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We tour the compound with her children in tow. Her youngest is over-the-moon enthusiastic, jumping and silly, exchanging funny faces with me. When we step inside, I’m tense. The house is not what we had agreed upon. It’s smaller than we discussed and the floors are not cement. They are bumpy with stones. I ask Maurice and Hortense pointed questions about what happened. Generose interrupts, “It is not their fault, Lisa. Prices went up after you left. But I bought the stones and filled the walls myself for around two hundred and forty dollars. I used the money I’ve raised from my business.”

She leads us around to the backyard, bursting with pride at her cassava liquor distillery. “I sell only the best,” she boasts, explaining the distillation process. I’m not sure how I feel about keeping the local men liquored up, but her pride is contagious. “I wanted to have some for you to taste, but I sell out after only one day. I can make two batches per month, for a profit of seventy dollars per month.”

Considering the fact that most families here live on US$20 per month, I’m impressed. She’s making enough to send her kids to school, buy plenty of food, grow veggies in the back, and bit by bit improve her house. A woman joins us and shakes my hand. Generose nods, raising her eyebrows as she introduces her. “She is among the ones who help.”

An employee? This little house is her new empire!

Inside, we pull the curtains closed and wait for the neighbors and children to disperse, so we can talk privately. It’s dusk and we talk by candlelight. I ask about her son.

“He was a child I loved so much,” she tells me. “The fact that he is the only one who refused to eat a part of me marked my heart.”

“What was your son like?” I ask.

“He was nine years old, in third grade. He loved to play soccer and to go fishing on his grandparents’ compound. He loved to create cars with banana leaves or to make paper airplanes. He liked to provoke others. He took a toad and put it in his friend’s bag. So we were called to the school to justify his behavior. The first thing he used to ask when he came home was, ‘Where is the food?’ If there was no food, he would get angry with everyone in the house, ‘Why is the food not ready?’ Or ‘Why don’t you put salt on the fish? Is the problem poverty, or what?’ Or ‘You prepare vegetables every day. I don’t want vegetables. When I visit my aunt, she makes meat. Why don’t you prepare meat?’”

Maurice and I laugh and I say, “Quite a fiery little man.”

But Generose looks blankly at the wall.

“Do you remember the last thing you said to your child?”

“What I remember is the last speech he gave to the killer.”

“What did he say?” I ask.

“To his father’s killer, he said, ‘I do not accept to eat a part of my mother.’

“They said, ‘Then we are going to kill you.’

“He said, ‘If you kill me, kill me. But I will not eat a part of my mother.’”

Generose spaces out, slowly rocking back and forth, while Maurice translates, “They said, ‘Then you better pray, because you are going to die.’

“He said, ‘You’re asking me to pray to God? Why? I do not love you. I am angry with you. How can I pray to God when I have such a bad heart against you?’”

We are quiet for a moment. Then I ask her, “What did the soldiers say?”

“They said nothing. They shot him. I heard the sound of many bullets, but what I saw was the one that entered here.” She points to the middle of her forehead.

“What was his name?”

“Lucien.”

“And your husband?”

“Claude.”

“How did you meet your husband?” I ask.

“My husband was ill, and he came to the hospital where I was a nurse. In treating him, the love began between us. I loved him first because he was handsome. Second, because he gave me advice. After the treatment, he left the hospital, but after two days, he came back to visit me. In one week, he came back with his father to bring a hen as a sign of thanks. After that, he began the habit of visiting. He did this for two years. After two