Read Online The Story of the Cannibal Woman by Maryse Condé - Free Book Online
Authors: Maryse Condé
Ads: Link
of trouble trying to convince Stephen to accompany her, usually so worldly and infatuated with high society. He considered Bebeâs poetry atrocious, and whatâs more, she spoke English with a pretentious accent.
Bebe lived in a villa decorated in a futurist manner by a Brazilian designer who was the darling of the rich South Africans. He had designed interiors of a number of pop singers and artists living in Cape Town and Johannesburg.
The villa was situated in Constantia. This neighborhood, one of the smartest residential districts of Cape Town, was gradually being taken over by ambassadors, businessmen, and experts from sub-Saharan Africa, as the good old Black Africa was now called. Not only were blacks seen as uniformed chauffeurs, their white-gloved hands holding the wheel, but sacrilege of sacrileges, they were also sprawling in the back, their peppercorn heads resting on the leather cushions of their Mercedes 380 SLS. Children with the same skin color were pedaling their expensive mountain bikes along drives lined with pine trees and centuries-old oaks.
But what struck Rosélie was not the environment, the interior design, the walls decorated with brightly colored azulejos and glass insets, the white marble tiles, the monochrome leather furnishings, the eclecticism of the decoration, a No mask next to a Calder mobile, a Fang mask rubbing shoulders with a tapestry from Ethiopia. Not even the sumptuousness of the dinner table, where nothing was lackingâfrom pink champagne and caviar to Scottish salmon. What struck Rosélie was that the dinner guests were made up solely of mixed couples, white men and black women, as if they constituted a humanity all their own that on no pretext should be mistaken for any other.
The most self-assured was Antoine, Simoneâs husband, on whom the nature of his job and the assurance of future promotion conferred an immense authority. When he spoke, his words had the power of a private bill being read to the National Assembly.
The handsomest was without doubt Bebeâs partner, Piotr. This Swede, who would not have been out of place in a film by Ingmar Bergman (the early Bergman) shared and supported her enthusiasm. Like her, he knew that Art should be brought to the people and not the reverse. Like her, he had a different notion of Art than that found in school manuals. Art is everywhere, in the street, in everyday objects. To explain his point Piotr had recently pulled off a major accomplishment. With the help of a photographer, he had plastered over the buses in Cape Town giant pictures of the market in Cocody before it went up in flames, a London double-decker filled with turbaned Sikhs, the junks and floating restaurants of Hong Kong, the mosque at Djenné, and a caravan of camels crossing the desert on their way to the salt mines at Taoudenni.
The most romantic was Peter, an Australian, a telecommunications engineer who had had to flee Sokoto after eloping with Latifah, the only daughter of the sultan. Latifah spoke only Hausa, Peter only English. The couple had three children. But Peter had still not learned a word of Hausa and Latifah not a word of English, which goes to prove that passion forges its own idiom.
The most captivating was Stephen, with his intellectual charisma, his somewhat obscure language, and his references to works of fiction that nobody had ever heard of but that he made you want to read. Once he was at Bebeâs, as Rosélie had guessed, he seemed to forget his reservations and was determined to charm anyone who approached him.
The most average was an American high school teacher from Boston who boasted of being a WASP, on honeymoon with his Congolese wife from Brazzaville who taught at the same school. Together they had written in French a seven-hundred-page novel, extremely boring, Les derniers jestes dâAnténor Biblos , published by Gallimard.
But it was Patrick who stole the evening, a somewhat common-faced
Bebe lived in a villa decorated in a futurist manner by a Brazilian designer who was the darling of the rich South Africans. He had designed interiors of a number of pop singers and artists living in Cape Town and Johannesburg.
The villa was situated in Constantia. This neighborhood, one of the smartest residential districts of Cape Town, was gradually being taken over by ambassadors, businessmen, and experts from sub-Saharan Africa, as the good old Black Africa was now called. Not only were blacks seen as uniformed chauffeurs, their white-gloved hands holding the wheel, but sacrilege of sacrileges, they were also sprawling in the back, their peppercorn heads resting on the leather cushions of their Mercedes 380 SLS. Children with the same skin color were pedaling their expensive mountain bikes along drives lined with pine trees and centuries-old oaks.
But what struck Rosélie was not the environment, the interior design, the walls decorated with brightly colored azulejos and glass insets, the white marble tiles, the monochrome leather furnishings, the eclecticism of the decoration, a No mask next to a Calder mobile, a Fang mask rubbing shoulders with a tapestry from Ethiopia. Not even the sumptuousness of the dinner table, where nothing was lackingâfrom pink champagne and caviar to Scottish salmon. What struck Rosélie was that the dinner guests were made up solely of mixed couples, white men and black women, as if they constituted a humanity all their own that on no pretext should be mistaken for any other.
The most self-assured was Antoine, Simoneâs husband, on whom the nature of his job and the assurance of future promotion conferred an immense authority. When he spoke, his words had the power of a private bill being read to the National Assembly.
The handsomest was without doubt Bebeâs partner, Piotr. This Swede, who would not have been out of place in a film by Ingmar Bergman (the early Bergman) shared and supported her enthusiasm. Like her, he knew that Art should be brought to the people and not the reverse. Like her, he had a different notion of Art than that found in school manuals. Art is everywhere, in the street, in everyday objects. To explain his point Piotr had recently pulled off a major accomplishment. With the help of a photographer, he had plastered over the buses in Cape Town giant pictures of the market in Cocody before it went up in flames, a London double-decker filled with turbaned Sikhs, the junks and floating restaurants of Hong Kong, the mosque at Djenné, and a caravan of camels crossing the desert on their way to the salt mines at Taoudenni.
The most romantic was Peter, an Australian, a telecommunications engineer who had had to flee Sokoto after eloping with Latifah, the only daughter of the sultan. Latifah spoke only Hausa, Peter only English. The couple had three children. But Peter had still not learned a word of Hausa and Latifah not a word of English, which goes to prove that passion forges its own idiom.
The most captivating was Stephen, with his intellectual charisma, his somewhat obscure language, and his references to works of fiction that nobody had ever heard of but that he made you want to read. Once he was at Bebeâs, as Rosélie had guessed, he seemed to forget his reservations and was determined to charm anyone who approached him.
The most average was an American high school teacher from Boston who boasted of being a WASP, on honeymoon with his Congolese wife from Brazzaville who taught at the same school. Together they had written in French a seven-hundred-page novel, extremely boring, Les derniers jestes dâAnténor Biblos , published by Gallimard.
But it was Patrick who stole the evening, a somewhat common-faced
Similar Books
