Ivory Ghosts (20 page)

Nigel nodded. “Cheers, Jon, yes.”

“Auh!” Jon gasped from the dark.

A small hunched-over man stepped out from the shadows, wringing his hands.

“Why do you always hide like that?” Jon barked.

Nigel leaned over to me and whispered, “That's the gardener.”

I nodded.

“What now, Joseph? What have you done?” Jon put his hands on his hips.

Joseph tried to utter a few words, but nothing came out.

“Where's Chastity? Is she okay?”

Joseph nodded.

“Well, then, how's the baby?”

Joseph shook his head back and forth slowly.

“What do you mean?”

The man mumbled weakly, “She couldn't take the crying.”

Jon's tone turned somber. “Joseph, what do you mean, ‘She couldn't take the crying'? She was out trawling the Zambezi tonight, what would she know about a crying baby?”

Joseph drew a hand across his neck.

“Come on, Joseph, you're joking.”

Joseph shook his head. “It happened yesterday.”

“Really, hey?” Jon whispered, staring at Joseph intently as he groped for a cigarette.

Joseph nodded sadly, staring at the floor.

“Oh, Jesus.” Jon lit up, allowing a palpable pause. “What are you going to do?”

“Nothing.”

“What do you mean, ‘Nothing'?”

Joseph looked at the floor, while Jon took a long drag and exhaled. “Well, are you going to turn her in?”

Joseph shook his head, hands still wringing. “No one will believe me.”

Jon softened. “We can report it together.”

Joseph shook his head. His eyes were cast down and vacant. He whispered, “Mr. Jon?”

“You need money?”

“Yes, boss.”

Jon walked to the kitchen, opened a coffee tin above the refrigerator, pulled out a few bills, and handed them to him. “Be careful.”

Joseph bowed his head. “Yes, boss. Thank you, Mr. Jon.” Joseph crouched and clapped one hand on top of the other as he backed out of the room.

Jon stared out the window into the night, cigarette tip glowing. “Imagine a place so dark that a mother is driven to turn her baby's neck in the night.”

Nigel shook his head. “Christ, Jon, I'm sorry.”

“Do you think you could make a case for him?” I asked hopefully.

“Maybe.” He combed his fingers through his hair. “Bloody darkness.”

Nigel sat up. “You mentioned you saw Chastity on the Zambezi?”

Jon dismissed Nigel's question with a hand wave. “She's doing some grocery deliveries for Alvares. Bloody thought she was trying to pinch something off my boat.” He took another drag and then spoke in a slow, monotonous tone. “Pink palms pinching in the night,” he said as if reciting a line from a famous poem. He giggled. “Sounds poetic, don't you think?”

I couldn't think of anything to say. Clearly Jon was trying to derail a conversation about whom and what we saw in the
mokoro
earlier. I couldn't help noticing that Jon had become more cautious about telling even his close allies the details of his investigations. It still stung that he hadn't mentioned that he knew the witch doctor was dead. This made me wonder if he had any idea how much I knew about what was going on. As I looked at him, the Jon that I had been so tempted to kiss on his houseboat seemed worlds away, and I was glad we had managed to avoid taking that step—as much as I had wanted to at the time.

After we all sat in silence for a while, I finally excused myself. “I hope you don't mind me turning in. It's been a long day. And I haven't been able to sleep very well lately.”

We all said our good nights and retired to our separate sleeping quarters, Nigel in the living room, me in the guest room, and Jon in his room. I tried not to have anxiety about how the night might go sleepwise, but I couldn't help it. The dreams and visions from the antimalarial drugs were getting more and more explicit and disturbing.

It was dusk on a new-moon night. I was several kilometers away from the road, completely lost after searching for an elephant carcass to no avail and somehow breaking my arm in the process. I had wrapped it in a piece of my shirt that I had torn off from the bottom, leaving my stomach exposed to the thorns.

The whole area was dense thorny scrub, not a climbable tree in sight. If only I could get myself up higher out of the bush, I thought, I might be able to see the road in the distance.

My body was sore from too many scratches, and I was dying of thirst. There was no way I could get back to my vehicle safely in the dark with a broken arm and only two bullets left.

