Ezembe

by Jeffrey L. Morris

  ~* * *~

  Falotico’s nestled anonymously amidst a row of old brick houses on a nondescript street on the south side. Yellowing opera posters and sheet music adorned the walls. Music filled it, always—at precisely the correct volume—not so loud one could not chat, not so soft one had to strain to hear it.

  The waiter slid a chair under Karen, and lit the candle with a snappy grin.

  “Oh, this is lovely, Havard! Do you know, I’ve lived here for over thirty years and never knew this place existed?”

  Havard clamped his hands together and rested them on his chest. “Delighted you approve, my dear lady. It came highly recommended.” The waiter produced menus—a single page. “Yes, this is a very nice restaurant so far. In so many American restaurants, they ruin the experience with too much choice. Twenty-five kinds of bread, and as many kinds of cheese! And the way the waiting staff has to read them off to you. One could starve!”

  Karen laughed at this. In truth, she enjoyed that style of dining, but her mood was agreeable.

  “When you go to a restaurant in Italy, you ask for bread, they bring you bread. Wonderful bread! You order the pasta, they bring the pasta they are making on that night. It is always wonderful.” Havard stopped himself. “But I apologize; I am insulting your country.”

  “No, no, don’t be silly.”

  “You are gracious as well as beautiful.”

  Karen blushed, then tugged lightly at her cheeks. “Maybe once upon a time,” she said.

  “Believe me,” said Havard. “And the candlelight, it illuminates your beauty, so, so—”

  “Hides a multitude of sins, you mean.”

  “Not at all!”

  She snapped her napkin tight and laid it across her lap. “Well, thank you, you are very charming, I’m sure.”

  “Not at all.”

  “Do you have children, Havard?”

  “I had a son, but he died many years ago.”

  “Oh, I am so sorry.”

  “Oh, it’s all right, really.” He shrugged. “I have learned to live with the idea.”

  “Still, you are very brave. And you are from Copenhagen?”

  “Yes, but I came from a small village on the west coast of Denmark. I moved to Copenhagen forty years ago.”

  The waiter took the order, and Havard asked him to bring an appropriate wine. The waiter poured it with a flourish and Havard closed his eyes, stuck his nose into the glass, and breathed in. “There is nothing so fragrant as the bounty of yeast.”

  “Uh, okay. If you say so, professor.”

  The wine slid onto his tongue. He sloshed it before swallowing, then winked. “You have a son, I believe?” he said.

  “Yes, Jimmy—James. He’s just started pre-med at U-P.”

  “Yes, so I have heard. Very good for him! I am sure he will make a fine doctor. After all, he must have inherited some of his mother’s great gifts.”

  Karen winced. “Yes, he’s a bright, bright boy. He’ll do just fine.”

  The dishes came and went, and the pair relaxed and settled into first-date things. When the coffee came, Havard hummed along with a song, a trio, playing in the background. As the lyrics came he began to sing along, softly at first.

  “Soave sia al vento, Tranquilla sia l’onda...” It burbled on his diaphragm and rattled up the pipes to his face, his masque. He stood and sang out. The neighboring tables fell silent. Karen’s cheeks flushed copper-red.

  “Ed ogni elemento, Benigno risponda.”

  She rested her chin on her hands.

  “Ai nostri desir.”

  The surrounding patrons applauded. Havard waved to them and bowed deeply.

  “That was wonderful, Havard! Where did you learn to sing like that?”

  He blushed as he swung back into his seat. “In the shower. Where else?”

  “The last time I was serenaded, a guy with an out-of-tune guitar sang me a Beatles tune, back when I was stoning my way through college. What was that?”

  “From Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutti.”

  “Well, it was beautiful. What do the lyrics mean?”

  Havard sang very softly in English:

  “Gentle is the wind, calm is the wave.

  And every one of the elements answer to our desire.”

  “Oh, my. That is almost as beautiful in English.”

  The women around them were stealing glimpses. Their husbands didn’t notice.

  “It is, indeed, very beautiful. I loved it the first time I heard it, in Vienna. It means much to me. For me, this song captures the very essence of sailing. I am a lifelong sailor, you see.”

  “Really? Is there no end to your talents?” Karen cradled her coffee cup in both hands, a smudge of carmine lipstick stuck to the rim.

