Mukurob

by André Costa

  “Father Callaghan, do you think it’s better to abort the mission and return to our encampment tomorrow morning?” she asked.

  “Frankly, doctor, I didn’t know that our mission was still on course,” replied David.

  Marie was relieved to be the object of his attention once again, and ran her fingers through her long blonde hair, tying it in a high bun on the top of her head.

  “Now that we are going back home, Father, what will you do?”

  “I believe my feelings about home, at this moment, are the same as those of an anthropologist. It seems like my home is everywhere but also nowhere. It’s not the first time I have felt this way, Marie, but it’s the first time I feel good about not belonging.”

  “And what makes that feeling so special?”

  “I won’t talk about my childhood or adolescence; even a night in the Kalahari is not long enough for that. But I could tell you about my recent abduction,” said David.

  “Abduction?”

  “From myself, maybe. But the night might become a bit darker.”

  David leaned back, supporting his weight by putting his hands on the ground, while Marie leaned towards him, encouraging him to keep speaking. Indifferent to the unfolding drama, !Soh fed the fire to make it adequate for its original function of keeping hyenas—and any other unwanted surprises—at bay.

  “The most beautiful child I ever met became a beautiful and a gorgeous young woman, just like you, in the blink of an eye. I don’t know where I was for a good part of her adolescence or the first years of her adult life, even though for most of that time I lived in the house next door to hers. She was my first and best friend, from shared drawings in kindergarten to the crafted lies in complete fidelity. I remember with a painful precision that little hand against mine, while her red, long and curly hair obscured my view of my side of the paper. Pieces of a sheet we defended from each other like enemy armies,” David said, pulling a short-lived laugh out of Marie.

  “And what is her name?”

  “They say our mind has a self-defense mechanism to guard against trauma, which goes to the extent of erasing unbearable memories. Well, I think some memories, as good as they may be, become equally traumatic… Her name was Karen. Sadly, we already started distancing ourselves from each other in our teenage years.”

  “Which is normal, no? You probably wanted to spend more time with the boys.”

  “I was afraid of her, and with time, the distress became a fear of myself.”

  “What were you afraid of, David?”

  “Marie, I wanted to become a priest since I was young boy... But when the hormonal tempest came, my mind and body were at opposite ends. In the center of that conflict stood Karen, five meters from my front door.”

  “So then, you made your choice?”

  “That’s what I’ve been asking myself. How could there be a choice in a contest between heart and soul? No, I didn’t make a conscious choice, Marie, I just ignored one of the options.”

  David met her gaze again, after his eyes had wandered across the campsite, and then focused on the fire.

  “How did you deal with that?”

  “With the passing of the years,” continued David, “my mother became our messenger, our consensual source of reciprocal information. I never knew how Karen felt about that, but the new situation created a comfort zone, and I was pleased with it. I imagine Karen only tolerated it since she had no other choice…”

  David lowered his head, his gaze burning into the base of the fire. “Until one morning, when a message came without her permission or knowledge…”

  Marie moved closer to him, while !Soh stoked the fire and repositioned the twisted wood.

  “You don’t need to continue, David, if you don’t want to.”

  “I’ve never talked about it, but I think now is the time.”

  Marie moved slightly away from David and looked into his eyes, allowing space for his thoughts.

  “Karen had become an interesting and attractive woman, but she followed her passion for the world and its causes. I didn’t know anything about her love life though, or if Karen even had one. My mother certainly knew a lot more than she let on… Our town was—and still is—very small, and any information besides the bad weather is considered news,” he laughed timidly. “Though as both messenger and mediator, she had her own responsibilities, her whims, so she censured everything she thought might be disagreeable. You know… My mother had a special talent for adapting to new realities, which she considered new harmonies, even when founded on clear dysfunction. After all, she learned how to cope with my father… Anyway, I heard about Karen’s constant relocations, more so after she concluded a master’s in theology.”

  “Theology?”

  “Yeah, indeed!” David sighed. “I never understood her sudden theoretical interest for religions, we never talked about it. But when I was fourteen, I told her I was convinced of my gift for the priesthood. Karen didn’t show any reaction, either positive or negative, but she told me in a serious tone that she would like to know what exists behind a cassock, since it would be a shame to believe that all the energy I possessed would be used to carry all the guilt in the world without resolving it.”

  “She really did know you.”

  “And I disdained her idealism. I thought it to be immature, a convenient answer to her revulsion for our provincial small-town life.”

  The first tears rolled shyly down his face. When David tried to arrest them, the crying broke out like the implosion of a dam, and Marie rushed to wrap her arms around his shoulders. Meanwhile, !Soh asked himself whether he had ever seen a white man cry twice in a single day.

  Freeing himself from her embrace, he regained composure and continued his narrative: “Her last service to humanity was to assist those who live under extreme terror. She returned home just a few months ago, her body in pieces… I swear to you, Marie, after that, I didn’t recognize my world anymore, nor did I recognize myself in it. My soul was abducted, not my body.”

