*You tell me what movie this quote is from, I'll get you a present from Africa, like amoebas, or guinea worm; also, this post contains foul language, and really bizarre subject matter, and may not be appropriate for infants.
When my next door neighbor died and we found out it was the devil himself that took him, we were all a little upset. Knowing what scheisters those devils are, the family called upon all of us present to pray for the giant's survivors, that the devil might not take it in mind to attack them, too, and collect his due. Within a week, it was confirmed that we hadn't prayed hard enough; the giant's twin daughters, adorable, feisty ten year olds, were apparently just ridden with the sonsabitches. And to prove it they summoned a black poisonous snake onto my compound-mate's terrace, just to give him the willies.
Snakes aside, they were fairly benign devils. The girls were still allowed to come over and watch TV, provided they sit outside, and I would take turns singing and dancing with them evenings when I was bored. They got a little pushy in their demands for candy, though, and I didn't hang out with the twins for some time.
The twins' grandmother, now, there's a real sweetheart. Slightly crippled, French-deficient, she is nonetheless one of those people I really enjoyed saying hi to in the mornings. Back when I went to Spain, she asked me what I would bring her as a gift; I told her a handsome young man. When my cousin came in May, I introduced him as 'that gift I promised.' The old black cheeks actually blushed.
But here's the trouble: for the past two months she's been bed-ridden. I haven't seen her, but my neighbor's tell me she's in a bad state. The girls stay home from school a lot so they can help take care of her. I can't say I'm surprised. Even back when the giant died, I figured she wasn't going to be too far behind. She's been hanging in there, though. She's a tough old broad. I mean, she is African.
But now so here's where things start to get interesting. Because she'd been sick for so long, her family was starting to wonder just what was up. The traditional medicines weren't working, and neither were the modern medicines. They decided to call in a charlatan to see if there were any bad spirits about that might be to blame. I bet you can guess what the verdict was.
Devils. A fucking lot of them.
So, here's the geography of the situation, to help clarify things. If you stand at the baobab tree near the old kitchen foundation and look to the west, directly in front of you would be the old lady's house, where she lives with the twin imps, plus Felli, and Felli's mother. Felli, for those that don't know, is the adorable little girl who enjoyed the Gettysburg Address in the video I posted on Facebook. Okay, and then next door on the right is my compound, where I live with the Laos and the Bamazis and various combinations of the Kpekpeous. Looking next door to the left (of the old lady's house) is the house of the old woman we call La Maisoniere. This is the lady to whom I pay my rent, because her youngest sister, rich and fat and living in Kara, owns all three of these compounds.
So this lady, La Maisoniere, she's kin to the ailing, devil-riddled old lady. She decides to call the village chief, an old, dignified man, to intervene on behalf of my old neighbor. Cast the fuckers out, as it were. The chief, well, he used to romp with these chicks, so he accepts the invitation. But little did he know...
... that fucking Mani was back in town! Actually, he did; I exaggerate a little. A lot of people knew Mani was back, because Mani had dropped out of school and disappeared about a year ago. Everybody assumed he was trafficked to Nigeria (which he was) and had been killed by the Ibo (which he wasn't). He came back with a radio and some funny hats, and started working in the flour mill just down the path from my house, the one housed in the abandoned former school building. So Mani, right, he's around twenty years old, he lives with the sick old crippled woman, and he's been helping out around the house a little, cooking some of the food, pumping some of the water, beating the possessed children. Etc.
So why is Mani's presence bad news for the chief? Somebody just go ahead and throw out a guess here. Go ahead, say it out loud. Did you say devils? Congratulations, my friend, because you are spot-fucking-on. Mani, unbeknownst to the rest of us, contracted a powerful strain of foreign devils when he went to be a slave in Nigeria. So, when the chief comes to scope out the situation with the old lady, Mani attacks the old man. Stories branch off at this point. Some say he simply cast devils at him, others say Mani physically attacked the chief; I don't know the details. Nonetheless, the chief grew gravely ill, and the whispers in village were that Mani and the devils were trying to decide who to kill first, the chief or the old lady. While all this was going on, by the way, my compound-mates were freaking out. It's all they talk to me about, still, and they end pretty much every sentence with, "Well, faith in God will protect us." I don't have to worry, because supposedly this kind of sorcery can only be used against people within the same ethnicity. Devils just don't attack white people. Or, as Bamazi put it to me, when white people have devils, they do good stuff, like build skyscrapers.
Sunday morning: I wake up around five or so and lay in bed till six. I do my push-ups and sit-ups, sweep my yard, brush my teeth. Last night was the attack on the chief, so there's a buzz in the air. I've got nothing going on, so around eight o'clock I decide to head to the boutique and have a few shots of sodabe. When I leave my compound, I walk by my crippled/ill/bedeviled neighbor's house, and there is a huge crowd seated on benches filling the entire compound. It looks exactly like it did when the giant died, and so my first thought is that the old woman has passed. Kicking and screaming, no doubt. I am in no mood to hang around, given the nature of all this new shit that's come to light regarding my neighbors and the status of their souls. So I skip on down to the boutique. The lady pours me a shot of sodabe. I ask her about the weather, the crops, the army of demons running rampant. DG shows up. DG's real name is Kossi, but he's always on top of things, so we all call him Directeur General. If anybody knows what's going on with the collection of people occupying my neighbor's yard, it's DG.
