by Gabi Moore
I took a tin bowl from under the counter and stood up, Mama Tembi giving me the evil eye.
“What? A man must eat” I said and winked at her. Mama Tembi wouldn’t ever be too hard on me. She liked those little bags I would slip into her apron once a month or so, and she liked how much she could resell them for. And in her own way, she liked me, even though I was just some crazy “white man”.
I waltzed up to the table and stood there above them, feeling my presence bring the conversation to a grinding halt. Mama Tembi click her tongue and went back to rolling. Most people at the table nodded a vague greeting to me but she, she looked as though she had never seen a man’s torso in her life. Her eyes went wide as I leaned over, my chest and flanks mere inches from her face, as I helped myself to some stew. The deer in headlights look suited her.
“This is Vik, our local troublemaker,” said Sister Dora, who had only recently stopped crossing herself whenever she saw me. I smiled and extended my hand to her. I loved just how quickly she shot out her little hand to take mine. This is what a man looks like, sweetheart, take a good look. I could actually see her swallow. I could smell her. This would almost be too easy.
“Oh, hello, pleased to meet you Vik. I’m Penny. Uh, do you …do you live in the village?” she peeped, and I realized that she was probably confused about how to categorize me. She had a soft, deep-south lilt in her accent and the kind of face that hasn’t known a day of trouble in its life. I’m sure she didn’t know what to make of my dark skin and blue eyes. Black, but not. White, but not. And half naked. That part seemed to be having the most impact. I took her hand but she struggled to make eye contact.
“He actually lives out of town, that way, in the forest,” said Valerie, shrugging in the right direction. Valerie had been a sweet fuck, but I had gotten tired of that pretty soon. Women like Valerie can go pretty far, but they never truly get it. They’re no strangers to the dark side, sure, but it’s just that they like to take holidays there, have a little thrill with something new and then go straight back to their dead, two dimensional lives. She was cool. But no love lost.
“Vik is on his own mission, sometimes he graces us with his presence. Especially when there’s food around,” said one of the younger missionary kids. The crowd laughed, but not too loudly. The ones who had any sense gave me the wide berth I deserved and the ones who didn’t wouldn’t last a week here anyway. Her hand went briefly into mine and then flew away again, and she tucked it under the table.
Then, and this is the important part, she stared at my crotch. A microsecond, barely anything at all, but when you live alone in the forest with nothing but the trees and your own heartbeat for company, your eyes become good at seeing even the tiniest of things. And it was a big thing. If you know what I mean. She looked, and I looked at her, and she saw me looking, and in a split second she knew that I had seen her looking. And when I kept looking at her, her pretty little face exploded in a flush and she struggled to put her gaze somewhere, anywhere else.
I guessed it would take me a week. Valerie had taken about a month. But this girl was hungry. Within a week I’d have her on the floor of my cabin, and I’d have those sweet little ankles right up behind her ears, and I’d fuck her so hard and so good she’d be taking her good Lord’s name in vain, one way or another. I knew that with that little flick of her baby blue eyes, I was already halfway in.
Conversation around the table flowed a little, although awkwardly, and I could see her straining to smile at everyone, struggling to keep up the façade. She was tired. I said nothing. Just watched. Ate my stew and rice and watched. Naturally, once the bullshit threatened to run out, the conversation lagged a little, but Sister Dora jumped in to save things.
“There’s been a bit of a problem, actually, with the garden,” she said, “The mission arranged for some fertilizer, but there’s been a problem with their trucks. It’s going to take a few more months at least, to get it here.”
Penny’s face went the most delightful shade of pink.
“Months? But we need to start with planting soon” she said, then softly added, “don’t we?”
“I mean I’m not saying the trucks 100% won’t come, it’s just that we might wait a week, we might wait three months, that’s all.”
“But the planting season will have passed by then. What can we do? Isn’t that a problem?” Penny said, her little pigtails looking a bit limp. Clearly, she would take a while to acclimatize to the “African way” of doing things. Yes, sweetheart, it is a problem. Everything’s a fucking problem.
