The Two Newest Sleuths in Zaire: Read an Excerpt from The Mistaken Mulozi 

1)

The Raf ki Bar is Beaudoin’s office, and Mama Dorkas is his executive assistant. Well, she would be if he was the boss of a tech company in Taiwan. But he is not. He’s a brute, a government brute, a brute who wields power through being a soulless piece of shit. Mama Dorkas knows full well who she is in bed with, in her bar and at times at night. 

“Yaka masanga moko.” Bring me a beer. 

How often has she heard this? Another beer. Well, that is the price of doing business with the devil. Maybe she can fleece the devil enough, and soon enough, to free herself from Beaudoin, the source of her livelihood and bruises. 

She places the ice-cold beer on his table. His table. Well, it is his office, so it is his table. Pops the cap. Snugs the bottle opener back in her bra and rests the cap back onto the bottle top to keep the flies from swimming laps in her business partner’s beer. Like in most bars in Congo, her bottle opener is just a piece of wood with two round-head screws on one end. It is cheap, durable, and easily replaceable. 

“Add it to my tab,” Beaudoin says, knowing full well he neither has nor needs a tab at the Raf ki Bar.

He and Mama Dorkas have an arrangement. She provides free beer in exchange for him offering protection from miners, loggers, politicians, truck drivers . . . well, actually, anyone who might steal from the bar, rough up the staff, or scare of the regulars. 

It is a great deal for Mama Dorkas because she just charges Beaudoin’s unpaid beers to the wealthy Chinese smugglers who come to town each month to collect the gold illegally mined from the national park. They always end up drunk and have no idea how many beers they owe. Mama Dorkas knows a good deal when she sees one. 

After a sip of his cold beer, Beaudoin tells a young man to fnd Sharpie and bring him back to the bar. 

Pumbafu says he is twenty but is actually sixteen. He lives in the bar from time to time, does anything Mama Dorkas asks of him, and serves as a runner for those who can pay him. Beaudoin always pays him because though his name means “idiot,” Beaudoin knows Pumbafu is anything but that. 

Pumbafu has no idea if Sharpie is in town, but he knows who to ask.

It’s the middle of the day, and the sun is high in the sky. The dirt road outside the bar is baked, oven hot, and even Pumbafu’s callused bare feet risk being broiled. A brief sprint to the covered market ofers his toes relief from being cooked, and it is on the way to Duka Ismaili, the shop of the Lebanese trader he needs to talk with. 

Weaving around the stalls, Pumbafu firts with the young girls and charms the old women, all trying to sell enough to at least feed their families tonight. Tomorrow is something to deal with tomorrow. The market is almost empty of shoppers, but no one asks Pumbafu to buy anything; they all know what he does. They too know he is not pumbafu. 

“Hodi hodi,” Pumbafu calls as he slips aside the beaded curtain door that keeps the insects out but lets the air in to Eessa’s shop. “Hodi hodi” is the universal greeting in the Ituri. It loosely translates to “Hi, I am here. May I come in?” He expects to hear “Karibu” in reply, but the only sound is that of an ancient oscillating fan whirring at the back, near the cash register. 

Duka Ismaili is a miniature supermarket, filled from floor to ceiling with shelves crammed with food, clothes, bicycle parts, pots, soap—everything you need, or at least everything that is in stock. The shop next door has exactly the same goods.

All the shops have the same goods. If the next truck brings cans of sardines, every shop will have sardines. If it’s salt fish or candles or kerosene lamps, all the shops will be selling the same things. What is different about Duka Ismaili is that it always smells good. It always smells of cinnamon, allspice, and rose water; it smells like Shanifa’s cooking. 

Eessa’s wife creates culinary miracles in her tiny kitchen. Pumbafu loves Shanifa because she feeds him and treats him like the son she lost in the war in Beirut. The war that drove them to leave Lebanon and open a shop in Congo. Without Mama Dorkas and Shanifa, Pumbafu would be a smart but likely dead, parentless street kid. One of thousands. 

“Hodi hodi,” Pumbafu calls again. Still no “Karibu” in reply. Feeling that something is not right, he moves farther into Eessa’s duka. Eessa and Shanifa live upstairs. There is always someone in the shop. “Hodi hodi.”

Past the cash register, Pumbafu edges into the small kitchen, where Shanifa cooks her most wondrously fragrant dishes. There, slumped over two 50 kg bags of rice, is Sharpie, face up. Pumbafu touches Sharpie’s body. It feels cold, and it smells bad. Pumbafu knows he has been dead for a while. Mind racing, he asks himself, What the fuck is going on? Why does Beaudoin want to talk with Sharpie? Does he know he is dead? Who killed Sharpie and why? Where are Eessa and Shanifa? Do they know Sharpie is dead? What do I tell Beaudoin? 

