Then She Was Born

by Cristiano Gentili

  The four young men had surveilled in shifts, from sunset till sunrise, convinced the zeru zeru was capable of vanishing. The plastic and rosary had worked. “We can’t let our guard down on the last night, not even for a second,” they had told each other.

  Before the sun came up, the phone rang. “Take the zeru zeru to the second Fielding gold mine. Everybody knows where it is. Wait for me in the forest nearby,” the witch doctor told Thomas. “I’ll be there when the sun sets.”

  As soon as he hung up with Thomas, Zuberi called Jackob. “Let the mzungu know.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it,” Jackob assured Zuberi.

  “I want the ritual performed in his presence. He must see that the zeru zeru is alive,” insisted Zuberi.

  “I doubt he’ll come. He doesn’t like to dirty his hands.”

  Once the arrangement was settled, Jackob stopped to consider his next step. Mr. Fielding had not answered his phone for hours. And Jackob didn’t believe he should notify his boss that the ritual was taking place that evening. Lately, Mr. Fielding had been extremely anxious, especially since the Mwanza police had come to see him. He had changed his mind so many times about what kind of zeru zeru should be found—dead, alive, with cancer—that he himself probably didn’t remember what he last requested. The only important point was that Mr. Fielding had ordered the amputation of the arm of a living zeru zeru. Whether it was dying from skin cancer or would be dying from skin cancer in ten years, what difference did it make? He would let his employer know the day after, when it had already been done. I know my boss better than he knows himself, Jackob reassured himself.

  Charles was determined to win back his wife’s trust, though he knew words would not be enough to convince her of his radical change. He needed to arrive home with something she could see with her own eyes, touch for herself. Something that would prove to her he was a changed man. Only then would she believe he’d been transformed. He’d bring Adimu to her, the daughter she had wanted for years and that the old Charles had denied her. He had set fire to his kingdom so he could emerge clean and pure, like a tender shoot that escaped a wildfire.

  From his car, he called their house and was satisfied when his wife did not answer. Better to meet her after I’ve completed the task and a happy Adimu is holding my hand. He needed cash to find the girl, and he’d sell the jewels that were in his home safe where Sarah’s engagement ring was stored. Then they would fly away—the three of them—like a real family. He would fulfill Sarah’s long-standing desire to swim with the dolphins, and Adimu would be with them, swimming too.

  When Charles arrived home, he went into the bathroom, took off his shirt and tie, and examined his bare chest in the mirror above the sink. He washed with cold water, giving extra attention to his nails, which he cleaned with a brush. He smelled the smoke being scrubbed off his flesh, replaced by wild lavender. In his thoughts, the sound of the running water mixed with the fury of the flames. Charles looked again in the mirror and liked what he saw. “I am alive,” he told his image. As he turned away, he remembered to pick up his wedding band. He’d set it on the vanity before washing his hands. He put it back on his left ring finger. In sickness and in health, he repeated in his mind, recalling the day he had kissed Sarah when she was dressed in white.

  He put on the first clean white shirt he found in the closet, moved the dresser, and opened the wall safe. He saw her jewels, which were inside a blue velvet box, and her engagement ring, which was nestled in a small case padded with white silk. Seeing the gem sparkle in the artificial light reminded him of the last time the ring had seen daylight, in Dar es Salaam.

  “As soon as we return to Mwanza, I’m putting this in the safe. I’m not going to wear it until I’m convinced you know I care nothing for your money.”

  Charles was finally convinced that Sarah loved him, had always loved him. It took the sound of her heart breaking to convince him. He had heard her gasp when she told him she was leaving. It broke Charles’s heart that he had broken hers.

  “What are you doing here?” asked Sarah, startling him from behind. “I’m serious. I’m done with you.”

  Charles jumped and faced her, his eyes wide with surprise and his mouth forced into a hopeful smile. He went to her, hugged her hard, and leaned his cheek on her shoulder.

  She was cold. Rigid.

