So Shines a Good Deed in a Weary World

Gene Wilder is a genius. On my two most recent trips to the regional transit house, I've watched the old Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. I love the song "Pure Imagination." My favorite scene is the one I hated most as a child: on the boat, going through the tunnel, images of insects crawling across people's faces, of a chicken being decapitated; Wonka reciting, at first calmly and lyrically, but then hysterically, madly:

There's no earthly way of knowing
Which direction we are going
There's no knowing where we're rowing
Or which way the river's flowing
Is it raining?
Is it snowing?
Is a hurricane a-blowing?
Not a speck of light is showing
So the danger must be growing
Are the fires of hell a-glowing?
Is the grisly reaper mowing?
Yes, the danger must be growing
'Cause the rowers keep on rowing
And they're certainly not showing
Any signs that they are slowing

Absolute madness. In one of the next scenes everyone (save the chocolate-drinking German boy and his mother) is passing through a room with strips of fruit-patterned lickable wallpaper. Wonka is giddy as a child. "The strawberries taste like strawberries! The snozzberries taste like snozzberries!" Veruca Salt, the little bitch, turns to Wonka and says, "Snozzberries? Who ever heard of a snozzberry?" Wonka grabs her spoiled little face by the cheeks and says "We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams."

--

I've taught the children card games. Togolese kids are absolute murder to a deck of cards, but I won't begrudge them a little over-enthusiasm as long as they're having fun. They've learned Egyptian Rat Screwer, and two forms of Speed, and they play them remarkably well. In turn, I've learned the game Huit Americaines, which is a bit confusing at first, but lots of fun. We often all play together under the paillote, sitting at old school desks in various stages of disintegration. The chickens run around the yard, stalking beneath our feet for discarded peanut shells. The women of the compound prepare meals, or serve tchouk, or sit and watch. When somebody new wants to learn, I have the kids teach them. Nowadays both the women in my compound and even a local pastor can sometimes be found sitting on a small stool in a circle of children, slapping doubles, and sweeping up cards.

The first day that the kids learned to play, one of the professors at the primary school came over with some friends to drink. I am not a fan of this man. Two wives, ten children, overweight, and unfunny. The boys were playing as he sat down, callabash in hand. Adele, who had just served him, came back under the paillote to get into the game. "What's she doing?" the fat man said. "She doesn't know how to play." This man often walks into my house without knocking, and his idea of a joke is to tell me he's going to sleep with my girlfriend. "She knows how to play," I said. "C'est toi qui ne sais rien." Adele slapped in, and won the game.

It sounds crazy to make this connection, but I believe that the card games have given Adele more self-confidence. She smiles more often, and won't let the boys cheat her when they play. I haven't even seen her get hit in a long time. She still gets yelled at occasionally, but no more so than the boys. And when the brat cries, he's left to cry.

Even the village seems to be nicer. Recently, a middle-aged man was watching the kids play, and when the game was finished, he took the cards to teach them another game. It was a partners game, and he put two of the boys together, and set Adele at his side. Many of the things I wish to describe seem so lame in words, but imagine if you can, the impact of this move. With the man as her partner, Adele came into a position of power. Not a significant position, and you could argue that it didn't continue following the end of the game. But whereas a week ago somebody was saying she didn't know a thing about cards, now somebody took the time to teach her, and declare her, by making her his partner, his equal. I only wish the first asshole had been there to see it.

--

On occasion I get five or ten francs pieces as change, usually when making a photocopy. They're annoying to have because there's little you can do with them except buy candy. Therefore, I usually save them until a night when I need something from the boutique across the street but am too lazy to go over myself. I'll call a kid over, give him/her the money for the spaghetti or soap or whatever, and then squeeze a ten francs piece into his/her hand. They usually buy the milk candies, little white chewy squares without much flavor, but which are still delicious.

A few weeks ago I'd promised Adele that, since I hadn't brought her anything back from my little trip (I went to Atakpame, or Sokode, or someplace; everybody asks you to bring them something back, it's a cultural thing), I'd get her a sucker from the boutique, which is a whopping twenty-five francs a pop. For some reason I'd never found the time to sneak her the money without the other kids seeing it, or to go myself and get her one. Last Tuesday she was hanging out, doing nothing, and she asked when we could go and get the bonbon (candy). Let's go now, I said.

We looked all over the shelves of the boutique, on the front counter, in the clear buckets, but the suckers were nowhere. "Ils sont finis," the owner said. We had thirty francs on us, so we bought six milk candies instead. "Now," I said to Adele as we walked back home, "I'm going to take one, because I'm hungry. That leaves five. You can share them if you like, or you can have them all to yourself, but if you do that, just make sure you keep them in your pocket so the others don't get jealous." Naturally, I assumed and expected her to keep them for secret treats at night.

We continued in silence, the air sharp and delicious with the scent of the lime trees along the path. After a moment, Adele handed me another candy. "What's this for?" I said. "I want you to have another," she said, "and then I'll give one to Lidao, one to Theo, one to Maman, and keep one for myself." She stored three in her pocket, and took the one she'd reserved for herself, unwrapping it carefully, and bit into it deliberately, neither devouring it, nor savoring it. Her eyes wandered over the corn in the field, the women at the water pump, the fruits hanging from the baobab, and when she looked at me, her mouth broke into her shy smile and she giggled. And let me tell you, I could have stayed right there with her forever.