The Witch Doctor's Wife (18 page)

I
f Branca was even the least bit upset by a black man’s presence in her living room, she most certainly did not show it. Either she was every bit as noble as she claimed, or else she held very progressive social views. Dupree almost wished he’d taken the time to get to know her better, under more congenial circumstances. Perhaps even they could have been friends—no, only the Danes were that open-minded.

“Well,” she said, “would you gentlemen prefer your morning coffee out on the terrace, or in here? The terrace has an incomparable view.” She smiled at the African. “It is said that it is the finest view in all of Kasai Province. Perhaps even in the Congo.”

“Senhora,” Dupree said, “while we appreciate your offer, we did not come for coffee.”

“Yes, I am aware of that.” She rolled her eyes slightly. “But you see, monsieur, these walls have been known to possess ears.”

“The terrace would be very nice,” Dupree agreed quickly.

“Certainly.” She called out instructions in Portuguese before leading them to the terrace.

Dupree had sat there only once before, when Branca was in Portugal visiting her children, and the staff had been dismissed for the day. Sitting there again tore scabs off the wounds that had barely begun to heal.

“Now,” she said, and flashed her husband’s lover a smile. “What does the slimy little bastard have to say for himself?”

The postmaster could see the horrified expression on Their Death’s otherwise handsome face. Too bad. He was a nice enough fellow, but if he didn’t know by now that whites could behave this way, then he should be thankful for his luck thus far.

“This slimy little bastard,” Dupree said, enunciating each word clearly, “has a business proposition for you.”

“Save your breath, Monsieur Dupree, I’m not interested.”

“I see. Not only is your family titled, but it must be enormously wealthy.”

“Monsieur Dupree, my finances are no concern of yours. Whatever Cezar promised you, the deal is off. But I must say, your audacity is exceeded only by your bad looks.”

Dupree touched his hair. “What’s wrong with my looks?”

“A pig would refuse to sleep with you. Whatever it is Cezar saw in you, it was nothing physical. I can assure you of that.”

“Hmm. Were I not such a generous man, I would wax eloquent about your personality, which surely has driven many other men screaming from your boudoir.”

“Why you—you—” Inexplicably, Branca Nunez burst into laughter.

Dupree watched, transfixed for a moment, then felt compelled to laugh as well. Meanwhile Their Death regarded both of them suspiciously. Who could blame the man? Certainly not Dupree. No wonder many Africans thought the white man was crazy and unpredictable.

But it was Branca who came to her senses first. “So what is your proposition?”

“Let us assume,” Dupree said, taking his own sweet time, “that you don’t know where your husband is—”

“Which I don’t!”

“Then one might also assume that you feel betrayed—”

“No need to assume, you idiot. Of course I feel betrayed.”

“In that case, you might be interested in helping me set a trap.” “Go on.”

“Cezar’s mother was born and raised in Angola. That side of his family has been in Africa for six generations, and he still has cousins in Nova Lisboa, right?”

“Why don’t you tell me. You seem to know as much about him as I do.”

Dupree smiled to himself. As angry as he was at Cezar for stabbing him in the back, it felt good to have his wife acknowledge their relationship, even in a roundabout way. If only Cezar hadn’t been so greedy, life could have been perfect.

“Yes,” he said, “he still has family in Angola. My point is that since he is a man on the run, he might well contact them. Or he might try to contact friends he’s made in other parts of the Congo. So my plan is this: you contact all these people as well. Tell them to tell Cezar that you need to see him.”

“That’s a silly plan. He ran out on me. Why would he risk seeing me?”

“Tell him that one of your children is deathly ill—”

“Shut up, you horrid little man. How dare you drag my children into your affair with my husband?”

“This isn’t about our affair; this is about diamonds.”

She laughed shrilly, a like screeching parrot. “Yes, I know all about this fabulous diamond—one that you almost had, but then got snatched away from you.”

“Tell Cezar that there are more diamonds where that came from. Lots more.”

