The Witch Doctor's Wife (13 page)

I
don’t believe it!” M. Dupree said, his eyes flashing with anger. “I don’t have time to hear your filthy lies.”

“Monsieur, I am telling the truth.”

“
Merde
. Tell me, why did you feed me those lies about a diamond, when you knew you’d get caught?”

Their Death could feel the vein on his left temple throbbing. He wondered if his boss could see it.

“Monsieur, if you please, I didn’t know I’d get caught, because there really is such a stone.”

“Then where is it? Oh, I get it now! You’re holding out for more money.”

“
Pardonez mois?
”

“You want a bigger cut of the deal; a larger percentage. That’s pretty cheeky, given that I haven’t even seen the stone.”

Their Death decided not to honor the accusation with a response.

M. Dupree stared at him, looking helpless, as if unsure how to proceed. “So,” he finally growled, “I’m right, aren’t I?”

Still Their Death held his tongue.

“Look, you will confess sooner or later. Wouldn’t you rather tell me than the
Bula Matadi?
”

It was not even a veiled threat. Their Death knew exactly what was at stake. The
Bula Matadi
would beat him with the dried hide of a hippopotamus which, being three centimeters thick, was more like being hit with a stout stick than with a whip. Cripple’s husband knew many men (and a few women too) whose backs bore permanent keloid welts thanks to the infamous
Bula Matadi
and their hippo-hide whips.

It was time to speak, but not to give up. “Monsieur, are you not curious to know the identity of the man who stole the diamond?”

His boss sighed dramatically. “Proceed. I’ll listen to your story, and then I’ll be even more pissed, because you’ll have wasted more of my time.”

“Monsieur, it will not have been a waste, if you take my word as truth. The man who stole the diamond is the same man who manages the food store for whites here in Belle Vue.”

The postmaster’s mouth opened and closed several times, without producing a sound.

“It’s true, Monsieur Dupree. I was on my way to meet you at the appointed hour, but this man—I don’t know his name—approached in a car. He said he recognized me because of this uniform.” Their Death referred to his blue shorts and shirt that were
de rigueur
for the job, even that of whitewashing stones.

“Go on,” the postmaster croaked.

“He said you couldn’t make it to our rendezvous and had sent him in your place. Then he demanded that I give him the small parcel I was carrying. I tried to refuse, monsieur, but he grew angry and snatched it from my hand. Then he drove away so fast he nearly hit some villagers, including my wife.”

“Which way did he go?”

“Past the village, and toward Luluaburg. Are you not angry that he nearly killed people?”

“Yes, yes, of course. Are you absolutely
positive
the man was Senhor Nunez? The manager of the store?”

“Absolutely, monsieur.”

The postmaster buried his face in his hands. “Go,” he said sharply.

“
Oui, monsieur
. Today I will sprinkle the path with water, so as to keep down the dust—”

“I don’t care what the hell you do. Just get the hell out of here and leave me alone!”

“Very well,” Their Death said, but he meant just the opposite. The diamond had been his discovery, yet to hear M. Dupree, it had been
his
to lose, not Their Death’s. That was so typical of the Europeans, was it not? They came, took what they wanted, and then if they lost something, they wept like children.

What if it were the other way around? What if Their Death was in Belgium, working as—that’s as far as he got. In fact, he couldn’t even imagine himself arriving in Belgium because, despite all his years in a Catholic school, taught by a Belgian priest, Their Death did not possess the visual tools required to mentally place himself there. He had never seen a picture of Belgium. Not one. The best he could conjure up was a sea of white, featureless faces, which still somehow managed to convey their deep displeasure at his being there.

Since his boss didn’t care what the hell he did, Their Death decided that a nice long nap should precede the ground sprin
kling, and then after that, perhaps another nap. Sleeping was the only way to dull the sharp sense of disappointment he was feeling, the pain of having his dreams literally snatched away.

Soon a new day would dawn in the Congo. When that day came the Monsieur Duprees, the OPs, all of the whites would be guests in
his
country. If they wished to remain here, they would have to treat everyone with dignity and kindness.

Second Wife had not slept well; the night had been far too cold for one thin blanket spread over three people. In fact, Second Wife had almost gotten up and sought heat amongst the bodies of her children, who shared another blanket. But it was Second Wife’s night in the marriage bed, and she was not about to forfeit a minute of it. After he’d performed his husbandly duties, Husband had lifted the blanket and invited Cripple to sleep next to him and share his body heat. And with Second Wife lying just on the other side of him!

Second Wife, who had been born and raised downriver near Charlesville, where the land was low-lying, had never experienced anything near this cold. Neither had she heard of a husband who invited a wife into his bed on a night that was not hers. And the nerve of that little woman. Did she not see the pain she caused her sister wife?

