“I would never be one of that flock of Kosongo’s women!” she exclaimed, furious.
“Of course you wouldn’t, Angie, but you could be nice to him a couple of days and—”
“Not one minute!” Angie sighed. “Of course if it was the commandant, instead of Kosongo—”
“Mbembelé is a beast!” Kate interrupted.
“That’s a joke, Kate. I don’t intend to be nice to Kosongo, or Mbembelé, or anyone else. I intend to get out of this hole as soon as possible, claim my plane, and get to a place where these criminals can’t catch up with me.”
“If you distract the king, as Ms. Cold suggests, we can gain some time,” Brother Fernando declared.
“How do you suggest I do that? Look at me! My clothes are wet and filthy, I’ve lost my lipstick, and my hair’s a disaster. I look like a porcupine,” Angie replied, pointing to dirt-stiffened hair that stuck out in all directions.
“The people in the village are afraid,” the missionary interrupted, changing the subject. “No one wants to answer my questions, but I’ve tied up a few loose ends. I know that my companions were here, and that they disappeared several months ago. They can’t have gone anywhere. The most likely answer is that they’ve become martyrs.”
“Does that mean they were killed?” Kate asked.
“Yes. I think they gave their lives for Christ. I pray that at least they didn’t suffer long.”
“I’m truly sorry, Brother Fernando,” Angie said, suddenly serious. “Forgive all my joking and bad humor. You can count on me; I’ll do what I can to help you. I’ll dance the dance of the seven veils to distract Kosongo, if you want.”
“I won’t ask that of you, Miss Ninderera,” the missionary replied sadly.
“Call me Angie,” she said.
They spent the rest of the day waiting for Nadia and Alexander to return, wandering around the village looking for information, and making plans to escape. The two guards who had been careless the night before had been arrested by the soldiers and not replaced, so no one was guarding them. They found out that the soldiers of the Brotherhood of the Leopard, who had deserted from the regular army and come to Ngoubé with the commandant, were the only ones who had access to the firearms kept in the barracks. The Bantu guards were forcibly recruited in their teenage years. They were poorly armed, mainly with machetes and knives, and obeyed more out of fear than from loyalty. Under orders from the handful of Mbembelé’s soldiers, the guards had to contain the rest of the Bantu population, that is, their own families and friends. Fierce discipline left no out; rebels and deserters were executed without a trial.
The women of Ngoubé, who once had been free and involved in the decisions of the community, lost their rights and were forced to work on Kosongo’s plantations and look after the needs of the men. The prettiest girls were sent to the king’s harem. The commandant’s network of spies included children, who were taught to watch their own families. The mere accusation of treachery, whether or not there was proof, was punished by death. In the beginning many were executed, but the population in that area was sparse, and when the king and the commandant saw that they were killing off their subjects, they decided to curb their enthusiasm.
These two leaders also counted on the aid of the witch doctor Sombe, whom they called on when a sorcerer’s services were required. People were accustomed to healers or witch men whose mission was to act as liaison with the world of the spirits, cure illness, cast spells, and fashion protective amulets. It was generally believed that a person’s death was caused by magic. When someone died, it was up to the sorcerer to determine who was responsible, then undo the curse and punish the guilty party or force him to pay compensation to the family of the deceased. That gave the healer power in the community. In Ngoubé, as in many other parts of Africa, there had always been sorcerers, some more respected than others, but none as much as Sombe.
No one knew where the bizarre witch doctor lived. He would materialize in the village like a devil, and once he had done what he had come to do, he evaporated without a trace, and no one would see him for weeks or months. He was so feared that even Kosongo and Mbembelé tried to avoid him; both stayed in their quarters when Sombe was due to appear. His appearance alone spread terror. He was enormous—as tall as Commandant Mbembelé—and when he fell into a trance, he acquired supernatural strength; he was able to lift heavy tree trunks that six men couldn’t budge. He wore the head of a leopard and a necklace of fingers that—word had it—he had amputated from his victims with the blade of his gaze, just as during his exhibitions of sorcery he decapitated roosters without touching them.