“What?”

“Are you deaf, as well as stupid?”

“I heard you. Go on.”

“Tell him that you have learned the exact location where the diamond was found. Tell him that there are literally hundreds more like it. Some even much larger.”

“How am I to convince him that I know this information? Theoretically, you’re my enemy. Why would you have shared this information with me?”

“Oh, I didn’t. This gentleman here did. When he learned that you were the wife of the man who had robbed him, he came to you for compensation. Of course you refused, but then you got to talking, and it came out in the conversation that there are more gems and—well, to make a long story short, you saw the source with your own eyes. You and Monsieur Their Death have come to an understanding, and all you need now is someone in Angola to help you smuggle the stones across the border.”

“That sounds so far-fetched that it’s laughable.”

“That may be, but greed is blind.”

“So you’re serious about doing business with that little rat?”

“Absolutely not. All we want is a chance to steal the diamond back from him.”

“But why, when you have hundreds more at your disposal?”

“
Mon Dieu!
Cezar was right; you really
are
as thick as a post. That part is a ruse as well. Branca, perhaps you should know that Monsieur Their Death and I are prepared to split the money three ways. Evenly, of course.”

Branca took her sweet time to respond, staring off into the distance, almost as if she were catatonic. Suddenly she sat ramrod straight.

“
O meu Deus
,” she said softly. “I can’t believe what I’m seeing.”

Cripple knew that the truck belonged to Senhor Nunez. There was no doubt. It was the only truck she’d ever seen that was green. Funny, she’d told herself when she first saw it, that Tshiluba had no word for green. French did; in fact it had many words, describing different shades. But in both France and Belgium, the landscape was gray and brown, or sometimes white with snow. She’d learned this from her brother’s teachers, who often marveled at their good fortune for not having to live through yet another Brussels winter. But here in the Congo, where everything was green for most of the year, the only way to describe the color was to say
mai wa matamba
. Literally it translated as “water of manioc leaves,” and referred to the green water that was the result of cooking tender manioc leaves.

And now the truck, the very one that had been aimed at Husband, and which had almost mowed down a dozen people, was sitting beside the entrance to the path that led to her family compound. There was no one in the truck—at least that Cripple could see. This was very bad news indeed.

Cripple’s first impulse was to rush home and protect her family, but before she could hobble three steps, the words of an ancient proverb came to mind: let the jackal fight the jackal, and the hyena fight the hyena. Of what use would she be defending her family against a white man? None. And although the
mamu
was not a man, she was white, and knew the ways of white men. At the very least she might know what to do.

Never had Cripple moved so fast. It is possible even that she flew, although later she would have no memory of that. But luck
was not with her, nor were the spirits obliging, for when she rounded the bend again, there was no sign of Mamu Ugly Eyes and her entourage.

Kah!
The
mamu
was going to be sorry she’d gone off with the village children: they were going to pester her beyond endurance. And what did this say of her concern for Cripple? More importantly, what did this say
about
Cripple?

Stupid, stupid Cripple. How foolish she’d been for entertaining the idea that she and the young American woman might someday be friends. Husband was right; there can be no friendship between master and servant, predator and prey, white people and Africans. One may as well expect a lion and an antelope to be friends. Yet if the situation were reversed…

The sound of the approaching green truck tore through her reverie just in time. Without even turning to look, Cripple threw herself out of its way, landing in a cloud of dust. When it cleared, her heart was still pounding.

The Nigerian thought he was hallucinating. He’d smoked hemp on many occasions, and snorted cocaine, but only to be sociable. Drugs didn’t seem to do anything to him. Friends told him that was because his mind was too powerful, too unwilling to relinquish control of his body. “Just let it happen,” they said. “You’re among friends.” But he couldn’t. Or wouldn’t.

Now, trapped in a cave behind a waterfall, with nothing to rely on except for his mind, it suddenly decided to take a detour from reality. How else could he explain a green truck passing right before his eyes? It was gone in a second, buried by tons of foaming water—no, there it was again, bobbing up to the surface of the catchment pool, beneath the overhanging mouth of the cave.

