The missing screws were delaying the whole project, though. Benon carefully folded the two remaining screws into the paper and tucked it into his shirt pocket. He contemplated the sturdy door with its sheet metal panels welded to two rails and three stiles and crisscrossed by steel bars for extra stiffness. He had already painted the outside a brilliant cobalt blue and the inside gunmetal gray using left-over sign paint he had found in the dump near the gorilla camp. The hinges were riveted to the door ready to be screwed to the wooden frame around the opening in the brick wall. Now, that step would have to wait until Benon had the hardware to complete the job.
The door wasn't to be the ultimate glory of the new house. Benon hadn't told anyone yet, but he intended to roof his newest home with kiln-fired clay tiles like those atop the headman's mansion in Bugota. Such a roof would be wildly expensive, but that would also make it utterly out of the reach of any potential rivals. Benon thought it might be just the touch he needed to cement his own selection as headman of Rwenkagi, a position that would be open once the current village leader died without an heir. As the most prosperous man in the village, Benon would be the logical choice. A roof of kiln-fired tiles atop walls of fire-hardened bricks and a shiny cobalt blue metal door would surely ensure his selection.
Benon told Felicity he would be home late because he had to return to Bugota to replace the screws. As he mounted his bicycle, she meekly suggested that one of their neighbors might have a few screws on hand that he could buy, but he dismissed her and pedaled away. What did a woman know? To beg hardware from his neighbors would be revealing to them a weakness. What would they think?
He pedaled past the shops selling carved gorillas and small baskets woven from tough-stemmed grass, the tea shed where his least-capable neighbors brought their bags of freshly-picked tea leaves to be sold to the company buyer for a pittance despite the painstaking hours spent gathering them, past the houses where entrepreneurial neighbors operated beauty parlors, vegetable stands, and even a pool hall with one moth-eaten table, two warped cues, and sixteen nicked and beaten balls. On Sundays, Benon took a few bottles of gin to the pool hall to sell.
As Benon coasted to the bottom of the hill past the pool hall, he was nearly knocked over by a truck full of tourists rounding the curve from below. Benon jumped off his bike just in time to drag it safely into a ditch, but the call was a close one. The truck didn't slow as the driver wove furiously back and forth across the dirt road to avoid the worst of the ruts and washouts. Pedestrians--and bicyclists--weren't visible to him, although a white woman with an expression of horror on her face looked out the side window to see if Benon was all right. As Benon caught his breath from the close call, he remembered the story Joseph Mkala had told in the pool hall after a glass of Benon's banana gin.
"Did you hear of the good bad fortune that a man in Kicheri had last month?" Joseph asked, his words only slightly slurred by the gin.
"What man?" Benon had replied.
"I do not know his name, but everyone there knows him. He became very wealthy in an unfortunate way. That's why I said he had good bad fortune."
At the mention of wealth, Joseph had Benon's full attention. "What did he do?" Benon asked.
"He did nothing himself," the storyteller answered. "His child--I do not know if it was a boy or a girl--brought him a fortune by running across the road." Sensing Benon's interest, Joseph fell silent.
"What? I don't understand," Benon said.
"I said I do not know if it was a boy or a girl, but there was money involved." Joseph glanced nonchalantly at his empty glass, but did not touch it. Benon took the bait and filled it anyway, then leaned forward.
"What happened?"
"A truck carrying a rich tourist and his wife to a game drive in the Lake Virunda circuit ran over the child. It was killed instantly right before its father's eyes."
Benon sat back in his chair, horrified at the thought, while Joseph drained the glass. Benon could imagine his own despair at seeing the mangled flesh of a child, blood seeping from the eyes as he had seen in a goat struck by a speeding truck one time. His stomach wrenched as he imagined Dennis suffering such a painful death.
