In the Belly of the Elephant (24 page)

Though you talk sense to a deaf person, they cannot hear you.

“Well, gentlemen,” I said to my bat-landlords, dangling in their corner, “unlike you, I’m not hanging around here to watch Jack and his ladylove have a good time. I’m off.”

I straightened my papers, put them in a drawer, and slipped through the office doors and out the gate without conducting the obligatory farewells with staff. This was rude, but saying goodnight would have required going into the main office building, and I didn’t want to run into Jack and Lori.

Out past the gate, the sun rested on the horizon, threading fingers of burnt-orange light through a haze of heat and dust. I took a deep breath and imagined Jack and Lori driving down a ribbon of dirt road, over the horizon, and out of sight. Around me, the square came alive with the scent of wood smoke as meat vendors lighted their fires. Evening was my favorite time of day, when the sun surrendered, the world sighed, and night’s gentleness approached.

Early for my dinner date with Gray and Kate at the Militaire Bar, I strolled the perimeter of the market, perusing bolts of batik cloth. A new print had arrived, a beige background with red designs. I bought several meters and carried the cloth to the far end of the market where rows of foot-pedaled sewing machines hummed like a chorus of Gregorian monks. A Rimaybé man I had done business with before stood and greeted me with a nod. We shook hands and I asked after his health and his family.

The Lebanese merchants in Liberia had taught all Peace Corps Volunteers the
politesse
of greetings. At first, I had gone into Mr. Habib’s shop in Gbarnga, and with my American “straight-to-business” habits, had asked directly for the items I wanted. He had smiled and replied, “I am very well today, and how are you?” I had quickly learned that, even with strangers, polite greetings came first, business second.

After establishing that we were both well, I presented the cloth to the tailor. Hot as it was, I wanted something with slender straps and a loose fit that fell to mid-calf. With his frayed yellow tape, the tailor measured me from shoulder to shoulder, shoulder to calf, eyeballed my width, and assured me the dress would be ready in two days.

Past the tailor stalls and on toward the bread ovens, I greeted two village weavers who had visited the office that afternoon to take out more thread on loan. They were members of the new village central committee and would stay with their families to weave their blankets this cold season. I ambled on until the fragrance of baking bread forced me to buy several hot-out-of-the-oven baguettes. The women of the villages would be happy to have their men stay to help with the cattle and the children. With so much work, women needed their menfolk.

The way my grandmother had needed my grandfather.

A narrow strip of horizon glowed beyond the end of the street that edged the market. The dust absorbed the last rays of the sun and turned the sky blood-red.

In the spring of 1911, the Mormon Church called my grandfather to go on a two-year mission. He had a pregnant wife, five young children, and a farm to run, but the church sent him to Kansas and Missouri to proselytize, as was the duty of every Mormon man. William Corbett rented his farmland to a local man, asking him to work the land, feed the cattle and horses, and keep his equipment clean and oiled.

That first year my grandfather was gone, the man in charge planted only half the land, sold off the livestock, and left the machinery to rust. Grandma Annie didn’t write to tell my grandfather his farm was going to ruin because she didn’t want to be the one to bring him home. Instead, she returned to her family in Smithfield, bore her sixth child, sent her older children to school, and asked my grandfather’s brother to go up to the valley and look at the farm.

My Aunt Ethel told the story. “Uncle John, Dad’s brother in Smithfield, looked the situation over and wrote Dad a letter full of goddamn and hell and son-of-a-bitch and told Dad how his farm was going to pot.”

When Grandpa William got the letter from his brother, he handed it to his mission president, who read that letter, swear words and all. The mission president turned to my grandfather and said, “Elder Corbett, I think you’d better go home.”

When William Corbett came home the summer of 1912, only eighty of his 160 acres had been planted with dry farm grain. But the wheat was so infested with rye, the weeds were higher than the grain and the whole thing froze in an early frost. While on his mission, my grandfather had lost all his livestock, his machinery, and a year’s worth of harvest on 160 acres. The man who had ruined his farm paid him a hundred head of hogs. My grandfather fattened up those hogs on the ruined wheat and sold them.

“We never heard him say that his mission set him back or cost him,” Aunt Ethel said. “He said he made money so fast after he came home, he didn’t feel like he’d lost anything.”

