The hiking boot flew towards the cockroach, splattering it on the paint-chipped wall; another design in the insect mosaic. Martin Knolls returned to his Newsweek, unconcerned with another routine killing. Not even four years ago as a senior at Whitman high, when he helped lead his team to first place as the premier starting pitcher, has his arm been so quick, his eye so accurate. Now, after living five months in Hotel Satisfaction, his boot was feared by all cockroaches, rats or anything else that might crawl, slither or fly into his room.
When Martin joined the Peace Corps he had expected two years of hardship, perhaps living in a mud hut without electricity or running water; but, after all, there was something romantic about living in a mud hut and he could not imagine living in Africa in any other way. However, he did not come to Cameroon to live in a cheap, filthy hotel--he could do that at home in Boston. Even when he had discovered that Cameroon was far more developed than he had originally envisioned, and that most volunteers received modern government housing, he had resigned himself to the unromantic prospect.
Yet here, in Hotel Satisfaction, reading under a naked sixty-watt bulb, sitting of a wobbly termite-eaten chair, having no electrical outlet for his cassette player to drown out the impassioned screams of Lucille in the next room, who each night screams out another man's name--no thanks!
A far cry from the Peace Corps recruitment ads.
Most nights he would escape his cell and visit one of the many off-license bars in Fombot with his friend, Jean Baptiste, the chief assistant of Community Development. But tonight his friend was out of town and Martin did not feel like drinking with the same old boys, talking the same old crap about politics and women.
He threw the magazine on the bare floor among the pile of dirty and clean clothes, climbed into bed and sunk into the broken-spring mattress. Sleep crept over him as he listened to Lucille and her man for the night squeak on the bed next door.
The next day started off like every other Monday; in fact, like every day since his arrival in Fombot--nothing to do. He had no need to rush out of bed, for no work awaited him. He wanted to go to the Animal Husbandry office, to fulfill his original assignment of introducing small-production fish farming. After all, he did join the Peace Corps to learn fish farming and to do some good for the world. But the Peace Corps suggested he stay away. The director in Yaoundé said if Martin worked now, there would be no pressure on the prefecture of Fombot to supply him with a house as was agreed upon. He concurred with the director and trusted her bureaucratic wisdom. Anything he would do for a house. Anything at all.
Martin awoke hours after most of the town had opened shop, as he did everyday. But today, instead of immediately going to the Texan Bar to eat a plate of wild game and rice and take his first beer, he decided to tour the town's environs before visiting his friends at the bar. Despite being five months idled, he had seen very little of his area, the off-licenses acting like magnets. Martin rationalized that if he was not working, at least he could act as a goodwill ambassador, mingling with the people, exchanging cultures. And no better place existed for cultural exchange than an off-license, a small room with a worn bar, a few benches, beer torn posters pasted up haphazardly, out-dated calendars, and beer crates full of bottles, stacked high in the corners. In fact, his growing stomach showed signs of his dedication to his ambassadorial work.
The Yamaha 125, issued by the Peace Corps, pounded over the stone-littered road, Martin's innards bouncing loose up into his throat. Although a 125 is no speed machine, it only takes a speed on twenty five miles-per-hour to have the sensation of excessive speed: the small two-cylinder motor screaming, the wheels sliding in the mud puddles, and the constant dodging of chickens, goats, pigs, holes, rocks, and especially the army of children rushing from their homes to see the white man. Driving in this live video game, he found it difficult to enjoy the mud-brick homes and their fields of coffee, bananas, corn and various other crops, as he headed for Mt. Mbatpit.
The mountain rose abruptly from the Nchi Plains like the other small surrounding mountains and buttes. Martin knew that in ancient times Mt. Mbatpit rose from the plains as a towering volcano before collapsing in on itself. Now half its base, ragged like a cracked eggshell around the edges with gray bluffs and pinnacles, remained. On its summit he heard there existed a deep crater lake, about six-hundred feet down, the sides as sheer as a man-made well. Yet nobody talked too much about it, changing the subject whenever he inquired further about the mountain and refusing, without discussion, to visit the lake with him. He had not heard if anyone lived on the mountain. Regardless, few vehicles traveled its lone road, evidenced by the growth of weeds and complete lack of effort to fill in the many pot-holes.
With the dirt bike screaming in first gear as the road climbed steeply half-way up the mountain, the bike threatening to disintegrate if it went another ten feet, and Martin's groin feeling like it, too, might break up, his enthusiasm for exploring the ancient volcano waned rapidly. He could hear the Texan Bar clang its bottles for his return.
Just as he slowed to turn around, a glint of metal roof shining through a clump of banana trees caught his attention. Surprised at finding a dwelling here, he convinced himself and the bike that fifty more yards would not kill them.
Martin switched off the bike, the engine stopping with a lurch. "Will you look at this," he said to his machine as he removed his goggles and helmet.
He dismounted the bike and stood looking at the black cast-iron fence before him, slightly taller than his height, its spear tips lining the top like the front line of a Greek phalanx, reflecting coldly under the late morning sun. He approached the palisade, letting his helmet drop, as he peered through the bars. Behind rose a forest of elephant grass, nearly ten feet high. And behind this mass of green blades stood a house.
Only the second story revealed itself above the grass; its yellow paint, long rust-colored and cracked by the undoubtedly many seasons of the harmattan winds. At one time four windows overlooked the front yard and Fombot on the plains below. Now, boards covered them like eye shades. Like all homes that could afford it, a rusty, dull, corrugated tin roof rested on top.
Martin's heart raced at the--dare he even think it-- possibility of living here, as he stood staring at this assuredly abandoned house. He walked over to the gate. Seven spears, a foot shorter than the rest of the fence, stood poised between two cement pillars, both with granite lions ready to pounce. Martin saw that no lock remained on the gate. Yet, at first attempt the gate held fast. Then with a full thrust of his shoulder the gate flew open, the metal shrieking, like a crow warning of danger.
Beneath his feet, Martin could feel a stone path as he pushed his way through the elephant grass. Immediately he regretted not bringing a long-sleeved shirt to protect against the slicing blades, his sweat stinging each new cut. For forty or so yards he sacrificed his arms to protect his face. Suddenly he found himself pitching forward as his foot stumbled over a termite mound, its mushroom-shaped city and dwellers scattered over the ground. Instead of landing with a mouthful of dirt, Martin grabbed at the grass out of instinct, gashing his right hand on the sharp grass. Finally, a few more steps and a few more choice profanities, Martin stood at the veranda. Where once plants may have hung above wicker chairs, only tapestries of webs swayed over a cold cement floor now. Grimacing as he pushed through the string curtain, feeling as though he was turning into human cotton candy, he reached the two large front doors. Upon the doors were intricately carved scenes--a woman giving birth, a native doctor giving a man an enema, hunters bringing back their kill, and a demon woman eating out the heart of a man. The latter sent a shiver down Martin's back, as though cold sharp fingernails tore tantalizingly across his skin.
With a shudder, and holding his breath, he tried the brass handles. The lock clicked!
"Yes!" Martin exclaimed, not believing his luck. And then with a push the doors opened wide, like a woman opening her arms to her returning lover. The stench of the old darkness raced out into the day.
"Holy merde! What volunteer wouldn't envy me for this," he said, as he stepped into the dim light of the large living room, fully furnished. "Oh, you will make this long wait worth it."
He swam through the room of webs. He shuddered as he imagined huge spiders crawling down his back. Kicking a spear laying on the floor, he picked it up and thought of the hobbit Frodo walking through the lair of Shelob. He fingered the sharp rusty point. As he swung the spear about him, clearing his way, he saw upon his right a snake, coiled under the legs of a brass coat hanger. Without thinking and seeing if it was poisonous or not, he thrust the spear at the serpent, decapitating it at the first attempt, its blood spilling on the floor while its body convulsed into knots.
"A gaboon viper. Shit!" Martin said as he kneeled down to examined the body, his knees trembling.
Driving back he barely noticed the road, his thoughts still roaming the house. He had wanted to explore more of the house, but after the viper encounter, he thought better about roaming the upstairs in darkness. It did not matter. He had seen enough. The downstairs was a palace. He was going to get it, even if it took ringing the neck of the prefect.
As Martin strode past the two policeman playing a checker-like game, he felt his heart racing faster than his Yamaha did squealing up the mountain.
I will not back down, he said to himself. Either I get it or I'm gone from this place.
Martin knocked once and walked in the office. Behind an immaculately clean desk, the prefect bent over some documents, his pen lost in his immense hands. He paid no attention to his visitor. Weekly the American harangued the prefect for housing, usually not to find him in his office or to be met with I-could-care-less contempt.
The volunteer just stood there, staring at the bureaucrat dressed in his government khaki suit. Don't give me this crap, Martin cursed under his breath. You've never done work in your life.
Martin cleared his throat. The prefect slowly raised his head, showing a expressionless jowly face.
"Oui, monsieur," he said to Martin in French, leaning forward and folding his stubby hands on his desk, "is there anything I can help you with?"
Martin stood straight, hands at his back, fighting an urge to lean on the desk and shout his demands. But he remembered his cultural sensitivity and protocol training, and spoke in the most polite tone possible, replying as well in French.
"I thought you said, monsieur, that no houses were available; that all houses in the district were occupied?. Well, monsieur, I found a house. And it's empty."
"Where?" said the Cameroonian, leaning back into his leather chair.
"At the top of the road on Mt. Mbatpit," Martin said as he stepped forward at the prefect's retreat.
The prefect leaned over his papers and said, "You can't have it. It's not available. Now good day, monsieur."
"Bull shit!" Martin shouted in English.
The Cameroonian eyes bulged at this outburst by this impudent white man leaning on his desk. Martin stepped back, trying to regain composure.
"Pardon, monsieur, it's just that I can't stay at that hotel any longer. I want that house."
"That's too bad" said the prefect, busy again with his papers.
Martin's head felt as though magma burned to break through his skull.
"Good. Then tomorrow expect to read my resignation. Without the house I will not stay. And I do not think the governor will be exactly pleased to lose a volunteer after years of asking the Peace Corps for one for this district. It might not look so good on your record. Monsieur." He turned around to leave.
"Attendez, Monsieur," the prefect said, now leaning in his chair. "It is an old house and very dirty. You will not be able to find anyone to come up there and clean it, or do any work on it. You in your modern American ways will not believe me when I say bad juju surrounds it. But we of the old ways know." Out of a desk drawer he pulled out a set of skeleton keys and tossed them upon the edge of his desk.
"This is my warning to you, that my conscience be clean, no matter what may happen to you. Take the keys and trouble me no more."
*******
"What! You are moving into the Fontainbleu's place? You can't do that," said John Baptiste, slamming down his Guiness stout. "Don't move in there, Martin. A better place will come along."
"When, J.B., next year when I'm ready to leave?" Martin put down the empty Beaufort, the first of the day, next to the beer crate he sat on. "Do you want me to sit in Hotel Excretion, rotting away as I do nothing? I am crazy with boredom.
"I certainly hope you're not going to feed me some of that juju crap? I can't imagine someone who studied in Paris can believe the childish tales that your ancestors scared each other with."
Martin watched his friend looked down at his feet. He regretted not moving in immediately without telling anyone beforehand. But when he saw Jean Baptiste driving back into town, automatically he had to invite him to the bar to celebrate.
"You knew all along about this place, didn't you," said Martin as he stood up, feeling betrayed by his one friend.
"Oui, like everyone else in this part of the country. And for thirty years it has stood empty of people. Everyone knows of it. The people-though I'm ashamed to admit it in front of you, even I-are afraid of the mountain itself."
