Madagascar

by Stephen Holgate

  In the moonlight the undefined shapes began to resolve themselves into tall wooden posts marking closely packed graves, most adorned with zebu horns, many topped with a wooden carving—a boat crowded with oarsmen, two women pounding rice with wooden poles, a man with a spear. Scattered among these are modest stone shafts, curiously like miniatures of the Washington monument. All of it glows in the moonlight, like images from a too-vivid dream.

  Yes, as Nirina says, it is, after all, a village—a village of ghosts.

  I fall in behind Nirina, the one protective spirit who might guard me from the phantoms roaming this macabre site.

  The beautiful young Malagasy walks purposefully across the clearing, advancing on the cemetery’s unsettling images.

  Speedy’s voice cuts through the darkness. “Monsieur Knott. Quick.”

  I find Walt lying on the ground at Speedy’s feet, breathing heavily, eyes closed. Nirina turns back and kneels beside him, putting his head in her lap. “He has to rest,” she says.

  I look across the clearing and see Picard’s flashlight bobbing ever closer.

  Nirina’s voice is clear and calm. “Pull Walt in among the graves. We will hide him there.”

  I look at her, then at the cemetery. I can’t begin to explain how much I don’t want to go in there.

  Half-dragging, half-carrying Walt across the open ground, we make it to the middle of the graveyard and lay him on the ground. He begins to mumble incoherently. Nirina kneels beside him and holds a finger to his lips.

  A beam of light probes the darkness, casting grotesque shadows among the carved images.

  “Robert!” Picard’s voice sounds clear and determined.

  As we wait silently from behind the grave markers, we hear the crack of a gunshot and the whine of a bullet ricocheting off one of the stone shafts. Picard fires again, blasting to pieces a carving of a man herding zebu.

  “Robert, I know you are in there,” Picard calls in English. “Come out. I’m not interested in the others. I only want you.”

  A silence falls over the cemetery, measured by the distant surf and the faint sound of the other two pursuers, still some distance away, making their way through the woods toward the clearing.

  “Robert, my men will be here in a few moments. They will not be as discriminating as I am. And they are loath to leave witnesses.”

  I look at Speedy, Nirina, Walt. If I walk out to meet Picard now, the others still have a chance. Walt can start the long trip back to Oregon. Nirina can resume her search for herself, resolve her tromba spirit. Speedy can satisfy his self-appointed duty to help Walt, and go back to Gloria head high, a hero, not a thief.

  I put my hand in my coat pocket to reassure myself that I still have the gun. Maybe this is the easiest course. With the pull of a trigger I might resolve a world full of demons—either mine or Picard’s.

  I rise to my feet.

  “Robert,” Nirina whispers, “Get down.”

  I look down and think how lucky I am that my last sight might be of her. “I have to do this,” I say.

  The beam of Picard’s flashlight strikes me full in the face. I put up a hand to shield my eyes.

  “No, Robert. Put your hands out to your sides,” Picard calls to me. “Come out here where I can see you.” Picard’s voice is flat, professional, a voice that carries the weight of being the last one many men ever heard.

  Led by the beam of the flashlight, I step out of the graveyard and walk into the middle of the clearing, my arms held out.

  Picard extinguishes his flashlight. His moonlit form slowly emerges from the darkness.

  “Hel-lo, Bobby.”

  “Hello, Maurice.”

  My hands are sweating. Picard won’t wait long. His men won’t hesitate at all.

  “They’re not far off, are they?” I say and cock my chin at the two men struggling through the last stretch of woods before the clearing.

  As I hoped, Picard, relaxed and in command, allows himself a glance over his shoulder. “No, they’re—”

  I go for the gun, grabbing the butt of the pistol. But as I try to pull it clear, it catches in the lining of my pocket. Frantically, I yank at it, ripping the pocket away, the weapon coming out muzzle first. Slippery with fear-sweat, I try to find the grips. The pistol slips from my hands and thuds to the ground. Cursing, I drop to my knees and try to find the gun on the dark ground.

  “It’s no good, Robert.”

  A wave of calm comes over me as I look up into the muzzle of Picard’s gun and wait for the moment that will end my life. Good riddance, I think.

  Picard laughs quietly. Still, the Frenchman doesn’t fire.

  As if weighted by my flickering will to survive, the muzzle of Picard’s gun slowly drops.

  “Ah, Robert,” the Frenchman sighs, “I thought I could kill you. I really did. It used to be so easy. I should have seen the truth when I needed Andriamana to kill that boy for me, rather than doing it myself. My gift, such as it is, has deserted me.”

  “Well, that’s fine with me. I can’t seem to shoot you either.”

  “Yes, but in your case, it’s largely a matter of incompetence.” Picard expels a breath. “It’s not so simple, is it, taking someone’s life?”

  The crashing of the two men breaking through the treeline and into the clearing reminds us both that Picard’s momentary failure is of only passing importance. My only fear is that they won’t stop with killing me. My chin sinks to my chest as I’m overwhelmed with the banality of my failure.

  Picard grunts. “I marvel that they got around to this part of the woods so quickly. It really pays to hire the best.”

  Later, I realize Picard would have been smart to have kept his flashlight on. Or perhaps he should have called out to the two men. Or maybe it wouldn’t have mattered; it would have worked out the same way, whatever he did.

  What Picard does is turn toward them in the faint light of the moon with a gun in his hand.

  Three bright flashes light up the darkness, covered by the crack of three gunshots. With an audible thump, one of the bullets hits Picard full in the chest.

  He doesn’t go down like the bad guy in the movies, clutching his chest and clawing at the air, or reeling backwards as if taking an uppercut from Fate. He simply collapses like a puppet with its strings cut.

  Across the clearing, a voice shouts in French, “Don’t move!”

  With a flash of almost biblical revelation, I suddenly understand that the two men thrashing through the brush are not Picard’s henchmen. No, poor Picard was up against someone who wouldn’t hesitate when the moment came to kill. And he won’t stop with killing Picard.

  I see my gun glinting on the ground. I drop to my knees and find its grips at the same instant the beams of the distant flashlights converge on me. I aim toward the lights and pull the trigger. Nothing happens.

  A quick arrhythmic crack-crack-crack, jolly as fire-crackers, accompanies the sound of bullets whizzing over my head.

  Veering toward panic, I try to recall Esmer’s instructions for firing the automatic. Tugging at the slide with my left hand, I put a round in the chamber and let the slide go, my hand recoiling into the air as the heavily-sprung slide jumps into place.

  A blow hits my hand as if from a baseball bat, nearly knocking me over. For a moment I think it has something to do with the force of the slide’s retraction, but as the numbing impact spreads along my arm I realize I’ve been shot.

  My surge of fear comes with a chaser of anger. I fire wildly from my knees, pulling the trigger as fast as I can until I’ve emptied the clip.

  When the firing pin clicks on the empty chamber for the third or fourth time I lower the gun. Only then do I realize no one is firing back and that the two flashlights appear to have fallen to the ground.

  The sound of the wind and the distant surf reassert themselves. Clouds race in front of the moon.

  Out of the renewed darkness, I hear a growl of animal rage. Even distorted by pain and anger, I recognize t
he voice of Captain Andriamana.

  I stagger to my feet. Picard lies on his back, his arms splayed out. A glimmer of moonlight slips through the tattered clouds and I see his bulging eyes staring at the sky.

  With the emptied gun in my hand, I walk across the clearing until I stand over the fallen policeman.

  Andriamana writhes on the ground clutching his leg below the knee. I look around for the policeman’s pistol and kick it away. The other policeman apparently dropped his flashlight and ran for the woods when he saw the Captain fall.

  Like a wolf caught in the light of a campfire, Andriamana’s eyes blaze in the moonlight. Choked, guttural curses escape his clenched teeth like a spray of bullets. By the rules of the world in which he lives, he understands his end has come. He shows no fear, only a bottomless indignation that this should happen to him.

  I know I could, perhaps should, pick up Andriamana’s gun and kill him with it. It would be a mercy to the community, a favor to anyone who might yet fall victim to his cruelty and ambition. A moral necessity.

  I can’t do it. It’s not any sense of mercy or compassion toward a fellow human being. I simply don’t have the right sort of resolve—the kind it takes to shoot an unarmed man for the sole reason that the world would be a better place with him dead—and I’m grateful for it.

  In the glow of the Captain’s discarded flashlight, I see something dark dripping to the ground—blood from my injured hand.

  After a last look into the Captain’s eyes, I put Esmer’s pistol back in my remaining coat pocket, turn my back on Andriamana and walk away. The wounded man’s incoherent raging follows me as I walk toward the shadowed monuments. I avoid the sight of Picard’s body as I go by. My hand is beginning to throb and I feel lightheaded with shock.

  “Robert…”

  I spin around, my empty gun drawn.

  “Robert…”

  With a thrill of horror, I realize Picard is calling to me.

  “What do you want?” I ask, like Hamlet speaking to the ghost.

  “Robert…” Picard sighs. For a moment I think he’s died. Then I hear him take a deep breath.

  “Vien ici … come here, Robert.” His hand twitches, beckoning me closer.

  The Frenchman’s eyes stare unblinking into the sky. He licks his lips and says something I don’t catch.

  Though revulsed at the thought of coming any nearer, a man’s dying words demand a listener. I kneel beside Picard.

  For a long time, he says nothing. His tongue licking his lips is the only sign that he’s still alive. Finally, in a choked voice, he says, “Go see my daughter. Tell her how I loved her.”

  I don’t have any choice. “I will.”

  “Martine Badaoui. Paris. Martine Badaoui.”

  I puzzle over her name. If she’s unmarried, as Picard has said, why is her name different from his? One more thing I sense I’ll never know.

  “I’ll talk to her. I promise.”

  “Tell her how I loved her,” he says again. A few incoherent words escapes his lips before he says with sudden clarity. “Robert.”

  “Yes, Maurice.”

  “I always liked you.” The moonlight illuminates a ghastly smile on Picard’s face. He shakes his head gently. “And I…. I was never a colonel. Not even an officer. Just a sergeant.”

  “It’s okay, Maurice. It doesn’t matter now.”

  “Robert”—the same eerie smile—“your debts are all cancelled now, yes?”

  “I guess so.”

  “And now I’ve paid mine too.” Picard laughs weakly and closes his eyes. “Robert, don’t let me die here. Take me with you.”

  “Maurice, I can’t—”

  “Take me into the cemetery with the others.”

  Which others does he mean, the living or the dead?

  There is no way to refuse him. I grab the Frenchman’s collar and try to drag him toward the cemetery, but with only one hand working, I can barely budge the big man.

  Then Nirina is beside me. She grabs the shoulder of Picard’s coat in both hands and together we drag the big Frenchman across the grass. As we grunt and tug and pant to get him into the cemetery I think I hear the old soldier of misfortune laughing.

  We lay him among the shadows of the monuments. The big man looks around, sees he has come to a Malagasy cemetery and chuckles. Then he gives a long sigh and dies.

  Walt, leaning against one of the monuments, looks at Picard. “Who is he?”

  I consider the question. “A guy who said he was a friend of mine.”

  23

  Speedy and I get Walt to his feet and begin walking toward the sound of the surf. We see no more flashlight beams. Despite Picard’s praise of their skills, his two men seem to have wandered off and gotten lost.

  Nirina is in front of us, standing at the top of a low rise, silhouetted against the rising sun.

  When we catch up to her, we see the Indian Ocean before us, a cauldron of wind-whipped waves. The sun is peeking its head above the horizon.

  A young man stands on the beach below us, a rowboat pulled up beside him on the sand. A couple of hundred yards offshore a fishing boat tosses on the waves.

  Nirina introduces the man as her older brother, Monja. We lay Walt in the bottom of the rowboat and push it to the edge of the water, me shoving with my one good hand. Though the lightheadedness has passed, the pain in my hand hammers up my arm and into my head.

  Nirina clambers into the boat. As she looks at me her brown eyes appear as bottomless as the sea itself. I look back toward the shore and think of Antananarivo beyond the hills, of the embassy and Lynn and Gloria. They’ll be fine without me, probably better off. I climb into the boat beside her.

  None of us has our bags, but we’re not going to take the risk of going back to the car for them. Picard’s men may still be around somewhere and might still feel duty-bound to kill us.

  Monja takes the oars and begins to row toward the fishing boat.

  Speedy, who has been pushing us deeper into the surf, stops, chest deep in the water. Over the sound of the waves he shouts, “Goodbye, Mr. Walt,” and raises his hand in farewell. “Goodbye, Nirina.” Then he turns and walks back up to the beach. I’m a little hurt he didn’t include me in his farewells.

  Within a few yards of shore the rowboat begins to take on water in the tossing waves. Monja shouts at Nirina and nods toward two plastic buckets in the bow. She hands one to me and we start bailing.

  After struggling with our bailing buckets for maybe ten minutes, we come alongside the fishing boat. Monja calls to the crewman he left on the boat, “Rakota!” then makes a perfectly timed leap from one tossing boat onto the other. Both men reach out, pull me over the gunwale and throw me onto the deck like a landed fish.

  Walt’s next. He stands pale and unsteady on the rocking boat. Timing the rise, they grab him by his outstretched arms and pull him on board, with Nirina pushing from behind.

  As they lay Walt on deck, propped against the gunwale, Nirina shouts something to her brother and braces to jump onto the fishing boat. A swell lifts the rowboat, then drops it just as she jumps.

  Suddenly she isn’t there.

  There’s no shriek, no sound at all. She’s simply gone. Monja cries out to Rakota and points to a line lying on the deck. I grab it first, scrabble to the rail and look over the side. I see nothing but the empty rowboat and churning water.

  For an instant I think of jumping in after her. Monja sees it in my eyes. “Don’t be an idiot,” he says in French.

  I want to tell him it was too late for that. But I also know I’m too old to die for love.

  With a splash, Nirina bobs to the surface, spitting water, gasping for air. Shoving past Monja, I reach over the side with my good hand and grab her by the hair. The water-slick strands slip from my grasp and she sinks again.

  “Nirina!”

  Nothing answers but the surge of the sea.

  When I’ve given up hope, she pops to the surface once more, almost directly under the
boat. Leaning over until I nearly fall in the water, I grasp her under one shoulder. Monja grabs her by the other arm and with a great heave we pull her over the side and onto the boat. She falls gasping onto the crowded deck.

  Too shaken to speak, too uncertain of what we mean to each other to even smile, Nirina and I look at each other across the narrow deck.

  Monja and Rakota pull the empty rowboat aboard and secure it to the deck in front of the fishing boat’s small cabin, then pull up the sea anchor and get underway.

  At the mercy of the churning sea, the fishing boat rises high on the crest of a wave. Its bow points into the air, then crashes down the back side of the wave as if we might go straight to the bottom. It’s like a nightmare carnival ride, except our lives are at stake. Rakota, Nirina, and I frantically bail, but the boat rides ever lower as water crashes over the bow faster than we can bail it out. Walt lies on the deck, his eyes closed.

  A wave crashes into the boat’s cabin, breaking its window, scattering shards of glass like shrapnel. Unprotected now against the spray of the wind-whipped waves, Monja turns and shouts something to Nirina. She shakes her head and shouts back. He appears adamant and cocks his chin at Walt.

  Nirina drops her bucket and crawls across the deck to me. “He says we are going to sink. He says Walt is bad luck, a curse on us.”

  I look at the old cowboy, white as a corpse. Whether he’s bad luck or not, he can’t take much more of this.

  A ridiculous idea, but perhaps Nirina’s brother has it nearly right. As the Malagasy professor said at dinner weeks earlier, maybe Madagascar is truly the last portal of the fantastic. The more implausible something appears, he said, the more imperative that it be true.

  I shout to Nirina, “No. It’s me! Tell your brother. I’m the Jonah on this boat. I’m not supposed to leave the island. Not yet.” It is, I know, a fantastic notion and couldn’t be true anywhere else. But here it’s true.