Baking Cakes in Kigali (23 page)

“That is very difficult,” Angel sympathised. “It was not in our immediate three-year plan to raise five more children, but circumstances arose that made us have to change our plan.”

Gasana glanced at the children. “I understand your situation, because Dr T has told me, more specifically about your son. And to tell the truth, Mrs T, I think my brother was sick, and that is why he’s late. Now I don’t know about his wife and the children. I don’t know if they’re well.”

“Let us pray, Gasana,” said Angel. “I hope you won’t think that I’m being too direct if I suggest to you that you should … be careful?” This advice surprised Angel herself: before getting to know Odile and spending time at the centre, she would have considered such a subject too delicate even to think about, let alone to mention openly.

Gasana laughed. “No, you’re not too direct, Mrs T! In fact,
nobody is direct like Dr Rejoice, and she’s already given me a lecture and a big handful of
Prudence!
She’s one of the people who’ll be in the book club.
Eh
, Mrs T, are you sure I can’t persuade you to change your mind and join the club? All the books we’ll read will be in English.”

“Thank you, Gasana, but I told you before that I’m not an educated somebody; I’m not somebody to read books. But you know, I’m going to make an exception in your case and return your deposit to you, because I haven’t used it yet to buy ingredients.” Angel reached into her brassiere and removed some banknotes. “I’m sure you’ll need this money for the funeral.”

“Mrs T, I’m very grateful to you.” Gasana accepted the money that Angel counted out and handed to him. “Thank you for understanding my situation.” He glanced at his watch. “Where is that driver now? I must be at the Ministry of Justice by half-past two!”

“The Ministry of Justice! That sounds important. What are you doing there?”

“Earning money for KIST as usual!” Gasana replied. “Eh, your husband is very good at hiring out my services! There’s a big report there that needs translating from French to English. I don’t know many details yet; this is the first meeting about it.”

“Actually, I needed a translator myself, today,” said Angel. “I’m picking up bits of Kinyarwanda okay, but French is very hard for me. I wish I had my late daughter’s language skills.
Eh!
Already as a child she knew Swahili and English on top of Haya, our home language in Bukoba, and then she learned some German from her father. Pius had to know it for his studies. I know if she was here she’d be picking up French like
that.”
Angel clicked her thumb and middle finger together rapidly several times.

“French is a difficult language just to pick up, Mrs T. You
should take some lessons. We teach it at KIST in the evenings, you know? And we also teach English. Our president has said that everybody should become bilingual.”

“Yes, I know. But, Gasana, is everybody here not already bilingual?”

“Mrs T?”

“Well, I’ve looked in the children’s dictionary, and it says there that bilingual means you can speak two languages. People here can already speak two languages at least: Kinyarwanda and French, or Kinyarwanda and Swahili, or some other two. But when your president talks about bilingual, he means only English and French—
Wazungu
languages. Does he mean to say that our own African languages are not languages?”

“
Eh
, Mrs T! Now you’re speaking like somebody who reads books! Really, you should join our book club! Or at least come to our university to learn French.”

Angel smiled. “I can’t attend evening classes, Gasana. Evenings are a time for me to be with my family; and I can’t spend our money on private lessons during the day.”

A loud and insistent hooting started up outside the compound.

“Eh! That’s the driver!” declared Gasana, and he jumped up from his chair, shook Angel by the hand, thanked her again and shouted goodbyes to the children as he hurtled out of the apartment.

Angel looked at her watch. It was almost half-past two; she had half an hour to supervise the children’s homework before Mrs Mukherjee would arrive with her sons Rajesh and Kamal, and their nanny Miremba.

At five to three, she sent Grace and Faith up to Safiya’s apartment to continue with their homework, and woke Titi from her afternoon nap. At exactly three o’clock the Mukherjees arrived, and Angel suggested that Titi and Miremba should
take all the boys down to the yard with their soccer ball so that she and
Mama
-Rajesh could talk business.

“Yard is safe, no?” asked Mrs Mukherjee, a thin, nervous woman who was constantly wringing her bony hands together.

“Completely safe,” assured Angel. “The children play there every day.”

“Not too much of germs?”

