THE GARDENS OF MARS
In this extract from his book, John Gimlette develops a taste for river life and a well-founded fear of violence
Apicaresque voyage soon took shape. I found my boat, the Hasina 3, which was moored some way out in a channel through the sand. Small, top-heavy and brightly painted, it was the kind of barge a fairy queen would have used for making stately rides downriver. Up aloft was a sort of throne deck, and the one below was scattered with cushions. As the only passenger, I had the decks all to myself. Out in the stern was a tiny housing where the crew lived, along with two chickens and a duck.
Even the crew had something elfin about them. The skipper, Dada, would sit above the wheezy old engine, steering with his toes. The other crewmen were highlanders, and were quick, light-footed and seldom seen. There were two deckhands called Rifé and Sambatra, and a cook, who was very slight and sinewy and known as “Bobola”, or Fatty. Every evening, he would conjure something remarkable out of not very much, a salad perhaps, or a platter of seafood.
Presiding over all of this was a Puck-like figure, known as Nat. Although he looked about 15, he insisted he was married and had children of his own. He knew the rivers well because his father had been a mechanic here, working for the French.
We camped overnight on the riverbank, with two families from the forest. They were all nomadic farmers, and because the gorge was still narrow here, they had to plant their rice in the shoals. Between them, they had few clothes, just shorts and trilbies. The first family lived in a shallow cave, furnished only with a meagre scattering of pans. Their children, I noticed, were all armed with catapults.
“They do the hunting,” said Nat, “every day.”
The other family lived in a shelter made of leaves and branches, out on the sand. They were about to boil up a kingfisher, which one of their boys had killed. Although they had chickens, these were only for selling to passing boats. I offered the children a tin of Marks & Spencer sardines if they could beat me in catapult contest. I was confident of my chances until the six-year-old stepped forward and pinged off three direct hits. He’d never seen a tin before, and couldn’t believe it contained a fish. I like to think that, thanks to that fish, there is now one more kingfisher out on the river.
“And what about lemurs? Will they eat them too?”
“Sure,” said Nat, “it’s the best meat of all.”
For a while, we all sat around munching wild honeycomb, which was deliciously scented and waxy. Then the local militia arrived, sent by the village. They made an incongruous sight with the football shirts, axes and shotguns. Nat said they had been sent to protect us against dahalo, or bandits, and to take us to some waterfalls to swim. At first, they looked warlike and surly, but they soon lightened up when we got under way. One of the gunmen had a gold tooth, and although I never knew his name, I came to think of him as “Goldie”. He also had a large bag of cartridges and a homemade kabosy, or banjo, which made a noise like barbed wire on glass. But it was nothing compared to his own pain, and I noticed him wince.
“Toothache,” said Nat, translating.
I found some paracetamol. “Take two every four hours.”
“What’s an hour?” said Goldie.
I tried to explain but it was no good. “What’s a watch?’” he said. Goldie didn’t even know how old he was, although he took a guess at 20. He said he wasn’t frightened of anything because he had good magic. His ody gasy, or charms, would protect him against everything: snakes, spears, ghosts, storms, madness, leprosy, locusts. A bit of toothache wouldn’t worry him. Eating cures everything, doesn’t it?
“OK,” I said to Nat, “then let’s ask him to supper.”
Goldie brightened at first but then scowled when he saw the pork. Pig was fady, he said. It was taboo to eat it.
We found him some biscuits, and soon our friendship was back on track. Goldie then nestled down among the cushions on deck, and there he stayed all night. I preferred to sleep out on the sand, between the two families. It was a hot, still night, and in the gorge everything sounded loud and close: the hunters coughing, an owl, and the mewling of the lemurs.
By dawn, the sand felt cool and clammy. I got up and went to the waterfall. Our gardiens were already there, wrapped in shawls. They had found proper food, and were roasting a large goadrano, or blackcrowned heron.
That morning, we left at about 10 – or, as the local
I offered the children a tin of sardines if they could beat me in a catapult contest
Sakalava people call it, “gunfire”. A few miles downstream, I noticed that up in the hills, parts of the savannah were now black and charred.
“Dahalo bediabe,” said the cook. Lots of outlaws.
Over the next few hours, we passed several deserted tobacco warehouses and a few abandoned villages, finally stopping at a settlement called Begidro, or “Many Lemurs”. From the river, the only sign of life was the naked women bathing in the shallows. As
we pulled in, they looked up at me sullenly and without moving at all. Nat shouted out our names, and a village elder appeared, wearing only shorts. He was a slight, stringy man, part Asian, mostly African, his voice rapid and scratchy.
“Something’s wrong,” said Nat, “some zebu [cattle] are missing.”
Already, spearmen were setting out along the river. Across the village there was an air of resolve, as if something inevitable needed to happen. The elder led us up through lanes of thatch and bright-red daub until we came to an open area of flat, hard earth. There were many more armed men here, perhaps a hundred. Some had shotguns but most were armed with long knives, called coup-coups, or short stabbing spears. Nat called them the kalony, or village column.
“No photos,” he warned. The men didn’t move all morning. They were the rearguard, ready in case the dahalo attacked while the trackers were out. I asked Nat what the kalony would do if they caught an outlaw. “Kill him.”
“So no police involved?” “Never. If you call the gendarmes, they’re just going to lock the guys up, and then the dahalo pay a bribe, and they go free and come and kill you!”
The elder was curious as to why I’d called by, so I explained that I’d come to see the sorcerer. This was a perfectly sensible thing for a traveller to do, and the old man nodded solemnly.
Around here, the Sakalava never did anything without a spell. Consulting the ombiasy, or “Man of Much Virtue”, was like going for a spiritual check-up. He would read your fortune, clear out old curses, neutralise any gris-gris (or evil spells) and top you up with a dose of luck. He might even confound your enemies, or perform a little mosavy, or black magic.
“We have two ombiasy,” said the elder, “but one is old.”
The younger sorcerer lived in an untidy structure of mud and branches, a bit like a nest. Inside, we arranged ourselves around him, on tiny stools two inches high. He was more Asian-looking than the rest of the tribe, and set out before him were several home-made charts covered in symbols. Nat said he already knew everything about me, and the ombiasy smiled.
“You have a daughter who is kind,” he said.
“Yes.”
“And you saw crocodiles yesterday.”
“Yes, also true.”
“And you were recently wounded with a knife…?”
In the darkness, I could hear Nat snigger, so I changed the subject. “I wonder if you have anything to make me… bulletproof?”
Nat said the ombiasy didn’t usually sell amulets to vazaha [foreigners] but he could show me how to make one. The sorcerer produced a cow’s horn and all the magical things that went inside: a hank of human hair, a needle, some dung, a scorpion’s tail and a crocodile tooth. He called it a mohira, and said that, with this, I could shoot him and he’d be fine. We laughed about this, but then he was suddenly serious. “Never eat melons or pork,” he said, “or your mohira loses its power, and then you’re dead.”
Before leaving, the ombiasy offered to tell my fortune. For this, he used an old Arab technique, with sikidy beads. First, he spread them out on the mat in front of me, and then he spat on his hands and consulted his charts. After a long and earnest discussion among the Malagasies, it was Nat who spoke.
“You should be OK,” he said. “Nothing will happen.”