Norman Rush - Whites

Now the sangoma wanted him to turn onto his stomach. He complied. Ione materialized near them, enraging the sangoma . The old argument began again. Ione was interfering. This time the sangoma was obdurate. Ione would have to wait outside while he completed the ritual, which was almost at an end, and he would absolutely refuse to continue so long as she stayed. He appealed to Carl, saying “ Rra , you must command this woman. She must wait some time on the outside, from this moment. She shall destroy my power.” He had a hoarse, grating voice. He sounded weak. Maybe this was hard work for him.

Carl asked Ione to wait outside. She was unhappy. He said he would tell her everything that happened — that was a promise. Something was bothering Ione which she wasn’t communicating, but there was no time for this. She wouldn’t budge.

He was having to keep her face in view from a painful angle. This business couldn’t be dragged out forever just because she didn’t like some detail or other. She had had her chance to be an observer. The sangoma had to be allowed to finish.

She said, “Then are you, yourself, asking me to leave you in here?”

“I think I am,” he said.

He had to shout at her, finally. It took his last strength. He tried to point out that they had paid their admission, that this wasn’t like going into a restaurant and walking out after you looked at the menu. That had been Elaine’s specialty. She loved doing it just a little less than sending food back to the kitchen, which would happen at any point in a meal, so that you were never safe. You were on tenterhooks every time you ate out. He shuddered.

The sangoma bent over him. “Thanks, that woman is gone. Now you must set this into your mouth.” The sangoma handed Carl a piece of cardboard folded in half. Carl didn’t like this, and now the sangoma was untucking Carl’s shirt and pushing it up to expose his back. Carl wanted to say something, but the sangoma was chanting again, and the thought of interrupting seemed wrong. The sangoma gestured for Carl to bite down on the cardboard, so he did.

The sangoma bent down to him again. “Now what I must do is cut you some places, just like this way …” He dragged a thumbnail lightly along the canvas near Carl’s face. “It is just your skin.”

Carl started to get up, but checked himself, overcome by a new sensation. It was the sensation of conviction. The ritual felt real to him for the first time. Someone whose motives were good was going to reach down and cut him while he was wide awake. It was remarkable. He relaxed.

The pain of the first cut startled him. He had to concentrate. He counted the cuts as they came. The first was the worst — the deepest, he guessed. There were six cuts all told, three on each side of his spine, all on his upper back. It was like being burned. He gathered that the instrument was a knife blade, not a razor. He was breathing too fast.

“ Rra , I must put you some powders,” the sangoma said, tenderly. He patted Carl’s neck.

The powder made his cuts sting even more. Carl spat out the cardboard. The sangoma tamped the powder down. Carl smelled ashes.

The sangoma helped Carl sit up. “You must set your shirt right,” the sangoma said. Carl tried. His back was crawling with pain that had to stop if he was going to walk. The sangoma helped him with his shirt and then with finding which pocket the balance of the fee was in.

Carl got to his feet. He was all right. He could walk decently. The sangoma would keep the dog bowl, apparently. The sangoma said something about not worrying anymore about the dogs. It was over.

Outside, it was brilliant. He kept walking. The air was sweet, overwhelming. There was Ione, pacing and smoking near the car. Now she saw him. She flicked her cigarette butt into the donga , which he wanted to stop her from doing because of veld fires, but it was too late.

The thing now was to get to the car. There might be some bleeding. If Ione noticed something, she would start up again with the sangoma and they could never leave. He thought, I have to keep my back behind me.

Once they were moving, she wanted to talk. He put her off, pleading fatigue. A taxi passed them, going in the opposite direction — unusual, because taxis mostly stuck to the paved roads. Ione slowed, craned her head out the window: clearly, she was trying to catch the taxi’s plate number, but why? Something is eating her, he thought. He would hear all about it. He promised to be available at the office the next day for a leisurely phone call after lunch. That seemed to pacify her. She was concerned about him. He felt fine. He had done everything he could. There was nothing else. She was driving too fast. The jolts hurt his back. He was nearly faint.

They were still nowhere when Ione stopped. She wanted to know what was wrong. He told her about the cuts. He couldn’t help it. She wanted to go back and find the sangoma . Her face was set.

He argued. He said the sangoma would be gone. He said it was getting too late. He told her she couldn’t. He had to get home.

She listened to him, finally, and drove in the right direction.

• • •

At certain moments he felt like a genius, or fox: only Ione knew about going to the sangoma . But he was sick. He was aware that he was fairly sick. His fever was up and his throat was bad. He was perspiring everywhere. But luck was with him. For months he had been warning Lo that everyone who came to Botswana got tick-bite fever sooner or later, which could actually be what he had, although he doubted it. Anyway, she accepted that tick-bite fever was what he had. His cuts were still his secret. They had to heal. Five of them had. The other part of the game was to keep the nurse from finding anything out.

He was getting sleep. He was taking sick days and sleeping all day. At night, if he heard the dogs they blended in with his fever dreams. They were still there. Lo was the best person to be around right now, because she distrusted doctors and loved taking care of him and would go along that way for time immemorial.

But then he was getting too weak. It was hard to really want to get well, because of the pleasure of sleeping. But he was getting too weak, for sure. So far, Lo was just giving him aspirin, because she was all gung ho for letting nature take his or her course, so naturally she was going along with the proposition that you just take aspirin for a week or so and let the tick-bite fever burn itself out and then you’re left immune for time immemorial, instead of going for tetracycline which knocks it out in twenty-four hours but leaves you still susceptible. But now it was time to get well fast, so it was time to go for his secret weapon: Elaine’s pharmacopeia. The glands in his armpits were hurting. Elaine always got doctors to give her their free samples of every damned thing. Elaine always had everything she might need for medication because she for one would never stand for being someplace in the Third World and finding herself where some doctor could say yea or nay. Somehow her medicine collection had wound up with his effects, not hers, after the split. So now it was his, all the Valium and all the rest. Why did he end up with it? He knew she had dynamite antibiotics in there. Why did he have her medicine? She must have forgotten. If she remembered, she might get a cable out on it. But now it was his.

He was having long dreams. It was always too hot. The walls were sliding up into the ceiling all the time. Lo was scared, he could tell. He was beyond food. Lo wanted the nurse. On the other hand, he would be all right any day because of Elaine. He was only tasting what Lo had given him — broths and so forth. It was too hot for broth. Lo was even letting there be air-conditioning. She loved him. He would be fine because of the neomycin he was taking — plenty of it. Elaine was saving him, Elaine, who got him going the first time they met by saying “Wreck me.” Neomycin saved Elaine once. It was the strongest thing there was. He was young when she said “Wreck me.” She knew what she was doing. Probably she was still doing it. Lo gave him a Compral to take. Compral was stronger than aspirin, and was from South Africa. He faked taking it. His eyes itched.