She looked at Awa, then at the piece of cloth on the counter. Where did you find it? At the market. It seemed to be telling me something. Maman Abé came closer slowly. She touched the fabric with her fingertips as though touching an old wound. That cloth there, I believe it saw you before I myself ever saw you. Awa raised her eyes.
Maman Abé, do you know something about me that I do not know? A long silence followed. Then the old woman simply said, “I know that the truth always comes, but never before its time.” And she left, leaving Hawa alone with her thoughts and the piece of cloth pressed against her heart. The house seemed calmer than usual that evening.
Even the wind, usually playful, had withdrawn into a respectful silence. Awa, lying on her narrow bed, stared at the gray ceiling. There was nothing to see up there, but her mind was searching for a light. She had the impression of slowly slipping toward a truth still blurred, as if the world around her were trying to speak but she did not yet understand the language.
The days that followed resumed their rhythm. Madame Kan received her guests, went to her meetings, talked for a long time on the phone from her glass-walled sitting room. Awa served her with rigor, never speaking too much, but always present when needed. And with every interaction, there was that slight shiver between them, imperceptible to others, something suspended, inexplicable, a link or perhaps a cord stretched between two banks of the same river.
One evening, while Madame Kan was out at a gala, Hawa was allowed to use the house library. A locked room full of old books and dust-covered memories. Maman Abé had slipped her the key, saying: “Go educate yourself a little. You work well, you may read, but put everything back as you found it.” Awa entered the room with respect.
There was a smell of old paper, leather, and something moving, as if the walls themselves were keeping secrets. She ran her hand along the spines of the books and then suddenly, between two pages, found something more intimate. A young woman, much younger, seated in a chair, her hand resting on a rounded belly, her gaze blurred, alone, without a smile. That face, she knew it.
She saw it every day. It was Madame Kan, pregnant. Awa’s heart stopped for an instant, not from fear but from shock. She gently closed the album, put it back, then left the room as one leaves a dream, breath short. She did not know what to think. Perhaps it was nothing. An old photograph, forgotten, without a story.
That night, she hardly slept. The next day, she doubled her attention in her work, as if to prove to herself that she had seen nothing. But her movements were no longer as automatic. Her mind circled around that image. An image that awakened childhood memories without clear shape.
One afternoon, one of Madame Kan’s old aunts arrived without warning. A tall, full-bodied woman wearing a perfume of incense and black soap. The moment she came in, her gaze fell on Hawa. She observed her for a long time without saying anything. Then, in a corner of the living room, she pulled Maman Abé aside. That girl there, she whispered, I have seen her somewhere.
She is a maid, Maman Abé replied cautiously. Do not lie to me, Abé, she has the face of our family. Can’t you see her cheekbones, her eyes, even her hands, they are like Kanny’s grandmother’s. You speak too loudly, Yayé. Do you think God sleeps? Do you think the children we throw away do not come back to walk in our footsteps? Look at that girl carefully, look at her.
