In the Belly of the Elephant

by Susan Corbett

  I lay my head on the pillow.

  Drabo turned to face me. “Lagarre, the grandson of the king, believed the snake demanded too much. So, he talked with Bida Bida.

  “‘Will you give me ten maidens every year?’ asked the snake.

  “‘No,’ replied Lagarre.

  “‘Nine?’ hissed Bida Bida.

  “‘No,’ replied Lagarre.

  “This went on until the grandson of the king and the mighty serpent agreed on one maiden every year. The people of Wagadu said, ‘When the next firstborn female of Wagadu comes of age, she shall be given to Bida Bida.’

  “This turned out to be Sia Jatta Bari, the most beautiful maiden in Soninkeland.”

  I sucked in air between my teeth.

  Drabo paused. “You don’t like my story?”

  “Why is it always the woman who gets sacrificed? Why not the prince or the king?”

  “Because it is not a sacrifice unless you must give up the thing you love the most.”

  “Yes, but why do the men get to make that decision? Why not the women?”

  “If you asked a woman to give up the thing she loved best, what would it be?”

  Then I understood. “Her children.”

  “And would she?”

  I shook my head, rustling the pillow. “Never.” Jehovah had known better than to ask Abraham’s wife to sacrifice her son.

  A line of white gleamed in the moonlight, a tiny rent in the darkness. Drabo was smiling.

  “Now, a very respected man in town, Mamadi Sefe Dekoté, loved Sia Jatta Bari. As the time neared for Sia to be given to Bida Bida, Mamadi grew heavy with remorse at the thought of losing his beloved. The people of Wagadu dressed Sia Jatta Bari as if for her wedding, bedecking her in jewelry and silks. They formed a long procession, accompanying the bride to her destiny with the snake.”

  Drabo paused. The crickets continued to play a lullaby. Soft voices passed outside the gate.

  “Bida Bida lived in a deep well to one side of town. Mamadi sharpened his sword, mounted his horse, and followed the procession. Bida, when receiving a sacrifice, stuck his head out the well three times before seizing his victim.

  “Mamadi stood close to the well as Sia walked to its edge and called, ‘Bida Bida, I, Sia Jatta Bari, a maiden of Wagadu, await you!’

  “Bida reared his head the first time. The people called to Mamadi, ‘It is time to take farewell!’ Bida reared his head the second time. They called again, ‘Take your farewell!’ The third time, Mamadi drew his sword and cut off Bida’s head.

  “The head flew far and wide through the air and before it came to earth it spoke, ‘For seven years, seven months, and seven days may Wagadu remain without its golden rain!’

  “The people heard the curse and ran to attack Mamadi. Mamadi took Sia onto his horse and rode away, escaping the wrath of the people of Wagadu.” His voice trailed away.

  A cricket chirped.

  I yawned. “And you, Drabo.” My eyelids closed. My words were but a whisper. “Will your people curse you for riding into the desert with me on your horse?”

  He didn’t answer, and I fell asleep, knowing that mine would.

  Chapter 10

  The Telex

  January/Rabi al-Awwal

  Drabo walked down the stairs of the out-kitchen, carrying a pot. A tendril of steam rose into the air like the first wisps of a genie out of a lamp. It snaked its way to my nose and promised sugar and milk. Morning cold crept under my sleeping bag and I shivered. I put aside Franny and Zooey, wrapped a blanket around my shoulders, and joined Drabo at the table.

  He had taken to staying the night with me several times a week when his schedule allowed. As a single military man, he had learned to cook enough to feed himself. Cream of wheat was his specialty.

  We sat, drinking coffee and eating. Though he loved to tell stories, Drabo was, for the most part, a man of few words. I had come to enjoy the quiet of him as much as his stories.

  A ruckus of squawking chickens and bleating goats rose from behind the compound wall. Someone yelled, something yipped, my gate rattled, and a scrawny, yellow jumble of skin, fur, and bones squeezed through the space beneath my gate and hightailed it into my courtyard. Drabo stood to chase it back out.

