Maimuna wanted to get rid of the belts strapped beneath her dress as soon as possible. They pinched and made her sweat, and they made her waist appear lumpy, if you knew to look. Had Mikael and Marcel noticed? The dress was loose at the waist—she had borrowed it from Ndeye, who was a little plump. Maimuna would have drowned in the dress if Ndeye hadn’t sewn a line of smocking under the breasts. As soon as she met Mister Mecanico at the Amanar restaurant and passed off the belts, she would be free. They could arrange a photo shoot and linger at the edge of the desert for a little longer, looking for the perfect dune to use as a backdrop. She would put on her other dress, which was turquoise and tight-fitting. Mikael was sure to agree. Why wouldn’t he?
Mikael and Marcel weren’t in a hurry to get anywhere. They insisted that they wanted to go through Sévaré to Mopti, where there were more mosques, which they never seemed to tire of photographing, and a building devoted to earthen architecture. How they managed to be so excited about that she didn’t understand. Mikael and Marcel had slept well at the hotel. Nothing weighed them down, and nothing was wrapped around their stomachs that chafed and made them sweat. They could sleep stark naked under the hypnotic whopping of the ceiling fan, and now they eagerly pressed against her in the bouncing car. Each wanted to show her the pictures he had taken on their journey. Look, Maimuna!
And she looked. She listened to Marcel’s soft, flowing French, and Mikael’s tentative, rougher French. She felt Mikael’s arm, clammy with sweat against her skin, and she felt Marcel’s arm, which was dry despite the heat.
“Maimuna,” Mikael said, “do you know the Batammariba people of Benin and Togo?” Mikael showed her a photograph of a boy with long, thin scars lined up across his face and began to speak. Marcel came to his aid any time Mikael got stuck on a word. Maimuna sat obediently between the men. It was a very good camera. A professional camera. If she could just not ruin this . . .
Maimuna?
Maimuna, you must have heard of them, the Batammaribas, who as their name suggests are the real architects of the earth. They decorate their faces with scar tattoos in parallel lines like the walls of their mud houses. (No, she hadn’t heard of them.) Surely you must know about their unique houses. (She didn’t know.) They’re called takienta. The houses are three stories and built according to the architecture of the human mind. Every house has a bottom floor, the dark, animal subconscious, a middle floor for the ego, and round granary attics protected by hats made of straw for the superego. (She didn’t know, and she didn’t understand, but she nodded and smiled.) The houses not only have the psyche of a person but also all of a person’s body parts: eyes, nose, mouth, vagina, penis, anus . . . The buildings are constructed by the head village architect, the otammali, he-whoknows-how-to-build-from-earth. Here he is: such a happy man! We met him in the village we visited, and he allowed us to spend the night on the roof of his house . . . And now we’ve moved on to a Kassena village in Burkina Faso! Look at these amazing black and white geometric patterns. (She looked.) These triangles painted on the walls of the building represent broken gourds, which are a symbol of wealth. Another symbol of wealth are these cowry shells, which were once used as money. Look, Maimuna, at how the beautiful python design slithers around the wall of the chief’s house! (She looked and thought it was childish, clumsy, and pretentious.) The python is one of the Kassenas’ most important totem animals. The doors of their houses are like the openings of an igloo: round and very short. When you go inside, you have to bend down very low, maybe even crawl. Just imagine the problems I had with my long legs . . . (Mikael’s legs really were quite long and slender. Compared to Mikael, Marcel was as small as a Pygmy, as nimble as a gazelle, and as supple as rubber. They were perfect opposites, one lanky and blond, the other dark-haired and muscular. Which one would she choose if she had to pick? Tall Mikael or short Marcel?) Immediately inside, a visitor runs into a threshold about forty centimeters high. Can you imagine a better defense? Brilliant! If an enemy tries to crawl in, knocking him over the head in the darkness of the entryway would be easy. Light filters in from a hole above, making the dark room a holy place. Do you know what, Maimuna? Our whole trip we’ve been surrounded by everyday truths. We’ve come to understand something fundamental about the deep secrets of humanity! We talked about this for hours on the bus. The human subconscious is also sacred, and light can flow into it . . . Do you know, Maimuna, that a person’s head can literally open up during meditation? (No, she didn’t know. Swallowing a yawn, she acrobatically turned it into a smile and asked Mikael to give her a drink from a water bottle.) A year ago we were on the Bandiagara Escarpment in the Sahel region, an area inhabited by the Dogons. We found clay houses there too, each with a soul, with eyes, a nose,