Besides, Cripple—who had been reared in Belle Vue village—was more accustomed to such cold. But if she was uncomfortably cold, she should have remained in the family bed with her sister children. After all, it is children who sprawl over their mother when asleep, unlike husbands, who roll in the other direction.
Eyo
, Cripple would have been much warmer in the children’s bed.

But Cripple was not known for her acts of kindness, nor for women’s intuition. The woman was selfish to the core, and needed to be cut down a notch or two before the family’s reputation was irreparably ruined. Perhaps it was already too late. For
years neighbors had been making jokes about Husband, calling him
Mukashi-mulume
. “Woman Husband.” Didn’t he know he was the laughingstock of the village? As the old adage went, It is easier to grow a stone than to restore a reputation.

Well, there was one in the village who might be able to help. And yes, it was taking drastic measures, but the time had finally come for that,
nasha?

This was the last straw. The camel’s back was broken, and there was going to be no calling in the veterinarian. As soon as he could be located, Nunez was going to be dragged in—hopefully kicking and screaming—and the OP was going to give him a piece of his mind before handing him his severance papers.

This morning had started off with Heilewid still so pickled from last night’s turn with the bottle that she couldn’t have shown up to join him for breakfast, had she even tried. And although there was coffee, there were no fresh croissants, and not enough butter to spread on the stale ones leftover from yesterday’s breakfast. When the OP questioned Cook, he smelled palm wine on the man’s breath.

Always stubborn, but not always practical, the OP ordered Cook to whip his fat butt over to the store and buy butter, and whatever pastries goods had been baked that morning. If he didn’t return in twenty minutes, he no longer had a job. Would he really hold Cook to such a strict timeline? Perhaps. But at least pondering the question kept his mind occupied until Cook returned. That, and watching the long-tailed birds flit across the lawn.

Cook was back in eighteen minutes, tears streaming down his face.
“Pardonez mois, monsieur,”
he stammered, “the store is locked and there is no one about. Not even the night watchman.”

The OP slammed the patio table with his fist. “Damn that Nunez. Damn that man all to hell and back.”

“Oui, monsieur.”

“I should have trusted my gut instinct; I should never have hired a Portuguese.”

“Monsieur?”

“What?” the OP snapped.

“Am I still employed, monsieur?”

“Barely. The next time I catch you drinking, the next time you can’t haul your fat butt into work in time to make fresh croissants, for certain that is the day you can say
adieu
to your job.”

“
Oui, monsieur. Merci!
”

“Go back to the grocery and wait. When Monsieur Nunez arrives, tell him I want to see him,
tout de suite
, at my office.”

“Oui, monsieur.”

“That is all, Cook. Ah—just one more thing. When I come home for my dinner, I expect it to be ready.”

Anyone with a modicum of brains would have known that now was the time to follow orders to the letter. Cook, who had been trained by the prior OP’s wife, was adept at making French sauces, but was woefully lacking the obedience gene. The fool didn’t budge.

“I said,
That is all
. Are you hard of hearing?”

“No, monsieur. But I think I may know the whereabouts of Monsieur Nunez.”

“At home in bed? With his wife? That is hardly news.”

“Monsieur, I think it is possible he is with Monsieur Dupree?”

“What? The two of them gone off hunting again?”

Cook shrugged. “Monsieur, there are rumors in the village.”

The OP formed a fist with his right hand and pushed hard the palm of his left. Now he was really pissed off. One of the least savory legacies of colonialism was the product of the conquerers’ loins. Half-caste children didn’t have a place in either society. The OP had seen children almost as white as he was, raised like Africans, but taunted by their playmates and adults alike. Of course
the reverse could happen as well, with the children being exceptionally dark-skinned. But even these never felt fully accepted, never quite achieving parity in their mothers’ tribes.

What was going to happen once their fathers retired back to Europe, and were no longer able to keep an eye on their offspring? What if the worst predictions came true and the Africans kicked all the Europeans out of the country? Would they kick the biracial children out as well? If so, the children certainly weren’t going to be welcome in lily-white Flanders, that much was for sure.

“Where are the children?” the OP roared. “In the workers’ village, or tucked somewhere back in the bush?”

Cook was a genius at looking confused. “Children?”

“Don’t give me that nonsense, damn it. Answer now, and answer truthfully.”

“But monsieur, this—this sort of activity…does not produce children.”

It was the OP’s turn to look confused. Gradually the meaning of Cook’s coded answers became clear. As it did, it answered other questions that had occurred to the OP, but which he’d pushed from his mind, telling himself it was all imagined. Well, this put a different face on things, didn’t it? It was one thing to father illegitimate children—colonialists did it all over the world—but this…this was of a more sensitive nature.