“Well, we’ll figure something out. The guy’s coming next Friday to give us an update, and we’ll speak to him then. In the meantime, you can work with Valerie at the school, there’s a few little things you can do there to stay busy…” Sister Dora continued. You could see the panic on the girl’s face as her vision of salvation slowly wilted and disappeared. She had pictured gardens. She had come for gardens.
“But …but isn’t there some other way to get fertilizer? Surely…”
Everyone ate their stew in silence, waiting for her to finish her sentence. She seemed a little surprised, almost as though she had expected someone to jump in and interrupt her mid-sentence. There are problems, sweetheart. But what are you going to do to fix them?
“Surely we can find someone else, find a local supplier?” she said, not quite sure of herself. I could tell just by looking at her that she had never done a day’s garden work in her life. Not real gardening, anyway. She was used to reducing the miracle of life’s energy down to little seed packets she ordered from glossy catalogues, and had delivered to her by Amazon. No bugs, no thorns, just pretty pictures.
“Not in the quantities we need, Penny. Unless you know how to get hold of a truck big enough to carry a few tons of it, there’s no point starting the garden yet. Maybe next year,” said one of the missionary kids.
This set off a light in Penny’s eyes. She squirmed a little. I liked seeing that. I would make her squirm much, much more.
“Next year? But …but I’ll be gone by then!” she laughed. The others sat and ate in silence, and her face reddened with the realization of just how arrogant she sounded. I felt a little bad for her. Just a little, though. This place had a way of giving people just exactly what they deserved. And holy hell did this girl deserve to be brought down a peg.
I cleared my throat.
“Blood and bone,” I said, and stared right into her unguarded, powdery blue eyes. Nothing in this village was that color. Nothing at all.
“I’m …excuse me?” she said. Her façade slipped a little more and she was starting to seem genuinely irritated. I was going to enjoy seeing it all come off. Every last layer of bullshit. I couldn’t wait to strip it all off of her, and see what a dirty little animal she really was underneath it all.
“I said, blood and bone.”
I hadn’t spoken till then, and she seemed a little surprised that the savage at the table who couldn’t be bothered to clothe himself properly was now daring to speak to her. She smiled nervously, all her little conversational tics and habits failing her. She floundered for something to say, but I spoke and cut her short.
“You don’t need fertilizer. You just need blood, and bone,” I said, and took a mouthful. The best way to solve a problem: see that there isn’t one.
“No offense Vik, but we need a little more than your hippy gardening methods here, the soil at the plot is really, really depleted. That’s kind of the point. We took a long time to source exactly the right fertilizer for this place…” one of the kids started saying. He wanted to seem like a hot shot, obviously, in front of the girl. But it was me that would be fucking her before the week was out, not him, and somewhere in his dim, animal mind, he understood that. They all understood that. He didn’t make eye contact, either.
“What hippy farming methods? Do you know how to make fertilizer…?” she asked me now. I could feel her turning on her manners again, now that there was a chance I had s
omething she wanted. I smiled at her and this seemed to make her a little giddy. There’s nothing in this village the color of her eyes. Except my eyes.
“Dead animals go into the soil, plants come out. Nothing to make” I said. She winced a little.
“I’ve never heard of that. So if we put, like, carcasses and things in the soil it can act like a fertilizer? Are you sure?”
The missionary kid piped up again. “Yeah, Penny, maybe it can work with, well, certain plants, if I can say that, but we’re growing normal vegetables and things here…”
I heard Mama Tembi cluck her tongue behind us. But I wasn’t doing anything. Technically. Clearly this girl was going to run into my arms, of her own free will.
“Penny, Vik has some strange ideas, and I’m not sure he can help us here. Let’s just wait for the truck and then we can…” sister Dora started. But to my surprise the girl was interested. She jumped in, “But maybe he can help. Will you at least come and have a look at the plot? And tell us what you think? It can’t hurt” she said. I liked seeing her a little more forceful.
