Introduction The Reed Anna Seghers, East Germany, 19.docx

Introduction "The Reed"
Anna Seghers, East Germany, 1965
Anna Seghers (1900-1983), a pseudonym for Netty Reiling, was
born in Mainz and grew up in a middle-class Jewish family. Her
earliest literary influences include the classical German
literature of the 18th and 19th century, a tradition which
defines her own narrative style. Between 1920 and 1924,
Seghers
studied art history and philology at the universities of
Heidelberg and Cologne, and in 1925 she became one of the
first
women in Germany to receive her Ph.D. Although 1925 also
saw the
publication of her first story, Anna Seghers did not receive wide
recognition until 1928 when her first novel, The Uprising of the
Fishermen of St. Barbara, received the prestigious Kleist Prize,

an annual award that is given anonymously for the best work of
a
new author. While the jury members were correct in predicting
the future success of the new author, they were totally incorrect
in their assumptions about the gender of this new literary
figure. All references to the stark and powerful style of the
young male author proved to be somewhat embarrassing for the
members of the jury.
The year 1928 was an auspicious one for Anna Seghers in yet
another sense, it was also the year in which she joined the
German Communist Party. Her joining the Party may have been
motivated by factors ranging from a basic humanistic hope for
social change to the politically charged climate of Germany in
the 20s, including the influence of her husband Laszlo
Radvanyi,
a Hungarian political emigre whom she met and married in
1926.
She remained a loyal, if often critical member of the German
Communist Party throughout her life.

After fleeing Nazi Germany in 1933 and after spending years
of exile in France and Mexico, Anna Seghers returned to her
native land in 1947 where she quickly became the matriarch of
East German literature. Not only did she serve as an
international representative of her Party and her country, she
also became a supporter and role model for a whole new
generation
of East German authors in the sixties and seventies, especially
Christa Wolf.
"The Reed" was taken from a collection of short stories that
was published in 1965. In it the reader follows the evolution of
the main character, Marta Emrich, through the dangers of the
war
years to the difficulties of the fledgling East Germany. How
does the larger stage of historical events intersect with the
lives of the characters? To what extent does the main character
represent typically middle-class values and does she change in
the course of the story? Why would Anna Seghers portray a
woman

like Marta rather than a political activist such as herself? As
readers of the 1990s, what reaction do you have to Anna
Seghers'
portrayal of the female character?
Anna Seghers, "The Reed," trans. Benito's Blue and Nine
Other Stories, (East Berlin: Seven Seas Books,)
), 144-157.
Anna Seghers Jewish, Communist Party member
1900 Netty Reiling (Anna Seghers) born in Mainz
1925 Dissertation on The Jew and Judaism in the Work of
Rembrandt; one of the first women to receive her Ph.D.
from the University of Heidelberg; publication of her
• first story

1926 married Laszlo Radvanyi, a Hungarian political emigre
1928 first novel, The Uprising of the Fishermen of St. Barbara
(Aufstand der Fischer von St. Barbara ); Kleist Prize;
joined the German Communist Party;))
-prize first novel
1933 arrested, by the Gestapo; flight to Paris
1940 flight from Paris to Marseille; then in 1941 to Mexico
1947 return to Berlin
1952-1977 President of the East German Writers' Union
1983 -died in East Berlin --- Matriarch of East German lit.
works include
1942 Das siebte Kreuz (The Seventh Cross) published in
English;
Film version in 1944; published in German in 1947
1943 Transit)
1943 "Ausflug der toten Madchen" ("Excursion of the Dead
Girls")
1965 Kraft der Schwachen (The Power of the Weak) a collection
of
stories, including "Agathe Schweigert" and "The Reed"

1 87
THE REED
Anna Seghers
Long before the war the Emrich family had had a little house
and
garden on a lake near Berlin.
They grew mainly vegetables. There was a narrow strip of
lawn between the lake shore and their solid, one-storey house--
the
only bit of land not cultivated. The shore was flat, sloping very
gradually, and the reeds grew thick, as they did almost all round
the
lake. From the landing stage there was a gravel path up to the
glass
verandah which had been built on to the house in more
prosperous
days. The sitting room and the kitchen opened off the small
paved
front and the cellar was reached through a trap door in the
kitchen
floor. The cellar door facing the lake was not used any more,
for it
was blocked up by all kinds of stores, and things were piled so
high
that hardly any light came through the cellar window.
The Emrichs had also owned a small public house in a nearby
village, and the smithy opposite. They had shod horses and
mended

ploughs and farm implements there.
Father Emrich had been kicked by a horse and died shortly
before the war. They say misfortunes never come singly.
Perhaps he
had been a little less careful than usual, upset by the unexpected
death of his wife shortly before.
The two sons were conscripted and the war prolonged their
military service indefinitely. One of them experienced the
invasion
of Poland, the other the landing in Narvik.
Distant relatives had in the meantime bought the public house
and the smithy. Marta Emrich, the only daughter, looked after
the
little property on the lake.SShe took pride in doing almost
everything herself and only occasionally got some help from a
day
labourer, for instance with painting the house, so that it should
look
decent if one of her brothers came home on leave. She not only
did
most of the vegetable gardening herself; she also papered the
rooms
and tarred the boat, which was generally tied up to the landing
stage, unused. Seen from the lake, the white house with its
rambler
roses looked friendly and inviting.
Marta toiled from dawn till dusk, not only because she wanted
to save up and have no debts, for her brothers had already lost
their
income from the public house and the smithy, not only because
she
thought that was what she was there for, but also because she

wanted to forget how lonely she was.
188
Her second cousin, a farmer's son from the neighbouring village
whom people had thought of as her fiancé, was one of the few to
be
killed on the Maginot Line. Through him it might have been
possible
to get the public house and the smithy back into the possession
of
the Emrich family. They had not been properly engaged, but
when she
received the news that he had "Fallen in battle" Marta felt
deserted
and almost without hope. She had never been talkative, but now
she
retired into herself completely.
She was in good health and accustomed to relying on herself in
any situation. She was twenty-six in the third year of the war,
big-
boned and with a broad, flat face. She had some contact with
what
was going on in the world through her brothers' letters and
through
various meetings in the village. Like her neighbours, she put out
a
flag after every victory.
Her younger brother fell on the eastern front. Although he had
been her favourite and was more good-natured than the older
brother, she did not feel his death so much as that of her fiancé.
She

felt more as if his leave had been stopped indefinitely.
One rainy evening in the late summer of 1943 she was sorting
potatoes and beets in the cellar and getting fodder ready for the
next
day.
She suddenly heard a slight, unaccustomed rustling in the
reeds and then in the hedge. It seemed to her as if a shadow
flitted
by. The thought flashed into her mind that a person might think
the
house unoccupied, for there was no light burning, apart from the
little oil lamp in the cellar. She called out, "Who's there?"
There was no answer, so she climbed up through the trap door
into the kitchen again, went through the little sitting room to the
verandah and outside.
A strange young man stood on the little strip of ground
between the lake and the house; as far as she could make out he
was
not badly dressed. She could not see his face clearly in the
dusk. He
asked quickly, "Does a Frau Schneider live here?" Marta
answered,
"Nobody of that name here, nor in the village either." She
looked
more closely at the young man, then she asked, "How did you
get
here?" He answered, "By boat." "How?" asked Marta peering
through
the gloom, for at the landing stage she saw that there was only
one
boat there. The stranger said, "Oh, I left the boat farther along
the

bank, I thought she might be living in the last village but one--
Frau
Schneider--and then I began asking my way."
A motor cycle clattered along the road. He seized Marta's hand,
and said, "Don't give me away if anyone comes asking for me."
189
Marta snatched her hand away, "So that's it, you've been up to
something."
The motor cycle did not stop. The stranger took her hand again
and said in a soft, urgent voice, "I've done nothing wrong. Just
the
opposite."
They heard the rattle of a motor-boat on the lake. The man
asked, "Do I look like someone bad?"
She tried again to see his face, as if a face had ever
guaranteed a person's honesty. She knew that, for she had lived
alone long enough and had had to do with all sorts of people.
But she
thought she had never had anything to do with a face of this
kind.
The motor-boat had passed by. "Why are they looking for you if
you haven't been up to anything?"
He went on quickly, in the same urgent tone, "They handed
round something against the war where I work. And today they
had
it in for me." "Well, but listen," said Marta, "if there's

something in
it you really ought to be locked up."
The stranger went on talking, taking no notice of what she
said. His voice was pleading and threatening at the same time.
Maybe she hadn't lost anyone in the war or waited for the news-
-
"Fallen in battle." They were now cowering side by side against
the
house wall. Marta said he ought certainly to be shut up for
talking
like that--if not in prison then in a madhouse. He asked whether
they ought to wait till all the men had been killed. Well, he
hadn't
waited--not him! And now they were after him. He asked,
"Haven't
you any heart? Let me get behind the hedge. You don't need to
know
anything about it."
And when she hesitated a moment, he added, "Go on into the
house! You haven't seen me at all. You don't know anything
about me.
Go on in, do!"
Marta turned away and went back into the house as if they had
not spoken a word to each other and went on with her work.
That's how it began. She got up a little earlier than usual to
see whether he was still sitting behind the hedge. She rather
hoped
that he had made himself scarce. She would even have been
prepared
that first morning to persuade herself that nobody had ever been
there. But there he was, crouched down in the same place. She
went

into the house without a word and came back with a hot drink.
She
watched him gulping it down and then choking on it and biting
his
hand to keep back the sound of coughing. He looked at her, and
it was
light enough to see his face clearly. He said nothing, but his lips
moved a little and he looked her firmly in the eye. She said
nothing,
190
went back into the house as if there were no one crouching
there,
and got on with her work as usual.
That summer she had a boy working for her on day wages. He
came from the village. He had had infantile paralysis and
limped.
The boy told Marta that the police were looking for a
pickpocket.
They had warned all the villages round the lake about him. In
the
afternoon, when the early mist was rising, Marta signed to the
young
man to follow her through the cellar trap door. She already had
her
store of wood and coal piled up there for the winter, and now
she
cleared a tiny space. She said nothing, as if what she did or did
not
do would only be real if she talked about it.
The little day labourer was disappointed when August came to

an end and Marta did not engage him for the month of
September. But
nobody was surprised, for it was well known that Marta Emrich
could do just about everything herself and even took pride in
doing
so.
The fugitive--whose name was Kurt Steiner--did all the little
jobs that made no noise, peeling and cutting and even some
repairs,
in his hide-out in the wood pile. Marta sometimes left the trap
door
to the cellar open and turned on the radio. After a while she
plucked
up courage to go down and listen to what he had to tell her. He
thought of many examples to help her to understand--things that
had
happened in the world and to him. These things sounded like
fairy
tales or sagas to Marta, who had no experience outside her own
existence. At first his urgent voice numbed her, but then she
began
to take notice of the meaning of what he said, contradicting
him,
asking questions and thinking about it all.
One night, when everything round about was frozen in winter
sleep, in ice and snow, she brought him up into the house. By
the
light of a torch, he looked for a long moment at the room she
was so
proud of. Her bed looked fresh and good.
Trembling, pressed close against him, she watched a night air
attack on Berlin through the slats of the blind.