  “I’m sorry, darling, for the lies I’ve told you,” he whispered, tears welling up in his eyes. “I was trying to protect you. Believe me, there is nothing more important in this world than you, than us. I’m here to surprise you. I know you will understand everything once you see my surprise.”

  She looked into the empty safe. “Why are you taking the last of my memories?” Her voice was little more than a soft breath.

  “If you knew, you’d approve.”

  “I’m sick of your secrets!” Sarah’s lips formed a straight line, and her eyes drilled into him.

  “You, Sarah, are my pure gold,” said Charles, “and Adimu is what we need. I’m selling your jewelry to put together cash for Adimu.”

  “You know where she is?” Sarah’s face brightened.

  Charles shook his head. “No, but I’ll find her. If she’s been kidnapped, I’ll pay the ransom. Then we can live together as a family. It will be quick and easy to adopt her. We’ll leave the country.”

  “Just bring her home.” Sarah’s anger transformed into a breeze that lifted off her flesh, and she was transported back more than seventeen years when Charles proposed marriage on one knee. Sarah took her engagement ring from its case. The diamond glittered with blue light as she handed it to her husband.

  “No darling, not your ring. It’s the only…”

  “Just do it,” she told him. She tried to slip the ring onto his index finger, but it was too small so Charles guided her toward his little finger, where it was only moderately tight. The two lingered momentarily, gazing into each other’s eyes, and kissed. Then Sarah pushed Charles to continue on their mission, and he rummaged in the sack that held the jewelry. He pulled out an assortment of pendants and bracelets and pins, and, for a moment, it seemed to him that the gold in his hands turned gray like lead. There was a long blond hair entwined in the links of a necklace. Golden and as fine as filigree. He tried to untangle it and wondered how it had gotten there. It was tightly wound around the chain links. The only way to remove it was to tear it. Charles frowned. He felt a dark presentiment shroud him as if his destiny and Adimu’s were linked forever to the yellow metal he held in his hands. It occurred to him that possession of it was a curse, and he felt deep revulsion toward himself and the hunt he had instigated.

  Sarah was digging through her underwear drawer, looking for an envelope that contained cash. Charles lovingly watched her thin back that he had embraced so many times. He pitied himself. His eyes shifted to the blank wall. In his imagination, he projected many masks onto his own face: Hitler, Amin Dada, Gheddafi, Mugabe. He squeezed his eyes shut.

  Charles tore the hair from the necklace and, for a moment, thought he saw blood stain his hands. Dead flesh. Adimu’s arm covered with fine blond hairs, lying on the ground next to the torn hair. He gasped at the image. The bag of jewelry fell from his hand as if it had suddenly become too heavy a burden to bear.

  56.

  “No. Absolutely not! Any other white shadow but not that one!” shouted Zuberi at Thomas as soon as he saw Adimu inside the car that was parked at the second gold mine.

  “You told me to get you a nobody, and that’s what I’ve done,” said Thomas.

  Though Adimu recognized Zuberi and Jackob, the car in which she was captive was too far away for her to hear the conversation between the three men. She figured that, thankfully, Mr. Fielding must have sent his assistant to negotiate a way out of the marriage agreement. A grin stretched across her face, and her hands and feet fidgeted. Even though she liked Ramadani, she had promises to keep to her bibi.

  “It can’t be this zeru zeru, the mzungu will never pay f
or her! The entire village will be after us, and Kondo will be first in line,” stressed the witch doctor.

  “Unless…” interrupted Jackob.

  “Unless what?” snapped Zuberi.

  “Unless we do more than amputate her arm. Take the parts you need and get rid of the head. No one will ever know. Mr. Fielding isn’t coming this evening, and, soon, Sefu will give up the search.”

  “Do what you want,” interjected Thomas, “but either way, we want our money. And a nice bonus for such a powerful one. Now.”

  Zuberi made his decision on the spot. No one will know the amulets came from Adimu’s body. She disappeared weeks ago. Jackob’s point was well taken.

  Then Zuberi grabbed a saw, a machete, a branch stripped of its twigs and leaves, and a small tank of kerosene from his car—his instruments. And next he reached for his most sacred instruments.

