Sunspot Jungle

by Bill Campbell

  There was no answer to his knocking, so he’d let himself into the apartment. There was a foul odor, and all the shades were drawn. At first, Gilman believed the noxious scent was a fetid buildup of mildew and garbage. He called aloud for Kazoua and heard a loud bumping noise from the room she used as her studio.

  Walking over with trepidation, he screamed when he saw the awful sight: on the floor lay the corpse of the diminutive woman who once was Kazoua Vue. But the rats, those damned, infernal rats, had made a meal of her, stripping away all of her flesh and most of her organs. Except, strangely, her perfect, beautiful right arm, which still clutched a ornately-carved brush.

  As he leaned closer, he could see, no, it was made from a hideously-gnawed human bone. He then looked up and saw the last canvas she’d been working on. He was horrified to see the gruesome painted images of three ghastly women staring directly at him and Kazoua’s corpse, their mouths salivating in anticipation. Their evil filled him with dread as if viewing some ancient enemy.

  Perhaps it was only the effect of the chemical fumes and the stench of decay in the room, but Gilman swears he saw the hands in the painting move as if probing for a way to escape the confines of the painting’s feeble geometry. He heard a quiet shuffling from a dark corner of the studio, then a bump.

  And then he realized what was truly wrong: He might not understand art as well as his mad uncle, but he knew enough about composition to know there was space in the painting for four figures. A missing figure.

  The one slowly rising, shuffling, crawling towards him. The one moving with a pulpy, liqueous lurching noise, slow and murderous. Its head, or whatever pale, lumpy appendage it might call as such, was turning right towards him. Walking backwards.

  And he fled, needing no further satisfaction of his curiosity. Something shrieked.

  XI.

  When the police arrived, they found nothing but a corpse. They dismissed the more imaginative aspects of Gilman’s account as stress and shock. Hallucinations.

  Curiously, it may have been an effect of the chemicals in the air, but the initial coroner’s report indicated that she had been dead since at least November. But that is ridiculous, for obvious reasons, and was corrected on the proper certificates to something more reasonable.

  Gilman tries to forget it all now with a daily bottle of scotch and a box of cigarettes and sleeps with the lights constantly on back at his shabby apartment in Innsmouth.

  Local mystics debate over their lattes whether the roots of this incident emerged from Kazoua’s traditions or New England’s or something far more ancient and transcendent of time and space who cares nothing for earthly dreams, let alone American ones.

  Kazoua Vue and Tou Ger Khang’s stories have slowly been eased out of human memory because sometimes it is better to forget, the elders say. Humans often forget that forgetting, too, can be a blessing of the heavens no matter where they’re from.

  The Dombrowskis still have difficulty renting the apartment out.

  Water in the Rice Fields Up to My Knees!

  Johary Ravaloson

  translated by Allison M. Charette

  1

  It happened in November. A sticky night relieved by crisp post-storm air. I was waiting for passengers under a streetlight in Ampasampito near the cemetery, when I heard squelch-squelch on the pavement. I looked up from my notebook and saw a faltering shadow stumble into the circle of light. Slathered with mud, her feet and wedge heels forming thick, slimy boots, the woman lurched frantically toward me, squick-squicking. She looked like she’d probably cut an elegant figure, one of the elite, before falling into a sewer. Her legs and hands, her raincoat, her face, and hair were stained with grime. I locked my taxi quick as a flash. Absolutely not, I couldn’t. Left my window open, though.

  “Help me, please help me! Take me to Andraharo!”

  “Wherever you’d like to go, ma’am,” I said, “as soon as you’ve cleaned all that off.”

  “I’ll give you a hundred thousand!”

  “There’s a pump on the corner.”

  “Alohalika ny ranom-bary e!”

  Water in the rice fields, up to my knees! I said nothing, just pointed to the street corner. Water in the rice fields, up to your knees: it suffocates young plants and destroys any hope of a harvest. But by this season, the rice plants were mature enough to survive that level of water. Frightened squelch-squelching toward the pump. Almost kinda sexy, actually. Keeping tabs on the operations in my rearview mirror, I realized how weird it was, that old-timey raise-the-alarm phrase coming from the woman’s lips. She was a city girl even with the splotches of mud on her calves.

