an interview on the topic of religion and sexuality which was, you might say, confusing. Somebody else responded that it looked like his politics were “spinning” from left to right. Djeli wrote me noting that if you actually examined the movement of the spheres, the world was spinning from right to left and he like the rest of us was going along for the ride. He was just trying to keep his bearings. I wrote him back:

 

 

 

 

 

I think Djeli feels this way too.

 

 

 

Faulkner wrote that Benjy was “gelded” in 1913, after being inappropriately physically affectionate toward a passing schoolgirl, to whom he must have appeared monstrous. I realize that despite my moderation I may sometimes appear a little monstrous.

But maybe this sounds like me again with my Freud and my mallet. Honestly, I don't think I have penis envy. In the exchange that followed that e-mail, I told Djeli: “I love being a woman.”

 

 

 

Both Sandro and Florence look at all this from a distance, and, maybe more than either Djeli or me, they actually do seem to manage to keep their bearings. That is to say, they both generously suspend judgment of either of us. I don't go into detail with them about the political arguments. They're aware, of course, of some of the controversies surrounding my lover, but they're both of the opinion that life is complex and we all say questionable things on occasion.

They also suspend judgment on some of the more questionable aspects of the ill-defined terms of my relationship with the paramour. When I do begin to squawk a little about how confusing this can be, they remind me that my lover has always been honest with me, every step of the way.

 

 

 

The rest of that e-mail about the movement of the spheres went like this: