It’s still dark, but dawn can’t be far away. The rain is easing up. We pass a road sign saying we’re thirty klicks from Tamatave. I lean over the back seat and gently shake Nirina’s leg to wake her.
“I think we’re getting close. You’ll have to tell us where to turn off.”
Nirina blinks awake and looks around, her eyes half-closed—the same face she wore when she woke next to me in bed. As if she reads my thoughts, she looks frankly into my eyes. I turn away, reminding myself that it’s all over.
Walt sits up, his face slack with fatigue, and I give him a smile that I hope looks more confident than I feel.
He stares blankly at me, wide-eyed as a child. “Where are we?”
“On the coast, nearly to the boat.”
He grunts weakly. I wonder if he’s up to the voyage that still lies ahead. Too late to worry about that now. “Okay, where do we turn off?” I ask Nirina.
She peers into the darkness and soon points to a clump of trees near a fisherman’s hut, apparently a landmark. “There’s a gravel road to our right, one or two kilometers ahead. It will lead us down to the beach.”
Not believing in our luck, I again look in back of us for the Citroen and see only darkness.
Before I can turn around, I hear Nirina catch her breath and whisper, “Oh, no.”
The roadblock in front of us is much like the one we went through earlier that night, two oil barrels and a metal gate between them. But these policemen—four of them—are out in the open with no shelter from the storm. They’re soaked, weary, ill-tempered—and better armed.
As Speedy rolls up to the barricade two of the policemen aim Kalashnikovs at our Peugeot. A third, wearing sergeant’s stripes, holds up his hand, ordering us to stop. He waves at the fourth policeman to put down a two-way radio and train his flashlight on Speedy. His hand on his holster, the sergeant motions for Speedy to roll down his window.
The sergeante pokes his head inside, his eyes dark and humorless. Water drips from the visor of his cap. He grunts something at Speedy in Malagasy.
Speedy says something back, then turns to me. “I told him we work for the embassy. He wants to see your identification,” he tells me.
The policeman frowns at my diplomatic ID and waves at the cop with the flashlight to shine its beam on the front of the car. The sergeant steps back, regards the diplomatic plates and frowns again. He has the man with the radio send some message. Like cops in the U.S., they make a show of not being in a hurry. After several minutes he hands my ID back and again speaks to Speedy in Malagasy.
Speedy says to me, “He wants to know why you are out on the road at this hour.”
Behind the policeman a tinny voice crackles over the two-way radio.
I ask Speedy, “Does he know who we are? Is he looking for us?”
“I don’t know.”
I repeat the story I gave to the policemen near Moramanga, that I’m delivering a speech in Tamatave. While Speedy translates, I glance nervously in the mirror.
“Listen,” I say to Speedy, “tell him that the mayor of Tamatave is waiting for me. I don’t want to have to tell him I’m late because his police force held me up.”
The policeman glares at me and drops the pretense that he doesn’t speak French. “No, you listen, Monsieur. I do not answer to the mayor, but to my superior, Captain Andriamana. You are in Madagascar and will obey the orders of Malagasy authorities. I have been told to look for a car with diplomatic plates. I am going to ask you to pull to the side of the road. Captain Andriamana is on his way here. You will wait for him.”
Something in the sergeant’s eyes, or maybe the fact that he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do until Andriamana arrives, speaks of a small wormhole of uncertainty.
Walt stirs in the back seat. “Robert, what the hell’s going on here?”
“They’ve pulled us over. We’re supposed to wait for some captain to show up.” I don’t tell him that we may be waiting for our own deaths. I try to think of a way out of this. If I tell Speedy to make a run for it, they’ll shoot us to pieces. If we stay, maybe we get shot anyway. I feel for the pistol in my pocket, but know it would do me no good. I might get one poor son of a bitch of a Malagasy policeman. Then they would get us.
Walt grumbles unintelligibly for a moment, then bursts out, “Robert, you tell them to let us through.”
“Take it easy, Walt. They’ve all got guns.”
“Hell, where I come from everybody’s got guns. I ain’t impressed.”
The sergeant frowns at Walt. “Who is he?”
Speedy speaks rapidly in Malagasy, smiling and nodding toward Walt in the back seat. The officer looks at Walt, then at Speedy again. He tries to maintain a sneer of disbelief, but I see doubt creeping into his eyes.
“What are you telling him?” I ask.
Over his shoulder, Speedy says to Walt in his pidgin English, “Sit up, Monsieur Walt. I am telling him you are the Ambassador of America and you don’t want any delays.”
“Speedy—” I start, but Walt growls over me.
“Good. You tell those sonsabitches that the Ambassador—” I’m about to tell Walt to take it easy when I catch a distant glimpse of approaching headlights in the side mirror. Whatever hand Walt thinks he’s holding, I figure it’s time to let him play it. I lean over the seat and say, “Ride ’em, cowboy.”
Walt jumps into his role with both feet. “Tell this pissant cop and these other peckerwoods that I’ll have their badges for this. Hell, I’ll tell ’em myself.” He opens the car door and steps out. I can’t hear him clearly, but the words don’t matter now because he’s got the tune exactly right.
All the frustration of six months under the thumb of Malagasy prison guards has broken through Walt’s depleted store of patience. His finger shakes as he points to the policemen at each end of the barricade, the ones with rifles, and chews them out like a drill sergeant.
Speedy doesn’t bother to translate.
Trying to regain control of the situation, the sergeant barks something at Walt but backs up a step while he does it, then another. The two policemen with the Kalashnikovs lower their weapons. The sergeant waves at them to raise them again. But Walt’s in charge now, kicking at the pavement and shouting orders. With a sweep of his arm he tells them to “open that goddamn barricade, and do it now!”
The two policemen need no translation. Caught between their sergeant and a rampaging vazaha, they waver a moment, then pull the barricade aside even as the sergeant rages at them to close it again.
Barking a few last words over his shoulder, Walt gets back in the car. “Okay, Speedy, get us out of here.”
By now, the beams of the Citroen’s lights are only a few hundred yards away, coming steadily along the half-flooded road.
I get an idea. “Speedy, tell the sergeant it’s the car behind us they want to stop.”
Now Speedy sees the Citroen too. He leans out the window and calls to the sergeant. As I hoped, this message erodes what little confidence remains to the policeman. Buffeted by doubt, and with his authority crumbling, he turns his anger on the other policemen, motioning them to let us pass.
I tell Walt, “Great job, Mr. Ambassador.”
“Buncha peckerwoods,” Walt mumbles, slicking back his rain-soaked hair. He slumps in the back seat, exhausted by his efforts.
Behind us, I see the police closing the barricade. The sergeant, trembling with fury, orders the Citroen to halt. I almost wish I could stick around to watch.
We’ve traveled only a few hundred yards when Nirina points to a graveled track leading off to the right. “There’s the road.”
I look back as the big Citroen pulls up to the roadblock. They can see us turning. They’ll know exactly where to chase us down.
Jouncing in his seat as he turns down the roughly cut road, Speedy says, “Maybe they will call for the Captain and maybe Monsieur Picard and wait for him before doing anything.”
“Picard figures Andriamana’s on his
side, and he’s not going to wait if he thinks he can get me now.” I remember what Rabary said at the Queen’s Palace and wonder if Picard understands how dangerous an ally Andriamana might prove. I finger Esmer’s gun in my coat pocket like a man working his prayer beads.
Within a hundred yards, the gravel disappears and the road turns into a pair of muddy ruts. The Peugeot’s tires began to slip. Through the rain and the woods around us, I catch a glimmer of yellow light in the mirror. The cops must have let Picard straight through.
“Damn! Can’t you make this log go any faster?”
A note of impatience creeps into Speedy’s voice. “I can’t even go this fast, Monsieur Knott.” As if to prove his point, the car suddenly toboggans from one side of the narrow track to the other. Speedy fights the wheel, working to keep the slithering Peugeot pointed forward.
I’m beginning to think Speedy could drive through anything when the young Malagasy shouts, “Merde!”
