Hello to the Cannibals

by Richard Bausch

  At the first crossing road is St. George’s Cathedral, whose stone sides are stained and weathered in some places and bleached white in others. Five fat turkey vultures skulk along the edge of the facade roof. Their ugly red wattles appear blood-engorged, swinging as they turn their heads to observe the commotion below.

  Mary and the captain move through the crowded market, the smells of smoked meat and fruits and flowers, and the inevitable fleeting breath of foulness or decay, to the office of a British trading agent Captain Murray knows. The man’s name is Demby. The building is badly run down—but she has the sense, entering it, that the ruin is not from any sort of neglect, that Freetown itself is not a neglected or tumbledown place so much as it is a place built where nature refuses to allow much permanence. It is a tract of ground that nature is continually reclaiming. Mary, noticing the wooden wedge built into the door frame to keep it closed, has the realization that the city is in a pitched battle to keep itself standing in the extreme elements of the country. The fact that it is here at all is a testament to ingenious human will.

  There’s a small courtyard just inside the door, and in it an ostrich stands, fantastic, almost otherworldly, imperious-seeming, gazing at her and at Captain Murray as if from the heights of snobbery. It walks a few paces away, the clawed feet sounding like a pair of leather shoes on the gravel. Demby comes from an open doorway in shirt sleeves and a vest, his shirt coming out of his striped pants at the belt. He’s a small man, with compact features, dark, thick, unruly hair graying at the temples. There’s a distinctive thinning pattern just at the center of his high forehead, as if someone had scooped the hair out with a spoon. His smile is comical because of missing teeth on one side, and when he smiles, as he does, approaching them, his sharp nose crinkles charmingly.

  —Captain, he says.

  Captain Murray introduces Mary and briefly explains her mission, or, as he puts it, her “purposes.”

  Demby seems unsurprised by the news, perfectly at ease with it.

  —There’s plenty to do here in the way of collecting specimens. The insects alone will provide you with a very large collection. There are things in this place, Miss Kingsley, for which there is no European name.

  —I’m also interested in the populations, and in religious practices. Fetish.

  She’s aware that Captain Murray has given her a look, she can see this out of the corner of her eyes. She concentrates on Demby.

  —I would like to go to the interior.

  Again, Demby seems unaffected by the news. He nods thoughtfully, steps to one side and then back, hand on his chin.

  —I’m trying to think who is free to guide you. There are several Fulani, but lately they’re a bit skittish. Some of the tribes from the interior are migrating this way, and they’re quite primitive. Do you know of a tribe called the Fan, or Fang?

  —Very little, Mary says.

  —Cannibals.

  —I believe I had heard that.

  —Apparently they make it a regular part of the diet. The other tribes are quite frightened of them.

  —So frightened that they won’t serve as guides to the country?

  —Some. I’m afraid so.

  They stroll out into the sunny courtyard. The heat of the day is building up, and there is a thin vapor rising from the pond at the center. As they walk, followed by Captain Murray, the ostrich walks with them at a little distance, as if looking them over.

  —I should say, someone will volunteer if the funds are available.

  —They are limited, Mary says. Of course.

  —That’s understood.

  —I say, Captain Murray breaks in. I’ve a powerful thirst in this heat.

  Demby turns to him:

  —I’ve got just the thing for you, my friend.

  —Well, I was hoping.

  They all cross to the entrance of the office, the ostrich crossing with them, again sounding exactly like another human walker. When they step in, the ostrich follows, and Mary moves against the wall, away from it.

  —Oh, says Demby, don’t you worry about Patrick there. He has his freedom of the place.

  Captain Murray has come face-to-face with the ostrich, whose small head tips slightly to one side, sizing him up.

  —What a strange feeling, he says. What’s it doing here, Demby, deciding which bits of me it wants to eat?

  —Quite friendly, really, nothing to worry about, says the other, paying no attention. He pours two glasses of whiskey, and then reaches into a tin box that is sweating profusely along its sides, and chips off a few pieces of ice. He hands one glass to the captain and sips from his own, regarding Mary.

  —No, thank you, she says, smiling.

  —I should have given you the chance to say so before these drinks were poured, he says, perhaps you’ll forgive me.

  Captain Murray walks away from the ostrich, which follows for a step or two, and then seems to lose interest, turning its reptilian-seeming head, with its odd hairs sticking up like wires and its large moist black eyes, in Mary’s direction. She stares back at it while the two men talk. For a space she doesn’t quite hear what is said, the big bird’s bill having come nearly close enough to kiss. She can smell its breath, a grainy, acrid odor. The head moves down the length of her body and back, twice nosing gingerly into the dark cloth of her dress. Then it comes back to face her, staring coldly, evaluatively, like a magistrate inspecting a subordinate. Mary hears the name Batty, and turns, with care, away from the ostrich.

