“Ci Kër ga” by Bradford C. Philen

Fatoumata’s cell phone vibrated on the bedside table in the room that she shared with her cousins. The table had scuffs and scratches that told stories of the generations that it had survived. Pale, yellow paint covered the walls. The room was always dim. The sun never shined through, but it was vibrant with heavy laughter and serenity.

“Fatou,” little Kadijah, with pure eyes and ashy elbows, yelled to her favorite Aunt, who was just outside in the sandy hallways of the city homestead.

“Naam,” Fatoumata’s voice seared through the faint glass windows that hardly held secrets. Her eyes were delicate, like a flower bloom in the breeze, easy to sway into laughter.

She was ci kër ga, in the company of magam, rakkam, yaayam, paapam.

In Fass, she was ci kër ga, soaked in the motions, actions, words, and stories of the people in her life. In the dawning afternoon, Fatou and Aissatou were busy washing pots and pans for preparing couscous and Dorado fish, which they purchased from the Souboudienne fish market earlier in the day. Medoun and Bouba were sitting on the steps, watching the coals burn to boil the water for afternoon ataaya.

“Fatou,” little Kadijah reported again. “Your phone is moving.”

“Ki Kan la?”

“It says Frank,” little Kadijah said.

Soapsuds dripped from Fatou’s hands to her bare feet. For just a few seconds, she paused. It was a mere hesitation, enough time for an elongated sigh, but it told a thousand lies. No, he’s not a lover. No, Frank’s not a Toubab. It’s just sex. No, he doesn’t pay me.  No, I don’t like it. It’s just an opportunity. How could I love a Frenchman? The others, Medoun, Aissatou, and Bouba exchanged glances. Bouba smirked and felt the chrome kettle. The heat stung his hand.

Fatou’s mother Maryama, whom all knew as Yaay Yama, sat removed from her family, against the western wall of the house, embracing the falling sun’s warmth. Since her husband’s death, she had become forgetful of the day’s minutia, but her hearing remarkably improved. She gradually slowed in her actions, her movements, with her daily chores, lost in far-off memories, but ci kër ga she heard. “Be careful,” she prophesized to her children. “I hear all.  Even what Ousmane would’ve heard.  It’s like he’s here, through my ears. I hear your inner voice, too. I know what you think.” Bouba suggested she run for Mayor of Dakar. He claimed she’d be an excellent candidate to take care of the behind-closed-doors corruption that plagued Dakar, like a lingering cold. “Deedit, my son, I can’t run for political offices, I’m just a third wife. But, Ousmane loved me most.” Yaay Yama’s children laughed, comfortably intimidated.

As suspected, Yaay Yama heard little Kadijah bellow. Frank’s name wasn’t new.  To Yaay Yama, his mere existence in Fatou’s world was troubling. “Fatou,” she shouted.  “Fatou, you have work to do.” She called Fatou’s name over and over. Each time her voice echoed louder, more stern.

Fatou wouldn’t rush for the phone. Yes, I always do my chores. Yes, I understand my role as the youngest of my father’s daughters, whom I only remember. Yes, of course, I love my mother, always. She couldn’t rush for the phone. “Waaw, mother, I’m working,” she said. “Kadijah, I’ll come later, jerejef.”

Fatou wanted to be like her older sister Aissatou. Transparent. Limpid in her culture. Aissatou danced the Guew Bi to the slapping sabar drums, arms and legs flailing to the call of the drummers, with ease. Aissatou was ready to marry and have children. Fatou’s feet felt too heavy to spring freely in the air. She was cautious, uncertain, and shaky. She was uncomfortable dancing with her people.

Later in the evening, the fish was scaly and the couscous was not quite enough, but they would be satisfied until the morning breakfast of bread and beans and sweet Nescafe. “Let us give thanks to Allah, who brings us food to eat, even when there is none,” Yaay Yama proclaimed, as she did every night before retiring for sleep.

Fatou nodded in agreement. “Waaw, alhamdulillah. We have food everyday,” she responded, though dread found her easily. Fatou always prayed when her mother was present, and went to bed giggling with her niece.

 

***

 

Lana first introduced Fatou to Francois when the heat was thick and smelled like sweat. Rain had yet to fall in the streets of Dakar and the people waited impatiently for the passing clouds of the Sahel.