The OP was, at least in his opinion, a sophisticated man, who knew some homosexuals back in Brussels. Not being a particularly religious man, and quite secure in his own manhood, he had no truck with their lifestyle. But that was in Belgium, where people were racially homogeneous—not counting, of course, the Walloon-Flemish rift. Indeed, no doubt there were many Belgians who would rather their children be homosexual than take up with “the other sort of Belgian.” But here, in Congo, a Belgian of any stripe was supposed to maintain a certain standard of behavior, so as to set an example for the “less-evolved” African. It was merely
a fact of life that homosexual relations fell several notches lower on the morality pole than miscegenation.

“Go to the post office,” he said quietly. “If he is not there, go to his house. Tell him to meet me at my office in five minutes. And don’t repeat what you just told me to anyone. Is that clear?”

“
Oui, monsieur
.”

D
upree drove slowly along Boulevard des Rois. The wide dirt road only qualified as a boulevard because of the strip of flower beds down the middle, but when the jacaranda trees that lined it were in bloom, it was as impressive as any street in Brussels. If Belle Vue could lay claim to a city center, this would be it. The grocery store, the club, the mechanic shop, the petrol station, the primary school for white children—these were all located along Boulevard of the Kings, as the American missionaries called it.

Dupree accelerated when he saw the mixed cluster of whites and black servants waiting outside the entrance to the grocery. Their Death was right about one thing: Cezar Nunez was not
at work. He wondered if he should be the one to the break the news to Branca, but just as quickly discarded the idea. Branca Nunez was nobody’s fool. She knew what was going on—she had to. Cezar had compared her to a dead fish: cool, slippery, and totally unresponsive.

Let the OP be the one to tell the bitch. The OP didn’t have to deal with his own sense of loss, coupled with feelings of betrayal. Dupree would tell the OP that Nunez had absconded with the jewel, but nothing else. What the OP and his wife did behind closed doors was none of Dupree’s business, and what Dupree did was none of theirs.

Upon arriving at the OP’s house, the postmaster parked under the shade of a mango tree and sat quietly for a few minutes, in order to regain his composure. He needed to appear outraged—which he was on some level—but only that. Still, the smirk on the face of the houseboy who answered the door was enough to knock him off stride.

“I’m here to see the OP,” he said, but his inflection betrayed him, turning the statement into a question, and shifting the power to the servant.

“Wait here, monsieur,” said the boy, and then closed the door in his face. Imagine that! Closed the damned door right in his face, as if he were a door-to-door salesman or, worse yet, engaged in one of the street trades, such as rag collecting or panhandling.

Dupree was prepared to the give the boy a piece of his mind, but when the door opened again, it was the OP standing there.

“Come in,” said the OP. “Actually, come right through the house. We can have coffee on the verandah. But I can’t offer you any croissants, because the cook is lazy and the store is closed.”

“Tres bien, monsieur.”
Very good. Although things could hardly be worse for Dupree.

The OP gave him the seat with the best view, along with a
demonstration of mind reading. “The view isn’t as good as the one from the Nunez verandah. Have you been to their house?”

“Ah oui—mais non.”

“Which is it? Yes? Or no?”

“I have been to the house, monsieur, but not to the terrace.”

“So it is on the terrace that one gets the best view?”

Dupree wasn’t so stupid that he didn’t know the bastard was toying with him. “Monsieur OP, I have some terrible news.”

“
Oui?
”

“Monsieur, I was unable to make the rendezvous on the bridge this morning.”

The OP’s expression changed from playful to deadly. The cat meant business.

“What the hell happened?”

“I was there on time, sir. And my employee brought the diamond with him as he promised. But you see, Monsieur Nunez beat me to it.”

“I still don’t understand. Make some sense, man!”

“As my employee—Their Death is his name—was coming down the hill to the bridge, Monsieur Nunez happened across and stopped to chat with him.”

“
Chat
with him? What about?”

“The weather, monsieur—how cold it’s been lately. And then Monsieur Nunez noticed that my employee was carrying a small packet, and asked him what was in it. Of course Their Death refused to show him, but Monsieur Nunez became agitated—you know how volatile those Iberians can be—and so the poor man had no choice but to show him. And that is when Monsieur Nunez grabbed the parcel and drove off.”

“
Merde!
Are you
sure?
How can you be certain that this ‘Their Death’ man isn’t lying?”

“Monsieur, he is devastated—as am I! He had his future riding on this stone. Now he has nothing.”

“Where did Nunez go?”