  —Excuse me, Mr. Demby, did you say Batty?

  —I did.

  —James ’enley Batty?

  —Oh, forgive me, I thought it was Henry.

  —Then you know him.

  —Yes. He’s known by almost everyone here.

  —Is ’e in Freetown, then? Mary asks.

  Demby seems confused. He glances at Captain Murray, and then back at Mary again:

  —I haven’t seen him for two years, I believe. He brought this whiskey, Miss Kingsley.

  —I know ’im, says Mary. ’e’s a friend.

  They are both staring at her.

  —I met ’im when I was on ’oliday in the Canaries. Last year.

  After a pause, Demby nods and turns to Captain Murray:

  —Yes, well, I did understand he had gone north. I thought he was going back to England, actually.

  —Batty went back to the coast, Mary says. To this part of the world, somewhere.

  They are staring at her. It occurs to her that they both now believe they have hit upon the thing that explains her and this journey of hers, this desire to head to the interior. Romance. She feels the urge to disabuse them, and realizes that in the act of denying that she is seeking not to explore the West African country but to find Batty, she will only further convince them of it. No. She watches them exchange a look, sipping their whiskey, and she decides to remain silent. The ostrich steps close and noses at her dress again. The two men go on talking, as if they are alone in the room. And very carefully, surreptitiously, Mary reaches into the tangle of feathers at the ostrich’s tail, grabs one, and yanks it. The bird rushes from her, flapping its useless wings, and barrels into Mr. Demby, who spills his drink and falls backward, yelling. The shout frightens the bird, and pecking twice at Demby, it manages to hit poor Murray on the forehead. Murray drops his glass of whiskey and sinks slowly to his knees, stunned. The bird knocks over a chair and a table, and finally bolts out the entrance and into the yard, still flapping its wings.

  —Good God, says Demby. What got into him? He’s never shown the slightest sign of a violent nature.

  Mary has come to the captain’s aid, using a handkerchief she took from Demby’s vest pocket to stanch the blood. It is only a little scratch, but it bleeds profusely, and she takes some time tending to it.

  —Do you have any iodine? she asks Demby.

  —I have some carbolic acid.

  He walks to the other side of the room and opens a sideboard, where she sees packages of bandages a
nd bottles of liquor together. The carbolic acid is in a dark bottle, and he brings it over with a gauze pad. She applies the antiseptic to Murray’s wound, and together they get him up and into a chair. He shakes his head and says:

  —What happened?

  Demby shrugs, and gazes out into the courtyard, where the bird is still walking around as if looking for some place to get out and take flight.

  —Something set Patrick off.

  —The animal was very interested in my apparel, Mary tells them. Perhaps something in the cloth set ’im off.

  Captain Murray is pale, and shaken. Demby gives him another whiskey, and he swallows it down quickly. The two of them pour still more of it, and this time Demby offers it to Mary, who demurs. They all watch the bird strutting in the courtyard, walking in a small circle and slowly beginning to seem less frantic. It drinks from the little pond, and stands very still for a long time, not even moving its head.

  Demby and Captain Murray begin to talk about some missionaries they know who have recently survived a bout of yellow fever. Several of their converts died, and there was a general scare. The rainy season has washed much of the fear and panic away from the townspeople. Mary strolls out to the wall surrounding the yard and looks over it at the street. She sees another Creole, this one dressed in the finest European gown, long trailing hem and basting across the front, just at the chest line. The wearer is a very diminutive elderly man with a beaded scar across his forehead. He carries a parasol, and marches by without looking either to the left or to the right, like a soldier in a parade. Mary watches him disappear amid the hundred other faces of the street. She looks back into the office of the agent, and sees that he and Captain Murray are pouring more of the whiskey, deep in discussion. She makes her way around to the doorway leading out of the courtyard, and steps into the stream of walking people. A heavy, brightly adorned white woman coughs at her, and shoves by, followed by two Africans who appear to be carrying her belongings. Another European, a gentleman with side-whiskers and an enormous round belly, rides by on a hammock that is borne on the drooping shoulders of four black men, all of them quite young, and all of them struggling under the considerable weight of the man.