This was difficult. Angel knew from Dr Rejoice that there were germs everywhere, so of course there must be germs in the yard. But Dr Rejoice had also told her that it was wrong to protect children from all germs. That was the fashion in Europe now, and many
Wazungu
were becoming sick because they had never learnt how to fight germs when they were small. But Angel did not think it would be useful to try to explain that to Mrs Mukherjee.

“No germs,” she assured her.

The boys and their carers were dispatched to the yard and Mrs Mukherjee stationed herself at the window to watch them while Angel made tea. She was barely able to coax her guest away from the window when she brought the tea and cupcakes to the coffee table, and it was with a great show of reluctance that the woman sat down opposite her. Angel tried to distract her from the imminent deaths of her boys in the yard.

“These cakes look beautiful with your outfit,” she said. She had deliberately picked out the cakes from the morning’s colour-mixing lesson that would complement the deep purple of her guest’s
salwar kameez.
She eyed the design of the outfit now: surely the long dress over the trousers—with slits where it passed over both thighs—would enable a woman to get into and out of a big vehicle elegantly? It looked very fashionable on Mrs Mukherjee’s thin body: would it work over her own expanding hips?

Mrs Mukherjee gave the plate of cakes a cursory glance. “Mrs Tungaraza, did you read
New Vision?”

“Call me Angel, please, Mrs Mukherjee. I do read it sometimes.” Once or twice a week Pius would bring a copy of the Ugandan newspaper home.

“Ebola!” declared Mrs Mukherjee, leaning forward across the coffee table with an air of conspiracy. Then she sat back in her chair and said again, this time almost defiantly, “Ebola!”

Angel was not quite sure what to make of this. “Has Ebola come to Kigali?”

“No!” Mrs Mukherjee’s bony hands flew to the sides of her head for a moment. “No! If Ebola is coming to Kigali then we are booking tickets to Delhi. Immediately!” Her right hand added emphasis to this final word by executing a chopping motion into the palm of her left. She shook her head vehemently.

“Where exactly is this Ebola, Mrs Mukherjee?”

“Uganda!” Mrs Mukherjee raised both her arms in an exaggerated gesture. “Right next door to Rwanda! Ebola is killing in two weeks.
Two weeks
, Mrs Tungaraza!”

“Angel, please. Let us not be formal.”

“Two weeks. Blood is coming from the eyes, the ears, the nose.
Finished!”
The chopping motion came again.

“But I think we’re safe here in Kigali.” Angel removed her glasses and began to clean them with the corner of her
kanga.

Mrs Mukherjee shook her head. “Ugandans are here! In Kigali! Working with our husbands! Dr Binaisa. Mr Luwandi …”

“But Ebola is not a disease specifically of Ugandans, Mrs Mukherjee.” Angel’s rubbing of her lenses became more insistent.

“Ugandan children are at school with our children. My boys will stay home until the Ebola is finished. I told my husband. I
told that it is a Himalayan blunder to send our boys to school when the Ebola is next door. He agrees to my decision.”

Angel had met Mr Mukherjee, who lectured in Information Technology. He was the exact opposite of his wife: big and broad with a quick sense of humour and sensible ideas. He would definitely have disagreed with his wife on this issue, but he probably understood that there was nothing to be gained from saying so. Angel saw the wisdom in this.

“You are very wise, Mrs Mukherjee,” she conceded. “I’ll discuss it with my husband tonight, and perhaps we’ll keep our children at home, too.”

The lie was rewarding: for the first time since her arrival, Angel suddenly had her guest’s full attention. The two women smiled at each other as Angel replaced her glasses.

“Do try your tea, Mrs Mukherjee. I’ve heard that it’s similar to a tea that is made in India.”

Mrs Mukherjee took a sip. “Oh, yes, cardamom. In India we are putting cardamom and lemon in green tea.”

“I’ve always wanted to visit your country,” Angel lied.

“It is a very beautiful country,” beamed Mrs Mukherjee.

“And your country has delicious food, very spicy. In my country, especially along the coast, the cooking is still influenced by the people who came from India to build the railway many years ago.”

Mrs Mukherjee slapped both her hands on her thighs and declared, “I cook for you one day.”

“That will be wonderful. Thank you. But I’ve cooked for you today. Please have a cake.”

