The Witch Doctor's Wife (8 page)

It seems that the board was not thrilled with the OP’s per
formance. The Belle Vue operation had been carefully sited by a team of skilled geologists, yet the profits from the mine were somewhat less than had been predicted. Now, with the prospect of an independent Congo on the horizon—and nationalization invariably following independence—the mine needed to be producing a good deal more than the initial prediction.

Yes, it was possible that there were mitigating circumstances responsible for the low profit margin, factors that were out of the OP’s control.
That
, precisely, was why Wilhelm had been dispatched to the Congo.

Wilhelm Van Derhoef had arrived with an open mind, but he had immediately taken a dislike to the arrogant OP. Walloons were like that, weren’t they? Just like the French in that regard. And that’s exactly what they were when you came down to it—French. The political union of Walloons and Flemings that constituted the modern state of Belgium was no more a natural nation than was the amalgamation of almost two hundred ethnic groups that comprised the Belgian Congo.

Wilhelm—no, from now on he would proudly claim the name “Flanders”—slipped a small disk from the pocket of his trousers. It was a cheap mirror, purchased in the native market. One side was glass; the other side bore a portrait of Belgium’s King Baudouin I. How ironic was that? When an African held up a mirror to see his face, what others saw was the visage of their pasty monarch who was living in untold luxury on another continent.

Flanders glanced around the outer office, to make sure no one was watching, before picking the pimple that was on his neck. The pustule popped easily, causing him to smile. That’s exactly how the OP’s career was going to end.

T
he postmaster couldn’t wait to tell his lover about the morning’s events. Yes, it was broad daylight, and yes, it was a terrible risk, but it might also turn out to be the opportunity of a lifetime. News like this demanded to be shared.

Rich, rich, rich—they were going to be rich. And screw that offer of a reward. Not that he’d refuse it, but he didn’t think, not for a second, that the OP would follow through with it. Screw the reward because there was enough money to be made by selling the stone directly. With his contacts, he was just the man to do it.

The idea had popped into his head as Their Death was still talking. Ideas like that weren’t manufactured; they were slipped down from the cosmos, gifts from those who had passed on ahead. The stone the yardman had described, even with subtracting a
chunk due to exaggeration, would be well over a hundred carats. Maybe as much as two hundred. And a diamond that size—not that Dupree had a lot of experience with stones of quite that caliber—always presented several possibilities to the cutter.

That is to say, only the Brits, with their shamefully ostentatious royal regalia, and a few Middle Eastern potentates had any use for a diamond that exceeded thirty or forty carats. Therefore, the practice was to cut exceptionally large diamonds into more saleable sizes, generally keeping them in the five-to-ten-carat range. That way, the market was much broader, and in the end one actually made more money, as the sum of the parts was greater than the whole.

Dupree would be happy to “make change” for a fifty-carat diamond. All he needed was to be in possession of the yardman’s stone for one evening. The next morning he could present the OP with a fabulous diamond of approximately eighty carats, while he pocketed a handful of “chips” that he would later sell for millions of dollars.

“Why not just pocket the entire diamond?” he could hear his lover ask. “Why tell the OP anything?” Ah, but in the answer lay the genius of his plan.

He’d remind his lover that anyone leaving Kasai Province was rigorously searched for diamonds. There were ways to get around this, but they weren’t comfortable, and could backfire—you should pardon the pun. Yet, as the man responsible for handing the OP a priceless gem, what point would there be in searching him? None, of course; a smuggler would never have parted with a jewel like that.
Au contraire
, the OP himself would probably see Dupree off on the plane, possibly even with an African band playing on the runway. With all that racket, the dirt strip might finally be clear of pigs, which were an anathema to bush pilots everywhere in the tropics.

And since no one suspected that they were lovers, the object
of Dupree’s affection could also be on the plane. Sure, the postmaster’s sweetheart would have to be strip-searched—or maybe not. Maybe everyone would get a free pass that day. Only time would tell.

