Flumes Vol. 3: Issue 1 Summer 2018 | Page 37

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flagstone stoop outside the kitchen and talk about being mothers. Motherhood, regardless the cultural differences, is a universal language.

Given the way they treated the Congolese, we didn’t like the Belgians, either.

Sebastien and Raphael were friends. They were Hutus from the same tribe, but they couldn’t have been more different. Sebastien was serious, dignified, the consummate professional. His job as head man-servant was his vocation. He ran the household. If he had been in England, he would have been a butler to the aristocracy.

Raphael, on the other hand, would have been a court jester. He sang, he joked, and he played with my sisters and me. He also teased Sebastien unmercifully.

“He’s always so serious, isn’t he?” Raphael would say, mimicking Sebastien’s unsmiling, serious face.

He would pick us up to tweak Sebastien’s goatee. “Let’s see if we can make him laugh.”

Sebastien was not amused. He’d give Raphael withering looks but endured the good-natured ribbing.

Krushchev wasn’t a very good pet. He didn’t fetch, he didn’t play with my sisters and me, and he wasn’t affectionate. All he did was groom; so, he and I spent hours grooming each other, picking off imaginary fleas and ticks, which can become boring for a kid. And, being a kid, I’m ashamed to say that I eventually lost interest in him. So, poor Krushchev was left to his own devices on the second-floor balcony of our house. And, being a monkey taken from the jungle, his key device was to escape. Which he eventually did, while my father was on another one of his business trips.

We were amazed at how fast a monkey could move, especially a monkey bent on escaping. My mother, sisters, and I watched in awe as Krushchev practically flew from the balcony to a tree, then another tree, then onto the kitchen roof, and finally Madame Obusier’s clothesline where her starched white sheets were hung out to dry. Unfortunately for Madame Obusier, and us, Krushchev had snagged his long tail on something during his great escape, and it was bleeding—all over the pristine white sheets.