“I would like to meet this famous Sombe,” Kate said when the friends met to report what each of them had found out.
“And I would like to photograph his magic tricks,” added Joel.
“Maybe they’re not tricks,” said Angie, shuddering. “Voodoo magic can be very dangerous.”
Their second, seemingly eternal, night in the large hut, the International Geographic party kept the torches lit despite the stench of burning resin and clouds of black smoke; at least that way they could see the cockroaches and rats. Kate was awake for hours, listening to every sound, waiting for Nadia and Alexander to show up. Since there were no guards at the open doorway, she could step outside to get a breath when the air in the building became unbearable. Angie joined her outside, and they sat down on the ground, shoulder to shoulder.
“I’m dying for a cigarette,” Angie muttered.
“This is your chance to drop the habit. I did. It causes lung cancer,” Kate warned her. “Want a swig of vodka?”
“And alcohol’s not a vice, Kate.” Angie laughed.
“Are you insinuating that I’m an alcoholic? You’ve got some nerve! I take a few sips from time to time to ease my bones. That’s all.”
“We have to get out of here, Kate.”
“We can’t go without my grandson and Nadia,” the writer replied.
“How long are you prepared to wait for them? The boats are coming to pick us up day after tomorrow.”
“They’ll be back by then.”
“And if they aren’t?”
“In that case all of you can go, but I’m staying,” Kate said.
“I won’t leave you here alone, Kate.”
“You will go with the others to get help. You’ll have to get in touch with the people at International Geographic and with the American embassy. No one knows where we are.”
“Our one hope is that Mushaha picked up one of the messages I sent by radio, but I wouldn’t count on that,” said Angie.
The two women sat in silence for a long time. Despite the circumstances, they were able to appreciate the beauty of the moonlit night. At that hour there were very few torches lit in the village except for those around the royal compound and the soldiers’ barracks. They could hear the never-ceasing sounds of the jungle and smell the penetrating scent of wet earth. A few yards away was a parallel world of creatures that never saw sunlight and that were watching them from the shadows as they talked.
“Do you know what that ‘well’ is, Angie?” Kate asked.
“The one the missionaries mentioned in their letters?”
“It isn’t what we think. It isn’t really a well.”
“No? What is it then?”
“It’s a site of executions.”
“What are you saying!” Angie exclaimed.
“Just what I told you, Angie. It’s behind the royal compound, enclosed within a palisade. No one can go near it.”
“Is it a cemetery, then?”
“No. It’s a watering hole, a kind of pond filled with crocodiles.”
Angie jumped to her feet, gasping for breath, with the feeling that a locomotive was charging through her breast. Kate’s words reaffirmed the terror she had felt ever since her plane crash-landed on the beach and she knew she was trapped in this savage region. Hour by hour, day by day, she became more convinced that she was inescapably heading toward her death. She had
always thought she would die in a plane crash until Má Bangesé, the fortune-teller in the market, had told her about the crocodiles. At first she hadn’t taken the prophecy too seriously, but after a pair of nearly fatal encounters with the awesome amphibians, the idea had taken root in her mind and become an obsession. Kate guessed what her friend was thinking.
“Don’t be superstitious, Angie. The fact that Kosongo keeps crocodiles doesn’t mean you’re going to be their supper.”
“It’s my destiny, Kate; I can’t escape it.”
“We’re going to get out of here alive, Angie, I promise.”
“You can’t promise that because you can’t make it happen. What else do you know?”
“They throw anyone who rebels against Kosongo and Mbembelé’s authority into that hole,” Kate explained. “I learned that from the Pygmy women. Their husbands have to hunt game to feed the crocs. They know everything that goes on in the village. They’re slaves of the Bantus, they do all the heavy work, they go into all the huts, they hear all the conversations, they observe. They’re locked up only at night—they’re free to walk around during the day. No one pays any attention to them because they think they don’t have human intelligence.”
