Aural Memory

“SUPPER!”

My mother’s voice would ring out like a dinner bell in a train yard. On the table there would be a delicious, cold green salad. On the stove, served buffet style, baked potatoes, steak with béarnaise, corn and green beans. For dessert there would be fruit, cookies or ice cream depending on the occasion.


“Vien, Manger!” or “WA, Kadje!”

The child lifts her sticky hand off pate up off the plate and waves it near my face, bringing the scent of the greasy, mutton and tomato based sauce d’arachide. Cornmeal boiled in water and beaten with a stick until it becomes pure starch, it sticks to everything. Pate Rouge, which is cooked with tomatoes, oil and onion and Pate Noir, which is as far as I can tell beans boiled and then beaten to a similar consistency, are two variations of the same meal. The sauce de legumes, de sesame, d’arachide, de tomate are the usual side dishes. You wash your right hand with water from a pitcher, pouring the run-off into a small bowl beneath. Sometimes there is soap. That’s always nice. You use that hand to grab chucks of pate and with some practice you then whip it around the sauce that settles nicely in a communal bowl. If you are wealthy, or at a restaurant, you can have wagasi cheese, goat, beef, or fish. The meat varieties are barely recognizable as they’ve been fried within an inch of their being and hard to chew. Wagasi is delicious, but difficult to find in Manigri. It is sold wrapped in big green leaves that turn the white skin a bright, beautiful red.


“SA-RAHHH, It’s TIME TO GET UP”

My mother’s voice again, jarring me from the dark haze of sleep. I’d fumble around in my bed, wracking my brain for any reason at all why I could not emerge from my room. I’d tumble out of bed and half crawl, half run to the intercom before my mother could decide to ‘beep’ me. My parents installed an intercom in my room when I was thirteen. The beeping sound, even when done accidentally, still irritates me to this day.

[ a cacophony of animals ]

The animals wake around five thirty in the morning. The roosters and goats must wake each other from their own rumbling sleep to then flail about the concession, screaming. Goats that sounds like small children, roosters that must want to fight everything in sight. And the sweeping. The sound of stiff bristles scraping against the sand.

“You fly, I’ll buy”

A monstrous building in the middle of a parking lot that could be full but once a year. Cars. Shopping carts. Seagulls eating trash. You drive yourself there, park it in a space and then march into the supermarket with the intent of only buying one thing. You emerge fifteen minutes later having in fact bought six or seven. Those companies are so much smarter than you. How did they know you’d find the 2 for 1 L’Oreal Shampoo sale so alluring, and when is the last time you ate White Cheddar Cheese-its? But there they are, in your ‘reusable’ shopping bag. Because you care about the environment and will absolutely use those petroleum-based plastic shampoo bottles again and again. And, I don’t know, fix your car with that cardboard box from the Cheese-its.

“Ouebo! Ouebo! Viens! Viens! Wa-Wa-Wa!”

The wrinkled ladies crouch down over their wares like they’d like to strike at your knees. There are people pushing in every direction, their shoulders digging into your back. Huge trays of food pass above as Marche Mamas with babies on their back walk by, balancing their entire stock on their heads. You argue, plead, and feign disgust over their prices. You walk away. You tell them that you know the real price (even if you don’t) and insist that they don’t rip you off just because you’re white. You reach into your pocket to pay her, and then it is her turn to be disgusted. “Il n’y a pas la monnaie!” They’ll exclaim, pouting at you. You stare them down, and for a moment it’s like the two of you will really fight over this transaction. Finally she’ll break down and shrugging walk off, leaving her stand (safely guarded by the other women hovering around anticipating your business), in search of change.
When you’ve found the gari (manioc powder), the okra (known as gumbo here), and maybe the dried beans you came for an hour later, you head is ringing from the incessant microphone that screeches “My Heart Will Go On” as a midi file, and you’re less hungry than you were when you came. Maybe it’s the goat meat sitting on the wooden stand collecting flies. Or the little girl who is peeing right next to the place where you just bought your vegetables.


“Well, what will it be?”

A gin and club with lime. Jack on the rocks. A martini. A seasonal microbrew, maybe with blueberries or orange slices, from the tap. It’s served to you in a frosted glass. The music croons via a juke box in the corner. There are three different televisions showing various sports games. If you’re a regular your drink is waiting before you walk in the door. There is ice. Delicious, cold ice. Everyone minds their own business for hours. There is no eye contact, no joining a stranger’s table, until those who are scamming to pick up sex for the night are left to feed on one another.

“Je voudrais une beninoise” or “Fu me Sodabee”

The skunked beer in a gritty green bottle. She will bring the beer in a little basket, but for some reason- no matter what bar you are in- she has to go back to the same place she came from for the bottle opener. Liquor is ten dollars a glass and they have no idea how to serve it, and so most of their mark-up is lost. The majority of bars have only beer or soda, the beers being limited to five different kinds of domestic or African imports. No two Beninoise beers are the same. Music pumps out of the nearest television at its loudest pitch, encouraging people to dance but making it difficult to talk. The Tantis sit with the men who they think will buy them sodabee, or perhaps pay for other services. There is no ‘girls night out’ in a society where women rarely have their own income, and so it can be assumed every girl in that bar is looking for the same guy (named John). Frequently someone will sit down with you and try to talk to you, to try to befriend you into taking them to the United States. Or give them money. Or buy them beer. Sometimes their advances are funny, usually irritating, and once in awhile just sad. The bartenders (the tantis) may be the worst of them all, but frequently also the saddest.