  “Wait!” I walked over. A puppy groveled at my feet then turned on its back, exposing a concave belly. “It’s starving.”

  “If you feed it, it will never go away.” Drabo stood with his fists on his hips.

  I put down my bowl of cream of wheat, and the puppy lapped it up in seconds.

  “Too late,” I said.

  The puppy wagged his tail so hard his whole body jerked back and forth.

  Drabo shook his head, mumbling something about Americans. He grabbed his beret, said he’d drop by later, and went off to report for the day.

  Squatting, I spoke softly, scratching the dog’s ears. “If you’re still here when I come home tonight, I’ll keep you.”

  He looked up at me with big black eyes. I remembered another puppy and my heart ached.

  The last six months of my stay in Liberia, I’d been issued a Peace Corps truck to deliver health supplies and construction materials to the volunteer posts in my area. One afternoon, Francis had asked that I drive him to Gbanga, the nearby market town, something I wasn’t supposed to do, but I didn’t want to say no. I was mad about it and drove too fast. Along the way, a small boy had been running along the side of the road with a puppy chasing a short distance behind. The small boy was laughing, the puppy smiling as only dogs can do. I had looked up to see a bus coming at us and swerved. I had hit the dog.

  What I could not forgive myself for was that, in my anger, I had kept on driving. In the rearview mirror, the boy stopped and turned back. I did not stop to help, nor to comfort the little boy. Two hours later, when we returned, both were gone. It was too late. The memory of it now made me sick with shame.

  By taking in this puppy, would I be forgiven? Could the magic of one good deed cancel out the debt of a bad one?

  I would name him Rocky, after the mountains that formed the backbone of Idaho.

  On my way out the gate, I met Laya coming in with Ousmann strapped to her back. On her head was a tin bucket brimming with bunches of greens, dried beans, millet, and a bottle of oil. Issa and Aissatou followed, carrying bags of bread and cans of tomato paste and mackerel. As we chattered our good mornings, the children stopped in their tracks, eyeing the puppy that cowered beneath the table.

  I explained the ruckus of the morning and that if no one came to claim the dog, I would take him for a rabies shot and keep him as a guard dog. Not liking that I lived alone, Laya approved. Everything settled, the children ran off to school, and I left for the office.

  The streets bustled with women heading to the market and children going to school. Walking among them, a feeling of well-being filled me, like a field of flowers blossoming inside my chest. I was a part of it all, and would be for another fifteen months.

  I had accepted Home Office’s offer and renewed my contract for another year. I started humming. Amazing how not sleeping alone improved one’s view of the world. I had also spent a lot of time thinking about the night in Gorom Gorom when Philip had suggested I tell the world to fuck it. I saw his face again. He had not sneered, nor laughed at me. He had been more sincere than I had ever seen him. My anger had loosened over the past few weeks, and his words had taken on a different meaning. At the time, I had interpreted it as cynicism. But now, I believed he’d been talking about self-preservation.

  He had meant to tell me it was important to understand what my government was doing, and what the rest of the world thought about it. But it was more important to be able to disassociate my “self” from that image of America. He was telling me not to take it personally. I recalled the night the soldiers said they didn’t like our government, but they liked us. I had wondered then if it was possible to separate self from country. Phillips advice was that it was necessary.

 
I needed to work for work’s sake, and let the rest go.

  Even Lily had written that true freedom came by not clinging to things or despising them, but in “calm acceptance of everything that comes.” Her quote was from The Snow Leopard. I really had to find a copy of that book.

  So, I was now full-time staff, keeping in mind Salinger’s reference to the Bhagavad Gita: “Work done with anxiety about results is far inferior to work done…in the calm of self-surrender.”

  I had also received a slight raise in salary. As we used to say in the Peace Corps, “Another day, another five cents.”

  I arrived at the office to find thirty plus men scattered about the courtyard. They sat on mats in the shade of the neem trees, chatting and brewing tea over small wire braziers filled with hot coals. Mint, sugar, and strong tea scented the air, blessing the office with the comfort of a teahouse.

