“Not your fault,” they reassured her.
“It was hard to believe what we were hearing,” Jasmine said.
“Yeah, crazy,” Ellie agreed, secretly thinking it was exciting.
“Are we are all here?” Jono called through the cab window.
“Yes,” they shouted back at him and he started the bus.
And then there were twelve little Indians, Kate observed in silence. Like the Agatha Christie story, we are all being picked off. She sighed. The bus felt oddly empty: Charisse, Brianna, Harrison, Marika, Eva, Enrique and Treasure — gone.
As promised, Jono pulled over in front of the Pick ’n Pay. Kate got Harrison a selection of gifts and she picked up the daily newspapers for herself as well as two magazines for Treasure.
They got to the hospital and trooped in while Jono waited outside. The receptionist pointed them down the hall and they peered inside Harrison’s room. Treasure was asleep in a chair pulled up close to Harrison, her head resting on his bed.
Helen opened the door gently and they crept inside and left the gifts near Treasure.
“They were both sleeping so we placed our gifts on a chair near Treasure and left as quietly as we could,” Helen reported back to Jono. “Harrison looked in really bad shape.”
Jono nodded. “We must wait for Rydell.” He leaned against the bus with his arms folded. “Mia, are you sure you do not want to get your faced checked out?”
“Nah, it’s fine, looks much worse than it is,” Mia said.
“Two stitches in my lip and my nose is broken,” Rydell said, returning half an hour later. He had difficulty talking. “I’m going to press charges, the nurse took pictures.”
The others ignored him except for Stepfan who commented that a broken nose might be the best thing to help cure his snoring.
“And now we will pick up our new cook and then we will be on our way,” Jono interrupted any retort Rydell might have made.
Jono drove to a suburb on the edge of town and stopped at a small bungalow with lace-curtained windows and a neatly trimmed lawn. He sounded the horn and a couple in their late forties emerged. The man was tall and thin, dressed in a black suit and a black fedora, while the woman was small and round in a colourful dress.
Jono got out of the bus and took a bag from the man, shook his hand and said something in Xhosa. The man hugged the woman and kissed her.
Jono said something to the woman and she laughed and he led her to the bus and opened the door. “Everybody, this is Mrs. Betty Nwosu, please make her feel very welcome.”
“Hello, Betty,” came the chorus, “Welcome. Thank you for joining us.”
Jono put the bus into gear and they drove off.
Despite the drama of the morning and her concern for Harrison, Kate felt a glimmer of happiness stir in her chest. There was something wonderful about being back on the open road, having a day without plans and a clear blue sky above.
She checked to see if André had sent her a text but there was nothing. She desperately wanted to send him a message but could not think of anything so say so she settled down to read a small volume of African poetry she had found the day before in Peter’s Antiques.
Two seats ahead of Kate, Rydell explored his injuries. He felt clearheaded and peaceful. The pain felt good and he repeatedly tested his lip to taste the blood of his wounds. His nose was too excruciatingly raw to bear touching, so he patted his brusied black eyes instead and revelled in his war wounds. He felt as though he had triumphed in some way; indeed, he felt vindicated.
He had been devastated yes, and filled with fury, when he first heard that Treasure was not going to rejoin the bus. But oddly enough his violent anger soon subsided, and he realized that he did not care much at all.
He fingered the vial of painkillers in his pocket. The nurse had not understood why he had refused to take any. He’d thought about explaining how pain made him feel alive, but he thought better of it, and asked for Harrison’s room instead. He had not been sure of his intentions, but when he saw Treasure asleep and Harrison so frail, his rage and envy left him. In fact, he felt nothing much at all except a modicum of surprise at how ordinary Treasure was. He looked at the gifts and cards that the others had left and he was amazed by their actions, unsure why he had never felt that kind of kinship.
