Caravan

by Dorothy Gilman

  "And we bring rain," he said proudly. "They say so, Missy." He held up two fingers. "Rain this many days while thou sleep. They name it fari here when it be rain season and rain stop—hai! too soon. There be harvest soon. Missy, and"—he gave me a sly mischievous look—"we bring it."

  "You know we didn't," I told him sternly.

  He shrugged. "It rain, Missy. Thunder god speak and rain fall, we come."

  'True." I didn't feel strong enough to argue. "Where have they put you, Bakuli?"

  "Put me?"

  "Where do you sleep at night?"

  "With men, Missy; women no."

  I was surprised. "You mean only women live in this compound where I am?"

  He shook his head impatiently. "No no, Missy." Pointing to the large hut in the center he said, "Amina be wife to man who sleep there. She be first wife, new wife sleep there this day." He pointed to the smaller huts. "Sons sleep—" Again he pointed, this time to the right and left.

  "Two wives," I murmured. "Well, well ... Bakuli, she calls me bako, why?"

  "It mean 'stranger.' " Having so proudly explained our circumstances to me, he was silent now, gazing with a frown at a circle of pots nearby on a bed of ash. "Missy," he said at last.

  "Yes?"

  He sighed. 'There be trouble here, Missy. This village chief be named Kadiri—very good man but his son Shchu sick many days now. Amina make good medicine, she heal many people but not Shehu. The witch doctor—"

  "Witch doctor! Witch doctor?" I gasped.

  "Yes, Missy, he be one to guard against witches, he throw cowrie shells to say when to plant com, he make poison test learning truth in peoples. He say Shehu be possessed by spirit and he tell Shehu's father sacrifices to make, but Shehu still sick."

  I said dryly, "I'm very sorry."

  "Yes, Missy, but—" All of his bravado gone, he looked at me with a troubled face. "We bring rain, Missy, chief Kadiri say we have power to heal Shehu."

  I said suspiciously, "What do you mean 'we'? / didn't bring rain."

  He said stubbornly, "We come, Missy, it rain. And you know ettama."

  I ignored the word ettama. "Tell the chief I have no power, Bakuli, I'm sick, I can't even walk yet. Is the son sick with fever? What's wrong with him, anyway?"

  Bakuli confided that Shehu threw pots and broke them, he made noise, threw food to the earth and tore off his clothes. They had built a reed hut with a fence and gate to isolate him, but although they burned incense for him and gave him medicine he still roared and shouted.

  "Good heavens, a madman?" I sputtered. "Bakuli, you've got to be firm. Tell this witch doctor—"

  "His name be Isa."

  "Well, tell this Isa that if the rains came as we reached this village they should be glad and ask no more—enough is enough. We've done our best and we're tired."

  Bakuli said slowly, "I do not think this witch doctor like us bringing rain, it be village chief who want magic tomorrow."

  "No, Bakuli!" I protested.

  He ignored my anger. "Armina tell them you be woman and not Arab, your skin so dark. I tell them you be Bature—that be Hausa name for foreign peoples. This witch doctor laugh at thee but village chief say just see how Bature make war and bring new gods, you must have strong medicine."

  "The chief is wrong," I told him coldly.

  He gave me a reproachful glance and walked away affronted. Turning once he said stiffly, "I try to tell you softly, Missy—chief say he send for thee in morning."

  Appalled, I stared at the gate through which he'd disappeared. Witch doctors, madmen—Oh, Jacob, I thought, and crept back into the dim hut to think what to do about this unhappy decree.

  It was Shakespeare who finally dissipated my convalescent inertia and anxieties, and I must admit that I never expected to meet him again in a hot thatched hut in the Sahara. It was one of those Shakespearean passages that a very young Caressa had memorized as she thrilled at being sixteen and ready for life and thought she could find recipes for living it in books.. .. Yet here again was that mosaic, for I might so easily have become a juggler, a magician or a headless woman in Laski's Carnival but I had met with books instead. The words I remembered from Shakespeare urged me to "screw my courage to the sticking point," and in one of the King Henrys there was something about "What fates impose man must abide and not resist both wind and tide." I decided that if my lack of ettama was going to be exposed I might as well get it over with and face the consequences because I couldn't hide myself forever in Amina's hut: it was boring, it was hot, and there was no sky. I now determined to confront what the fates imposed with a style that fitted a Caressa who had grown up in a carnival.