So that’s how this would all play out. I’d make her little perfect missionary fantasy come true and then I’d fuck her till her pigtails came undone. I changed my mind. I didn’t want her down on the ground. I wanted her standing, so I could watch her struggle to stand after I made her come.
“My fiancé works at an oil refinery, and I know they make fertilizers there, I think, and so I can also ask him, what exact things need to go into the soil, you know?”
Huh. Fiancé. I changed my mind again. It would have to be from behind, no question.
The other people at the table seemed unconvinced. Malawi was a place where solutions were scratched together. Take whatever dream or big idea you had, trim it down at least 80%, and then be prepared to be disappointed still. The place didn’t need a fucking community garden. It didn’t need Becky from New York to come and teach the kids ballet so they could express themselves and dream big. Or Shawn from Michigan to teach them “English” and hand out gummi bears. They certainly didn’t need little Penelope over here to do a damn thing.
But I could think of a few good uses for her.
“You’ve barely touched your stew, Penny, don’t you like it?” Sister Dora asked, gesturing to the full bowl.
“Oh it’s lovely!” she said, and the façade was full of cracks. She stared down into her lap looking embarrassed.
Valerie spoke up, “Oh, don’t worry sister, she doesn’t eat meat, we should have said.”
The group went quiet.
Didn’t eat meat? Oh, she would. Soon.
Chapter 6 - Penelope
It wasn’t so bad. Not really. Valerie finally came back from the next village over and helped me fix my clothing mess. She’s nice. So I had at least one good, kind fellow-Christian here in this country. She’d been everywhere. Uganda. Nigeria even. She was easy and confident and came from England, and she had such a pretty accent. She was quite experienced with this kind of work, but I thought we’d become good friends, anyway.
I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to ignore the almost painfully sharp silence all around. Why was it so quiet around here? The dinner had gone OK. I guess. Mostly. I was bone-tired and yet now that I finally had the chance to sleep, I couldn’t. The bedding was scratchy, Valerie’s breathing was all irregular and annoying, and my mind was all over the place.
My imagination, as good as it was in times like these, seemed to be nowhere to be found. It was just bare, dusty red reality. I sighed and tossed over in bed, trying the other side. The mattress dented in the middle and was already giving me a slow ache in my lower back.
Here, in the darkness, I could admit that I had been wrong about some things. This wasn’t at all what I pictured. I was hungry, for one. The goat meat was revolting, and even if I did eat meat I couldn’t understand how everyone at the table had just gobbled it down like it didn’t taste like wet dog. The people seemed nice enough, but like they were already tired of me. They didn’t drink coffee. In fact, it seemed like all anyone ever drank here was soda. There were always, and I mean always, a gaggle of random little kids just running around the place. It’s like nobody even cared who they belonged to, they were always just there.
And the garden. They hadn’t even had the courtesy to arrange for the fertilizer to be delivered on time. It was pathetic. Help was right under their noses and now it was going to go to waste. It’s not that I was angry, it was just that …well, I hadn’t come here to socialize. I came here to help.
I vowed then and there not to breathe a word of this to anyone. I knew how they saw me. They thought I was weak and stupid and didn’t understand anything. Well, all the better for when I showed them what I was really capable of. It wasn’t for me to question what God had in store for me. I didn’t know yet what use he had for me …and if I could just fall asleep maybe I could stop doubting...
Mama Tembi was kind and would help me. Valerie I could trust, and we’d be friends, no doubt about that. Sister Dora was a little strange, but she seemed harmless enough. The two missionary guys didn’t seem to take me seriously. They had that Mormon vibe about them. I thought they were haughty. I’d never tell anyone that, but it was the truth.
Then there was “Vik”.