Rounding a curve, the road drops into a swale and the Peugeot’s headlights catch an expanse of muddy water that spans the road. The car hits it hard, sending a wall of water over the windshield. Tires whirring in the mud, the car slithers across the road like a snake.
Over the roar of the engine, I hear a whoop and a crazy laugh and realize it’s coming from me. The perverse ecstasy of danger infects Walt too. He sits up in the back seat, a wild look in his eye and yells, “Go, Speedy, go!”
Speedy downshifts and laughs maniacally. The rev counter soars over the red line. “She’s swimming!” he shouts.
A violent bump shakes the car and its nose cants up as the tires find some purchase and we leap out of the water, throwing mud in every direction. The Peugeot scrambles up the slope, our headlights pointing into the sky.
Speedy fights the car through another twisty stretch of mud. Even Nirina cheers.
“What a driver!” I laugh.
A huge grin on his face, Speedy starts to say something as he wrestles the car around a sharp corner. Before he can get a word out, the headlights pick up a tree that has fallen across the path. Speedy stands on the brakes, but it’s too late. The car barely slows before smashing into the fallen tree.
22
All four of us snap forward then bounce back into our seats as we hit the tree and the engine dies. Over our shocked silence, a light rain patters on the roof of the car.
I throw open the door and stagger out. Aside from a crumpled fender and a shattered headlight, there’s little damage, but there’s no way around the fallen tree.
A loud splash from the pool of water behind us cuts my inspection short. Picard is only seconds away.
I lean through the open door. “Everyone out, fast! We’ll have to go on foot.” I say to Nirina, “We can’t stay on the road. They’ll find us. How well do you know this area? Can you find your way through the woods?”
Nirina climbs out of the car and twirls in a slow circle, struggling for her bearings. “I’m afraid …” she starts, her voice hardly a whisper. “I’m afraid that if we go into the woods we’ll be lost.”
The sound of pounding surf comes from somewhere in front of us. From close behind comes the rumble of the Citroen thrashing through the water, roaring like a beast. Yellow beams jump crazily among the branches of the trees as the car rises up the short incline and levels out.
“Quick!” I shout. “Into the woods.”
Nirina and Speedy skip quickly into the cover of the trees. I start to follow when I notice Walt, exhausted and disoriented, still standing in the road. I call to Speedy for help. We grab Walt under the arms, and drag him into the trees. As we lumber toward the woods, I feel my coat flapping loosely. The gun has dropped out of my pocket.
“Take Walt,” I tell Speedy and run back to the car.
For an eternity that probably lasts all of five seconds I fumble around the floor of the Peugeot trying to find the pistol. After knocking aside a paper cup and an old comb, my hand closes on the barrel of the pistol. At the same instant the Citroen roars around the corner like a charging lion.
Clutching the gun against my stomach, I run for the woods, crashing through the treeline in the dark. Within seconds, I’m lost. Fighting panic, I stumble over roots and run into limbs until I can just make out Nirina standing in a clearing, looking into the darkness.
“Okay,” I whisper as I run up to her in the dark, “which way?”
Behind me I hear three car doors slam shut. The sound of men’s voices comes faintly over the last traces of the storm.
“Be quiet,” Nirina says. She turns slowly, searching in the darkness. “There’s a small village somewhere in these woods. We will find it and hide there.”
“Isn’t that the first place they’d look for us?” I ask.
Nirina turns and I feel her eyes go straight through me. The hair on the back of my neck prickles as if I were looking at a ghost. Her rain-soaked dress clings to her, and I feel the stirrings of desire, but can’t escape the impression that she has become someone far different from the young woman I know so well—and so little.
“Look.” Speedy points. “I think I see some huts. It must be the village.” He runs across the clearing and out of sight, thrashing through the trees on the other side.
Behind us, the voices of the three men grow louder. Flashlight beams create jagged lines through the trees. Two of them head away at opposite angles, the third comes directly toward us.
“They’ve split up to find us,” I tell Nirina and Walt. We head toward the woods on the other side of the clearing.