Marta Emrich gradually grew familiar with the ideas of her
companion Kurt Steiner. She was now convinced that he had
acted
rightly and properly. She would have done the same, knowingly
and
willingly.
But she felt a little guilty at the sense of relief she had when
she heard that her elder brother Karl had been taken prisoner on
the
eastern front. For she would not have known how to hide Kurt
Steiner if her brother had come home on leave. Karl was very
rough
and hard, even spiteful. He was the sort who would gladly have
seized a fugitive by the throat.
191
A new and terrible danger came in the spring. A peasant
woman told her over the fence that the villages round the lake
were
being searched for deserters. They weren't missing a cellar, a
garden or bush, the woman said half fearfully, half vengefully.
Kurt Steiner turned pale when Marta told him. He groaned, and
said, his eyes empty, "It's all been no good. It's all up with me
now.
I've got to get away or they'll catch you, too."
Marta suddenly remembered a story her younger brother, her
favourite, had read in a picture book and told them. Somewhere
in
this story--she couldn't remember where it had taken place--
someone had saved himself--and she couldn't remember from

what
or why--by submerging himself under water and breathing
through a
reed stalk all the time they were searching for him. Kurt Steiner
said that was only a tale, you couldn't possibly do it in real life.
Marta urged, "Oh, but it might work. Try it, anyway." He
protested,
"No, I can't possibly. No, no it wouldn't work." "But you must!
You
must!" said Marta.
And she insisted that he try it out, at once, before they came
searching for him. There wasn't anything else to do, so it must
be
possible. And she forced him to go into the water. She cut off a
suitable reed. It was barely afternoon when things got serious.
The
next house was surrounded and searched, without result; and
then it
was her turn; they even went down into the cellar from the
kitchen.
Marta was terribly frightened when they found the space in the
middle of the wood pile. They might find a trace, some hairs or
even
a shadow. But they only pushed things round, angrily and
stubbornly.
"Who are you looking for?" Marta asked with a touch of irony
in spite of her fear. "My younger brother is dead and the other
brother is a prisoner of war."--"Hold your tongue," said the
military
police, "a woman doesn't only have brothers." Marta was
frightened
to death, then she thought, can he hold out? Will he get enough
air?

After they had searched in vain they moved on to the next
house, cursing loudly. Kurt Steiner finally crept back into his
hole in
the cellar, which now seemed quite like home to him. But they
always had to be on the lookout for another raid. He was very
nearly
desperate. He would rather be dead than live like this, he said.
He
wouldn't be able to stand another raid, breathing through a reed.
Marta argued hotly with him, reminding him that the end was
in sight and that he was in this terrible situation just because he
wanted the war to end. He simply must hold out till then.--Soon
after that they heard that the villages were to be combed
through
again; the search began at night.
1 92
She begged Kurt Steiner to try it once more. What hadn't he
done already so that there should at last be peace, and now he
wanted to give up at the last minute! So he went through it all
once
more and again he managed to breathe through the reed stalk
while
they made their search.
Berlin was captured a few weeks later. The war was over. The
two wept and laughed and ate a feast together and drank wine,
and
lay like an ordinary married couple in the cool, white bed; no
noise
of motors disturbed them.

The whole area was so flooded with refugees and the houses so
over-filled that nobody wondered about Kurt Steiner, one of the
many strangers who had appeared. Now that she had nothing to
worry about and all the danger was past, Marta stood guard over
her
vegetable plots and sternly kept soldiers and refugee children
out of
them.
Kurt Steiner watched with a smile as she tried to keep her
property in order in all the confusion. He saw her again now as
she
had always looked, big-boned, with a flat, broad face.
After a week he said he would have to go into the city to see
his friends again.
She plunged into her work; the time of waiting was easier that
way, for he stayed away a long time. At last, unexpectedly, she
heard his voice. He had come with several other people in a
Russian
army car. Some of them were friends whom he had found again.
And
there were also two officers, one of whom spoke quite good
German.
He questioned Marta closely. Kurt Steiner had clearly told them
all
about his flight and about his hide-out, and when the officer
repeatedly asked her whether that was really what had
happened,
she answered briefly, "Yes, that's how it was." The officers
looked
at her in surprise and their eyes were friendly. Then Kurt
Steiner
showed them his hide-out in the cellar and the place on the

shore of
the lake where he had hidden amongst the reeds while the
searching
went on. He made no secret of the help Marta had given him.
She had
not only saved his life, he said, but also kept up his courage.
Marta listened to all this in silence. His voice sounded strange
to her. As she started to get them something to eat, for she had
hoarded a little, Kurt Steiner exclaimed, "What are you thinking
of?
Why, we've brought you a food parcel. We've all got to get back
now."
"You, too?" Marta asked. "Yes, I've got work now in Berlin. A
good job in the new administration," said Kurt Steiner,
smoothing
her hair as' if she were a little girl.�"You'll hear from me again
soon," he called out as they drove away. Her heart had felt
lighter in
the past when the sound of motors died away; now it was
heavier.
1 93
She had always, even as a little girl, kept her thoughts to
herself. She did not have the gift of expressing herself, and the
people she had about her to look after the garden and the house
were
used to her taciturnity, so that no one noticed that she spoke
less
than ever.

One day Kurt Steiner came to see how she was getting on. He
offered her all kinds of help. Marta answered as she answered
everyone, "I can manage by myself." When he told her again
how
grateful he was, she merely said, "That's all right, Kurt," and
stiffened when he tried to draw her to him to say good-bye.
Her brother Karl came home from prisoner-of-war camp. He
was rougher and more abrupt than ever. He had not a single
good
word for his sister, and was annoyed at every little change she
had
made in the vegetable garden. He found the house in good
repair, but
his sister received no praise for this.�Still, he thought it good
enough to start a family with a neighbouring farmer's daughter.
Marta had to give up her room and make do with the attic. The
young
married couple exploited her. Her brother seemed determined to
change everything she had done while he was away. And he did,
too,
because he was angry about the government quota and wanted to
prove that it was quite impossible to produce enough so as to be
able
to sell the surplus on the free market.
Marta sometimes thought over quietly what Kurt Steiner had
told her, although she had not seen him for a long time. He had
said
that people like that always want more land, other people's land,
they, need war.
One Sunday, as she sat alone on the little bench her brother had
put by the lake side for his wife--the pair were away visiting her
parents in the village--a motor-boat drew in at the landing stage.
Kurt Steiner jumped out and helped a girl out after him. Marta

saw
at once that she was just about what Kurt would have wanted his
wife to look like. He greeted Marta gaily and told her he had
wanted
to retrace his whole flight and describe it to his fiancee.�"And
here's Marta on the spot," he concluded. This time he let Marta
make
coffee for them, for he had brought some real coffee with him.
They
sat together for an hour. "What you and I went through
together," he
said, taking her hand, "simply can't ever be forgotten." "No,
certainly
not," said Marta. "If you ever want help come to us," said Kurt,
and
wrote down his Berlin address for her.
When her brother and his wife returned they were angry
because she had had guests. They sniffed the smell of coffee.
Her
sister-in-law grumbled because Marta had used the coffee
service
she had brought with her dowry. Then they were curious to hear
�
1 94
what sort of people could have come to see Marta. "People I
knew
during the war," Marta replied.