Not ready to give in, I walked faster, the strap of my .458 rifle digging into the shoulder of my good arm. I had to find a way to the road. I could move a lot faster that way and would be confident that I wasn't going in circles.

As dusk turned to pitch-dark night and the creaking, crackling sounds of the bush closed in around me, I ended up climbing a termitarium, wedging the rifle next to my good shoulder. It felt better up there, even if it was only a few meters off the ground. I spent much of a sleepless night trying to tame my vivid imagination, until a lioness came prowling.

She had crept up behind me and grunted. I was so surprised that I fired a shot to chase her off, which nearly blew out the shoulder of my good arm. I dropped the rifle and it skittered to the ground below me. “Damn it!”

I waited a while to move, but eventually retrieved the rifle and settled back on my perch. Then the hyenas came. First there was a whoop from a distance. Although my arm was broken and in a sling, it wasn't bleeding, and I was determined not to fall asleep. I could handle this, I thought.

A while later, there was another whoop and then that dreaded, horrific giggling hyenas make when excited, often about food. The hair on the back of my neck rose as I sensed movement all around me. Another call at close range and, suddenly, they closed in on me from three directions, giggling, laughing, and moaning demonically.

I braced myself and shot my last bullet. The hyenas scattered.

Finally there was silence and I lost track of time and nodded off, only to wake without being able to take a breath. I was surrounded again by demonic giggling. One of the grimacing devils grabbed my hand and another my foot, as a third delivered the crushing bite to my windpipe.

I woke at dawn in a cold sweat, totally disoriented, the sound of hyenas becoming the loud barking and yipping of a pack of dogs running down the street. I rolled onto my side, holding the arm that had been broken in my dream.

The vivid nightmares were getting more elaborate. And it was getting harder and harder to shake them when I woke up. They stayed vivid throughout the day, and it was affecting my judgment. I had to get some better sleep and hoped to switch to doxycycline, but I didn't want to have to go back to Geldenhuis to get it. I'd have to get Craig to deliver a supply.

I lay there for a few minutes, breathing as slowly as I could, trying to rid my mind of the horrific bloody images of being torn apart. The damp air was cool this time of morning, before the heat took over. Although we were heading into the full-on dry season, the humidity still lingered. That would change soon as June approached.

I sat up when I heard Jon groaning at the dogs from his room. He was cursing the incessant barking as he turned the radio on. I heard a BBC radio newscaster's voice reporting
continued gross violations of human rights in South Sudan
…
Misconceptions fuel Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

I could hear Jon get up and shuffle through the concrete hall toward the kitchen, where it sounded like Nigel already had the kettle on.

Syrian refugees in Tripoli and their Lebanese supporters protest the election expected to give the president a third seven-year term.

I got up and put on a short-sleeved nylon shirt and a thin cotton wrap skirt. I combed my hair out and put it up with a chopstick. Then I went to the bathroom to brush my teeth and splash water on my face. After brushing my teeth and thinking I looked like hell after all the nightmares, I turned on the tap and splashed my face with cold water. Mid-splash I heard a voice behind me.

“I trust you had a terrible night?”

Startled, I looked up in the mirror to see Jon's unexpectedly handsome torso above a kikoy sarong.

He leaned against the doorway provocatively. “Dogs penetrating the REM and nipping at the heels of sanity's unsuspecting Achilles tendon?”

I couldn't help staring for a second and then put my head down again and continued splashing. “Worse.” I spat water out of my mouth. “Hyenas.”

“Catherine, you are one of us!” Jon beamed, holding out a fresh towel. “Come, I've made tea.”

I turned around and looked at his torso again before wiping my face and following him to the kitchen, now getting the chance to admire his back. I had the sudden urge to be alone with him again, like in that intimate moment back on his houseboat. This thought surprised me, as I had gone to bed relieved that that moment had passed without being realized. But there it was again. Somehow his regular clothes made him look unkempt, more wiry than muscular, more hopeless than controlled. But seeing the muscles on his back move made me want to touch them, to have them take control of me. I hadn't felt this vulnerable in some time.

