Blackman' Burden na-1 Read online

  Well, let the future take care of the future. She looked over at Cliff Jackson who was piloting the jet and said, “What’re the latest developments? Obviously, I haven’t seen a paper or heard a broadcast for over a week.”

  Cliff shrugged his huge shoulders. “Not much. More trouble with the Portuguese down in the south.”

  Jake rumbled, “There’s going to be a bloodbath there before it’s over.”

  Isobel said thoughtfully, “There’s been some hope that fundamental changes might take place in Lisbon.”

  Jake grunted his skepticism. “In that case the bloodbath would take place there instead of in Africa.” He added. “Which is all right with me.”

  “What else?” Isobel said.

  “Continued complications in the Congo.”

  “That’s hardly news.”

  “But things are going like clock-work in the west. Kenya, Uganda, Tanganyika.” Cliff took his right hand away from the controls long enough to make a circle with its thumb and index finger. “Like clockwork. Fifty new fellows from the University of Chicago came in last week to help with the rural education development and twenty or so men from Johns Hopkins in Baltimore have wrangled a special grant for a new medical school.”

  “All… Negroes?”

  “What else?”

  Jake said suddenly, “Tell her about the Cubans.”

  Isobel frowned. “Cubans?”

  “Over in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan area. They were supposedly helping introduce modern sugar refining methods—”

  “Why supposedly?”

  “Why not?”

  “All right, go on,” Isobel said.

  Cliff Jackson said slowly, “Somebody shot them up. Killed several, wounded most of the others.”

  The girl’s eyes went round. “Who … and why?”

  The pilot shifted his heavy shoulders again.

  Jake said, “Nobody seems to know, but the weapons were modern. Plenty modern.” He twisted in his bucket seat, uncomfortably. “Listen, have you heard anything about some character named El Hassan?”

  Isobel turned to face him. “Why, yes. The people there in Gao mentioned him. Who is he?”

  “That’s what I’d like to know,” Jake said. “What did they say?”

  “Oh, mostly supposed words of wisdom that El Hassan was alleged to have said. I get it that he’s some, well you wouldn’t call him a nationalist since he’s international in his appeal, but he’s evidently preaching union of all Africans. I get an undercurrent of anti-Europeanism in general, but not overdone.” Isobel’s expressive face went thoughtful. “As a matter of fact, his program seems to coincide largely with our own, so much so that from time to time when I had occasion to drop a few words of propaganda into a conversation, I’d sometimes credit it to him.”

  Cliff looked over at her and chuckled. “That’s a coincidence,” he said. “I’ve been doing the same thing. An idea often carries more weight with these people if it’s attributed to somebody with a reputation.”

  Jake, the older of the three, said, “Well, I can’t find out anything about him. Nobody seems to know if he’s an Egyptian, a Nigerian, a MOR … or an Eskimo, for that matter.”

  “Did you check with headquarters?”

  “So far they have nothing on him, except for some other inquiries from field workers.”

  Below them, the river was widening out to the point where it resembled swampland more than a waterway. There were large numbers of waterbirds, and occasional herds of hippopotami. Isobel didn’t express her thoughts, but a moment of doubt hit her. What would all this be like when the dams were finished, the waters of this third largest of Africa’s rivers, ninth largest of the world’s, under control?

  She pointed. “There’s Kabara.” The age-old river port lay below them. Cliff slapped one of his controls with the heel of his hand and the craft began to sink earthward.

  They took up quarters in the new hotel which adjoined the new elementary school, and Isobel immediately went into her routine.

  Dressed and shod immaculately, her head held high in confidence, she spent considerable time mingling with the more backward of the natives and especially the women. Six months ago, she had given a performance similar to that she had just finished in Gao, several hundred miles downriver.

  Now she renewed old acquaintances, calling them by name—after checking her notes. Invariably, their eyes bugged. Their questions came thick, came fast in the slurring Songhoi and she answered them in detail. They came quickly under her intellectual domination. Her poise, her obvious well-being, flabbergasted them.

