by Johnny Mains
‘It is good to have you back here,’ said van der Merwe, Amadi nodding behind him. The two of them seemed almost excessively enthusiastic about my presence but at the time I put my impressions down to exhaustion. ‘Will you be lecturing at all while you are here?’
I nodded. ‘I gave a talk on Bilharzia last time that went down quite well,’ I replied, ‘so I thought I would give a presentation on some of the latest research into it.’
Van der Merwe’s eyes lit up at the mention of that particular tropical infection. ‘Ah, yes,’ he said, ‘Schistosomiasis haematobium is the organism which causes it, isn’t that right?’ I nodded, wondering why someone non-medical would be sufficiently interested in it to be able to reel off its Latin name. And that wasn’t all he seemed to know. ‘An organism that begins its life as an egg shed from the lining of the human bladder, passing into fresh water where it hatches and enters the body of a specific type of snail.’
‘Bulinus globosus,’ I interjected, determined not to be outdone in the Latin stakes.
‘I forget,’ said van der Merwe. ‘But what I do remember is that while it lives inside the snail it completes the first stage of its life cycle, becoming a form which can then infect humans. Remind me,’ he said in a way that suggested he didn’t need reminding at all, ‘how long does one need to be in contact with infected water for the organism to penetrate the skin?’
‘About ten seconds,’ I replied.
‘Ten seconds – yes, of course. I’ve always found that life cycle fascinating. Without the snail – known as the secondary host, I believe?’ I nodded. ‘Without the secondary host this creature would not be able to infect humans and it would die. Quite, quite fascinating.’
I yawned and apologised, explaining how tired I was. Despite that, van de Merwe was insistent that I come to dinner at his house that evening. I blurted an acceptance, bade farewell to both him and Amadi, and made my way back along the dusty street to my hotel, wondering quite what was going on. I had found nothing so far to be as I had been expecting it and my disorientation continued when I took out the key to my room only to find the door standing open and someone sitting on the bed within.
It was the girl who had taken the suitcase from me in the hospital.
I had thought she was attractive before, but now I could see that she was quite beautiful. Luxuriously rich, long, black hair framed a face whose olive skin suggested her origin was west of here. Far west. Perhaps Brazil or Argentina. Despite the fact that it was still morning I needed sleep, and most of all I needed time to myself, but there was something in those eyes that prevented me from acting indignant at her presence. Besides, I have always found that, when in doubt, it is best to be polite and charming.
She told me her name was Aeliya. I ventured a hello and when it looked as if she was about to say more I added, ‘I’m afraid I’m not really in the mood for any more talking just now.’
She crossed legs that were barely concealed beneath the simple white linen skirt she wore that was fashionably slashed to mid-thigh.
‘I know that,’ she said. ‘But I couldn’t let you just walk into the trap they’re setting for you tonight.’
That woke me up. ‘Trap?’ Under normal circumstances I would have thought the idea ridiculous, but right now anything seemed possible.
‘They want you,’ she said, getting to her feet. ‘You’re special.’
‘Why?’
She was close to me now, almost thrillingly so. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘But I heard them talking, and it has something to do with what you did when you were here before. More than that I cannot say.’
‘And why are you warning me?’
She smiled and it lit up the room better than the sunshine trying to bleed its way through the half-drawn blind. ‘Because I like you, and because I liked your friend – the one who hurt himself so horribly.’
I frowned. ‘Mohammed?’ she nodded. ‘How did he hurt himself? Why is he no longer the director?’
‘He is no longer the director because of what happened to him,’ she replied.
‘You mean his injury?’
‘I mean he was tested and he was found wanting.’ Now she was glaring at me. ‘And they will do the same to you, and if you are found wanting you will end up like him.’
‘What do you mean?’ I said, gripping her by the wrist as she tried to leave. ‘Where is he?’
She looked at me and now the sunshine in her eyes had been replaced with fear. ‘Believe me,’ she said, ‘you do not want to know.’
‘Believe me,’ I said, my grip tightening, ‘I do.’
I wasn’t expecting her to kiss me, and thinking back now it was probably the desperate act of a woman who cared about what might happen to me and didn’t know what else to do. In the end it was I who broke it off, knowing full well that any longer and we would be doing more than just kissing. I was still savouring the sweet taste of her on my lips as she wrote the address down for me and, at my insistence, drew a map as well. As her footsteps echoed down the stairs I studied the scrap of paper and wondered why on earth my old friend had decided to take up residence on the northernmost tip of the island.
To say that my first impressions of Mohammed Makinde’s new home were worrying would be a vast understatement.
I’m sure it didn’t help that during the twenty mile journey from Stone Town to Ras Nungwi it had begun to rain – great gouts of water that quickly reduced the road to mud and visibility to almost nil. I shook my head and looked at the darkening sky. I was already regretting having set out so late but I wanted to know what had happened to the friend I had made all those years ago. I had also been desperate for sleep, and something told me I would need all my wits about me for van de Merwe’s dinner party. Now, looking at my watch, I wondered if I would make it at all.