Lana was as tall as Fatou, and just as striking, though lighter skinned and far more aggressive. She spoke her mind, which was a determent to many of the Wolof men in her life. She never lost an argument, a debate, a tête-à-tête. She’d leave laughing, while men shook their heads in disbelief. At times, even in disgust.  “Why is she so disrespectful and crude,” Alioun, Fatou’s uncle, demanded once while talking with Fatou after the Islamic New Year’s celebration. “She asked me if a man’s lack of girth was made up for by the number of wives he kept. My brother – your father – had four wives. How can she ask that?” Girth. Ego. Possessions. Women. Fatou diffused Tonton Alioun’s anger. “She’s from another breed, Uncle. She just likes to start trouble.”

In her black mini-skirt and high heels Lana strutted through the narrow streets of Plateau to dance, touch, and release the tension of the heat. Dakaroise nightlife. Senegalese, American, French, Ivorian, Nigerian, Ghanaian, Malian, and Lebanese all fondled and found their way to the cool of the clubs and, then, to the cool of the sunrise. Lana had been offered more than the occasional drink and sometimes she accepted. She had become accustomed to a lifestyle that encouraged a particular tightness – in the clothing, in the wrapping of the cigarettes, in the bumping, not bouncing, of bodies, and in her throat. Within the soothing sounds of the streets of her Fass, Lana was losing her ability to breath.

Late nights secretly sharing stolen kisses became more and more common. Over time kisses loosely lost their appeal and Lana only preferred Toubab counterparts. Her interest lay in a foreign man, a foreign life, a foreign world. Lana had become an outcast in her own neighborhood, in her own home, the harsh reality of stepping outside her culture and her people in Fass. Fatou was curious when Lana, her childhood friend, approached her on a cloudless day in June, heat suckling.

“Dakar, at night time, my sister, is wild. Live. You’d never guess, but Lebanese men dance far better than the Boubas and Momos of your sabar dances. Let loose, my sister. Let’s go out tonight and dance. What do you say?” Voices echoed off the concrete walls, asphalt streets, and corroded cars of the narrow and pot-holed streets of Fass.

“Waaw, you’re probably right.” Fatou was hot. Hot from her brothers, her sisters, her omnipresent mother. Hot from her day-to-day routine that dragged, like the long nights when the mosquito’s buzz silenced sleep and she swatted her way to daylight. Hot from stagnation. Hot from her restrained voice. She was a woman full of voice in a fog of voiceless masses. Voiceless women. There were plenty of empowered Senegalese women, but most came from families that had a ticket, a passport, a visa. But, it was possible. It was all possible, God willing, inch’ Allah. That is what her people breathed.  “I need something, but I don’t know if Dakar nightlife is it. You know, I’m here, always here, at home,” she told Lana.

Lana laughed and released an ever-present feeling of guilt. She felt guilt, observing her friend’s innocence. She felt guilt for the evenings of empty emotion that left her wanting more. “Yes, yes, my sister. I know.  Ci kër ga. Always ci kër ga,” Lana moaned. “Are you one of those? I never thought you were. Will you be like your mother? The precious third wife?”

Fatou frowned. Lana’s face was full of silver, her eyes swollen with late nights and cigarettes. “I know what you need. My sister, they make these machines that make women shake. They must come from America or China or maybe Heaven. They vibrate. Bzzzzzz. You put it just there and go to another place.” Lana looked to Fatou’s crotch and waved her eyebrows.

Fatou blushed. “Lana, you’re naughty. Too naughty.”

Lana looked around. Saliva sucked the heat. “So they say,” she motioned to the people who filled Rue de Fass. The sky began to sink behind the concrete structures. Piercing cries from the Imam began the afternoon meditation. “Come tonight, and I won’t ask you again.”

That night they taxied to Club Thiossane. Red, neon lights. Music pumping.  Boom, boom, boom. Hearts thumping. Boom, boom, boom. Toubabs at the bar. A mixed crowd on the dance floor. Eyes staring. Cigarettes passed. Hips hugged. Drinks spilled. Gyrating bodies pressed to one another. Motionless silhouettes under strobe lights. Fatou watched and felt the coolness of the dance floor heat.

