Scribbling the Cat - Alexandra Fuller [72]
The maid came through from the kitchen with a fresh pot of boiling water for tea.
Connor pushed himself away from the table and sighed. “Mapenga’s been married three times. I don’t know why the first and third marriages didn’t work, but the second wife—he shot at her when they’d been married a week, so that was the end of that.”
I poured myself more tea and stared out at the lake.
Connor said, “Quite a ladies’ man too. There isn’t a woman within a few million miles that doesn’t fall for that man and I don’t know why because he looks like he’s been dragged through the shateen backward—”
Suddenly K put down his fork. “What’s Mapenga’s real name?”
Connor frowned. “Piet Verwoed.”
K said, “Shit! I know him! I’ve known that mad bastard for twenty—no, longer . . . thirty years. Everyone called him Oscar because he behaved like a dog and that was the family dog’s name. I think he bit people’s ankles when he was a kid.” K turned to me. “He used to walk into a bar and point to a woman—didn’t matter if she had her arm around an ou—and he’d say, ‘She’s mine,’ and I guarantee he’d walk out with the chick one hundred percent of the time. One hundred percent poke rate.” K shook his head. “I’d never do that. I was too shy.”
“You were too busy putting people on the floor,” I said.
K turned his lips down at me.
Connor frowned. “Do you want to see him? I’d get my foreman to take you to his island in my boat, but he caught a lift with one of the other crazy bachelors to Tete to do some shopping yesterday.” Then Connor added, “But I can call Mapenga on the radio if you like. If he’s on mainland maybe he’ll come around and have a cup of tea.”
Mapenga was raised on the radio.
“Are you on mainland? Over,” asked Connor.
“Affirmative. Over.”
“There’s a mate of yours here from Zambia. Over.”
“I don’t know any fucking Zambians. Over.”
Connor laughed helplessly and fingered the handset, embarrassed. “Ja, well, that’s Mapenga for you,” he said apologetically.
K said, “Give me that radio.” He took the handset. “Oscar?”
Silence hissed back.
“Oscar? It’s Savage here.”
“Who?”
“Savage.”
There was another long silence and then the reply came, “Hang five, man. I’m coming there right now. Don’t fucking move. Over and out.”
“Every now and again,” said Connor while we waited, “Mapenga decides he needs silence in his life. So he stops talking for four days, or a week. He doesn’t talk to the guys that work for him or any of us. He won’t answer his radio. The last time it happened he didn’t answer his radio for so long we thought his lion had eaten him. So someone went over to the island to see if he was okay and he was fine. He was just walking around in silence, all by himself. He wouldn’t say hello or anything. So the guy that had gone over to check on him came back and reported that Mapenga was just being his usual penga self. Then all of a sudden Mapenga decides he’s talking again and he decides he wants company and he’ll come over to the mainland and want to have a big party, and everyone else has had enough of him and doesn’t want to talk to him anymore.” Connor shook his head. “He’s a lekker guy, but he’s mad as hell.”
Mapenga looked exactly how you’d expect a man to look who spends his life alone on an island in the middle of a lake in Mozambique with a lion. He had a week or ten days’ worth of beard on his face, a torn shirt, scratches up and down his arms and legs, and a deep, raw tan, blending to deep red in his neck. He had vivid blue eyes, deeply creased on the edges with laughter (but the eyes themselves had a worried, restless, haunted look), and a sunburned nose. His smile was sudden and beautiful and careless and came easily. His energy was quick and electric, as if you might be shocked by physical contact with him. He was about five foot ten, powerfully built, and wiry with shoulders