The water in this relatively quiet spot still boiled with energy, but a few random things—some logs, a raft of water hyacinths, a drowned hippopotamus calf—were briefly resurrected before dis
appearing forever. The long-dead calf had surfaced six times, as if unable to accept its fate.

It was only when the truck broke the surface of the catchment pool a second time that the Nigerian allowed himself to believe in its existence. With this new awareness came the realization that there was a person inside the cab of the truck. Although the face was covered with blood, he could tell by the long blond hair that it was a white woman.

The Nigerian didn’t have to think what to do next; he would not let a woman drown. Even a white one. But as he dove into the pool, the truck began to sink. He lunged at the door and managed to grab the handle. It would not open.

The woman pressed against the glass, her lips somehow moving. She was like a bloody siren beckoning him ever downward. Again and again he tried to wrench open the door. To smash the window. He would not let go, would not give up. It was not in his nature.

Then the two of them, separated only by glass at the moment of their death, were caught forever in the undertow.

A
s fast as flies alight on a carcass, the people of Belle Vue, both black and white, converged on the bridge that spanned the falls. Tragedy knows no skin color, and for perhaps the very first time, the races mingled freely. Or so it seemed to Branca Nunez.

One minute there was a green truck—her husband’s truck—hurtling down the steep hill on the native side of the river, crashing through the barrier on the downriver side. The next minute the bridge was crawling with blacks and whites, like house ants and termites exposed to the sun. Meanwhile Branca sat rooted to her chair, as did the postmaster and his native employee. It was as if the three of them were spectators at a play, watching a live
drama unfold. Who knows how long they watched, before the postmaster was on his feet

“Did you see that? My God, I can’t believe it. Cezar—oh, my God!” Dupree ran to his car and drove off without another word.

Branca stood slowly, gripping the edge of the round terrace table for support. “Monsieur Their Death, how well did you know my husband’s truck?”

“Well enough, senhora.”

“Then he is dead, yes?”

“
Oui. Il est mort
. No one has ever survived the waterfall. Even the heavy dugout canoes that go over are broken like twigs.”

“Yes, but this was a truck made of metal. Surely that is stronger than a canoe.”

“Let us see,” said the African. He moved quickly along the edge of the terrace, although it was clear by the way he gripped the railing that the height scared him.

Branca was right behind him, scanning the frothing surface for the glint of a shiny bumper, the black of a tire. Anything, any part of the truck. She dared not allow herself to imagine Cezar being thrown from the vehicle. Had this been the case, survival was impossible.

Even if he managed to survive having tons of water dumped on him, and was lucky enough to avoid being bashed against hundreds of rocks, Cezar stood no chance with the Nile crocodiles that waited hungrily where the river resumed its normal activity. The giant reptiles waited eagerly to grab whatever bounty the falls delivered: a monkey that had slipped from its perch, an antelope that had misjudged the current’s strength, a human, even large fish that hadn’t turned back soon enough. And,
if
by some miracle, Cezar survived both the falls and the crocs, he could not possibly survive an attack from the territorial hippos that claimed the more placid waters further downriver.

But there was nothing to see. The green pickup that had swept over the edge like a bit of flotsam had completely disappeared. No one knew how deep the catchment basin was; no one had ever needed to know. Perhaps the pickup was well on its way to China, or perhaps it was under a few feet of water, forever pinned down by the thundering torrent.

Even though Branca felt as if her heart had been ripped—still beating—from her chest, she felt a need to get closer. She needed to stand on the bridge, by the broken railing, as close to the space last occupied by the man with whom she’d spent all of her adult life. The man who’d fathered her children.

“I’m going down to the bridge,” she announced, more to herself than to Their Death.

“I will come with you,” the African said.

Branca scarcely heard him.

