Shamanka

by Jeanne Willis

  “I’m her gaudy one,” adds Kitty.

  “My guardian,” explains Sam.

  The receptionist looks at Lola curiously. “And this lady?”

  Lola is sitting in a hospital wheelchair and has pulled the blanket over her head, exposing her hairy knees. Sam pulls the blanket back down.

  “This is Grandma Tabuh. She’s shy; she hates hospitals.”

  They’re led to the relatives room. The doctor will be with them shortly.

  “It’s bad news,” whispers Sam. “After we’ve come all this way.”

  Kitty pats her hand. “Chin up, darling.”

  She says it with unusual tenderness. There’s a tremor in her voice and Sam notices that her hands are shaking. The doctor comes in. He’s barely out of medical school and not used to being the bearer of bad tidings. He fixes them with what he thinks is a kind smile, but is more of a grimace – the same face Lola pulls when she’s frightened.

  “There’s been a bit of a blunder,” he announces. “Your mum’s gone walkabout.”

  “Gone walkabout?”

  He waves his hands frantically as if to erase the flippant expression. “Not that she was in any state to walk. She was lying in intensive care. I only nipped out for a quick smoke and when I came back, the bed was empty. Gone off with the fit-looking fella, I reckon. The one with the streaky hair.”

  “My father!” groans Sam.

  “No kidding? The porter saw him charging out of the hospital pushing a box on wheels. Oh no, don’t say she was in it! I guess your dad wasn’t too happy with my prognosis, but that’s no reason to run off with your mother.”

  “What’s wrong with her?” asks Sam.

  “Ah, she’s pretty crook. She collapsed somewhere in the Blue Mountains. We tried every trick in the book but she slipped into a coma.”

  “She was cursed!” wails Kitty.

  “Ye–s,” says the doctor. “That’s what your father said. At first I thought he wasn’t the full squid. But actually, it’s not the first time we’ve had a curse-case here, only usually the patient is an Aborigine. When someone’s been hexed, they collapse, shrieking and writhing, then they stare aghast – like this – pointing at the spirit of the enemy…”

  He does the actions, oblivious to the distress he’s causing.

  “The victim gets sicker and sicker. His pulse becomes imperceptible, and unless he’s offered a counter charm, he’s not gonna last too long…” he trails off.

  “My mum will die?” whispers Sam.

  “Yeah. Death is inevitable.” The doctor scratches his head. “Funny thing is, there’s never any visible sign of disease after they’ve been cut open – it’s like they’ve died of shock. Or it could be that when the mind has no hope, the body shuts down and commits a form of mental suicide, if you like.”

  “I don’t like!” Sam explodes. “Surely my mother wouldn’t be influenced by a curse.”

  The doctor shrugs. “I can’t think of another explanation. I’m kicking myself for not calling security, you know?”

  “Perhaps my father took her to another hospital and she’s OK.”

  The doctor shakes his head. “I doubt it. There’s no way she’d have survived the trip without intubation. I’m afraid she’s a dead woman.”

  Kitty walks over to the window and lets out a heart-rending sob. “She’s dead?”

  “Yeah. Ah, well, we’ve all got to go sometime. I’m as cut up about it as you are. Jeez – you shoulda seen me blubber when my pet rat died—”

  There’s a clatter and a thump behind him. Kitty has crumpled to the floor. The doctor slaps his forehead in despair and panics. “Aw, cripes, not another one! In my lunchbreak too.”

  He feels for her pulse and bellows for assistance. Two burly nurses charge into the room. Sam rushes to Kitty’s side to help her, like she’d helped the ewe and the donkey, but the nurses steer her out of the way. No one will tell her anything.

  “What’s happening? Has Kitty fainted? Let me through!”

  Kitty is rolled onto a stretcher and lifted onto a trolley. The doctor yells instructions. “Let’s lose the party mask! Where’s the oxygen? Stick this up her nose, somebody.”

  They’re taking her away. Sam hangs onto the trolley.

  “Let me go with her… Please!”

  They won’t allow it.

  “You stay here with your granny.”

  Sam sits down, pale-faced and clammy. “This is not good, Lola.”

  “Ooo, oo.”

