Elephant Song

Once he heard a party of Bambuti women in the forest, laughing and chattering as they gathered mushrooms and roots.  He crept close and spied upon them, and his heart felt as though it would break.  He longed to join them, but knew he could not.

Then one day while wandering alone, Pirri cut the trail of a party of wazungu.  He studied their tracks and read that there were twenty of them, and that they moved with purpose and determination as though on a journey.  It was exceedingly strange to find other men in the forest, for the Hita and Uhali were afraid of hobgoblins and monsters, and never entered the tall trees if they could avoid doing so.  Pirri recovered a little of his old curiosity, and he followed the tracks of the wazungu.

They were moving well, and it took him many hours to catch up with them.

Then he discovered a most remarkable thing.

Deep in the forest he found a camp where many men were assembled.

They were all armed with the Banduki that had a strange banana-shaped appendage hanging from beneath either a tail or a penis, Pirri was not certain.  And while Pirri watched in astonishment from his hiding-place, these men fired their banduki and made a terrible clattering clamour that frightened the birds into flight and sent the monkeys scampering away across the forest galleries.

All this was extraordinary, but most marvelous of all was that these men were not Hita.  These days only Hita soldiers in uniform carried banduki.  These men were Uhali.

Pirri thought about what he had seen-for many days, and then the acquisitive instinct, which had been dormant in him since the coming of the Molimo, began to stir.  He thought about Chetti Singh, and wondered if Chetti Singh would give him tobacco if he told him about the armed men in the forest.

He hated Chetti Singh who had cheated and lied to him but as he thought about the tobacco, the saliva jetted from under his tongue.  He could almost taste it in his mouth.  The old tobacco hunger was like a pain in his chest and his belly.

The next day he -went to find Chetti Singh and he whistled and sang as he went.  He was coming alive again after the Molimo death.  He stopped only once, to hunt a colobus monkey that he spied in the treetops eating the yellow fruit of the mongongo tree.  His old skills came back to him and he crept to within twenty paces of the monkey without it suspecting his presence, and he shot a poisoned arrow that struck one of its legs.

The monkey fled shrieking through the branches, but it did not go far before it fell to earth, paralysed by the poison, its lips curled up in the dreadful rictus of agony as it frothed and trembled and shook before it died.  The poison on Pirri's arrow was fresh and strong.  He had found the nest of the little beetles only days before and had dug them up and crushed them to paste in a bark crucible and smeared his arrow-tips with the juices.

With his belly full of monkey meat and the wet skin folded into his barkfibre bag, he went on towards the rendezvous with the one-armed Sikh.

Pirri waited two days at the rendezvous, the clearing in the forest that had once been a logging camp but was now overgrown and reverting to jungle.  He wondered if the Uhali storekeeper who kept the little duka on the side of the main highway had passed on his message to Chetti Singh.

Then he began to believe that Chetti Singh had received the message but would not come to him.  Perhaps Chetti Singh had learned of the Molimo death and was also ostracising him.

Perhaps nobody would ever speak to Pirri again.  His recent high spirits faded as he sat alone in the forest waiting for Chetti Singh to come, and the sense of despair and confusion overwhelmed him all over again.

Chetti Singh came on the afternoon of the second day.  Pirri heard his Landrover long before it arrived and suddenly his anger and hatred had something on which to focus.

He thought how Chetti Singh had cheated and tricked him so many times before.  He thought how he had never given him everything he had promised; always there was short-weight of tobacco, and water in the gin.

Then he thought how Chetti Singh had made him kill the elephant.

Pirri had never been as angry as he was now.  He was too angry even to lash out at the trees around him, too angry to shout aloud.  His throat was tight and closed, and his hands shook.  Chetti Singh was the one who had brought the curse of the Molimo down upon him.  Chetti Singh had killed his soul.

Now he forgot about the armed wazungu in the forest.  He even forgot about the tobacco hunger, as he waited for Chetti Singh to come.

The mud-streaked Landrover butted its way into the clearing, pushing down the thick secondary growth of vegetation- ahead of it.  It stopped and the door opened and Chetti Singh stepped down.  He looked around him at the forest and wiped his, face with a white cloth.  He had put on much weight recently.  He was plumper now than he had been before he had lost the arm.  His shirt was stained dark with sweat between his shoulder-blades where he had sat against the leather seat.

He mopped his face and adjusted his turban before he shouted into the forest, Pirri!  Come out.  Pirri sniggered with laughter and whispered aloud, mimicking the Sikh.  Pirri!  Come out!  And then his voice was bitter Sechow he oozes grease like a joint of pork on the coals.

Pirri, come out!

Chetti Singh strutted around the clearing impatiently.  After a while he opened his fly and urinated, then he zipped his trousers and looked at his wristwatch.  Pirri, are you there?  Pirri did not answer him, and Chetti Singh said something angrily in a language that Pirri did not understand, but he knew that it was an insult.  I am going now, Chetti Singh shouted, and marched back to the Landrover.  O master, Pirri called to him.  I see you!  Do not go!  Chetti Singh spun around to face the forest.  Where are you?

he shouted.

I am here, o master.  I have something for you that will make you very happy.  Something of great value.  What is it?  Chetti Singh asked. Where are you?  Here I am.  Pirri stepped out of the shadows with the bow slung over his shoulder.  What stupidity is this?  Chetti Singh demanded.  Why do you hide from me?  I am your slave.  Pirri gri

Elephant teeth?  Chetti Singh asked, and there was greed in his voice.

Better than that.  Something of greater value.

Show me, Chetti Singh demanded.  Will you give me tobacco?  I will give you as, much tobacco as the gift is worth.  I will show you, Pirri agreed.  Follow me, o master.  Where is it?  How far is it?  Only a short distance, only that far.  Pirri indicated a small arc of the sky with two fingers, less than an hour's travel.

Chetti Singh looked dubious.  it is a thing of great beauty and value, Pirri wheedled.  You will be very pleased.  All right, the Sikh agreed.

Lead me to this treasure.  Pirri went slowly, allowing Chetti Singh to keep close behind him.  He went in a wide circle through the densest part of the forest, crossing the same stream twice.  There was no sun in the forest; a man steered by the fall of the land and the run of the rivers.

Pirri showed Chetti Singh the same river twice from different directions.  By now, the Sikh was totally lost, blundering blindly after the little-pygmy with no sense of distance or direction.

After the second hour Chetti Singh was sweating very heavily and his voice was rough.  How much further is it?  he asked.

Very close, Pirri assured him.  I will rest for a while, Chetti Singh said and sat down on a log.  When he looked up again, Pirri had vanished.

Chetti Singh was not alarmed.  He was accustomed to the elusive comings and goings of the Bambuti.  Come back here!  he ordered, but there was no reply.  Chetti Singh sat alone for a long time.  Once or twice he called out to the pygmy.  Each time his voice was shriller.