Seasons of Empire
I like to call my brothers and father a different breed of men. My father was in construction back in Senegal and construction is a man’s world. This meant one of my brothers had to follow suit. That left two, that could either become lawyers or doctors. They both chose the latter of the two; the oldest a pediatrician, the next was in school to become an orthopedic surgeon. I think my parents thought I was kidding when I told them I didn’t want to be a doctor or a lawyer. I was used to my father’s cold shoulder but not my mothers. When they eventually came around to the idea of me not being as ‘successful’ as my brothers like they had hoped, my father told me I could just marry someone with that occupation and she told me it would be fine, because being a good mother was a full time job anyway. I didn’t dare open my mouth about the fact that I didn’t want those things either.
From the time my family came to America, I realized early I was not like the other girls. Though the freckles on our cheeks matched, the backdrop behind them did not; my skin was closer to the color of coffee than cream. My hair did not flow down my back like a blonde waterfall, but instead twisted like the coils that would stick out of the old mattress we got rid of before we moved. My eyes were not the color of the water off the coast of Dakar, but instead mimicked the dark mystery of the Louisiana bayous. I had always realized these dissimilarities, he just showed me the beauty of them. He was the only man in the Women in Politics class I took on a whim that fall. All the eyes in the room were on him when he openly spoke of being a feminist and the importance of equal rights; women with admirable independence were gawking at him as the words rolled off his tongue. All eyes were on him and yet his eyes were on me. I would’ve never noticed because my eyes were often in the back of my head when he chimed in, however when he spoke about Senegal and women’s new role in parliament that day, I could’ve gotten whiplash from how quickly I turned around.
He was more intellectual than I gave him credit for. That, or he was really good at making shit up. We spent the colorful fall days in his loft near campus. His air conditioner was always blowing just hard enough to make me chilly. I was starting to think he did that on purpose as an excuse to sit closer to me or lend me a sweater…he was methodical in that way. I told my parents I was taking an extra class to account for the time I spent with him instead of being at home helping my mother. As time went on, things were getting more serious than either of us anticipated. This was the most time I had ever spent with a man I did not share the same bloodline with, but that was the problem. My bloodline could not be traced back before Senegal gained independence. My ancestors and their traits I inherited I would never know, an entire history erased. His bloodline was that of the French, that of the invader. He had a book the size of an encyclopedia that branched this family back and back, an amenity my family would never know. As I laid on his camel backed sofa I imagined my ancestors shaking the hands of his. I imagined the betrayal and disappointment in my parent’s eyes would mimic my relatives if they knew where I really was.
In the winter time, I told my parents I was going on a week long retreat with our church but instead I stayed at the loft with him. I had traced his tattoos with my fingertips so many times, I could practically replicate them on my own skin. His stubble soft, yet scratchy and I could feel it on my cheek even when the week was over. As the holidays approached, he asked what my plans were. This was a loaded question, as I was raised Muslim in Senegal but my parents quickly converted when we moved to America to fit in with the neighbors. My mother, who used to wear a hijab, now got a Brazilian Blowout every other week. I will never forget the first time she got her hair done. I couldn’t remember the last time I had seen it without its protective covering before she came home that day. It blew in the wind with such ease. She stood on the porch and couldn’t take my eyes off her; she resembled Beyoncé more than she resembled herself. She reminded me of a bird who could finally fly, a prisoner no longer bound in chains, a butterfly emerging from a cocoon. The joy in her heart soon faded as she realized this change only exemplified the inner struggle she was having with adjusting to her new role: American. She looked at me and a small tear slid down her face. When I asked her what was wrong she told me, “This is what your father has decided I should look like now, no matter what I prefer. I used to be able to see myself in you. Looking at you was like looking in a mirror but now I can no longer see my reflection.”
In the spring time, the rain clouds were as overbearing as my father, their precipitation as unpredictable as his outbursts. It was April 4th when Paul introduced me to his parents; ironic his birth and Senegal’s independence day to fall on the same Thursday. It was the first time I had been served dinner in more than two courses, each one accompanied with its own fork and glass of wine. His parents looked like they could be on the front page of a newspaper, they both had a timeless beauty. The pearls strung around his mother’s neck were just a shade lighter than her skin and though her lipstick was much brighter than any shade my mother would wear, it did not abandon her lips after each time she brought a glass to them. His father spoke quietly with a thick creole accent, but his laugh bellowed like thunder through the small bistro and invaded the conversations of the couples at tables around us. It was amazing to me that even without consciously knowing, some white men took over more space than they were welcome to.
It was like the humidity of the summer crept in one day and never left. The air conditioner in the loft that I once resented was now the only thing I craved. The luxury of cold air at an instant in America was not something I was not willing to give up ever again. The sound of the cicadas overwhelmed the sounds of the city and sometimes, when he spoke quietly like his father, they overwhelmed his voice too. I blamed their song when he asked to meet my family that night, but I heard him just fine. My palms were immediately clammy, my mouth dry. He knew better than to ask this of me. He knew that if I told my parents I was in a relationship they would pressure me to get married, and if I told them he was white I would be disowned. He insisted and persisted for next few days and when I finally agreed a knot immediately formed in my stomach. It felt like eating too much ice cream or when he took me to get beignets for the first time. It felt like being told I had to be a doctor or a lawyer to be worth something to my family. It felt like my mother with a new hairdo on the porch that day. It felt like his father’s laugh, like my father’s presence. It was every emotion I had felt in the past year all coordinating in the pit of my stomach.