Free The Story of the Cannibal Woman by Maryse Condé

because in even Dido’s eyes, though the color of their skin was identical, Rosélie had nothing in common with the South African kaffirs who had been excluded from working in the vineyards and dumped farther and farther from the white world she had learned to hate and despise. Since the words “Guadeloupe, overseas département” meant no more to Dido than to the rest of the world, she considered Rosélie to be French. Didn’t she speak French to perfection? Hadn’t she studied in Paris? Didn’t she eat her steak raw and her Camembert runny? Dido, who had a mind of her own and was not afraid to speak it, would gladly contradict her.
    â€œYou, you see racism everywhere! That’s not racism. It’s because you’re a woman they treat you like that. Women—black, white, yellow, or coloured—they’re the asshole of the world!”
    Stephen’s version:
    â€œNot everything can be attributed to racism. A lot of things are due to your individual attitude.”
    Whatever.
    Although apartheid had spared Dido to a certain degree, life had had no consideration for her. She had first landed herself a good match in the shape of Amishand, an Indian. The couple opened a restaurant named Jaipur, which soon made an excellent name for itself. With their earnings they had built a house in Mitchell Plains, the coloured district. If you didn’t meddle in politics—the right to vote, to education, to health benefits, to justice for all, and other such nonsense—life in South Africa could be sweet. Amishand was saving up to realize his dream of ending his days in India at Varanasi. If he was going to go up in flames, it might as well be on the shore of the Ganges. His relatives would scatter his ashes in the waters of the sacred river close by, and he would only have to make one small heavenly step to reach nirvana. His bank account was flourishing when coronary thrombosis dealt a deadly blow. From one day to the next Dido had become the Widow Perchaud, mother of Manil, a seven-year-old son she had killed herself raising in the memory of his deserving father. Alas, the beloved Manil had been the dagger that pierced her heart. Drink, women, men, and drugs! She had ruined herself paying off his debts, then was forced to mortgage and finally sell the Jaipur, that jewel of Indian gastronomy. She had reached the depth of degradation when she had had to hire herself out as a cook by the month. Fortunately, in her misfortune, she had met Rosélie, to whom she had grown attached, like family.
    After Manil had died from AIDS, Dido lost the desire to live. She had been overwhelmed by a feeling of guilt. All that had been her fault. She had treated her son like a treasure she took pride in, like a bracelet to flaunt, like a necklace clasped to her neck. She hadn’t loved him for what he was. Neither her prayers to the God of the Christians nor her sacrifices to the Hindu deities could bring peace back to her heart. Only Rosélie had managed to do that. Through the laying on of hands and locating the pressure points of Dido’s pain.

    The car disappeared into the night. Rosélie remained standing on the sidewalk littered with garbage. She had been lucky a taxi had accepted to take her to her appointment at Dido’s. Once the sun had gone down, no taxi driver ventured into the black townships: Langa, Nyanga, Guguletu, Khayelitsha, forbidden zones! And even Mitchell Plains, once a calm, hardworking district, was now eaten up with the wrath and fury of gang warfare.
    Rosélie looked left and right like a cautious schoolgirl, then ran across the sinister, ill-lit street.
    Just as she was furiously battling with fate, so Dido was fighting to make her surroundings a little more human. She was the president of an association that refused to let Mitchell Plains become like the hell of so many other neighborhoods. In her little garden she had planted not only the inevitable