Confession of the Lioness Read Online Free Page B

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    At this point, his whole body stirs into action, in a sudden frenzy. My brother suddenly emerges from his enduring lethargy. With the despair of a man drowning, he leans on Luzilia’s arm and approaches me. He seems to be talking, but he doesn’t utter a word. He merely emits a kind of string of anxious sighs, as if swallowing more air than his chest can accommodate. The woman understands what he is trying to say, and nods in agreement. They understand each other. Then he returns to his old chair and sinks back into himself. As there’s no more to be said, Luzilia accompanies me to the hospital gate. I’m the one to break the embarrassed silence.
    What did Roland say?
    He asked me to go with you on this hunting expedition.
    Surely that can’t be true!
    Her eyes downcast, Luzilia makes a vague gesture, as if the whole thing were a nightmare.
    Does he know something? I ask.
    What do you mean?
    About how I feel for you?
    He’s known that for a long time. Roland read your letter to me. He found it in my bag.
    How could that be?
    I never threw it away.
    Roland suspected: My last hunt was a farewell to life. Even if I returned, safe and sound, to the city, I would never return to myself. Madness wasn’t just a simple illness, but a family curse. And only hunting would save me from such a sickly fate.
    This was the fear that Roland confessed to Luzilia. In his despair, my brother was handing me a reason to go on clinging to life. This reason was the only woman he had ever loved. I turn my back, in a hurry to get away from the place, when Luzilia stops me:
    Archie? Don’t you want to know what I’d like to do?
    No. It doesn’t matter anymore. I don’t want you to come, it’s as simple as that. Your place is here, with Roland. Isn’t that what you chose?

 
    Mariamar’s Version
    TWO
    Return from the River
    A woman’s true name is “Yes.” Someone tells her: “You’re not going.” And she says, “I’m staying.” Someone orders: “Don’t talk.” And she’ll remain silent. Someone commands: “Don’t do it.” And she answers: “Very well.”
    â€”A PROVERB FROM SENEGAL
    The night before, the order had been issued in our house: The women would remain shut away, far from those who would be arriving. Once again, we were excluded, kept apart, extinguished.
    The following morning, I got down to the household chores. I wanted to give my mother a rest, for she had been lying, ever since the early morning, at the entrance to the yard. At one point I lay down next to her, determined to share with her some of the burden of one who feels the weight of her soul. She took no notice of me at first. Then she mumbled between gritted teeth:
    This village killed your sister. It killed me. Now it’s never going to kill anyone again.
    Please, Mother. We’ve just buried one of our own.
    We women have been buried for a long time now. Your father buried me; your grandmother, your great-grandmother, they were all entombed alive.
    Hanifa Assulua was right: Without knowing it, maybe I had been buried. So ignorant was I in matters of love, that I had been consigned to the grave. Our village was a living cemetery, only visited by its own residents. I looked at the houses that stretched out along the valley. Discolored, gloomy houses, as if they regretted emerging from the ground. Poor Kulumani, which never wanted to be a village. Poor me, who never wanted to be anything.
    Time and again our mother had begged for us to go to the city.
    I beseech you, husband, for the sake of all that is sacred: Let us go.
    If you want to leave, then go.
    We can leave someone to look after the graves.
    It’s the other way around, woman: If we leave, the graves will stop looking after us.
    *   *   *
    I shook off such memories. What point was there now in dwelling on past bitterness? If we clung so much to the past, how