Hock said, “She can handle snakes.”
“She can know how to handle anything you ask,” Manyenga said, and tapped his head, pleased with himself in his reply.
The next day — no Aubrey — Manyenga brought a bowl of eggs. He was not alone. Walking behind him was the old man whom he had introduced to Hock after they had arrived back from the Agency depot. Hock could not remember the man’s name, but as he saw him stumbling after Manyenga, led by a small boy, he was reminded that the man was blind.
“For the big man,” Manyenga said, and offered the bowl with both hands.
Eggs were scarce. Why were there so few in a village with so many hens? Only men ate eggs; children were not allowed to touch them. The chickens were not raised systematically; they clucked, and pecked at ants, and laid eggs in the tall grass, in back of huts, in twiggy nests. They were considered a delicacy.
Zizi accepted the bowl of eggs on Hock’s behalf.
Tapping the side of his head again for emphasis, Manyenga said, “But none for her, you understand?”
Another Sena belief associated with eggs was that women were made sterile by eating them.
“Because, as you say, if the girl can handle a snake, she is no longer a girl, but a woman.”
They were seated, Manyenga and Hock, under the tree, in the creaky chairs. The blind man sat on a stool, holding himself upright.
“I think you are knowing what I mean,” Manyenga said.
Snowdon was listening, a gob of drool sliding from the corner of his mouth. Somehow he had gotten hold of an egg. He rolled it back and forth in his stubby hand, like wealth.
Manyenga was still talking in his insinuating way, but all Hock could think about was the nonappearance of Aubrey.
“I remember this man,” Hock said. The old man had a kindly face and an intense expression, his eyes dead behind lids that were not quite closed. He leaned on his walking stick, listening.
“He is Wellington Mwali,” Manyenga said. He took the man’s hand. “This is Mr. Ellis Hock, our friend.”
The old man just smiled, murmuring, because he had not understood.
“He has a story,” Manyenga said.
And this too will cost money, Hock thought. But he said, “I want to hear it.”
Manyenga spoke to the blind man, who hesitated, and smiled again, and then cleared his throat and spoke. He told his story slowly, pausing after every few sentences so that Manyenga could translate. Manyenga spoke with such fluency and feeling it seemed that he was appropriating it as his story.
“You know our black Jesus, the man Mbona, who was killed near here, his head cut off and buried near the boma at Khulubvi?”
“I’ve heard of him. But I was never allowed to go to the shrine.”
“No, no,” Manyenga said. “It is a holy place.” The old man went on speaking. He took up the story again. “Mbona is a spirit, but sometimes he spends the night with his wife on earth, the woman we call Salima. This is how the great one visits. He makes sure that Salima is fast asleep, otherwise she would become frightened and run away.”
The old man’s voice dropped to a whisper. Manyenga strained to listen, then spoke again.
“Mbona comes in the form of a python, slipping into the hut beside the mat of Salima. He opens his mouth and licks her body, beginning with her face, so that she believes she is being kissed. All this while he makes the python sound, moaning, and the moans are words, telling her his dreams.”
Still speaking, now as if in counterpoint to Manyenga, the old man turned his blind eyes upward, as in a trance state.
Manyenga said, “After he licks her whole body to calm her, he wakes her. And she sees the huge python. But she is not afraid. She sees that it is her husband, Mbona, and she allows him to coil around her body and lick her everywhere, from her head to her feet, telling her his dreams. Meanwhile, he tells her many things in her dreams. The licking makes her sleep again, and his dreams become her dreams. After he goes, she just wakes up. She knows that her husband had been there, and she has all the important information.”
“About what?” Hock asked.
The old man nodded, hearing the question.
“About the weather. About storms and rains. About planting. And when his visit is at an end, he returns to his place.”
“Where does the python Mbona go?”
“To the pool near the river, which was formed when Mbona’s blood turned into water,” Manyenga said. “Large flocks of doves drink there, which proves that it is a holy place.”
Hock said, “Thanks for the story. Tell the man I said so.”
“We are needing you, father,” Manyenga said. He saw Zizi squatting, brushing flies from his face. “She needs you. She can make you happy.”
The story of the snake encircling the widow and licking her had induced a reverie in Hock, which helped him forget his plight. But as soon as Manyenga stopped translating, he began importuning again, and jarred from his reverie, Hock said abruptly, “How much do you want now?”
“I will tell you in a moment,” Manyenga said. “But first the important information. I must know if you are happy.”
“I am happy. Thanks for bringing this man to me.”
Manyenga leaned closer and licked his lips and said with severity, “And that you will not abandon us again.”
His tone was so serious that Hock said quickly, “Don’t worry.” Then, hearing himself, he added, “Why would I want to leave Malabo?”
“Of course you are safe here,” Manyenga said, too engrossed to hear the irony. “Because we are making you safe.” Before Hock could speak, Manyenga said, “Has anyone harmed you here?”
Hock shook his head, unable to put the sadness he felt into words: the terror of the suspense that had crushed his spirit, the dull ache of fear that was like an illness he’d begun to live with. And everything that Manyenga said had had a price.
“How much?” Hock said.
Only then did Manyenga give him the large number, adding that the old man would need some too. He stood and squared his shoulders and waited for the money to be handed over.
25
LEVELING HIS GAZE and leaning forward to squint across the clearing into the glare and the heat, in the long days he spent waiting for Aubrey to show up — or would it be some sort of response from the consulate? — he thought only of home. The nest-like comfort of it, his clean bedroom and kitchen, the armchair where he had sat, sorting through his visa application and all the paraphernalia of timetables that had led him back here. Medford now seemed as safe, as reassuring, as mute and indestructible as Malabo had once been in his imaginings. Home was solid, not only because he had nothing to fear, but because it could be trusted. Malabo existed in a web of deceits. Manyenga lied, everyone lied, hardly without pretense. They spoke a shadow language of untruth; every word could be translated into a defiant lie.
Home was iced coffee in a tall glass, crisp lettuce on a china plate, a cold bottle of beer, chilled fruit, the snap of a celery stalk, a clear glass of cool water, a ham sandwich with cheese on new-baked bread, fresh sheets, an oak tree’s enveloping shade, his barefoot soles on the polished hardwood floor of his condo, the rattle of white tissue paper in a box of new shirts. The very words. But home was unattainable.
Darkness and cold now seemed to him blessings that sustained life and gave it rest. This heat was like a sickness without a remedy. He went on staring across the clearing, Zizi squatting on his right, Snowdon on his left.
As always, he was muddled in trying to remember what day it was. He guessed that a week had passed since Aubrey had gone, a week of suspense. That meant either that the message had not reached the consulate or that the consulate had shelved it. But surely they would not have ignored such a desperate plea from an American citizen. Hock guessed that Aubrey had taken the money and fled, tossing the message away. So he resolved to give up hoping, and the night of the very day he abandoned hope and tried to think of another plan — he was alone, sitting beside his sooty smoky lantern — a boy in a tattered shirt and torn pants and unlaced sneakers stepped out of the darkness like a cat and knelt and said, “Mzungu.”