“I’m sorry, Papa.”
“I told you not to turn on the lights. Who turned on this light?” I turn off the light. “Go get your stupid brother and put him to bed. You must love him.”
“Yego, Papa.”
I go to the parlor and hope that Maman will intervene. She doesn’t, so I bring Jean back to the bed.
“And stay here, girl,” Papa says. He goes back to the parlor, slamming the door.
WHEN I WAS YOUNGER, I used to ride into the hills on Papa’s wide shoulders. We were always visiting Maman’s family’s place, in the next valley. Papa told me that when he first met Maman she was my age, and they played together in these hills. They went to the same primary school and university.
In the hills, you can see the clouds moving away, like incense in a church. Our country is full of winds, and in the hills they blow at your eyes until tears stain your cheeks. They suck through the valleys like hungry cows. The birds rise and tumble and swing, their voices mixing with the winds. When Papa laughs his jolly-jolly laugh, the winds carry his voice too. From the top of the hills, you can see that the earth is red. You can see stands of banana and plantain trees, their middle leaves rolled up, like yellow-green swords slicing the wind. You can see fields of coffee, with farmers wading through them, piggybacking their baskets. When you climb the hills in the dry season, your feet are powdered with dust. When it rains, the red earth runs like blood under a green skin. There are tendrils everywhere, and insects come out of the soil.
I walk tall and proud in our neighborhood. The bullies all know that Papa will attack anyone who messes with me. Even when he is drunk on banana beer, my tears sober him. Sometimes he even goes after Maman, for making his girl sad. He scolds his relatives when they say that it’s risky that I look so much like Maman. Papa likes to tell me that he wanted to go against his people and wed Maman in our church when I was born, even though she hadn’t given him a son yet. Maman wouldn’t hear of it, he says. She wanted to give him a male child before they had the sacrament of matrimony. Papa tells me everything.
Maman’s love for me is different. Sometimes she looks at me and becomes sad. She never likes going out in public with me, as she does with Jean. She is always tense, as if a lion will leap out and eat us.
“Maman, I’ll always be beautiful!” I told her one day, as Papa was driving us home from a lakeside picnic. Maman was in the passenger’s seat, Jean on her lap. I was in back.
“You could be beautiful in other ways, Monique,” she said.
“Leave the poor girl alone,” Papa told her.
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“You will when you grow up,” she said.
THIS TIME WHEN I wake up, rays of yellow morning are leaking in through the holes in the door and the torn blinds. They riddle the gloom, and I can see dust particles dancing within them. Our neighborhood is quiet. When I go into the parlor, Papa is moving from window to window to ensure that the blinds leave no space for outsiders to peep in. Maman is standing at the table, straining her eyes as she examines two framed photographs.
One is from my parents’ traditional wedding. It’s ten years old. I was in Maman’s belly then. All the women are elegantly dressed, the imyitero draping over them like Le Père Mertens’s short vestment. Married women who have given birth to sons wear urugoli crowns. Maman got hers only last year, when Jean was born. There are some cows tethered in the background. They were part of the dowry Papa offered for Maman. But no matter what I try to focus on, my eyes go to Tonton André’s smiling face. I cover it with my hand, but Maman pushes my fingers off. I look at the other picture instead, which was taken last year, after my parents’ church wedding. Papa, Maman, and I are in front. I’m the flower girl, my hands gloved and a flower basket hanging down from my neck with white ribbons. Maman holds baby Jean close to her heart, like a wedding bouquet.
“Maman, Jean is lonely in the bedroom,” I say.
“I hope he sleeps the whole day,” she says, without looking at me.
“Won’t ghosts steal him?”
“He’ll get used to them. Go get yourself some food, Monique.”
“Oya, Maman, I don’t want to eat.”
“Then go and shower.”
“Alone? I don’t want to shower.”
She touches my nightie. “You need to shower.”
“Maman, when wizards pee . . .”
“Don’t tell me now.” She looks at Papa. “She needs a shower.”
Hearing this, I raise my nightie to show Maman my swollen thigh, but she slaps it down, saying, “You’ll get a new pair of underpants. Your face will be beautiful again.”
I return my attention to the pictures. I scratch at Tonton André’s face with my nails to erase him from our family. But the glass saves him.
Maman isn’t looking at the photos anymore; her eyes are closed, as if in prayer. I pick up a brass letter opener and begin to scratch the glass over my tonton’s face. The sound distracts Papa from the window and he gives me a bad look. I stop.
“Why did you come down—come back?” he says to Maman, searching my face to see whether I’ve understood the question.
I haven’t.
He turns back to Maman. “Woman, why? Return to where you were last night. Please. Leave.”
“Whatever you do,” she says, “do not let my daughter know.”
“She should!” he says, then recoils from the force in his own voice.
My parents are hiding something from me. Maman is very stubborn about it. Their sentences enter my ears as randomly as a toss of the dice on our Ludo board. Papa looks guilty, like a child who can’t keep a secret.
“I can’t bear it,” he says. “I can’t.”
“If Monique knew where I was last night,” Maman argues, “your family would’ve forced it out of her and shed blood.”
As they talk, invisible people are breathing everywhere—at least twenty ghosts are in the air around us. When Maman speaks, the ghosts let out groans of agreement, but my parents don’t seem to hear them.
Papa shakes his head. “I mean, you should never have come back. I could have convinced them . . .”
“We needed to be with the children.”
I don’t understand why Maman is saying she wants to be with me when she won’t even look my way. I see dirty water dripping down the white wall beside me. It is coming from the ceiling. At first, it comes down in two thin lines. Then the lines widen and swell into one. Then two more lines come down, in spurts, like little spiders gliding down on threads from a branch of the mango tree in our yard. I touch the liquid with the tip of my finger. Blood.
“Ghost! Ghost!” I scream, diving toward Papa.
“It’s not blood,” he says.
“You are lying! It’s blood! It’s blood!”
Papa tries to get between me and the wall, but I get in front of him and hug him. I cling to his body, climbing up until my hands are around his neck and my legs wrapped around his waist. He tries to muffle my shouts with his hands, but I wriggle and twist until he bows under my weight, and we nearly topple over. He staggers and regains his balance, then he releases his breath, and his stiff body softens. He puts his arms around me and carries me to the sofa. He holds my face to his heart, hiding me from the blood. I stop shouting. Maman is grinding her teeth, and there is a stubborn look on her face—maybe the Wizard has fixed her too.
My body continues to tremble, no matter how hard Papa holds me. I tell him about last night, and he consoles me, telling me not to cry. Tears fill his eyes too, then pour down onto me, warm and fast. I’ve never seen him cry before. Now he can’t stop, like me. He’s telling me he will always love me, putting my head on his shoulder, stroking my braided hair. Once again, I’m Papa’s Shenge.