“Do you think that’s how they killed the missionaries, and that’s why there’s no trace of them?” Angie shivered.
“Yes, but I can’t prove it. That’s why I haven’t told Brother Fernando yet. Tomorrow I’ll find out the real truth, and, if possible, I’m going to get a look at that crocodile pool,” Kate confided. “We need to photograph it; it’s an essential part of the story I’m planning to write for the magazine.”
The next day Kate again presented herself before Commandant Mbembelé to tell him that Angie Ninderera felt very honored by the king’s attentions and was considering his proposition, but that she needed a few days to decide. She had promised her hand to a very powerful sorcerer in Botswana and, as everyone knew, it was very dangerous to betray a witch doctor, even from a distance.
“In that case King Kosongo is not interested in the woman,” the commandant declared.
Kate quickly backpedaled. She hadn’t expected Mbembelé to take her that seriously.
“Don’t you think you should consult with His Majesty?”
“No.”
“Well, Angie didn’t exactly give her word to that man; it’s not really a formal engagement, you understand? I’ve heard that the most powerful sorcerer in Africa—Sombe, isn’t it?—lives near here. Maybe he can release Angie from the magic of her other suitor,” Kate proposed.
“Maybe.”
“When will the famous Sombe be coming to Ngoubé?”
“You ask a lot of questions, old woman. You’re as big a pest as the mopani,” the commandant complained, waving his hand as if brushing away a bee. “I will speak with King Kosongo. We will discuss a way to free the woman.”
“One thing more, Commandant Mbembelé,” said Kate from the door.
“What do you want now?”
“The building you put us in is very pleasant, but it’s a little dirty; there are a lot of rat and bat droppings—”
“And?”
“Angie Ninderera is very delicate. Bad smells make her ill. Could you send us a slave to clean the place and prepare our food? If it isn’t too much bother.”
“I suppose,” the commandant replied.
The servant he assigned them looked like a child. She was wearing a raffia skirt and, though slim and little more than four feet tall, she was very strong. She came equipped with a twig broom and set about sweeping the floor at a furious pace. The more dust she raised, the worse the odor and filth. Kate stopped her, because in fact she had asked for her with other goals in mind: She needed an ally. At first the woman seemed not to understand what Kate wanted. She put on an expression as bland and as blank as a sheep’s, but when the writer mentioned Beyé-Dokou, her face lighted up. Kate realized that the stupidity was feigned, purely a defense mechanism.
With mime and a few words in Bantu and French, the Pygmy explained that her name was Jena, and that she was the wife of Beyé-Dokou. They had two children, whom she saw very little of because they were kept in a separate fenced area, but for the moment the children were well cared for by a couple of grandmothers. Tomorrow, however, was the day set for Beyé-Dokou and the other hunters to bring the ivory; if they failed they would lose their children, said Jena, weeping. Kate didn’t know how to react to the tears, but Angie and Brother Fernando tried to console Jena with the argument that Kosongo wouldn’t dare sell children as long as a group of journalists was around to act as witnesses. Jena was of the opinion that nothing and nobody could change Kosongo’s mind.
The sinister throbbing of drums filled the African night, reverberating through the jungle and terrorizing the foreigners in their hut, their hearts laden with dark presages.
“What do those drums mean?” asked Joel, trembling.
“I don’t know, but it can’t be good news,” Brother Fernando replied.
“I am sick of being afraid all the time!” Angie exclaimed. “I’ve had a pain in my chest for days from all this anxiety. I can’t breathe. I want to get out of here!”
“Let’s pray, my friends,” the missionary suggested.
A soldier appeared at their door and, speaking directly to Angie, announced that the tournament was about to start and Commandant Mbembelé demanded her presence.
“I will come with my friends,” she said.
“However you want,” the messenger replied.
“Why are the drums playing?” Angie asked.
“Ezenji,” was the soldier’s curt reply.