  Lola squeezes Sam’s hand. She tries to amuse her by turning a cork from her hat into a cookie but Sam’s too upset to appreciate it. An hour passes. A nurse comes back into the room.

  “Your friend Kitty’s been asking for you. I’m afraid she’s had a heart attack.”

  “Will she be all right?”

  The nurse smiles weakly. “I really can’t say.”

  “Can I bring Grandma Tabuh to see her?”

  “No,” says the nurse. “It’s best if you don’t because Grandma Tabuh isn’t really a person, is she? She’s an orang-utan. She shouldn’t be here at all. It’s against regulations.”

  Sam pleads. “Where does it say no apes? Kitty has to see her. It’ll make her better.”

  The nurse bites her lip. “All-righty. I’ll turn a blind eye. Just this once. Would you like to come this way?”

  Sam’s stomach lurches as she enters a small side ward. There’s a bright floral curtain around the bed; Kitty is behind it. Sam washes her hands with pink disinfectant. Lola washes her feet. The nurse raises an eyebrow but doesn’t chastise her. “Shall I leave you guys with Kitty for a bit?”

  “Yes, please.”

  The nurse closes the door behind her. Sam tiptoes over to the curtain, not knowing what to expect. She eases it back on its rail and stares in disbelief.

  Kitty’s mask is on top of a locker, the mouth-slit twisted into a smile under a long, dark wig. It’s as if Kitty has slipped out of her skin and left her old self in a heap. The real Kitty lies facing the wall, her ice blonde hair trailing over her shoulders – why had she chosen to hide it?

  “Kitty?”

  Slowly, Kitty turns towards her. Sam claps her hands to her mouth in shock – but it isn’t revulsion at seeing a face disfigured by fire. Kitty’s features are perfect. She looks just like her sister Candy did when she was beautiful. Identical, in fact. But they are not twins.

  “Triplets,” whispers Kitty, “Me, Candy and Christa. One guides you, two harms you … three loves you beyond the grave…”

  Her head falls back on the pillow. Sam sits by her side and holds her hand. Kitty isn’t some random Egyptian priestess, she’s Sam’s flesh and blood – her aunt. Why did it have to be a secret? Kitty shrugs feebly. “You’ll see.”

  Had Kitty worn the mask purely to disguise the fact that she was the eldest triplet, born three hours before Candy, at three minutes past three on the third day of the third month? Or had the mask served a double purpose? Perhaps her face really had been burnt in the fire and the holy water had miraculously healed it. Or was it all down to Father Bayu?

  Kitty’s too exhausted to explain. She gazes at Sam in wonder, as if she’s seeing her for the first time but actually, it’s the last. “My beautiful, magical knees…”

  “Don’t you mean niece, Aunt Kitty?”

  Kitty closes her eyes.

  “Aunt Kitty? Stay with us – stay with me!”

  Sam begins to chant. She chants in Motu. The spell had worked for the butterfly; it wasn’t the breeze. Really it wasn’t.

  Kitty puts her finger on Sam’s lips. “Don’t you dare bring me back, darling. You have to do the last bit on your own.”

  How? The doctor says her mother is dead. No one knows where her father is and there’s no one left to ask on the witch doctor’s list. The last name was torn away.

  Kitty smiles briefly. “Follow the leatherback title, Sam.”

  “What title? What do you mean?”

  But Kitty doesn’t answer.
She has gone. Where to, I cannot say. Heaven? The Astral Temple? Maybe she’s in Mexico being ferried across the river. Maybe her soul is being weighed against a feather in Egypt. Maybe she is in Nirvana.

  One day, you will know and so will Sam. But right now, she’s completely numb. She thought she would cry, but she can’t. Kitty’s body is still warm, but it’s not Kitty any more. It’s just a Kitty-shaped illusion, an ashra device. Empty and inanimate.

  Death is the perfect disappearing trick, the best sleight of hand, the most subtle piece of misdirection. Sam stands there for a moment, trying to work out where Kitty went. She half-expects her to reappear from behind the curtain, blowing kisses to the audience. She calls out.

  “How is death done?”

  Indocilis privata loqui. The magician never tells.

