Muti Nation

by Monique Snyman

  [Pause]

  I went back to bed after my mother left for work and my brother went to school. But it was too difficult to sleep because of my tooth. I remember I went to the sitting room and put on the TV, but I can’t recall what I watched. Then, I fell asleep for a while on the chair.

  [Pause]

  Esmé: Did they break down the door?

  Solomon: No, they came in through an open window in the bedroom.

  Esmé: I thought you said your flat was on the fourth floor?

  Solomon: It is. It was. There’s this ledge where the pigeons used to sit and make noise, around every floor. They broke into the flat beneath ours, climbed out on the ledge and somehow scaled a storey, before entering though our flat’s bedroom window. Fucking monkeys.

  Esmé: Okay, what happened next?

  Solomon: There were two of them. The one had a scar over his lip, like a cleft-lip, but not entirely. He also had these maniac eyes, demon eyes. Yeah? And I remember him having monster feet. He wore big, black boots, filthy with dried mud, and around his neck hung a leather necklace with a human tooth. I will never forget it, because it hung in my face when he held me down.

  The other one was scrawny; my age. About sixteen at the time. He looked worried, like this wasn’t something he really wanted to do. But he was acting brave in front of the other guy, for brownie points.

  [Pause]

  Esmé: Take your time.

  Solomon: I screamed at them in Sotho to get out.

  “Fuck off! Get out of my house or I’ll call the police! Leave!”

  On and on I screamed, before the big guy punched me around a bit to subdue me. I was scared when he took out his gun and said I should strip naked. I couldn’t move. My whole body shook. I thought he wanted to rape me, but when I was naked he held me down on the couch and the little guy brought out a knife instead. He didn’t look well, but I was too worried about myself to care about his well-being.

  Esmé: Who didn’t look well?

  Solomon: The little one. He didn’t want to be there.

  [Pause]

  “Take his penis,” the big guy said in Sotho.

  “I can’t,” said the kid, shaking his head.

  “Do you want to get paid or not? Take the fucking dick.”

  [Sob]

  It’s difficult for me to relive what happened, because the pain is still fresh in my memory.

  Esmé: Should we stop?

  Solomon: No, I’d rather rip the Band-Aid off one time.

  [Pause]

  My whole ordeal has been painful, the after effects, too. I thought I would die often, since they took what doesn’t belong to them.

  [Inaudible]

  They didn’t castrate me completely, because the kid couldn’t stomach the blood. And although I’ve had reconstructive surgery, the doctors told me I will never be able to have children.

  Esmé: What else did they take from you, Solomon?

  Solomon: After the little one cut me, and made a mess of it. The big one took my hand, too. They would’ve skinned me alive and murdered me if they didn’t get spooked by the police siren outside. Turns out, the old woman on the first floor heard my screams and called them, luckily. I could’ve been another statistic if she hadn’t. Well, a statistic on another list, I suppose.

  Esmé: Were they caught? Did the police catch these men?

  Solomon: Yes, one was. The kid is serving a long sentence in prison now, for an unrelated crime.

  Esmé: And the other one?

  Solomon: He’s still out there. I still have nightmares about him.

  Howlen: For what reason do you think they targeted you?

  Solomon: As you can see, I’m an albino, otherwise known as a “ghost” or a “zero”. In Africa, we’re believed to be spiritually powerful, and our body parts are used for a variety of muti spells. They use our blood, skin, hair, bones, and all the other parts to improve their own lives, while disregarding ours completely. Also, if you’re black and are born with red hair, you’ll be targeted. It’s just the way it is.

  Esmé: Are you still being targeted?

  Solomon: While I live in Africa, I’ll always be a target because of my light skin tone. It’s not only here. It’s everywhere. In Mozambique, Nigeria, Kenya, anywhere there’s a traditional following, there’ll be people wanting albino muti. The albino community is dropping like flies, man. Especially now, with the recession and economic problems, it’s becoming too hard for people to cope, so they reach out to sangomas for help.

  Esmé: What are your feelings toward traditional healers, sangomas?

