The Story of the Cannibal Woman by Maryse Condé Page B

Political Science. At her children’s school they took her for the maid. Unlike Rosélie, she was feisty. With the help of her husband, albeit discreetly because of his function, she founded an association, the DNA, the Defense of the Negress Association, her handbook being a work by the Senegalese author Awa Thiam, La Parole aux Négresses , which she had read while at university. To those who balked at the word “Negress” and its colonial connotations, and who proposed periphrases such as “women of African origin,” “women of color,” “women of the South,” or even “women on the move,” Simone retorted that, on the contrary, it was good to shock.
    The DNA had a large membership, wives of diplomats and international civil servants, teachers, traders, owners of beauty shops, visiting nurses, the manager of a travel agency, and the director of a school for models, one of whom had been voted runner-up in the election of Miss Black Maracas.
    The association was known for including French, English, and Portuguese speakers, irrespective of class or nationality. Simone had no trouble inviting a wide range of guest speakers, for on this planet there is no black woman who one day or another has not been doubly humiliated because of her sex and color.
    Simone had the brilliant idea of making the young poet Bebe Sephuma honorary president, since she enjoyed a reputation throughout the country as dazzling as Léopold Sédar Senghor’s in Senegal, Derek Walcott’s in St. Lucia, or Max Rippon’s in Guadeloupe. There is no equivalent in a Western country, where poets are generally ignored. Yet she had only written three flimsy collections, one of which was dedicated to the woman who brought her into this world before being carried off by AIDS when Bebe was three months old. She had been blessed with good fortune when, on the death of her mother, an English couple had adopted her and saved her from the Bantustan, where she would have surely wasted away with the rest of her family. They had taken her to London and sent her to the best schools. Nevertheless, she had never forgotten the hell she had escaped from. As soon as she could, she returned to settle in Cape Town, where she became the uncontested leader of arts and letters. She had her own cultural column and appeared regularly on television. Since she sponsored a string of art galleries, it was Simone’s idea to drag her to Rosélie’s studio, the plan being that Bebe would love her work and offer her an exhibition in a select gallery.
    â€œShe could give you the chance you’ve been waiting for.”
    Rosélie and Bebe had often met. But obviously Rosélie did not interest Bebe, who would hurriedly greet her with a superficial smile. As for Rosélie, she had to admit that Bebe scared her. Too young. Too pretty. Too witty. A wicked smile revealing sharp, carnassial teeth made for tearing great chunks out of life, and betraying her formidable desire to succeed.
    But what does it mean to succeed?
    But in our countries, nobody ever gets a unanimous vote. Bebe Sephuma was not lacking in detractors. “Is she a true African? What does she know about our traditions?” whispered some of the disgruntled who recalled she had spent her childhood and adolescence in Highgate before reading philosophy at Christ Church, Oxford. As a result, she could not speak any of the languages of South Africa. Not even Afrikaans.

    Simone managed to introduce Rosélie to the intimate circle of friends who were celebrating Bebe’s twenty-seventh birthday. Duly coached, Rosélie slipped on a black silk sheath dress and brought out her gold bead choker, the one she would never part with, for it was her mother’s, and applied her makeup. It’s incredible what a little penciling around the eyes and a good lipstick can do! Under her arms she soaked herself with Jaipur by Boucheron. But she had a great deal