Mrs Mukherjee chose a cupcake with lilac icing, peeled away its paper cup and took a bite. Angel savoured the secret that—that very morning—a woman with HIV had stirred that cake mixture to get a feel for the correct consistency. To reveal that secret to Mrs Mukherjee would surely be to send her into a frenzy of panic and ticket-booking.

“Very tasty. Obviously you will bake the cake for my husband’s cousin-brother, no?” “Oh, is he visiting here?”

“Yes. He was in Butare, at the National University. Two-years contract is finishing in three months, but he was deciding to return back early.”

“So he’s on his way back home?”

“For the short visit. Now is time for me and my husband to go home, too. I told my husband no more contract.”

“How long have you been here, Mrs Mukherjee?”

“Almost three years.
Three years!
I told my husband if he is renewing contract I am taking the boys home to Delhi. Too much of germs are here.” Mrs Mukherjee finished her cupcake.

“Are there no germs in Delhi?”

“The Ebola is not there.” Mrs Mukherjee shook her head vehemently. “And no AIDS.”

Angel resisted the urge to polish her glasses again. Without saying a word, she picked up the plate of cupcakes and held them out to her guest, who took one iced in crimson and peeled away its paper case before continuing.

“And the servants in Delhi are better.”

“Are you not happy with Miremba?”

“She isn’t knowing good English. Now the boys are speaking bad English. But what to do?” Mrs Mukherjee raised both her arms into the air again. “Rwandans are not speaking much of English.”

Mrs Mukherjee was clearly unaware that the reason why Miremba spoke English at all was that she had been raised in Uganda, the country where Ebola was even now killing people in two weeks. Angel must remember to warn Miremba never to reveal this fact to her employers. It was time to move the conversation on.

“So, Mrs Mukherjee, tell me about the cake that you want
to order for your husband’s … er … cousin-brother, is it? Will you be having a party to say farewell to him?”

“Yes. Most of the Indian community here will come.”

“And this cousin-brother’s family? Have they been here with him in Butare?”

“No, no. The family is at home in India. He married after already coming here. His parents found a nice girl for him. He went home for marriage and immediately he impregnated his wife. Very successful honeymoon. Very successful. Now he’s going to meet his son at home.”

“
Eh
, that is something nice for him to look forward to!”

“Yes. Obviously he will try to impregnate again before going for his new job in England.”

“So his family will not go with him to England?”

“No.”

“Does his wife not mind being left alone to raise his children?”

“No, no. His wife is with the parents. She married well, an educated man. No complaints.”

“And you also married an educated man, Mrs Mukherjee. But you came here with him.”

“The boys are older. If they are babies, no. The wife cannot accompany the husband with babies. Better to stay home with the parents.”

Better for the husband, certainly, thought Angel. It was very convenient for him simply to be away for that whole period of sleepless nights and soiling. Angel had herself not accompanied her husband when he went to Germany for his studies, though the children were no longer babies then. When Pius had first gone to do his Master’s degree, Joseph had been eight and Vinas six. After his Master’s, Pius had been awarded another scholarship to do a PhD, so when he finally came home, his children were already fourteen and twelve. Of course, he had come home once a year during that time, and once a year
Angel had been able to visit him there, leaving Joseph and Vinas in the care of her parents.

Angel had often wondered about the effect on the children of their father’s long absence. It had certainly made it easier, she felt, for both of them to choose to live far away from their parents: Joseph in Mwanza, where he had an important job as the manager of a factory that manufactured packaging for Lake Victoria’s fishing industry; and Vinas in Arusha, where she taught English. It had probably also influenced Vinas’s love for Winston: it was not unknown for girls who missed their fathers to marry men who were older. And perhaps, Angel acknowledged, her own absences during her annual visits to Pius in Germany had helped to prepare the ground for the distance that had come between her and Vinas.

“And what was your husband’s cousin-brother doing at the National University, Mrs Mukherjee?”

“Also computer, just like my husband. All men in my husband’s family are doing computer.”

“I believe India is an expert country for that.”

“Yes. Now Rwanda is wanting to become the expert country, too. The government of Britain is helping for that—but the power here is on-off, on-off, not like in India. No power outages in India.”