In the meantime, something called the Peasants' Mutual Aid
had been set up in the village. Her brother grumbled, "Huh! they
won't
get me to join that." Marta said, "Of course not! Not a man like
you."
She cycled into the village in the evening. They sometimes held
meetings in the public house belonging to her cousins. She
listened
to what was said, shaking her head from time to time when she
didn't approve.
Her brother said, "If you spend your time there you may as well
go and live somewhere else."
"You can't turn me out," said Marla. "Father left it to us
children. But you can buy me out if you like."
But Karl did not want to do that. He was angry and amazed at
the tone his sister took.�
After that, Marta was sometimes treated well, sometimes
badly, sometimes in a false friendly way, sometimes as a
Cinderella.
Although she felt uncomfortable every time she went home, she
was
always relieved when she could cycle off to her peasants'
meeting.
But that did not fill her heart. Her life was bitter.
She longed to see Kurt Steiner again. She could not bear to
wait until he came of his own will. She longed to see his face,
which seemed to her different from all the other faces she knew,
his
steadfast brown eyes and shock of brown hair. She had so many
questions and she felt that he could answer them all. He was
married now, and probably had a child. He might be annoyed if

she
turned up without warning. But he had been to see her with his
fiancee and had given her his address in Berlin.
Since her brother was not much good at official or written
things, and Marta was used to attending to all these matters, her
chance came. She offered to go to the Farmers' Bank in Berlin
without letting her brother see how much she wanted to go. And
this
suited her brother perfectly.
She knew all about the trains and got there punctually. From
the bank she went to Weissensee, to the house where Kurt
Steiner
lived. Shall I? Or shan't I? she thought as she climbed the stairs.
But there was a strange name on the door of the apartment.
She looked at all the. other doors. Finally she asked a woman
who
was just coming back from shopping where Kurt Steiner lived.
The
woman said, "He's been gone a long time." "Where to?" She
shrugged
her shoulders. Marta looked at her pleadingly, and the woman
flung
out her arms in a broad gesture, smilingly ironically.
195
Marta went back to the bus stop. She was tired and miserable.
She thought, he could have written and told me. Her shoulders
drooped as if she were carrying a heavy load, and the corners of
her
mouth turned down. The nearer her bus got to the village the

more
familiar faces she saw. She pulled herself together because she
felt
people were staring at her. She heard one of them say to
another,
"She was in the house alone, too." You'd have treated Kurt
Steiner
differently, she thought. You'd have dragged him off to the
Gestapo.
Then sadly, he's gone away forever.
She got off at the last bus stop and went into the house. If she
didn't keep her teeth clenched, she simply wouldn't be able to
bear it.
She showed her brother the papers from the bank and since he
didn't
understand any of them he could think of nothing to scold her
about.
"Why are you so late?" was all he could find to say.
She suddenly began to feel some kind of satisfaction. She had
something of her very own, something she wouldn't tell anyone
about. What belonged to her and her alone was nothing tangible
but
an experience. She had a right to be proud of it. She
straightened up.
There was a patch of waste land next to the vegetable garden.
The former owners had either been killed in the war or had fled.
The
village handed over this land to a re-settler called Klein.
Eberhard
Klein had lost his wife in the retreat. He looked after his only
son
himself. He was a gloomy man, not able to help himself
properly. He

had been a gardener, but had always had good land to work on
and he
could not get used to the poor soil on the lake shore. Neither
could
he get used to the people, who were as bleak as the land they
lived
on.
Karl Emrich had had his eye on the piece of land which
Eberhard
Klein now farmed, so he cold-shouldered Klein. If Klein asked
him
something he answered shortly, or even gave him a wrong
answer.
Klein thought at first that Marta was no different. People had
told
him she was rough and bad-tempered. But once she gave him a
piece
of friendly advice over the fence about how to trim the tomato
plants. She made sensible remarks at the peasants' meetings,
although she was so shy. Eberhard Klein was surprised. He said
to
himself, that's just what I think. He began to notice how calm
and
kind her eyes were.
Soon she became his wife and was a good mother to his son.
They lived quietly, of one mind where the outside world, their
work
and small family were concerned.
Once Marta received a card from Kurt Steiner in Dusseldorf. He
wrote that he would never forget her. Eberhard Klein asked
about
the man who had sent her the card. She said, "We sometimes
helped

196
each other in the hard times during the war," and added, "he
once
brought me real coffee." Klein did not inquire further, and
Marta said
no more.
If anyone asked about Marta, which seldom happened, people
said she was Emrich's sister. Now she was married to Eberhard
Klein, and people who liked the Kleins might perhaps add that
she
was all right.
What else could they say, since they knew nothing else?
Translated by Joan Becker
Page 1Page 2Page 3Page 4Page 5Page 6Page 7Page 8Page 9Page
10Page 11Page 12
INTRODUCTION to “AWAKENINGS”
from www.filmeducaton.org/pdf/film/awakenings.pdf
In the winter of 1916-1917, an epidemic of a rare disease
occurred, springing up, as virus
diseases sometimes do, seemingly out of nowhere. It spread
over Europe and then to other
parts of the world and affected some five million people. The
onset of the disease was sudden
and took different forms. Some people developed acute
restlessness or insomnia or
dementia. Others fell into a trance-like sleep or coma. These
different forms were recognised

and identified by the physician Constantin von Economo as one
disease, which he called
encephalitis lethargica, or sleepy sickness.
Many people died of the disease. Of those who survived, some
recovered completely. The
majority remained partly disabled, prone to symptoms
reminiscent of Parkinson’s disease.
The worst affected sank into a kind of ‘sleep’, unable to move
or speak, without any will of
their own, or hope, but conscious and with their memories
intact. They were placed in
hospitals or asylums. Ten years after the epidemic had begun, it
just as remarkably
disappeared. Fifty years later, the epidemic had been forgotten.
In 1966, when Dr. Oliver Sacks, a neurologist trained in
London, took up his post at Mount
Carmel, a hospital in New York, he found there a group of
eighty people who were the
forgotten survivors of the forgotten epidemic. It was clear that
hundreds of thousands had
died in institutions. Dr. Sacks called them ‘the lepers of the
present century’. In his book,
‘Awakenings’, he tells of his attempts to understand the nature
of their affliction, but also of his
growing appreciation of them as individuals, with their own
unique histories and experience.
In 1969, Dr. Sacks tried out a remarkable new drug, L-DOPA.
For some of his patients, there
then followed a rapid and brief return to something like
normality. They were suddenly
restored to the world of the late nineteen sixties. His book
documents this remarkable
awakening, as experienced by twenty of his patients. L-DOPA

was not, however, the magic
cure that it first seemed. The normality that it promoted soon
broke down, with patients
subject to all kinds of bizarre behaviours.
In the film of ‘Awakenings’, Robert de Niro plays Leonard
Lowe, someone affected by sleepy
sickness as a young man. He is in a state of near sleep, unable
to move or speak. Every day,
his mother comes into hospital to care for him, as she has for
many years. Robin Williams
plays Dr. Malcolm Sayer, the neurologist who, like Dr. Sacks
himself in 1966, takes up a post
at a New York hospital, discovering there the forgotten
survivors of the sleepy sickness
epidemic. He finds himself drawn to this group of chronically
disabled people, and especially
to Leonard.
Robert de Niro’s Leonard is based on the Leonard L. who Sacks
describes in his book - an
intelligent and courageous man with a wry sense of humour,
who is able only to communicate
in a very limited way, using a letter board. Sacks says how
thoroughly De Niro
prepared himself for his role, spending a great deal of time with
post-encephalitic patients in
an effort to understand something of how it feels to be so
chronically disabled, and to
represent as accurately as possible the quality of if disablement.
In the film, we are shown Leonard’s awakening under L-DOPA.
Leonard sees the world to
which he has awoken truly wonderful. He has lost many years of
his life. Now he wants to
live. He wants his independence. Briefly, we see him

determined to achieve this before his
damaged nervous system pulls him back into a catatonic state.
In the book ‘Awakenings’, Dr. Sacks writes that Leonard says to
him after the last futile trial of
another drug:
“Now I accept the whole situation. It was wonderful, terrible,
dramatic and comic. It is finally -
sad, and that’s all there is to it. I’ve learned a great deal in the
last three years. I’ve broken
through barriers which I had all life. And now, I’ll stay myself
and you can keep your L-DOPA.”
A note about sleepy sickness:
Encephalitis lethargica (sleepy sickness, or sleeping sickness,
as it is called in the U.S.A.) is
caused by a virus attacks the brain. In particular, it attacks a
part of the mid-brain - the
substantia nigra - damaging the nerve cells this area and
severely reducing their ability to
produce the chemical nerve impulse transmitter, dopamine. In
respect, the disease is similar
to Parkinson’s disease. The cerebral cortex (the part of the brain
concerned with conscious
awareness, thought and memory) is unaffected. When in the
early 1960’s a substance (LDOPA) closely related to dopamine
was found to alleviate the symptoms of Parkinson’s
disease, there was the hope that it would do the same for post-
encephalitic patients, that is,
people suffering from the after-effects of sleepy sickness. In
event, the effect of L-DOPA on
such people was variable and unpredictable. For some, except
for a brief return something
close to normality, it was a failure. For others, its effects were
beneficial over a longer period,

and for a few, there was a return to a long lasting near
normality. The drug raised enormous
expectations in those who been worst affected by sleepy
sickness, who for thirty or forty years
had been in a kind of catatonic sleep. Tragically, for some of
them, their awakening was all
too brief
Leonard’s poem:
THE PANTHER by Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-2926)
His vision, from the constantly passing bars,
has grown so weary that it cannot hold
anything else. It seems to him there are
a thousand bars; and behind the bars, no world.
As he paces in cramped circles, over and over,
the movement of his powerful soft strides
is like a ritual dance around a centre
in which a mighty will stands paralysed.
Only at times, the curtain of the pupils
lifts, quietly -. An image enters in,
rushes down through the tensed, arrested muscles,
plunges into the heart and is gone.
PSY1879 Movie worksheet: “Awakenings” Name
_______________________
“Awakenings” is a 1990 film based on Dr. Oliver Sacks’ 1973
book by the same title. The book is a true biographical story of

a British neurologist (Oliver Sacks), fictionalized as American
Malcolm Sayer, played by Robin Williams in the film. The film
also stars Robert DeNiro, who won the Academy Award for best
actor for his portrayal of Leonard Lowe. The film also won
Best Picture of 1990 and Best Adapted Screenplay.
Pre-movie Questions (you will need to do some outside research
to find the answers – check Handouts area in D2L):
1. What is encephalitis lethargica? What are the symptoms?
2. What does it mean to be catatonic?
3. What is LDopa? What other major neurological disease is
commonly treated with
LDopa?
Post-Movie Questions:
4. What were the effects of LDopa on the catatonic patients?

5. What seems to mean the most to Leonard after his
awakening?
6. For Leonard, what were the eventual side effects of taking
LDopa?
Thought Questions:
8. Do you think what Dr. Sayer did in awakening the patients
was unethical? How and
why?
9. If you went into a catatonic state this year, what people and
things in your life might
be different if you woke up in 30 years?