He thought about Treasure, asleep at Harrison’s bedside and how, at that moment, she had seemed too real for his liking; a woman of flesh and blood, not the goddess he’d imagined. He realized that he’d been so eager to find The One that he had fallen for the first woman he met. Sure, she was beautiful but she had turned out to be very ordinary — only a very ordinary woman would have fallen in love with Harrison. No, things hadn’t gone according to plan but in fact they had turned out just fine. And, he reassured himself, there was no way they would ever be able to trace that boy to him. And he was glad, now, that the boy had not managed to get to Kate. With his desire for Treasure gone, there was no need for collateral damage. Not that he really cared one way or the other. He glanced over at Kate, hugging the secret that she would never know how close she had come to being hurt too.
Rydell’s head was filled with a beautiful silence, there were no jabbering voices and no chattering rhymes and he was perfectly happy.
The bus drove smoothly along the coastline and turned east, stopping at Uis to get gas. Kate finished photographing the toilet; a masterpiece of disparate dirty pieces, and she saw Jasmine, Ellie, Sofie and Helen running up to her, all of them out breath.
“What wrong?” she asked with trepidation.
“We saw your doll! Alive. In the same dress! Hurry up, she’s in the Spar, you must see her!”
Kate had received many comments about her doll’s unusual appearance; her uncommon hat and her strangely long and witchlike fingers.
Not understanding what they meant, Kate followed them to the general grocery store and saw a regal woman who was indeed dressed exactly like her doll.
“What on earth?” Kate exclaimed, startled, and she craned to get a better look inside the dark store crowded with locals lining up at the cashiers.
“You see,” Sofie said, “isn’t that the most amazing thing?”
Kate got close behind the woman and peered at her horn-shaped hat, her tightly-waisted buttoned bodice, and her long floor-length Victorian skirt. The woman turned and glared at Kate.
“Pardon me,” Kate apologized and stepped back. “Would you mind if I took your photograph?”
“She wants to know for how much?” the cashier translated the woman’s reply.
In answer, Kate held out a handful of coins. The woman looked at them scornfully, but nodded and took the money. Kate followed the woman outside to a brightly painted wall lined with post-office boxes and photographed her.
“She is from the Herero tribe,” Betty explained, joining them. “They have dressed like that from the days of the German settlers. Their clothes are very beautiful. The Herero became successful cattle farmers in the central grasslands of Namibia but then they came into conflict with the Nama people, and then later with the German colonial armies.”
“Can the conversation please continue on the bus?” Jono asked. “We have a long way to go and we had a late start.”
“I will sit in the back,” Betty said and they got back on the bus.
“The Herero tried to make peace with the Germans,” she said, “but the Germans continued to exterminate them in the most horrific of ways. It took the Germans just three years to reduce the Herero population from 80,000 to 15,000.”
“Yes, Jono told us about the concentration camps,” Sofie said. “Unbelievable.”
“And then,” Betty explained, nodding at Sofie, “in 1915, after South Africa got control of Namibia, the Herero were pushed into South African style ‘homelands’. But today the story is a happier one, and the Herero population is up to 1
00,000.”
“Why do they dress like that?” Helen asked.
“In the early days, the Herero dressed much like the Himba do today — and the Himba do not wear many clothes. During the nineteenth-century, the German missionaries took exception to Herero’s nakedness and clothed the women in ankle-length dresses with long sleeves and bodices that button right up to the neck. Today many women wear shawls, and six to eight petticoats under the dress to make the skirts so nice and full. Their horn-shaped hats pay homage to the horns of their cattle. You may also wonder how the Herero women don’t get too hot in those clothes, but they do not appear to suffer.”
“And how do the Herero men dress?” Sofie asked.
“For every day, they dress like ordinary men but for special occasions, they have a suit that is like the military uniform of the Germans, from the nineteenth century.”
“Why would they want to dress like them, when the Germans killed them and treated them so badly?” Sofie said. “Seems weird to me.”
Betty had no answer to this.
“How do you know so much about the Herero?” Helen was curious.
Betty blushed. “I’m a schoolteacher,” she said, “so you mustn’t let me talk too much about these things or I’ll bore you.”
