The Strange War Page 10

sleeping, we’ll nail him to the floor with our spears, and when he’s dead forever, we’ll bury him beneath the Molimo fire. We’ll tell his wife the animal of the forest ate him, and then nobody’ll ever talk about him anymore.”

  But, of course, things didn’t go beyond threats, and Sefu said, “Why shouldn’t I go to sleep when I’m tired? No one would be such an animal as to prevent a tired man from sleeping. Besides, this Molimo is not my Molimo. I just come to be friendly, to pay my respects to the Molimo, and I’m being threatened with spears!”

  True, in the mornings the Molimo often scolded him. For the morning was the time when the Molimo came into camp. He came closely surrounded by the young men, so that he couldn’t be seen. The young men romped and ran around with him among the huts, and they beat on the roof of the huts of those who had misbehaved in some way the day before. The boys beat on the roofs and shook the walls. Sefu’s hut was often shaken up, but so too were the huts of couples who had had a loud argument, of hunters who had stayed away from the hunt too often, of girls who had too openly flirted with boys who were related to them. The Molimo respected no one. Whoever he scolded had to just take it.

  The days in Apa Lelo were happy days. Arobanai often went along on the hunt. In the evenings the men usually discussed where they would hunt the next day. The men and the boys told about tracks they had seen and compared the chances of finding game at this or that location. The women voiced their opinions too, especially regarding the forest fruits that they wanted to gather before and after the hunt. The first of the young men started out soon after sunrise with their nets and spears and a piece of burning ember to start the hunting fire. Fire was the forest’s greatest present, and one had to give the fire back to the forest. Then the forest was in a good mood and blessed its children with a good hunt. When the hunting fire was burning, the other hunters showed up too. And the women and children also went into the forest, to collect mushrooms and berries, and they followed certain lianas until they came to their roots, which were sweet and tasty.

  One morning, when the hunters had gathered, Sefu was missing. They figured he had left his camp, but he hadn’t passed by the hunting fire. They shook their heads, and someone said that maybe Sefu had started his own hunting fire. No, they all shouted, not even Sefu would do something like that. When they arrived at the place where they first wanted to spread out the nets, Sefu was already there, had lit a fire, and was eating roasted bananas. Ekianga and a few other men went off for a quick scout of the area and then instructed the others in which direction to spread out the nets. The women took their bundles and went ahead with their children. Everybody stopped chattering and jabbering, and almost without a sound they slid through the forest. The men also scattered; everybody knew exactly where he had to spread out his net, which was more than a hundred big steps long, so that together they would form a large semi-circle. When Ekianga gave the signal with the call of the kudu bird, the women and children, forming a long file, rushed through the forest, yelling and howling. Arobanai startled a sondu. The frightened antelope jumped out of the bushes. “She’ll run into Kelemoke’s net,” she called happily to Kidaya, who was running next to her.

  When they had reached the hunters, Kelemoke had already killed the antelope. His mother was putting the best pieces in her basket. The other women were crowding around the two of them, “My husband let you borrow his spear!” – “We gave your sisters liver when they were hungry and your father wasn’t home!” – “My father and yours always hunted together!” they yelled. Kelemoke was enjoying his role, and with a grand gesture he distributed the meat to the women without concerning himself with their reasons. He already knew who deserved what.

  Sefu walked up and whined that he hadn’t had any luck. But nobody offered him a share. He turned to the women, “You’re driving the game away from my net on purpose. Why don’t you drive it in my direction too?”

  “Hey, you have your own womenfolk. Go complain to them!”

  “Oh them. They’re just lazy bone heads.”

  The women laughed at him and shrugged their shoulders.

  Kelemoke had given Arobanai’s mother an especially nice piece from the thigh. Arobanai had already started walking back to the camp with her basket, which was filled with meat and nuts. She wanted to come back when the hunters spread out their nets for the third time. She was walking with Kidaya, who was asking her all about Kelemoke, but Arobanai just laughed and hinted at some things. On their way they met old Moke, who had seen leopard tracks. In the camp they told the other girls and women about the leopard tracks. “The men will get a scare when they see those tracks!” they shouted, snickering. Arobanai crouched down and imitated the prowl of a leopard. The other women formed a line, as though they were the hunters who were moving through the forest in single file. The leopard leaped at them, and the hunters fled into the trees, screeching.