10. Did you like this movie? Why or why not?
The Anchor Book of
Modern African Stories
Edited by
Nadezda Obradovic
with a foreword by
Chinua Achebe
AN ANCHOR BOOKS ORIGINAL, DECEMBER 2002
[email protected] 1994, 2002 by Nadezda Obradovic
Foreword copyright © 1994 by Chinua Achebe
All rights reserved under International
and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.
Published in the United States by Anchor Books,
a division of Random House, Inc., New York,
and simultaneously in Canada by Random House

of Canada Limited, Toronto.
Previously published, in slightly different form,
as African Rhapsody: Short Stories from
the Contemporary African Experience,
in 1994 by Anchor Books.
Anchor Books and colophon
are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
These stories ate works of fiction. Names, characters, places,
and incidents are the
products of the authors' imagination or are used fictitiously.
Resemblance to actual
persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The Anchor book of modern African stories / edited by Nadezda
Obradovic ; with a
foreword by Chinua Achebe.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-385-72240-0 (pbk.)
1. Short stories, African (English) 2. Short stories, African—
Translations into English.
3. Africa—Social life and customs—Fiction. 1. Title: Modern
African stories.
II. Obradovic, Nadezda.
PR9348 .A53 2002
823'.0108896—dc21

2002074441
Book design by Oksana Kushnir
www.anchorbooks.com
SEMBÈNE OUSMANE
Sembène Ousmane was born in 1923 in Senegal. He left school
at the age of fifteen after only three years of formal education.
He joined the French Army in 1939, and accompanied them to
liberated France in 1944. After the war Ousmane became a
longshoreman in Marseilles, drawing on his experiences for his
first novel, Le Docker Noir (The Black Docker), published in
1956.
Believing that film had the potential to reach a wider audi-
ence than the written word, he enrolled at the Gorki Studio in
Moscow in 1961. He returned to Senegal two years later, and
since then has produced a number of feature and short subject
films. In 1966 he directed La Noire de. . . . The first feature
ever
produced by an African filmmaker, it won a prize at the 1967
Cannes Film Festival. Beginning with Mandabi (The Money
Order), Ousmane has been producing films in the Wolof lan-
guage, taking his work on tours throughout Senegal. His subse-
quent films have often been temporarily banned or censored for
their political commentary. Among his books are God's Bits of
Wood, The Last of the Empire, Niiwam and Taaw.

Her Three Days
Translated by Len Ortzen
She raised her haggard face, and her faraway look ranged
beyond
the muddle of roofs, some tiled, others of thatch or galvanized
iron; the wide fronds of the twin coconut palms were swaying
slowly in
the breeze, and in her mind she could hear their faint rustling.
Noumbe
was thinking of "her three days." Three days for her alone,
when she
would have her husband Mustapha to herself . . . It was a long
time since
she had felt such emotion. To have Mustapha! The thought
comforted
her. She had heart trouble and still felt some pain, but she had
been dos-
144 SEMBÈNE OUSMANE HER THREE DAYS 145
ing herself for the past two days, taking more medicine than
was pre-
scribed. It was a nice syrup that just slipped down, and she felt
the
beneficial effects at once. She blinked; her eyes were like two
worn
buttonholes, with lashes that were like frayed thread, in little
clusters of
fives and threes; the whites were the color of old ivory.
"What's the matter, Noumbe?" asked Aida, her next-door

neighbor,
who was sitting at the door of her room:
"Nothing," she answered, and went on cutting up the slice of
raw
meat, helped by her youngest daughter.
"Ah, it's your three days," exclaimed Aida, whose words held a
mean-
ing that she could not elaborate on while the little girl was
present. She
went on: "You're looking fine enough to prevent a holy man
from saying
his prayers properly!"
"Aida, be careful what you say," she protested, a little annoyed.
But it was true; Noumbe had plaited her hair and put henna on
her
hands and feet. And that morning she had got the children up
early to
give her room a thorough clean. She was not old, but one
pregnancy
after another—and she had five children—and her heart trouble
had
aged her before her time.
"Go and ask Laity to give you five francs' worth of salt and
twenty
francs' worth of oil," Noumbe said to the girl. "Tell him I sent
you. I'll
pay for them as soon as your father is here, at midday." She
looked disap-
provingly at the cut-up meat in the bottom of the bowl.

The child went off with the empty bottle and Noumbe got to her
feet. She was thin and of average height. She went into her one-
room
shack, which was sparsely furnished; there was a bed with a
white cover,
and in one corner stood a table with pieces of china on display.
The walls
were covered with enlargements and photos of friends and
strangers
framed in passe-partout.
When she came out again she took the Moorish stove and set
about
lighting it.
Her daughter had returned from her errand.
"He gave them to you?" asked Noumbe.
"Yes, Mother."
A woman came across the compound to her. "Noumbe, I can see
that
you're preparing a delicious dish."
"Yes," she replied. "It's my three days. I want to revive the
feasts of
the old days, so that his palate will retain the taste of the dish
for many
moons, and he'll forget the cooking of his other wives."
"Ah-ha! So that his palate is eager for dishes to come," said the
woman, who was having a good look at the ingredients.
"I'm feeling in good form," said Noumbe, with some pride in
her
voice. She grasped the woman's hand and passed it over her

loins.
"Thieh, souya dome! I hope you can say the same tomorrow
morn-
ing . ."
The woman clapped her hands; as if it were a signal of an
invitation,
other women came across, one with a metal jar, another with a
sauce-
pan, which they beat while the woman sang:
Sope dousa rafetail,
Sopa nala dousa rafetail
Sa yahi n'diguela.
(Worship of you is not for your beauty,
I worship you not for your beauty
But for your backbone.)
In a few moments, they improvised a wild dance to this chorus.
At
the end, panting and perspiring, they burst out laughing. Then
one of
them stepped into Noumbe's room and called the others.
"Let's take away the bed! Because tonight they'll wreck it!"
"She's right. Tomorrow this room will be . ."
Each woman contributed an earthy comment which set them all
laughing hilariously. Then they remembered they had work to
do, and
brought their amusement to an end; each went back to her
family occu-

pations.
Noumbe had joined in the laughter, she knew this boisterous
"rag-
ging" was the custom in the compound. No one escaped it.
Besides, she
was an exceptional case, as they all knew. She had a heart
condition and
her husband had quite openly neglected her. Mustapha had not
been to
see her for a fortnight. All this time she had been hoping that he
would
come, if only for a moment. When she went to the clinic for
mothers
and children she compelled her youngest daughter to stay at
home, so
HER THREE DAYS 147
146 SEMBÈNE OUSMANE
that—thus did her mind work—if her husband turned up the
child
could detain him until she returned. She ought to have gone to
the
clinic again this day, but she had spent what little money she
possessed
on preparing for Mustapha. She did not want her husband to
esteem her
less than his other wives, or to think her meaner. She did not
neglect
her duty as a mother, but her wifely duty came first—at certain
times.
She imagined what the next three days would be like; already

her
"three days" filled her whole horizon. She forgot her illness and
her baby's
ailments. She had thought about these three days in a thousand
differ-
ent ways. Mustapha would not leave before the Monday
morning. In
her mind she could see Mustapha and his henchmen crowding
into her
room, and could hear their suggestive jokes. "If she had been a
perfect
wife . ." She laughed to herself. "Why shouldn't it always be
like that
for every woman—to have a husband of one's own?" She
wondered
why not.
The morning passed at its usual pace, the shadows of the
coconut
palms and the people growing steadily shorter. As midday
approached,
the housewives busied themselves with the meal. In the
compound each
one stood near her door, ready to welcome her man. The kids
were play-
ing around, and their mothers' calls to them crossed in the air.
Noumbe
gave her children a quick meal and sent them out again. She sat
waiting
for Mustapha to arrive at any moment . . . he wouldn't be much
longer
now.
An hour passed, and the men began going hack to work. Soon
the
compound was empty of the male element; the women, after a

long
siesta, joined one another under the coconut palms and the
sounds of
their gossiping gradually increased.
Noumbe, weary of waiting, had finally given up keeping a
lookout.
Dressed in her mauve velvet, she had been on the watch since
before
midday. She had eaten no solid food, consoling herself with the
thought
that Mustapha would appear at any moment. Now she fought
back the
pangs of hunger by telling herself that in the past Mustapha had
a habit
of arriving late. In those days, this lateness was pleasant.
Without admit-
ting it to herself, those moments (which had hung terribly
heavy) had
been very sweet; they prolonged the sensual pleasure of
anticipation.
Although those minutes had been sometimes shot through with
doubts
and fears (often, very often, the thought of her coming disgrace
had
assailed her; for Mustapha, who had taken two wives before her,
had just
married another), they had not been too hard to bear. She
realized that
those demanding minutes were the price she had to pay for
Mustapha's
presence. Then she began to reckon up the score, in small ways,
against
the veudieux, the other wives. One washed his boubous when it
was

another wife's turn, or kept him long into the night; another
sometimes
held him in her embrace a whole day, knowing quite well that
she was
preventing Mustapha from carrying out his marital duty
elsewhere.
She sulked as she waited; Mustapha had not been near her for a
fort-
night. All these bitter thoughts brought her up against reality:
four
months ago Mustapha had married a younger woman. This
sudden real-
ization of the facts sent a pain to her heart, a pain of anguish.
The addi-
tional pain did not prevent her heart from functioning normally,
rather
it was like a sick person whose sleep banishes pain but who
once awake
again finds his suffering is as bad as ever, and pays for the
relief by a
redoubling of pain.
She took three spoonfuls of her medicine instead of the two pre-
scribed, and felt a little better in herself.
She called her youngest daughter. "Tell Mactar 1 want him."
The girl ran off and soon returned with her eldest brother.
"Go and fetch your father," Noumbe told him.
"Where, Mother?"
"Where? Oh, on the main square or at one of your other
mothers'."
"But I've been to the main square already, and he wasn't there."
"Well, go and have another look. Perhaps he's there now."
The boy looked up at his mother, then dropped his head again
and