  “Is that why you’re here, to rescue your soul?”

  Not knowing what to say, David did not respond. He liked to believe that coming to Namibia had not been a search for an individual answer, but rather the contrary. Wiping his tears, he thought it better to introduce a new character from his past to Marie.

  “I’m sure you would have enjoyed Father Duane’s presence in our conversation.”

  “Ah, the other priest?” smiled Marie, now wiping away her tears.

  It had recently become clear to David that Michael Duane was the first animist Christian he had ever met. Just like his mentor, Spinoza, the old man saw the manifestation of God in all things and creatures. Both attested that all matter, from a philosophical point of view, was alive.

  He also told Marie that Duane had often cited the pre-Socratic philosophers Thales and Heraclitus, who had believed that there was a form of life in every object, making all things animate beings, and maybe even conscious ones. The stoic philosophers—Father Duane’s preferred ones because of their resigned acceptance of humanity’s fate—also believed in the existence of a “soul of the world,” the vital force of the entire universe.

  Yes, thought David. There was a lot to say about Duane that would feed Marie’s heart, but his narration was aborted just after the prologue. From the bushes and uncomfortably close, they heard hoarse screams. !Soh had the most rational reaction, quickly grabbing his tools and taking flight in the opposite direction. Marie and David looked at each other, searching for answers about what to do in the face of approaching strangers. A rifle shot fired in their direction, however, put a stop to their pondering and had them following the trail that !Soh had already opened.

  Their swift escape paid little attention to the perils of the Kalahari night. First, they needed to survive the hunters’ attack; they would deal with the darkness and its fauna
later. Marie and David ran as fast as they could through the rough and sandy terrain. When they stopped to catch their breath, they noticed the first significant setback: Wherever they looked, they could not see any trace of !Soh, even under the light of the full moon.

  After another shot, Marie and David started running again, moving even faster to compensate for the loss of their guide. Only after the desert fell back into silence, reinforcing its presence, did they collapse in complete physical exhaustion. During the desperate flight, the two had left behind all essential tools for survival and had no idea where they were. Plus, as they tried to push down the panic rising in their chests, they could already feel the frost creeping over the bushes.

  Chapter XV

  For the second time in less than twenty-four hours, Marie’s long and lethal addiction provided a means to stay alive. She patted her jeans pockets and found the precious protrusion. She took out the lighter and, with David’s help, quickly collected pieces of kindling in a heap.

  “They could locate us,” David said.

  “At least we won’t freeze to death or be devoured by a hyena.”

  The kindling caught fire quickly enough, but the flame was still weak. With their hands scrounging around in the dark, David and Marie collected everything that looked flammable. They tried to ignore the many noises emanating from the desert, from all directions, and only stopped collecting fuel for the fire when the flames had reached about half a meter.

  Sitting shoulder to shoulder with David and as close to the fire as possible, Marie was sure that the temperature had dropped below freezing by that time. What was more disturbing, however, was the fact that they did not have any water—destining them to a short fate in the Kalahari. Feeling desolate, Marie decided not to immediately voice all her worries. Instead, she looked at the stars and tried to think of something that was farthest from her reality, preferably metaphysical.

  “So, David, you wanted to get to know a society which was closer to our origins to see if you could find the clues as to what happened to humankind. I just think it’s odd what you’re doing. Your bedside book should have provided you with all the answers… Sorry, I don’t want to be sarcastic, not this time… But what I know of the genesis of the world as described in your Bible serves a believer just as well as it serves an atheist like me. The difference lies in the interpretation. For some, the truth reveals itself in a literal manner, for others, in a metaphor. And for all of us, the message is given.”

  David rewarded her generosity with a broad smile. He had not heard a testimony of the universality of the sacred texts for a long time.

  “Did you know that the word metaphor was translated from Greek and means change or transposition?” asked David.

  “Transposition, no doubt. Without this tool, human communication would not have developed the way it has.”

  They then sat in silence long enough for the nocturnal sounds of the desert to become deafening.

  “Marie… which metaphor for us being lost here together would you use?” said David after a long pause.

  The question did not take them back to the same silence, but rather to an introspection now immune to the dangers surrounding them. For a moment, no cruel hunters or serpents were waiting to make their fatal approach.

  “By transposition, Father, I think we are living the fable of the fox and the Little Prince in the desert,” Marie, smiled. “You’re the boy fallen from the stars, full of questions, and I’m the fox waiting to be...”

  Her sentence was left hanging in the air, unfinished, as they simultaneously noticed the big head of a hyena about five meters from where they sat. They froze, staring fixedly at the animal’s eyes. The hyena’s breathing drowned out all other sounds. In light of the species’ high level of aggression, especially in females, Marie feared that David would make an abrupt movement, encouraging it to attack. In doubt, and in a lucky strike, David intuitively chose inaction.

  “Stay where you are,” whispered Marie.

  The hyena’s cackle, reminiscent of a macabre human laugh, destabilized David’s nerves even further. The seconds dragged as the animal retreated; they listened to the sound of its paws growing softer until it was utterly silent.

