In the Belly of the Elephant (15 page)

The grasshopper clung to my mosquito net a moment longer then hopped into flight with a loud clacking and disappeared over the fence. I got up, dressed, and went to work.

The office buzzed with expectant energy all morning, awaiting the arrival of my elder sister. In Islam, the family and the
ummah
, the community, were of primary importance. Here was a member of my family coming to Dori, and it was something to be celebrated. The festive mood rehydrated my spirits, and I looked forward to Tricia’s arrival. She had flown into Ouaga the day before and was catching a ride to Dori with Hamidou.

Around four in the afternoon, I sat in my office, doing paperwork and waiting for the truck to arrive. Out the window, dust coated the leaves of the neem trees. I hoped Tricia’s bad back was surviving the bumpy trip from Ouaga. I sighed. The last time I’d seen her, she hadn’t been happy. Had Tricia
ever
been happy? She had visited me at grad school a few weeks before my departure to Africa.

On a bitter-cold afternoon, we had driven the back roads of Vermont, exploring three-hundred-year-old cemeteries and eating at an inn where George Washington had slept. On the return drive, the light faded and snowflakes fell in big white clumps. The old heater in the VW Bug hummed and blew cold air onto our toes.

Tricia sat shotgun, her face grim in the passing headlights. “I hate being left behind.”

Ice formed on the road and I slowed for a curve blinded by trees. “What do you mean?”

“I feel so abandoned.” She blew out a long breath, steaming the windshield. “It’s just that, I feel like I raised you. In lots of ways, it’s like you’re my child.” She paused. “And now I can’t get pregnant and you’re leaving.”

I blinked at the passing headlights. The heater got too hot, there wasn’t enough air in the tiny space.

“Trish,” I said with a little too much edge, “I’m not your kid, I’m your sister.”

Melancholy had settled into the car the same way the snow had blanketed the trees.

One who needs a thing, will travel on a bad road to get it.

The sound of the Land Rover’s horn sirened in through the window as the truck pulled into the office compound. I stood, took in a deep breath, and hurried out to the courtyard. Everyone bustled out the office doors to form a semicircle around the side of the truck. Adiza ululated a song of welcome and everyone clapped. A big smile on his face, Hamidou stepped out of the truck and opened the back door, presenting Tricia to the group.

She peeked out and swung her legs onto the ground. Hamidou offered his hand and Tricia took it, pulling herself out of the car. Her face streaked with dust, she stood, slapping dirt from wrinkled khaki pants and a sweat-stained Pike Street Market T-shirt. “Rats, I’m a mess.”

I wrapped her in a bear hug, feeling the back brace beneath her shirt. The group applauded.

“I thought we’d never get here.” Tricia looked around at the group and attempted to smile. “My God, it’s hot.”

“I tried to warn you.”

I had suggested she wait until the cold season in November to avoid the heat. But until one actually experienced the heat of the Sahel in March and April, it was impossible to imagine. She had wanted to come in the spring, heat or no.

The staff chattered in Fulfuldé, laughing and nodding. They were comparing Tricia to me. Tricia had inherited the square face of my father’s eldest sister. Mine was oval. Tricia’s eyes were hooded like our mother’s while mine were round and open from some hidden gene. The only family resemblances my sister and I shared were height, hand gestures, and Idaho accents. But I knew the staff found us nearly identical since they often joked that all white people looked alike.

“Welcome to Africa!” I took her arm. “Come, let me introduce you.” We stopped at Fati, the first in the circle. “Fati,” I said, “
Ma sœur
, Tricia. Tricia, Fatima, one of our field agents.”

“Tricia.” Fati pronounced the name “Tritseea,” giggled, and shook Tricia’s hand. “
Bien venue à Dori
!”

We continued around the circle to Adiza, Nassuru, Jack, Jack’s new ag assistant, Nouhoun, and finally to Djelal, who actually managed to smile. Each one shook her hand, welcoming her.

Hamidou drove us to my compound, smiling at the windshield the whole way. Rocky met us at the gate, barking and turning in circles, his tail thumping against our legs.

Once inside the courtyard, Tricia lowered herself into a chair in the shade. “The bumps on that road nearly knocked my teeth out.”

It was good to see her, though she looked like an undercooked piece of chicken. “Come on, you need a bucket bath.”