reluctantly turned to go.
"When your father has finished eating, I'll give you what's left.
It's
meat. Now be quick, Mactar."
It was scorching. hot and the clouds were riding high. Mactar
was
back after an hour. He had not found his father. Noumbe went
and
joined the group of women. They were chattering about this and
that;
one of them asked (just for the sake of asking), "Noumbe, has
your uncle
(darling) arrived?" "Not yet," she replied, then hastened to add,
"Oh, he
won't be long now. He knows it's my three days." She
deliberately
changed the conversation in order to avoid a long discussion
about the
other three wives. But all the time she was longing to go and
find
148 SEMBÈNE OUSMANE HER THREE DAYS 149
Mustapha. She was being robbed of her three days. And the
other wives
knew it. Her hours alone with Mustapha were being snatched
from her
The thought of his being with one of the other wives, who was
feeding
him and opening his waistcloth when she ought to be doing all
that,

who was enjoying those hours which were hers by right, so
numbed
Noumbe that it was impossible for her to react. The idea that
Mustapha
might have been admitted to hospital or taken to a police station
never
entered her head.
She knew how to make tasty little dishes for Mustapha which
cost
him nothing. She never asked him for money. Indeed, hadn't she
got
herself into debt so that he would be more comfortable and have
better
meals at her place? And in the past, when Mustapha sometimes
arrived
unexpectedly—this was soon after he had married her—hadn't
she has-
tened to make succulent dishes for him? All her friends knew
this.
A comforting thought coursed through her and sent these
aggressive
and vindictive reflections to sleep. She told herself that
Mustapha was
bound to come to her this evening. The certainty of his presence
stripped her mind of the too cruel thought that the time of her
disfavor
was approaching; this thought had been as much a burden to her
as a
heavy weight dragging a drowning man to the bottom. When all
the
had unfavorable thoughts besetting her had been dispersed, like
piles of
rubbish on wasteland swept by a flood, the future seemed
brighter, and

she joined in the conversation of the women with childish
enthusiasm,
unable to hide her pleasure and her hopes. It was like something
in a
parcel; questioning eyes wondered what was inside, but she
alone knew
and enjoyed the secret, drawing an agreeable strength from it.
She took
an active part in the talking and brought her wit into play. All
this
vivacity sprang from the joyful conviction that Mustapha would
arrive
this evening very hungry and be hers alone.
In the far distance, high above the treetops, a long trail of dark
gray
clouds tinged with red was hiding the sun. The time for the
tacousane,
the afternoon prayer, was drawing near. One by one, the women
with-
drew to their rooms, and the shadows of the trees grew longer,
wider and
darker.
Night fell; a dark, starry night.
Noumbe cooked some rice for the children. They clamored in
vain
for some of the meat. Noumbe was stern and unyielding: "The
meat is
for your father. He didn't eat at midday." When she had fed the
children,
she washed herself again to get rid of the smell of cooking and
touched
up her toilette, rubbing oil on her hands, feet and legs to make
the

henna more brilliant. She intended to remain by her door, and
sat down
on the bench; the incense smelt strongly, filling the whole
room. She
was facing the entrance to the compound and could see the other
women's husbands coming in.
But for her there was no one.
She began to feel tired again. Her heart was troubling her, and
she
had a fit of coughing. Her inside seemed to be on fire. Knowing
that she
would not be going to the dispensary during her "three days," in
order to
economize, she went and got some wood ash which she mixed
with
water and drank. It did not taste very nice, but it would make
the medi-
cine last longer, and the drink checked and soothed the burning
within
her for a while. She was tormenting herself with the thoughts
passing
through her mind. Where can he be? With the first wife? No,
she's quite
old. The second then? Everyone knew that she was out of favor
with
Mustapha. The third wife was herself. So he must be with the
fourth.
There were puckers of uncertainty and doubt in the answers she
gave
herself. She kept putting back the time to go to bed, like a lover
who
does not give up waiting when the time of the rendezvous is
long past,
but with an absurd and stupid hope waits still longer, self-

torture and the
heavy minutes chaining him to the spot. At each step Noumbe
took, she
stopped and mentally explored the town, prying into each house
inhab-
ited by one of the other wives. Eventually she went indoors.
So that she would not be caught unawares by Mustapha nor lose
the
advantages which her makeup and good clothes gave her, she
lay down
on the bed fully dressed and alert. She had turned down the
lamp as far
as possible, so the room was dimly lit. But she fell asleep
despite exerting
great strength of mind to remain awake and saying repeatedly to
herself,
"I shall wait for him." To make sure that she would be standing
there
expectantly when he crossed the threshold, she had bolted the
door.
Thus she would be the devoted wife, always ready to serve her
husband,
having got up once and appearing as elegant as if it were broad
daylight.
She had even thought of making a gesture as she stood there, of
passing
HER THREE DAYS 151
her hands casually over her hips so that Mustapha would hear
the clink-
ing of the beads she had strung round her waist and be incited to

look at
her from head to foot.
Morning came, but there was no Mustapha.
When the children awoke they asked if their father had come.
The
oldest of them, Mactar, a promising lad, was quick to spot that
his
mother had not made the bed, that the bowl containing the stew
was
still in the same place, by a dish of rice, and the loaf of bread
on the table
was untouched. The children got a taste of their mother's anger.
The
youngest, Amadou, took a long time over dressing. Noumbe
hurried
them up and sent the youngest girl to Laity's to buy five francs'
worth of
ground coffee. The children's breakfast was warmed-up rice
with a mea-
ger sprinkling of gravy from the previous day's stew. Then she
gave them
their wings, as the saying goes, letting them all out except the
youngest
daughter. Noumbe inspected the bottle of medicine and saw that
she
had taken a lot of it; there were only three spoonfuls left. She
gave her-
self half a spoonful and made up for the rest with her mixture of
ashes
and water. After that she felt calmer.
"Why, Noumbe, you must have got up bright and early this
morning,
to be so dressed up. Are you going off on a long journey?"

It was Aida, her next-door neighbor, who was surprised to see
her
dressed in such a manner, especially for a woman who was
having "her
three days." Then Aida realized what had happened and tried to
rectify
her mistake.
"Oh, I see he hasn't come yet. They're all the same, these men!"
"He'll be here this morning, Aida." Noumbe bridled, ready to
defend
her man. But it was rather her own worth she was defending,
wanting to
conceal what an awful time she had spent. It had been a broken
night's
sleep, listening to harmless sounds which she had taken for
Mustapha's
footsteps, and this had left its mark on her already haggard face.
"I'm sure he will! I'm sure he will!" exclaimed Aida, well aware
of this
comedy that all the women played in turn.
"Mustapha is such a kind man, and so noble in his attitude,"
added
another woman, rubbing it in.
"If he weren't, he wouldn't be my master," said Noumbe, feeling
flat-
tered by this description of Mustapha.
The news soon spread round the compound that Mustapha had
slept

elsewhere during Noumbe's three days. The other women pitied
her. It
was against all the rules for Mustapha to spend a night
elsewhere.
Polygamy had its laws, which should be respected. A sense of
decency
and common dignity restrained a wife from keeping the husband
day
and night when his whole person and everything connected with
him
belonged to another wife during "her three days." The game,
however,
was not without its underhand tricks that one wife played on
another;
for instance, to wear out the man and hand him over when he
was inca-
pable of performing his conjugal duties. When women criticized
the
practice of polygamy they always found that the wives were to
blame,
especially those who openly dared to play a dirty trick. The man
was
whitewashed. He was a weakling who always ended by falling
into the
enticing traps set for him by women. Satisfied with this
conclusion,
Noumbe's neighbors made common cause with her and turned to
abus-
ing Mustapha's fourth wife.
Noumbe made some coffee—she never had any herself, because
of
her heart. She consoled herself with the thought that Mustapha
would
find more things at her place. The bread had gone stale; she
would buy

some more when he arrived.
The hours dragged by again, long hours of waiting which
became
harder to bear as the day progressed. She wished she knew
where he
was . . . The thought obsessed her, and her eyes became glazed
and
searching. Every time she heard a man's voice she straightened
up.
quickly. Her heart was paining her more and more, but the
physical pain
was separate from the mental one; they never came together,
alternating
in a way that reminded her of the acrobatic feat of a man riding
two
speeding horses.
At about four o'clock Noumbe was surprised to see Mustapha's
sec-
ond wife appear at the door. She had come to see if Mustapha
was there,
knowing that it was Noumbe's three days. She did not tell
Noumbe the
reason for her wishing to see Mustapha, despite being pressed.
So Noumbe
concluded that it was largely due to jealousy, and was pleased
that the
other wife could see how clean and tidy her room was, and what
a dis-
play of fine things she had, all of which could hardly fail to
make the
other think that Mustapha had been (and still was) very
generous to her,
Noumbe. During the rambling conversation her heart thumped
omi-

nously, but she bore up and held off taking any medicine.
HER THREE DAYS
152
SEMBÈNE OLJSMANE
Noumbe remembered only too well that when she was newly
married
she had usurped the second wife's three days. At that time she
had been
the youngest wife. Mustapha had not let a day pass without
coming to
see her. Although not completely certain, she believed she had
con-
ceived her third child during this wife's three days. The latter's
presence
now and remarks that she let drop made Noumbe realize that she
was no
longer the favorite. This revelation, and the polite, amiable tone
and
her visitor's eagerness to inquire after her children's health and
her own,
to praise her superior choice of household utensils, her taste in
clothes,
the cleanliness of the room and the lingering fragrance of the
incense,
all this was like a stab in cold blood, a cruel reminder of the
perfidy of
words and the hypocrisy of rivals; and all part of the world of
women.
This observation did not get her anywhere, except to arouse a
desire to

escape from the circle of polygamy and to cause her to ask
herself—it
was a moment of mental aberration really—"Why do we allow
ourselves
to be men's playthings?"
The other wife complimented her and insisted that Noumbe's
chil-
dren should go and spend a few days with her own children (in
this she
was sincere). By accepting in principle, Noumbe was weaving
her own
waistcloth of hypocrisy. It was all to make the most of herself,
to set
tongues wagging so that she would lose none of her
respectability and
rank. The other wife casually added—before she forgot, as she
said—
that she wanted to see Mustapha, and if mischief makers told
Noumbe
that "their" husband had been to see her during Noumbe's three
days,
Noumbe shouldn't think ill of her, and she would rather have
seen him
here to tell him what she had to say. To save face, Noumbe
dared not ask
her when she had last seen Mustapha. The other would have
replied
with a smile, "The last morning of my three days, of course. I've
only
come here because it's urgent." And Noumbe would have looked
embar-
rassed and put on an air of innocence. "No, that isn't what I
meant. I just
wondered if you had happened to meet him by chance."

