Excerpt: Where You Go, I Will Go by Christina Fonthes

May 08, 2025

Prologue

MIRA | Gombe, Kinshasa, November 1974

‘Indépendance cha-cha to zuwi ye!’ Mira sings to the tune of Papa’s whistling as the family journey the ten kilometres from the bungalow in Limété to their new three-storey house in Gombe. Outside, among the flurry of palm trees and tall buildings, the sun rises against a pale sky, and Mira spots the stretch of clear blue water on the horizon.

‘The Fleuve Zaïre!’ she gushes to Ya Eugénie beside her. ‘Yaya! We’re almost in Gombe, aren’t we?’

Her sister looks up from her biology textbook and glances out of the car window. Ya Eugénie’s hair is plaited in star- shaped cornrows and she is in a white dress like Mira’s, but without the ribbons and lace adorning the front. They were only moving house, but Mama had insisted they both wear their Sunday dresses so the new neighbours in Gombe wouldn’t think them poor or uncivilised.

‘Almost,’ Ya Eugénie replies, plucking lint from one of Mira’s plaits. ‘Do you need to use the toilet again?’

Mira shakes her head, her eyes widening at the emerging sunrise, the light scattering and glittering on the surface of the river like the diamond in the gold crucifix Papa had gifted her for her First Communion. Mama had let her wear the necklace that morning as long as she promised not to lose it like she usually did when she played nzango.

Outside, the market women are only just preparing their stalls. Ya Eugénie had woken her up when it was still dark so they wouldn’t be late leaving.

‘It’s rainy season. I don’t want us to get caught in a thunder- storm,’ Papa had warned. Now, Mira twirls the crucifix and smiles. Finally, she feels what her parents and sister had been feeling all those months leading up to the move. The feeling may not be as deep as it had been just weeks ago at the Stade du 20 Mai when they had watched the boxing match with the two American boxers. For days afterwards, the whole of Kinshasa danced in the streets, chanting: ‘Ali Boma ye! Ali Boma ye!’ No, the feeling isn’t quite as strong as that, but it is there all the same, rising from her stomach to the tips of her fingers: excitement.

Months ago, when Papa had announced the move to Gombe, Mira had followed Ya Eugénie around the yard as she plucked their school uniforms from the washing line.

‘Papa isn’t going to fix aeroplanes any more, he’s going to fly them,’ Ya Eugénie explained.

Mira, whose sole worry up until that point was winning the nzango competition, jabbed her tongue at her wobbling tooth. ‘But why do we have to move?’ she whimpered. ‘Why can’t we live here while he flies aeroplanes?’

The yard was full of the familiar sounds of neighbours greeting one another, of rumba blaring from a radio, pondu leaves being pounded in the mortar – the dull thump of the pestle rhythmically landing against the wood, and the earthy, crisp scent seeping across the compound. Limété was her home. Mira knew and greeted all the neighbours – except for Mama Maloba who everyone avoided because her greetings always started with, ‘Did you hear about so and so?’

Ya Eugénie tried to explain that Gombe was where people like them belonged now that Papa was a qualified pilot. In Limété, their neighbours, like Mama Maloba’s husband, were mostly fonctionnaires – government officials working in those tall buildings Mira passed every day on the drive to school; in Gombe, their neighbours did not work in those buildings – they owned the buildings. Ya Eugénie told her this as though it made a difference. What did she care about who owned what? And so what if the new house was bigger?

Now, they approach a wide street with rows of neatly mani- cured hedges and iron gates, and Papa stops the car outside a house that is as wide as three bungalows in Limété. Papa isn’t in his abacost or his pilot uniform but in a T-shirt, the words Zaïre 74 printed in green and red, with an image of two American boxers. Mira stares at the tall square-shaped building with the roof perfectly triangular as though someone had drawn it.

‘Do you still want to go back to Limété?’ Ya Eugénie teases, slipping her hand into Mira’s as they step out of the car. But Mira is too stunned to speak. She lets go of Ya Eugénie’s hand and rushes to the backyard, seeing the rosebushes, the empty pool.

‘A swimming pool!’ she gasps, breathless with excitement.

She wanders around the house and finds Papa’s study, where the movers have already stacked boxes of his books and records. On the wall above his desk hang the two photographs that used to hang in the living room in Limété. The first photo is of Patrice Lumumba – the man with the side parting and glasses.

‘Were it not for Lumumba, we would still be subjects of the Belgian king,’ Papa always said whenever he looked at the picture. Papa had made Mira and Ya Eugénie memorise the first line of Lumumba’s independence speech:

I ask all of you, my friends, who tirelessly fought in our ranks, to mark this June 30, 1960, as an illustrious date that will be ever engraved in your hearts, a date that you will proudly explain to your children, so that they in turn might relate to their grandchildren and great-grandchildren the glo- rious history of our struggle for freedom.

The second photo is of Le Maréchal in his leopard-skin hat. Le Maréchal had renamed Congo to Zaïre and turned them from a state to a nation, Papa always said. But, just as Mira doesn’t know what the word uncivilised means whenever Mama says it, she also doesn’t know the difference between a state and a nation, nor is she entirely sure of what independence means, but she likes the way that Papa smiles every time she recites the speech without forgetting the words.

Mira continues to explore the new house, skipping up and down the marble staircase and staring down at the avocado tree from the balcony while the rest of the family unpack.

Hours later, when the sun disappears and the sky is black, Papa drives them to a restaurant for their evening meal. Mira orders vanilla ice cream for dessert, but falls asleep before it arrives, and Papa slumps her over his shoulder and carries her to the car.

On the drive home, Mira is awoken by the smell of smoke and a mob shouting.

‘Ngoya – oyo nini? What is this?’ Mama asks, her voice trembling, the end of her silk kitambala swaying left and right as she stares out of the window. Mira looks up at Ya Eugénie, who has already unbuckled her seatbelt and moved closer to her, shielding her with her arm. The car slows down, and as they approach the road leading to the house the voices out- side grow louder, the smoke thicker. The crowd has gathered around something, but what?

Mira squints at the swarm of people – women in their liputas and nightdresses, men in robes and pyjamas, all shouting, waving their fists. When they part, Mira sees the blackened, lifeless figure of a person tied to a wooden pole, rubber tyres lumped at their feet, orange flames licking upwards. Mira’s eyes and mouth are wide open as she stares at the burning figure. Ya Eugénie pulls her away and covers her eyes, but the image is already etched in her mind. She jabs her tongue at her wobbling tooth; the tooth falls out. Blood stains the front of her white dress.

‘Caught how?’ Mira asks Ya Eugénie later that night as she unplaits and threads Mira’s hair for bed.

‘They were caught together, two women,’ is all that Ya Eugénie says in the same tone Mama uses when she wants Mira to stop asking questions.

But how could two women be caught? Had they been stealing? Before she can say anything else, lightning flashes and thunder rolls. And Mira sees her again, the burning woman.

Rainy season.

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