No one paid attention to Cripple as she tried to push her way through the crowd for a better view. No one cared that she finally gave up trying to fight a sea of elbows and shifting feet. No once noticed a small crippled woman, barely larger than a child, who climbed a frangipani tree to see something—anything—that confirmed what she’d been told: that the Portuguese man who’d stolen the diamond from Husband was now at the bottom of the Kasai River.

Cripple wondered how long the crowd would mill about on the bridge, held back from the gaping space in the railing by Belle Vue’s two policemen, one white, the other an African of the Bakongo tribe. She supposed that some would wait even until dark, not wanting to miss the possibility that the waterfall would regurgitate the man, once it had tasted his bitter flesh. Well, let them wait. It was enough to know that the man was dead.

Having climbed down safely from her perch (Why was it always harder going down than up?) Cripple walked slowly back
up the hill to the village. The excitement of the crash had temporarily eased the discomfort in her belly. Now it returned, even more intense than before.

Although there were still many hours of light remaining, all Cripple wanted to do was lie on a sleeping mat in the darkness of her hut. Perhaps she would even fall asleep, something she rarely did during the day. Sleep was the enemy of illness, and often brought with it the promise of healing. Many a night the children had fallen asleep with fevers, only to wake the next day as healthy and vigorous as young baboons.

The children—aiyee! They could not be counted on to let her sleep in peace while the sun yet shone. Sister Wife was a good mother but lacked the ability to control her offspring. “Do not disturb your sister mother,” she’d call out, as the children ran screaming, in and out of the hut, but she would do nothing to stop this inconsiderate behavior.

Cripple supposed that this lax attitude toward child-rearing stemmed from the fact that Second Wife came from a family of prolific breeders. She claimed to have eleven living brothers and sisters, even though her mother had no sister wife, and the infant mortality rate in her birth village was one in four. This ability to spit out healthy babies every year was precisely why Husband had chosen her to be his second wife, and had been willing to pay such a ridiculous bride price. Who ever heard of a woman that was worth eighteen goats, seven sheep, three pigs, and twenty-nine chickens? And yes, three bolts of cotton cloth in the most beautiful patterns and colors imaginable. Clearly, some things were overvalued.

When she reached the family compound, Cripple was slightly annoyed to find that no one was there. Not a soul. What a waste of valuable emotion it was to prepare oneself for an unpleasant encounter, and then be unable to vent. No doubt Second Wife had gathered up her brood and rushed them down the hill to gawk at
the bridge. Cripple hadn’t seen them in the crowd, because she hadn’t been looking for them.

But you couldn’t blame Second Wife. She lived a dull life, one made interesting only by calamities and illness, and only rarely did she have a reason to celebrate. She had never been in a European’s home. Curtains at the windows, rugs on the floors, sheets on beds so soft that if you lay down, you’d never want to get up—these were all beyond her ken. She had never seen a fork, much less used one.

At first Second Wife hadn’t believed Cripple’s story about a chair upon which one sat to do one’s most personal business, dismissing it as so absurd that it wasn’t worth laughing at. But when Husband corroborated Cripple’s outlandish tale, it was all Second Wife could talk about for days. As cruel as they were to Africans, there was no denying that the whites—of any tribe—were an endless source of entertainment.

So yes, it was fitting that Second Wife should gather her young ones in her arms and run down the hill to see if the white man had been killed when his truck plunged off the bridge. What she saw and heard that afternoon would help relieve the tedium of pounding corn and manioc in the mortar, and of working in the fields. Whether found dead or alive, or never found at all, the Portuguese store owner was helping to make Second Wife’s life more tolerable. Good for her.

With no one to complain to, Cripple picked up a corncob and tossed it at a rooster. The stupid bird stood his ground and cocked his head, as if to say, “Watch out, you little woman. I’m almost as big as you are. There’s no one here to save you, so I might just decide to peck you to death and eat you for
my
supper.”

Cripple stepped into the cool, quiet darkness of the hut, hoping to fall into a deep, healing sleep. It did not happen.