  “Oh, not at all. Sailing is easy. If you love it, you learn.”

  “Sounds wonderful.”

  “Well, if you like, I can take you sailing. This weekend?”

  “Oh, I couldn’t!”

  “Karen, my dear, you would love it.” Havard leaned across the table and took both her hands in his. “It would be an experience few would get in this day. The water, the air this time of year, it is magical. And the boat is a very special boat. A Skipjack sloop on the Chesapeake. It is belonging to my friend.”

  “Whatever that is,” Karen said, not unkindly.

  “A type of boat that was used to fish oysters in the Chesapeake for many years.”

  “Oh! I see; like a fishing boat, then?”

  “Well, yes, but this one has been converted to a home by my friend. He lives on her.”

  “Lives on the boat? It must be very big.”

  “Well, it is not too big, but easy enough for him and his wife to live on comfortably. I also live on a boat.”

  “No! Really?”

  “Yes, yes, in Copenhagen. I have a boat of about seventeen meters. She is also an old working boat: St. Ingrid.”

  “What a wonderful way to live. I don’t think I could, but it sounds lovely.”

  “Oh, it is! I could not live in a house now. The Skipjack we would sail on this weekend, she has a connection with the song I have sung. Her name is Dorabella, which is the name of one of the women singing that song.”

  “Oh, I see! Quite a coincidence.” Karen fidgeted her feet under the table. “Well, I’m not sure if I should.”

  “Of course you will bring a chaperone. You may bring Patrick, or Dr. Scholl, or your son. Anyone you like.”

  “Um, I’ll think about it. When will you need an answer?”

  “Anytime, anytime. I am going to leave on this Friday afternoon to drive to Maryland, and if you are there at half three when I leave, you will be most welcome. Dorabella is a beautiful lady, and you would complement her nicely.” Havard winked.

  “So this would be overnight?”

  “Yes, yes. Two nights. You would sleep with the waves lapping the hull. We will have dinner in one of the wonderful restaurants on the coast. You will enjoy it, I guarantee.”

  Karen did not say so, but she had already decided she was going.

  Twenty-seven

  Rush-hour traffic in Luton town thickened, gelled, and then solidified into a static lump of steel and fumes. Joseph Albright, his arm slung on the roof of his taxi, tapped his fingers impatiently.

  The brothers lived in a small basement flat near the center of town. Hyacinth was asleep on the folding couch in the single living area when Joseph finally arrived home and slapped the soles of his feet.

  “Anh-anh! Why do you wake me, brother? I will work very hard tonight. I need sleep,” Hyacinth grumped.

  Joseph flicked his fingertips against the back of his brother’s head. “Listen to me. A man, he call me on my mobile phone this morning. He wan’ us to do a job.”

  “What man? Go away!” Hyacinth pulled the sheets over his head.

  “That man I met a long time ago. When we live with Mister Francis, Missus Jane.”

  “Oh, we have taxi job. Why you wan’ a job with this ma
n?”

  “He will give us lots of pounds for this job. And he wan’ we go to America for this.”

  Hyacinth sat bolt upright in his bunk. “America? What kind of job we do in America?”

  “We do work for Ezembe.”

  Hyacinth sprang up and out of bed, wide awake. “What business does Ezembe have in America? Who says Ezembe wants us?”

  “The Oyinbo. He called me an’ he told me Ezembe wants us,” Joseph said.

  “Oyinbo! That white man who say he knows Ezembe? No Oyinbo knows this, not proper Ezembe. Ezembe is only for African, not Oyinbo. I never believed him. This man is a lying man, he is a wicked man, and you are a foolish man.” Hyacinth flicked his fingertips in his brother’s direction and turned his head away.

  Joseph placed his hands on his brother’s shoulders, turned him around, and looked him in the eye. He said, “Come now, we will eat and we will talk.”

  Their flat was tiny, the basement of an old brick house in Luton town, thirty miles north of London. There was just room enough for the two brothers to hot-bed, one sleeping while the other drove their minicab. It was clean, well kept, and decorated with some small souvenir-type masks from their homeland.