Jon handed me a mug, and I sat down at the table. “Thanks, Jon. Good morning, Nigel.”

“Morning, Catherine. Sorry about the dogs.”

“Me, too.”

Jon stared at me as I took a sip. He winced. “Would you like a dollop of cream?”

I smiled and shook my head as there was a knock at the door.

Jon looked down at his watch and moaned. “Come in.”

The knocking became banging.

“Bloody hell.” Jon marched through the empty living room to the front door. From the kitchen, I watched him peer out through the louvers and then open the door.

He shook a finger at the youth standing on the porch, wearing an untucked brightly colored shirt. “I told you not to come here. I thought I had made myself abundantly clear.” Jon fumed and waved the boy off. “Now, go! If you have information, I'll see you at the wholesaler at noon.”

“Chief, it's bigger this time.”

“Damn it. I will see you in town, later. Leave now!”

“But, Chief, it's tonight. If you want in, you know where you have to be.”

Jon shook his finger again. “Stop calling me ‘Chief.' See me in town around lunchtime.”

Jon slammed the door and marched back into the kitchen. “Bloody clueless.” He poured himself more tea and dug his hand into a box of rusks as there was a tapping at the kitchen window louvers.

“Ernest is involved,” said the boy.

Jon spun around and shooed him off. “Ernest has been incorporated into the flesh of a crocodile, now, get out of my garden!”

I assumed that Jon didn't want this boy knowing that he knew that Ernest was alive.

The boy spoke quickly. “The doc's got a new deal with UNITA. Four hundred tusks this time. Be ready at the Piggery with backup.” Jon tried to grab the youth between the broken louver and torn screen, and caught his hand for a second, but the boy ran off.

Jon clenched his fist while he gulped down his tea. “Cream of this country's youth. They should be out inventing things!”

I watched the boy disappear through the neighbor's hedge. “Do you think he's telling the truth?”

“He's a chancer. They're all bloody chancers, these smart youths with their dark sunglasses and bad Salvation Army shirts.” He slammed down his mug. “Four hundred tusks! They all think they're so very clever.”

“And Ernest?” Nigel asked. “I thought it took a month for a crocodile to digest a whole body,” he said with a smirk.

Jon swung at Nigel in jest and marched off to his bedroom. He called back to Nigel, “You don't want to think about how fast the crocodile can digest a meal.”

Nigel and I sat in silence, listening to Jon's murmurings from the other room until he reemerged in his ministry uniform just as the cricket scores were announced on the BBC. India had beaten Jamaica again. “Yes!” Jon clapped his hands in triumph.

Nigel got up to leave. “Jon, I'll see you this afternoon?”

“Yes. After three. Have a meeting with the magistrate at two. We'll get to the bottom of this evidence debacle with the good doctor's case.” He looked at me. “You haven't lived until you've experienced our fine legal system.”

I tried to smile, but in the back of my mind, I was worried about Craig's concerns about the evidence I obtained illegally in Zambia holding up in court. “Just let me know if there's anything more WIA can do. In the meantime, I'll work on coordinates for the census areas.”

Jon grinned. “Catherine, you're a good man in Africa.”

As I drove back to Susuwe, I passed a woman on the side of the road asking for a ride. When I realized it was Nandi, I slowed to a stop. I almost didn't recognize her dressed in a smart, brightly colored Western-style dress. “Good morning, Nandi. Where are you heading?”

Nandi clapped one hand over the other and crouched. “Good morning. I'm asking for a lift to Liadura.” She held her hand up to block the late morning sun while trying to get a closer look at me. “Oh, Miss Catherine. It is you.”

“How are you doing?” I leaned over to open the passenger-side door.

“Okay.” Nandi started to get in. “I am going to visit my father. Are you going Liadura side?”

“How far is that from Kongola?”

“About twenty minutes further south.”

“Sure, I'll take you there.”

When she got in, Nandi started clucking her tongue.

“What's wrong?”

Nandi pointed to a line of men carrying a coffin past a nearby kraal. “This matter of AIDS is very much troubling us.”

“It's getting worse, isn't it?”