I never heard what Grandma Annie had had to say about the whole thing. I don’t think anybody ever asked.

Grandma, Great-Grandma, the women of the villages, Fati,
me
, damn it! How easily men left their women.

I ducked into the door of the Militaire Bar and found Gray and Kate drinking beer at a table in the courtyard. After dinner, Gray reminded us it was Halloween. We bought a few extra bottles of Sovobra, handfuls of Chicklets and hard candy, and set out to visit Guy, Monique, and Luc.

Following the tubes of yellow light from our flashlights, we wound our way through the streets, chatting quietly. I had grown used to walking the streets at night once again without worry. Despite strikes, attempted coups, and intermittent curfews, Dori was the safest town I had ever lived in. Kate was from upstate New York, and Gray from Detroit. We had all found a quiet liberation in the streets of Dori. Every city and town in the U.S.—a Christian dominated country—had far higher crime rates than anywhere in Upper Volta.

“It makes me nervous when I think of returning to the States.” I pointed my flashlight at the ground, politely avoiding the eyes of an oncoming passerby. “My contract runs out in seven months and I’m already having anxiety dreams. Last night, I was trying to catch a plane but I didn’t have a ticket and I couldn’t find my luggage. I didn’t even know where I was going.”

“I’ve had that dream before,” Gray said. “Only on top of no ticket and no luggage, I don’t have any clothes on.”

We laughed.

“I don’t want to go back,” I sighed. “But I’m tired.”

“Tired?” Gray flicked her flashlight on and off. “How about depressed over good old Jack dumping you while his girlfriend’s in town? The man’s a devil!”

“Inhuman,” Kate said. “What we all need is a vacation. How about we all go to Mali over Christmas? There’s supposed to be a great trip up the Niger River.”

“Can’t do it,” Gray said. “I’m going home for Christmas.”

Which meant it would be just me and Jack in Dori over the holidays. I was damned if I’d be doing anything with Jack, even though Lori would be gone by then. Remembering the Lady Chilel, the idea of a river trip sounded good. Actually, it sounded fantastic. I suddenly felt lighter than I had in weeks.

“Let’s do it!” I laughed a little. “The way I’ve been acting around the office, I’m sure they won’t mind if I take some time off.”

“That’ll give you something to look forward to.” Gray put an arm around my shoulder. “Help you stop moping around over Mr. Shit-Head.”

We rounded the corner and came to Guy and Monique’s compound.

Gray cupped her hands around her mouth. “Trick or Treat!”

“
Bonsoir
!” Guy called from the porch.

“Happy Halloween!” I held up a bottle of Sovobra.

“Ah!” Guy guffawed as he opened the gate. “Monique!” he called over his shoulder, “
trois sorcières commes visiteuses!
”

The three of us whooped and cackled, three Wicked Witches from the West.

“
Entrez
!” Guy swept his arm toward the house, and we caroused our way to the patio in our long dresses with our baskets of treats.

Monique held Luc. He clapped his hands at so much happy noise. We each approached and kissed first Luc, then Monique on both cheeks.

Guy poured a round of beer and we all sucked on hard candies. Gray made clown faces and I tickled Luc’s toes.

“This little piggy went to market…”

“Does France celebrate Halloween?” Gray asked.

“This little piggy stayed home…”

“Oui,” Monique said. “
Veille de la Toussaint.”
All Saints’ Day.

“This little piggy had roast beef…”

“It’s more like the night of the devil for us,” Kate said. “We creep around graveyards and toilet-paper people’s houses.”

“This little piggy had none…”

Guy laughed and shook his head.

“This little piggy went, ‘Wee, wee, wee,’ all the way home!”

Luc squealed and shook his feet for again.

“This little piggy…” I jiggled the big toe of his other foot.

Gray described various Halloween episodes from her years as a juvenile delinquent in Detroit. Kate had a few of her own. Guy poured another round of beers. Luc was passed from lap to lap until he fell asleep on his mama’s shoulder. Cricket song rang in broken rhythm. A breeze rustled the eucalyptus trees, and the night steeped into deeper darkness.