Neither of them would have lost face. It was all that remained to
them. They were nor lying, to their way of thinking. Each had
been
desired and spoilt for a time; then the man, like a gorged
vulture, had
left them on one side and the venom of chagrin at having been
mere
playthings had entered their hearts. They quite understood, it
was all
quite clear to them, that they could sink no lower; so they clung
to what
was left to them, that is to say, to saving what dignity remained
to them
by false words and gaining advantages at the expense of the
other. They
did not indulge in this game for the sake of it. This falseness
contained
all that remained of the flame of dignity. No one was taken in,
certainly
not themselves. Each knew that the other was lying, but neither
could
bring herself to further humiliation, for it would be the final
crushing
blow.
The other wife left. Noumbe almost propelled her to the door,
then
stood there thoughtful for a few moments. Noumbe understood
the rea-
son for the other's visit. She had come to get her own back.
Noumbe felt
absolutely sure that Mustapha was with his latest wife. The visit
meant
in fact: "You stole those days from me because I am older than
you. Now

a younger woman than you is avenging me. Try as you might to
make
everything nice and pleasant for him, you have to toe the line
with the
rest of us now, you old carcass. He's slept with someone else—
and he will
again."
The second day passed like the first, but was more dreadful. She
are
no proper food, just enough to stave off the pangs of hunger.
It was Sunday morning and all the men were at home; they
nosed about
in one room and another, some of them cradling their youngest
in their
arms, others playing with the older children. The draughts
players had
gathered in one place, the cardplayers in another. There was a
friendly
atmosphere in the compound, with bursts of happy laughter and
sounds
of guttural voices, while the women busied themselves with the
house-
work.
Aida went to see Noumbe to console her, and said without much
conviction, "He'll probably come today. Men always seem to
have some-
thing to do at the last minute. It's Sunday today, so he'll be
here."
"Aida, Mustapha doesn't work," Noumbe pointed out, hard-eyed.
She gave a cough. "I've been waiting for him now for two days
and
nights! When it's my three days I think the least he could do is

to be
here—at night, anyway. I might die . . ."
"Do you want me to go and look for him?"
"No."
She had thought "yes." It was the way in which Aida had made
the
offer that embarrassed her. Of course she would like her to!
Last night,
HER THREE DAYS 155
when everyone had gone to bed, she had started out and covered
quite
some distance before turning back. The flame of her dignity had
been
fanned on the way. She did not want to abase herself still
further by
going to claim a man who seemed to have no desire to see her.
She had
lain awake until dawn, thinking it all over and telling herself
that her
marriage to Mustapha was at an end, that she would divorce
him. But
this morning there was a tiny flicker of hope in her heart:
"Mustapha
will come, all the same. This is my last night."
She borrowed a thousand francs from Aida, who readily lent her
the
money. And she followed the advice to send the children off
again, to

Mustapha's fourth wife.
"Tell him that I must see him at once, I'm not well!"
She hurried off to the little market nearby and bought a chicken
and
several other things. Her eyes were feverishly, joyfully bright as
she care-
fully added seasoning to the dish she prepared. The appetizing
smell of
her cooking was wafted out to the compound and its Sunday
atmo-
sphere. She swept the room again, shut the door and windows,
but the
heady scent of the incense escaped through the cracks between
the
planks.
The children returned from their errand.
"Is he ill?" she asked them.
"No, Mother. He's going to come. We found him with some of
his
friends at Voulimata's (the fourth wife). He asked about you."
"And that's all he said?"
"Yes, Mother."
"Don't come indoors. Here's ten francs. Go and play somewhere
else."
A delicious warm feeling spread over her. "He was going to
come."
Ever since Friday she had been harboring spiteful words to
throw in his
face. He would beat her, of course ... But never mind. Now she
found it
would be useless to utter those words. Instead she would do

everything
possible to make up for the lost days. She was happy, much too
happy to
bear a grudge against him, now that she knew he was coming—
he might
even be on the way with his henchmen. The only means of
getting her
own back was to cook a big meal ... then he would stay in bed.
She finished preparing the meal, had a bath and went on to the
rest of
her toilette. She did her hair again, put antimony on her lower
lip, eye-
brows and lashes, then dressed in a white starched blouse and a
hand-
woven waistcloth, and inspected her hands and feet. She was
quite satis-
fied with her appearance.
But the waiting became prolonged.
No one in the compound spoke to her for fear of hurting her
feelings.
She had sat down outside the door, facing the entrance to the
com-
pound, and the other inhabitants avoided meeting her sorrowful
gaze.
Her tears overflowed the brim of her eyes like a swollen river
its banks;
she tried to hold them back, but in vain. She was eating her
heart out.
The sound of a distant tom-tom was being carried on the wind.
Time
passed over her, like the season over monuments. Twilight came

and
darkness fell.
On the table were three plates in a row, one for each day.
"I've come to keep you company," declared Aida as she entered
the
room. Noumbe was sitting on the foot of the bed—she had fled
from the
silence of the others. "You mustn't get worked up about it,"
went on
Aida. "Every woman goes through it. Of course it's not nice!
But I don't
think he'll be long now."
Noumbe raised a moist face and bit her lips nervously. Aida saw
that
she had made up her mind not to say anything.
Everything was shrouded in darkness; no light came from. her
room.
After supper, the children had refrained from playing their
noisy games.
Just when adults were beginning to feel sleepy and going to
bed, into
the compound walked Mustapha, escorted by two of his
lieutenants. He
was clad entirely in white. He greeted the people still about in
an oily
manner, then invited his companions into Noumbe's hut.
She had not stirred.
"Wife, where's the lamp?" .
"Where you left it this morning when you went out."
"How are you?" inquired Mustapha when he had lit the lamp. He

went and sat down on the bed, and motioned to the two men to
take the
bench.
"God be praised," Noumbe replied to his polite inquiry. Her thin
face .
seemed relaxed and the angry lines had disappeared.
"And the children?"
"They're well, praise be to God."
HER THREE DAYS 156
SEMBÈNE OUSMANE
"Our wife isn't very talkative this evening," put in one of the
men.
"I'm quite well, though."
"Your heart isn't playing you up now?" asked Mustapha, not
unkindly.
"No, it's quite steady," she answered.
"God be praised! Mustapha, we'll be off," said the man,
uncomfort-
able at Noumbe's cold manner.
"Wait," said Mustapha, and turned to Noumbe. "Wife, are we
eating
tonight or tomorrow?"
"Did you leave me something when you went out this morning?"
"What? That's not the way to answer."
"No, uncle (darling). I'm just asking ... Isn't it right?"
Mustapha realized that Nournbe was mocking him and trying to

humiliate him in front of his men.
"You do like your little joke. Don't you know it's your three
days?"
"Oh, uncle, I'm sorry, I'd quite forgotten. What an unworthy
wife I
am!" she exclaimed, looking straight at Mustapha.
"You're making fun of me!"
"Oh, uncle, I shouldn't dare! What, I? And who would help me
into
Paradise, if not my worthy husband? Oh, I would never poke
fun at you,
neither in this world nor the next."
"Anyone would think so."
"Who?" she asked.
"You might have stood up when I came in, to begin with . .."
"Oh, uncle, forgive me. I'm out of my mind with joy at seeing
you
again. But whose fault is that, uncle?"
"And just what are these three plates for?" said Mustapha with
annoy-
ance.
"These three plates?" She looked at him, a malicious smile on
her
lips. "Nothing. Or rather, my three days. Nothing that would
interest
you Is there anything here that interests you . . . uncle?"
As if moved by a common impulse, the three men stood up.
Noumbe deliberately knocked over one of the plates. "Oh,
uncle, for-

give me . . ." Then she broke the other two plates. Her eyes had
gone
red; suddenly a pain stabbed at her heart, she bent double, and
as she fell
to the floor gave a loud groan which roused the whole
compound.
Some women came hurrying in. "What's the matter with her?"
"Nothing.. only her heart. Look what she's done, the silly
woman.
One of these days her jealousy will suffocate her. I haven't been
to see
her—only two days, and she cries her eyes out. Give her some
ash and
she'll be all right," gabbled Mustapha, and went off.
"Now these hussies have got their associations, they think
they're
going to run the country," said one of his men.
"Have you heard that at Bamako they passed a resolution
condemn-
ing polygamy?" added the other. "Heaven preserve us from
having only
one wife."
"They can go out to work then," pronounced Mustapha as he left
the
compound.
Aida and some of the women lifted Noumbe onto the bed. She
was
groaning. They got her to take some of her mixture of ash and
water . . .