Fatou slept later than usual the next day. She woke to little Kadijah’s wide eyes. “Let’s play,” she said, watching her aunt, eyes full of morning. They danced.  Fatou reinvented the moves she remembered from the night before. Yaay Yaam curiously watched.

 

Fatou and Lana taxied more often. They danced when it was hot, when it was unbearable. Club Thiossane. Club Duplex. King’s Club. Alize. Golden. Ngalam. They went deeper into the night. And then, Lana revealed some of the fruits de la nuit.

“What do you mean, just touch?” Fatou asked.

“You just touch his hands, his arms, his waist, when he’s relaxed. Then, he’ll come around,” Lana assured.

“How much do you normally get?”

“It depends on how much attention you pay him.”

“What if he gets too close?”

“You walk away, my sister, you walk away.”

Lana didn’t tell the whole story. She received little attention or money from touches, except drinks and loose kisses, but Lana was immune to the heat, to the touch. She only felt the tightness, wanting more.

Months and nights passed. Fatou was thrown proposals, some shocking, some disgusting, and she withheld. Fatou existed in two worlds. One, full of sand, full of trust in Allah, where she cooked and cleaned and laughed and told stories and gossiped and sat and waited for instructions from her brothers, her uncles, her mother, her aunts, and played with her little niece, her adorable niece, for whom they struggled to pay school fees. And the other world, concrete and steel, where she dawdled and moved with ease and without judgment and danced with whom she pleased and yelled and screamed to the music and pushed and shoved to the dance floor and straddled hips and kissed strangers on the neck and commanded attention and reeked of sexiness.

Fatou wasn’t unsullied to the effects of alcohol. Her father had drunk palm wine. Her uncles occasionally drank the green Gazelle domestic brew. Yaay Yaam sipped wine. All in moderation and secrecy, of course. Fatou took a few drinks, but alcohol wasn’t her jones. Neither was money. It was the ease of it. Distorted gender norms. She could have anything she wanted. The power. It was her ability to set the night on fire with a subtly sly stare. Men were putty, easy putty in her hands. The men followed, and Fatou’s soft eyes hardened.

 

 

Once, though, she did succumb, and then it changed. He was Ivorian. Fatou had never seen a man dance like this one, Emmanuel, with his tight black jeans, white collared buttoned-down Gucci shirt, and his black vest jacket, muscles bulging. He was sleek, but powerful. Vain, but dominant. He owned the dance floor with the sway of his hips and the strut of his steps. Fatou, mesmerized, yearned for a dance, at least, with this man, who was the wooer of all who watched. He spoke French like Frenchmen, not like the Senegalese, garbled and lazy, as the French say.

Emmanuel talked and talked, mostly about himself. He was boastful, but beautiful. So beautiful, Fatou thought. His collar was still crisp, though they had danced in the steamy darkness. As the neon and strobe lights of Club Duplex went down, it was still hot outside. Emmanuel took Fatou to his apartment on the outskirts of Ouakam. Planes soared just a stone’s throw away from his top-floor apartment. He poured her white wine and she sipped it. He played Jodeci and she forgot the sounds of mbalax and Fass. She was awkward and cautious. It was her first time. She moved her hands as if she was peeling a raw potato with a dull knife. Too soft. Too hard. Choppy. Clumsy. Her hips were stiff, like numbness. He didn’t care. She muffled a yes, and he toppled her. It was over in seconds. He breathed. She tightened, avoiding his heavy body and breath. He slept and she lay awake. Guilt trickled, then poured from the ceiling. Emmanuel snored through the night. The crispness of his collar lay on the floor. At dawn, Fatou left. It was bright. Too bright. She taxied to Fass, paying a hefty taxi fare. Emmanuel had shoveled her thousands of CFA through the night. She was wet with regret, but pocketed the money. There was no reprieve, no rain, only guilt.

In Fass, she found Yaay Yaam waiting. “Fatou,” she called. She was busy with the morning chores. “Fatou, what are you doing? Where are you coming from? Do you know what time it is?” Questions struck, sharp as shark fins.

Fatou entered, wounded with fatigue and self-pity. “I was with Lana, sama yaay,” she lied.

“Lana who? Uh huh. You should watch your company. You know what they say about that Lana. She’s not the marrying type. She’s not anybody’s type, but then again, everyone’s type. I know you’re lying to me.” Yaay Yaam stared at Fatou. Stone-faced.  “You’re not hurting me. You’re hurting your dead father. You’re hurting this home. This homestead. You, with your Lana friend. I never trusted her. Ever.”