  Solomon: In general, I hate them. I hate how they prey on the fears and weaknesses of people. It’s greedy how they take people’s money and then sit back and feel guiltless about the lives they’ve ruined or ended. But I also know not all of them are like this. It’s the bad ones who use human parts for their muti; the witchdoctors, I mean.

  Esmé: So you believe there are good and bad traditional healers?

  Solomon: Yes. The real ones, the ones who were gifted the ability to heal people, the ones who don’t care about the money rather than helping the people, aren’t killers. They use traditional medicines made from plants, and herbs, and other natural ingredients, to heal. These other ones though, the witchdoctors [pause] the ones who did this to me and the other people [pause] they aren’t real sangomas. They are imposters preying on desperate people.

  Howlen: Have you taken preventive measures to stay safe?

  Solomon: No matter what you do or where you go in the world, there’s always the possibility of being killed [pause] or worse [pause] for whatever reason. Nobody’s ever truly safe, not here. Not anywhere. Not me, and not you.

  *END OF AUDIO TRANSCRIPT*

  Chapter 4

  Fear is a rational response.

  The crimes are savage and arcane. Many believe the occult to be regressive in this day and age, which is why it’s such a hush-hush topic. People don’t talk about muti or sangomas or tokoloshes around the dinner table because they fear they’ll let evil into their homes. But walk around any major city centre in South Africa and you’ll see the homemade posters glued to lampposts and electricity boxes, with a blunt slogan like:

  WANT BIG STRONG ERECTIONS?

  I CAN HELP!

  There are numerous services on offer to a person who is willing to spend money on a solution to their problems.

  Plagued by bad luck? No problem! There’s a potion to help you out. Want to find a lost lover? Easy! Here’s a concoction to drink. Are you ill? No medical doctor knows more about your illness than the local witchdoctor. Do you want to make your employer suffer a bit? Great! Let’s conjure up a tokoloshe to make his or her life a living hell. It’s that simple. Whether your money will be enough to procure whatever potent remedy you need is a whole other matter, but sometimes inexplicable, real things do happen.

  If you’re not scared, you’re an idiot.

  The occult is a pseudoscience not easily explained in layman’s terms. It changes often, is misunderstood, and accurate information is impossible to find. Hard facts about muti-killings are also basically non-existent; unless you want to sift through religious mumbo-jumbo from so-called “Warriors of God” who still can’t differentiate between Satanism and devil worshipping. There is a difference, like there’s a difference between Islam and ISIS, Christianity and the KKK. Like there’s a difference between witches, witchdoctors and sangomas. The problem is people rely too much on their indoctrinated beliefs to see where one blurry line ends and the next blurry line begins.

  The agency I work for is located in Stanza Bopape Street, in a house dating back to the 1940s that we converted into office space. There’s nothing special about it, even with the recent renovations. High walls surround the property, CCTVs and motion detectors keep most intruders from breaking in, and if criminals aren’t deterred there’s always the alarm system and armed response security company to come to the rescue.

  Walk through the front door
and there’s the original hardwood floors polished to a gleam, with a large reception area which sees hardly any action from walk-in clients. Every week there’s a new face at the front desk, because receptionists quit as soon as they find out what the work entails. Walk up the stairs and there are four offices, decorated in their own unique styles. Continue onward, past the reception area, to a reasonable-sized kitchen as well as my grandfather’s office, and the conference room where the video equipment is stored. The swimming pool is situated near the lapa where a built-in braai gets used, because sometimes the only way to handle everything is with a beer in hand and a blue bull steak on the coals. And then there’s the quartered-off part of the backyard used as a smoking area.

  Snyders International has one secretary who’s been here since the agency doors opened nine years ago, when I was seventeen.

  Precious Bloom doesn’t take nonsense from anyone or anything, human or otherwise, but she never goes into the field. Her hawkish eyes can see through bullshit a mile away, and she’s got a sharp tongue to match those infamous predatory glares. She smiles easily enough though, and she likes a good joke as much as the next person, but she’s also quick to say: “There’s a time to work and a time to play, and now’s not the time for kak.”

