Johnson Denis - The Laughing Monsters

The queen performed a kind of slow elephantine dance, singing ha-hah, ha-hah. She pointed at Michael’s crotch and said, “I’m going to my sleep now. When I dream, your parts will turn into a white stone!”

Michael laughed. It was false, but loud, from deep in his lungs. He said, “Woman! If I had diesel, I would soak you and burn you alive.”

“La Dolce is going up!” The queen lowered her butt into her throne with an ostentatious lot of wiggling. The two diggers hurried to help her.

Next to the tree stood a rough-hewn table with some items on it — a few liters of bottled water — empty — a whole cassava, some mangoes, and some of the green oranges they eat in this region. From nails hammered into the trunk hung plastic shopping bags by their knots, full of what I don’t know. Clothes, probably, food. A pole jutted from the earth nearby, and between it and the tree some bright things flapped on a length of twine — a scarf, a skirt, a T-shirt. A pair of white athletic socks. Stair treads had been hacked in a zigzag up the trunk, but La Dolce didn’t use them.

La Dolce raised one finger and made a winding motion with it and two stout women and a man took hold of her rope. She laughed and laughed while, by a system of pulleys anchored out of sight above, they hoisted her chair off the ground, and she ascended into the boughs.

We tilted back our heads to watch — the chair swaying, the rope rasping against the tree’s rough hide, the crowd’s murmurs and exclamations — ayeee ayeee — the wind coming across the expanse.

She pointed down at Michael. “Hees name shall rot!”

I remembered a spider I’d seen swinging in just such a manner from Michael Adriko’s toothbrush. I thought: Yes, everything’s coming together now.

I wouldn’t have thought that anything could distract me from my thirst, but now I heard the sound of an engine, and a burst of hope lifted me. “Is that a car?”

It was a cow. Another one also moaned.

I said, “Shit. We can’t ride out of here on cattle.”

Michael took a couple of strokes at the tree with his machete. He gave it up and seemed about to walk off somewhere.

“Michael — I need you to focus now. I talked to some missionaries. Tomorrow they can take us out of here to Bunia.”

“Good for them.”

“Don’t do this. Jesus, man — not now. I need to get to Freetown, and I’m out of ideas.”

“Leave me alone.”

“I need your help.”

“Leave me alone.”

When he’s like that, he’s like that. I left him alone.

I followed the path down the hill.

While a humpbacked Brahma cow was loosing a stream of piss two meters away, I sponged up creek water in a dirty sock and squeezed it into my mouth. No liquid so sweet has ever touched my lips, until perhaps five minutes later — because gathered around a stump quite near to where I’d fallen on my knees, three remnant herdsmen had convened. One of them offered me a gourd. I thought he meant it for a water glass, but in fact it was already swimming with a filmy yellow liquid, pungently alcoholic, and I knew I’d come among my tribe.

* * *

Three fine men: one younger, two older. I forget their names. They have the puffy look of corpses floating in formalin. And three stunted, starving cows and one bull who drags his chin across the ground because he can’t hold up his own horns.

As far as I make out through the language barrier, they’ve been trading off the last of their cattle for plantain and sugar cane, which they bury together in a formula that ferments and emerges as a remarkable beverage they call Mawa. I don’t think it’s good for the teeth — they’ve got none. But these dregs in the gourd, I’ll bet you, give strength to the bones.

I can’t say whether they’re from Michael’s clan or some neighboring society. They wear rope sandals. Long-sleeved shifts of coarse cloth, brown or gray, depending on the light.

I fell asleep by the creek, I woke from a long nap, and I’ve been sitting here writing away with no intention of leaving this spot because, if I take their meaning, a new batch of Mawa comes up from the earth around sundown, and I plan to be here for the resurrection. Prior to my nap, I only got a few swallows.

I’m not going back up that hill to deal with Michael. I’d sooner take my chances on the Tenth Spec Forces than hang my hopes on Michael Adriko, the lunatic comedian.

I should stay sober and alert for the sound of a blue-and-white Isuzu.

Really? Kiss off. What difference does it make? It’s been two weeks since we left Arua and I’ve come altogether about fifty kilometers.

[SAME-SAME, 6:30PM?]

Oh, Davidia! Or maybe I mean

Oh, Tina!

Whichever is your name, I call to you, oh woman of my heart.

The Mawa decants out of 2 five-liter jugs.

The gourd bowl goes round and round.

My flat black silhouette comrades. Right now they stand against the sunset. Behind them it looks like Dresden’s burning. I forget their names. I’ll ask again.

— Oudry

— Geslin

— Armand

Priests of the nectar, ministers to the flock, of whom I am one.

If I can’t buy or think my way out of this by tomorrow, I’ll go back to the Americans and say, Prison? Fine.

* * *

My handwriting may be illegible — let’s blame the dark.

Also my pencil must be dull, but come on, enough — it worries the mind and body to have to sharpen a utensil every half page.

Oudry, Geslin, and Armand have kindled a fire from dried dung on a bed of former thatch, and our laughter flies up into the blackness with its sparks.

Incidentally, Davidia, that’s why they’re tearing the huts apart around here. For firewood.

Davidia, I wish you could meet Tina.

Tina, I’m not sure I’d like you to meet Davidia.

Do I contradict myself? Not to worry. I’ll soon be transcribing these notes in a prison cell, with plenty of time to get my thoughts in order.

Let’s face it. I’ve got to go back to the Yanks.

I’ve improved the plan a bit: take the last of my cash to Bunia, lavish it on a finale of booze and prostitutes, then advise the UN to arrest me.

* * *

Fifty kilometers in 14 days. Per my calculations, a circus clown walking on his hands would have made better progress.

Tina.

You’re sexy, Tina. And smart. But not glamorous in the Michael’s-woman way. Still. You might have had dealings with Michael. I think you might have dealt with him. You know what I mean? I mean, did you fuck him, Tina? I always suspected you did but I never asked, so I’m asking. Did you fuck Michael?

[OCT 28 ca. 8AM]

When next I encountered Michael Adriko, I found him continuing in a wretched state. He looked like he’d been beaten about the face with a bat, but it was just sadness, only misery, it was nothing physical, it was all from the inside. That was last night.

A few words about remorse.

This remorse twists in me like seasickness.

If you’ve been seasick lately you know what I mean. This remorse is physically intolerable.

I climbed the hill last night after drinking with my fellow herdsmen. What are their names? God. I’ve lost their names — and the herdsmen as well, and their cattle. Where are they? I’m alone by the creek.

There’s a reason they call them spirits. They enter in, they take control, they speak and walk around. Wicked, wicked spirits.

Last night I thought I heard Michael chopping with his machete atop this hill. Striking at La Dolce’s tree and calling, Nair! with every stroke, Nair! Nair!

It must have been well past midnight, because the moon rode high and gave plenty of light to see by. I floated zigzag up the hill and now report I was hallucinating. Nobody was bothering the tree.