  Earlier in the evening, before heading to the mine to meet Thomas, Zuberi had unlocked his wooden chest hidden under the red carpet in his workshop and carefully removed two of the most powerful amulets and one totem, bringing them with him to perform this rite. He had been told—as had his father before him—that these were tools the Spirits themselves had passed down to his ancestors. Zuberi had waited his entire life for this moment.

  “Let’s go,” he said as he gathered everything up. He was ready.

  Charles was leaning on the dresser with both hands.

  “What’s wrong? Are you all right?” asked Sarah, alarmed.

  “Just a pain in my head, dear, nothing to worry about.” A pain caused by his sins, he imagined.

  I have to stop Zuberi, he said to himself, and speak with Jackob. I’ll take Sarah and Adimu, and we’ll move to Zimbabwe to start over. He forced himself to stay calm so Sarah wouldn’t become suspicious of what he had been planning before his great transformation.

  “All right, Sarah. I think I’ve got what I need to find Adimu. I’ll keep you posted.” Before leaving the room, Charles hugged his wife, then took his lucky nugget out of his pocket and put it in the palm of Sarah’s hand.

  She made no effort to hide her disdain, pulling her head and shoulders away from the piece of gold on her open palm.

  “It belongs in the past,” he said, looking her in the eyes. “Do with it as you think fit.”

  When Charles called Jackob, voice mail picked up after the first ring. Then he phoned him at home. Jackob’s wife told Mr. Fielding that her husband was out, that she understood he was going to the second mine.

  The fear that his “trusted assistant” might be less than trustworthy induced Charles to drive recklessly, tearing through the infernal Mwanza traffic.

  What is Jackob doing at the mine on a Sunday? Why did he lie about Adimu being in the protected community?

  Night extended its long fingers through the city. A few bright homes and the sporadic streetlights kept the darkness at bay. While waiting for a slow traffic light to change, Charles nibbled on a fingernail and took several deep breaths to calm himself. Surely the sacrifice of the zeru zeru—of the albino with cancer—was not taking place on that evening. So much anxiety, and just because Jackob has his phone turned off! Charles tried to ignore the images of machetes that were dominating his imagination. The traffic light turned green, and Charles sped off.

  When he arrived at the grassy clearing of the mine, he parked his Rolls and ran with all his might to the spot where the last ritual that Zuberi performed took place. Despite the cool air, his flesh was damp with sweat and sizable dark circles formed on the armpits of his button-down shirt. Below his feet, Charles felt the forest pulsate and breathe. The man’s heart beat faster as he approached the knoll, which was shaped like a witch’s hat and set on the head of a tortured body. He needed to get to the other side of it. The sky was aglow with mist, and its dull light collected in the mining holes that had been gouged out of the earth.

  Though the headhunters blindfolded Adimu when pulling her from the car, she caught a glimpse of the machete. Her whole body trembled. Someone tore her dress. Her panties were her sole shield. “I’m cold,” she said through her tears, trying to warm herself with her crossed arms. She forced herself to visualize Mr. Fielding coming to save her. She willed him there. Then a strong man grabbed her right arm and tied it to what felt like a piece of wood. Her arm was bound straight. She was unable to move it. He held her still, and the rope scratched her delicate skin. It burned. She yelled, and the strong man clutched her with his big hands to keep her from moving. He was hurting her. She thought of her bibi. “Stop! Please, let me go! Stop!” she begged. There was no hope of escape. She heard a brief cavernous sound and felt a flash of pain as if Zuberi were pulling her heart out of her chest.

  She screamed and screamed again and again. “I don’t want to die!”

  Adimu lost consciousness.

  Cries of pain and terror tore through the night, and Charles ran toward them. He instinctively held his arms up over his head as if something would strike him from above. As he climbed the slope to reach the spot, he told himself the wild scream must be coming from an animal. Though he knew he was lying to himself. When he reached the plateau, he saw a group of men and rushed toward them. Slipping on the slurry around the excavation pits, mud covered his trousers. Finally he drew near enough to recognize Zuberi who was holding something long in his right hand.