  After they had almost died laughing, Arobanai decided she’d like to go back to the hunters in the forest. But the men came back from the hunt earlier than expected, grumpy and defeated. No one wanted to say what had happened. Only Kelemoke grumbled, “That Sefu. He just makes too much noise!” And Kenge said, “Up to now we’ve always treated him like a man, but he’s an animal, and we should treat him like an animal.” And he yelled over to Sefu’s camp, “Animal, animal!” even though Sefu wasn’t even there yet.

  He arrived later with a group of older hunters. Without saying a word to anyone, he went straight over to his camp.

  Ekianga and Manyalibo, who had arrived last, crouched at the the Molimo fire. “That Sefu brought dishonor on all of us!” said Ekianga to no one in particular. And Manyalibo said, “Sefu brought dishonor on the Kumamolimo. We’ll break off the Kumamolimo. The Molimo feast will come to an end. The best thing for us is to go to a new camp.”

  “Everybody come here,” said Ekianga. “Everybody come to the Kumamolimo. This is a serious matter. This has to be settled right away!”

  Everybody gathered; they sat on stools made of four short branches bound together or on logs, and Kenge yelled over to the other camp again, “Hey, you animal, come over here, animal!” The boys laughed, but the men ignored him.

  Sefu sauntered over, trying to look completely innocent. He looked around, but nobody offered him a place to sit. He went over to Amabosu, one of the youngest lads, and yanked at his stool. “Animals lie on the ground!” said Amabosu.

  Sefu was close to tears, “I’m an old hunter and a good hunter. It’s not right that everybody’s treating me like an animal.”

  Finally Masisi said to Amabosu that he should get up and give Sefu his stool.

  Then Manyalibo stood up and began a long speech: “Everyone wants this camp to be a good camp. And everybody wants this Molimo feast to be a good Molimo feast. But Sefu is spoiling everything. The camp isn’t a good camp anymore, and the feast isn’t a good feast. When his daughter died, he was happy to accept our offer to fetch our Molimo for him. But now when his mother has died, he doesn’t want to provide anything for the Kumamolimo.”

  “It wasn’t my mother,” Sefu said defiantly.

  “Not your mother?” Ekianga shouted. “She was the mother of all of us here in the camp. I hope you’ll fall on your spear and die like an animal! A human doesn’t steal meat from his brothers. Only an animal does something like that!” Ekianga shook his fist furiously.

  Sefu began to cry. Now for the first time Arobanai found out what had happened. On the second hunt, Sefu had set up his net in front of the other nets and in this way had caught the first game that the drivers had scared up. But he had been caught. Now he was making the excuse that it was all just a misunderstanding. He had lost sight of the other hunters and hadn’t been able to find them. That’s the only reason he had set his net up where he just happened to be.

  “Sure, sure,” said old Moke. “We believe you. You shouldn’t make so much noise. Our mother, who died, isn’t your mother. So you don’t belong to us. You can set up your net wherever y
ou want to and hunt wherever you want and set up your camp wherever you want. We’ll go far away and set up our camp somewhere else, so that we won’t bother you.”

  Sefu had to admit to himself that he had made a mistake. With a group of four families he could never organize a drive. He apologized and said it had really been only a misunderstanding, but he would give back all the meat.

  “Then it’s all okay,” said Kenge and stood up immediately, and the others got up too and walked back with Sefu to his camp. There he told his wife harshly to give up the meat. And the young men rummaged through all the huts and looked for meat that was hidden under the roofs. Even the cooking pots were emptied. Sefu tried to cry, but everybody just laughed at him. He held his belly and cringed, “I’ll die of hunger and my family too. All my relatives will die because my brothers are taking away all my food. I’ll die because no one gives me the respect I deserve.”

  They let him blubber and returned to the Kumamolimo. The feast was again a feast, and everybody sang and danced and ate. In the distance they could hear Sefu moaning. The women called him names and imitated his wailing. But when everybody had eaten, Masisi filled a pot with meat and mushroom sauce that