  “Show me your hundred,” I said when she got back from her rush scrubbing job. She pulled ten out of her splotchy handbag.

  “I can give you thirty now, and my husband will give you the rest when we get there.”

  I paused. Something moved on the other side of the intersection.

  “Alohalika ny ranom-bary e!”

  I looked at her and said nothing. Antananarivo really was that close to the fields then. Deciding abruptly, I opened the door for her. The cold stench of damp earth gusted into the car with her. More activity around the edges of the light, but the shadows seemed unwilling to come any closer. I started the engine, turned on the headlights, and they disappeared.

  “Where in Andraharo, ma’am?”

  “Across from the gas station.”

  “There aren’t any houses there, though!”

  “My husband is at his office, he’s working late.”

  “Your husband works late? What is he, a taxi driver?”

  I laughed aloud at my stupid little joke. Then slowly, her silence dampened my spirits. At any rate, I thought, even for thirty thousand, it’d be worth it. I rolled along, no rush, and snuck glances back at her every time that there was enough light.

  “What really happened to you? You’re not exactly … dressed for the rice fields.”

  She stayed silent, rummaged around in her bag. She fiddled with her phone, then met my eyes in the rearview mirror and decided against making a call.

  Finally, she admitted, “I fell down in the rice field. I … I had to, well, let’s say … I really had to relieve myself. I stopped on the dike road, I … There were cars passing with their headlights on, I climbed down further than I wanted to, and I fell down. I lost my car keys in the mud. I tried getting people to stop, but they all sped up as soon as they saw me.”

  2

  That was months ago.

  And then tonight, I see her again step into the illuminated circle beneath the light post where I park. Squick-squick, covered with just as much mud as before. It can’t be, this can’t happen. I jump out of the car.

  “Alohalika ny ranom-bary e!”

  Stunned by cold and surprise, I don’t know what to say. My pupils are probably dilated. No mud boots on her this time but dirt-encrusted pumps that she holds in her hands, shivering in the frigid night. She was probably wearing all black before she fell—blazer, skirt, hose, and overcoat, now all smeared with mud that’s somewhere between dark red and brownish green.

  “Alohalika ny ranom-bary e!” she says again.

  I don’t have the heart to send her to wash up at the pump. I open the door for her. She slumps down onto the backseat. I spread my Chinese-made synthetic blanket over her. That smell … She didn’t fall down in a rice field.

  “To Andraharo, ma’am?”

  Is she nodding, or is her face drooping? She seems overly weary under the blanket. Fingers on the ignition, I ask her, “What’s all this about?” She rummages halfheartedly under the blanket too slowly. She stretches out her too-slow, too-muddy hand to give me new, spotless bills. I don’t like that. I let off the brakes, let off the clutch.

  I’ll still watch her out of the corner of my eye. But I mean, it’s not going to be much help. I’m not going to ask her anything like: “Would you like me to take you to the hospital?” She’s obviously not that kind of woman. Or n
ot anymore, if you know what I mean. Just have to keep calm.

  Roundabout. Cobblestone cemetery road. The streets are empty. I speed up.

  She’s saying something to me, her lips are moving ever so slightly in the rearview mirror. Andravoahangy. Ankorondrano. Route du Pape. Antohomadinika. She doesn’t really utter a full sentence through the entire trip. And I’m charging into the cold, yellow light.

  Rue d’Andraharo. Then the gas station. I slam on the brakes.

  She opens her mouth again, and I don’t give her time to repeat it. Why’s she bugging me with this thing? I throw her out of the car and take off. Like a shot. When the water gets that high in this season, they open the floodgates, so the water can run out to the ocean. I step on the gas. Probably at Antanimena by the time she gets to the middle of her sentence.

  I reach the train station, Avenue de l’Indépendance. She’s probably at “knees.” I shiver. From cold or fear? Not even a dog around to watch the city’s fairy-tale fountains. Stop under the first streetlight. I get out of the car. Walk around it three times. And three times the other way. Sit on the warm bumper of my old clunker.