“Most probably to Luluaburg. It is the closest real city, monsieur, with many Portuguese, and other foreigners, some with shady reputations. And then there is the possibility he abandoned the truck and walked across the border to Angola. That is a Portuguese colony—”

“I am not an idiot, Dupree! I don’t need a geography lesson. It’s also seventy kilometers to the border, and bush all the way. Most of it lion country. He would be eaten alive—if snakes didn’t kill him first.”

Betrayed though he was, the postmaster could not bare the thought of his lover dying alone in the bush. And the image of a lion tearing him limb from handsome limb was too much to bear. But if Cezar was in Luluaburg, there was always a chance of reconciliation. Someday. And if Cezar made it out of the country with the gem—well, wealth
and
reconciliation were even better.

“Monsieur OP, begging your pardon, I think the authorities in Luluaburg should be notified and—”

“Shut up, Dupree! Quit telling me my job.”

“Oui, monsieur.”

“You do realize that this diamond would have done more than just line your pockets, don’t you? It would not be exaggerating to say that it might have changed the future of this company. I can tell by that look in your eyes that you don’t believe me. I’m sure you thought I was just looking out for my own interests. But it just so happens, Dupree—and I don’t expect you to have known of this, because you work in the post office, not the mines—that production has dropped to the point that we are in danger of being shut down.”

Dupree said nothing. After all, he’d been told to shut up.

“Boy!” the OP shouted. “Bring whiskey, not coffee, and bring it now!”

Almost immediately the smirking servant appeared, bearing a tray with a bottle of malt whiskey and two heavy glasses. He set the tray on the table and picked up the bottle, but the OP stopped him from pouring.

“That’s all, boy.”

Dupree cringed. The OP, in his opinion, was not an evil man, but the way he treated the Africans was beyond patronizing. It was humiliating. The servant, rude and condescending as he was, was still a man.

But treating servants this way was something all the colonials did; boy this, boy that, it was boy, boy, boy for them. Except for Nunez. He treated his employees as equals. That was one of the many things Dupree admired about the man…

“Dupree! Aren’t you going to drink?”

The postmaster realized with a start that his drink had been poured, and the OP was waiting to make a toast of some kind. Or, worse yet, the OP had already made a toast, and was waiting for Dupree to respond.

“
Oui
,” Dupree said, as he raised his glass.

“I want you to get started on it immediately. Forget about the post office.”

“But sir, with all due respect, as postmaster I answer to His Majesty’s Colonial Government, not the Consortium. I cannot, as you say, ‘forget’ about it.”

The OP blinked with surprise, a reaction that Dupree noted with pleasure. Everyone agreed that the OP ruled Belle Vue like a dictator. Yes, most of the time he was a benevolent dictator, but he was never a man to be crossed. Even the Catholic fathers who ran the African school and the Americans who operated a guesthouse were always careful to stay on his good side.

“Look, Dupree,” the dictator said, “you run the post office, but it is on Consortium land. It has just been brought to my attention
that there are diamonds under your stinking building, so I am ordering you to move it.”

“You must be joking.”

“I never joke about diamonds.”

Dupree was only briefly tempted to call the OP’s bluff. Then he remembered that the OP had made good on his threat to fire two of his Belgian employees if they couldn’t stop their teenage son from shooting, with a homemade slingshot, the long-tailed birds that flitted about on the grassy lawns. “Boys will be boys,” the parents had said when warned about their son’s behavior, but were sent packing the next day when the kid shot three of the ungainly but spectacular creatures.

“Monsieur OP,” Dupree said, “you have my full attention. What is it you wish me to do?”

“Give me back that whiskey, man. I had no idea you were a teetotaler.” The OP waited while Dupree set down the glass. “You are to find out from this ‘Their Death’ fellow exactly where it is he found that diamond. And I mean exactly—within a meter.”

“Monsieur, what if he refuses to divulge this information?”

“Dupree, during the war I fought with the Resistance. Believe me, there is always a way to get a man to talk.”

The postmaster swallowed hard, wishing he’d slugged back the whiskey when he’d had the chance.

“
Oui, monsieur
.”

“You have twenty-four hours, Dupree. After that, your job won’t be the only thing on the chopping block. Do I make myself clear?”

The bastard was referring to his reputation. He was threatening to expose the postmaster’s private life, if he didn’t somehow persuade—or force—Their Death into revealing his diamond’s provenance. And it
was
still Their Death’s diamond. No money had changed hands. Not a single franc.

But even if the man could be made to talk, who in their right
mind would pass that information back to the OP? Not Dupree, that’s for damn sure. There were ways of smuggling diamonds out of the Congo—drastic ways, to be sure, but…

“Dupree! Do I make myself clear?”

“
Oui
, Monsieur OP. Very clear.”