“I’m so tired I can’t see straight.” A camel peeked its head over the compound wall. Rocky stood with his paws on the arm of her chair. “A camel.” She smiled like a little kid. “And you have a dog.”

“A dog, a house, friends, a new life.”

“Dad wants to know when you’re coming home.”

“We’ll talk about that later.”

I pulled her out of the chair, led her to the bathroom, and helped her peel off her pants, back brace, and T-shirt.

“You can sleep in the hammock for the rest of the afternoon while I finish up at the office.”

“Does it ever cool off?”

“It might drop down to about ninety by midnight.” I handed her the tin cup and left the bathroom.

I returned around six to find Rocky curled beneath the hammock. Tricia was sound asleep and sweating profusely. I roused her, gave her several glasses of water, explained the water filter system, and had her take another bucket bath. Six thirty in the evening our time, it was about 9:30 am Seattle time. Trish was wide awake.

“Here.” I gave her one of my loose-fitting dresses that fell below mid-calf. “Put this on. We’re going for a walk. There are a few people I want you to meet.”

We exited my gate, and I took her directly to Old Issa, who stood beaming behind his kiosk. I introduced them, and after a brief chat with lots of nodding and smiling on all sides, I led Tricia around the corner and into the streets of Dori.

“I feel like I’ve walked onto the set of Lawrence of Arabia.” Tricia walked with her mouth open, swiveling her head from side to side. “It amazing here.”

Behind us, a large bull with long pointed horns turned the corner and followed us up the street. Tricia looked over her shoulder at the bull and bumped into a goat.

I remembered what it had been like, seeing it all for the first time: the mud-washed walls and cinnamon-colored sand, matted camels and straw-legged donkeys, ebony skin against white turbans and flowing robes. A feeling that you had entered a time warp and been sucked two thousand years into the past. I closed my eyes and breathed in the fragrance of wood smoke, roasting meat, and camel dung. The lowering sun warmed my face, and the sand cushioned my feet. I reveled again in the sensation of being in a place so incredible that just one day harvested a lifetime of memories.

I took Tricia’s hand, and we walked as we had when we were kids, swinging our arms.

“I met your director yesterday,” Tricia said. “Rumor has it you need a vacation.”

After the VIP visit and the staff meeting, it hadn’t taken long for that rumor to spread.

“So, tell me about home.”

“It was snowing when I left.” Tricia turned to check on the bull, now only ten paces behind us. “I called Dad to say good-bye. He wants to know when you’re coming home.”

Home. A sudden pang went through my insides—a meteorite of melancholy that seared past the inner spaces of my heart and stomach. We turned a corner.

“Did you know they sold the piano?” I said.

“They did?” Tricia raised her eyebrows.

Out across a field, a clutch of women clad in bright blue and red rode away from Dori, each on a small donkey.

“Who are they?” Tricia pointed.

“Those are Bella. They used to be the slave class to the Fulani.”

We circled around a donkey.

“What’s this about you needing a vacation?”

I shrugged. “It’s been a rough year.”

“I was sorry to hear about Lily.”

“Yeah.” My throat tightened. “That was the worst.”

“What else?”

Out on the horizon the sand dunes darkened from beige to burnt orange.

“I came back to Africa thinking Rob would join me and I’d have a relationship
and
a career overseas.” I shook my head. “Now, I’m afraid of being lonely for the rest of my life.”

A military truck drove by. “Terrible things have been happening in Liberia. My friends there, so much blood…”

“I warned you about the violence,” Tricia said. Ms. I Told You So. “Do you think that could happen here?”

“Sometimes,” I paused. “But it hasn’t. We’ve had strikes and a coup without any violence. Anyway, it wasn’t violence that killed Lily. It was a gas leak! A stupid gas leak!” I took clumps of my hair in my hands and pulled.

Tricia shook her head at me. “It’s not just Lily. You’ve been mad since you came to Africa three years ago.”

I threw up my hands. “Well how would you feel if you found out everything you’d been taught your whole life was a bunch of bullshit? The Russians aren’t the only ones who teach their own version of history.” I kicked at the sand. “All the U.S. meddling in the world. We try to do a good job but at the same time the CIA is assassinating people, and we get blamed. I hate being lumped in with the bad guys.”