Yaay Yaam went on and on. Her body widened as she roared. The sandy hallways were empty. The others had long since scattered. Only little Kadijah remained. She waited on Fatou’s bed, listening to her great grandmother.

“I don’t want you to be with this Lana. Anymore! You will stay here,” Fatou watched her mother, feeling the collapse of the homestead walls.

Fatou retreated to her room. She took little Kadijah to bathe. The water was refreshing. Soap. Water. Redemption. Momentarily, Fatou felt clean. She wiped the cold from Kadijah’s eyes. The days and nights passed along with Yaay Yaam’s mind.

 

***

 

The guilt wasn’t enough to rid Fatou of the nightlife. She sulked for over a month. She stayed close to home, sweeping the sand, cooking the couscous, scaling the fish. Her knuckles swelled from washing clothes. She stashed the money that Emmanuel had given her. Come October, little Kadijah will go to school, Fatou thought. Emmanuel never called.

Lana hesitated visiting Fatou. She tired of hearing her friend’s depressed exaggerations of guilt.  She had long lost her sympathy for remorse from sexual encounters.  Lana thought more about the precautions with sex than the sensation of intimacy.  There are diseases out there, she fretted, and I must protect myself.

Lana did, however, expose another side to Fatou’s grief. They waited at the street water tap. “Just think, Fa-Fa. I don’t intend to tell you what to do or how to live your life, my sister. I understand you feel guilty for fucking the most sleezy-arrogant-beautiful man in Dakar. And, he is really, very beautiful, but it was your first time.”

Fatou almost cried. Unwavering, Lana stepped to her friend. “But, consider for a moment another perspective. Money. What is money? Money is an opportunity. Sex is an opportunity. Sex is not always intimate. Sex is an opportunity, my sister. Sex is a tool. I will never tell anyone to take on my choices. Never. But, my sister, have you ever wondered? Why are we here in Fass, struggling with the next meal, and others are in places like Paris and New York, enjoying life. Doing what they want. They control time, while we wait. You wait for your mother to lose her mind, and you’re left with nothing, but the remnants of a mother who was the third wife of a poor man.”

Lana continued. Controlling time, she said. We’re all people, she said. Why are we Have-Nots? Why do we lack movement? Lana asked. My sister, it’s money, Lana said. It’s money, Lana said. My sister, sex is a tool, Lana said. Yaay Yaam grows older every day, but there’s no security, Lana said. Yaay Yaam moves slower and is only promised what her dead husband’s first and second wife don’t take, Lana said. I feel sorry for the fourth wife, Lana said. You have to take control, Lana said to Fatou. Otherwise, Lana said, you will be a Have-Not, like your mother. Think of your niece, Lana said. She’s already missed so much school, Lana said. She won’t catch up easily, Lana said. You will be a Have-Not, Lana said.

Lana’s voice droned, like her mothers, but Fatou heard. She heard it all. Fatou figured she had some of her dead father’s hearing, as well. She looked to her mother. Yaay Yaam did move slower, everyday, it seemed, while little Kadijah grew, eager to take on the world, but waiting. They all waited. They lived, but they waited. Aissatou, Fatou’s sister, awaited marriage to a shoemaker. She would be his second. She would wed in a few months.

Fatou wouldn’t wait. Fatou called Lana. Lana arranged it all. One of her clients, Pierre, had a friend in town who wanted a slender and young woman to accompany him. His name was Francois. He was broad-shouldered, hefty, dark haired. A Neanderthal of a man, Pierre said. Lana and Fatou taxied to Plateau to La Forchette restaurant, a swanky and expensive place, where being seen was of greater importance than dining. There were no prostitutes at La Forchette. This was for haughty Darkaroisie, overpaid expats and their high-class mistresses. Francois would be in town for over two months working with HSBC, financing small business loans to young professionals in Dakar. He wanted a girlfriend and no questions asked.

