Wild Spirit by Annette Henderson Page A

practices, Monsieur Kruger? Does much of that survive today?’
    His face twisted into a wry grimace and he told me another story. There was a Gabonese army officer who had three wives, a man of some ability who had prospered under the French command and risen to a senior rank. But he had one major problem – he was impotent. Notwithstanding his western education and professional position, the officer consulted the local witchdoctor, who counselled him to eat the genitals of a Pygmy. Accordingly, he ordered the secret killing of a Pygmy and went through with the ritual.
    I couldn’t comprehend that such beliefs had survived into the present, but that was only my naivety. It turned out that the officer’s crime had been discovered and he was ‘rotting in Makokou jail’ (as Kruger put it) as we spoke.
    â€˜And where did this happen?’ I asked.
    Kruger’s face remained impassive. ‘Just one hour up river from where you will be living.’
    If he was trying to shock me, he had succeeded. So that was the environment we were going into – a place where superstition and witchcraft still held people in their thrall. More and more it seemed, as I listened, that little had changed since Mary Kingsley’s time.
    Kruger grasped a solid bronze object from a shelf and handed it to me. ‘Here, feel this.’ I took it and almost dropped it because of the weight.
    â€˜What is it?’
    â€˜They’re called slave bracelets. The women used to be forced to wear them around their ankles to stop them from escaping.’ The bracelet was a broken circle with a bulbous knob on each end. I estimated its weight at three kilos. When I put it on my wrist, my arm dropped like a stone and I could barely lift it.
    â€˜Do the people around here still make traditional artefacts?’
    â€˜Not much. Not like the old days. The missions stopped most of that, as far as they could. When they came, they collected all the objects linked with tribal religion and witchcraft and buried great piles of them in the forest, then set about trying to convert the people. The missionaries were the only ones who knew where the things were buried. The story goes that years later, traders from the Middle East came through and paid off the missions to sell them the stuff, then quietly smuggled it out. That’s Africa, Madame ’Enderson!’
    I looked at my watch and saw that it was nearly eight o’clock. ‘We must be going,’ I said, edging out of the armchair. ‘What are the arrangements for tomorrow?’
    â€˜You will leave at nine-thirty: I’ll send the chauffeur around to collect you. The pirogue will be ready and you’ll each have a life jacket. You can ask Roger and Boniface to prepare you a picnic lunch. It’ll be a long ride because the river’s low, so you’ll get hungry. I’ll see you down at the débarcadère – the landing stage. There’ll be bread and fresh food for the camp to go up with you.’
    Kruger got up and walked us to the car. As we rounded the corner of the house, an outside light was burning. He stopped, bent down and picked something up, cursing. Straightening up, he held out his hand to reveal a black rhinocerous beetle the size of a small bird. Screwing up his face, he hurled the beetle at the concrete wall and it fell stunned to the ground. Then he picked it up and threw it into a plastic bucket to join dozens of its deceased relatives.
    Back at the Roux house, Roger had prepared soup, steak and salad, followed by cheese and fruit. After dinner, we explored the sanitary facilities. There were two showers and two toilets. Running water and handbasins had been installed, but Boniface had forgotten to light the fire under the triangular flat-iron hot-water tank – and there was little firewood anyway – so we settled for a cold wash and crawled into the sagging double bed.
    Mosquitoes whined around our heads, and