The Witch Doctor's Wife (10 page)

“Yes, I’ve seen toads—”

“Snakes eat toads,
mamu
. Yesterday I killed a cobra that was under the bathing tub.”

“Truly? I did not see that.”

“I did not show you,
mamu
, because I knew it would frighten you. But as this little one is an African, she will not be so afraid. Together it will not be so hard to keep the house clear of snakes.”

“
She
has a name, and it’s Cripple.”

“Very well, if it pleases the
mamu
, I will call the little one by her name.”

“How about now?”

“Mamu?”

“Call her by her name
now
.”

Protruding Navel had, in his role as housekeeper, observed that
white women were harder to please than their men. But nothing in his years of working for Mamu Singleton had prepared him for this. Yet if he wished to keep his job, he would have to bend like bamboo before the wind.

“Cripple,” he said, pushing the word from his lips like it was the membrane of a corn kernel that had lodged between his teeth.

W
hen his lover walked in through the front door of the grocery store, Cezar Nunez couldn’t help but smile. His lover was getting bolder and bolder. The first time they’d made love was after the store had closed for the evening; they did it among the paper goods. Thereafter his lover would come in the back way, sneaking unnoticed into his office, where they would tryst during the long midday siestas. But to just walk through the front door, during prime morning shopping hours, was not only bold, it was also utterly dangerous. The thrill, thought Cezar, was immensely erotic.

“Cezar, we have to talk,” the postmaster said, coming straight to him.

“
Now?
It’s the middle of the morning.”

“Not that. This really is talk.”

Cezar’s heart beat faster. What if Dupree had come to break it off? Their affair—was one allowed to use that word? Well, their time together was the only thing that made life worth living. He didn’t enjoy being a manager of a Belgian grocery store, not any more than his wife enjoyed being the wife of a lowly grocer. And he certainly didn’t enjoy his wife any longer. In the beginning he’d found Branca wildly attractive, but in the beginning she was also unavailable: a nobleman’s daughter who consented to marry him because of the money he represented.

It was obvious now that she found him as attractive as a bag of potatoes, and to be entirely truthful, he would choose the potatoes over her in a heartbeat. Their marriage was held together only by inertia, and maybe just slightly by their mutual stubbornness, their unwillingness to admit defeat.

And then along came Dupree. Cezar had been attracted to boys for as long as he could remember. But with the exception of one drunken night during his university days, he’d never acted on those urges. With Dupree, caution went out the door. The Belgian postmaster fit his fantasy perfectly, as both a lover and a friend. The “love that dare not speak its name” begged to be shouted from the treetops—although of course that couldn’t be done. Yet the three months they’d been seeing each other were the happiest in Cezar’s entire life.

“Dupree,” he whispered—never using his lover’s Christian name was his last line of emotional defense—“can’t it wait? My job, you know.”

“Screw your job, Cezar. We’re going to be rich. So rich, you can buy this store and give the merchandise away for free.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Not here. In your office. Let’s talk there.”

Cezar bit his lip as he considered the possibilities. Perhaps Dupree really did know what he was saying; perhaps a wealthy
aunt in Belgium had died and a telegraph had just arrived informing him that he’d inherited her estate. But it could also be another harebrained scheme, like the time Dupree had suggested they raid their tills and run away to America, to San Francisco, where men like them were tolerated. Or the time, when they lay spent in each other’s arms, that Dupree had suggested buying a fish farm on which they could raise Nile perch, a tasty fish known locally as
capitain
. They could ship it by air back to Europe, a plan that would make sense only to an entrepreneur whose goal it was to lose money. It was one thing to risk everything for sex, for intimacy, but for a pipe dream? If it was pipe dreams he wanted, Branca had more than enough for him to choose from.

“Cezar, you’ve got to trust me on this.”

“Okay,” he said. “Let’s talk about last week’s soccer game as we walk back to my office.”

Mid-morning was a particularly busy time, and the two African clerks seemed to have everything under control. Nonetheless, Cezar Nunez flinched when Dupree slammed the office door behind them.

“It’s a diamond,” the postmaster blurted.

“And?”

“And nothing! Didn’t you hear what I said?”

“We’re surrounded by diamonds, Dupree. They’re in the gravel used to make the concrete blocks of our houses. Here”—he kicked the outer wall of his office—“there are diamonds here as well. What about diamonds?”

“There’s this fellow that works for me. He goes by the unfortunate name of Their Death. He’s a good man, worked for me for years. He came to me yesterday morning asking me for help with a problem. Turns out the problem is a freaking diamond the size of a mango seed. Supposedly gem grade. He asked me for advice on how to sell it.”

