George Martin - Suicide Kings

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The baobab loomed in the central divider, as if a divine hand had ripped a gigantic tree from the ground and rammed it upside down back into the hole with the root system dangling from the top and overhanging both sides of the highway. The trunk was enormous and thick, furrowed with deep ridges, and green leaves fringed the branches here and there. The tree looked powerful and ancient, at home here like an ancient, gnarled oak might dominate a forest back in the States.

Jerusha stared at it and touched her seed pouch. “A baobab, eh?” She would remember that. “Listen,” she said to the aide. “I-we-appreciate your taking us to the embassy, but it’s important that we get to Lake Tanganyika as soon as possible. We’re…” Jerusha didn’t know what Barbara had told the ambassador, but it didn’t seem wise to mention that they were intending to cross over into the People’s Paradise. “… we’re supposed to meet someone there. It’s Committee business. We have to keep it quiet.”

“Ahh.” The aide pursed his lips, tapping them with a forefinger. “There’s a man,” he said. “A joker, Denys Finch. He’s a bush pilot flying out of a little airport a few miles north of the embassy. Sometimes we have him courier for us, or take dignitaries out to the national parks or up toward Kilimanjaro.”

“Could you take us to him?” Jerusha asked. Wally was still snoring. “Now?”

A shrug. “The ambassador wishes to have dinner with you, but that’s not for a few hours.” He tapped on the window separating their compartment from the driver and gave the man directions. Jerusha heard the word “Kawi.” Then the aide turned back to her with a smile.

“We’ll go there now,” he said.

Jackson Square

New Orleans, Louisiana

There are more corpses in the pile this time. Adesina is curled into a fetal position on top of the pile. Michelle crawls toward her. The limbs slide as she puts her weight on them. Some of them feel squishier. She can’t see the bodies clearly. All she can see is Adesina-who is still curled in a ball, but rocking back and forth. Her hand trembles as she reaches out and touches Adesina’s temple. And as soon as she touches, images explode in her mind.

Adesina runs through the forest. The leopards give chase. Clothes tear on branches and thorns.

She’s in a village. There are ugly little houses made of concrete blocks and corrugated tin roofs, painted in bright colors: yellow, blue, and green. Children play in the unpaved street, their feet kick up puffs of dirt that hover in the still air.

Michelle sees Adesina among them. She’s wearing the same blue-and-white checkered dress. Her feet are bare. Her hair is braided, and someone has wrapped the braids around her head so they look like a crown.

The children are laughing. In the shaded doorways of the houses, women gossip while they watch the kids. It’s warm and the air smells heavy with rain.

Bursting into the town come a trio of jeeps. Each has three men riding in it. The men are armed and shots ring out. The women grab the children and cover them with their bodies. Michelle wants to bubble-wants to do something to help. But she knows she would be useless. This memory is stuck in Adesina’s head.

The men are dressed in green camouflage uniforms. Their heads are shaved and some of them wear leopard-skin fezzes. Machine guns are slung over their shoulders. They train the weapons on the women and children, then start shouting orders in French. Michelle understands about half of what they’re saying. She tries not to feel afraid-it’s difficult. She’s in the well of Adesina’s fear.

Michelle looks around the village, trying not to let the fear distract her. There are tires piled up at one end of the street. A couple of thick-wheeled bicycles lean against the tires. No help there.

The guns go off again. The women and children moan and cry. Michelle looks at the soldiers. Some have their guns pointed in the air. The rest have their guns trained on the villagers.

And then she knows it’s time to go. It doesn’t matter what happens next in the dream or vision or memory or whatever this is.

Adesina woke Michelle from her coma. And now it’s time for Michelle to repay the favor. But she can’t do it trapped in her fat and afraid to use her power.

Kawi

Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

“Wally.” Jerusha Nudged him. “We’re here.”

Wally jerked awake, and accidentally scratched the window glass with his ear. Nuts. He looked around, ready to apologize to that nice fella from the embassy, but he had already stepped out of the car. Jerusha looked like she was trying not to laugh. They shared a look and shrugged at each other.

Wally followed Jerusha from the cool, air-conditioned cocoon of the embassy limousine into an equatorial steam bath. He’d first felt it when they landed, but he’d been so comfortable dozing in the car that he’d almost forgotten where he was.

When he and his brother were kids, before his card turned, one of Wally’s favorite things was visiting their aunt Karen and uncle Bert up in Ely, Minnesota. Bert had built a sauna into their basement. A proper sauna, lined with spruce, and an exterior door that opened just a few dozen feet from their dock. Wally loved the smell of the spruce, the tingle in his nose, the sizzle of the stones.

He and his brother used to take turns pouring water on the stones, until the sauna was so steamy it hurt to breathe. They’d stoop lower and lower as the steam rose, until it was unbearable. Then they’d dare each other to run down and dive in the lake in their skivvies. It wasn’t cold at all, even in October and November, if you were fast enough. On a crisp, still night you could see the steam rising from your skin when you stepped out of the sauna.

Tanzania in December felt a little bit like that sauna. Except you couldn’t control the temperature, and saying “uncle” didn’t make your brother stop pouring water on the stones. Wally didn’t handle humidity as well as he had before his card turned.

It was the rainy season here. The shorter of two, Jerusha said. That meant it was ninety degrees every day, with three inches of rain in both November and December.

They were parked on a patch of hard-packed red earth, along a road bounded by dense greenery on both sides. Wally made a mental note to ask Jerusha about the trees; everything was so green. Across the road, a handful of temporary huts clustered around a large, open-ended corrugated steel Quonset hut. Part wood, part metal, the huts looked like they’d gone up quickly and wouldn’t be around very long. Wally could just make out an airplane in the shadows of the Quonset, and what might have been a landing strip in a clearing through the trees. They weren’t too far from the ocean; Wally could smell it, on the strongest gusts. Mostly, though, he smelled humidity and what might have been the stink of burning garbage.

A trio of kids ran past them, laughing and shouting to each other. They were kicking a ball down the street. It appeared to be a crushed-up plastic water bottle wrapped with tape. Wally wondered what they were saying, if their game had any rules, and if Lucien played something similar.

“Uh, Jerusha?” said Wally. “Where’s here?”

She said, “I think this is a town called Kawi. We’re just a few miles north of the embassy. There’s a bush pilot here who can fly us to Lake Tanganyika.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I told him”-she nodded her head in the direction of the aide, who was knocking on a door next to the hangar across the street-“that we’re on Committee business, meeting somebody at the lake. If anybody asks, I sort of implied that it’s all very hush-hush. So just play along and we should be fine.”

“Okeydokey. That sounds real good,” he said. “Way to go, Jerusha!” He gave her a thumbs-up and a smile.

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