Nandi nodded. “One funeral a week now. This morning, my father was preparing for another. No one wants to list HIV or AIDS as a cause of death, as no one would get life insurance, so the number of HIV deaths is much bigger than the authorities in Windhoek know.”

I shook my head as we watched a line of villagers amassed to follow the procession. A group of schoolchildren in the back of the line sang a quiet plaintive song that sent a shiver down my spine as we drove away.

“The priest at the Catholic mission mentioned some education programs?”

“There are some, but they can't reach everyone. And our culture makes it very, very difficult.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I helped out on a community survey recently.” Nandi started to laugh.

“What's so funny?” I looked at her, confused. “Who was doing the survey?”

“I think it was USAID.” She giggled. “You see, there was a question on the survey directed at the men.” Nandi laughed some more.

“Wait, why are you laughing?”

Nandi held a hand over her mouth to try to contain herself. “I know I shouldn't laugh. I know that this issue of HIV is very, very serious, but, Catherine, sometimes I think it's hopeless. And then maybe it's the laughter that saves us.”

“But what was the question on the survey?”

“The question asked how many women a man might have had sexual relations with.”

“Okay, so why is that funny?”

“You see, Catherine, there was an old man in the room and he himself burst out laughing as he tried to think of the number in English.”

“What number was that?”

Nandi looked at me, her eyes bursting. “Thousands, he said,
thousands.
”

“What?”

“He said that if you were to ask for the names of those women he would never be able to remember. And from too many countries.” Nandi turned to me with a somber face. “You see, Catherine, this is what we're up against.”

“I see what you mean.”

Nandi signaled for me to turn down a dirt track that led to a series of cornfields. Each small holding had a modest open-walled hut in the corner with women sitting underneath. As we passed I could see them either weaving baskets or scaring birds away by shaking a frayed rope that had shiny ribbons of material attached to it sporadically.

We drove west for about a kilometer until we came to an area with many clusters of the clay-and-stick compounds called kraals, some with reed doors, the more wealthy having metal doors with padlocks.

“Okay, we stop here.” Nandi pointed to a kraal on the side of the road. “This is my home.”

I pulled up to the door of Nandi's compound. “Is that the induna's kraal over there?”

Nandi nodded and smiled. “Please come inside.”

“Okay.”

Nandi led me into her kraal, where the induna's wife and sister were busy weaving baskets and talking inside the courtyard. They stopped short at the sight of me.

Nandi rattled off in Yeye and the women seemed to relax. She turned to me. “Would you like some watermelon?”

“Sure. Thanks. That would be nice.”

“Have a seat.” She waved her hand toward an empty reed mat on the ground.

The women stared at me as I sat down.

I smiled at the women.
“Musuhili.”

“Musuhili.”
The women nodded cautiously and returned to their weaving. They started whispering something, and Nandi snapped at them. They stopped and continued weaving.

Nandi ducked her head into a dark hut and returned with a large bowl of white melon. She waved the flies away and placed the bowl in front of me.

I gingerly picked up a piece of melon and took a small bite, trying not to think about the flies. The soft white flesh was cool and surprisingly sweet. “Wow, this is really good.”

“Yes, the elephants like it, too,” Nandi deadpanned.

I waited to see if she was giving me a hard time.

She smiled and burst out laughing. “You are looking very serious,” she said as she laughed.

I exhaled in relief. “I'm glad I don't carry the sins of the animal I'm trying to save.”

“The elephant savior.” Nandi took a bite of melon. “Why are they so important to you?”

I hesitated. How could she possibly understand my perspective, given all of her bad experiences with elephants? “I'd like to think that humans are smart enough to want to keep nature intact.”

“Aren't we a part of nature?”

“Yes, but we are better competitors than our elephant neighbors.”

“I don't know if many farmers would agree with you.”

“We clear forests, elephants prune them.”

Nandi laughed. “That is a funny image.” She ate more melon and spit out a pit. “And I have heard that that might be true in the desert, but around here, elephants do not prune, they knock over.” She looked at me thoughtfully. “But you must have a special bond with the elephant?”

“I recently saw two older females kneel down and pull a baby out of the river with their trunks. Something about the coordination of their effort really struck me. Their bonds seem just as deep as ours. They are very similar to us in many ways.”