Cezar’s mind flicked about the edges of this tale like a serpent’s tongue searching for traces of its prey’s warmth. He loved Dupree, and was pretty sure Dupree loved him in return, but could he really trust the man? Perhaps love and trust didn’t necessarily go together. If this was a trap of some kind—no, it couldn’t be that. Cezar’s caution collapsed as greed took over.

“What did you tell Their Death?”

“I hinted that I might consider making inquiries. He said that if I want to see the stone, I should meet him tomorrow morning on the bridge. If I want to actually touch the stone—feel its weight, examine it from all sides—I must first give him a deposit of ten thousand francs.”

“Whew, that’s a lot of money! Cheeky, isn’t he?”

“Yes, but I can’t blame him. If the stone is real, it will be worth millions.”

Cezar whistled sharply and then, remembering where he was, whistled a few bars of a popular Portuguese ballad. “So now what? Even if you got your hands on the stone—permanently, that is—you wouldn’t be able to get it out of the province, much less this damn country.”

“Ah, but you see, I plan to cut this stone first. I’ll turn over a sizeable chunk to the OP, who will, no doubt, make a big deal about shipping it back to Belgium. I’ll be the one accompanying the stone, and since I’ll be doing it openly, no one will bother to check me.” Dupree smiled, which never failed to render him devilishly handsome. “And because they won’t be checking me, they won’t find the rest of the stone either.”

Cezar smiled back at his lover. It was a clever plan. But what else would Dupree come up with? Talk about gems.

“What about me?” he asked.

“You will be sitting next to me on that plane. I was thinking that Tahiti might be a nice place to settle down. It has the advan
tage of being very far away from both here and Belgium, but still they speak French.” He paused. “Does that sound okay? I mean, any place in particular appeal to you?”

“Tahiti is supposed to be hot. How about Brazil? They speak Portuguese there.”

“And Brazil isn’t hot?”

They both laughed, but Cezar was unable to quiet his mind. “What if the OP doesn’t go for it? What if he arrests you for producing the diamond? Remember Madame Flaubert?”

It was a rhetorical question, of course. A heavy woman who loved to eat, Madame Flaubert had been one of Cezar’s best customers—until she’d been arrested at the airport just six months ago. She’d been caught with twenty carats of small gem-quality diamonds surgically inserted into her prodigious rolls of abdominal fat. Her accomplice was her husband, Dr. Flaubert, who had served as the physician to Belle Vue’s white community for the past fifteen years.

Upon getting arrested, Madame Flaubert and her disgraced husband claimed the gems were a parting gift from the OP, who had cautioned them to keep his generosity a secret. The OP denied his involvement and the Flauberts were now in Brussels awaiting sentencing.

“No need to worry about the old goat this time. He’s desperately trying to turn the mine around. The pressure from headquarters has got to be intense, now that the prospect of independence is looming on the horizon. Get as much as you can, while you can, seems to be the idea.”

“When will you try and float this plan?”

“I already have. Came straight here to tell you.”

Cezar hoped the burn in his cheeks didn’t show. Dupree had done it again; he’d made decisions for the both of them. It was getting to be a habit, just like it was with Branca.

“You could have told me first.”

“Sorry. But I didn’t want to get your hopes up.”

That seemed reasonable. “Hey look, I really have to get back to work.”

“Cezar, there’s just one more thing.”

“Not until siesta, Dupree. Not until the clerks leave.”

The postmaster laughed. “No, not that! You see, I’ve got to come up with ten thousand francs by tomorrow morning, but I’m a bit strapped for cash at the moment.”

“It figures.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“That you’re always short on money. Don’t they pay you for being postmaster?”

“I don’t have that much at the
moment
.”

“But I do? Because I manage a store? Look, you have your own till over there at post office. Why don’t you borrow from it?”

Dupree lowered his eyes, which told Cezar all he needed to know. He knew his lover had a fondness for—no, was addicted to—playing poker with other lower-echelon Belgian employees of the Consortium. Cezar had bailed him out before with a series of small loans.

“How much this time?”

“One hundred and fifteen thousand.”

“Blessed vision of Fatima! You’re joking, yes?”

Dupree said nothing.

“Damn it! Tell me you’re joking.”

“I had a winning hand, I just knew it. And the only way I could clear up my debts was to bet it all.”

“What
all?
You had nothing. What did you use for collateral?”

“My mother’s apartment in Antwerp. My name is on the deed.”

Cezar cursed, using words and languages in combinations he had never heard. When he was through venting, he was out of breath.

“Okay,” he finally said. “I will get you the money, but we will do more than just succeed in this diamond venture, because we will do it my way, and we will do it flawlessly.”

Dupree managed a weak smile.