Joseph Mkala cleared his throat as he put his glass on the plank serving as a bar. "It was very sad," he said, "but also very fortunate." When puzzlement replaced shock on Benon's face, Joseph pushed the empty glass toward him. Benon regarded it, weighed the price of the rest of the story, then reluctantly gave in and dribbled out a few drops more.
The old man sipped again before he continued. "A policeman was summoned, of course, but the driver claimed the child ran in front of him so fast he could not stop. The people of Kicheri raised an uproar, however, and the policeman ordered the driver to surrender his license. It was then that the rich tourist took the policeman aside and spoke quietly to him. They stepped behind the truck for a moment, then the policeman came out and summoned the man whose child had been killed. The policeman talked to him behind the truck with the rich tourist. When they came back, the man carried away his dead child without a word and the policeman told everyone to go home. The matter was settled. The next week, the man bought a motorbike and everyone knew what had happened. It is a common thing. I thought everyone knew of it."
When Joseph Mkala said it that way, Benon dismissed the story as an unreliable rumor on its way to becoming a legend, embellished in the telling, repeated with just enough detail to sound true but not enough to verify. He regretted the two glasses of gin the story had cost him. It was probably no more true than the tale he had heard the rangers tell the tourists many times on the gorilla trek to scare them into following the rules. In the rangers' fable, a visitor just the week before violated the rules and slipped away from his tour group to get a better photo of the silverback. The poor fool fired his camera's flash in the massive male's face, the rangers always said, and lost not only the camera but his arm, which the gorilla ripped right out of its socket. The story wasn't true, but it excited the tourists while helping to keep them in line during the trek.
Now, Benon tasted the dust from the truck as he got back on his bicycle and continued toward Bugota. He tried to shake off Joseph's story, to bury it again deep in his mind where it had lain festering since he first heard it. What a horrible thing for a man to do, accept money for the death of his child. Such a thing was as bad as the stories Benon had heard of people who sold their children into servitude. At least the man in Joseph's story didn't purposefully push his child in front of the tourists' vehicle--or did he? Benon wondered.
He also wondered whether it was a boy or a girl child who was killed. Each would have different value. A boy would work for his father until he became a man and set off on his own. You had to feed him and clothe him, of course, and there was the cost of his education, which was now mandated by the government, but a male child was generally a money-making proposition. A girl, though, couldn't do as much work. She still had to be clothed and fed, too, although school was optional. A girl became prohibitively expensive if she didn't bring a large bride price, which was much more common than not. Benon knew he had been very, very fortunate to receive the high price he got for his older girl. They young one might well not ever marry, which meant she would be a burden for the rest of her life. Unlike a boy, you couldn't just push a girl out into the world to fend for herself when the time came.
The man at the building supply lot where Benon had bought his door that morning was getting ready to leave when Benon pedaled into his lot. He paused, his hand on the padlock already threaded through the hasp on his shop door.
"What can I do for you?" the man asked.
"I need some screws," Benon answered as he stepped off his bicycle. "Like these you sold me this morning." He pulled the twist of paper out of his pocket and unwrapped it to show the screws to the man. "I need four more."
"I remember you," the man said. "You gave the screws to the little boy, didn't you? Did he lose them?" Benon nodded sheepishly. The man didn't say
anything else, just pulled the padlock out of the hasp and went inside. As Benon started to follow, he came back out with four screws in his palm. "You were lucky I hadn't left yet. Anything else?"
Benon started to shake his head as he twisted the screws into the paper and put them in his pocket, then thought of something. "How much do you charge for kiln-fired clay tiles? Like the ones on the headman's house?"
The man didn't answer right away, and Benon thought he was sizing him up to see if he could afford such extravagance. Finally, the man named a price that was higher than Benon had imagined. He did some quick calculation and realized the roof tiles would cost more than the rest of the house. The only way he would be able to afford them would be though another windfall, although he didn't say that to the merchant.
Benon kept his expression neutral as if he shopped for such luxuries all the time. "I'll figure out how many I need and get back to you," he said.
