Norman Rush - Whites

He lay down and rolled under the fence easily. The bowl gleamed at him. He stood up as a wave of dogs, muttering, rolled toward him. He flung the meat in an arc just over their heads, and they wheeled. It was like magic. He had the bowl! The dogs were after the meat, breaking up into vicious knots here and there. This was Letsamao’s karma for underfeeding them. Maybe their whole problem was being underfed. He was back in the trench and rolling home. He stood up, shaking himself. He collapsed the lips of the trench and swept loose earth into the hole, enjoying everything.

He was curious to know why he felt physically light, so light. He felt almost removed from his victory, standing aside. It was amazing. What he had done was amazing. He had forestalled the dogs. He felt fine, he felt amazing. Everyone said forestall this, forestall that, but how many people knew the term came from rebel merchants setting up markets outside the authorized markets run by the barons and bishops and so on, in England? How many people knew it came from the history of marketing? England was conquering the world in the guise of her language. Poor devils here in Botswana had to abandon their own languages in order to get a degree. Suppose he’d had to learn German at a tender age in order to get anywhere? The people we deal with day in and day out are all linguists, he thought. He slipped the bowl inside his jacket, zipped up, and went in.

The phone rang. It was Ione, at last. He had been waiting for days. She got directly to money. It was two hundred pula. At the current rate, that would be about two hundred and fifty dollars. Then she gave him instructions. She was breathless. At the end, she said, “Carl, I want only one thing out of this, and it’s fine with the sangoma , and that’s to be present — be there for it. This is a whole new step for me. So, I’m hoping to God you have no objection. And also you owe me this. And it’s a good idea for me to be there, just in general. And he understands absolutely about confidentiality.”

He said he wanted her to be there. She was relieved.

The instructions were easy. He was supposed to be “clean in his person” and to wear clean clothes.

• • •

Ione was trying to modulate everything. Let her, he thought. As she drove, she was trying to keep him relaxed and positive. She was driving especially carefully, suppressing her impatience whenever she had to stop and get out to let them through cattle gates. She wouldn’t let him help. She wanted him to rest, which was all right with him, because last night the dogs had been straight from hell itself. Ione had even brought a pillow for the small of his back.

There were a lot of mountainous clouds. She had pointed out some odd cloud forms. It was balmy. The little hills above Ramotswa were greener and more normal-looking than the ones he was used to — like the steep hills around Lobatse that looked like piles of rubble or cobblestones. Was she worried that he was going to back out, still? He smiled to himself. On his lap in a paper bag was the dog bowl. He was holding on to it with both hands.

Ione was following directions written neatly on an index card. These back roads were rough. He wasn’t sure where they were, at this point. The last landmark he’d paid attention to had been a garage — a panel-beaters place near the main road, a good while back. He liked the way Ione dressed. Today she was wearing a long-sleeved khaki blouse and matching pantslike things whose name would come to him. Lo would look like a Brownie in Ione’s outfit, but on Ione it was just right. Sometimes Lo bought clothes in youth-wear. The only thing against Ione was her eyebrows, which were too thin and not in their original location. But that was nothing. He couldn’t help admiring her calves as she worked the brake and clutch. She had muscular calves, like a dancer. Culottes, she was wearing.

They arrived. She seemed not to like the looks of the place, and told him to stay in the car while she scouted around. There was a mud-block storage building standing alone at the edge of a deep ravine. Where was this? They had come down into a valley with bad gully erosion everywhere he looked. The building was windowless. The roofing was motley — boards and sheet metal held down with stones. A line of elephant grass grew around one side and the back of the structure. There were no other buildings anywhere in view.

Now Ione was motioning him to come over. He got out. The entrance was at the back — a hole probably originally intended to receive a doorframe. The void was covered with a tarpaulin, which Ione pushed aside with a stick. Candles burned in several places inside. They entered.

It was difficult to see much. Where was his night vision? Something like a heap of rags in one corner rose up and walked. Ione jumped. Carl was steady. It was the sangoma approaching.

How usual was this? The sangoma was dressed in an assemblage of light and dark rags, pinned together, and he was masked. Toweling was wound around the top half of his head, ending just below the nose. The eyehole edges were ragged. A headband secured the toweling, and feathers hung down from it on one side. The sangoma’s arms were bare. There was nothing imposing about him. There was something sad. He looked frail. He seemed to be alone. The place had been neatened up in a rough way, the earth floor raked. There were ramps of earth and debris in two corners. Some penetrating smell hung in the air. There were sacks of something along one wall which could be sat on in a pinch. It was all right. He didn’t love the ceiling beams, which were studded with white pods — some of them as big as doorknobs — which he knew were spiders’ nests. He could make out a cot and a small table at the head of the room. He was ready anytime.

• • •

Carl lay on the cot, waiting. First, Ione had insisted on checking the cot for stability. Then she had insisted on dusting the cot off with some tissues she had. Then it had been O.K. to lie down. And now she had run out to the car to get him the pillow she’d brought. She was taking more of a hand in things than anybody else present liked. There had been trouble over the money, when she made Carl keep half of it until the procedure was over. And that had led to the sangoma ’s first request that she consider waiting outside, which she had resented. Now he had the pillow, and there was a compromise: she would sit on a sack at a reasonable distance from the scene of the crime.

The thing began, at last. He wanted to tell Ione to relax, and to remind her that there were such things as trade secrets and that from his standpoint, the sangoma was already being pushed around. This man was an entrepreneur, when you came down to it. Also, it was Carl’s money, and so far he felt like he was getting his money’s worth — some dance steps and swaying as the sangoma circled around him, some business with bones in a pouch, some pouring of liquids into and out of the dog bowl. How could she expect to be allowed to scrutinize everything? They weren’t there to make a documentary. It was too dark for that, and this kind of thing was along the lines of a séance. He wanted to tell her that people didn’t take flashlights to séances and sit there shining them around. Besides, a good part of the ceremony was going on behind a screen made from sacking. Maybe the sangoma hadn’t liked Ione explaining at the beginning, over and over and over, in what would have to be called Basic English, what Carl’s problem was and what the ritual was supposed to be putting an end to. From what Carl had seen during the money imbroglio, the sangoma spoke perfectly good English, although maybe that was strange. Carl was satisfied, was the point. The sangoma was humming. For a moment, Carl felt he knew the tune, from South African radio. But that was impossible. He liked this thing. It went on.