  They made some porridge and coffee, and Joseph spelled it out. “The Oyinbo wan’ us to fix a spell made by an American man. This American, he is affected by Ezembe. He don’ know Ezembe, but he has visions with the demons. This man, he has no learning. If he do not learn, he is an enemy of Ezembe and he will make remote control to kill Ezembe.”

  “You are mad,” said Hyacinth, “A mad and a foolish man. Why this Oyinbo want us?”

  “This Oyinbo, you know I have spoken of him. He does understand.”

  “Why you not let me meet this man? I am of Ezembe too. You know this!”

  “I am the senior brother. I am our representative world-wide.”

  “Phhht. You are international lunatic.”

  “This man, he has the vision, and he knows we have the correct education. You know we cannot go back to Nigeria. Without this Oyinbo, we are alone.”

  Joseph paused to let his ace card sink in, but Hyacinth played a card of his own, the guilt card. “You know Mister Francis would not want us do this.”

  “Mister Francis? How you know this?” Joseph challenged him. “That is crazy. You are crazy.”

  “The Oyinbo, he is no Mister Francis,” Hyacinth protested. “He wan’ to make fools of me an’ you, my brother. Anyway, Mister Francis, Mrs. Jane, now they are gone. I did not wan’ kill Mister Francis, Mrs. Jane. That was only you.”

  “I did not wan’ kill them, my brother, but he would not understand. It is not for any man to interfere with Ezembe. He wan’ kill us.”

  “No, no, Joseph. He did not wan’ kill us.” Hyacinth fluttered his hands, as if the suggestion were a mosquito to be shooed. “I have told you this one hundred times, one thousand! He wan’ only to take us from Ezembe because he was a Christian man. He believe Ezembe was a evil demon. He did not understand, but he was not like the Christians in Nigeria.”

  “I am not stupid, I know that. But if he kill Ezembe, he kill you an’ me. He kill everyone. Anyways, it makes no difference, no difference,” Joseph said ruefully. “Mister Francis, he is gone.”

  The argument over Joseph’s girlfriend several years before had rapidly spun out of the Albrights’ control. Joseph had refused to give up the girl, and Francis had eventually resorted to locking the boy in his room. The couple were dead a week later from an aggressive, virulent form of leishmaniasis, a rare disease normally transferred by the bite of a sand fly. It was assumed that Francis and Jane Albright had been infected on a visit to Sharm-el-Sheikh, Egypt.

  “I loved Mister Francis, but me an’ you, we had no choice, no choice,” Joseph insisted.

  “Do not say that to me, brother. We had a choice,” said Hyacinth. “I do not wan’ you to say the Albrights wan’ me to go. You are making a lie with this. Anyways, I say we stay away from this Oyinbo. I think this will make only disaster for us, my brother, Oyinbo or no.”

  Hyacinth left the room with Joseph shouting after him, “To do this is our fate, our duty. You know this. The Oyinbo knows this. And you know we must honor Ezembe.”

  Hyacinth returned and sat, with nothing to say for himself. He lowered his head for a moment, and when he looked up again, his brother was smiling.

  ~* * *~

  The bar was up a constricted dead-end alley, nestled at the dumpster end of a row of restaurants. James locked his bike as the air began to fizz with the threat of a shower. Pat’s orders had been to meet up here, ostensibly for a post-mortem on James’ first day, but James suspected that his real agenda was introduction to alcohol.

  General Biology had gone better than expected. The lecturer was good, and the information went in easily, but at times he felt the lecture moved in the wrong direction, though he could think of no good reason why he should. He was even tempted to correct the professor once or twice, but decided to keep his trap shut.

  When he spotted James, Pat unstuck his elbow from the bar and pushed past the man he was talking with. James was greeted as if he were a long-lost brother.

  “Jimmy, Jimmy! How goes the war?”

  “Ah, fine, I guess. It went okay.”

  A crack of thunder pealed in the distance. “Might as well get cozy,” Pat said. He wrapped his arm around James’ shoulders, and guided him to a stool. “Come ’ere, come ’ere. What are you having?”

  Just a tonic water, please.”

  Pat’s arms dropped to his side. “Tonic water? Tonic fucking water? What, you have malaria or something?”

  “Um, no. I don’t think so.”

