Possessing the Secret of Joy - Alice Walker [54]
When the clitoris rose, I continue, God thought it looked masculine. Since it was “masculine” for a clitoris to rise, God could be excused for cutting it down. Which he did. Then, I said, God fucked the hole that was left. Of course I remember, I say to Pierre, that Griaule said God had intercourse. It is I who say God fucked.
And this is how people who mutilate little girls see the beginning of life, groans Olivia, dropping her head into her hands.
Religion is an elaborate excuse for what man has done to women and to the earth, says Raye, bitterly.
But there were other religions, I say, thinking of the little figure blissfully loving herself.
Pierre shrugs. They were destroyed. Your little smiling goddess was destroyed.
I turn to Mbati. Her lovely face is filled with horror. Nobody knows this story, she says. I am convinced. Which means, she says, visibly angry, nobody even knows why they do this thing. I certainly never had any idea why it was done to me. If my sex organs were unclean, why was I born with them? I asked my mother this once, before I was circumcised. She just said everyone knew a woman’s vulva to be dirty. And to need to be removed. That was all there was to it. No termites, no “white ants,” no structural similarities between genitals and insect dwellings were discussed.
And who would not laugh at the notion that a clitoris, like a penis, can rise?
Olivia asks if I am hungry or would like more water to drink. I am not sure. The sight of Mbati’s anger has split me in two. Only a part of me is sitting in the midst of my family and friends. Another part is watching myself as a small child bring a tray of food and water to the elders of the village. They sit beside a baobab tree and gaze wisely out over the plain. The heat is intense but does not bother me. The earth is red. There are flies. Because I am small, they do not completely stop their talk.
Number one: What is a man?
All: Huh!
Number two: A man is blind.
All: Huh!
Number three: He has an eye.
All: Huh!
Number four: But it can not see.
Number one: Man is God’s cock.
Number two: It scratches the furrow.
Number three: It drops the seed.
Number four: But its offspring…
All: The crop!
Number one: Excrement!
Number two: It cannot identify.
Number three: God’s blind cock produces God’s blind eggs.
Number four: Is an egg not blind?
Number one: It is so.
Number two: The tsunga’s stitch helps the cock to know his crop…
All: Which after all belongs to God.
Number three: That is why it is said…
Number four:…the tsunga though herself a woman…
Number one:…helps God.
All: Is it not so?
All: It is so.
All: Woman is queen.
Number one: She is Queen.
Number two: God has given her to us.
Number three: We are thankful to God for all His gifts.
(They do not, however, thank the child for bringing the food or send thanks to her mother for preparing it.)
Number four: Since God has given her to us, we must treat her well.
Number one: We must feed her so that she will stay plump.
Number two: Even her excrement will be plump.
(They laugh.)
Number three: If left to herself the Queen would fly.
Number two: True.
Number three: And then where would we be?
Number four: But God is merciful.
Number one: He clips her wings.
Number two: She is inert.
Number three: And even her excrement is sweet.
Number four: Because she is Queen!
Number one: And we are only workers!
Number two: Blind, it is true, but that is God’s will.
Number three: Did He not make us so?
Number four: True.
Number one: And did He not put the Queen’s body there to make our offspring?
Number two: And to be our food?
Number three: It cannot be denied.
Number four: And when she rose up…
All: Hah!
Number three: Rose up indeed.
Number four: As a man would!
Number one: She did not see God’s axe.
Number two: No, she was blind like us then. She did not see it.
Number three: God struck the blow that made her Queen!
Number four: Beautiful enough for him to fuck.
Number one: God liked it fighting!
(Laughter)
Number two: God liked it tight!
Number three: