Юнас Юнассон - The Accidental Further Adventures of the Hundred-Year-Old Man

Allan took things as they came, but Julius and Sabine didn’t like the fire plan. Not least because they would first have to head out onto the savannah to gather up dry branches to burn, and it was getting darker by the minute.

Sabine checked with Meitkini to see what he intended to do. Could he stay until the next day, so they could all sleep in his car?

Well, the trip hadn’t taken as long as Meitkini had feared it would. But what would they do afterwards? They probably wanted to go back to Musoma, and Meitkini wasn’t headed that way. As he’d said, a fresh group of tourists was en route to him, and he had to entertain them for four days. He wouldn’t be available for a jaunt back across the Tanzanian border before then.

‘We’re not really in any big hurry,’ said Allan. ‘It might be pleasant to see what things look like where you live.’

Meitkini said that the kingdom of the Maasai looked the same on both sides of the border but, by all means, the friends were welcome to come along to camp for a few days. It was the off season, and he would make sure their visit was priced accordingly. But they would have to make this stop quick. They needed to leave by dusk the next day, at the latest.

Allan, Julius and Sabine thought a full day of miracles should suffice.

Everyone was in agreement. Meitkini drove the car to the side and handed out blankets to all. No one had considered food, but that problem solved itself. When ten thousand people gather in a given place, some form of commercial activity will automatically arise out of sheer human nature. Women walked two by two with baskets full of a variety of delicacies. Julius made an offer for eight sandwiches and four Coca-Colas.

‘I suppose you don’t have any liquor?’ Allan asked.

‘Is that all you ever think about?’ said Sabine.

‘They only speak Maa and Swahili, so they didn’t understand you,’ said Meitkini. ‘But I can answer for them. Coca-Cola is what’s on offer.’

‘You can’t have everything,’ said Allan.

‘Well, maybe you can,’ said Meitkini, opening the glove box to take out a full-sized bottle of Konyagi.

‘Look at that! What sort of delight is this?’

It was the most popular alcoholic drink in Tanzania. Best enjoyed with a slice of lime and a few ice cubes. Or with cranberry juice.

‘Or as is, straight from the bottle?’

‘That’s how I do it,’ said Meitkini.

‘I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship,’ said Allan.

‘Cheers to that,’ said Meitkini, tossing the cork over his shoulder.

‘Will you accept company?’ Julius wondered.

It was totally dark when Agent B finally reached the tent city. The women and their goodies were gone. B had to set up camp in the middle row of seats, with no food or blankets. Nearly a year before, she had been offered a transfer to Singapore. Now she wondered what life would have been like if she’d accepted. Since it was too cold to sleep, she was forced to spend time with her thoughts for most of the night.

She had declined the offer in Southeast Asia for Franz’s sake. He loved his job as a dentist and had refused to go. Just three weeks after B had told her employer ‘no thanks’ on his behalf, it turned out that Franz had also loved his hygienist since a few months back. Her and her now-perfect teeth.

The break-up was tumultuous. Franz said he was beyond tired of never knowing where his wife was or what she was working on. She had told him all along that she was in the employ of the state and could say no more than that. For a long time he thought this sounded exciting, but once they’d been married for three years, and she kept repeating the same thing, it was just wrong. Was he supposed to have kids with a secret woman? What would their son or daughter write when they were assigned a school essay about their mother’s job? ‘She does things no one is allowed to know about’? The teachers would think she was a prostitute. Sometimes Franz suspected as much.

In the midst of all this she wanted to move to the other side of the world with him. ‘In the employ of the state’. From Rödelheim to what? It was bad enough having a secret wife. A secret wife in a foreign country was just too much. Plus there was the hygienist. And her teeth. B realized it wouldn’t help to punch them in, even if she had been so inclined.

Since then she was not only secret, she was alone too. The nearly impossible task of finding enriched uranium on the lam in Africa was an escape from everything else. She had been offered the job in Dar es Salaam at nine o’clock on a Wednesday. At five past, she’d said yes.

The next day’s ceremony would begin at eleven and last until one, when it got too hot. The camp came to life at seven a.m. The women with baskets of food were back. Everywhere signs in English and Swahili explained the rules. Each person who paid five thousand shillings (or, alternatively, two dollars) would receive a sip of the miracle drink, with Olekorinko’s blessings and incantations on top. Those without money would have to settle for the incantations.

‘Two dollars isn’t much,’ said Julius. ‘No more than the wholesale price of a bunch of asparagus.’

‘No,’ said Sabine. ‘But ten thousand bunches of asparagus per day will make you some money.’

Besides the twenty thousand dollars Olekorinko raked in during the big gathering, he offered private consultations in his own tent, twenty minutes for a thousand dollars or sixty minutes for 2500. The demand was huge.

Sabine wasn’t first in line, but second. She booked the shorter version at three o’clock. She expected she would be fully educated by the end.

Olekorinko spoke into a microphone to reach his audience. It was hooked up to two giant amplifiers that were run off eight car batteries. His organization was impressive. Sabine estimated two hundred women were walking around handing out kikombe cha dawa (a spot of miracle medicine) to all who could pay, and to the occasional person who couldn’t but looked sufficiently desperate.

Julius and Sabine tried what was on offer. The drink tasted bitter and didn’t have any immediate effect in any direction. Allan discovered that there was still a little of the Konyagi in the corkless bottle. He thought that was miracle enough.

The medicine man stood on a raised platform far away, and now he was singing something in Swahili. When he stopped, his assistant took the stage. She explained what was already on several of the signs: that the medicine worked only in the presence of Olekorinko, and only if he blessed it (which he had just done) and, above all, only for people who were free of doubt.

‘If you don’t believe in Olekorinko, his medicine doesn’t believe in you,’ the assistant said in English, Swahili and Maa. ‘Let us pray.’

And then she prayed. First in English.

‘Dear God, fill the kikombe cha dawa with the energy of your servant Olekorinko. Let that energy in turn fill body and soul of those who believe without doubt. Focus on asthma and bronchitis. On rheumatism and mental deficiency. On depression and unemployment. On HIV and AIDS. On cancer and pneumonia. On bad luck and poor love-life performance. On childlessness and on more children than the family can handle. Oh, dear God, lead Olekorinko and his students along the right path. Show us your goodness, Lord. You are our everything! Amen.’

A man next to Sabine was disappointed that his bacterial prostatitis hadn’t been included in the prayer, but from almost every other direction came great raptures.

Now Olekorinko began to sing in Swahili again. It was rhythmic and monotonous and accompanied by drums. And it lasted for at least half an hour. Meanwhile the two hundred women walked through the audience, gathering more requests for the additional prayers to follow. The man with prostatitis was able to call attention to his malady and was satisfied.