  The men had gathered from the various villages to borrow thread on loan from FDC. In order to break the cadeau mentality, we had changed our policy. FDC would no longer distribute thread in the villages. Under the new artisan center project, the village weavers would now come to us, as they would to any village co-op or village store, to purchase thread in cash or on loan. In early January, several village representatives had gone with Hamidou, Nassuru, and me to Niamey in neighboring Niger, where we purchased thread in bulk and brought it back to Dori.

  Having no natural resources, Upper Volta’s only export was its people. Annually, 600,000 laborers migrated to neighboring countries to find seasonal work. For several generations, the weavers in and around Dori had migrated to Niger or Mali for six months of the year to weave blankets for thread merchants. The merchants then sold the blankets and gave the weavers a small portion of the profit. The weavers used their meager earnings to buy plates, pots, clothing, and other household items in the markets of Mali and Niger to bring home. During their absence, the weavers’ wives stayed in the villages to tend the gardens and raise the children on their own.

  With their own co-op and access to thread on loan, the village weavers would now be able to stay in their villages with their families year round, weave and sell their blankets in the markets of Upper Volta, reimburse the co-op, and use their increased profits to purchase goods from local markets, strengthening the economy of their own country.

  In theory, it sounded solid. We hoped it would work.

  At noon I went home for lunch. The aroma of fried peppers and onions met me at the gate. I entered, calling hello. Aissatou trotted from the kitchen, smiling and carrying a tray piled with cups, plates, and large spoons. The puppy was still there, lying under the table by the hammock. Ears perked, his black eyes followed Aissatou and Issa’s every movement.

  I scratched under his fuzzy chin. “Hey, Rocky,” I said softly, “watch me pull a rabbit outta’ my hat.”

  I returned to the office at three to find the village weavers taking sieste under the trees in the office courtyard. The afternoon passed quickly with loan contracts and thread allocation. At six o’clock, the last weaver gathered balls of red, black, yellow, and green cotton thread into a goatskin pouch. The man, his face wrinkled from years of constant sun, smiled, shook our hands, and, with the aid of a long stick, walked out the double doors into the courtyard.

  As Nassuru and I stood to stretch and put away our papers, the Land Rover pulled up, spewing dust through the open doors.

  Hamidou and Djelal had gone to Ouaga a few days before to pick up the new American agricultural expert Don had requested before his departure to Somalia. Adiza and Fati ran out and stopped next to me. We all bent to look inside the car. Fresh arrivals were always exciting; especially male fresh arrivals. A slender, white man with a mustache and dark eyes stepped out of the truck. Adiza nudged me and Fati giggled.

  We welcomed him as he shook our hands and introduced himself as Jack. Here was our new ag expert direct from North Carolina; Rhet Butler come to Dori. He made a valiant attempt to be charming and polite, though his eyelids sagged and his face was pasty and filthy from jet lag and the eight-hour road trip up from Ouaga. Hamidou took him off to the staff house Don had vacated several months before.

  It was closing time and I had a date for dinner.

  Back in my office, Nassuru and I filed the loan contracts, boxed up the remaining balls of thread, and stacked them in the corner. I turned to gather my bag and found Djelal standing in my doorway, his hair, face, and arms powdered with dust.

  “This arrived for you at the Ouaga office yesterday.” He held a small envelope. “C’est une téléx.”

  I accepted the paper. “Merci.”

  Djelal stood for a moment as if wanting to say something, then turned and left quietly. I opened the envelope and unfolded the telex. It was from Belle, a good friend from grad school. There were only three lines.

  LILY DEAD GAS LEAK

  LOVE AND SUPPORT

  BELLE

  Chapter 11

  Toad Fell

  Dear Lily,

  I received a telex today.

  A cold wind swept across my courtyard, fanning the pages of my journal and chilling me beyond the marrow of my bones. I dropped another stick onto the fire, but the flames wouldn’t rise high enough to still my shivering. Pen to the empty page, I wrote in the flickering light.

  It said you had died from a gas leak. And now I don’t know what to do.

