As I near the tangle of bush, a boy appears. He wears a white shirt, enormous on him, so that he seems a scarecrow. I sense I’ve seen him before, but there are so many ragged children. The boy looks at me with intense, unashamed curiosity. I am a blue elephant in a pink tutu. I am a circus grotesque wearing bells.
‘This way, this way.’ I know it can’t be the same boy from Butiama, only another boy saying the exact same thing. I see the shirt is torn at the back, almost entirely, revealing the sinewy black body beneath. ‘This way, this way.’
The path threads the scrub, making sudden, inexplicable turns. After several minutes we burst onto a dry, white inland wash. Bicycle tracks crisscross the sand, originating from the low shed of a salt works on the other side. I imagine men with bare hands gathering the salt residue from the high tides, rendering it slowly in the steaming vat. I imagine the merciless salt on their rough hands.
Halfway across the wash, there is an island of ragged trees. As we approach, I see ribbons tied to branches, strands of tinsel, bits of colored cloth. I glance around: we are alone. Except, of course, for the man in the trees.
The boy looks at me again. Stares. Perhaps he’s never had the chance to examine a white person. Our skin is like the underbelly of fish. ‘This way,’ he says, gesturing to the island grove. I reach in my pocket, find some coins and hand them to him. He smiles and runs off across the sand, the gap in his shirt flapping open. I step into the trees.
There is litter on the ground — the torn wrappers of incense sticks, empty bottles of rose water, shredded newspaper, dead matches, the caps of Sprite. The scrubby trees shed their leaves eagerly, and I smell the decaying leaves as well as the smell of the old man, which is — surprisingly — Old Spice. Mr Sese wears a Mao-style polyester suit, town shoes and thick glasses. He steps forward, shows me to a chair. ‘Madam, welcome.’
He is not some mad-eyed Rastafarian in rags and beads. He looks like a librarian. ‘Would you like some tea?’ The flickering light glints off his glasses so that for a moment I cannot see his eyes, which are thick and pale with glaucoma. I can hear Dorothea: So, he has no medicine for that.
Mr Sese offers me a cup in one hand, holding a large red thermos in the other.
‘It’s just tea?’
He laughs, ‘Yes, just tea.’ He pours. ‘I cannot give you medicine without knowing your complaint.’ He sees I don’t quite understand. ‘Just as with your medicine, with mine there is a different treatment for a different ailment. Would you like me to test the tea?’
I take a sip to make his point. Then I hand him the box. ‘This is why I’m here.’
He opens the cardboard flaps, glimpses inside, and shuts the box with scrupulous objectivity. ‘And how did you come to be in possession of this?’
I tell him the story: Magulu, Kessy, Dorothea. ‘She’s a doctor, a proper doctor, but still it frightened her.’
‘Madam, I’m an improper doctor and it frightens me.’ He peers over his glasses. ‘Your friend, she appreciated the powerful nature of this spell.’
He puts the box down on the sandy earth. He considers his words. ‘This magic finds the person for whom it is intended.’
‘But I have it.’
‘Yes.’
I shake my head. ‘I only took it because they didn’t want it. Dorothea and Kessy. They were afraid.’
‘It was not for them.’ He is matter-of-fact.
‘Then who was it for? It came on the bus.’
Did it? I think back. Was it a Thursday? Kessy said some children found it on the roundabout. And then Martin, and then Martin—
Slowly Mr Sese shakes his gray head. ‘Madam, the nature of such magic is very sly. It uses people. And it has come to you by whatever means. It has come to you.’
‘It wasn’t intended for me,’ I say, deciding to stand, to leave.
‘Then why have you kept it?’
‘Because of Dorothea. She asked me to help.’
‘You could have just thrown it away. As you don’t believe. Yet, you brought it all the way to Tanga. To me.’
The boy, I think, the boy in the white shirt. The uchawi will direct you.
This way, this way.
‘How can I throw it out?’ I look at Mr Sese. ‘It was a person. Isn’t there a ceremony? Can’t you take care of it? That’s why I’m here, isn’t it?’
He puts his hands up as if to slow me down. Then he closes his eyes and mumbles under his breath. I’m relieved that he looks ridiculous.
Finally, he opens his eyes. ‘They are okay, the dead. Don’t worry about them.’
I take my wallet out of my bag. I’m pulling out two crisp, bank-fresh bills. ‘Is twenty thousand enough?’
‘But the living. The living are always the problem.’
As he doesn’t take the money, I put it on his chair. I start away, and he says, ‘He is coming for you.’
‘What?’ I look back at him. He is a charlatan, chanting gibberish and cleverly deducing that a woman with a box of body parts might be disturbed and frightened. She is easily persuaded that someone might be after her.
Is this Gloria’s work? Martin’s?
His voice is low, a librarian’s whisper. ‘He has already come.’
‘Who? Who are you talking about? How much did they pay you?’
‘I will try to help. Yes, I will do what I can.’ He reaches out for me, and for a moment catches my hands, holds them in his. They are extraordinarily warm.
But I pull away, hurry back across the salt pan. The wind has dropped, so the dusk is still and deep, and the light almost lavender on the white sand. I retrace my footprints and find the path that takes me to the track. I want to be in the white cottage, the door closed: home, this new idea. The act of returning home is redemptive: through the gates, across the threshold and we may begin again, we may be the better, wiser person than when we left; forgiven and forgiving.
On the main road, I wait for a taxi. Surely, there are taxis on this stretch. But none arrive. I begin to walk into the quickening dark night.
People watch me as I pass. But I can’t see them. They exist beyond the hem of light cast by buses and cars. I know they are selling dried fish and mangoes on wooden tables. They are laughing, dissenting over politics and the behavior of relatives. They are casting spells and buying curses. They are placing offerings in caves, among the roots of baobab trees, imploring, requesting, hoping for an alteration in the scheme.
The taxi slows, dogs my heels from a dozen yards before I realize it’s there, a white Toyota Corolla. I peer in at the driver, but the headlights of an oncoming car blind me, stun my vision. I can’t see anything but the negative of the light.
‘Raskazone,’ I tell the driver. ‘Past the Yacht Club.’
I get in the back. The taxi moves forward. There’s the smell of cigarettes.
‘How is old Mr Sese?’ Gloria asks chattily. ‘Has he been helpful?’
She is revealed now, hands resting casually on the steering wheel. For a moment I say nothing. I clench my fists so that my nails dig into my palms. I feel uncertain: that odd wavering sensation. The coming in and out. O-o-o-o-o-o.
‘How did you know I was here?’ I hear myself say this, as if from a great distance.
Gloria takes a drag. ‘How did I know you were here? Magic!’ She makes a spooky ghost noise then laughs. ‘Jamhuri works for me, doll. I pay his salary.’
We drive. The road dips and turns vaguely inland. We pass small villages, collections of huts, lit only by kerosene lamps. The lamps blink like fireflies. There are faces — pieces of people — and then only road in the headlights. For long stretches there’s nothing but sisal. Once neat rows gone to bush. The before and the after is relentless.