"Of course," the merchant said. Benon felt the man's gaze on the back of his neck as he pedaled away. At least he doesn't live in Rwenkagi, Benon thought. With luck, no one from the village would come into the shop before the man forgot how Dennis had lost the screws.
Anger at the boy again bubbled up as Benon pedaled down the rutted road. He pulled over to let pass a truck loaded with plantains. It wasn't a close call, but the sound of the huge tires crunching on the road was scary. He imagined what they would feel like rolling over a leg stretched on the ground. How they would grind it into a mangled mess.
Benon's younger daughter was in no pain from her twisted leg, although it slowed her considerably. Unlike her older sister, the girl would never marry, of course, and Benon frequently complained to Felicity that the girl was likely to become a burden. She retorted that at least he didn't have to pay for an education for her like he did for the boys. What's more, she reminded him, the girl would be around to care for the two of them when they became old, so he should be grateful to have her. And he was, most of the time. Still, it would be nice to get a bride price for her or some other ready cash.
About half way home, Benon had to swerve around a stalk of plantains that had fallen from the truck. He started to stop, but realized the edible ones had already been stripped from the stalk. As he passed, he remembered Dennis tagging along behind him in the banana grove behind their old house. Like he always did, the boy was imitating his father's every action: as Benon stacked the spent banana stalks to dry so they could be burned, Dennis made his own little pile of dry fronds; when Benon stopped working to wipe the sweat from his face, Dennis rubbed his grubby hand over his own forehead. Benon bent over to yank a particularly stubborn stalk from the ground but didn't get it on the first pull. As he straightened to gather his breath for another try, Dennis darted over and wrapped his stubby arms around the thick trunk. He pulled up with all his tiny might and the stalk, looser than Benon thought, popped free. Dennis toppled backward rolling head over heels. The thought of it made Benon laugh.
It was almost dark when Benon pedaled past the pool hall. Joseph Mkala was leaning in the doorway. His head turned to follow Benon but his eyes weren't focused so Benon figured he probably didn't recognize him. What a disgusting waste of a man, Benon thought. What a horrible story he had told, a lie no doubt.
Benon chained his bicycle to a porch railing on his sun-dried brick home. Tomorrow is Saturday, he remembered. It is market day in the village and a new wave of tourists would be arriving as others depart, clogging the road with their vehicles. He thought it would be a good day to set up a stand by the side of the road where his daughter with the twisted leg could sell yams and bananas and perhaps a few bottles of gin. Dennis could help her; he was big enough now. The perfect spot would be at the bend in the road where the tourist trucks slowed to make the blind curve.
https://podiobooks.com/title/heart-of-diamonds
Holy Rites
Emerian Rich
"No! Papa!"
Sandro's life had been rich before that scream. It had been joyous and full of happiness. He had a wife, a daughter, and a profitable tile business in Sora, Italy. Every Sunday, he attended Mass, tithed to the church, and believed God cared for him.
But he never really understood God's true ways until that night.
"No! Papa! Help!" His daughter's last words tore at his heart like a dull blade, leaving pieces of heartache in every part of him.
His wife shot up in bed beside him. "Sandro!"
He grabbed his knife from under the bed and ran towards his daughter's room. Two men stood in the hall, one holding his daughter. They wore robes, with hoods hanging low over their faces.
Sandro raced forward, attempting to knock down the one with his daughter as his wife struggled to free her. Arms from behind him, held him back as another man took hold of his wife. Sandro's knife fell to the ground.
"Who are you? What do you want?" he screamed. "I'll give you whatever you want, just let them go!"
They said nothing. Dark looming figures, they moved mechanically, slowly, but with force. A hand over his mouth obscured his vision and soon he didn't hear his daughter or wife scream anymore. In fact… all sound was gone. He fell to the floor as his assailant dropped him and joined his brothers in the bedroom. In the dim light, Sandro could see the outline of his two girls, eyes open, necks slacked, piled on the floor like forgotten dolls. Blood pooled beneath their heads and Sandro's breath left him.
