We walked through deserted streets, through a part of the town I had not seen before. The buildings were not in good repair. Mud brick takes a lot of maintenance, and many of the structures we passed had slumped back into the soil. Danolo had obviously once been more populous than it now was. Explains the scarcity of children? Why don’t they breed? Ask U.? Through a half-ruined gate.
We walked a path through rough bush?thorn, stunted acacias, cran-cran, broken rock?in silence for about an hour, I estimated. I could see the tent rock from a long way off in the flat terrain, a tumble of red platelike boulders maybe four meters high. There were cattle skeletons strewn around. She pointed and turned to go. I asked her in Bambara if U. would get well. I don’t know, she said. I think he was (something?) to teach you ndol and this is the result. As I told him. I told him he should (something?) you, but he has a hard head. He told me it was (something?) for debentchouaje. Incomprehensible. I just bow.
I asked, It’s because of me that the witch attacks Ulune? No, she said, the witch would have attacked anyway. Witches attack him all the time, and he throws them off easily. The witch is attacking you. Ulune is protecting you, so he can’t protect himself. She said something else in straight Olokan that I didn’t get, and walked off.
I dropped down and put my back against the warm rock. I was hot, and I drank some water from my canteen. Bright sky above, dome of Africa, the Sahel pressing down, empty of God, of any help. Found some tamarinds in the sleeves of my robe, chewed them, tried not to cry. I wondered if Sekli was telling the truth. I wondered what I would do if she were. Sacrificing himself to save me? It didn’t seem like the U. I knew. Not personal, then, only part of his deep game? I am completely lost, here among the simple primitive people. Thought, anthro such a crock of shit sometimes.
As the sky went scarlet, he just walked out from around the rocks, I didn’t see or hear him approach. I was so surprised I cried out and jumped to my feet. He grinned and laughed. Janey, you’re looking good. I see you’ve gone native too. That outfit suits you. He was wearing an Olo sarong and cloak. He came closer, and touched my headdress casually. Long time no see, he said, and opened his arms. I hesitated a second and jumped in. I was so lonely, like in a fucking dumb Elvis song. We hugged. We kissed. He said, What’re you doing here out in the middle of nowhere? I said, I have to get a snake for my sorcery teacher. And then I laughed, we both laughed. Because it felt real, not weird, American, a couple of culture-shocked Americans in Africa. We talked. What’ve you been doing, Janey? I told him amusing anecdotes about my life with U. And you? Oh, you know, writing, taking notes. Learning a little anthro, too. Learned the language a little. Really? Say something in Olokan. He did and it was true, he spoke it better than me. Sound of a bird, then, saw it, too, the looping flight of the honeyguide. Purr-purr-purr WHIT. We laughed. He said, Yeah, that’s my bird, he sympathizes with me, poor Witt.
And then I remembered what U. had said about not talking to anyone. Suddenly, I was frightened, and I saw the brown snake too late, it was right in front of me sliding along and I scrabbled after it on my hands and knees, and just missed it. It went down a hole in the rocks. I stood up and said, Goddamn, I missed it. But Witt wasn’t there. I ran around the rock pile, scattering cow bones, and he wasn’t there. I climbed on the rocks and looked around, I could see for a long way, and nothing at all.
I walked back in the dark and now I am writing this on my pallet. U. is in some kind of coma, and no one will talk to me, not even the kids. U.’s compound filling with other Olo sorcerers, all grim-looking. Tourma still gone.
THIRTY
He finished reading and put the journal on the table. She was wearing black jeans and a white shirt, standing there looking at him. It was hard to believe, what he had just read, hard to believe it had happened to this woman. She looked just like a regular person. She said, “Stunned, Detective Paz?”
“It’s a lot to take in. You didn’t write the final chapter.” She noticed he had washed his face and sponged off the worst of the stains on his clothes.
“No. Do you want to hear it? She’ll be half an hour putting on outfits. She’s at the stage where she likes the layered look. She’ll come down with three dresses on, one on top of another.”
“I’m dying to hear it.”
“A figure of speech, I hope,” she said, taking a chair. “Well, it’s briefly told. I fell asleep. Actually I cried myself to sleep, I’m ashamed to say. Then I woke up. Middle of the night. It was a dream, but not a dream, if you know what I mean. I was walking through Danolo, out of Danolo along a trail. Jackals were barking, nightjars were going tok tok tok. There was a fire up ahead. My husband was there, naked, painted, and there was another man, I couldn’t see his face, he was just a kind of shadow in the glow, I could see the flash of his teeth, a necklace of shells around his neck, and the whites of his eyes. I knew it was Durakne Den, the dontzeh witch. Tourma was there, too, naked. She looked like she was asleep. I watched Witt slice her belly open with a little black stone knife and remove the baby. Tourma didn’t even twitch. The baby writhed and gasped; Durakne Den was chanting something in Olo and Witt was chanting too. He … you know what he did?you’ve seen it. He sliced into the baby’s skull and scooped out its brain, like taking the stone out of an avocado. Blood splattered all around. I felt drops strike my face. I was paralyzed, I couldn’t do anything, like in a nightmare. They cut and they ate. I remember staring at him, Witt, and I saw the blood dripping from his mouth. The most horrible part was, he looked happy, really happy, like he was at a good party. He told me what was happening, about the okunikua, about his plans. Suddenly, I was free, I ran, and I heard him laughing. In the morning, at first light, I grabbed everything I could carry, my box and some water and food, loaded it into a pirogue and paddled away.”
She fell silent, shaking her head. He said, “I don’t get this about this ritual, okunikua? He eats pieces of a woman and the baby and what … he gets powers from this?”
“Well, I never got the details, but yeah. In combination with other things he’s done to himself, there are chemicals in the various parts of the victims that have been modified by other chemicals fed to the mother during the ceremony. Not fed, actually, breathed in. It’s like an amplification of what he can already do. Think of the difference between a plain vanilla A-bomb and an H-bomb. It needs four women, though, as I said.”
Paz thought about this for a while. “How come he let you go? There in Africa.”
“I don’t know. Part of the plan, I guess. Who can figure out why the Olo do anything? Why they let Durakne live there. Witt had other things to do. My sense was that the Olo were gathering to somehow block Durakne Den in Danolo, which is why Witt might have had to leave. He came here, where there’s no one to stop him.”