  HOW TO BREATHE

  We breathe in and out over 21,600 times a day, but most of us only use a fraction of our lung capacity. This yoga exercise shows you how to breathe efficiently and slow down your respiratory rate, leaving you calm and relaxed

  1. Lie down in complete stillness, close your eyes and become aware of your natural breath.

  2. Relax into its smooth ebb and flow.

  3. With each breath, say to yourself, “I’m aware that I am breathing in, I’m aware that I am breathing out.”

  4. Feel the breath flowing in and out of the nose – cool when it enters, warm as it flows out.

  5. Feel the breath flowing in and out at the back of the throat and down the throat.

  6. Feel the breath flowing down to the chest and into your lungs, expanding and relaxing them.

  7. Shift the attention to the rib cage. It expands … and it relaxes.

  8. Feel the breath in your abdomen, moving up as you inhale, down as you exhale. Become aware of the whole breathing process from the nostrils to the abdomen.

  9. Bring the awareness back to your whole body and open your eyes.

  SANTA YSABEL

  A dark-haired figure in a long robe walks beside Sam down to the harbour. It’s Lola, wearing Kitty’s wig. Sam has no idea where they’re going. She has cleared her head of the burden of her own thoughts and is waiting for something else to fill the void.

  There’s a forklift truck at the water’s edge. Two men are loading statues into wooden crates. Once the crates are secured, they are picked up by the truck and loaded onto a ship waiting in the docks. Sam watches until the men disappear for a tea break. The tall, gangly one has left his packing knife behind. She slips it inside her blazer.

  Sam climbs into an empty crate with Lola and pulls the lid down. They lie in silence, losing track of time. The men return. She holds her breath. A belt is strapped across the crate to keep it shut, then the truck shoves its metal forks underneath; the vibrations make Lola’s teeth judder.

  “Shh, Lola. It’ll be all right.”

  There’s a sudden lurch as the truck lifts its cargo up into the air. Sam can see the sky through the slits in the lid. Now the crate is being lowered onto the deck of the ship. She pulls out the packing knife and starts to saw away at the leather strapping. She’s struggling for air, so she concentrates on her breathing and slows down her heart rate. Pranayama. Qi gong. Relax.

  There’s a cry from the docks. “Curly, mate, we’re one statue short of a crate. Did someone load an empty?”

  Too late; the ship has already set sail across the Coral Sea to the Solomon Islands.

  Who knows how long the journey takes. Time has lost all meaning for Sam. She survives by creeping out of the crate at night with Lola and stealing leftover cabbage from the galley. It’s the only thing the sailors won’t eat.

  There’s plenty of rum on board too. A tot or two would help to keep out the cold – but what if each barrel has an Aunt Candy folded up inside it, bloated and pickled like one of Professor Farthy’s specimens?

  Sam is going crazy trying to understand everything that’s happened to her. Could the witch doctor really have twisted fate? If so, why would he allow his own grandchild to spend her childhood living with a drunken aunt? Did she have to suffer like that? Maybe she did.

  If Aunt Candy had been a kind person, Sam would never have been shut in the attic and would never have discovered who her real father was. And didn’t Ruby say that suffering makes you who you are? She leans against a barrel and looks at the photo inside the locket.

  “I’m not sure who I am any more, Lola. I’ve changed, don’t you think?”

  “Ooo.” The orang-utan rakes her fingers through Sam’s tangled, waist-length hair.

  “Ouch! I know it needs combing, but you’re not my mum; she’s dead. That’s twice she’s been dead. First it was an illusion, now it’s real. Was she as lovely as everyone says?”

  “Ooo.”

  Lola, who has allegedly died only once, isn’t giving much away. Sam keeps asking questions.

  “Do you think it’s a coincidence that my magic number is three and my mother was a triplet born on the third of the third at three minutes past three? I doubt even Bart could explain that away with statistics. I wonder if he’s still playing statues in Covent Garden?”

  No, he isn’t. Nor is Ruth Abafey gathering herbs by moonlight. Mrs Reafy has moved on, and I can tell you with absolute conviction that Mr Fraye has disappeared in a puff of smoke along with the Inspector of Miracles and Athea Furby – the goat bells are still there though.

