Who am I now? by ALbert Russo (books for 10th graders .txt) 📕

when you stopped to think of it, terribly incongruous, almost unbelievable.
The lady, or should I say, the servant - she seemed to combine the two roles very naturally -, greeted me with the words “Yambo, Mazelli”, whilst I hesitated to extend my hand to her. But I needen’t worry, since she disappeared in a jiffy, running to the kitchen.
“She will prepare our afternoon snack”, explained Yolande, “in the meantime, I would like to play for you a couple of records a friend of my father’s has just brought from overseas. Let’s go to the sitting-room.”
They were Portuguese and French novelties, among which, a song by Amalia Rodriguez, and another one by Gilbert Bécaud. As we were listening to the latter’s romantic refrains, Yolande’s mother came back to us, holding a large tray, laden with goodies: two big glasses of frothy chocolate milk, Marie biscuits, marble cake and four generous slices of home-made ginger bread, not to mention the basket of mangoes and bananas, scattered with a variety of nuts, which already stood at the center of the table, waiting for us.
Yolande played Amalia Rodriguez’ record a second time and I must admit that, even though I couldn’t figure out what she was singing, except that I recognized the word ‘Lisboa’, her deep, raspy voice gripped me inside my very marrow. As for my hostess, she sat entranced as if she had just seen the Virgin Mary. There was a sudden angelic quality to her features, which alternated with a quivering melancholy smile. When the needle of the record player stopped, she told me that I had just listened to the queen of fado, Portugal’s most revered singer. It was the first time I had noticed how bright Yolande’s eyes were, they resembled two beacons tearing the morning mist.
Thus did I learn how she and her father had emigrated to the Belgian Congo, from her native Angola, when she was but a child of three, and how he had set up his bicycle shop under the Da Silva flagship, on Karavia Avenue, which separated the European residential quarters from the Cité Indigène where the black workers lived.
The business, which was soon enlarged to include a repairs annex, prospered rapidly, thanks especially to the numerous Congolese customers, whose principal means of transportation was the bicycle, and to a lesser extent, to the growing number of white pupils and students who rode to school - the few non-Africans you saw on bikes were either considered excentrics or white trash you had better nothing to do with. Her father owned the sleek black Chevrolet which stood in the garage, but also a Ford station wagon, used as the shop’s delivery van.
Yolande said nothing concerning her mother who had gone back to her chores, but I was burning to know more about that family so out of the mainstream, I could never imagined even existed.
Unlike Amelie, ever so exuberant and ready to crack a joke, Yolande’s mother had an affable smile, albeit shaded as if by a veil of gloom. It appeared that her childhood too had been lulled by the sounds of the fado. It wouldn’t be right, however, to claim that she looked unhappy or that she expected some kind of deliverance. After all, she had her daughter close by and she could shower her with all the love and the care she was capable of. Wasn’t that the proof positive of her maternal attachment? And whenever she felt homesick, she could turn to her sister and the latter’s family, at the Cité Indigène.
It was Yolande who first broached the subject of her cousin, who was three years older than she.
“I’d like you to meet Mario-Tende,” she said, with a tinge of pride in her voice, “He’s very bright, you know, and if he had our luck, he would be studying right now at the Saint-Francois de Salle Catholic school for boys, garnering all the prizes for excellence. I regularly pass him my favorite books, as well as Paris Match magazine and the weekly Echo du Katanga, once my father has read them. He devours every line in print that falls under his gaze, including the advertisements and the obituary columns.” adding, a little less euphorically, “Not that the mission school he attends is bad, but of course, it can’t compare with the quality of teaching we get.” I thought she was going to say “we, us Whites,” for there was a pause in her phrase.
This introduction concerning her cousin was at once intriguing and disparaging to me, for I caught myself sliding along a path I had neither premeditated nor desired to follow. Then, as if a lightning bolt had torn through my being, I rapped out:
“He’s darker than you, isn’t he? That is why he wasn’t admitted at Saint-Francois.”
“In a way, yes,” muttered Yolande, taken aback by the brutality of my remark, “but it’s not that simple. He is considered totally African and, he couldn’t get, like me, a special permission, even he too, is a mulatto. But since you and I have now become sort of bosom friends, I shall tell you the truth. Mario-Tende is my cousin as well as my half-brother.”
Either I was getting very stupid or my ears were jumbling her words into hogwash, and I blurted:
“But how do you folks manage? I mean, wouldn’t it have been easier, and wouldn’t you have been happier, had you all remained in Angola? Oh, I shouldn’t be so inquisitive,” I said, biting my lip, “It’s none of my business, I’m sorry. Anyway, I have to go home.”
Yes, I couldn’t bear to stay another minute in that house, in the company of that girl, whose life was such a puzzle but, who, nevertheless, seemed to be taking everything in her stride, very calmly. It had been all so much easier before Uncle Jeff came and told me that story involving a black ancestor.
I was in such a hurry to leave, that I collected my homework papers and my books and shoved them helter skelter in my schoolbag, walking away like a thief. I noticed the slight hurt on Yolande’s face, as I rushed out of the verandah, without so much as thanking her. Imprint

Publication Date: 11-18-2009

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