We catch up to Speedy, who has waited at the edge of the woods. We’ve made it only a few yards into the trees when the old cowboy stops. He’s panting hard and holding a hand to his chest.
“Walt, you’re not having a heart attack, are you?” I put an arm around his shoulders and at the same time cast an anxious glance behind us. One of the flashlights is already probing the corners of the clearing.
Walt tries to dismiss my concerns with a wave of his hand. “I’m just—” He shakes his head, says nothing more.
I look at “Nirina, which way?”
Walt points into the distance and says, “There. I can see it. There.” He thrashes forward into the undergrowth.
Nirina and Speedy quickly overtake him and run ahead just as I hear a whirring over my head, followed by a loud crack.
He’s shooting at us. I run to catch up with the others.
Walt shakes his arm free of Speedy’s grip. “I ain’t afraid of nobody who thinks he can hit us in the dark with a pistol.”
With the wind moaning overhead, we stumble blindly through the woods. The rain has stopped. A silver light shines through the palms overhead as a half-moon emerges through the racing clouds.
A few feet ahead, Nirina and Speedy stand among the trees, looking in opposite directions.
“Do you see anything?” I ask.
Speedy shakes his head.
“I was sure I saw it.” Walt’s voice has turned peevish and old.
“This is nuts,” I grumble. “Everybody sees this village and we still can’t find it.”
A loud crack tops the sighing wind. A flashlight beam veers across the darkness only a few yards behind us.
“Robert!” a wind-whipped voice calls.
It’s Picard. I heft the pistol and wonder if I have the nerve to use it. How much of a chance would I have against a professional killer, anyway? I put it back in my pocket.
“Which way?” I ask no one in particular.
Then I see it through a break in the trees, the faint glow of lamplight from a clutch of huts. “Come on!” I push the others toward the light. A limb whips me in the face, and I taste blood in my mouth. I hear Picard crashing through the woods, coming to kill us.
I stumble over a tree root and fall onto my hands and knees. When I look up I can’t see the lamplight anymore. All the tensions and exertions of the endless night catch up to me at once. Time has ceased to exist, or at least to signify. It doesn’t matt
er if five minutes have passed since we ran into the woods or two hours. Only finding the village matters.
Nirina’s voice breaks through my funk. “There it is,” she says, a strange huskiness in her voice.
I scramble to my feet. “I don’t see anything.”
“It’s there.”
Nirina walks into the darkness. We follow.
Behind us, Picard is gaining.
Walt stumbles. I grab him by the arm to keep him from falling.
“I can do this,” Walt mumbles to himself, “Gotta get out of here. Gotta …” His voice trails off.
I have no idea how much time has passed when Nirina stops. With eerie detachment, she announces, “We’re there.”
We’ve come to the edge of a large clearing. I squint in the moonlight. With a shiver of dread, I see there is no village.
Waves pound against the beach somewhere in the distance.
We’ve walked maybe ten paces into the clearing when I see a group of dark figures loom out of the darkness in front of us. I fumble for the pistol.
“No,” Nirina says sharply. “Look closely.”
At her words, the figures become clearer. Macabre totems rise out of the ground—horned creatures and carved figures, vibrant with obscure and atavistic power.
“What the hell kind of a village is this?” I ask. Then I see it clearly. It’s a cemetery.
After hours of disorienting flight through the storm, the twisting mountain roads, the roadblocks, the killers behind us, it has come down to this: a tromba woman leading us through the darkness to the only village we will find, the abode of the ancestors, the realm of the ghosts.
I think back to the dinner at my house, of the Fulbright student who spoke of spirit-possessed women, of the mysterious village that vanishes from sight only to reappear again, still just beyond reach, and of the sacred reburial of the ancestors, from which I learn that even death represents only a punctuation mark in the continuum of their lives. Now, despite—or perhaps because of—my efforts to ignore this world, to refuse the spell of Madagascar, it has come to find me. It won’t let go until I surrender what’s left of my pride and my faith in logic and accept the world in which I have come to live.
Madagascar Page 22