Page 2Page 3Page 4Page 5Page 6Page 7Page 8Page 9Page
10
Courtesy of Suzanne
Drams.
sang," "L'ame Soeur," "La Virago," and
"La Montagne de Feu," which is
published for the first time in the
present anthology.'
The author's energy and
spontaneity are reflected in her novel
and stories, sweeping the reader
along with her passion for life, her
love of the Caribbean, and her
affinity with Caribbean women.
Consider the touching, lively Rehvana
and the cooler, methodical Matildana,
mulatto sisters and protagonists of
L'autre qui danse. Their common
experiences as Martiniquaises exiled
in Paris lead them away from
Africanness, away from easy
assimilation with the French, to hope,
self-awareness, and mutual esteem.2
Consider Emma B., protagonist of the
short story "De sueur, de sucre et de
sang" : an attractive, warm mulatto
woman married to the notary public
since the age of 16, who lives isolated
Suzanne Dracius

Suzanne Dracius approfondies) in literature and
(1951— ) is a civilization, and wrote her doctoral
descendant of Blacks thesis on Saint Peter and Pompeii.
from Africa, Whites Since returning to Martinique in
from France, Caribbean 1982, Dracius has taught French
Indians and Indians textual analysis (analyse de texte)
from India, and has a and Latin language, literature, and
Chinese great- civilization at the Universite des
grandmother. Like Antilles et de la Guyane, directed the
Matildana, heroine of writing and literary creation
her novel L'autre qui workshop at the Universite du temps
danse (1989), Dracius is libre, and taught literature at a lycee
"bien plantee dans la in Fort-de-France. Professor, writer,
confusion de ses sangs" and mother of one son, Dracius still
(well situated in the finds time for dance and music, two
intermingling of her themes of her first novel. The second
bloodlines). She was novel, now in preparation, will be
born in Fort-de-France, spent her titled La mangeuse de lotus.
Her
childhood in Martinique, and moved poems in Creole, with
French
to Sceaux, France, near Paris. She translations, were published
in 1993
completed a university bachelor's in Brussels, Belgium, in the
journals
degree (licence) and a master's in the Negzagonal and Aux
Horizons du sud.
classics at the Sorbonne, prepared a She has written several
short stories,
D.E.A. (Diplome d'etudes among them "De sueur, de sucre et de
and bored in their large home in
Fort-de-France. Attracted irresistibly by the
odors of caramel and sugar cane

alcohol, the young bride descends to
the distillery her husband has
prohibited her from visiting; there she
finds a world of workers' sweat, of
liquid sugar, and of mutilating
machines—[un monde] « de sueur, de
sucre et de sang. »
1. Biographical and bibliographical information:
editors' interviews with Suzanne Dracius, Arcata,
California, April 1998, and by telephone January
1999,
2. Serge Medeuf, <<Entretien avec Suzanne Dracius,>>
Antilla, April 17-23, 1989.
"Sweat, Sugar, and Blood" (1992) Suzanne Dracius-
PinalieMMartinique
I don't know if Emma loves Emile. But that is not the question.
The young mulatto woman is sixteen. Milky as a cherimoya
fruit, tender as
the heart of a palm cabbage, two days must pass for her to
become legally
married, my great aunt Emma B.
You see the day after tomorrow Emma must marry Master Emile
B., a
leading citizen, notary public of Fort-de-France. Everything is
ready: the lilies,
the organdie, the damask and the tulle, and the dizzying
mousseline, and even
the royal orchids sent for from Balata, still palpitating with the

humidity of the
jungle, all white, immaculate. Around her everyone speaks of
trousseau, coiffure
and veil and gown fittings, train, posture, and again toilette.
Emma reels in this marriage as if in a whirlwind of white.
The third day after her wedding, Master Emile B. placed a short
kiss on her
lips, then recommended, as he departed, that she be sure not to
venture into the
neighborhood of the Distillery. Besides his notary public office
on Perrinon Street
in downtown Fort-de-France, Master Emile B1 inherited an
antiquated little
distillery that stubbornly manages to keep operating, up there,
on the Didier
Plateau. Since the property is vast, he had the old plantation
home restored, with
its old stones and wook from French Guyana. Emma lives there
now, alongside
her husband, who is new only to her, for there are a good
number of (chabins)
tots from Coco Hill who can brag from now on about being the
bastards of B. But
Emma never encounters any of these street children. She never
goes to Coco
Hill, on the other side of the road. It isn't any place for her, if
you believe plump
Mrs. Sonson. Every God-givien day, Master Emile drives down
to his office,
leaving her alone in Upper Didier with the women servants:
Man Sonson, the
cook, and little Da, Sirisia. Emma didn't think it useful to hire
any more domestics.

Each morning, the same kiss, the same wish of "Have a good
morning"
and the same warning: "Don't go walking down by the
Distilliery."
"What does he imagine?" thinks Emma, protesting to herself. "Is
he afraid
that I'll go get drunk on rum? But who does he think I am? I'm
no longer a child!
Besides, the carafes of alcohol are all within my reach on the
bar in the living
room, and not under lock and key; I would only have to reach
out my hand..."
Maybe Emile fears the powerful erotic charge emanating from
those big
supple muscular bodies, their skin iridescent with sweat? Emma
has only
glimpsed them, the Distillery workers, when they came to offer
their
congratulations to the newlyweds, all brilliantined, vaselined,
sporting ties and
smelling of the eau de cologne "Star." But they disappeared as
soon as they had
arrived.
So the first days of her marriage passed.
The morning of the eighth day, while Emile was absorbed in his
daily
toilette, always as long as a day without bread--Emma had
verified, with a glance
into the bathroom, that her husband was quite busy passing the
(coupe-chou )
scissors over his green mulatto beard, carefully rearranging the
contour of that

goatee which Emma was surprised to find a little ridiculous, at
that precise
instant--, the young bride, half-veiled, stole as if in a dream to
the end of the
veranda, at the opposite end of the house from the bathroom, to
the place where,
protected by the fronds of the fleurit-six-mois and the crimson
curtain of hibiscus
1
from the Barbados, she knew she could watch to her content two
or three curves
of the road to the Distillery. Never could she take in the whole
road with one
glance, she knew already: tufts of giant bamboo masked a major
portion of it. But
where the fuzzy hair consented to open apart, there appeared a
hole of light
uncovering the end of a path. Emma needed nothing more.
The morning veils of fog had lifted in silence. The starlings, in
the filaos,
had begun their racket: chirping as if squabbling, they would go
on until twilight
again. Noisy and haloed in calm, the serenity of the daybreak
gave new life to the
woods agitated from below by the sparrow-like sissis in their
branches, to the
cocks hurrying to be the first to crow and thus to proclaim their
supremacy,
leading the cackling of the hens, and on to the acrobatic little
anolis, green

lizards already on the hunt, stretched out on a dwarf date palm,
and to Emma,
who had lept from her bed, her bare feet on the humid tiles, a
hand gathering the
lace of her nightgown around her neck.
"How cool it is, when the cock crows at dawn!" says Emma to
herself,
shivering. From the cold? From the feeling of being out of
place?
Suddenly, sharp, cutting the air, rises the voice of a male devil
that Emma
isn't, alas, able to see.
Emma closes her eyes, lends her ear:
"I pe ke ni siklon, man di'w! Pa fe lafet epi mwen! Ase betyize,
ou ka plen
tete mwen epi tout se kouyonnad-la ! "
("There will be no cyclone, I tell you! Don't tell me stories!
Stop with your
foolishness, I've had it up to here with your cheap tricks!")
A second voice loses patience, insists on joining in.
"Fesa ou le! Mwen, man za pare. Zalimet, luil, petrol, bouji,
man sa fe tout
provizyon mwen. Kite Nsye Sklon vini ! "
("Do what you like! Me, I'm already prepared. Matches, lamp
oil, gas,
candles, I've already gotten my provisions in. Let Mr. Cyclone
come ahead!")
"Gade'y ! I pa ka menm koute. Yen ki chonje i ka chonje
toubonnman."

("Look at him! He doesn't even listen. He just keeps on
dreaming,
dreaming...")
This voice is still new, it tries to cover the other one. It will do
so easily. It is
a third man who speaks. Emma doesn't recognize in it either the
timbre or the
language of the first two. This one speaks a very rough creole.
Ah hah! A man
from the North! she says to herself, without bothering too much
to ask herself why.
"Sa ou ni an ka-kabech, ou, neg ? Ase depotjole ko-ko'w ! Ou
ka sanm an
t-toupi mabyal."
("But what do you have in that head of yours, my man ? Stop
worrying
about it ! You look like a t-toupie mabiale,") laughs a sharper
voice.
Which of them just spoke? She's getting lost. Not the first man,
she's sure.
That voice, she would recognize it among a thousand, now that
she has heard it.
A flush rises in her face. Emma holds back a shiver. Of fever,
this time? Ah! Get to
the open space, so she can see them!
But when they arrive there, she won't be able to hear them any
more.
Already their voices are dissolving, their words are getting lost
in the air. She can
no longer distinguish what they are saying. All that reaches her
now is a burst of

hammered staccato syllables, always the same, incoherent: te-
te-ke-pe-ka-pou-
2
pouki, the careful barking of the one who stammers and speaks
more loudly than
the others. To compensate, she says to herself.
"The air of Upper Didier is healthy, but at the present time we
still need to
watch out for invasions of spiders, clothing mites and ravers
that leave droppings
or lay all sorts of eggs in the hems of your clothes," explains
little Da to Emma.
Emma jumps, promptly leaves her secret observation post,
And Man Sonson goes one step further:
"If you pack your clothes tight in the closet for a long time, you
won't find
them when you come back again!... But Sirisia, my girl, stop
fidgiting like that,
you won't be able to finish your ironing, my dear, ah, Dear
Lord! What kind of hot
and cold is she looking for there?... So you think you're going
to manage the
burning square with your face all wet and then all that
perspiration cooled off all
over your body?"
Master Emile must have finished his interminable toilette.
Standing

straight and tall, his goatee triumphant, he is going to begin his
daily ceremonial:
good morning, good kiss and good advice...
• That's it,off he goes at the wheel of his Panhard.
Up there, in the big house, Emma is getting bored.
A hot odor of caramel and cane sugar alcohol rising from the
Distillery
comes to tease her nostrils. The young woman enjoys sniffing,
stronger than the
perfume of a rum punch, much more inebriating than a rum-and-
fruit juice
planteur or that "tropical cocktail" people serve at the Annual
Grand Officers Ball,
the troubling fragrance, a mystery for her, of rum in the process
of being made.
While waiting for Madame's first labor pains, little Da went out
of her way to
caress the trousseau of the newborn child with all the force of
her imagination.
Since then the trousseau concern is endless. Sirisia never stops
washing,
rewashing, ironing and washing the diapers once again, with the
bibs and the
little sleeved vests, the small sheets with English embroidery
and the tiny
mosquito netting. They would never consider preserving in
mothballs everything
that will touch the infant either up close or further away! "That
would tear off his
skin, poor little devil, and then the odor is going to suffocate
him," assures Man
Sonson in such a doctoral tone of voice. Now Da makes it a
point of honor to

