Something I feel without knowing what it is. Have you ever seen her face too? Is there something you wanted to hide from me to protect me? She folded the letter and slipped it into her bag between her notebook and the handkerchief containing the necklace. The next day, she decided to go alone to the market at Maman Abé’s request.
A simple task: buy fish, onions, and fresh spices. But that day, she got lost. Not in the streets, no. In the memories that rose up at the turn of a stall. An old woman was selling fabrics. As she passed by, Awa saw a worn red wrapper with cowrie-shell patterns that struck her like a slap.
She stopped without understanding why her heart was beating so hard. “Do you want to buy it?” the old woman asked. “No, well, I feel like I’ve seen this cloth before.” “It is an old pattern. It was often worn by the river, back in the days when midwives tied it around babies.” Babies? Yes, to protect them. It was a birth cloth.
You know, my daughter, some cloths remember more than people do. Awa bought a small piece. She did not know why. She folded it, ran it through her hand, and returned home with a strange feeling, as if she had drawn closer to something. That evening, while she was putting away the groceries in the kitchen, Maman Abé entered without a sound.
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Even the wind, usually playful, had withdrawn into a respectful silence.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.
She is not here by chance. And she walked away, leaving Maman Abé with an even heavier weight on her chest. In the days that followed, Hawa felt that the looks were changing. Not with malice, but with discomfort, suspicion. As if they were waiting for her to discover something that she alone still could not see.
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