* * *
Sandro woke in a dungeon with his hands and mouth bound. The smell of damp earth overwhelmed him. Alone in the small cell of stone, he sat up. Straw covered the floor and very little light came from a candle in a rudimentary sconce affixed to the wall. There was a door, but he could no more open it than move.
Sandro spent hours crying for the death of his loved ones. He fell back to the cold stone floor, exhausted from grief. A tap and click came from the door. Two boys not more than ten years of age came in with water buckets and washed his face and chest. Sandro's eyes pleaded for help, but the boys would not make eye contact. When they left, a man in a robe – the same sort of robe as the men who killed Sandro's family – came into the cell. Though bound, Sandro scooted back as far as he could, his back flat against the wall as his mind swam with visions of torture.
Pushing his hood back, the man inspected Sandro with a sympathetic gaze.
"I know, it has been horrible for you," he said. His dark eyes, deep set into his face, were ringed in yellow topaz. Skin white as the Alps, his hair gray and cropped close, revealing a balding pate.
Sandro blinked back tears as he thought of his family.
The man frowned, stepping away and took a seat on a wooden crate by the door. "Sandro. Your name means 'Defender of Man'. Not a more befitting name could have been chosen for you. For God, in his infinite wisdom, has selected you to be his personal Defender of Man."
Unable to comprehend what the man said, Sandro wiped his bound hands against his face to move hair that hung in his eyes.
"I am Father Rafael and I was brought here much the same as you. I shall tell you what my mentor told me.
"Your family was precious, a gift from God to make your mortal life as pleasurable as possible, but now, the Lord has need of you. You shall be his servant on Earth, a protector of innocence, a warrior of the church. Your family did not suffer. They wait for you in heaven while you serve your holy purpose. One day, you will meet them again as a reward for your service to the Lord. So, don't mourn them. They are with God and the angels, praising your name."
Sandro felt a glow of happiness encircle him. Father Rafael came towards him. Sandro smiled behind his gag.
"Let us remove these vile bindings and go begin your service to God."
* * *
Candlelight flickered behind Father Rafael as Sandro knelt at an altar in a dungeon ceremonial room and looked up at his new mentor. There were five other men in attendance, all dressed in robes similar to Father Rafael. One, Father Rafael had called Monsignor, donned a red, i
ntricate brocaded sash around his neck. He was a large, bear of a man and a little shorter than Father Rafael who stood tall and thin next to him.
"Sons of God and servants of heaven," the Monsignor said. "Let us observe the gift before us with unsullied eyes. Let us bless him with our compassion and praise God on high for such a perfect and holy child. Let us become his teachers, his mentors."
"Let it be so," the priests said in chorus.
The Monsignor spoke to Sandro. "What is your name, my son?"
"Sandro Gabrielli," Sandro found himself saying in a monotone voice.
"Sandro Gabrelli, do you believe in the power of God to work in your life?"
"Yes."
"Then repeat after me. Dear Lord, remove from my mind…"
Sandro repeated each sentence as an echo after the Monsignor.
"Every thought or opinion which You would not sanction. Every feeling from my heart which You would not approve. Grant that I may spend the night working for You, according to Your will, according to Your wish for peace. Grant that I may wield the strength and power You have given me to destroy Your foe. That I may grant security to Your followers here on Earth."
Once Sandro repeated the last sentence, the Monsignor smiled.
"Let us begin The Rite."
Father Rafael stepped forward. "Sandro, my son, we shall now offer up to the Lord, your body and soul. If it is deemed worthy, you shall be now and forever His servant of justice. Lie on the altar."
Sandro lay on top of the altar, a chalice and knife above his head. In a normal state of mind, the knife might have scared Sandro, but he had such an overwhelming feeling of euphoria, it didn't occur to him to fear.