‘You could try using the windscreen wipers,’ I suggested to my driver, only to be rewarded with a shake of his head.
‘Don’t work,’ he said. ‘Been meaning to get them fixed.’
This didn’t seem to deter him, however, and the final five miles was the most terrifying road journey I have ever experienced. I was just able to make out the beach huts at Ras Nungwi as we rattled past it, travelling on until we reached a modern-looking complex that didn’t look like a house at all.
‘You sure you want to go in there?’ my driver asked as I handed him his fee.
‘Yes,’ I replied, as if it was any business of his. ‘My friend is staying there.’
The driver looked concerned. ‘You mean he is an inmate?’
That made me pause. I looked up at the imposing white walls and the tiny windows which would admit light but which were too small to allow a fully grown man to escape. ‘Is it a prison?’ I asked.
The driver shook his head and then tapped a finger against his temple. ‘For the sick – you know?’
I did, just as I understood how much Zanzibar had changed since my last visit, when this building hadn’t even existed. ‘How long has it been here?’ I asked.
‘A couple of years,’ was the reply, which could have meant anything. My attempts to find out just how long was met with a shrug of the shoulders that didn’t really surprise me. The car drove away in the pouring rain as I rushed to the door, only to realise it was more like a gate, the heavy vertical bars presumably operated by whoever could be contacted by the intercom to the right.
I explained who I was and held up my ID to the camera, wondering all the time where the money had come from to build such a place. When all I got was an angry dismissal I pressed the buzzer again and this time held up my UK passport.
There was a pause, and then a clunk as the gate was unlocked. Once I had passed through it slammed behind me and there was another clunk as the gate was locked again.
I found myself in a courtyard surrounded by white walls. A concrete path stretched across a patch of dry
earth on which a few withered plants obviously intended to flourish had resolutely failed to do so. On the opposite side a door was standing open and an unhappy-looking nurse who must have weighed close to eighteen stone was blocking the way.
‘What do you want?’ she asked.
‘I’ve come from Mnazi Mmoja to see Mohammed Makinde,’ I said. ‘I understand he is now resident here.’ I hoped mention of the hospital would gain me access.
‘He is fine,’ said the nurse. ‘He does not need any visitors.’
‘Nevertheless, I would appreciate it if you would take me to him,’ I said in my most authoritative tones, raising my head at a slight angle along with a brow. ‘Now, if you please.’
The nurse looked taken aback as she fingered the ring of keys attached to her belt. I began to stride purposefully towards her, half expecting the door to be slammed in my face. Instead I found myself following her down a dark corridor, the only light coming from a narrow window at its far end. At regular intervals along this corridor I could see white doors, featureless except for the Judas holes that had been set into them at eye level. The nurse didn’t stop until we reached the last one on the left.
‘How long?’ she asked as she rattled a key in the lock.
‘Twenty minutes,’ I replied, my expression impassive while inside I was wondering just what the hell was going on. Any sign of my true feelings would, I knew, result in my immediate eviction, and so I did my best to keep calm as I was allowed entry to what turned out to be Mohammed’s cell.
It did not escape my notice that the door was locked behind me once I had entered. The cell was narrow, its walls as white as the rest of the place, and there was a tiny window at the far end, beneath which someone was sitting, their back to me. It was much colder here than outside, but I couldn’t tell if it was the air temperature or merely my own fear that had caused the sudden chill. The click of the key in the lock distracted me momentarily before my attention returned to the figure seated at the bare desk.
‘Mohammed?’ I breathed, taking a step forward.
Click . . . click.
His hands were still, clasped on the desk in front of him, but still that strange noise seemed to be coming from him. I came closer and called his name again.
Click . . . tap . . . tap . . . click.
Where was that noise coming from? My mounting concern led me to lay a hand on his shoulder, and when that had little effect I shook him and then turned him to face me.
My God I wish I hadn’t.
Click . . . click . . . tap . . . tap . . . click.
My eyes filled with tears as I beheld what was left of the face of my friend. Because the poor demented soul I saw before me was Mohammed Makinde, or rather what remained of him.
Someone – I dread to think that it was he who had perpetrated this atrocity upon himself – had cut away his lips, had in fact removed all the skin and muscle from the lower half of his face so that all that now remained was hardened scar tissue. When he opened his mouth I could see that his tongue was gone, too.
The only way he could communicate was by clicking his teeth.
It took him a few moments to realise who I was, and when he did his eyes filled with tears. He began to push me away, towards the door, all the time making that awful clicking sound, his teeth chattering faster and faster and so vigorously I was worried he was going to break off the few that still remained in their sockets.
This commotion was loud enough to attract the attention of the nurse who must have been waiting outside for me. I heard the rattle of keys again and as the door swung open I glared at her.
‘What’s happened to him?’ I demanded. This time she refused to even acknowledge me, instead motioning to the two men who had accompanied her. I recognised one as the driver who had brought me to this place as they manhandled me out of there.
‘What are you doing?’ I shouted as they dragged me back the way I had come.
From behind me the nurse was speaking now, but what she said made little sense. ‘I was wrong. Forgive me. You have not yet seen Him,’ she said.