He knows that he cannot tell Beaudoin about Sharpie; he will accuse Eessa and even more likely rape Shanifa to find out what they know or don’t know. Before he says anything to the general, he knows he needs to find and talk with Eessa and Shanifa.

 Pumbafu also knows he cannot leave Sharpie in the duka to be found by some random shopper. He drags the body to the back of the shop, slides open the door to Eessa’s indoor pigpen. Duka Ismaili is maybe the only shop with an Islamic name in Zaire that sells pork. He heaves the body over the fence of the pigpen. It drops unceremoniously to the ground, and the pigs immediately start rooting at their new, far tastier swill.

Walking back through town to the Rafki Bar, Pumbafu tries to understand what he saw, tries to plan what to do next, tries to figure out a story that the general will believe, knowing that if Beaudoin thinks he is lying, he will need to disappear or the general will do that for him, permanently. 

By the time Pumbafu gets back to the bar, another beer or two has been delivered to the table and Beaudoin has done some business, figured out his cut, and made clear what will happen if he does not get the money that was agreed due to him. His business partners never haggle over their cut, because the cuts that Beaudoin threatens are always painful and sometimes mortal. 

“Mzee, Sharpie is not here, he is not in town. I do not know where he is, but I am still looking.” Pumbafu is doing his best to be convincing. He was doing his flirting-with-girls version of not telling the truth to power. 

“I need to go to Njefu, Sharpie’s home village. I need some money for a motorcycle taxi. I am sure that I will find out where Sharpie is.” 

Beaudoin pauses, reaches into his pocket, and pulls out a wad of money so old and dirty it is hard to tell what denominations each bill is. He tries to fan out the notes, but they stick together. Licking his fingers, he peels the money apart, apparently unconcerned that grungy banknotes may not be good for his health. He finds two Gorilla-Gorillas—50,000 Zaire banknotes with a portrait of President Mobutu on the front and a Grauer’s gorilla on the back—and hands them to Pumbafu. 

“OK, go to Njefu, but you better fnd Sharpie and bring him here or you are dead. No one will miss a scrawny kid like you.” 

Pumbafu has no intention of searching for Sharpie. Why would he? Sharpie is dead. With the cash from Beaudoin, he can now fnd Eessa and Shanifa and maybe, just maybe, learn who killed Sharpie. Then he can decide what to tell the general.

2)

The young ones are asleep. It is raining so hard Toh’lee can barely hear her grandparents at it. It is nothing Toh’lee has not seen or heard before. There are no secrets when you all live in a one-room Efe hut. 

It is as dark as the back of the cave she had shared with all the clan families during honey season. There is no moonlight. 

She knows now is the time to go. 

Nothing to bundle up and take with her, just worries about leaving her little sisters, Meli and Kabibi—literally, “baby girl.” Her grandmother, after a year, has still not decided on her real name. 

Wearing a bark cloth and a T-shirt a muzungu researcher gave her aunt, she stoops through the entrance to the hut. She almost changes her mind. Glancing back inside, she sees her sisters cuddled together to stay warm, then turns and moves into the downpour. After a few steps she is soaking wet. 

Her bare feet tell her that she is on the path leading out of camp. A path beaten hard by many feet. A path she has walked hundreds of times. A path she can see clearly, even in the dark, even with her eyes closed.

Almost at the edge of camp, she passes close enough to see there is a fire still glowing faintly inside Sengi’s hut. Tali must be awake, nursing their newborn. Such a cute baby. Toh’lee knows they can’t see her, and it is not because she is a witch. It is just dark. 

She is not actually a witch yet. But soon she will be sequestered in the menstrual hut, and then, when her monthly bleeding starts, she fears she will be. She’ll become a mulozi like her mother, Sabu. 

Toh’lee’s body shudders, partly from the rain, which is cold, but more from the fear that she is or will be a witch. 

I don’t want to become a mulozi. I don’t want to transform into leopards, crocodiles, and snakes at night. I don’t want to use spells to hurt people and make them sick, destroy their felds, and hide the animals from the hunters. What use are witches other than to do bad things, evil things? Why must I become a witch, an evil person? It’s not fair. I am not a witch, and I am going to prove it. 

With these thoughts conjured but unsaid, Toh’lee knows now really is the time for her to go. So she turns her back on her family and her clan and walks quietly into the forest, knowing she is unlikely to ever return.

Featured photo: Justin Clark / Unsplash