Fatou revealed more of herself that night. The black garter belt she wore was tight, not snug, almost too tight, and the black stockings she wore were thin, thin enough to show the smoothness of her thighs. She laughed with ease when Pierre and Francois joked. Francois had a touch at dinner – subtle, but firm and assertive. It was a passing brush of the arm, a hold at the waist, an arm along Fatou’s muscular build, a grasp of a hand, or an elongated stare that reeked of desire and lust. Fatou stared back, daring Francois’s desire. She sipped wine and lit his Gauloises without hesitation. She touched him back – his hands, his cheeks, and his thighs under the table.

After the last sips of wine had been consumed, Pierre and Francois escorted Lana and Fatou to the outside heat of Plateau. They walked closely together and frolicked to the pubs and the discothèques. Fatou was much taller than Francois. He breathed heavy, like a conscience. He was aggressive and loud, but longed for Fatou’s touch.

Just as they rounded the narrow and cobbled-stone street of Rue Parent, the rain broke. The rain, the magnificent rain, finally broke. Francois looked to the sky.

“Thank God,” he said, “the rain can cool this God-forsaken place.”

Alhumdulilah, Fatou thought, this man wants me. “Waaw,” she said in her native tongue, yes, she said, excited to feel the moisture falling from the sky. “The rain is finally here.”

Pierre led Lana into the club. He screeched, buzzing from the wine and cigarettes.

“Let’s go Fatou,” Lana shouted.

Fatou started towards the club. Francois stopped her and brought her close. Steam emerged from the street, while thunder lit the sky. Bouncers at the club sucked their teeth and stared. Francois held her in the street, against the rain, the thunder, the club bouncers who frowned upon public displays of affection. He felt her slender body, the smoothness.  “Kiss me,” he said, glaring into her eyes.

“It’s raining,” she replied.

“Kiss me,” he repeated, moving closer to her face. “You want to kiss me, don’t you?”

Fatou glanced at the club bouncers. Dark men. Burly men. Silent men. Men, judging her with the Toubab. Men, waiting, watching her, their sister. Fatou closed her eyes and gave Francois her mouth. She gave him just a taste. Just enough for him to want more and more and more. Just enough to plant the seed to get what she wanted. Just enough. Briefly, they embraced, and then she stopped, numb.

“Let’s go,” she said. “My hair is getting wet. It will be a mess and you won’t want to kiss me again.”  Fatou darted inside, leaving Francois unsatisfied and wanting more. He followed. Alhumdulilah, she thought, he wants me.

 

***

 

As the rain fell through the wet season, so did the money for Fatou. She wasn’t flashy or showy. It wasn’t always a monetary gift. Sometimes it was flowers or shoes or clothes. Some she gave away. Flowers to her mother. Shoes to Aissatou. Clothes to Lana. Some Fatou sold. She was quiet. She saved the money. Every canq cent. She stashed it in the same shoebox, in the closet, under her deceased father’s box of papers and files that no one ever touched.

The house quieted. Yaay Yaam became more detached from the household and from reality. Fatou waited for Francois’s call. He had received an extension on his contract. Another six months. He was morbid with work, but excited to be with her. Her slender frame. Her firm breasts. Her wandering and wild eyes that seemed to whisper to him you want me, and he couldn’t resist her. She had slept with him, but never on his terms. Never when he wanted it most. She waited, rather, made him wait. She made him wait until he was wet with desire, begging her, and she gave him just a touch, just enough for him to want more.

 

Fatou was in complete control until the day Francois visited her homestead in Fass. Puddles flooded the streets along with a smell of must and sewage. It took him more than an hour to locate the homestead. Passerbys watched Francois, the Toubab, park his SUV high on the sidewalk. He asked, “where is the house of Fatou Ndaye,” in garbled Wolof. They pointed. The dark, nameless faces, who walked through the streets freely and at ease.

Fatou heard his strained Wolof from her room. It was a cloudy day. Bouba, confused, greeted Francois first.

“Who are you looking for,” Bouba repeated in French.

“This house. This. House of Fatou Ndaye?”

Bouba began to clarify, when Fatou approached. “Francois,” she perked. “Why are you here,” she asked in French, voice austere and distant.

His cordial Wolof did not impress her. His linguistic mistakes were not cute or charming. Her secret had been exploited. Just like that. Embarrassed, she tried to avoid her mother. It was too late. “Fatou,” she heard and turned. It was Yaay Yaam, hips and voice widening. Little Kadijah trailed. “Fatou, ki kan la?” Yaay Yaam asked. She sounded pleasant and amicable, but Fatou knew better. Sex was taboo. Intimacy was taboo. And, here, a white Frenchman had visited Yaay Yaam’s youngest daughter. Fatou knew better.