A radio blared from inside a courtyard.

“So, why stay?” Tricia made a wide circle around the backside of a donkey.

“I don’t know.” My head hurt from pulling my hair. “I just renewed my contract for another year. Now I’m not sure it was such a good idea.”

“People break contracts.” She took my arm. “No one would hold it against you if you came home.”

I thought of Hamidou, Fati, Adiza, and Nassuru. “Some might.” Although Djelal would probably throw a party.

“Well,” Tricia said, “it seems to me it’d be kind of hard to do your job when you’re mad at everybody all the time.”

“I’m not mad at everybody! Just God, and the U.S. government”—I kicked the sand again—“and the universe in general.”

“Yeah, well, when you figure out who to blame for all the bad stuff in the world, let me know. I want to talk to them about not being able to get pregnant.”

We walked a ways in silence. Several men lounged in the shade of a tree at the side of the road. Somebody was frying onions somewhere nearby. We turned a corner.

“You could come home with me,” Tricia looked at me sideways.

I let the idea flutter around inside. A grasshopper took flight, clacking like a card against the spokes of a bicycle wheel. The idea lost its wings.

“There’s an old medicine man who lives under a thorn bush near here.” I explained the story of the
marabou
and how he had not moved from that place for two, now three years.

“Why?” Tricia said.

“It’s his place. It’s where he belongs.” A sigh ballooned up from inside and I let it out. “I don’t know where I belong.”

“Ah, the old ‘finding yourself’ line. Dad will have a hard time accepting that one.”

“It’s what he did when he was our age!”

“Going to medical school in Philadelphia wasn’t exactly taking a job on the other side of the world.”

“It was as far as Grandma and Grandpa were concerned.”

“Well, it’s different for us,” Tricia said. “We’re
girls
. He’s convinced we’re running wild and sleeping with every man we meet. Remember when I came home from South America and he wouldn’t let my friends into the house?”

I nodded. After Tricia graduated from college, she had taken off for South America in a VW bus with a good friend who happened to be a guy. They traveled through Central and South America for three months and when they finally returned to visit our parents in Idaho Falls, my dad, believing Tricia had been having sex with her friend, wouldn’t let him in the house.

“We’d been given so much hospitality on our trip by complete strangers,” Tricia said. “Then I get home and my own parents won’t to let us in. My OWN house!” She shook her head. “I was so ashamed.”

I remembered that summer. I was eighteen and promised myself I’d never let Dad trap me in the same way.

“Well, you
did
sleep with that guy you were traveling with.”

“I was twenty-five years old! It was none of Dad’s business.”

“Yeah, right.”

We turned a corner and the bull followed.

“Speaking of sleeping with guys,” Tricia said.

“Speaking of none of your business.”

She nudged me. “Who is he?”

“Was. A captain in the army. But he got transferred back to Ouaga.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, really.”

“What was he like?”

“Funny, sweet, very political.”

The question rose with her eyebrow and sat in an upturned corner of her mouth. “That’s Dad’s greatest fear, you know.”

“I thought his greatest fear is that I won’t come back?”

“That’s his second greatest fear. No, wait,” she frowned, “maybe it’s his third.”

“Well, it won’t bother him if you don’t tell him. Anyway, it’s over. Drabo’s gone.”

She took my arm. “Actually, you know his
greatest
fear is that you’ll come home pregnant.”

“Well, since he’s been telling us since we were thirteen not to come home if we did, what makes him think I would if I were?”

Tricia shook her head with a sigh heavy enough to bring a camel to its knees. “You’re afraid of getting pregnant, and I’m afraid I never will.”

We reached the edge of town and turned to walk along the banks of the
mar
. Evaporation and hundreds of buckets had reduced the water level to a few muddy feet. The
mar
would be baked dry by the end of the month. A breeze rippled the surface of the water, carrying the odor of moss and fish. Beyond the far banks, a thin boy tapped the bony flank of a cow with a stick. Nearby, two small boys splashed about. A young woman with thick brass bracelets on each arm crouched on the bank, stirring clothes into the dark water and rubbing them with a block of soap.

We sat on the hard ground and watched. A deep crease etched a vertical line between Tricia’s eyebrows. She had brought her depression with her like an old backpack, heavy and frayed, full of bits and pieces of worn-out baggage.