Stanley
heard a loud and abrupt movement in the
thatch
above him, as if some creature, or embodied
spirit, had
spasmed. The tingling in his fingers returned.
He strained his
ears so hard that he heard a cry far out
on the plain, far out
beyond the fences of the kraal. It might
have been an owl’s
call or it might have been a man’s
scream. It might have been
one and the same for at night the boundaries
between the
living and the dead dissolved. A shadow
crossed the embers of
the fire. He tried to cry out ...
................
The stewardess
sprung from behind the cabin curtain,
all
smiles, and tripped towards Michael.
He could see she had been
waiting for him to call, had rehearsed
soothing words. She
started to ask how she could help but
Michael interrupted.
‘Excuse
me, this gentleman’s dead.
......................
He tidied the dead man’s hands
one over the other, creating
some dignity. Something dark lay on
the man’s knee: a black
feather, a cockerel’s, he guessed,
with a bronze sheen along
its vanes, its barbs unbroken. The man’s
curse came to mind.
But the feather must have been a prop
in his trick; it had
probably fallen out of his sleeve. He
slipped the feather into
his pocket as a small act of defiance
against superstition.
.......................
When darkness fell some men changed
into beasts of prey. To
ward off these terrors the priestesses
of the female spirit
Nyabingi beat their drums to gather
the people from every
direction out of their conical grass
dwellings, to dance in
unison and so create the sound of a
ceaseless stamping of feet
that became even louder than the pounding
of the drums, and so
to drive away the evil of the night.
Such were the stories of
the fear and darkness in the native’s
soul that the //Muzungu//
children overheard.
...................
The engine started panting and stirred.
His carriage gave a
lurch. It was a small movement but Michael
felt it in his
stomach. He took a quick look at his
parents. They were trying
to smile and his mother was saying something
about letters.
The harsh breaths of the engine sounded
like some gigantic saw
– severing him from home. An irresistible
force was pulling
him away. Everyone on the platform became
smaller. Then they
turned a corner, and his mother and
father were gone. He
always remembered how small they looked.
It was the last time
he saw them.
.....................
His privates were still exposed and
he shut the stream off
without completely emptying, hastily
zipping his flies.
‘Damn
it!’ he exclaimed, and unzipped
again to free the nipped
skin.
The grasses shifted once more, an ominously
wilful movement
towards him. His heart thumped, his
hands came up.
......................
As they neared a small rise in the road
Michael could see
ahead a shimmering heat haze in which
ashen ghosts of grass
and twig tumbled and twisted in the
agonised air. The fire
came into view: less a line of flames,
more a zone of flarings
of brilliant, amber light. Amber for
danger. Dark-silhouetted
against the burning, a group of ragged
men walked
unfalteringly down the road towards
the vehicle. Their
baseball cap peaks jutted out aggressively;
their rifles
gripped purposefully.
.................
The bandit's movements were slow and
careful. He said
nothing, just inspected them, moving
his barrel from person to
person. Michael had the chilling sensation
that they were
being sized up by something insentient:
an unblinking reptile
with a snake-cold stare. Something without
a soul.
..........................