Madame OP had a first name—Heilewid—but pity the person who dared get chummy enough to call her anything but Madame OP. Even the three women at Belle Vue she might have called friends knew better than that. One was either in awe of Madame OP or afraid of her, but never on an equal footing.

That fine dry-season morning, as her husband contemplated chasing long-tailed birds with saltshakers, Madame OP plopped her sun-ravaged body into the deck chair that was hers alone, if only by unwritten decree. She snapped her withered fingers, and although it was barely past ten, a few minutes later a tall glass of vodka mixed with guava juice appeared on the glass-top table next to her. It wasn’t magic, of course, although it may have looked like that to any observers, ones who may have glanced away for the few seconds it took the black waiter to set the drink down and disappear.

Yes, it might appear that the OP’s wife was a drunk who wasted her life lying about a pool and turning her body almost as dark as the Africans whom she presumably deplored. The previous OP’s wife had at least made a pretense of visiting the workers’ village, spending several generous minutes distributing pamphlets, albeit in Flemish, on the benefits of feeding babies formula instead of breast milk. Well, tough titties, said the kitty. She wasn’t that OP’s wife and she’d never be like her. Didn’t want to be like her, in fact. At any rate, there wasn’t anyone in Belle Vue, black or white, who had the right to judge her, not after what had happened that awful day.

She’d been in the Congo almost two years when her identical twin sister, Geete, and her husband arrived for a visit. It was the
longest the sisters had ever been apart in their forty-plus years on the planet. One of the many activities planned for the holiday was to take Geete and her husband to witness the annual burning of the savanna over in Bashilele territory.

Both Geete and her husband, Günter, had taken to the idea at once. “It sounds so exciting,” Geete had said. “Can I bring my camera? If I get a really good picture I’m going to enter it in the summer art festival.”

Heilewid nodded in her deck chair, as the memory of that day became her reality for the umpteenth time. “Of course, bring your camera.”

Günter’s eyes shone. “And guns too, yes?”

“I’m afraid not,” the OP told his brother-in-law. “Bows and arrows only. You see, the Bashilele light this vast circle of fire—maybe five kilometers across—and force it to burn inward. As it burns, any animals that get trapped are forced to escape through the flames. Either that, or die trying. You wouldn’t believe what they manage to catch that way: antelope, warthogs, porcupines, hyenas—even leopards. But if you were to shoot, there is too much danger of hitting one of the hunters on the other side of the circle.”

“Sometimes even people get trapped inside the circle of flames,” Heilewid said. “Last year it was a little boy. He couldn’t have been more than five years old.”

Geete grimaced. “A boy? What was he doing there?”

“The women and children have a part in this hunt as well. Their job is to swat down the giant grasshoppers that the flames stir up. They use pads woven from palm fronds and mounted on long poles. It’s quite something to see them at work.”

“But what on earth do they want with giant grasshoppers?”

“I bet I know,” Günter said. “They eat them, right?”

“Ugh, Günter!”

“He’s right,” the OP said. “For the natives it’s just another
source of protein. Besides, it’s all a matter of culture, isn’t it? We eat cows and pigs, but not cats and dogs.”

Geete shook her head adamantly. “That’s different; those are companion animals. Anyway, there isn’t enough money in the world to get me to eat a grasshopper.”

Günter’s eyes twinkled. “What about a cruise to America?”

“You’re serious?”

“Absolutely. But you have to eat an entire grasshopper.”

“Except for the wings,” Heilewid said. “Nobody eats the wings.

“Deal!”

They were all still in high spirits when they arrived at their prearranged viewing site. But almost immediately Geete spotted a tall anthill poking above the dry elephant grass. It appeared to be less than a hundred meters away.

“Let’s climb up,” she said. “We’ll get a much better view.”

“Nothing doing,” the OP said. “This site’s been cleared by the Bashilele headman. It’s in the safe zone.”

“Yes, but you already see which way the fire is headed. That anthill is every bit as safe.”

“We don’t know that for sure,” Heilewid whispered. She should have shouted. She should have leaped on her sister and pinned her to the ground, while the men tied her up with the winch chain they always carried in their vehicle.