Martin rolled his eyes and turned his back.
"Let me finish, please," said J.B., standing up and placing a hand on Martin's shoulder. "I know you think it is superstitious nonsense-and usually I would agree-but not about the Maannumba."
"The what?"
"Maannumba. It means "The Widow of the Water" in our tongue. She has been here, living in the crater lake on Mt. Mbatpit, long before we Bamouns and the Tikar ever set foot in this land. She is as old as the mountain. And men is what she prays upon."
Martin shoved away his friend's hand. "Why are you telling me this crap? Why don't you want me to have a house?"
"Sit down and I'll explain. But first bring two more beers.
"Three-hundred years ago, before Nshare, the first king or mfon of the Bamouns, conquered these plains, the Tikar grazed their cattle here. They worshiped Si, a god with many goddesses. His first goddess and favorite bore a daughter even more beautiful than her mother. Si loved this daughter very much and became very possessive of her, and told her she must never know any other god.
"Soon she became bored with the unchanging, unexciting, underworld, and to the surface she loved to roam, taking upon a human form. For thousands of years she walked these plains, discreetly watching the tribes settle.
"Then one day, she witnessed a man kill a lion with a spear, and she thought this man very handsome. The next day she lay in wait and seduced him, this chief of the Tikar."
"So old Si got a little jealous, right?" Martin interrupted, enjoying this tale despite himself.
"Exactly," answered John Baptiste. "He sent a heard of elephants to destroy the chief and his village."
"Nothing like a reasonable father. What happened to the beautiful daughter?"
"Since she had been defiled-no less by a mortal, he created Mt. Mbatpit. Forever to be her prison."
"So this goddess is still up there now, eh?" Martin said sarcastically.
Jean Baptist shook his index finger emphatically at Martin. "There's more to it than that. It's a long story.
"For centuries no tribe ever set foot upon the mountain. They kept to the plains despite the mountain's fertile soil. Then came Nshare and his Bamoun warriors who drove through the land, subjugating the Tikar tribes. All the villages but one paid tribute to Nshare. These several hundred men and women stood too proud to pay tribute, and instead, they and their children made their home upon the mountain.
"So long without a man, the Maannumba welcomed the village. At the full moon she would take a lover and into the crater they would descend. Thus, thirteen men a year would be in effect sacrificed, plus several women who foolishly tried to keep their men. For a little over twenty years this village held out, before descending onto the plains-a pitiful few left to be Bamoun subjects."
Martin sipped at his liter beer, leaning toward his friend.
"The story doesn't end there, mon ami. No one dared to venture upon the mountain since the tragedy of the village-that is, until the French plantation owner, Fontainbleu, disregarded all warnings-as the French disregarded all things from us Africans-and built his house there in 1957.
"Seven years prior, Fontainbleu lived on the plains on the outskirts of Fombot, running his coffee plantation. As with most French, the people did not like him, for he was rude, and was said to be ruthless to his workers. He had no love for Africa or us. So one year he took a year leave, staying in his beloved France. He returned with a beautiful wife. For her birthday he had a house built on the mountain, overlooking his plantation. In four months it stood finished, constructed by a large team of workers who ran down the mountain as soon as the setting sun touched the trees.
"His wife loved her new home. They were such a happy couple-that is, until their second week. At the time when the moon began to fatten."
John Baptiste stared straight at Martin, took a swig of his untouched ale. "Listen closely. This is not ancient history. I was five years old then, and I have heard it a hundred times."
"I'm all ears, J.B." said Martin with a sardonic grin. "I'm already willing to pay double for my room at the hotel because I'm so scared."
"I wish I could believe you. But listen anyway.
"The day before the full moon, the wife confided with the plantation manager's wife-another French woman-and was overheard by a servant. She said that her husband began having strange dreams, tossing and turning throughout the night, and calling out an African name. No longer did they make love like newlyweds. When he didn't sleep he paced the nights, becoming more distant to her, constantly looking out the window as if expecting a caller. She said that the night before he had left the house, returning very late, without any explanation. She feared an affair with another woman and said she would confront her husband.
"Three days later, after the plantation's manager and wife became concerned at the absence of the Fontainbleus, they drove up to their house and found Madame Fontainbleu impaled by one of the decorating spears, her body badly decomposed."
The image of him striking the viper with the rusty-tipped spear arose in Martin's mind, before disappearing as he saw himself sleeping on the broken-spring bed in the hotel, listening to Lucille, cockroaches scurrying across his chest.
"And he was never seen again."
Martin left the Texas Bar after the story and another beer. They parted angry. Martin calling it again superstitious garbage. John Baptiste countered by calling him a typical, arrogant white man, no better than the French, believing the whites knew all the answers. Though they parted with heated words, Martin knew that like many Cameroonians, his friend was quick to explode but quicker to make amends. In the meantime, he had work to do.
It took two trips on his Yamaha, hauling his few possessions in his expedition pack. He fought his way through the forest of weeds he endearingly called the triffids. Immediately he broke off the window boards.
African weapons and masks, a large head of a water buffalo and a little head of a duiker adorned the walls of the large living room. The several paintings of European landscapes seemed out of place, but no doubt, was an attempt of Fontainbleu to bring some of Europe into a land he did not like. A green mamba slithered out the door at the light's intrusion. In the back he found a broom and whacked away the curtains of cobwebs downstairs. Upstairs he found four bedrooms, full of more cobwebs and mouse droppings, but furnished like all the rooms. He closed three of the bedroom doors to get to later, and with the broom began to clean the master bedroom. After throwing out the window the mouse-eaten linen and mattress, he lay down in his sleeping bag, with a mental note to buy a mattress as soon as possible.
With one bedroom done he decided to spend the rest of the several hours of daylight clearing a pathway to the house. He found a machete in the back of the house, very pleased that nothing seemed to have been looted in the last thirty years. Poor fools, they must really believe in all that hocus pocus.
