The heat broke late last night. While I went on cutting and pasting and his supper cooked, Lassana stepped outside. Through the window shut against the heat, I heard the sounds of a lively phone conversation in Soninké.

He looked pleased and lively when he came back inside. He’d been talking to his mother. She had asked about me. She always asks about you first, he said. This was news to me. I asked him to send my greetings, next time.

We talked about his village – the only place he’d ever known before the trip across the water. About the father who died when he was three. He doesn’t remember him and knows him from a few photos and a few stories about his attempt to “make it” in France, and his death shortly after returning to the village.

What does your mother do for a living, I asked. Nothing, Madame. Mali isn’t like here. She is sixty now, old and bent from the hoeing. She can’t work anymore. My uncle feeds her. A young girl cooks and cleans house for her. If I had a wife, she would take care of my mother. This is how it’s done in Mali, Madame.

If all goes according to plan, he’ll be a baker. Another of his friends will be a butcher, yet another, an electrician. Money will flow back to their villages. When wives become a reality, perhaps they won’t agree to go back to Mali and take care of old mothers. Who knows.