“I have noticed that they like corn even more than we do,” Nandi teased.

I laughed and took another tiny bite of melon. “I'll give you another example. In Kruger, I often followed a young male elephant and his very old companion that was either on the last of his last set of molars or didn't have any teeth left, as he wasn't able to chew very well. The young male would chew up branches and place the mash in the elder elephant's mouth. The old bull wouldn't have been able to survive without his little friend.” Deep in thought, I sucked on my rind. “I'll never forget that.”

“You have a very different experience with these elephants. I would like to have that experience one day.” She placed her hand on my knee. “I would like to help you save your elephants.”

I smiled. “Have you had the chance to speak to the induna?”

Nandi nodded. “He says it is fine for you to talk with him next week.” She leaned over and whispered to me, “We can visit my brother in prison tomorrow. He is getting scared. I'm scared. Maybe he will tell you something about the people who buried the tusks in his yard.”

“Why would someone do that to him?”

“Maybe they want to scare him.”

“So, they're afraid of what he knows?”

She nodded as melon juice dripped down her hands.

“Thanks, Nandi. That would be great.”

“I must go to my field now.” Nandi got up. “There is someone I need to talk to about the witch doctor.”

I got up as well. “Okay, I can drive you there.”

Nandi shook her head. “No, it is just across the way. I can walk.”

“What's going on with the witch doctor?”

Nandi shook her head. “Someone is trying to take over his position. It's a very bad situation.”

“Anything you can tell me?” When I saw the witch doctor lying on the ground with a bullet in his head, I hadn't thought of the possibility that Ernest might be capable of making things escalate in his absence.

She shook her head and whispered as she saw me out. “We now have a worse problem on our hands. It is all very confusing. And very, very dangerous.”

I nodded good-bye to the women, who nodded in return as we walked out.

I followed Nandi through the courtyard and noticed a line of skulls propped against the wall of one of the small buildings—two elephant and three buffalo. “Are these natural mortalities?”

Nandi shook her head. “Trophies.”

“Whose trophies?”

“Those hunters that come in from the outside. They pay many, many dollars to shoot an elephant.”

“Who gets the money?”

“It comes in through our conservancy.”

“How many elephants?”

“Eight this year.”

“Eight?” I was expecting her to say two or three. “That seems like a lot for one conservancy.”

“There are many more elephants here now and this conservancy got very, very rich. But not anymore.”

“What happened?”

Nandi nodded and led me out of the courtyard. As she walked me to my car, she whispered, “It is a very sad story. We saved a million Namibian dollars to build a school. The Minister of Education came up for a celebration to accept the money last month but the chairman of the conservancy had taken it all.”

“Oh no! What happened to him?”

“My father thinks he may have gone to Botswana. There are many rumors. He may be involved with some of these ivory dealings.”

“Do you think your father would be willing to give me more information about the chairman?”

“I think so. But he doesn't want the government to know what happened yet. He took his place as chairman and is trying to repair the damage. It isn't fair when there are so many good people doing good things with the money we had saved in the past. My father is hoping to get the money back, but he is stalling for time.” She shook her head. “The chairman's name is Mr. Mazinga. He is a very, very bad man.”

“Mr. Mazinga?” I suddenly remembered the old man wearing a suit and carrying his shoes that Nigel had dropped off here when we were supposed to meet with the induna. “I think I saw him here recently.”

Nandi looked at me in disbelief. “Mr. Mazinga? Here?”

“I think so. Nigel had given him a lift. I believe that's who Nigel said he was.” I thought back to our conversation, remembering that Nigel seemed positive about him. He must not have heard yet what had happened.

Nandi clucked her tongue and shook her head. “There is very much going on here that is not good. You must not tell anyone about this.”

I opened my car door, got in, and rolled down the window. Nandi leaned over and whispered again, “And you cannot tell a single person that we will go to the prison. Especially anyone in the ministry. My father doesn't trust anyone.”

I could tell from Nandi's expression that I was about to walk into something even more serious than I had thus far. “Of course, Nandi, I won't tell anyone.” I waved good-bye as I pulled away and headed back to Susuwe.