“How could you!”in a yell that must have brought his secretary running. “How could you do that to me? And Dad? Jesus Christ, Janey! What the fuck!”
“I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry? No, sorry is when you’re late for a dinner date, not when you fucking pretend to commit suicide. Ah, shit, Janey …”
Sobs come across the continent, minutes of them, in which I join. Then he asks me why. I say that I was afraid. I tell him that Witt has done it, that Witt is the Mad Abortionist of Miami, too. I tell him the whole story, as much of it as I could recall.
He listens in silence, and then?and here is why I love Josiah Mount?he doesn’t suggest a stay in a mental institution, he doesn’t ask a lot of questions about why I did this, or failed to do that. He just says, “What do you need?”
I tell him what.
TWENTY-SIX
11/27 Mdina, Mali
The trader Togola easily found, has a compound down by the river, stinks of dead things, curing animal skins abound, his two wives and uncounted children all at work scraping, skinning, salting, drying. Showed him the Olo artifact?observed him closely. Saw fear first, then feigned ignorance. Told him I wanted to be taken to where he found it. I flashed big money, not hard to overawe people who see $500 in a good year, should be ashamed of myself but am not. I have the fever. I kept laying twenties on the mat as I talked, Togola staring at stack like a hypnotized hen. When I reached fifty bills I stopped, and took up half the stack. This when we start, and this (the other half) when we arrive. And as much again when we return here. Fucker rolled. W. looked at me with contempt, neocolonialist me, prob. remembers me and Colonel Musa, and how my overbearing worked out in that case. Don’t give a shit anymore.
11/28 Mdina
W. and Malik our driver off to Nossombougou to get supplies, while I stay here and keep Togola company, so he won’t scram with my advance. And he is frightened, too. No luck getting him to cop to source of the fear, language problem, I think, 80 % of what I say = i ko mun, roughly “come again?” or “what did you say?” According to T., Olo are all witches, if they don’t want you to find them, you won’t find them, that the river is full of jina, or diables, that the Olo are eaters of human flesh. I am dying to go meet them.
More worried about half-assed way we are planning to leave. December is high water, I want to be sure that wherever we float off to there will be enough water in the channels to float us back, why I decided not to go back to Bamako and do serious logistics. Box with valuables in it is with Dolores at the mission so
Later. They’re back. Asked W. if he got everything OK and he said, Yeah, we went to Wal-Mart. Feeble, but really the first little joke he has made in a long time. Maybe he is coming around. Sent Malik back to Bamako with message for Dolores, telling her to call or wire Lagos to let Greer know what we are doing. Said we might be gone as long as a month amp; if anything turns up will come back and mount a serious operation.
12/2 On the Baoule
We are in an 18-foot pirogue with a seven-horsepower outboard, Togola at the stern, the two of us midships under a woven raffia sunshade with our supplies and gear in bags and baskets arranged around us, maybe six inches of freeboard. Area we are entering called the Boucle de Baoule, the “buckle” of the Baoule River = inland delta?an area of about three thousand square kilometers w/ no significant roads. Channel here varies from 60 to 20 meters in width, 3 to 5 m depth. Thick vegetation on the high banks, shrubs and small acacia trees, occasional larger ironwood and red silk-cotton trees. Large numbers of trees skeletal. Togola says river was much higher in the old days, reached to the tops of the banks and beyond at high water. I believe him; the whole of Mali is drying up, the desert moving south. Meanwhile, the region is alive with birds, we putt-putt through a continual chatter and screech. Saw a paradise whydah and a martial eagle, the latter on a dead limb with what looked like a monkey.
I have not been in a boat in a while, I find myself ridiculously happy. It is Swallows and Amazons again, me and Josey exploring the channels of the Sound in our skiffs at age eight and eleven, pretending we were in Africa or Amazonia. Now this is Africa, and I am with W. and our faithful native guide. Ridiculous, our guide farthest thing from faithful amp; my pal and husband replaced by surly stranger. But he will come back, I know it, I see little sparks of the real him all the time, when his guard is down, like that joke about Wal-Mart, and this morning he made a joke about getting lost and having to eat human flesh. Tastes like chicken, a running gag, he says it of every new food. Pathetic hopes. But what else can I
12/3 On the Baoule
We proceeded on, as Lewis amp; Clark used to say. Millet porridge and coffee for breakie, rice, beans, peanut sauce, for lunch, w/ tea. Tea and sesame sticks around four. When it gets dark, we find a low bank and camp. DEET vs. mosquitoes, they swarm around us anyway. Togola lights a fire, and I set up our tent (a French military thing, and clumsy) while W. mostly idle. Then I cook our evening meal. Togola watches, fascinated; he has never seen a white woman cook before. This convinces him that I’m indeed a woman and not some weird third sex peculiar to the tobabou. A mistake to generalize about African culture, but a fairly safe one might be that men don’t cook. Decided not to stand on my high feminist horse, too exhausting. Can’t help noticing W. seems to prefer me as an African (or “real”) woman. Absurd man.
12/4 On the Baoule
Passed a herd of hippos today. T. steered far as he could away, jaw clenched. Odd being in water with them, feelings of total vulnerability, not familiar to us tobabou zoo goers. Probably more people killed by hippos than by leopards and lions combined. How ignoble to be crunched up by a hippo. I sang the chorus to Flanders amp; Swann’s hippopotamus song in a lusty voice to show courage: mud, mud, glorious mud! W. knows all the verses but he did not join in. T. told me to shut up.
Saw first hornbills, clouds of bulbuls. River deepening and widening as we approach what passes for the main channel. I asked T. how long to get there, but he is silent when I ask him things now, since I am only a woman after all. He talks to W., tho, who answers in his high-school French. W. is interested in me again, however, at night. I let him hump away, feeling little beyond the usual relief of tension. The sex life of nine-tenths of the world’s women perhaps, or maybe even a little better. I still have a clitoris, although maybe he will decide to change that. Where I will draw the line, however.
12/5 Baoule R.
Beautiful sunbird (Nectarina pulchella) lit on the prow of the boat today. Besides that, nothing new. Channel narrowing. T. poles the boat to save gas. He is more nervous; he has dreams at night. We hear him shouting. Have passed no one during this trip, nor seen signs of habitation in the past three days. Supplies getting a little low.
12/7 same fucking river
Caught a big Nile perch today on my troll line. Channel shrunk to four m, 2.5 m deep at center. No current to speak of. Ate the perch for supper with (what else) peanut sauce, and rice. W. and T. thick as thieves now, T. has a bottle of rum, the bad Muslim! And they passed it back and forth without offering me any.
Thought of Dad, how much I miss him now, not like we are now but the way we used to be when I was a kid, and I got him mixed up with God the Father. A little weepy, but suppress it as usual. It would be good if I had a husband I could talk to about these feelings.
We have rice and sauce enough for another two weeks. T. has an old Lebel; I suppose we could shoot a monkey. Maybe I will get lucky again with the trotlines.
12/20 Danolo
Success and disaster in rapid succession. This morning just before noon the channel debouched into a wide (50 m) shallow (3 m) pool, the western edge of which was a long mud beach lined with log pirogues. Togola nosed us in among them. This is the place, he said. He was sweating and wild. He helped me unload our personal gear and got back in the boat, said he was going for his stuff and our other supplies.
W. spotted them first, woman standing at a break in the foliage, at the head of a path. She had a little girl with her, about eight years old. I waved and they both nodded and touched hand to chest. I did the same. Then I