  Profanity just sounds better in Afrikaans, as Precious likes to point out.

  Christiaan Snyders, my grandfather, owns the agency—Snyders International—but he only works with us on occasion. Grandpa is usually abroad to talk about the occult at universities and police conventions as an academic, or he helps out with tough cases so the agency breaks even every quarter. Our services are paid for on an ad hoc basis, whether it’s for murder investigations, occult training, or speeches about the paranormal. Neither the government nor the church funds our work, but our expert services are often sought after and paid for when the need arises.

  Take note: We are not affiliated with the South African Police Service Occult Related Crimes Unit, established in 1992 and reinstated in 2012, in any way. Snyders International is a private organisation dedicated to finding answers, rather than create a second wave of Satanic Panic in the general populace.

  Father Gabriel is a Catholic Priest and mandated exorcist sent from the Vatican to South Africa, years ago. He became part of the team by accident after Grandpa’s path crossed with his in Soweto nine years ago. A quick call to the Vatican for permission to employ Father Gabriel on a part-time basis, procured him for the agency.

  Father Gabriel is on his own mission though and only assists in our investigations when the workload becomes too much, or too weird, but it’s a symbiotic relationship. He gets the resources he needs, which the local church cannot afford, and we have an exorcist at our beck and call when we need one.

  Howlen Walcott, who started off as an assistant to my grandfather to research his doctoral dissertation, decided to stay on. His office is next to mine, pimped out in clichés from noir detective agency novels and it doesn’t suit him in the least. He’s not exactly detective-looking, if there is such a thing. He’s too tall, too intelligent, too serious, and too fit. He might’ve been Scotland Yard’s most handsome criminologist had he stayed in Britain, but apparently he doesn’t like the weather. So here he is, still learning the ropes of the business, and the culture of this foreign land. People are instantly taken by his suave accent, his eloquence, the way he carries himself—almost like Benedict Cumberbatch. He wears suits and ties no matter what the weather’s like, has a five-hundred-rand haircut and carries around a pair of designer sunglasses. Howlen’s posh, yes, but behind the clean-cut façade is something else. Something dark.

  I Googled him when we first met three years ago but all I got were a couple of social media listings. His Facebook profile is somewhat impersonal; quotes of notable writers qualify as status updates, a photograph of him and his buddies from university appears from time to time. There are a few films tagged in his “Favourites”—mostly horror and sci-fi flicks—and the odd YouTube cat video also show its face once in a while. He has a few hundred friends, nothing to write home about, and there’s nothing more. His Twitter is pretty much the same as his Facebook with vague updates of his day-to-day life appearing every couple of weeks. Otherwise, Howlen Walcott is non-existent on the internet.

  Fast forward three years, a dozen drunken nights spent together between the sheets, and I still don’t know a thing about the guy.

  ~

  I’ve entered an in-between stage, where I’m not a liquid or a solid. My legs tingle with needles and pins from my thighs to my toes and my mind responds in favour with a euphoric release of don’t-give-a-fuck. Aftershocks still rush through my body as I try to catch my breath and cool off. It’s not an easy feat when your air-conditioner is on the fritz and a working fan isn’t in the vicinity. The cool breeze, entering through the bedroom window helps somewhat, but a glass of ice cold water would be nicer. My legs are jelly though and I’m on the brink of blacking out. Besides, I’m being held hostage by a naked Brit who’s already fallen asleep after our stellar performance between the sheets.

  Howlen has been blessed with Atlas’ stamina, but when he’s done, he’s done. Out cold. Hell, so am I.

  I fall asleep with his arm draped over my waist, and his crown nested in the nape of my neck. No nightmares infiltrate my unconscious state for a change, no panic attacks or sudden startles. It’s a deep, dreamless sleep that’ll recharge my batteries properly for Case #137-ES.