  Soon another taxi will pull up. The driver will say hello. He’ll ask if I want a drink. Because I’m thirsty. What’s he asking? I can’t understand what he’s saying, but I hear his voice, a woman’s voice.

  It says, “Alohalika ny ranom-bary e!”

  I open my eyes. I’m alone under the streetlight. It shows me real life, a calm reality. I stand up. Jump as my hands touch the cooled, moist hood. The decorative fountains in front of City Hall hum behind their gates. I scramble into the car. Twice as relieved to get back under my blanket. I wrap it around my body up to my ears before settling down in my seat. One hand kept free to reach the thermos.

  The pool stops gurgling. The lights shining on City Hall also go out. It must be midnight. I didn’t get any fares all evening. A shadow lurches behind the light. Squelch-squelching toward my taxi.

  I drop the lemongrass infusion and take off. Like the wind.

  Alohalika ny ranom-bary e!

  3

  Sitting on the biggest chair, a beer in my hand and Talking Heads in my ears, I rub my stomach watching her work the grill. She’s making masikita kebabs. I came downstairs as soon as I smelled the aroma wafting into the room. Now I’m in the big armchair. The TV is on, but I turned off the sound. Silent broadcasters are hilarious. It doesn’t mean anything. It’s like they’re not there, not a single one of them in that damn box. But you know what’s happening. Nothing changes from yesterday. The same faces in different places or sometimes even the same places. A silent track. I picture Mike Brant crooning “Qui saura.” She pulls my headphones off and asks what I’m laughing at.

  “The TV’s on mute!”

  “You’re dumb,” she says.

  Still, she leaves a few pieces of kebab for me. What a taste! I rub my stomach in anticipation as David Byrne’s voice in my ears asks where is that large automobile? … my beautiful house! … my beautiful wife!

  None of it’s real! My car’s a clunker that I lease at night, my house is a bed that I can only spend time in during the day, and my wife’s a daydream that I chase through my notebooks beneath the city’s street lamps.

  Nothing’s real except the smell of the kebabs. I’d stopped by when I smelled the familiar aroma of zebu meat fried in the fat from its hump. As a bonus, I get to take advantage of the heat from the brazier.

  “Give me five,” I say to the kebab lady. “Come on. Six! Seven! Seven for the price of six!” She smiles, counts what she has left. “Ten for the price of ten, will that work?” My smile drops. I sigh, “Six’ll be fine.”

  I try picking up the chair to scoot it closer to the fire. It weighs a ton. Packing pallets tied to a set of rims. I guess I’ll just stand near the fire. It’s not that much warmer.

  “It’s cold, the charcoal’s not burning good, it’s not crispy enough,” she says.

  “It’ll be fine.”

  “Oh, is it you? Yes, you. I recognize you. Stop looking behind you, you’re the one I’m talking to.”

  “Uh …”

  “You’re the taxi guy that drove the dead woman around. My boys know you real well. They wash your car. The first time, when you got back from Andraharo, you stopped here. I was there. They washed your car, they always talk about the smell.”

  “Uh …”

  “Why’d you do that? Why’d you agree to let her get in your car? You don’t get any fares anymore, you know. You don’t even have enough money for ten measly masikita!”

  I’d sat down on the irregular chair at the first word. The cold is seeping into me as it all tumbles around in my head, making my limbs and my whole body numb. Stiff as a lifeless sculpture. I can’t unclench my teeth even if I wanted to answer. Frozen, like when I see her. Except that she directs my actions like a marionette. So other people can see her, too. And they see me when I drive her all the way across Tana. Like a child, I had closed my eyes and thought I was invisible.

  “Do you want some peanut sauce? Or chili?”

  I’ve got to shake myself out of this. Concentrate on the masikita smell. Nice, warm thoughts. A Friday night outing behind Mahamasina where a client will keep me for the night and share his feast with me in the taxi. I just have to ask. The bottle of rum I used to share with Ra-Eddy before he left to claim his own corner in the sun down south in Sapphire City. My mother’s masikita that she’d buy on the way home from work, that we’d reheat over the fire and gobble down with soasoa rice that was cooked at the end of the afternoon, kept warm under blankets, as soft as can be.