I tried to steer it in other directions, but my imagination kept coming back to him. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of him yet. He wasn’t like anyone I’d ever met before. I tried not to stare, but his body, first of all, was just so …muscled. Like something I’d only ever seen in fashion magazines. It was just too much. What was the point of being so built and strong, was he some kind of Neanderthal? I couldn’t put my finger on it, but there was just something so …ungodly about him. The way he just paraded around, barely any clothing on at all. No shame. What was the point of a man, if he didn’t work, didn’t spread the word, didn’t have a family? Did he just sit in the jungle all day and contemplate his navel?
I personally found it very disturbing. And I did long before Valerie subtly told me that I shouldn’t get too involved with him, if I could help it. They said he was a bit unpredictable, a bit of a wild card. Mama Tembi had told me he was “bad news” and left it at that. From what I could gather, he loitered around in some shack in the forest and had …dubious means of subsistence, shall I say. Nobody could tell me what the rumors were, exactly, only that there were rumors, and that I should stay away.
But my imagination couldn’t stay away. Not tonight, in this unnatural silence. The room still had the synthetic floral smell of my shampoo lingering in it. Soon, it would fade. Soon, I’d meet him again and he’d take a sample of the plot soil and tell us if he could help. If we’d need lime. Or if we could get away with just “blood and bone”. Ugh. I’m not squeamish, but I really hoped it didn’t come down to that.
I heard a strange, eerie cry outside. A jackal? Google had told me about the jackals in this area. My heart beat faster. Then I had an idea. I was sent here for a reason. I had to be.
And maybe he was the reason.
Maybe I was sent here to teach him something. Clearly, he didn’t really belong here. Maybe it was my job to inspire him to return home to where he belonged, and make an honest life for himself.
Without thinking, my hands were under my nightdress. I sunk my head under the covers. It smelt like shampoo and dust and mosquito repellant. I let my imagination loosen a little. I would save him. He would thank me. He’d put on a shirt. Tell me that he felt God’s love. Felt it flow out from me into him. He’d be so grateful.
Something panged inside me. Damn.
It had happened again. I was …wet.
I struggled back my tears. That was twice in one week already. Once with Dylan and again now. I was getting worse. I pinched my own hand, hard enough that it felt like I might break the skin, and hissed the word to myself: no. I was better than that. I wasn’t going to defile my body like that, ever again. I was here on a mission.
I yanked my hands out
from under the blanket and smoothed them on top. I could see how all of this was going to play out, clear as day. Vik would come, hoping to boast and brag about his farming methods, but all the while, I’ll be guiding his mind towards some real education, towards his soul. I’d give him the good news; the hope that he could do something better, nobler with his life.
I’d save him.
Chapter 7 - Penelope
He was crouching down on his haunches, like some kind of soil whisperer, handful of dirt to his nose and just …smelling. He was so lean that even folded double, his abs stayed drum-tight. He squatted for a moment, and Mama Tembi and I waited for the diagnosis. I seemed to be the only one perturbed by the fact that he still was not wearing a shirt.
As he was engrossed in the soil, I had a quick opportunity to get a better look at him. Not in that way, of course, but …well someone who parades around half naked is kind of inviting that sort of scrutiny, aren’t they? He reminded me a little of the sinewy Christ figure I had seen on the cross at St. Peter’s church in town. Only the man in front of me was certainly no Jesus. He was very much alive. And I could see the pistons and pulleys of his muscles working under his dark skin.
I shifted my weight from one foot to the other. I was wearing shampoo-washed underwear, my hair felt gross and I hadn’t looked into a proper mirror for three days now. I was slowly coming to terms with it: there was no way I’d be doing any gardening this trip. As I watched the red soil slip through his loose fingers and fly away in the wind, it seemed like my fate was sealed: even I could see that nothing would grow here.
“It’s perfect,” he said.
What?
“It just needs some fish. Skin. Tails and heads. That kind of thing. And some dried grass.”
Was this guy for real? First blood and guts, and now fish. I sighed loudly.
“Chimanga?” he said to Mama Tembi.