  Amina slept that night, but not I. In the morning we ate corn mush with a hot spice sauce, and for me there was goat's milk. Reaching for Amina's calabash I drummed on it and by way of sign language told her I would need a drum. Nodding, she left the hut to reappear carrying one of carved wood and leather with skins stretched taut across each end of it, and soon after that a scared-looking Bakuli appeared in the doorway to announce that the chief was here, Missy, and I stood up nervously. Kadiri was not as frightening as expected and under different circumstances I might even have thought he looked kind. He was marvelously dressed in a long cotton tunic embroidered with bright colors and his head was wrapped in a turban made out of so many yards of cloth that it continued around his neck like a muffler and fell gracefully to his waist. I bowed and he spoke warmly to Amina; I gave instructions to Bakuli who told the chief that he, Bakuli, must walk in front of me beating a drum. This was produced and we set out.

  As soon as we walked through the gate of Amina's compound it became obvious that every hut in the village had been emptied to watch. A few daring women came near enough to touch me or peer into my face before they fell back, murmuring and giggling. "Where is this Shehu?" I asked Bakuli, and he pointed to a fence of thatch at the far edge of the village.

  "Beat the drum," I told him.

  Space was cleared for us and Bakuli moved ahead of me, noisily announcing our arrival. I walked with the chief, trying to look mysterious and dedicated. As we neared the end of the path and the hut of the sick man I could hear loud noises from behind his wall. At the gate a man stood waiting for us, and out of the comer of his mouth, between drum beats, Bakuli said, "That be witch doctor Isa."

  Isa was dressed entirely in white: an immaculate white robe and white headscarf, and the effect was dazzling against his shining ebony-black face. He looked pleasant enough, but as he stepped back from the entrance to Shehu's compound his glance at me was mocking. Beware of this man, I told myself.

  With Bakuli thumping his drum the two of us entered what I would have called a yard, in which a grass hut had been built in one corner. Shehu sat in the doorway surrounded by decaying food and shards of broken pottery; we had interrupted his bashing of a huge clay water jug and his arm was still poised over it; he brought his arm down slowly, glowering at us. For a moment I thought he was naked, but as he rose to his feet I was relieved to see that ha wore a loincloth. He was a short, stocky young man with an angry and suspicious face. Picking up the remnant of another clay pot he threw it at me; it broke into even smaller pieces at my feet.

  I told Bakuli that he could stop beating the drum. I figured that whatever I tried to do had to be done with a flourish, because I had almost nothing to offer, and so, ignoring Shehu, I walked to the center of the yard and slowly sank to my knees. Lifting both arms to the sky I began to intone the only chant I knew, one that Indian Joe had taught me years ago after he'd met a real Indian and memorized it. I cried out, "Hi lo eenie meenie ki ki umpchi wa pe wa wa, " and then I threw back my head and began to hum M's like a bumblebee. Expanding on this, I chanted, "Minny-mouseymoleymastermilky moo-moo mothymucky," and reaching a crescendo pitch, shouted, "Murkymoonymushy-missy moonshinemassaCHUsetts...."

  Shehu had stopped throwing things and was looking at me as if I was crazy, which gave us something in common. Slowly rising to my feet I
chanted, "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers a peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked...." Approaching Shehu I did a few hops, skips and jumps—I had his attention now—and holding out a scrap of red cloth I waved it in the air, tucked it up the left sleeve of my barracan and after a few more dance steps drew it out of my right sleeve.

  I was losing him, this didn't impress him in the slightest. I shoved both hands into the pockets of my barracan and went on mumbling, and then I shouted, "Shehu!" and when he looked at me again, thoroughly bored, I brought both hands out of my pockets with Mr. Jappy on one finger and the clown on the other, and I pushed them into his face.

  He jumped in astonishment and then, peering at them, he burst out laughing.