  In all, they spent a week in the little river town, but even the first night Isobel slumped wearily in the most comfortable chair of their small suite’s living room.

  She kicked off her shoes and wiggled weary toes.

  “If my mother could see me now,” she complained. “After giving her all to get the apple of her eye through school, her wayward daughter winds up living with two men in the wilds of deepest Africa.” She twisted her mouth puckishly.

  Cliff grunted, poking around in a bag for the bottle of cognac he couldn’t remember where he had packed. “Huh!” he said. “The next time you write her you might mention the fact that both of them are continually proposing to you and you brush it all off as a big joke.”

  “Huh, indeed!” Isobel answered him. “Proposing, or propositioning? If either of you two Romeos ever rattle the doorknob of my room at night again, you’re apt to get a bullet through it.”

  Jake winced. “Wasn’t me. Look at my gray hair, Isobel. I’m old enough to be your daddy.”

  “Sugar daddy, I suppose,” she said mockingly.

  “Wasn’t me either,” Cliff said, crisscrossing his heart and pointing upward.

  “Huh!” said Isobel again, but she was really in no mood for their usual banter. “Listen,” she said, “what’re we accomplishing with all this masquerade?”

  Cliff had found the French brandy. He poured three stiff ones and handed drinks to Isobel and Jake.

  He knew he wasn’t telling her anything, but he said, “We’re a king-size rumor campaign, that’s what we are. We’re breaking down institutions the sneaky way.” He added reflectively. “A kinder way, though, than some.”

  “But this—what did you call it earlier, Jake?—this Cinderella act I go through perpetually. What good does it do, really? I contact only a few hundreds of people at most. And there are millions here in Mali alone.”

  “There are other teams, too,” Jake said mildly. “Several hundred of us doing one thing or another.”

  “A drop in the bucket,” Isobel said, her piquant sepian face registering weariness.

  Cliff sipped his brandy, shaking his big head even as he did so. “No,” he said. “It’s a king-size rumor campaign and it’s amazing how effective they can be. Remember the original dirty-rumor campaigns back in the States? Suppose two large laundry firms were competing. One of them, with a manager on the conscienceless side, would hire two or three professional rumor spreaders. They’d go around dropping into bars, barber shops, pool rooms. Sooner or later, they’d get a chance to drop some line such as did you hear about them discovering that two lepers worked at the Royal Laundry? You can imagine the barbers, the bartenders, and such professional gossips, passing on the good word.”

  Isobel laughed, but unhappily. “I don’t recognize myself in the description.”

  Cliff said earnestly, “Sure, only few score women in each town where you put on your act really witness the whole thing. But think how they pass it on. Each one of them tells the story of the miracle. A waif comes out of the desert. Without property, without a husband or family, without kinsfolk. Shy, dirty, unwanted. Then she’s offered a good position if she’ll drop the veil, discard the haik, and attend the new schools. So off she goes—everyone thinking to her disaster. Hocus-pocus, six months later she returns, obviously prosperous, obviously healthy, obviously well-adjusted. Fine. The story spreads for miles around. Nothing
is so popular as the Cinderella story, and that’s the story you’re putting over. It’s a natural.”

  “I hope so,” Isobel said. “Sometimes I think I’m helping put over a gigantic hoax on these people. Promising something that won’t be delivered.”

  Jake looked at her unhappily. “I’ve thought the same thing, sometimes, but what are you going to be with people at this stage of development— subtle?”

  Isobel dropped it. She held out her glass for more cognac. “I hope there’s something decent to eat in this place. Do you realize what I’ve been putting into my tummy this past week?”

  Cliff shuddered.

  Isobel patted her abdomen. “At least it keeps my figure in trim.”

  “Um-m-m.” Jake pretended to leer heavily.

  Isobel chuckled at him in a return to good humor. “Hyena,” she accused.

  “Hyena?” Jake said.

  “Sure, there aren’t any wolves in these parts,” she explained. “How long are we going to be here?”

  The two men looked at each other. Cliff said, “Well, we’d like to finish out the week. Guy named Homer Crawford has been passing around the word to hold a meeting in Timbuktu the end of this week.”