  I sat cross-legged on a mat at the edge of a shallow fire pit, Rocky at my knee. Outside the small cocoon of firelight, the darkness of my courtyard was complete. I pulled the blanket closer around my shoulders.

  I got your last letter. You sent me your love and asked me to write often. So, I’m writing one more time. But I don’t know where you are.

  Night spread above and around me in an infinite dome of darkness. The fire was a pitiful little thing, its warmth barely reaching my legs. I threw on several more sticks to coax the flames higher.

  I’m sorry I didn’t come to Tunisia to visit. But you understood the money business, we both had those problems. I wish I could have seen you once more. Remember our goodbye at the Paris airport? You said not to be sad.

  The wind moved through the tree branches, shush, it said, shhhh. My eyes blurred, and the wind pressed cold fingers against my cheeks.

  I sent your parents a telegram today.

  My face seemed to cave in on itself and I covered it with my hands. My chest convulsed, as if my lungs simply decided they would no longer breathe. I curled inward and cried for a long time, until Rocky put his chin on my knee and warmed that small part of me. When the convulsing lessened, I breathed in until my lungs were full.

  I wish you could tell me where you are now. You, Lily, who worried so much, and tried so hard, and did so many crazy and wonderful things.

  I raised my eyes to the sky.

  Can’t you just come and sit next to me just for a minute? Just to say goodbye? Poor planning, Lily. Taking off like that without any warning and leaving us all behind.

  To the east, the moon had risen—two days past full. I had always felt an affinity with the moon, keeping track of its phases, as it kept track of mine. But tonight, the shadowed hollows of its pocked surface were the eyeless sockets of a skull. Tonight the moon was the face of Death.

  A far-off croaking of frogs came from the waters of the mar. Someone had once told me a story about the moon and a frog. Once upon a time, the moon died. It had been in Liberia, after the little girl had died of dysentery. The words of the story murmured with the wind through the eucalyptus leaves.

  God laid the moon’s corpse and the corpse of a human next to a deep grave. All the animals and trees gathered to mourn the moon and the human. God spoke to the animals. Let the frog and the toad each take a corpse, jump with them over the grave, and they will never die again.

  The frog came forward first, took the corpse of the moon in her arms, and jumped over the grave. The toad took man into his arms and also jumped, but man was too heavy, and the toad fell into the grave. To t
his day, the frog and the moon sing to each other at night because the frog resurrects the moon each time she dies. But man lies at the bottom of a deep grave and when he dies, his death is permanent.

  Goodbye my dear, sweet friend. I will miss you.

  Please be with me.

  I love you, always.

  *

  I went to bed and awoke in the middle of the night, my heart pounding from the thread of a dream already broken. Thirsty, I reached beneath my mosquito net and grasped the water bottle next to my bed. I put my lips to the bottle mouth and upended it, but no water came. The weight of a good cup or two of liquid sloshed inside. I tried again, still no water. Feeling for my flashlight, I could not find it. More tired than thirsty, I gave up, replaced the bottle on the floor, and went back to sleep.

  I awoke again in the gray just before dawn, having dreamed I drank cup after cup of water without moistening my throat. Untucking the mosquito net, I swung my legs over the side and picked up the water bottle.

  Inside the clear glass, a yellow-bodied, black-striped spider the size of a quarter hung suspended on a thick web just above the water line. I had put my lips to the bottle and tried to drink during the night. The web had acted like a stopper.

  I shuddered, staring at the spider in the dim light. It was beautiful and probably poisonous, and I had tried to swallow it.

  The spider moved its long front legs, testing its web. How easily Death could come, at any time, in any place. How easily it had found Lily. I pressed my hand against the bottle. The spider lived inside a glass world, protected by a transparent bubble that could shatter at the whim of anything that passed by. My body began to tremble.

  I carefully replaced the bottle by the side of the bed, and though pink light warmed the sky, I could not stop shivering.

  Chapter 12

  Things Fall Apart

  February/Rabi al Akhir

  The window in Drabo’s room was small and looked out onto the street. That morning, it was a square of gray light. The Harmatton winds had arrived, blowing a veil of dust from the north that hid the face of the sun.