  Before fully recovering from their fright, they set out to search for more twigs to feed the fire to its original height. Seated side-by-side, they kept still for a long time. There was no need to comment on what had happened. The appearance of the hyena, although scary, was not entirely unexpected, and David thought it better not to think about the devil so that he would not resurface.

  “There is no Eden here, if that is what you intended to find.” Marie decided to break the silence to dissipate her terror.

  “So, I presume we’ll continue in metaphors…”

  “Isn’t that how you preach?”

  David disregarded the provocation and kept his features serene, with an implicit smile playing around his lips that did not go unnoticed by Marie.

  “There is no going back, Father. When they tasted the fruit of the tree of wisdom, Adam, Eve, and their descendants realized that they no longer formed a whole with the animals and the universe. They earned individuality and forever lost the paradise.”

  “Now you sound like Dr. Ecklund.”

  Marie let out a guffaw, this time more out of relief than humor.

  “No, please, don’t laugh like that; or our friend out there might think it has found a mate,” he murmured.

  Careful to avoid Marie’s eyes, David noticed the delicate gesture with which she took a cigarette from a pack and cautiously straightened it by rolling it between her palms. Then she lit it with a long inhalation, tilting her chin downwards at an elegant angle. With her legs crossed and the hand with the cigarette resting leisurely on her knee, she released the smoke from her mouth slowly, forming visible rings.

  The dexterity and practice needed to blow rings of smoke reminded David that human beings were, in fact, ritualistic animals.

  “What are you thinking about?” he asked.

  “Andreas is an idealist. He thinks he can rebuild the past of the San in a kind of open-air lab. But strangely enough, what brings me here is the same reason you had, Father.”

  “Really?” David tried to catch Marie’s downturned gaze. “And in which way?”

  “I’m also searching for answers to why humanity went astray… Or in your words, why we’ve abandoned Eden…”

  “But the answer should be clear to you as well,” David smiled openly. “Like you all said at the campsite. Knowledge led to a sedentary life; civilizations prospered and became rich, but individual suffering increased enormously,” said David, summarizing the argument brought out by the reserachers. “But frankly…, I never imagined the primitive life to be any easier.”

  “And you shouldn’t; it’s just a basic comparison. Plus, the hunter-gatherers, as Andreas put it, already carried the DNA for violence and destruction in their veins. Were they happier? Sure, without the anxiety that comes with a complex society. And they were certainly more in sync with nature, but never in perfect communion with it. That never existed, David, not for the homo sapiens. Those primitive societies were actually true environmental chaos machines.” Marie paused to examine David’s glance at the infinite. “Are you surprised? Sorry to disappoint you, Father, but way before humans invented writing, they had already led much of the fauna to extinction and decimated most of the mammals on Earth.”

  “But certainly not at the speed we are now destroying it.”

  “No, not at the same pace. Besides, the large-scale biological annihilation we face today is unprecedent. The Earth has gone through major mass extinctions before, all caused by natural factors. This is the first one that is essentially man-made.”

  David did not follow Marie’s head movement. Instead, he looked up at a vibrant constellation and sighed. Soon David was reviving his childho
od dream of being in a world that was not his. Maybe in the Andromeda galaxy, since one time he had read that it was the closest galaxy to the Milky Way, having twice the number of stars, and it was named after a mythological princess. The beautiful Andromeda was a princess of Ethiopia and, as per Poseidon’s demand, was offered as a sacrifice to a sea monster but ended up being saved by Perseus, who wedded her. When she died, Athena put her among the constellations near the northern hemisphere, next to her husband and mother, Cassiopeia.

  “And yet human imagination can create so many beautiful stories,” said David, his gaze now dropping from the sky like a shooting star.

  They offered silence their best company. With their hands interlaced, their hearts were eased, but not for long. The hunters had apparently not given up their search, and another bang was heard. Marie and David quickly put out the fire to avoid being spotted. They lay down on the ground, their bodies pressed close together, and stayed silent for about half an hour. When at last they thought it might be safe to rekindle the fire, they heard footsteps and voices close by. Marie held on to David tightly, as if grabbing onto a piece of wood after a shipwreck. To console her, he murmured prayers and words of reassurance in her ear. Marie deposited so much faith in David’s words that, at that moment, she worshipped him like a holy relic.

  Although the thought was sacred, something mundane and iconoclast ran through her body. Marie soon realized that the energy that directed her vital instincts also awoke her sexual drive. David was so focused on offering safety and comfort that he did not oppose the fact that their lungs shared the same air. But they were breathing so close to one another that it was inevitable that their lips touched.

  They heard new footsteps from even closer. Most probably the hunters had smelled the smoke, but against all the odds, the sound stopped and then moved in another direction.

  Gasping, Marie gently bit David’s upper lip. The frenzy in her guts was so authentic that it justified her odd behavior. For a few seconds, the fear of rejection was more significant than the fear of imminent death. So, Marie repeated the gesture.