Although a cold Beaufort would have pleased Martin, he was pleased to find that Fountainbleu had obviously constructed a water catchment system on higher ground, which piped clean water into the house. Holding a wine glass of water, he admired the hard-won pathway to his new home.
As he prepared to do more house cleaning, he heard the familiar drone of a Honda 100. John Baptiste dismounted from his bike holding a large raffia bag.
"Bon soir, mon ami, this is a pleasant surprise," Martin said, smiling broadly. "There's a beautiful woman upstairs, and you'll never guess what her name is."
"Go to hell," J.B. replied with a vain attempt at looking serious, using a little English Martin had taught him, before laughing along with Martin. "Take these beers and shut your mouth."
"You're an angel, my boy," Martin said with a W.C. Fields accent as he took the proffered bag.
"Why are you talking with that funny voice."
"Forget it, I'm just imitating an actor's voice. Anyway I'm glad to see you, J.B." Martin shook his friend's hands with the snapping West African handshake.
"Oui, but you won't see me when the sun passes those trees. But in the meantime, let's get to work. But first things first."
Two beers popped open, foaming like two rabid dogs.
Two long days it took to make the house livable. His friend helped him for a few hours a day, transporting a new mattress, taking time off as he pleased since his Community Development Department seldom kept busy. In the process of cleaning, the empty beer bottles gathered en masse on the veranda.
After Martin became satisfied with the house's condition, he decided to make his first appearance at the Animal Husbandry Department. He met his boss and his counterparts for the first time, went out to look at various ponds and was introduced to many of the local farmers. It became the best week he had in Cameroon. Now he felt worthwhile, and saw Fombot and its people with fresher eyes. Instead of going to bars at night due to depression, he went with the sense of celebration. The talks about spirits were washed away by euphoria and Beauforts.
Sitting outside on the veranda at the Bar Mondial, drinking a Harp ale for a change of pace, Martin looked up into the clear night sky.
"Look at that, J.B., there's Jupiter, I believe. There, right next to the sliver of the moon."
John Baptiste said nothing.
The drums beat quietly at first, gradually rising, mixing with his racing heart, until both drums and heart pounded at a feverish pitch. A group of warriors danced in a circle, their naked feet stomping the ground, their hands beating their shields with their spears. The warriors' feathered head dresses waved in the evening's breeze. The leather straps of their loin clothes rose up and down, revealing their excitement. At the far end of the circle, two warriors stepped aside to allow a figure to enter. She wore a red sarong on a body that glistened like a black spear point, her hips swaying boldly with the rhythm of the drums....
Martin awoke, his heart racing as it had in the dream, excited as the warriors had been. He looked around disoriented, the faint light of the morning slipping through the bedroom window. For a moment he thought he lay in his bed back home with his girlfriend; but remembered she dumped him because she wanted to marry right then, not two years to come. The bitch wanted to smother him, to stifle him of any future of adventure, just so she could feel secure. The anger of hatred rose at the thought.
What am I getting worked up about? You know that isn't true, he said to himself, we both realized that two years apart was too long for either of us to wait after being together for only a year. If she's there when I return, fine. We'll start from there.
He got up and took a cold shower, confused at the unreasonable anger at Julie.
Jean Baptiste dribbled the soccer ball deftly around his charging five-year old son while his boy of eight years stole the ball way, squealing in joy as his father roared after him. The boy kicked the ball into the Coke bottle scoring a point.
"Enough, you two win."
He sat on the bench in his compound, watching his boys play,laughing at their antics. The sporting with his sons helped him to forget his concern for his Peace Corps friend, with whom he could empathize. As a university student in Paris, although many other Africans attended, he never felt at home, always an outsider. How lonely it is to be an outsider. His four years studying in France helped him in understanding more of the European mind and its modern views that stressed scientific reasoning in dealing with the world, a mind that believed in a reality that can be measured, weighed and numbered. He knew that Martin, like the modernized part of himself, could not believe in such a legend or find the reality in the world of dreams. Perhaps it was a bunch of superstitious nonsense. Should Martin not take a house and finally feel a sense of accomplishment through being able to work--so important to the European and especially the American mind--because of some wild African native tale? He knew Martin did not think consciously that Africans were nothing more than ignorant natives, but he knew that that thought ran prevalent in his people, and such thoughts were difficult to overcome. Martin had no choice but to take the house; how could he not? He realized this after foolishly telling him the story. He now wished he had not; it only confirmed to that arrogant voice of Martin's people the legitimacy of their mockery.
He vowed to himself to talk no more of the legend to Martin. By his side he would stand. And he would watch.
The roar of Martin's bike, the largest bike in town, he could hear approach the compound. He opened the iron gate and went out to greet his friend.
"Welcome. You must join us for dinner."
"I could not deny such hospitality," Martin replied happily, tired of beef brochettes and braised fish from the mama vendors off the street, or fried egg sandwiches, the extent of his culinary skills.
Martin sat back and patted his executive paunch. letting out a contented sigh. Jean Baptiste smiled at his friend's pleasure.
"Incredible, Madame. The meal was like this," said Martin, giving the customary thumbs-up as J.B.'s wife offered a bucket of water and soap for washing off the chicken grease.
When his friend's wife had left the room Martin leaned forward and said shyly, "I need your help."
"Oui?"
"I need a woman."
"It's about time. I was beginning to wonder," Jean Baptiste said laughing heartily as he slapped Martin on the back. "And I know just the one. A colleague told me about a Bassa girl from down south who is in town visiting the night clubs. Very dark and beautiful I hear."
Although he felt elated that his friend finally wanted to experience an African woman, which was only natural since he was a man without a woman. Yet a certain uneasiness at the timing crept over him, quickly dismissed at the possibility of seeing his friend with a woman, a fact that will quiet some of the town rumors.
