Home » Senegal » Mariama Bâ » Un chant écarlate (Scarlet Song)
Mariama Bâ:Un chant écarlate (Scarlet Song)
Our hero is Ousmane Gueye. His father, Djibril, was injured in the war infighting for the French and receives a pension. He spends much of the time recounting his war experiences and denouncing the Germans. Ousmane’s mother is Yaye Khady. Unlike other Senegalese men, Djibril has not taken another wife. Ousmane is glad about this as he sees his neighbours where the man has several wives and there is continual squabbling between the wives and children.
Ousmane attended the French school and has been successful and will now go onto university. He had been offered a scholarship in France but preferred to stay at home. He is very close to his mother and often helps her with household tasks for which his father accuses him of being a cissy. He had had a girl friend, Ouleymatou, but when she found out that he does women’s work she mocks him and not only is the relationship ended, it puts him off girls for a while. When he gets to university, Ouleymatou changes her mind and approaches him but is firmly rebuffed.
However he now makes friends with a new girl in his class – Mireille. She is French, white and the daughter of a Fench diplomat. They become closer. However when high school ends he is sure that she will go back to France so he is surprised to find, when he arrives at the university, that she is there They resume their relationship and it becomes more intimate.
However, when they find out, her parents are furious. Her father strikes her and her mother takes to her bed. Mireille criticises her father for his hypocrisy as he is always preaching fraternisation and is on good terms with many Senegalese. However she is virtually shoved on the next plane to France. They write to each ither but it is difficult. Indeed, Ousmane is sure that his parents would react the same way as Mireille’s parents.
Both get an M.A, in philosophy and get jobs teaching. However before they are started on their careers, May 1968 happens. Mireille sneaks out at night and is very much involved unknown to her parents. Though Senegal is independent the students also protest and Ousmane is arrested and sent to a camp though released a few days later.
Both work and now that he has some money, Ousmane is able to pay for his father to make the trip to Mecca and get a decent house for the family.
The two keep in touch. When Ousmane gets more money, he sets off for France and the pair marry. Mireille converts to Islam. The couple return to Senegal. Not surprisingly both families are devastated. Both sets of parents had identified a suitable partner for their child (of the same race/nationality, of course) so are doubly disappointed. However it is Mireille who suffers most. As a Senegalese/Muslim wife all sorts of things are expected of her from putting up with her mother-in-law’s eccentricities (e.g. bursting into their bedroom unannounced) to catering for Ousmane’s many friends at any hour of the day or night. When you marry a man, you also take on his lifestyle.
Yaye Khady, in particular, is not happy. She describes Mirelle as a daughter of the devil who had bewitched her son and bemoans the fact that she could not choose her daughter–in-law, which she believes is her right.
Mireille is expected to learn Wolof but she struggles with it. They disagree on many other things. He likes to hear the tom-toms played late at night. She wants quiet at night and Mozart during the day. When he is ill, his mother is convinced it is caused by sorcery. It is she, not Mireille who should look after her sick son, and Ousmane agrees with his mother.
When Mireille becomes pregnant and produces a son, no-one is happy as he is obviously neither white nor black.
Ousmane has a cousin , Lamine, who also has a white wife and he is critical of Ousmane’s treatment of Mireille Lamine has adapted to his wife and her culture and thinks Ousmane needs to compromise more. But for Ousmane, any compromise was synonymous with surrender.
Ouleymatou, his former girlfriend, had not made a success of her life but now decides she wants Ousmane back. Yaye Khady had expected, as is the tradition, that Mireille would take over some of her househood tasks. Mireille does not but now Ouleymatou realises her chance and does the ironing for Yaye Khady. Yaye Khady is very grateful and would clearly prefer a black daughter-in-law, particularly one who knows her role. Ouleymatou is playing a long game. Ousmane teaches at the school which Ouleymatou’s brother attends and she suddenly takes much more interest in her brother’s schooling. OIusmane is criticised by a friend but he points out that Mireille had converted to Islam and knows that it is his right to take a second wife. What could go wrong?
If there is a basic message to this book it is that that interracial marriages are not a good thing. Stick to your own kind. Obviously not everyone will share that view. This is not the first African book I have read this year in which polygamy features and , unlike other African female writers, Bâ seems to have an ambivalent attitude towards it. In the early part of the book she shows that the neighbours have lots of problems with it, while in the latter part of the book, she does not extol it but does seem to imply that it is an acceptable part of their culture. Clearly there will be different views on this. Overall, this is a powerful book and somewhat sad as Bâ makes her point.
Publishing history
First published in 1981 by Nouvelles Editions Africanes
First English translation in 1985 by Longman
Translated byDorothy S Blair