“He’s my friend,” Fatou began. The lies began. The awkwardness began. All in Wolof. Fast exchanges. We met only once. At El Hadj’s tailor shop. He wanted my size so he could have a boubou made for his sister in France. I’m not sure why he’s visiting.

Fatou’s only saving grace was that Yaay Yaam knew very little French. She understood much of what she heard, but she had forgotten too many words to speak, especially as her memory had faded. Yaay Yaam wanted him to stay for dinner. Fatou said he had to leave. Bouba watched quietly. Francois smiled and nodded, ignorant.

Fatou led Francois to a bare cemented room that was reserved for praying and hosting guests. The walls were green. A purple beaded mat lay on the floor. Fatou motioned for Francois to sit, while they waited for little Kadijah to bring a bottle of Fanta and two glasses. Yaay Yaam returned to her bedroom. She’d soon forget that a Toubab was in her home, with her youngest daughter.

“What are you doing here?” Fatou demanded.

Francois brushed off Fatou’s indignation. “Fatou, what’s wrong,” he asked, his dark, curly locks began to sweat. “I just wanted to see you.”

“For what?” Fatou wondered. “I’m going to see you tonight.”

“Yeah, but I thought I’d surprise you.”

“You can’t be here.” Fatou meant it. He had crossed neighborhoods and cultural boundaries. My mother is sick, Fatou said. She won’t understand. And my brothers.  They’ll want answers. What do you think I’ll tell them? You think this is a relationship? You are naïve. You just want my body. You want me for the convenience. You think you can walk here and speak Wolof and walk out? You naïve man. Even you, a Frenchman.  Naïve. You pay me. You give me gifts for my body. I thought you knew better than that. You think this is something else? Love? Ha. You think we aren’t using each other. Fatou spoke French fast and tangled. She stuttered. She cursed. She mixed in Wolof. Deedit, deedit, deedit. You probably wanted to come here just to try to do me. In the sand, in the dirt, in Africa. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?

She spoke freely in her home. She took privileges with language that she wouldn’t normally take in talking with Francois outside her homestead, in Plateau, in the fancy restaurants like La Forchette, where mistresses smiled and nodded, smiled and nodded. He watched her and wanted her more. He did want to take her there in the sand and control her, tame her. But he couldn’t. He was in her home. Little Kadijah listened and peeked around the corner of the salon, staring at the hairy white man, wondering why her aunt was so angry.

 

***

 

It was November. The rain settled the soil and the winds began. Fatou and Francois stared at one another in Saly, a beach resort town at the restaurant of the Hotel Flor de Lys. European men held young African women by their side. Private beaches, free of algae, dead fish, and waste. Bungalows. Canopies and sturdy, long lawn chairs for sunbathing. Security guards. Always security guards. Francois and Fatou were far removed from the sandy homestead of Fass. Fatou was quiet mostly. She offered smiles and perpetrated like she listened to Francois.

“If only these people knew how to save money, my job would be much easier,” he declared, as if she was immune to phrases like these people, who were essentially her people. She nodded.

They often sat in elongated silence. He grasped his bottle of wine and perpetrated like he listened to what she said. It was a game, and they both played. Francois greeted the other Frenchmen who gripped African women. They exchanged greetings and made small talk about the latest French soccer scores. They played pétanque and high-fived with the cheap, local, male labor of the hotel. Fatou and the other mistresses made small talk about the food, the rooms, the service, avoiding personal hows and whys.

Excuses for Yaay Yaam were no longer needed. Her mind fled, like the rainy season. One day it was there, and then it passed. Yaay Yaam still called Fatou’s name with the stern and high-pitched voice that echoed throughout the cemented walls of the homestead. She knew Frank to be a Toubab and that was all. In a way, that was all. There was little longevity in the relationship, in the money. Fatou became comfortable traveling to Saly on the weekends, staying with Francois in his posh apartment in Almadies on the other side of town, cleaning his house and laundry, sleeping with him, giving him her body whenever he wanted.