  “Stop!” Charles shouted when he got within a few yards of the group.

  A white body lay on the ground, drowning in a pool of blood. A small, slender body. Motionless. Next to the muck of a pit lay an aqua dress, the delicate dress that Sarah had presented to the little girl on her pretend birthday. The dress looked like a tangle of wilted leaves. A strong odor of kerosene hung in the air. Charles saw a mass of long blond hair splayed on the ground like a rare bush.

  The mine owner threw himself on the ground, lifting Adimu, cradling her on his legs. An image of the young impala he had hit with his car came crashing back. “Adimu!” he shouted, his lips quivering as he turned his head frantically, searching for someone who could help, who could bring her back to life.

  Thomas and his companions looked at Charles. The man seemed more like a father crying over his dead daughter than a rich mzungu who lacked scruples.

  I’m not going to prison, thought Akili.

  There’s no way I’m going back to jail, thought Aki.

  Zuberi considered that perhaps the white man really was the father of the zeru zeru. If he is, there will be trouble, and he’ll have to meet the same fate as his daughter.

  Jackob, ashamed of the weak and vulnerable man before him, not at all the great leader who I took to be my mentor, would need to muster in himself the strength the situation called for.

  Charles placed the flaccid Adimu on the ground and, unsteady on his feet, lurched in the direction he’d come from. Thomas blocked his way, the machete gripped threateningly in one hand. Intimidated by the white man’s size, he lowered the tip of his weapon to Adimu’s exposed neck. Aki and Akili took positions near their comrade.

  “Don’t touch him!” ordered Jackob. “He’s on our side.” He added, “He’s like this with animals too. Though he eats meat with gusto, don’t show him how the animal on his plate was killed or he’ll pass out like a girl.”

  The headhunters laughed.

  Charles, whose face had paled to the color of Adimu’s skin, took another step in the direction of his car. He would go for help; if there were the slightest chance, he’d make certain that Adimu survived.

  Akili attacked Charles from behind, his fist striking Charles’s right kidney. As the large man fell to his knees, he caught sight of Thomas over his shoulder, glinting machete still in hand.

  “How could you let this happen, Jackob?” Charles spat through clenched teeth, his body swaying.

  Jackob set his hand on Charles’s shoulder in a fraternal gesture. “Mr. Fielding, we’ve worked together for years. I knew this was what you wanted in your heart. You’ve been so worried about your
business, and I’ve been so worried about you. You’ll see, everything will go back to how it was. If not better. Your business will fly high like vultures during the great migration of the gnus and zebras. Don’t worry, sir. It’s only a zeru zeru.”

  Only a zeru zeru. Charles thought of how Adimu looked at him when they shared tiramisu on the veranda. He thought of her chubby legs when she sat on his lap as a newborn.

  “Sir, you have trained me to obey you from my first day on the job,” Jackob added.

  Zuberi watched Jackob and Charles from a slight distance. He had been harboring a doubt from the moment he propelled the arm in the air and it landed on the soil. “Come with me, Mr. Fielding,” he said to the large man crumbled in muddy white clothes against the earth. “I must show you something extraordinary,” he said, moving closer.

  Charles crawled to Adimu and cradled her, again, in his arms, cleaning the dirt from her face with the tail of his shirt. He observed subtle movements of her chest. She was breathing.

  “I’ll come,” Jackob said to Zuberi, looking back at his boss who was preoccupied with the zeru zeru.

  Jackob and Zuberi walked the short distance and stopped in front of the arm that had been Adimu’s. “I’ve never seen anything like this,” Zuberi said in a hushed, anxious voice. He scratched the side of his head and gnawed at the inside of his cheek. The arm was leaning against a large rock, and it was perpendicular to the ground. The hand was pointing straight up toward the sky. “Could it be a message from the Spirits of the Lake?” asked Zuberi. “An arm pointing skyward…difficult to interpret.” He sighed.

  “Should we finish it off now?” Thomas asked Zuberi, tilting his head at the girl on the ground.

  “It is for Mr. Fielding to decide,” said Jackob, always the thoughtful employee.