The Girl Who Smiled Beads

Years later, when Clemantine and Claire immigrate to the United States, they arrive in Chicago with nothing. Over the years, they’ve managed to accrue a small pile of things: clothes for Claire’s kids, an outfit for Clemantine, and a photo album, but the airline lost their bag. In the album there was a photo of Clemantine, Claire, Claire’s husband, Rob (a former refugee aid), and Mariette at a water park in South Africa, all of them looking like a happy family. The bright lights of America blur Clemantine’s past. She feels that her life has no plot and is nothing but scattered pieces.

To this day, Clemantine collects “katundu”—stuff. She wishes she had the mug she wanted to take when she first left her house in Rwanda. Instead, she cherishes the heart-shaped locket Mrs. Thomas gave her. When Mrs. Thomas gave it to her, Clemantine felt for the first time like she belonged somewhere. She has a mirror her mother gave her on her 25th birthday, photocopies of pictures she’s in from the albums of host families, and other treasures. Clemantine hopes she can string all these “beads” into a narrative of her life that is beautiful and logical.

Clemantine is 12 and Claire is 21 when they arrive in the United States. A couple—the Beckers—holding “welcome to America” signs give them balloons and gift cards. The United States is the eighth country Clemantine and Claire have been in since leaving Rwanda, and Clemantine doesn’t trust kindness. They get in the couple’s car. Clemantine feels like she’s drifting. Thirty hours earlier, they lived in a slum in Zambia. When Clemantine visits this slum 17 years later, it is still poor; she tries to give some Zambian kids gum, but they look at her suspiciously. When she lived there, she wouldn’t have taken charity from a seemingly wealthy Black woman either.

Clemantine and Claire are happy to be in “America the Gleaming,” which they’ve heard so much about. Claire had heard Chicago was cold, so she got puffy jackets for the family in the Zambian market. In the August heat, they all start sweating. The couple drops them at the Beasleys’ house. The Beasleys are their sponsors and have made beds for them in the basement and loaded their table with food. The family is nice and hugs a lot, but Clemantine doesn’t understand why. She shows her love for her family by being afraid to lose them.

Clemantine and her family stay at the Beasleys’ house for three months. Claire is pregnant again. The Beasleys’ daughter Sarah is nice to Clemantine, but Clemantine doesn’t understand her. Sarah and Julia—the Beckers’ daughter—laugh a lot, are casual with adults, and buy makeup. Julia invites Sarah and Clemantine to a sleepover, but Clemantine feels contempt for them. One night, Clemantine opens the Beasleys’ fridge and is amazed by how much food there is. How could there be so much poverty in some places and so much excess in others?

Clemantine and Claire can’t relax. They’ve spent their whole lives trying to survive and find money, and now they have nothing to do. Clemantine is 12, but she feels simultaneously three and 50 years old. She tries to fit in with other girls, but she isn’t carefree like them. She is angry and envious. One day, while sitting on the lawn, she notices that Mrs. Becker’s garage is full of disorganized junk. She goes over and organizes it while Mrs. Becker tries to stop her.

One day, Mrs. Beasley asks Clemantine to color an outline of a house to look like her old house in Rwanda. Clemantine refuses. She thinks nostalgia is uselessly painful. She and Claire never talk about their lost past. Claire’s only sentimentality is for ugali, the porridge they survived on for so many years. Claire says that ugali isn’t memory but sustenance and power: until a person has eaten ugali, they haven’t really eaten.