Paul Theroux - The Lower River

“But, eh, you are being a big man as well, father,” Manyenga said.

And he smiled seeing Hock sitting as usual at his table on the narrow veranda, Zizi squatting on her heels near him, the dwarf crouching a little distance away by a low bush, gnawing his fingers.

The way Manyenga stared put Hock on his guard. The anxiety, the calculation, something approaching fear, that he’d noticed in the young man on his arrival was gone. Now Manyenga gazed directly at him, looked him up and down, narrowing his eyes, without any hesitation. He was at ease, friendlier, more familiar, and less reliable.

Hock saw himself with Manyenga’s eyes, an old mzungu, attended by a skinny girl and a dwarf, a portrait of inaction, like a ruined chief on a rickety throne. He’d stopped shaving, his clothes were stained. The tableau somehow illustrated his life at Malabo — not at all what he had imagined, but tolerable because nothing was expected of him beyond greeting the villagers, and not complaining, and giving them money now and then. There was no point. He had to leave, to get away, if only to Blantyre, to collect his thoughts and decide his next move.

“You were seeing us at the dance,” Manyenga said, gesturing to the girl to set down the plate of porridge and the mug of milky tea.

“How do you know?”

It was a breach of etiquette for an outsider to observe the Nyau dance. In spite of himself, Hock could not be indignant at being questioned. He was abashed, as though he’d seen someone naked in the village; he’d had no right.

But Manyenga was nodding with a slyly satisfied face — a smile that was not a smile. “We were celebrating you,” he said. “We were thanking you, father. And you were there.”

Hock said in Sena, “A ghost doesn’t miss a funeral”—a proverb he’d learned long ago, one he’d often quoted in Medford.

“You are knowing so much, father.”

“But I have to leave today,” Hock said, and took another breath, because his chest was tight — the heat, the scrutiny of the strong younger man. “To go to Blantyre.”

All night he had been pondering this possibility, even practicing the form of words. Nothing had gone right. He knew he had been cheated out of the money for the roofing, he was being overcharged for room and board, the school would stay a ruin. The boys had abandoned him — but they were orphans, there was little hope for them. No, perhaps they were counting on him, but if so, it was all hopeless. His waiting to be fed, breathless in the morning heat, drawing shallow breaths, his face glowing with sweat so early in the morning, had shown him the futility of it all.

“I’ll need a lift to the boma.” His idea was to find the departure times of the buses to Blantyre, perhaps catch one that day, just to be away.

“As you are wishing, father,” Manyenga said, with another nod and that ambiguous half-smile. “But you were watching our dance without permission. That is a trespassing. According to custom you must pay a fine.”

“I understand.”

“A heavy fine. Sorry, father.”

“In that case, I need to get some money from the bank. I’m almost out of cash.”

Instead of looking greedy and grateful, Manyenga frowned, seeming bewildered, but he lifted his hands in an accommodating gesture, as if to say, Anything for you. Then he clicked his tongue at the serving girl.

“Bon appétit,” he said.

And again Hock remembered that the man had been a driver for a foreign agency.

“The boma is far. We must leave soon,” Manyenga said.

Hock was encouraged when the man kept his word. They left on the motorbike later in the morning, Manyenga driving. Hock, sitting behind him, had his passport and all his important papers. Revving the engine with twists of his hand, Manyenga told him to hold on, and he skidded away. But not fifty yards into the journey, even before they reached the road, Manyenga swerved and screamed, “ Njoka! ”

Hock twisted around, looking for the snake, and lost his balance and fell, bruising his side. Winded, he lay in the dust, wondering if he had broken any ribs.

“We cannot go,” Manyenga said, righting the motorbike, helping Hock up from the ground.

Manyenga’s brow was heavy, his face dark with fear. Hock knew of the prohibition against traveling onward after a snake has crossed your path. Manyenga’s mood had changed from agreeable to anxious. He seemed tense, nearly angry.

“I didn’t see a snake,” Hock said.

“It was so big! A green mamba — they match the leaves,” Manyenga said. “We must obey.”

Hock was too bruised to argue, yet annoyed that the man was describing a snake to him that he had not seen. He limped back in the sun to his hut, and there he sat, wondering how to overcome this man. He suspected it was a ruse. Yet he was hurt. And realizing that he’d been forced to lie to Manyenga to get to the boma made him uneasy. The lie indicated that he was afraid to tell the truth — that he simply wanted to go to Blantyre and plot his next move, to go home.

He went to his duffel bag and felt for his pouch of money. He found the fat envelopes and saw that some money was missing, and he laughed, mocking his own stupidity. That was why Manyenga had reacted that way. He knew that Hock was not going to the bank for money. Manyenga knew he had money, that he was lying.

Hock looked up and saw the dwarf staring at him with red-rimmed eyes, a wet finger in his mouth.

Aching after the fall from the bike, he rested. The following night the Nyau was danced again. Hock’s head throbbed. The very sound of the drums echoed in his skull, pained him physically, pounded inside him. He had a fever — he knew malaria, the flu-like symptoms, the headache. He found his bottle of chloroquine and, unable to locate his water jug, chewed three tablets and lay in his string bed, the drums beating against his eyes and ears, his sore body, his sore head. The mosquito net killed any movement of air and trapped the heat.

Then days and nights were one. He did not know how long he lay shivering with chills, gasping in the heat, his heart fluttering, his head like an echo chamber. He heard a wild commotion, screeching, insistent drumming, the ululating of frenzied women. His eyes seemed scorched, and his skin felt raw against the sheets. The slightest brush of the mosquito net caused him discomfort. It was not like skin at all, but like tissue that was easily torn.

He suffered most when sunlight shot through the windows of the hut and caught him on the face. In the night his teeth chattered. Though he was wrapped in a thickness of sheets — there were no blankets — he could not get warm. He continued dosing himself with chloroquine.

“Quilt,” he said to Manyenga when one day the man’s face appeared in the wrinkles of the net, but the word meant nothing to him.

He felt sorry for himself, became tearful. No one cared, but he was comforted by the sight of Zizi and the dwarf on his veranda, standing vigil, it seemed. He heard Manyenga’s voice, an assured murmur, and he envied the man his strength. But it was only a voice — he did not see him.

When, before dawn one day, the fever eased, he could think more clearly, though he was still lightheaded and weak. The sickness made his situation plain, stripped it of sentiment. He saw the foolishness of his decision. He had come expecting to be welcomed; he’d wanted to contribute something to the village or the district. But no one was interested. Why should they care? They had managed very well without any amenities. They were much worse off than he’d seen them long ago, more cynical and somehow shrewder as a result. Cynicism had strengthened them.

As a young man, he’d compared malaria to the flu, and in four or five days he’d ridded himself of it. Older, he found the ailment to be like a fatal disease. He lay in bed, too weak to stand, straining even to roll over, and his lack of appetite weakened him more. He understood how frail he was, and the danger of being sick in this remote village. His dreams were fractured and irrational, ugly beaked birds figured in them, crowds of noisy people, great heat. In one dream he imagined that he was visited. He heard inquiring voices, American ones; he heard a car, the thumping of a large vehicle in the compound, the straining of gears as it drove away. The nightmarish part of the whole episode was that he had been ignored.