Martin had smiled when his friend had said he knew of a woman who might be interested, though an inner voice had curtailed the smile with shame. For the six months in Cameroon he had resisted the many propositions from women or brothers' arrangements with sisters. He knew that Jean Baptiste and everyone else of Fombot knew what the white man was up to or not up to, and all of them thought it was strange that a man would be alone. Not that he was not attracted to many of the Cameroonian women. But sex was never the primary motivation with being with a woman. And so far he had not met a Cameroonian woman with whom he could carry a discussion. He knew of many male volunteers who would have a local girlfriend for the two years, and when the two years ended, off they would go on their planes while the girl stays behind and becomes a free woman. His parents raised him better than to do that. Besides, the Peace Corps medical informed everyone that up to fifty percent of the free women in the capitol carried the Aids virus. Though Fombot lay distant from the capitol Yaoundé, it was still close enough to find it easy to listen to his conscience.
Now, however, after four days of dreaming of the woman, with the beating of the drums, the excited warriors, her sauntering forth, and as of the night before, her disrobing, the inner voice and the fear of disease faded to a distant whisper as the pressure mounted, like water in a teapot boiling.
The Bassa woman Jean Baptiste spoke of wore a short green European dress, revealing taunt legs and a large bust, Her braided hair with colored beads outlined her round, smiling face. Martin and J.B. sat with her, who introduced herself as Iran. She sat with her Bamoun girl friend and a Bamoun man who obviously found her friend very attractive. Over whiskeys and orange pop, they small-talked and danced to the loud Makossa music. Being that Martin danced with the nimbleness of a board of mahogany, he preferred to watch Iran dance, her upper body motionless while her pelvis thrusted rapidly with the music, glancing towards him invitingly. All around her couples danced in pantomimes of making love.
After several hours Jean Baptiste excused himself saying he better return home before receiving a beating from his wife. On the back of Martin's bike Iran pulled up her skirt and straddled Martin's back, as the Yamaha screamed up the mountain road, with the quarter moon following.
She moved through the circle of dancers, sauntering seductively past. Standing in the center, with drums beating like a quickening heart, her sarong dropped to the ground. Beads of perspiration glimmered in the light of the half moon. The drums beat louder. Her hands began to explore the contours of her lithe, muscular body, faster as the drums quickened. A moan escaped her lips. Her back arched, breasts pointed at the night sky, and then collapsed upon the ground, swaying with the rhythm, , her hands running wild. The dancers stomped around her in a clockwise circle, their feet pounding rhythmically the earth, thrusting their spears at her exposed thighs...
Martin found himself on the mattress in his bed in the darkness of early morning, the drums still pounding in his head, still pounding in his groin. His hand felt to his side and touched the round solid buttocks next to him. A moan came from that direction, but a moan as passionate as a cat to a tigress compared to the moaning from whence his soul just came and desperately desired to return. Mon Cherie, he distantly heard as he vainly attempted to plunge back into slumber. He felt a hand that crawled over his body like a slug. He turned his back and felt repulsion rise in his gut.
For the past four nights Iran had lived with Martin, satisfying his demanding needs. The first two days he enjoyed making love to her and being with her, going into work for six hours, buying tokens of appreciation like shoes and jewelry, and then returning home where she waited. Perhaps, the most beautiful girl he had ever slept with, he could not get enough of exploring her magnificent body, with the sweet cherub face. And those two nights he slept in peace, in a dreamless sleep.
However, on the third night the dreams returned. And the woman of the dreams writhed upon the ground in a primal heat, drawing his attention as a cobra draws the gaze of the monkey. With each dream the details become clearer, as the night slowly revealed its secrets to the waxing moon.
The morning following that third night, when the dreams returned, he attempted to satiate that consuming passion by making love to Iran. But instead of cries of pleasure she cried in pain. Afterwards, when he left for work he felt the burning whips of guilt, not so much the guilt for abusing Iran that morning, something which he never done to a woman, but a guilt as though he was cheating. Like the feeling a husband has for a hidden affair.
He had avoided her upon his return home, eating what she prepared him in silence. And the guilt, like a wall, stood between him and her advances before falling into sleep.
Now, a few hours later, her hands crawled over his back.
Whore, he swore to himself, black smelly bitch, wanting nothing but the white man's money. Like all the rest it's only the money. His lip curled at the thought, rising like a tea pot's lid at boil.
He threw back his arm, hitting away her hands.
"Qu'est-ce que c'est, mon chou?"
Without looking back he walked naked out the room and descended the moonlit stairs, stopping briefly at the crossed spears on the wall, touching the one's rusted tip. He sat outside on the verandah, ignoring the sucking mosquitoes, and watched the half-faced moon.
Jean Baptiste sighed with relief when he dismounted from his motorcycle and saw Martin sitting on the verandah. For three days his friend had not appeared at work nor seen in town. He opened the gate of spears and walked past the stone lion guards. The weeds grabbed at the calf of his trouser's.
"It's been a longtime, mon ami," he said as he climbed the verandah steps, shaking Martin's hand who remained seated.
Martin held a glass of whiskey, its bottle nearly half emptied on the floor.
"Care for a drink. Sorry, no beers."
"Sure," he said as Martin got up and went inside for glass. He sat down in the other wicker chair next to Martin's. In the weeds he could see two empty whiskey bottles.
"When did you start drinking straight whiskey?" he shouted to Martin inside.
Martin ignored the question, handing J.B. a glass. He poured a couple of shots into each.
"A sante," Jean Baptiste said, saluting the host, and took a gulp.
Martin silently threw his down his throat, grimacing a little. A glassiness covered Martin's eyes like a veil. He appeared thinner, his cheeks sinking. He poured another drink.
"You look terrible, if you don't mind me saying so. It looks like you could use a good meal."
"I haven't had the time to prepare myself any food. And besides I haven't been feeling that well."
"What about the Bassa girl? Why isn't she up here cooking you something good."