DG says that since Mani infected the chief with his devils, the village charlatans were performing a ceremony to exorcise the chief. Only the chief. Charlatans charge a lot of money for the ceremonies they perform, and the chief was the only one with enough francs to qualify for treatment. But they have to perform the ceremony at Mani's house (the old lady's house, the house between mine and the Maisoniere) because that's where everything happened. They're in the middle of the ceremony, actually, DG says, and he has to go back. I tell him I'll wait around the boutique, he needs to swing by when all is over and give me a full report. He slams back his sodabe, and says he'll see me in an hour or two.
This conversation with DG, actually, is where a lot of the details I've just given came to my attention. I knew there was sorcery trouble, but DG provides me with all the hard data. I'm a little bowled over by it all, so I decide to have another shot of sodabe to pass the time until DG's return. When he finally does come back, this is what he says:
The ceremony went off well, freeing the chief of his demons. The charlatan had to do inventory, though, and shake out any demons that hadn't yet been identified. Like a thirsty cowboy with a dowsing rod, the charlatan pointed to the old lady's bedroom. There are devils in her, he says. Then he turns to Mani. There are devils in you, too, boy. What have they made you do? At this point, Mani declares that he's been busy with a lot more than infecting the chief. Mani has an invisible Lhoso airplane--I've heard about these planes in the past--and during the night he gets in his plane and proceeds to fly over the village, stealing people's souls while they sleep. He then transports the souls to an all night voodoo spirit market in Niamtougou, about 150 kilometers to the north. At the market, sorcerers buy parts of these peoples' souls, and then, before dawn, Mani returns in the plane and redeposits whatever souls/parts of souls he wasn't able to sell. Well, I'll be damned, boy, the charlatan says. Where, by chance, did you get the plane? And I'm sure Mani must have said, in whatever mangled, demon-ridden Kabiye he was speaking, that the charlatan only had to point that dowsing rod a little further amongst this crowd to find his benefactor. The charlatan did as he said, revealing none other than--
--At this point I am just fucking blown away. I can't even believe DG is telling me all this with a straight face. He's sober as a pigeon. I'm on my thirt shot of sodabe, because frankly, I need it. The boutiquiere is clucking along to the story. The cluck is the sound we make when something is just unbelievably sad and true, and somebody should have known better, and one demon is understandable, but this many demons just borders on carelessness, and--
--La Maisoniere. What? La Maisoniere, DG repeats. Wait, I say, you mean the short old lady who collects my rent every three months? Yup. La Maisoniere had had devils for some time, the charlatan discovered. She and Mani were working together to steal souls at night and take them to the market. She was the one who bought him the plane! I interrupt DG again and ask him, did Mani say where he kept the plane during the day? You betcha. It's parked in an acajou tree just behind your house, Tony. I've eaten fruit off that tree, I think.
Then, I asked the inevitable question, What Happens Now? Well, DG said... the chief's fine... wouldn't accept anything you haven't prepared yourself from your neighbors... don't let the kids in your house... you know, the usual.
I'll admit, as much as I pitied the family and all its troubles, the only thing going through my mind at that point was that in a month I have to get a legally valid signature from La Maisoniere acknowledging that I don't owe her any more rent, and, boy, won't that be a joy to recover?
DG had to leave then, so I went home and huddled beneath my mosquito net, coup-coup under my pillow.
The next day I was with Nabede, my best friend. We were going to reclaim some wood a carpenter had stolen from me (long story) and on our way to his house we decided to have a few calabashes. I asked him if he'd heard all the news about my neighbors. He had. I asked him if he believed it. He did. Then I asked him about the plane. If Mani only takes peoples' spirits, and not their bodies, and if the plane is invisible, how can there be any proof that this story is in any way true? Well, he said, a few years back there was a similar situation in Adjengre. Young feller, invisible plane, soul theft. The charlatans and the villagers discovered what the boy was up to, and when he confessed to the plane, one of the elders asked him to prove his story. Show us the plane, he said. Well, I can't do that, said the boy, the plane's invisible. In fact, it's here right now, you just can't see it. Well then, said the elder, get in and fly it. Nabede said the boy stepped up into the air and was held aloft. And he kickstarted it, or turned the key, or spun the rotor, or whatever the hell he had to do to get his invisible spirit plane going, and suddenly there was a blast of heat, a roaring sound in the air, and everybody present was knocked backwards off their seats from the force of the lifting craft. They never saw the boy again.
That night, I went back to the boutique. DG was there, the nurse from the dispensary, and... the chief. The chief doesn't speak French, and I don't know what kind of questions are taboo following an exorcism, so I didn't try to ask him anything about the day before. DG was talking to him, though. The chief scowled as he sipped his sodabe, and DG asked him something in Kabiye. I heard Mani's name, but he spoke too quickly and I couldn't catch the question. The chief finished his drink, licked his lips, and said, in a voice that negated any need for translation: "Fuck that kid."
