The Lights of Pointe-Noire (18 page)

Postscript

O
n 15 July 2012, I had a phone call from Gilbert to say my grandmother, Hélène, had just died. Exactly three weeks to the day after my departure from Pointe-Noire. So the old lady wasn't wrong: she had waited to be delivered by a white woman. Along with the other members of the family, I made my contribution, sending a sum of money by Western Union, which Gilbert handed over to her widower, Old Joseph, before witnesses. Because so many families have torn each other apart over that. People always exaggerate the amount of money sent by a relative living abroad. When Gilbert called me, he put on the loudspeaker:

‘Cousin, I've got ten people sitting round me, including Uncle Mompéro and Grand Poupy. Can you tell us yourself how much you just sent for Grandmother Hélène's funeral?…'

I told him, and he repeated the amount out loud so that the others wouldn't bring a case against him. When I hung up, I saw again the old lady, rigid under her mosquito net, and her hand gripping me as though holding on to life itself…

I've spoken to Gilbert again on the telephone. Bienvenüe left the Adolphe-Sicé hospital the very day after Grandmother Hélène's funeral. He was like a man who has just pulled off a victory:

‘Because you know, cousin, when she was in that hospital, a bit of me was in there with her! We shared the same womb, we wallowed in the same amniotic fluid! You can tell me the truth now. You were a bit scared too, weren't you? That's why you didn't go and visit her, when you were living opposite! I do understand – you know it's the first time a member of our family has been in hospital, in that room, Room One, and come out alive? My father – your uncle – he died in that room, didn't he? I was scared, I prayed every day. I was even tempted to go and pray in the pentecostal church of the New Jerusalem – just goes to show!'