  I heard a stir of surprise from the audience behind me at the gate. I thought: Well, Grams always said laughter's just like a laxative the way it clears the system.

  It was a giddy childish triumph for me, shocking this man out of his great despair. Later, when I knew more of his language, I found Shehu one of the most intelligent men I'd ever met, which must surely have taken him down the only path he could think of to express his frustration and his rage. If he had been truly mad, of course, I would have failed. In the meantime, thoroughly exhausted, 1 was returned to Amina's hut to rest on my laurels.

  Unfortunately the mores of the village were so intricate and so exacting that I was not to enjoy my triumph for long.

  It was the drums that night that sent me into a panic. Long ago, or so it seemed to me now, I had listened to the sound of drums echoing through the canyons of the Hoggar Mountains—that dark haunted fortress of the Tuareg—and hearing them I had often shivered. Bakuli said they were talking drums, but where I came from people didn't talk with drums, they sent messages Western Union, or by mail, or they rang a doorbell. The sound of drums represented everything mysterious and alien to me and resonated with vague and atavistic terrors. Nor had my fears been reduced at all by the sound of them when we neared the hill of rocks at Abalessa, implying that our presence was watched by unseen eyes.

  I did not react well to drums, no, and Amina wasn't in the hut to reassure me. She was frequently gone; Bakuli explained that when she was absent it was her turn to cook for her husband and share his bed, and when she came back the new wife had taken her place. Alone and still recovering from fever and exhaustion I went berserk.

  I fled the compound.

  I ran, not even surprised that it was possible, knowing only that I had to get away from the relentless beat of the drums. I raced out of the village into the darkness, heedless of where I went, and the pale new moon was of little help to me for I stumbled again and again until I met with something seen once before, even though my recollection of it was dim: it was a hut standing under an acacia tree at a distance from the village, its thatch roof supported by posts carved with intricate designs. I felt my way inside, patting the earth to be sure there were neither snakes nor humans here, and reaching the farthest corner I sat down and hugged my knees. The noise of the drums was muted here and presently, calmer, I fell asleep.

  It was not dawn that woke me but the light of a torch that found me where I lay. I opened my eyes and Amina was standing in the doorway looking down at me, shocked, while behind her a crowd of faces peered over her shoulder. I rose to my feet and Amina made room for me to come out, which I did, blinking at the light of the torches and at finding so many people outside, all of them staring at me accusingly.

  Voices spoke: some were hard and some were shrill but all were hostile. I had no idea what was wrong and when several of the men moved toward me threateningly I wondered if they planned to kill me, except that Amina placed herself in front of me and spoke words to them I couldn't understand.

  It was then that Bakuli stepped out of the crowd and held out his hand to me.

  "Missy, come," he said.

  "Bakuli, what have I done?" I whispered.

  He said quietly, "This be sacred place. Missy, like Jesus-church. Village spirits live here."

  Grasping my hand he led me through the crowd of villagers who fell back to let us pass, but not without comment. The principal word that I heard from their lips seemed to be wawa, hurled at me either in reproach or anger.

  What, I asked Bakuli, did wawa mean.

  "It mean 'fool,' " he said, and that was that.

  I had been lonely before but not like this; I had been lonely in the days after the massacre but there had been a terrible anger to support me—at Umar, at Jacob, at life itself—and out of that I had fashioned a hope of escape that sustained me, and then I had met Bakuli and my loneliness had diminished. Now I felt I had lost him for he lived under a different roof and had recovered from the desert much faster than I, he was learning more Hausa words and the names of the people and he fitted in, whereas I was a bako and condemned to Amina's hut to nurse a stubborn fever that came and went. Even worse, I had shocked and embarrassed Bakuli by desecrating a sacred shine and it seemed obvious that he also thought me a fool.

  It was the next morning that I woke to discover that I couldn't move my left arm; overnight it had become lifeless, no better than a stick of wood. I lay on the mat gritting my teeth while I tried to feel it, lift it, move it, but my arm refused to obey; I tried until I was reduced to tears, and only then did I call to Amina.

  She was outside feeding her chickens and came to me at once. "Sanu, sunu. Amina," I cried, "but look—my arm!" Sitting up I slipped my right hand under my left arm and lifted it. "It's died, Amina," I sobbed. "It's paralyzed."