  “Tonic water kills fucking malaria. Did you know that? It’s the quinine.” Pat underscored his point with a sharp nod.

  “No, actually, I didn’t know that.”

  “Sure, why the fuck would you? You’re only a brat. So, how did school go? Teacher’s pet yet?”

  James said, “No, not yet, anyhow. I think I’ll be keeping my head down,” and, ironically, threw his head back in a laugh.

  “Wise boy. Very wise boy. Have a real drink.”

  “I don’t really want a drink.”

  “Have one anyhow.”

  “I’m driving.”

  “No problem, I’ll drop you home.”

  “But you have been drinking. Listen to me, Pat, I’m telling you. I really don’t want one.”

  “You got me there. I give up.” Pat winked, and called to the bartender. “Fucking tonic water for the boy wonder here.” He turned on his stool and grabbed Havard by the arm. “Dutch boy, I want you to meet the boy wonder here. Havard, this is my friend James. James, Havard.”

  The big Dane took James’ hand and shook it heartily. “Doctor Havard Troelson. Very pleased to meet you, James.” He reached for Pat and tugged sloppily at the sleeve of his shirt. “And I am Danish, not Dutch.”

  Pat murmured into the foam of his beer, “Dutch, Danish—all furrin’.”

  Havard shook his big head, and a roar of a laugh shook the mustache. “I have heard about you, young man—a wannabe doctor.”

  “A will-be doctor, if you don’t mind,” Pat corrected.

  “Hah-hah. Oh, I am sorry, yes. My English. You will be a doctor.”

  Pat said, “Havard is helping me out with one of my ‘special projects’,” and tapped the side of his nose.

  “Ah, good.” James said. He felt inexplicably uncomfortable for a moment, then, just as inexplicably, giddy and light-headed.

  “Yes, Patrick has taken me under his tutelage,” Havard said.

  “And he’s cheap.”

  “Yah, yah, cheap as shit,” Havard agreed. He picked up his beer in salute, wet his mustache, then swept the froth away with the back of his hand. “I had the pleasure of dining with your mother last evening, James. A charming lady. She spoke very highly of you.”

  James tried to shake off the loose, disconnected feeling. He blinked, focused on Havard,
and said, “Oh? She didn’t say.”

  “Yes, she thinks you will make a fine, fine doctor.”

  “I’m glad someone does.”

  “Hahahahah! You have it in your blood, I think.” Havard laughed.

  “He surely feckin’ does,” said Pat.

  James shrugged. “Maybe. It’s early days.”

  Havard put his beer down, pushed it to one side, and pointed a tipsy finger at James. He said, “Medicine is a very peculiar master, young man. One is privileged to know the very mechanics of life. One does if one is a good doctor, of course. And through the clarity that the lens of science provides, one sees into the very heart of the universe.”

  “Ah, for feck’s sake. Lighten up, Havard! You’re scaring the kid off! At the end of the day, medicine’s only a bit of a laugh.”

  Without moving his head, Havard cast his eye in Pat’s direction, then returned his gaze to James, and with a sniff, reached for his beer.

  The bar door swung open, and the fresh snap of a downpour momentarily flushed the dank smell from the bar. A flash of lightning illuminated the solitary figure that thunder shoved through the doorway—Dr. Robert Scholl. Bob shook the water from his umbrella.

  “Ah, jaysus,” said Pat. “What’s Arsehole doing here?”

  “Patrick, please. I invited Dr. Scholl,” said Havard. “After all, I am his guest.”

  “Bollocks,” said Pat.

  Bob strolled over, and said in a distracted sort of way, “Good evening, gentlemen,” as he examined the tasteless décor.

  Havard made an abbreviated bow from the waist. “Good evening, Doctor Scholl.”

  Bob snapped his umbrella and hung it from the bar. “We haven’t been seeing much of you, Doctor. I hope everything is to your taste.”

  “Good beer, good company. It couldn’t be better,” Havard said. “And your facilities, they are first-rate. You have, for me, a wonderful establishment, Dr. Scholl.”

  “Good to hear. We are honored to have someone of your caliber vetting our humble facilities.”

  Bob leaned into Pat and whispered, “Don’t you think you should be treating our guest to more up-market experiences? This man is cultured. He’s not accustomed to—dives.”