  All is well, almost blissful, until I hear a familiar voice whisper in a thick British accent: “Esmé, don’t open your eyes.” A hint of anxiety laces Howlen’s murmur. I grumble an incoherent question and his hand moves over my mouth to muffle the sound. “Don’t,” he breathes.

  Panic jolts me away from my dreamless oasis and bubbles into my veins. My chest feels heavy with dread and indecision. Do I open my eyes and face the intruder who somehow made it past all my security measures without being heard or seen? Or do I play dead? I can feel Howlen’s heart pounding where my shoulder presses up against him and his quick breaths against my cheek, even though they’re silent.

  Curiosity killed the cat, Esmé, I think the cliché, but curiosity gets the better of me anyway.

  My eyelids flutter open and my pupils adjust to the darkness in seconds.

  I see it.

  A shapeless thing in a shade darker than night hovers over me, its face inches from mine. The shadow feels more than looks sallow. It’s somehow gaunt and corpulent at the same time. There’s a menacing expression in the swirls of black dripping from nothingness into nothingness. Somehow I can make out a deathly glare fixated on me, but there are no discernible eyes in the face. A gaping maw where a mouth should be is breathing sour-smelling air into my personal space. Adrenaline pumps through my body with each frantic heartbeat. But no matter how badly I want to move my limbs are frozen. Whimpers escape my throat and get stuck in Howlen’s palm. Trembles of fear affects each molecule of my being. And yet, I can only stare at it.

  It picks up on my fear, and satisfaction crosses what passes as a face. Suddenly it shrieks a high-pitched scream—one indistinct word before poof. The blacker than black shadows dissolves into the night.

  My body is my own again.

  I sit upright, casting Howlen’s hand aside in the process, and inhale thick, warm oxygen into my lungs. My hands are shaking, tears prick the corners of my eyes, but I’m only rattled. Nothing I can’t handle.

  “Is this the first time this has happened?” Howlen asks.

  I nod. I don’t trust myself to lie out loud yet. I’ve seen worse than a perverted shadow, in the daylight no less. At night though, I’ve had my fair share glimpsing dancing shadows in my house.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Give me a sec,” I answer, still weak with surprise.

  He does.

  We sit in silence for a few minutes. In that time, I gather my thoughts and analyse the event, wondering what to make of this intrusion.

  “We’ll
have to get Father Gabriel to bless your house or something.”

  I cast a disapproving glance over my shoulder. “Sure, let’s tell the Catholic priest there was a malevolent spirit in my house, while I was having premarital sex. Then he can report it to God, or worse—my grandfather.”

  Howlen doesn’t mean to smile, but he does.

  “Shut up, Howl.”

  The alarm clock’s neon red numbers read 02:32 a.m., which means I haven’t been asleep for more than an hour. There’s no way in hell I’ll get to sleep again. Not tonight. I push my fingers through my hair and the knots get tangled around my fingers.

  “Are you okay, May?” he asks again, using the nickname he’d chosen for me on these occasions.

  “Fine, fine,” I answer level-headed. “It’s nothing but a warning. You know how it goes.” He should know by now though he’s a sceptic through and through, regardless of what he’s witnessed first-hand. These entities are conjured up to warn people like us away from digging around. They can’t hurt us, just freak us out.

  The bedside lamp switches on with an audible click, casting an artificial yellow glow across the bedroom. Shadows recede into the corners of the room, not disappearing entirely. I’m reminded to buy a 100-watt light bulb the next day, because the 60-watt I purchased just doesn’t cut away the gloom. The wattage, however, is ample enough to make me feel better. Pieces of clothing lead into the room from the hallway, randomly strewn across the floor. The duvet is halfway across the foot of the bed and on the grey tiled floor. My dressing table is a mess with perfume bottles lying on their sides on the silver tray, while the silver necklace tree stands at an awkward angle. The empty Durex box somehow ended up near my closet on the other side of the bedroom. I guess the discarded foil packaging and used condoms are on Howlen’s side of the bed.

  A blush creeps up my neck and settles on my cheeks as I study the disarray but the embarrassment is quickly replaced with claustrophobia and disbelief.