  “Peanut, yes, chili, yes,” I say too forcefully, released at last. “… She’s not dead.”

  “Not dead? Ha ha ha! You’re the only one who sees her in flesh and blood. The rest of the world just sees her as flesh and mud! Ha ha ha! You’re driving a dead lady around!”

  “She’s not a dead person. I take her to her husband’s office in Andraharo.”

  “Have you ever seen her husband? What’s he look like?”

  Masikita. Bathed in spicy peanut sauce. Mmmm. Some warm bread would be perfect. The kind that’s fresh out of the bakery first thing in the morning. Sometimes my clients give me a piece. I’ve never seen her husband. As soon as she gets out of the car, I clear off, I don’t ask for the rest of the money.

  “It doesn’t matter, she’s not dead. She talks, she says things to me!”

  “What does she say?”

  “She said that there was water in the rice fields, up to your knees. Alohalika ny ranom-bary e!”

  “Ha ha ha! That’ll do her a hell of a lot of good! Since when do dead people care about rice? There are never any tombs underneath rice fields!”

  “Hey, listen, one of my wife’s cousins, her grandfather appeared to her in her sleep and warned her about the same thing, and when they opened his tomb, it was all flooded from a crack inside!”

  “Yeah, but he didn’t ask for a taxi ride!”

  “Ha ha ha!”

  Who are all these people around me? The masikita are getting cold. The fat’s congealed, and it’s scraping uncomfortably against my tongue. Why are they shouting like that? The chili’s not heating up my palate at all. Why are they all looking at me? The sauce is getting thick. Why are they laughing?

  “Alohalika ny ranom-bary e!”

  “Ha ha ha!”

  “You don’t remember anything, do you?”

  “What was it that happened? She appeared, squelch-squelch, covered in mud, was that it?”

  “Ha ha ha!”

  “You didn’t stop!”

  “I was at the taxi stop under my streetlight.”

  “Ha ha ha, no, we’re talking about the first time. You didn’t stop, did you?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The first time, when she fell in the rice fields and climbed out onto the big dike next to the river, all covered in mud, asking for help, you didn’t stop.”

  �
��She was yelling, ‘Alohalika ny ranom-bary e!’”

  “But did you see her? No one would have let her get in their car looking like that.”

  “She was beautiful!”

  “She’d be gorgeous without all that mud!”

  “Ha ha ha, a gorgeous corpse! Ha ha ha!”

  “She’s not dead!”

  “She’s more dead than dead. Left alone on that dike, abandoned by everyone, knocked down in a rice field. She died of that. Ever since, she’s been begging us to take her to Andraharo. You’re not the only one she asks.”

  “Huh?”

  “You’re not the only one she relays her message to either.”

  “Oh, yeah? You, too?”

  “Alohalika ny ranom-bary e!”

  4

  Ten p.m. and not a single passenger. Read the whole paper. Headlines to classifieds. Nothing new outside the glowing halo beneath my streetlight. The daytime driver who left it in my clunker could have just as easily held onto it to keep himself warm. The nights are still chilly. The transitional government’s transacting. Grasshoppers are spawning. Murders and robberies give way to murders and robberies. Lots of people have been blessed with favors from the Sacred Heart (I stopped counting after seventeen and turned away from the page filled with thanks notices). Lots of used SUVs have arrived by boat, but that doesn’t make them any cheaper. So I guess tomorrow still won’t be the day that I’ll sit behind the power windows of my SUV and never see the random glances of children in the streets again. Oh, well! Still waiting to pay today’s lease on my 4L (I have to do at least three trips). On the financial page, the World Bank tells me I’m not the only one. In fact, I’m one of many. Ninety-two people out of a hundred have less than the average taxi fare every day. No wonder I don’t have any passengers! Widespread poverty clogs the arteries of the city and plows the rice fields. Wrap yourself up tight in the paper and wait for something better.

  Something moves in the side mirror. A young couple walks into the light. They come toward me. I smile at my good luck. They climb into the back on my side, I say good evening, they frown, shake their heads, and climb out the other door. The two doors smack shut like a slap across both cheeks.