“But you are here to cook?” Sofie enquired.
“Jono’s a friend and he needs my help. I’m a good cook, don’t worry.”
“I am not worried,” Sofie assured her.
“I am,” Mia said, under her breath to Richard, “because I hate bleedin’ history and teachers.”
“Relax,” Richard said, “sleep or think about our adventure. It went better than I ever could have imagined.”
“Yeah, it did, didn’t it?” Mia brightened. “I didn’t really fink we could pull it off but we did.”
“We can’t talk about it,” Richard snuck a look around, “but think about it. I know I am. You never let me down, Nurse Teller, you do know that, don’t you?” He kissed the top of her head.
She smiled and leaned against him. “Right you are, luv.”
The bus entered a new Africa; the earth was claylike and parched and the carcasses of black trees lay strewn at random angles under the empty blue sky.
“Look at that woman!” Kate cried out, pointing out the window to a near-naked woman who was standing with military precision and staring fiercely at the bus. She was camouflaged in pasted mud and would have been easy to miss, were it not for her fury that glowed like a beacon.
“She is a Himba,” Betty explained, “as I was mentioning a moment ago. And you must not take a photograph of her without her permission or she will get terribly angry. They are a very violent people. If you murder somebody in the Himba tribe, there is no punishment except that you must buy fifteen cows for the murdered person’s family. The Himba wear very few clothes and they smear a mixture of red ochre and fat over their bodies to protect them from the sun, and that is what gives them that beautiful colour. The red also symbolizes the rich earth as well as blood which symbolizes life. The women work much harder than the men; they milk the cows, take care of the children, carry water and build homes.”
Kate was poised for Stepfan to make a sexist comment of approval but to her surprise he remained quiet.
“They have managed to keep their traditional lifestyles because of where they live,” Betty added as the bus drove past the angry woman and drew closer to a group of Himba and Herero women. “The harsh desert climate and their seclusion from outside influences help them keep their heritage. The Himba also struggled badly at the hands of the Germans, but they have made a comeback and they now live on nature conservancies where they have control of their wildlife and of tourism.”
Mia yawned widely and sighed.
Jono stopped the bus. “You have fifteen minutes at this stall of the Herero and the Himba,” he called out. “Remember to ask permission for photographs, do not just take them.”
Kate rushed off the bus and hurried toward a Himba woman who glared at her. The woman was naked except for an extremely short skirt of leather strips. The woman’s skin, hair, clothes and jewelry were all coloured with the same polished red paste, and white cowrie shells were sewn onto leather straps that were fastened under her knees. Her neck was decorated with copper and leather necklaces, and a beaded shell pendant hung between her long flat breasts.
Kate purchased a tiny doll that was fashioned in the woman’s likeness; a doll she was sure customs departments the world over would reject as it was covered in red paste and felt sticky to touch.
None of the others approached the women, apart from Jasmine who cautiously bought a doll and quickly rejoined the others.
The bus continued down the deserted road with no signs of life as far as the eye could see. Kate studied her doll. Sofie and Helen were reading; Jasmine, Stepfan and Ellie slept while Gisela and Lena chatted quietly. Richard and Mia were looking out the window and Betty had returned to the front of the bus with Jono.
Kate was about to pick up a newspaper when the bus stopped in what seemed like the middle of nowhere.
“We are now at the petrified forest,” Jono announced, his tone flat. “There is a short guided walk here that will take you three quarters of an hour.”
Jono’s recalcitrant mood was largely due to his disenchantment with the current situation. He missed Treasure and the easy rhythm of their familiarity. He felt like he had to entertain Betty. He had also hoped that Kate might have had a change of heart, but it was clear this was not the case and he was disgruntled by how things had turned out. He rubbed his suffering eyes and yawned, thinking he must ask Betty if she had a headache tablet. He watched the group raggedly following the guide; they did not seem too interested and were dragging their heels.
“This is like a school tour,” Stepfan said, scratching a bite on his arm.
