Congo Journey by Redmond O’Hanlon

Author:Redmond O’Hanlon
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780141933436
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2008-10-27T16:00:00+00:00

26

There was a hand on my shoulder. A familiar voice said, ‘You slept in my hut!’ I raised my head, and set a spasm of pain travelling down my spine. The spinal nerves, I thought, sitting up, rubbing the right side of my face where it had been lying on the table. ‘Cervical,’ I said, trying to get a grip on something, on anything that was really there, indisputable: ‘Thoracic.’ Words like that – they were comforting all the way through to the object. ‘Lumbar.’ They didn’t let you down, dissolve, disappear into the forest before you got to them: ‘Sacral.’… Antoine… the goat… the sacrifice!

Old Bague, still holding my shoulder, said, ‘Don’t worry! Xavier Bague – he is used to the ways of white men! They often go to sleep in chairs! And when they wake up, they pray to their Spirit, their Holy Spirit!’ ‘Jesus!’ I said. ‘Yes!’ said Bague, his wizened old face as fresh as a wizened old face can get. ‘Jesus, that’s his name!’ I glanced at the nail on the wall. Bague had hammered it back into place. ‘You are welcome in my hut! Tonight – you will sleep here again! In your chair, your favourite chair!’ With his left hand he held a white enamel plate under my nose. He said, ‘Breakfast? Manioc? Fou-fou?’ And on the plate was a grey, congealed, tapered cylinder of manioc, the same shape as the roll of ganja. The ganja? Where was it? Gone! And Nzé? I listened. No Whistling ducks. I looked under the table. I said, ‘Gone!’ Bague raised his eyebrows, sparse and bristly. He said, ‘Are you in good health this morning?’ He waggled my shoulder. ‘Are you well disposed?’ I stood up, feeling sick, my feet numb – but I managed to reverse from the manioc on its plate. ‘Of course!’ said Bague, as if he’d been foolish not to have thought of it before, going to the bucket. ‘Palm-wine?’

Bumping into the corner of the table, knocking against Bague’s chair, I got through the door.

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