"It didn't work out," Martin said into his glass, looking away.
"That's too bad. She is very beautiful. You know I saw her the other night at the Auberge. She had a terrible gash on her cheek, and on such a pretty--"
"She fell down the stairs a few nights ago," Martin interrupted, fingering his school ring. "She didn't say anything did she?"
"No, in fact, she didn't even greet me."
Martin stared at his ring as an uneasiness fell between them. Jean Baptiste nervously swished the whiskey in his glass.
"I went by your office today and they said they haven't seen you for a few days."
"So you're checking up on me," said Martin, his eyes narrowing.
"No. It's not that. I was hoping to see you there, that's all."
Martin looked away and said, "My stomach has been troubling me."
"No wonder," J.B. said, pointing to the empty bottles with his lips as Cameroonians do. "Why don't you come down and stay with my family for a few days or so. My wife's cooking will get your stomach back in shape in no time."
"And why don't you mind your goddamn business, my friend," snapped Martin as he stood up, clutching his empty fist and looking menacingly. "Do you think I'm fucking stupid? You think I cannot see what you're up to? I will not play into your superstitious games. The moon is only a moon!"
Martin threw down his glass on the steps, the shards flying into the weeds. He turned his back and stomped into his house, slamming the door on a stupefied J.B. The click of the lock echoed loudly in his head.
"She's got him," he said softly to the glass in his trembling hand.
Martin stood against the door, listening, finally hearing the nosy Cameroonian leave. Black bastard, he thought. He looked down at his ring and remembered the last night with that whore. That night when he saw his woman writhing under the first of the warriors. And thought at first it was she who was inviting him into her. But when he saw it was the whore who wanted only his money, his ring slammed into her cheek like the warriors slamming into his woman, leaving a gushing hole in her cheek. Of course she screamed. And the blood flowed. And the drums pounded. And the warriors pounded. He pressed his thumbs to the eyes of her screaming face under him and wanted to thrust them into her eyes. But he stayed his hands, satisfied seeing her eyes bulging with fear. The drums pounded and he watched his woman and the warriors with their spears. The bathroom door lock clicked. He had thought of fetching the machete and seeing more blood, but the drums, the warriors and his woman, made him forget the whore.
He had thought of the machete again when he left the prying bastard, whom he detested from the beginning. Like all of them. And saw the blood on the verandah. But a voice, hot and wet, told him to wait.
And he waited, like a lover waiting in bed.
The warrior rolled off the woman on the ground, took up his spear and resumed his place with the others. The last of them. As the drum pounded in a slow tantalizing beat, she rose and sat cross-legged. With outstretched arms she beckoned his way, smiling with dark lips. She grew closer as he heard the slight crunch of gravel under his naked feet. Every feature of hers he could consume with his eyes, taste in the hot breath of the night. As the night envelops the day, so her black jaguar body demanded to consume his white flesh. She leaned back on her arms and spread her legs, the engorged moon shining in her green eyes.
"Tomorrow, my warrior."
The full moon seemed to rise early as if it did not want to risk arriving late for an engagement or in its vanity to show off its fullness before the coming storm. An hour after moon rise the storm hit. Like a dark giant it smashed through Fombot, exploding a transformer, alighting a few palm trees as though they were matches, on its way to Mt. Mbatpit.
Outside the windows of Martin's house the night flashed like a film on a worn-out projector, the banana trees shifting at every flash. Thunder pounded repeatedly a second after every flash. And Martin, lying on his bed, an empty bottle of whiskey on the nightstand; the old, dirty sheets wet from the spilled glass by his side and the sweat pouring from his body, lay oblivious to it all. The thunder became drums and he saw himself on top of his woman, consumed in a lover's passion.
Outside, while Martin lay lost in the drums, Jean Baptiste crouched among the weeds at the side of the house, in complete awareness of the storm and all around him. The dart-like rain pattered upon his camouflaged poncho, a remnant of his old military days, sounding like distant machine gun fire. His body shook, not from the cold of the rain but from the fear that snapped at his groin like a rabid dog. He held tightly the javelin, trying to draw from it renewed courage, carefully avoiding touching the charmed tip and polluting its magic.
Early that morning he had visited Old Papa Nkouti, the ancient marabout. The old shaman just shook his head when John Baptiste told him of his friend's plight, how he had fallen under the spell of the Maannumba. His friend was lost, the marabout told him. But John Baptiste persisted, saying something had to be done; he couldn't just watch his friend disappear without doing anything. Reluctantly, the old man said he would consult with the ground spider, the messenger of the underworld. Nkouti brought forth a large basket of dirt, where upon lay numerous small wooden chips, each engraved with a crude symbol. Then from a small cage he drew forth a large brown spider and placed it in the center of the basket. The released spider scurried to its right and quickly buried itself in the dirt, shuffling wood chips as it dug.
There is still hope, but very little, Jean Baptiste was told. His will is weak. He does not know what is real.
Nkouti took a knife and sliced off a black rooster's head, muttering incantations and mixing an emulsion of roots, bark and leaves with the rooster's blood. Then he dipped the javelin's tip into the concoction and seared it over a flame.
As he handed the weapon to Jean Baptiste, he looked him piercingly in the eye and he said, "There is a way. You must strike her in the heart. Only this will kill her desire for the white man, and perhaps all men, and the Maannumba will return to the underground from whence she came.
"She will come for your friend when the full moon is at its highest. If he is in her embrace when the moon sets, he will inhabit the timeless underworld as her slave. You must strike before that."
Jean Baptiste placed at the marabout's feet a jug of palm wine and a handful of cola nuts as tokens of respect.
"Into the underworld, to do battle, the spider saw you descend and said you will conquer fear. And the Chamber of Friends will you attain. But it did not say whether you would return."
"What do you mean, the Chamber of Friends?"
The marabout closed his eyes and remained silent.