  What has become of the others on the list? Is Father Bayu still tending his orchids? You can search for ever but you’ll never find him, or Professor Farthy, or Ruby Featha, or the inscrutable Fu Bar Yetah. Mr Bahut, Tuhab? They have also vanished into thin air.

  They haven’t died, so where are they? I put it to you that they are all the same person. There is a master of disguise at work. He can appear as any character, wherever and whenever he pleases. He might be sitting next to you right now. I confess I’ve been on the rum, but I suspect there’s an element of truth in my theory. We shall see.

  Dawn is breaking. The ship is about to dock in Santa Ysabel. The crates are unloaded, but no matter how long you watch, you won’t see Sam and Lola disembark. I misdirected you so they could escape. While you were listening to my theory, Sam lowered a dinghy into the water and the two of them rowed away.

  There they are now, bobbing about in the Solomon Sea. It was never Sam’s intention to go to Santa Ysabel. She felt strongly that she was meant to go elsewhere – but where? The witch doctor’s list isn’t giving her any clues. She’s relaxed though, like someone who knows fate is out of her hands – unless she is in a trance. The waves drum against the dinghy.

  Bom-bom bomba… Bom-bom bomba…

  She closes her eyes. Her hand flops over the side.

  Bom-ba, bom-ba, bom-ba … bomba.

  She’s falling asleep. The witch doctor’s notebook slips through her fingers and sinks down to the bottom of the ocean where it’s engulfed by a giant clam. If you ever go diving in the Solomon Sea, you must find that clam and persuade him to let you have the book back. Keep it; it has your name on it. But, hark! Is that the cry of the Torresian crow? Sam stirs, sits up in the dinghy and rubs her eyes.

  “Where are we, Lola? Which island should we head for? That one, that one … or that one?

  Sam hoped the wind or the tide might have chosen her destination, but maybe she can’t leave every decision to fate. She stands up and scans the horizon. “Eeeny … meeny … miny… WOAH!”

  Something strikes the bottom of the dinghy with a hefty blow and throws her right off her feet. If Lola hadn’t grabbed her ankles, she would have fallen overboard.

  “Hold tight, Lola! It might be a shark… Arghhh – here it comes again!”

  Ordinarily, it might well have been a shark – there are plenty of sharks in the Solomon Sea – but it isn’t.

  “It’s a leatherback turtle!” cries Sam. “It’s huge!”

  It circles them, then it heads for the third island, its great flippers sculling through the water. Sam rows after it as fast as
she can, worried that it might get away; but it’s in no real hurry. As the dinghy scrapes against the edge of the reef, the turtle pokes its head out, blows water from its nostrils, then submerges. Sam watches it swim back out to sea.

  “I’m glad it was a title and not a shark, aren’t you, Lola?” She paddles through the shallows onto the sand, mumbling to herself. “Did I just say title? No, why would I? I must have sunstroke. I should never have given my ringmaster’s hat to Bahut.”

  Shielding her eyes from the sun, Sam surveys the small island, sheltered by coconut palms and mangrove trees. A soft wind wafts the scent of sun-warmed wood across the bay. She’s a million miles from St Peter’s Square, but she’s never felt closer to home.

  “If this is paradise, we must be dead, Lola. Esperanza was right. Death is a good place; we can make sandpies.”

  Hand in hand, they skip over the sand into the wilderness.

  GHOST WRITING

  The masked magician tells the audience there is a ghost in the room and says, “Spirit, I command you to write down the name of the girl with dark hair on this piece of paper.” After a short while … the paper shakes. The magician holds it close to the light bulb – hey presto! – the girl’s name has appeared. How?

  THE SECRET

  The masked magician knew the name of the girl and wrote it on the paper earlier with invisible ink. To make invisible ink, simply use a toothpick dipped in lemon juice.

  The magician rattled the paper to create the illusion that a ghost was writing on it and the heat from the lamp made the name appear.

  SAN JORGE

  Where is John Tabuh? I can tell you only this much: he’s on an island, but I never did find out the name of it or how he got there. Maybe he travelled by ship – or did an old lady disguised as a sheep farmer take pity on him and fly him there in her helicopter?

  Right now, I’m more interested in his state of mind, which has reached an all-time low. It’s no good telling him to cheer up, that it might never happen. As far as he can see, it has happened – things can’t get any worse.