“I am surprised you can remember that far back,” Sofie commented, pushing past him. “Stay on the bus and sleep.”
“He’d rather come with us and complain all the way,” Ellie pulled on a sunhat.
“That’s right, pick on me.” Stepfan whined but they ignored him.
The guide on the walk appeared as disinterested in his subject matter as his tour were hearing about it. “Dead tree,” he pointed. “It turned to stone. They are about 250 million years old. Please do not touch anything and please do not take pieces of the stones.”
“What made this happen, mate?” Richard asked idly, the scratches on his face vivid.
The guide went on to describe the geological forces behind the petrified wonders while Kate wandered off to investigate the welwitschia plants. “Stay on the path please,” the guide called out to her. “I will explain the welwitschia to you later.”
Kate knelt down to photograph the strange, multi-leafed plant that lay in thick tangled ribbons on the ground. She marveled at the shape of the curved leaves and waited for the guide who strolled over at his leisure.
“That ancient plant in front of you is actually a tree,” he recited, his gaze at the sky. “It has the appearance of having many leaves but in fact there are only two leaves. There is a male plant and a female plant. This plant is a living fossil.”
“Look, Stepfan, you have a relative,” Sofie pointed.
“Very funny,” Stepfan said.
“The plants are many hundreds and even thousands of years old,” the guide continued, “and they live on the dew they collect on their leaves. That is the end of the tour. Let me show you our market stall where you can buy souvenirs and cold drinks.”
“Cold drinks!” The untidy and thirsty gang shouted their appreciation as they rushed down the steep, rocky path, glad to escape the blistering heat.
Kate wished Enrique was there, so she could chat to him about welwitschias and flowers and oddly-coloured tree bark. She missed him, and Marika and Eva.
“
I would prefer,” Jono announced loudly through the connecting window, when the group was seated on the bus, “that we do not stop for lunch but continue straight on to Aba Huab, would that be fine with you? We are late running behind today.”
Everyone agreed and Jono set off down the bumpy road.
Kate dug out an apple and opened up a newspaper, stopping short, her heart leaping in fright at a headline: “SERIAL KILLER STRIKES AGAIN?” She put her apple down and concentrated on the article, her eyes wide.
Just when the police thought they had the correct suspect in custody in Windhoek, “Jack the Ripper” strikes again, this time in Swakopmund. The naked, headless body of a woman identified as Rosalee Khumalo, 23, was found dumped in the industrial area, just off Mandume Ya Ndemufayo Road sometime yesterday. Rosalee Khumalo was a sex worker, working out of the Old Colonial Hotel, distinctive for its gaudy red velvet and ornate gold-leafed ornamentation, where, despite efforts on the part of the police, the hotel operates a lively sex trade.
In July of this year, the bodies of Melanie Janse, 22, Juanita Mabula, 21, and Violoa Swartbooi, 18, were identified, all three murders attributed to the work of a serial killer. The police dubbed the killer “Jack the Ripper”, suspecting the killer might be a doctor, as the bodies had been precisely dismembered, indicating a knowledge of human anatomy.
The police are also still seeking the identification of a fourth woman, whose body had been discovered in a rubbish bin at a lay-bye along the busy road between Windhoek and Okahandja in May. The body of the woman, believed to be in her 20s, was found with the head, arms and legs cut off and the torso slashed into two pieces.
Despite calling in help from the South African Police Service, no progress had been made. The police continue to hold a doctor in custody who confessed to the murders when he was stopped for drunken driving, but the police were uncertain as to whether he is actually the killer, despite his startling confession.
“The SAPS Investigative Psychology Unit will be helping us catch this killer,” the inspector general of the Namibian police, Lieutenant General Sebastian Ndeitunga is quoted as saying. “Because this monster is living among us whether being on a farm, settlement, a church member, a restaurant frequenter, a doctor, a street vendor, you mention it, the monster will continue to attack of his own accord and stir fear and panic until someone comes up with information about his whereabouts.”
The Witchdoctor's Bones Page 28