  She took me in her arms and held me—she really was like Grams—and when I'd quieted she sat back and examined my arm, tested it by lifting it, and watched it drop to dangle uselessly when she let it go.

  "Wàhalâ," she exclaimed. "Sihiri!" Her lips pursed as she stared at my arm and then at last, "Bakuli," she said and went out.

  When she returned it was with Bakuli and the chief, Kadiri. Behind them came Shehu, but it did not just then lighten my spirits to see him no longer filthy but wearing a clean white robe. He smiled shyly at me, but more important Bakuli was all worry and fear for me, I could read this on his face and see how morbid my imagination had been.

  "Oh, Missy, Amina say it be black magic," he said. "She call it sihiri."

  I laughed hysterically at hearing this, although my laugh ended in a sob, but no attention was paid to me for they all began talking at once. After a few minutes Shehu stopped talking and walked to the doorway of the hut. I saw him kneel down to examine the earth, and suddenly he called out to the others, pointing.

  I went with them, carrying my dead aim, to see what had been found. On the path to the hut there were furrows and wrinkles in the sandy clay, as if recently the earth had been disturbed. Amina brought Shehu a hoe and bid me sharply to go back into the hut. She looked alarmed and worried. "Sihiri, " she kept saying, and gave orders.

  Bakuli translated for me. "Thou must not look," he said, reverting to his old way of speaking, which I found very comforting just now. With Amina barring the door I could only guess them to be digging in the earth until I heard exclamations and Amina turned away, looking sick. Whatever had been buried was lifted out, placed in a cloth and handed to the chief, Kadiri, who went away with it. Hastily Bakuli followed, depriving me of making any sense of it all, and since this left me with Amina, with whom I couldn't communicate, I had no idea what dreadful object had been removed. I watched her walk around the hut and select herbs hanging from the ceiling. Frowning, she peered into clay jars and brought out strange twigs and leaves and ominous-looking powders; these she spread on a mat in front of her and sat down and looked at them.

  I looked at them, too, baffled.

  When she began a toneless chant my eyes moved to her face, half of it in shadow, half illuminated by the sunlight that fell across one cheekbone, the tip of her nose and then ran down her arm to fix itself brightly on the objects in front of her. She was all black and gold sitting there, her red head kerchief turned orange by t
he sun. When her chanting stopped she placed the mix in a bowl and added water, stirred until it was a paste and applied it to my lifeless arm.

  I thought, I'll go mad if I stay in this place. I've got to leave, there has to be a way. In my mind's eye I tried to recall the maps of Africa that I'd looked at so carelessly in Boston when Jacob had shown them to me. There was the desert—I didn't want to think of the desert—but when I'd known Mohammed he had explained why so few caravans came to Tripoli now and he had spoken of colonies established in the south by the French and the British below the Sahara.... Perhaps heading south had not been such folly after all, in spite of its being so empty of people and so full of death. If I could only find one of those colonies!

  Thoughts of this occupied me for most of the day until near dusk I borrowed a wooden spoon from Amina and began to trace lines on the earthen floor in an attempt to reconstruct a map of the continent. It was not until I had firmly grasped the spoon that 1 realized I was holding it with my dead hand. I cried out to Amina and lifted my arm to show her that it had come to life again, but Amina only smiled politely and nodded without any surprise at all.

  There was no mystery to Bakuli about an arm that had become wooden for those many hours. We sat under a tree outside Amina's compound and nearly quarreled over this until I learned to hold my tongue, not wanting to alienate him as well. It was very plain to him that one of the witches in the gari—

  "One of them?" I gasped.

  "Yes, Missy." One of them, he went on, must have become very angry at my entering the sacred shrine, so angry that he or she wanted to harm me, and had buried—he wouldn't say what—on the path where I would walk. He shook his head over this disapprovingly, because, he said in a troubled voice, this could have harmed Amina as well. I would have protested such indifference to my own fate except that he gave every evidence of being worried about me, too.

  I pointed out in a mild voice that besides removing whatever had been buried, Amina had made good medicine for my arm.