“The dance of death?”
This time he didn’t answer, merely turned and left. The members of the group consulted among themselves. Joel was of the opinion that it was their own deaths—that they were slated to be the principals in this spectacle. Kate made him stop.
“You’re making me nervous, Joel. If they mean to kill us, they won’t do it in public. It’s not to their benefit to provoke an international scandal by murdering us.”
“Who would ever know, Kate? We’re at the mercy of these madmen. What does the opinion of the rest of the world mean to them? They do whatever they please,” Joel moaned.
The entire village, except for the Pygmies, had gathered in the plaza. A square had been traced with lime, like a boxing ring, and lit with torches. Beneath the Tree of Words sat the commandant, accompanied by his “officials,” that is, the ten soldiers of the Brotherhood of the Leopard, who were standing behind his chair. He was dressed as he always was: trousers and army boots, and he was wearing the mirrored sunglasses, though it was night. Angie was led to a second chair only a few feet away from the commandant; her friends, however, were ignored. King Kosongo was not present, but his wives were crowded into their usual place, standing behind the tree under the watchful eye of the old sadist with the bamboo stick.
The “army” was present: the Leopard brotherhood with their rifles and the Bantu guards armed with machetes, knives, and clubs. The men of the local tribe were very young, and they gave the impression of being as frightened as the rest of the inhabitants of the village. The foreigners soon found out why.
The three musicians in their costume of military jackets sans trousers, the ones who had beat sticks the night Kate and her group arrived, now were in charge of the drums. The sound they produced was monotonous, melancholy, and menacing, very different from the Pygmies’ music. The bom-bom-bom went on a long time, until the moon added its light to that of the torches. In the meanwhile, plastic containers and gourds filled with palm wine were being passed from hand to hand. This time the wine was offered to women, children, and visitors. The commandant was drinking American whisky, undoubtedly obtained from smugglers. He drank a couple of sips and passed the bottle to Angie, who rejected the offer with dignity because she didn’t want to establish any basis of familiarity with that man. When he offered her a cigarette, however, she couldn’t re
sist; she hadn’t smoked for an eternity.
At a gesture from Mbembelé, the musicians pounded their drums to announce the start of the event. At the far end of the plaza, the two guards were brought in who had been assigned to watch the foreigners’ building but had let Nadia and Alexander escape right beneath their noses. They were pushed into the outlined square where they dropped to their knees, trembling, heads hanging. Kate calculated that they were about her grandson’s age, maybe seventeen or eighteen. A woman, perhaps one of their mothers, screamed and ran toward the ring but immediately was held back by other women, who put their arms around her and led her away, trying to console her.
Mbembelé rose to his feet and took a pose: legs apart, fists on his hips, jaw protruding, sweat gleaming on his shaved head and naked athletic torso. In that posture and with the dark sunglasses hiding his eyes, he looked exactly like an action film villain. He barked a few phrases in his language, which the visitors did not understand, and immediately threw himself back into his chair. A soldier handed a knife to each of the young men inside the square.
The rules of the game were quickly apparent to Kate and her party. The two guards’ sentence was to fight for their lives; their companions, along with their family and friends, were sentenced to witness that inhuman penalty. Ezenji, the sacred dance, which the Pygmies had once performed before going out on the hunt to invoke the great spirit of the forest, had degenerated in Ngoubé to become a tourney of death.
The contest between the two guards was brief. For a few minutes, they seemed to dance in circles, daggers in hand, watching for a careless move from their opponent that would allow them to strike a blow. While Mbembelé and his soldiers egged them on with yells and whistles, the remaining spectators were ominously silent. The Bantus were terrorized; they realized that any one of them could be the next to be sentenced. The people of Ngoubé, impotent and furious, silently said their good-byes. Only their fear of Mbembelé and intoxication from the palm wine prevented a revolt. Families were united through multiple blood ties; everyone watching the horrible tournament was a relative of the two young men with the daggers.