Now, underneath the storm with its fiery lances stabbing at the earth, the marabout's words of conquering fear echoed mockingly, as his bowels seemed to unravel within him.
"When one comes to the end of his journey and his heart races, it is time to retrace one's steps," he whispered the proverb softly to the night.
Why am I helping this unbelieving white man? asked a voice inside. Let's go home. You can't risk your family for the sake of this stranger.
He is a friend, countered another voice, more distant and deeper, certain as an unwavering flame.
Suddenly, a banana tree to his right exploded in a fireball, forcing him to cover his face, his hair standing on end in the ionized air. Then another flash to his left. A figure stood.
"Aaah!" escaped his throat as he swirled around, the assegai flying from his hand spontaneously, shooting wide of its mark. Another flash and he stood staring at a man-sized banana tree.
"Some warrior you are, can't even hit a charging tree. Luckily it was a friendly one," he said aloud, laughing uneasily, trying to hold back the tremors that shook his body like an earthquake. He walked over to where he threw the weapon and began searching in the blackness.
A hand grabbed his shoulder from behind and spun him around.
"You! What are you doing here?"
Jean Baptiste placed a hand over his heart to make sure it still worked.
"Oh, Martin. You nearly scared me to death," he said to the recognized voice, as a warm stream trickled down his leg.
"You think you can take her away from me. You think you can have her to yourself. You want to enter the circle and screw her, don't you?" shouted Martin, his voice growing louder at each sentence, competing with the thunder.
J.B. stepped back, no longer smiling. Flashes of lightning showed wide eyes of rage. Lines of shadows crisscrossed his friend's face like spirits playing tag, causing his face to grow fat one moment and then shrinking to nothing more than a skull with burning eyes. His foot searched surreptitiously for the thrown javelin.
"Well, you can't have her. She has chosen me!"
He moved forward as J.B. retreated.
"Are you looking for this?"
Martin held the javelin's tip an inch from the other's nose. So close that J.B. could smell a lingering stale blood odor, his senses more acute than ever in his fear. The crickets began to scratch their wings as the last of the rain drops fell. His legs seemed to dissolve beneath him.
"Martin, mon ami, this is not you," he stuttered, the words trying desperately to push back the lead blanket of fear, his mouth feeling like a steel brush had cleaned it. "Look, can't you see that the Maannumba has complete control of you. You are nothing but her slave."
He stepped back slowly from the spear point. His foot bumped into a large branch.If only he could be distracted enough for me to grab it. Then maybe I can knock him out and hide him until the moon passes.
But Martin stepped forward with him, shaking the lance wildly in front.
"Was this meant for me--to stab me in my sleep--so she would be all yours, you coward of a bastard?"
A curtain of silence all of a sudden fell upon the night around the two men. No more rumblings of thunder. No more crickets. The heat lightening danced silently in the sky. The clouds became less dense and gaps crossed the sky, revealing the gorged moon, directly overhead--its beams like silver spears. Outside the spear-tipped gate, a figure stood, disappearing with the passing of clouds overhead.
Martin turned to stare at her, the forgotten javelin held listlessly.
Jean Baptiste, too, gazed at the naked woman, wonderfully beautiful. The image of his face buried in her breasts obscured the night. He could see himself between her legs--
No! he yelled at himself, forcing his eyes to blink and to turn way. She is nothing but a demon.
Seeing Martin distracted, he slowly bent down, not looking to where his fingers probed for the branch, keeping his eyes on Martin. His fingers closed around the wet wood. He shifted position slightly for an upward swing. Snap! sounded a twig under his foot.
Instantly, Martin swung the spear for a decapitating blow, unable to adjust for the other's stooped position, the blade swishing past. J.B. rose with the branch starting its swing, not noticing Martin's left hand coming back around with the butt of the spear.
Jean Baptiste slumped to the ground, fireworks exploding in his head. As his consciousness fell towards the black numbness, he heard the distant words: "It's your lucky night, bastard. You still own your head."
The moon, shining full in a clear sky, lay halfway upon its descent when J.B. swam back to consciousness. His mouth tasted rusty from the finger of blood that had trickled into his mouth from the gash on his head. He winced as his hand found the sticky wound. He saw the spear sticking out of the earth a few inches from his head. A prayer of gratitude flew from his heart unbidden as he pulled out the spear. He looked at the tip in the moonlight and hoped that the magic had not been dissipated into the earth. A thought of returning down the mountain started to approach, but was allowed no admittance into his heart. He felt different. He felt as though he had returned from a journey he had no remembrance, but had stilled his will. He looked around in the moonlight, and beheld a wonderful beauty--the lone acacia, the banana trees, the wide plains down below that looked like a silver sea, the twinkling stars on the periphery of the moon's light, and even the moon itself, which he had dreaded these past days. His eyes saw with a freshness of those wise ones who see life as but a short foray out from the land of death.
"What the hell," he said in English, as he removed the poncho and his shirt, exposing his large chest and stomach to the cool early morning air. He approached the gate and found it locked. He stared at the empty square in the gate where Martin had planned to install a lock. He shook at the iron portal. Nothing. His hair rose as he gripped the spear harder. Magic barred his way.
"Just some of that juju superstition," he chuckled nervously, thinking about what old Martin would have said to a locked gate without a lock.
He touched the tips of the gate's iron spears. Sharp. He leaned the spear on one of the stone lion pillars, readily accessible from either side in case he should need it. He grabbed two bars just below the spear tips and pulled up his large frame, his feet desperately searching for traction on the slick iron. Upon the crossbar at the gate's top Jean Baptiste balanced, appearing like a toad squatting, his hands clutching the two bars in an attempt to steady his swaying. He teetered uncertainly as he tried to figure out how to get over to the other side without impaling himself.