She didn’t care. She didn’t feel it. Or do I, she wondered. Am I bored or comfortable, she asked herself. Little Kadijah started school and had plenty of school supplies. Her fees were fully paid and on time for the first time. Fatou paid in person, while Francois waited in his SUV. The principal stared at the shiny vehicle from his dusty office.

Francois. It was sex, wasn’t it, Fatou asked herself. Or, was it comfortable sex. Or, was it intimacy. He knew what he felt like inside her. Every move. Every grunt. Every sigh. She was his alone, and he was hers alone. No one wanted to touch her, especially in Fass. She hadn’t lost her beauty, but it was her presence that was missing. Ci kër ga meant spaghetti and garlic bread, not poulet yassa and mafé.

“Is that us?” Francois asked. He sipped red wine. Some had spilled on the hotel restaurant tablecloth. Fatou stared at the wet spot, caught by the contrasting colors. The spill ruined the wholeness of the cloth. It won’t be cleaned, she thought.

“Excusé moi?” Fatou came to.

Francois motioned to a mixed couple in the opposite corner of the hotel restaurant. “Is that us,” he asked. It was a white woman, easily in her 60s, and a young man, African, muscular, stout. Thick dreads fell against his back.

Fatou looked. She felt nauseous. The man was stroking her hand, like a lover would. They spoke English. Is that us, Fatou repeated in her mind. Not a chance. She had seen them before. They were all around. White women, fat, old, crippled, wrinkled women and young Rastas, stunted in growth by the CFA or the Dollar or the Euro or a visa. “It may as well be us,” she said.

“How?” Francois inquired.

“Look at them. He’s using her.”

“Why?”

“She’s old. She could be my mother’s age.”

“And?”

“And?” Fatou laughed.  “I can’t picture my mother with a man that age.”

“A man? Or, a white man?”

“Any man. And definitely not a white man.”

Francois pried further. “Are they not capable of loving each other?”

“They can love, sure. Maybe they do love each other. But they’re still using each other.”

“Even if they marry?”

“Waaw, even if they marry,” Fatou said.

“What if we married?” Francois asked.

“What if we married, what?”

“I mean, what if we married, would one still be using the other?” Francois clarified.

“We’d be using each other in some way.” Even while she spoke, Fatou realized she didn’t know what love was. True love. True intimacy. She didn’t know. She was using him just as he was using her. She was the young, muscular African.

“I could love you, Fatou,” Francois said. He stared at her.

“You could love me until I aged a bit and then you’d be back here to Saly to find a new love.”

“Perhaps,” Francois said. “But, I still chose you.”

But I didn’t choose you, Fatou said to herself. I. Didn’t. Choose. You. You are an opportunity, she said to herself. Fatou was flippant with Francois and his relationship banter. Sure, we could marry. Oh, yeah, my brothers would love that. Sure, we could live in Fass. In the sandy hallways of my mother’s homestead. She played along with his sex through the weekend. Frank, touch me there. Yes! I know you like that, too. Don’t stop. She sat and dined with Francois. She smiled to his counterparts and fell asleep while he drove back to Dakar on Sunday afternoon. As they approached the VDN exit to his apartment in Almadies, Fatou woke and reached over to Francois. She rubbed his thigh and grasped his hairy, Neanderthal arm. She kissed his cheek.

“Keep going, Frank.”

“Oui?”

“Waaw.”

“Where should I go?” Francois inquired. He smiled.

“Ci kër ga,” she said, rubbing his arm.

“You want to go home?”

“Yes, I want to go home.”

They sat in silence for the rest of the ride. Fatou sat close to Francois, never letting go of his body. In Fass, the streets were dark. The power had been cut. The only light exuded from Francois’s SUV headlights and the dim candles in street front homes and boutiques. Francois approached Fatou’s homestead and parked high on the curb. The engine revved. Francois went to kiss Fatou. She withdrew.

“I’ll see you soon?” Francois asked.

“Waaw.” Fatou grabbed the handle to exit.

“Wait, Fatou,” Francois caressed her leg. “I love you,” he said.

Fatou looked at Francois’s hand on her leg. Her leg that had been touched, rubbed, felt. His white hand sat wide on her leg. She thought of the spilled wine on the tablecloth at the hotel restaurant and of the young man with dreads. She wondered about love. What would her father say, she wondered.

“Waaw,” Fatou said, and stepped out of the car.