T
he Nigerian stared at the object in his hand; it was a bone. A human bone. He was sure of that. In Lagos he’d once worked as the cleaning man for a morgue. The coroner, an Englishman, had been a pompous ass, insisting that everyone in his employ, even the mop wielders, know something about anatomy.

By the time his job ended, the Nigerian knew exactly how to strangle a man in the shortest possible time. Of course it would have been easier to use a knife or a saw, but cutting implements created messes, and he wasn’t about to clean another up mess—even if it meant covering his tracks.

They say that practice makes perfect. After he joined the Circle of Cobras, the former janitor was given the opportunity to hone his skills, proving that the axiom was indeed true. The Circle of
Cobras was considered by many in the trade to be Lagos’s most successful smuggling ring, but of course it was a risky business, one that did not suffer fools gladly. It was the Nigerian’s job to silence those who couldn’t be bought, or who otherwise caused trouble for the ring.

Because of his intimate knowledge of the human body, the Nigerian knew that the femur he held in his hand was quite old. Perhaps even thousands of years old.

Branca had been educated by Portuguese nuns, and now here she was preparing to visit an American nun—well, a nun of sorts. Any woman who would throw away the younger years of her life in tropical Africa either had the personality of a nun or else was crazy. Probably both.

Because it was a nun she would be having tea with, Branca chose to wear an off-the-shoulder white cotton peasant blouse, a wide black belt that cinched the waist and emphasized both hips and bosom, and a colorful gypsy skirt that flirted playfully with her knee caps. Before donning beaded sandals, she painted her toenails a blazing orange red.

“Hey there, Miss Nun,” she said aloud to her reflection in her full-length mirror, “take that. Now guess what? You’re not allowed to smack me with your ruler. Or whip my legs with that willow branch in the corner. Or even just complain to my parents. How do you like that, Miss Nun?” Her reflection scowled back at her in a typical Sister Mary Angelina fashion.

Because she was a redhead who burned easily and freckled at the mere suggestion of the sun, Branca carried with her a white silk parasol, a gift from her
duenna
. It was as pleasant a day as any, and Branca marveled at how comfortable Bell Vue could be during the dry season. It was almost like being in northern Portugal in early autumn, or perhaps late spring—except that here
everyone was black, and when she got home she’d have to have her feet inspected by one of the houseboys.

Chigger mites, which lived in the dirt and then burrowed into exposed skin, were the bane of the tropics. Left alone they laid eggs, which then hatched and laid more eggs, until one’s feet were riddled with them. In the meantime they itched unbearably, so that their host was driven to scratch. That invited infection, which often lead to crippling. Most whites engaged in a weekly ritual during which an eagle-eyed servant dug out the critters with a sterilized pin and then daubed the open skin with kerosene. One way to cut down on infestation was to wear socks and closed shoes, but how then could one taunt the American nun? No, painted toenails were the only way to go.

Branca paused to check her lipstick before knocking on the door. But both to her surprise and annoyance, the door was flung open before she could put away her compact mirror. How very American of her hostess.

“Bon soir, madame.”

Branca found herself staring at the young woman. Sure enough, she was as plain as rice without gravy. Not a smidge of makeup on, hair pulled back into a bun—not even a chignon, like the French, but a bun! And her dress! It covered just about every centimeter of her skin.

Oh well, the American would soon learn that when the rains came they brought with them a clothes-clawing humidity that made you want to rip every shred from your body and sit under the waterfall. Of course you couldn’t do the latter, which meant you had to immerse yourself in the tepid company pool, made even more tepid by the urine of ill-mannered Belgian urchins.

“Good afternoon,” Branca said, in BBC English. She’d learned the language in school from Portuguese nuns with horrible ac
cents, but had been able to improve her own accent through hours spent listening to her shortwave radio.

“I’m Amanda Brown. Please come in.”

“You may call me Senhora Nunez—for now.”

Branca followed the young woman into a very disappointing salon. It may as well have been Belgian; it was sparsely furnished with those heavy wooden chairs with wicker backs and bottoms, hideous floral cushions, cheap area rugs, and nothing on the walls except for religious plaques and needlepoint mottoes.

“Reverend and Mrs. Singleton will be retiring shortly—as soon as I’ve been properly trained.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Perhaps then I will do some redecorating. Shall we sit?”

As soon as they were seated on those horrible chairs, the young hostess rang a small bell, informing the servants it was time to bring out the tea. Well, at least she had learned something since arriving in Africa.

When the repast arrived, Branca was pleased to see that it was indeed English tea, and served English style with sugar biscuits and various small cakes. The cream, alas, was only evaporated milk.

“Senhora Nunez, I’m so glad you could join me today.”