Naked she stood before him, appearing as suddenly as an unwanted thought. Time stopped as his eyes held onto her just below his feet, her athletic legs parted slightly, her delicate but strong arms hanging relaxed at her curved sides, her breasts slightly rising and falling with her breath, her inviting smile and her eyes of green. He saw himself walking away with her, holding her hand like sweethearts, lying together in the grass, without ever having to worry, existing only to make love.
Her slender hand reached up to him, to take him to the paradise that any true man would desire.
Demon, came the certain voice from the depths of his soul, silently slipping past the transfixed guards of his mind. His eyes blinked, and he saw.
And he screamed.
Maggots crawled out from where eyes once showed a heaven of delights. Her luscious skin folded away, revealing an oozing layer of decayed flesh, the putrid smell assailing his nostrils. She grinned wider, lipless. A ground spider scurried from her maw.
Backwards he swayed, the vile rushing up from his stomach. He let go of his hold on the bars.
He did not fall. Bony hands gripped his wrists that cracked his bones. They dug in like hooks. Before Jean Baptiste could utter a cry, with a yank she pulled him forward onto two spears, their tips crunching through his rib cage and out his back, making a sound like dry trampled leaves. His body twitched and became still, and he felt a coldness creep over his body while he began to experience a glowing warmth in his being.
As he perceived the Maannumba walk away, he sensed her anger. The eyes of his heart had seen her as she was. His body's face smiled.
Martin sat on a large volcanic boulder on a crag of the crater, his white naked skin cold in the early morning air. Twenty feet below, growing out of the sheer rocky rim, an acacia tree reached upward like a drowning hand. He hugged himself, feeling like a boy left out watching everyone have a partner to dance; everybody except for him sitting in the corner.
Why did she leave me for him, he whined to himself. Am I not good enough? I should have taken his head when I had the chance, then she wouldn't have had to go back.
Because he is your friend, answered a voice faintly within him, as if a person called down from the mouth of a huge cavern. The word "friend" bounced of the walls of his mind, only to disappear in the black pit of self pity and promises of his desires fulfilled.
Nothing he saw, not even the moon as it touched the crater's rim on the other side. He saw only himself with her. As Martin huddled in his revelry, suddenly he felt a hand touch his shoulder. Again the word "friend" echoed in his mind, sounding as if someone was descending into a cavern, into the underworld, shouting as he came. But this unseen person did not descend alone, but journeyed with a host of those who loved, of those who had lost their lovers to a dream, each shouting the word "friend", chasing the copulating shadows of his mind with their approach.
"Jean Baptiste," Martin said as turned around, his eyes no longer clouded with dreams, expecting to see his friend standing there. No one. Only a slight breeze moved. For the first time he saw himself naked, sitting on a crag high above the waters of the crater, shimmering with the falling moon.
Where am I? What am I doing here? he said to himself, standing up.
You are waiting for your lover, the most beautiful woman in the world, the words seductively arose.
Yet around him, and as though filling him, he felt as though a multitude of persons held torches aloft, surrounding him, warding away such thoughts, like sentinels of a camp keeping the hyenas away with their fire.
"Jean Baptiste," he uttered softly, then yelled aloud, the name echoing below in the crater's mouth, as remembrance flooded his mind.
"My God, what have I done?" He held his head in despair as he saw himself hit his friend. "Maybe he's still alive," he said hopefully. Then he thought of the Maannumba returning for him.
At the thought of her, the torches in his mind flickered as against a storm. The circle, the drums, the prancing warriors, the moans of delight, the writhing upon the ground, the open legs...
Yet more torches came, shouting names of loved ones, African names, and the storm retreated and the circle of gyrating shadows wavered as the drumming began to lose its rhythm.
"I'm coming," he said aloud as he stepped forward to go back to his friend.
From behind a boulder she stepped, her dark skin silvered in the moonlight, her arms outstretched in a welcoming embrace. His feet walked towards her as his mind lay in her arms, eternally making love to his woman. The torches flickered and the vision's wind threatened their extinction. They retreated into the dark corners of his mind as he took her hand.
"Come, my warrior," she said in French, her words covering him, massaging him in time with the pounding of the drums, "let us go home. That you may do to me as you will."
A path appeared to materialize with each step as they descended into the crater, Martin oblivious but for the hand he held. Then the torches gathered once again as more joined, and against the hot winds of his mind they held steady.
Martin turned. "What did you do with my friend?"
"Quiet, my love. Soon we will be home."
The moon dropped below the crater's rim.
The torches advanced as the winds lessened. He saw--as though he was the witness in a dream-- his friend squatting on the gate with her standing in front of him. Saw her transform from illusive beauty to decayed reality. Then saw his friend impaled between the stone lions; yet wearing a triumphant smile.
The flames of the torches roared as the shout of betrayal arose. He flung away her hand.
"You filthy lie," he shouted. "You're nothing more than a stinking corpse!"
He spat on her face.
The maggots crawled out of her eye sockets, her skin rotted and oozed with puss and the ground spider crawled from her lipless mouth. She reached towards him with flesh-shredded arms. He backed away and took hold of the lone acacia growing from the cliff.
In his mind he heard his friend laugh--laugh with all his belly, just like he remembered he did after a few dead beers lay about his feet. As Jean Baptist's laughter bellowed and echoed throughout Martin, so,too, did a hundred others. Friends and lovers who had never forgotten each other. All jeering together.
Instead of nausea and fear arising at this mephitic corpse coming to embrace him, a laugh of a hundred souls erupted from his mouth. He laughed and laughed. The echo of laughter in his being, now echoing off the crater's walls. How could he have fallen for a thing as pathetic as that which beckoned him now?
The last of the drumming stopped. The circle of warriors fell to the cavern's floor, laughing at themselves and the great joke for which they had fallen.
As the Maannumba vanished into a wisp of mist, Martin smiled as he listened to her scream disappear upon the breeze. And as the moon fell below the horizon of the earth, upon his shoulder he felt the invisable hand of his friend.
THE END
copyright 2004 janaka stagnaro
janakastagnaro.com