  “Crawford?”

  “Homer Crawford, some kind of sociologist from the University of Michigan, I understand. He’s connected with the Reunited Nations African Development Project, heads one of their cloak-and-dagger teams.”

  Jake grunted. “Sociologist? I also understand that he put in a hitch with the Marines and spent kind of a shady period of two years fighting with the FLN in Algeria.”

  “On what side?” Cliff said interestedly.

  “Darned if I know.”

  Isobel said, “Well, we have nothing to do with the Reunited Nations.”

  Cliff shook his large head negatively. “Of course not, but Crawford seems to think it’d be a good idea if some of us in the field would get together and… well, have sort of a bull session.”

  Jake growled, “We don’t have much in the way of cooperation on the higher levels. Everybody seems to head out in all directions on their own. It can get chaotic. Maybe in the field we could give each other a few pointers. For one, I’d like to find out if any of the rest of these jokers know anything about that affair with the Cubans over in the Sudan.”

  “I suppose it can’t hurt,” Isobel admitted. “In fact, it might be fun swapping experiences with some of these characters. Frankly, though, the stories I’ve heard about the African Development teams aren’t any too palatable. They seem to be a ruthless bunch.”

  Jake looked down into his glass. “It’s a ruthless country,” he murmured.

  Dolo Anah, as he approached the ten Dogon villages of the Canton de Sangha, was first thought to be a small bird in the sky. As he drew nearer, it was decided, instead, that he was a larger creature of the air, perhaps a vulture, though who had ever seen such a vulture? As he drew nearer still, it was plain that in size he was more nearly an ostrich than vulture, but who had ever heard a flying ostrich, and besides—

  No! It was a man! But who in all the Dogon had ever witnessed such a juju man? One whose flailing limbs enabled him to fly!

  The ten villages of the Dogon are perched on the rim of the Falaise de Bandiagara. The cliffs are over three hundred feet high and the villages are similar to Mesa Verde of Colorado, and as unaccessible, as impregnable to attack.

  But hardly impregnable to arrival by helio-hopper.

  When Dolo Anah landed in the tiny square of the village of Ireli, the first instinct of Amadijue, the village witchman was to send post haste to summon the Kanaga dancers, but then despair overwhelmed him. Against powers such as this, what could prevail? Besides, Amadijue had not arrived at his position of influence and affluence through other than his own true abilities. Secretly, he rather doubted the efficacy of even the supposedly most potent witchcraft.

  But this!

  Dolo Anah unstrapped himself from the one man helio-hopper’s small bicyclelike seat, folded the two rotors back over the rest of the craft, and then deposited the seventy-five pound vehicle in a corner, between two adobe houses. He knew perfectly well that the local inhabitants would die a thousand deaths of torture rather than approach, not to speak of touching it.

  Looking to neither right nor left, walking arrogantly and carrying only a small bag—undoubtedly housing his gris gris, as Amadijue could well imagine—Dolo Anah headed for the largest house. Since the whole village was packed, bug-eyed, into the square watching him there were no inhabitants within.

  He snapped back over his shoulder, “Summon all the headmen of all the villages, and all of their eldest sons; summon all the Hogons and all the witchmen. Immediately! I would speak with them and issue orders.”

  He was a small man, clad only in a loincloth, and could well have been a Dogon himself. Surely he was black as a Dogon, clad as a Dogon, and he spoke the native language which is a tongue little known outside the semidesert land of Dogon covered with its sand, rocks, scrub bush and bao-bab trees. It is not a land which sees many strangers.

  The headmen gathered with trepidation. All had seen the juju man descend from the skies. It had been with considerable relief that most had noted that he finally sank to earth in the village of Ireli instead of their own. But now all were summoned. Those among them who were Kanaga dancers wore their masks and costumes, and above all their gris gris charms, but it was a feeble gesture. Such magic as this was unknown. To fly through the air personally!

  Dolo Anah was seated to one end of the largest room of the largest house of Ireli when they crowded in to answer his blunt summons. He was seated cross-legged on the floor and staring at the ground before him.