watch jealously over B., the future heir to come, even though he
is not yet
conceived, even if Emma has her head much fuller than her
belly for the moment.
Whether Madame wishes it or not, he will be born and he will
be male, there's no
need to question that, "no good trying to get out of it," Man
Sonson would
emphasize if anyone should question it. Besides, a boy's first
name has already
been reserved for him, they could just add an "e," should it by
some unlucky
chance be a girl. If Monsieur had chosen "Arsene" instead of
"Henri," it would
have been even simpler, there would be nothing to change at all.
That's Man
Sonson's opinion,: even though "Arsene" means virile, she
doesn't see any
problem with decking a girl out with the name, since she will
always have plenty
of her own femininity! In any case, Man Sonson doesn't know
Greek. It's really
the least of her concerns. On the other hand, it poses a serious
problem for the
baptism, for the godfather designated in advance will refuse to
sponsor, for the
first time in his life, a representative of the female sex: "That
brings bad luck..." If
he gave his consent, it was for a boy. For a girl, it's another
affair; he didn't even
3

think of that eventuality when he so firmly said, "Yes." One is
so honored to
sponsor a little male, so honored, but for a little pisser-in-
secret...
Of course Emma enjoys listening to the jeremiads of the
sententious Man
Sonson who says her rosary of miseries, past, present, and
future, while she
scales the fish.
But the mystery of those men!...
Master Emile B. announced as he left that he wouldn't come up
again for
lunch today. As often happens, he has a business luncheon that
will keep him in
Fort-de-France.Tjip! Sometimes he even keeps such bad
company that he has
lunch at the market, eating a blaff -spiced fish or a court
bouillon with red pepper
served by imposing capresses on a plank of wood on trestles.
Never did Master Emile speak of taking Emma one day.
She supposes that it just isn't done.
"rite tafiateuse, so you sip your punch without even waiting for
me?"
It's Aunt Herminie who just arrived.
That's true, Godmother is having lunch here today, obviously!
Each time
that Master B. needs to have lunch in town, he delegates
"Cousin Herminie" to be
"Godmother" for Emma, who is her niece as well as the one who
carried her to

the baptismal font--a B. from Saint-Pierre, not a B. from Fort-
de-France, which
makes all the difference. The B.'s from Saint-Pierre show a
certain paternalism
tinged with condescendence with respect to the B.'s from Fort-
de-France; they
have a square in their name right in the middle of Saint-Pierre
in honor of one of
their family who was a principal figure in that town--Emma has
forgotten why--,
but the B.'s from Fort-de-France have more money.
The historic and nevertheless penniless mulatto revels in the
fact that the
B. family is a great one, but Emma responds with a laugh:
"You mustn't confuse "great family" with "large family"!"
Great or not, the B. Family has never captivated Emma.
Lunch grows long. Godmother speaks all alone without
realizing it; Emma
is no longer with her. Emma is in her own thoughts. Emma is
outside the house.
If there is one thing that really bothers her, it's not being able to
get to know
anything. To know only one side of life.
She cannot see anything, get to know anything. At least, know
anything for
herself. Because she is "the mulatto's wife," "the boss's wife,"
and a mulatto
woman herself, she isn't supposed to go see what is happening
down below,
what they are doing there, in there, inside the Distillery. She
can barely snatch

bits of conversation, when they arrive in the morning or when
they leave, in the
evening, their workday finished. If she hears them, they are still
invisible, and as
soon as she finally sees them, she can no longer hear them, they
are too far
away. Then they enter the Distillery. This moment is not one
she sees, it's
something she imagines, which must happen long afterwards,
once they have
passed the last meandering curve of the road where she has a
last vision of the
group of big men walking, always big despite the distance: she
has never set foot
in that satanic Distillery! It is for her an unknown world, the
interior of the Distillery.
She would like to go inside, see what they do there, find out
how they set about
doing their work, these men she just glimpses daily, men she
observes on the sly,
yes, learn how they manage to make rum from the juice of the
sugar canes. Rum,
4
Emma has drunk it, with a good amount of sugar syrup and
lime. Sugar cane, she
has tasted. But that prohibited alchemy...
Oh! She learned many things, at the Colonial Boarding School
on Ernest-
Renan street, which attracts all the young ladies of
"goodfoyalaises families" with

their high collars and secular resolve. But everything ended so
fast! Emma
remained hungry. She wasn't a bad student, she swallowed
entire chapters of
the History of France and Navarre; she knows all her
coursework in Natural and
Physical Sciences and even the Geography of the wide world;
she knows such
pertinent facts as the name of the person who broke the
Soissons vase and
everything about auricles and ventricles, but she knows nothing
about the
production of rum happening only a few strides away.
Nothing seems more mysterious to her today than what is right
nearby, that
Distillery which encloses tall men with beautiful blue-black
bodies that she can
only watch pass by. Now that she is married, a woman, a bride,
mistress of her
own home, potential mother, nothing is more foreign to her than
that world so
close by, than that side of humanity to which she has no access.
They have raised a barrier between Emma and that world.
Between their
sex and her own.
Profiting from Godmother's nap, Emma slipped like a mongoose
to the
limits of the Other World. Clandestinely, furtively, without Man
Sonson suspecting
anything, or even Sirisia, a person so "up on things."
It is their time out too, it seems. It's normal: Godmother is
always served her

meals early, out of respect for her age.
A man stands on the threshold, his torso naked. After the effort,
he slips his
undershirt back on to keep from catching his death of cold. The
undone weave of
the knit shirt leaves bits of cloth which adhere to his sweaty
skin. Emma
recognized him instantly: it's the one with the voice, the first
voice, the clearest,
the one who best rips the air at dawn each day. She would put
her hand into its
fire.
What he would need is a good shower! But a cold shower, or
even
lukewarm, on such a sweaty body, that's just what makes one
get sick.
At least that's what the Bid People preach, so forget the shower!
If Man Sonson
were there, that's just what she would say to her, sacree
pistache! But him, he
already knows...
The man with the tank shirt wet with sweat stretched his long
arms, then
walked with slow steps to the shade to squat down, further
away.
Others joined him outside, sat down with him under the most
generous
mango tree. They took out of their bags a large piece of
breadfruit, some fried
balaou, some accras, a hunk of cod: it's Friday. They eat with
concentration,
without saying a word. Wet Shirt pours a round of wide glasses

of clear liquid,
agricultural rum, surely, or perhaps simply water?
Emma doesn't dare go speak to them. She doesn't even dare
approach
them. Is it their muteness which makes such an impression on
her? She only
knows them as "speakers," when she spies on them in the
morning. It is first of all
through language that their complicity passes, by the shared
secret of all those
words that she steals from them, day after day--those creole
words... Is it their
silence which stops her, or the Insurmountable Barrier between
her and that
universe? Insurmountable perhaps, but certainly not one you
couldn't find a way
around...
5
Emma circles the group of men, at a good distance, to avoid
being seen.
Nearly on all fours she arrives at the back of the building,
succeeds in
climbing over the sill of a low window.
Her blood dripped over the sugar canes, spattered the cane
sticks.
The escapade to the Distillery cost Emma three fingers. Such
was the

price. And more, since she cried out. And especially because the
men, who had
already come running, shocked, at the sound of the machine
inexplicably
restarted, soon came to their senses in time to stop the crusher
while one of them,
the strongest, Wet Shirt, grabbed onto Emma's body with all the
strength of his
muscles, stretched to the point of bursting.
The man managed to brake the voracious thrust of the machine.
--Otherwise that monster was going to crush her hand, the
whole hand,
and then her arm, and then her whole body, don't you know!...
Ah! Jesus-Marie-
Joseph and all the saints, what did Madame have to go playing
around those
machines for? sobbed Man Sonson.
A good doctor of the family called for the emergency provides
the
necessary care to Emma's mutilated hand and Master EmileB.,
called abruptly
from his work, made no comment. She was punished well
enough for her
disobedience! Never had they seen her so silent., in the depth of
her eyes a light
which would never go out. Jubilation, it was, the light in
Emma's eyes...
Having lost the use of the fingers she knew how to use the best,
Emma B.
lived awkwardly--I refuse to say clumsily--, her life of a
foyalaise lady, only one
hand gloved, the left, first in white, then in navy blue, and

finally in pearl grey.
Fools said: "Luckily it wasn't the right hand!"
Some people saw a mystery there, others a kind of troubling
charm; yet
others read in it a sign of singularity or a form of provocation,
though they
wouldn't have been able to say exactly what sort. Very few
knew what to believe;
very few were in on the secret of Emma's rebellion.
When Emma died, in her one hundred second year, Oreste, her
seventeenth child, placed on her deathbed--or should I say
wedding bed?--the
pearled glove of white cotton, the first, the one which she wore
until the day of her
fiftieth wedding anniversary. Washed, rewashed, ironed, it
wasn't ,even yellowed.
Ni krik, ni krak.
All that is not a tale.
It truly happened to my great-aunt, Emma B.
Thanks to that frenzy of sweat, sugar and blood mixed together,
Emma had
a powerful sensation at least once in her life.
Les Filaos, 5 avril 1992
6
Page 1Page 2Page 3Page 4Page 5Page 6Page 7

Introduction The Reed Anna Seghers, East Germany, 19.docx

Introduction The Reed Anna Seghers, East Germany, 19.docx

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

Similar to Introduction The Reed Anna Seghers, East Germany, 19.docx

Similar to Introduction The Reed Anna Seghers, East Germany, 19.docx (20)

More from normanibarber20063

More from normanibarber20063 (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

Introduction The Reed Anna Seghers, East Germany, 19.docx