“Speaking of devils.” I looked at each face in the halo of the kerosene lamp. “Once upon a time, a young Peace Corps volunteer lived in a deep, dark rain forest. We’ll call her Beth.”

Gray snorted and sat forward with her elbows on her knees.

“One night, Beth woke up in the darkness of her bedroom, in a little house, on the edge of the village. The sweet scent of a million trees blew through the window, lifting her curtains like the waving hands of all the ancestors who lived there.”

Kate smiled.

“Far off, in the dense hanging vines and thick bush, came a long, low ‘OOOO, OOOOO, OOEEEEE.’ After several minutes, the night songs of a billion insects resumed. In the pale moon light that seeped through her window, Beth thought back to her Peace Corps training, the first session her group attended after their arrival in Liberia. She remembered the
sho sho sho
of a ceiling fan, pushing currents of heat around the classroom as Professor Kapella lectured.”

I dropped my voice into a deep base. “‘All major tribes in Liberia, with the exception of the Mandinka, practice rites of passage. The adolescent boy or girl is kidnapped from the hut by a bush guard and taken into the forest. It is during these initiations that the bush devil can be heard and will often make surprise visits to the village.’

“Watching the curtains move in the night air, Beth also recalled the rumors about the volunteer who had peeked through his shutters and looked upon a bush devil. The story went that his nose had grown so long, the whole village knew what he had done, and he was dead by nightfall.”

Monique pressed her hand to her mouth.

“Professor Kapella said, ‘Never forget that you are outsiders and guests in these villages.’

“Beth knew the bush devil was a man from the village who dressed up in rags and a mask. She probably passed him every day, the town chief, or the butcher, or the man who drove the money bus. She turned over and went back to sleep to the lullaby of mosquitoes buzzing outside her mosquito net.”

Gray wiggled in her chair. “I love scary stories.”

“The next morning,” I continued, “Beth went off to the clinic where she worked with a physician’s assistant named Francis, and a translator/sometimes janitor named James.

“‘So, Francis,’ Beth said, ‘I’ve been hearing singing in the village lately, is that society business or can I go and watch?’

“Francis smiled, ‘Oh yes, no problem there.’ Being a doctor, Francis didn’t give a lot of credence to local devil business.

“James, on the other hand, frowned. ‘Be careful,’ he warned. ‘Be sure it is dancing and not the bush devil.’”

Monique laid a finger on my arm and stood to put Luc to bed. Gray leaned toward Guy and whispered, “Beth is her middle name.”

Guy nodded and we nibbled on green olives until Monique returned and settled back into her chair.

“That night, Beth and her housemate, Vicki, another volunteer who taught school, listened to their favorite BBC program. In the kerosene light, Beth wrote a letter. Vicki grunted at a pile of essays and began reading. The evening wore on quietly with an occasional small boy giggling through the screened windows and passing on.

“Then it began.” I lowered my voice to a whisper, and they all leaned forward. “A distant chanting and drumming started in the forest and grew closer until it came from the center of the village.

“Beth jumped up. ‘There it is. Let’s go!’ She ran out the front door, ignoring Vicki’s protests that something was weird, it was too dark.

“Beth was out the door and nearly to the dirt road before it registered. Normally, the road outside their house was lighted by kerosene lamps where women sold fruit, plantain, and bean fritters at a night market. But that night, it was pitch-black.”

The flame inside the glass chimney spluttered. Kate, Gray, and Monique rounded their eyes until the whites showed.

“Beth’s feet were ahead of her brain and carried her around the corner of the house. Out of the darkness, directly ahead of her, came a howl so loud and so chilling, it knocked her backward. In that same instant, someone took hold of both arms and whispered, ‘Quick! Into the house!’

“Beth had no memory of the steps between the moment of being grabbed and being shoved through her front door. She stood, trembling, as each outside shutter was slammed shut.

“Vicki faced her, pale and furious. They stared at each other as a long, guttural, ‘OOOO, OOOO,’ passed just outside each window. At each corner of the house, the bush devil emitted a high-pitched ‘AIEEEE!’ that froze the blood in their veins. Then the sound moved on, out of the village and into the forest.”

After a moment of silence, Kate said, “That’s all?”

I nodded.

“Nothing else happened?”

“That was it.”

“You didn’t get in trouble?”