“Look, I’m a grown woman; I can do what I want. And yes, I may be adventurous, but I’m not stupid. From up there, on that anthill, I’ll be able to see if the fire changes direction—in fact, long before you do. Who knows, I might save
your
lives.”

“Then I’m sending our tracker with you,” the OP said.

“Watch out for mambas,” Geete said. It was the last thing she ever said to her sister—at least while she was alive.

Their charred bodies were found two days later, by which time
the ashes that covered the savanna had cooled enough to permit recovery. By then a hungry hyena was defending the human remains from a pack of jackals. The OP shot and killed the hyena and two of the jackals. Geete was subsequently buried in the small white cemetery on the village side of the river, and the tracker’s body was returned to his people.

At least that’s what Heilewid was led to believe. The awful truth was that neither the OP nor the Consortium doctor could definitively identify the remains. It was quite possible that the tracker’s people buried Geete, and a black man was buried in the white cemetery. But ashes to ashes, what did it really matter?

At any rate, from then on Heilewid loathed: she loathed her husband, she loathed Geete’s husband, she loathed Africa, she loathed the Africans, she loathed the animals, and most of all she loathed herself. As a veteran fire watcher, she had known that the hunts were dangerous, but she had given in to Geete’s pleas to get a better view.

They say that losing a twin is like losing half of yourself. Surely, then, losing an identical twin was like losing all of yourself. But not so. Enough of you remained to feel pain, so that when you weren’t hating, you were hurting. It was an unbearable situation in which to be. If one chose to drink oneself into a stupor, it was nobody’s business. Nobody’s business at all.

Branca couldn’t believe the American’s audacity. She was both appalled and delighted. To not just refuse an invitation, but to turn around and issue one of her own—now there was a woman she might actually like. And although she would miss out on showing off at the club, she would finally get to see the inside of the guesthouse.

Situated as it was, above the falls on the Belle Vue side of the river, the Nunez villa was directly opposite the missionary facility.
Just yesterday she’d seen the American woman pick a flower and tear off the petals one by one and let them flutter on the breeze generated by the mighty torrent of water. Branca had been able to identify the flower as a zinnia, thanks to the high-powered binoculars she kept on the patio at all times during the dry season. One never knew when the glasses would come in handy. Once Branca had witnessed a fisherman in a dugout canoe plunge over the edge, both craft and occupant disappearing forever.

At night the lighted rooms of the guesthouse offered even more entertainment. Under the mistaken idea that no one could see into the rooms facing the falls, the American couple who’d built it had seen no need to spend money on shutters and draperies. What they hadn’t counted on was the fact that a powerful pair of binoculars could deliver startlingly detailed glimpses of naked missionaries as they prepared for bed.

At last Branca was going to get to see the house close up. As far as she knew, this was a privilege that none of the Belgian wives could claim, with the possible exception of the OP’s wife. It was possible that, before the fire incident, which preceded Branca’s arrival in town, the OP and his wife had been invited there for a meal. But that invitation, had it even been issued, would have been out of obligation. It scarcely counted. Tomorrow afternoon…Branca adjusted the focus with her right index finger.

What the hell? There was a short African woman hobbling about in the kitchen, following the American around like a puppy. Leaning against a wall, his lips pursed in obvious disdain, was that mean-tempered housekeeper the Singletons had hired years ago. Belly-Button Hernia. Was that his real name? At any rate, Branca’s housekeeper called him that, and said that because of his foul disposition, he had many enemies in the village. At the moment he looked like he wanted to scoop up the crippled woman and throw her over the falls. Well, well, this was certainly something to investigate when she went over for tea. Finally, life
in Belle Vue was beginning to get interesting—although Branca would pack her bags and head back to Portugal in a heartbeat, if her ship came in.

She chuckled hoarsely as she lit another cigarette. With her luck the ship would come sailing up the Kasai River and plunge over the falls before delivering its precious cargo. But ship or no ship, things were looking up.