“Yes, but if you will recall, the idea was initially mine. Tell me, what is it you Americans have against alcohol?”

“Well—and it’s not
all
Americans—we as Christians believe that our bodies are temples of the Lord, and that we should take care of them. Alcohol is bad for one’s health, you know.”

“No, I don’t know. To the contrary, a glass of sherry or perhaps port actually aids in digestion. And tell me, if bodies are so special, then why are so many missionaries fat?”

“Uh—they are?”

“Indeed. I have observed many fat missionaries stay at this guesthouse. Are Americans generally overweight?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Well, you certainly are not. But it is a shame that you so thoroughly cover what God has given you. And believe me, my dear, the Almighty has been very generous with you.”

“I am saving myself for my husband.”

“Ha!” Branca could say a great deal more on the subject of husbands, but now was not the time. “Are you aware that the club serves excellent food? One need not consume alcohol during the meal, either.”

“Yes, I have heard good things about the food.”

“So then you will agree to meet me there for lunch tomorrow?”

“But I can’t. You see, I make it my policy never to eat in places that serve alcohol. I’m very sorry, Senhora Nunez.”

“That is ridic—” Branca caught herself just in time. “Miss White, don’t you want to save my soul?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Well, I am a Catholic. In your eyes, I am not a Christian. Correct? And you must answer this, Miss White. I am not going to budge until you do.”

Once while hunting, Branca had seen an antelope that had been cornered on a small peninsula that jutted out into a lake. It had the same look in its eyes. In the end, the antelope had chosen to swim out into the lake, where it drowned.

“Senhora Nunez, it is not my place to judge you. But if you insist on an answer, then yes, I don’t believe you are a true Christian.”

“That’s what I thought. Well, now we’re getting somewhere.”

“But I—”

“No excuses. You want to save my soul, am I right? Then I will give you a chance to save it tomorrow at the club. And who knows, perhaps others will be similarly moved.”

Branca was pleased to hear the young woman’s sigh of resignation.

Second Wife thought about what she’d seen and heard that morning. She thought about it as she trudged to the village spigot to get water to rinse out the morning’s dishes. She thought about it as she swept the family compound with her rattan broom. She thought about it as she peeled manioc roots and split them to be dried in the sun. She thought about it as she took other roots, ones that had already been dried, and put them in the wooden mortar. She thought about it as she pounded them into flour with a heavy wooden pestle. She thought about it as she sifted the flour and pounded the remnants again. She thought about it as she wiped mucus from Baby Boy’s face with a corn husk and shooed away the flies that were drinking the moisture at the corners of his eyes. She thought about it until she could think no more.

Tonight she would have words with Husband. Tonight she would issue an ultimatum. Either he must make Cripple help with the chores or marry a third wife. Husband made a salary; not as high as the mine workers earned, but still quite respectable. And now and then he received a chicken—or maybe a duck—as payment for a potion or an amulet. Once he was even given a goat by the village council of elders for putting a mild curse—a cessation of activity, so to speak—on Farts Too Much. But the main reason Husband could now afford a third wife was because Cripple was finally doing something useful; Cripple was earning money.

But what if Cripple objected? Cripple had been forced to get used the idea of a second wife because she’d been unable to bring forth living children. She might not, however, tolerate a third. And that’s where the problem lay: Cripple. Cripple had too much power. She acted like a man, and instead of being outraged, Husband was amused. Never had Second Wife known such a woman.

Short, almost dwarfish, and deformed, Cripple exuded an aura of someone ten times her size. When she first met her co-
wife, Second Wife had fully expected the strange little woman to be picked on unmercifully by the other village women—like a sick hen is pecked to death by others in its flock. She had also expected Husband to be mocked for his choice. But neither of those things had happened. Instead it was “Life to you, Cripple. How are you today?” And as for Husband, he was now referred to as “Cripple’s Husband,” as if that was his name.

But the incident that had seared an indelible mark on Second Wife’s soul was the time Brings Happiness, her very own son, went temporarily missing on an excursion to pick mushrooms. Then it was, “Cripple’s son is missing. Have you seen him?” They were words of concern, spoken by kind neighbors and friends, but for Second Wife, each syllable was like swallowing a hot coal. Cripple had not endured the pain of childbirth, it was not her breasts that nourished Brings Happiness. Why should she get any of the credit?

Yet what if Husband refused to be reasonable? It seemed likely that he would refuse; men in general were not inclined to be reasonable. Yes, she would have to come up with a backup plan, one that effectively eliminated Cripple from the picture.

Second Wife hummed to herself as the beginnings of a plan flitted through her brain, like a long-tailed bird skipping over a sea of elephant grass.