I shouted more protests but the grip on my arms was firm. As they took me through the gate she said one more thing that at the time made even less sense.
‘He waits for you to save us.’
It wasn’t long before I realised where they were taking me. Deeper and deeper into the forest we drove, until the path became so narrow that the truck had to be abandoned and we continued on foot. There was no question of my escaping, I thought, as I eyed the machete my driver had rescued from the vehicle’s back seat.
Eventually we came to the clearing, to the temple, to Eusi Ngome, where Andreas van der Merwe as waiting for me.
He was not alone.
‘I’m sorry I missed the dinner party,’ I said. ‘But I presume I would have ended up here anyway.’
‘The mountain would not go to Mohammed,’ he said with a trace of a smile, ‘and so we have brought you to us.’
I looked around me. Now, in the twilight, I could see that we were surrounded by a circle of people standing shoulder to shoulder around the perimeter of the clearing. And they were not just ordinary people. From their general appearance I could see that van de Merwe had recruited the derelicts and beggars of Zanzibar to his cause. I even thought I recognised some of them from the dock this morning.
‘Always the easy ones to bring into any cult,’ I said, gesturing around me.
Van de Merwe’s eyes narrowed. ‘Let me assure you, Dr Kendrick, that this is not just any cult. Besides, they wanted to meet you, and who am I to deny the wishes of my followers?’
It was true. As I looked around now I could see the assembled multitude regarding me with some kind of holy awe. There were so many of them that I was grateful they kept their distance.
I only started to get scared when they began to shuffle towards me.
‘Enough!’ Their leader held up a hand and to my relief they stopped. ‘Dr Kendrick is here for a purpose – to meet that which he awoke during his previous visit here.’
Now the group fell back, its members whispering and muttering to themselves and not taking their eyes off me for a moment. Van de Merwe stepped to one side to reveal the black hole in the ground behind him. It was the pit I had fallen into all those years ago.
‘You woke Him,’ he said. ‘You were the one He had been waiting for. Now He wishes to make peace with you and through you with all humankind. He wishes you to take His message to the world.’
I took a step back, only to feel the strong grip of the men who had brought me here force me forward until the toes of my shoes were at the rim of the pit. A hand in my hair forced me to look downward.
To see a thing of horror.
Even now I cannot describe it accurately. It must have lived down there a very long time and fed a great deal to be the size that it was – a size that prevented it from ever making its way up the brick-lined passage.
‘It was once a tower,’ said van de Merwe, as if that explained anything, ‘but that was a long time ago, and He has been waiting even longer than that for the right one. For his secondary host.’
I continued to stare at the mass of undulating colours, at the amorphous shape that extended fronds and tendrils towards me and then almost immediately snatched them back again into its bulk.
Then its eye opened.
At that moment, as it beheld me with that awful ochre pupil, I felt something pass between us. Something powerful and ancient and hungry. Hungry not for food, but for souls, for belief.
For faith.
I closed my eyes but by then it was already too late. Its power was in me now, and was a part of me as sure as if I had been born with it.
When I looked again the creature had gone.
‘He is pleased!’ van de Merwe turned to his congregation and made his announcement with arms rais
ed, to be rewarded by a sea of beatific obeisance. He turned back to me. ‘And now the Chosen One must see what he is capable of!’
He pointed at a young man who couldn’t have been more than twenty and beckoned him towards us. The rest of the crowd stayed still, held by the power of van de Merwe’s words. When the young man was six feet away, van der Merwe ordered him to stop.
‘Talk to him.’
I frowned. ‘What?’
Van Der Merwe pointed at the boy. ‘Talk to him. Say something. Anything.’
The situation was becoming increasingly absurd. I faced the young man and said the first thing that came into my head.
‘Mary had a little lamb,’ I recited – slowly, deliberately, and very sardonically.
The effect of my words on the young man was instantaneous, startling, and horrifying. He smiled, and his eyes glazed over so that he assumed the expression of someone under deep hypnosis. He swayed a little, and when he spoke it was in a serene monotone that was far more frightening than if he had screamed.
‘I show my face to you, my Lord,’ he said.
I snorted. What was going on? Had he been drugged? Did it matter that all he wanted to do was just look at me?
Then the boy raised his hands to his face, and I saw that the nails of both thumbs, allowed to grow long for weeks, had been fashioned into barbed hooks. With little ceremony he dug both thumbnails into the soft tissue beneath his chin, raking them across the skin so that for one horrific moment I thought he was trying to cut his throat.
But it was not his throat that he wished to mutilate.
Slowly, and with some difficulty, the young man tore the skin from his face, peeling it upwards until he reached his scalp. Then, with a final gouge of those awful nails what he had ripped away was thrown to the ground.
‘My face for you, my Lord,’ he hissed through lipless teeth as his shining eyeballs looked towards the opening of the pit.
Now the others were coming forward and making supplication, and I could see that they, too, had grown their nails long. Some had encouraged the growth on every finger. All of them were smiling, all were raising those terrible claws to their faces, and all of them wanted me to talk to them.