  The others seemed tongue-tied, both headmen and Hogons, the highly honored elders of the Dogon people. So Amadijue as senior witchman took over the responsibility of addressing this mystery juju come out of the skies.

  “Oh, powerful stranger, how is your health?”

  “Good,” Dolo Anah said.

  “How is the health of thy wife?”

  “Good.”

  “How is the health of thy children?”

  “Good.”

  “How is the health of thy mother?”

  “Good.”

  “How is the health of thy father?”

  “Good.”

  “How is the health of thy kinswomen?”

  “Good.”

  “How is the health of thy kinsmen?”

  “Good.”

  To the traditional greeting of the Dogon, Amadijue added hopefully, “Welcome to the villages of Sangha.”

  His voice registering nothing beyond the impatience which had marked it from the beginning, Dolo Anah repeated the routine.

  “Men of Sangha,” he snapped, “how is your health?”

  “Good,” they chorused.

  “How is the health of thy wives?”

  “Good!”

  “How is the health of thy children?”

  “Good!”

  “How is the health of thy mothers?”

  “Good!”

  “How is the health of thy fathers?”

  “Good!”

  “How is the health of thy kinswomen?”

  “Good!”

  “How is the health of thy kinsmen?”

  “Good!”

  “I accept thy welcome,” Dolo Anah bit out. “And now heed me well for I am known as Dolo Anah and I have instructions from above for the people of the Dogon.”

  Sweat glistened on the faces and bodies of the assembled Dogon headmen, their uncharacteristically silent witchmen, the Hogons and the sons of the headmen.

  “Speak, oh juju come out of the sky,” Amadijue fluttered, but proud of his ability to find speech at all when all the others were stricken dumb with fear.

  Dolo Anah stared down at the ground before him. The others, their eyes fascinated as though by a cobra preparing to strike, focused on the spot as well.

  Dolo Anah raised a hand very s
lowly and very gently and a sigh went through his audience. The dirt on the hut floor had stirred. It stirred again and slowly, ever so slowly, up through the floor emerged a milky, translucent ball. When it had fully emerged, Dolo Anah took it up in his hands and stared at it for a long moment.

  It came to sudden light and a startled gasp flushed over the room, a gasp shared by even the witchmen, Amadijue included.

  Dolo Anah looked up at them. “Each of you must come in turn and look into the ball,” he said.

  Faltering, though all eyes were turned to him, Amadijue led the way. His eyes round, he stared, and they widened still further. For within, mystery upon mystery, men danced in seeming celebration. It was as though it was a funeral party but of dimensions never known before, for there were scores of Kanaga dancers, and, yes, above all other wonders, some of the dancers were Dogon, without doubt, but others were Mosse and others were even Tellum!

  Amadijue turned away, shaken, and Dolo Anah spoke sharply, “The rest, one by one.”

  They came. The headmen, the Hogons, the witch-men and finally the sons of the headmen, and each in turn stared into the ball and saw the tiny men within, doing their dance of celebration, Dogon, Mosse and Tellum together.

  When all had seen, Dolo Anah placed the ball back on the ground and stared at it. Slowly it returned to from whence it came, and Dolo Anah gently spread dust over the spot. When the floor was as it had been, he looked up at them, his eyes striking.

  “What did you see?” he spoke sharply to Amadijue.

  There was a tremor in the village witchman’s voice. “Oh juju, come out of the sky, I saw a great festival and Dogon danced with their enemies the Mosse and the Tellum—and, all seemed happy beyond belief.”

  The stranger looked piercingly at the rest. “And what did you see?”

  Some mumbled, “The same. The same,” and others, terrified still, could only nod.

  “That is the message I have come to give you. You will hold a great conference with the people of the Tellum and the people of the Mosse and there will be a great celebration and no longer will there be Dogon, Mosse and Tellum, but all will be one. And there will be trade, and there will be marriage between the tribes, and no longer will there be three tribes, but only one people and no longer will the headmen and witchmen of the tribes resist the coming of the new schools, and all the young people will attend.”