Scribbling the Cat - Alexandra Fuller [82]
“Tea or coffee, boss?”
“No thanks.”
“Arghhhh!” Mapenga’s face staggered toward the cage, followed, after what seemed like a pause, by the rest of his body. He hit the cage, spun, and crouched, and his arms were spread-eagled for balance. His back and shoulders were strung with muscle over bone. He swayed back and forth on his hips, like a sailor on a rolling deck, and then he sank lower before catapulting himself at St. Medard, feet first.
If this was the man at fifty, and drunk, I’d have hated to be on the receiving end of him thirty years ago, drunk or not.
“Well, I think I’ll go to bed,” said K. “Good night.”
I pointed to the lawn. “Should we . . . ?”
“Fuck them.”
Andrew brought me tea. “Thank you, Andrew.”
St. Medard made a sound like someone had abruptly let the air out of him.
“Good night, madam.”
“Good night, Andrew.”
I took my tea to bed. Andrew glided off the veranda and past the pool of light that gleamed out from the house and disappeared into the darkness. I changed quickly into my nightdress, then sat up under my mosquito net peering out onto the lawn at the occasional flashes of flesh that hurled, spun, or staggered into view. Within five minutes the men were clutched around each other’s necks, breathless and speechless, completely spent. The lion trotted out of the shadows and started rubbing against their legs, purring resoundingly. There was a period of back-slapping and a few indistinct terms of endearment were thrown about: “I fucking love you, you miserable cunt.”
“I fucking love you too.”
Then the generator throbbed to a halt and darkness licked from the deep, African night into the cage. I lay down and held my breath.
“Are you asleep?” asked K from down the veranda.
“No.”
“Are you scared?”
“No.”
“Do you need to come in here with me?”
“No.”
“I’m here if you need me.”
I shut my eyes tightly and tried to unpick the thoughts and actions that had landed me here, so that I might retrace my steps back to wherever it was I had left off a perfectly safe platform and dived into the space that resulted in this free fall into insanity.
St. Medard came stumbling back onto the veranda, brushing past my bed. I heard him crashing about on the east side of the cage and then the skid of metal legs against concrete as he collapsed, muttering to himself, on the sofa. Within a minute or two he was snoring loudly. There was half an hour of relative peace, if one could ignore the snoring. And then, quite suddenly, St. Medard screamed.
I sat up. “What’s the matter?”
K got out of bed. “Hey, man!”
There was no reply from the sofa.
K said, “What the fuck is the matter with you, man?”
A string of obscenities flew from the sofa.
K came back to bed. “He’s fast asleep,” he said.
“He sounds like a bloody army at war with itself.”
“Welcome to St. Medard’s spooks,” said K.
A kapenta boat chugged out past the island. I heard the engine, the watery throb and roar of it and the fishermen shouting to one another. I propped myself up on my elbows and looked out at the lake and saw the boat sliding along the gleaming trail of the moon’s reflection. A tall man was silhouetted on the bow, a lean figure standing alone with the moon licking his skin silver-edged. I watched until the boat melted behind the corner.
Eventually, I went to sleep, but was woken up an hour or so later by St. Medard shouting, this time in terror. This was followed by wracked sobbing. Then the whole cycle of war dreams started again with a series of battle cries. Soon I heard K getting dressed, and he let himself out of the cage.
I got up to boil water for tea. The sky was only just beginning to pale in the east, the underbelly of day breaking first. I sat on the sofa opposite St. Medard and watched him sleeping, his naked body exposed to a misty and persistent cloud of mosquitoes. K let himself back into the cage and found me.
“Huzzit?” he said.
“They should show videos of this man to kids who think they want to join the army.”
“What?”
“Nothing.” I held up my cup. “Tea?”
K put up his hand.