  Mary follows along for a few feet, and when she comes to a side street, she takes it, into the hot shade, the refuse and the relative stillness. There is no one here. She walks along, gazing at the stone walls on either side of her, with their bleached places and their stains of weather and salt air. This side street gives off onto still another one, narrower and thinner. She’s thinking of Paris, and feels the difference, like relief, that there isn’t a fifty-year-old matron waiting for her in a hotel room. She makes her way to the end of this newest alley, and comes to a small sunny courtyard. It is almost too hot to breathe. Stepping from the shade, she moves toward a tall boothlike structure, in the window of which there is a very ugly dog. The dog screams at her, opens its mouth and emits a sound unlike any dog, and then jumps up into the window. Mary sees, to her horror, that this dog is clothed in a small shirt and that he has thick, manlike thighs and long, long forelegs that are not canine but simian. She sees a pair of long-fingered hands at the end of the forelegs. The animal screams again, and bares a set of very long canine teeth, and Mary turns to hurry away from there, holding up her skirt, breaking finally into a run, because the thing screams once more and has evidently decided to pursue her. She comes to the opening of another alley and starts into it, still running, when quite without any warning the ground gives way beneath her, is simply gone out from under her feet. She’s airborne, not flying forward as she would be if she had stumbled on something, but falling, collapsing through space in a hail of dirt and hay and stones and refuse. She lands with a painful thud in a soft pile of something, and sees dark surrounding walls, shafts of light pouring through where she has come from, dust rising in it. In the obscurity, she can make out several African faces, men and woman, who gaze at her in pure amazement.

  —Hello, she says, managing to sound the H.

  One of them looks at the others, and then back at her, beginning to smile:

  —You lady all right, you be healthy one time.

  —I’m quite all right, she says. She covers her legs with her skirts and looks at everyone. They begin to laugh. It is soft and tentative at first, but she smiles at them, and soon they are howling with it. They are cotton workers, tying bundles of it for shipment. The roof has rotted through just in time for Mary’s passage over it. They help her to her feet, and even help brush her off, which she allows, studying the concern and concentration in their faces.

  —Fulani? she asks.

  —Temnes, one says.

  Another steps forward and shoulders the first aside:

  —Mendes.

  —Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mary says. Is that your name?

  —He tribe, Ma, says the first. No got name long time for Europes.

  —Well, she says. My name is Mary Kingsley, and I have to get back up there.

  They all follow her gesture, and look up into the light coming from the ceiling. It turns out that the collapsing ceiling has taken the stairwell with it. They are all going to need the help of people up in the street to get out. They shout and throw things up through the hole and finally some people come to stare down at them. With much wrangling and yelling and arguing back and forth in the different languages, they manage to get someone to bring a length of railway tie, with which they can rig a pulley apparatus, much like the thing they had been using to hoist the bundles of cotton up. One by one, they are all lifted from the hole. Mary insists on being the last. When she is brought to street level, the large gathered crowd applauds her, some making a clicking sound with their mouths, some smacking their lips, others whistling, still others hitting their hands together in a flat, clumsy motion that doesn’t resemble the European method of simply clapping the palms together. She acknowledges the applause, gathering her dusty petticoats about her, brushing the dust from the front of her dress, and trying to push through them to get to the main thoroughfare again. It seems important to recover some element of inconspicuousness, though she cannot decide why. She feels caught out in their gaze, and in the talk that goes on all around her as she makes her way through them, to the street.

  Here, she is momentarily confused. Which way to turn? She must find Captain Murray again, for there is still the necessity of going to the customs house to procure a bill of health for traveling to Fernando Pó and Cameroon. The flow of the street seems all one way, and she recalls that she had walked against this flow to get here—yet it seems to her that she had come from the right in her flight from the monkey. She sets herself, takes a deep breath, decides, and heads against the flow of the traffic. Perhaps two blocks on she sees the entrance to the courtyard, and there is Captain Murray, framed in the opening, looking up and down the street, a small bandage on his head and his expression that of a man who is deeply perplexed.

  She approaches him, glad to give him the relief of her return. But he looks at her as if she has never left, as if her presence is vaguely annoying to him.

  —You had better get inside, he says, barely noticing her. He’s staring off into the distance, beyond the roofs across the street. She follows his gaze, and sees a dark cloud coming down off the mountain. More rain, she thinks. Then he does look at her.

  —Well, missy, you’re about to have a firsthand experience of the changeability of this place. His words are slightly slurred by the whiskey he’s drunk.

  —An uncle of mine liked whiskey, she says. I’m not unused to its effects.

  —No, he says, with obvious impatience, indicating the darkening sky. I’m talking about that.