| |
Once, Gamkasdorp had been the centre of a bustling trade route, tucked away next to the majestic Swartberg, dividing the Groot and Klein Karoo. Buyers and sellers had traveled from every village and shanty town in the area to gather in the sprawling market place, where they would shout and bargain with good-natured zeal. Now, though, the only people who visited were tourists looking to catch a glimpse of Africa’s lost innocence.
*
ROB WAS ONE OF THEM. A successful financial manager from the City of Gold, he had been in Gamkasdorp for three days and had exhausted the town’s meagre resources. The first day had gone well enough. He had visited the ancient ruins and hiked through part of the nature reserve. He relished the sense of vastness and the world-renowned biodiversity of the Cape Floral Region.
The second day had seen more hiking in the peaceful mountain atmosphere. Rob had explored the historic community of De Hel that had been cut off from the outside world for centuries, with little or no communication. He had bought a few mementos of his visit and had retired early after drinks in his bedroom at the cozy little B&B run by the local couple who didn’t speak with any recognizable accent.
*
THE SUN HAD RISEN ON the third day and Rob had dragged himself out of bed, trying to think of a way to fill the hours until his Uber arrived that afternoon to transport him back to the airport, ending his adventure through the forgotten villages and dusty back roads of the Cape. It was time to go back and face the daily grind of office life. And to reconnect with Nicole. If she was still talking to him after that last night they’d spent together.
Sure, they’d had a few drinks. Not too many, if memory served. But, as usual, it was the tequila shots that had done the damage. One thing led to another. Misinterpreted words bruised fragile egos. Then they were kneeling on the wooden floor of her Sandton apartment amongst the splintered fragments of a shattered relationship.
His job was getting to him. Making those wheels spin round and round in his head, spiraling out of control as he tried to stay on top of things. Stress had been taking a toll for years, wearing him down. He knew that. Twelve-hour days, never time for a break, not even to slip out for lunch once or twice a week. It had torn apart previous relationships, forcing him to choose between domestic bliss or a successful career. There had never really been any conscious choice. More of a kneejerk response, a lifetime of habit forming neural pathways that he clung to for stability, and he would throw himself back into the boardroom, a driven professional, determined to prove something to somebody. Even if it killed him.
Nicole worked just as hard, curator for one of Johannesburg’s smaller privately-owned museums. She wanted to build it up, attract investors, expand its customer base. Spending hours updating social media sites and boosting posts to targeted groups around the world. Endless meetings. Cocktail evenings followed by early morning strategy sessions. The financial rewards would be there at the end of the day, for both of them. But would there be anyone left to share them with?
It had been her idea to come here. Spend some time on their own, away from their jobs, friends, family. Without the daily distractions. To rediscover the fire that had pulled them together when they’d first met. She’d heard about this rural community when it had been discovered years before, frozen in time, and had always wanted to experience its timeless tranquility. But after that last night, they had been unable to face another moment together. Two volatile personalities, they knew that at least one of them was likely to explode if they didn’t back away for a while.
Everything had been paid for in advance. It would have been a waste if nobody had used the reservation. And maybe it would be good for them to spend some time apart. Although this isolated country village wouldn’t have been his own first choice of destination. Born and raised on the paved streets of Johannesburg, the fast pace of the big city was in his blood, its smog and pollution in his lungs.
Yet here he was, in this rustic backwater. Might as well carry on trying to make the best of it.
Rob decided to revisit De Hel and look for something interesting. Something exotic. Something unique. Something that would make a complete success of his trip. Something that would grab Nicole’s attention. Let her know that he had been thinking of her even when he was thousands of miles away. A peace offering.
*
THE SHOP STOOD BETWEEN two large, ornamental buildings, the function of which seemed to be lost in the mists of time. It was only half the height of its neighbours, and stood a few feet back from them, as if to hide itself from the world. The bright, almost gaudy paintwork of the village was completely foreign to this shop. The window was grimy. The walls were filthy. The door was warped. The only thing that caught Rob’s attention was the display in the window. It was surrounded by posters and pieces of cardboard bearing scratchy hieroglyphics. Rob didn’t understand these, but the objects in the window needed no explanation.
They were shrunken heads.
*
THE PROPRIETOR GRINNED broadly and wiped the back of a hand across his nose, drowning out the bells above the door with a loud snort. Rob smiled back, shaking his head as the little man greeted him with a torrent of clicks and guttural consonants. At six feet tall, Rob towered over the local resident, and had to bend his head at an awkward angle to avoid colliding with the feathers and chicken feet that hung from the ceiling every few inches. He rubbed his hand over his shaved scalp, convinced that he could feel things crawling over it.
“English,” he said, slowly and clearly. “I-am-English.” He spread his hands. “Understand? English?”
“Certainly, sir,” the diminutive shopkeeper beamed, eyes lighting up as he straightened the threadbare animal-skin he wore slung across a shoulder. “What can I do for you today?”
Rob coughed and moved towards the ramshackle table that functioned as a counter. Every step exposed a fresh view of the shop walls, dried herbs and mummified snakes bobbing into sight before being replaced by hanging feathers and walkie-talkies. The musty aroma of dead things wrestled mid-air with fragrant incense of sandalwood and jasmine. From somewhere behind the counter came the sound of a rooster raising the alarm, briefly, before being cut off in mid-doodle-doo.
Best get this over with as quickly as possible, Rob thought, searching for the least dusty spot to stand where he wouldn’t have to touch anything.
“I would like to see one of those heads in the window.”
“Any particular one?”
“No, any one will do.” Rob leaned against the counter, crossing his legs. Then he noticed the jars lined up along the side of the counter, their anatomical contents drifting lazily in multi-coloured suspension fluids, and he moved back to stand in the middle of the cramped room, dusting himself off and looking for somewhere to wipe his hands.
The shopkeeper returned with a head held tenderly in his hands. He placed it on the counter, stroking its hair lovingly, with a sorrowful glance at his potential customer. It measured maybe three inches across, and wasn’t just a skull, but a perfect tiny version of a man’s head.
“I’m not sure I should sell you one of these, sir. This one was my father. The other two were my brother and my best friend.”
“How did they come to be in this... er... predicament?” Rob lifted the head from its spot on the counter. It really was a work of art. He could see every detail on the shriveled face. Wrinkles around the eyes, a mole next to the nose, even tiny hairs growing out of the ears. He held it directly in front of his face, looking into its glassy eyes. There was a faint scent of leather, not unpleasant.
“It’s a sad tale, sir. When our little community was first exposed to the excitement of the modern world, many of us left this part of the country for the mountains in the north. We thought we could isolate ourselves there, find a quiet spot to carry on our cultures and traditions without being disturbed.”
Rob lifted the head to see underneath. As expected, there was the hole where it would have connected to the spinal column, now closed with loose skin that had been sewn into place.
“We went on many hunting expeditions. This was our undoing. One day, while hunting some men – sorry, I mean, while hunting a man-eating creature from one of the more mountainous areas, we were ambushed by the locals, who for some reason regarded this monster as a sacred beast. These people took us to their village, where they proceeded to pray to the sacred animal. The chief of the village ordered us to be sacrificed to the guardian of the village.” The man’s fingers were writhing in agitation at the memory. “Sir, you have to remember that, to us, this was a new world, still largely unexplored. We had never experienced any other culture outside our own.”
“Of course.”
Rob turned to find better light closer to the murky windows. The tiny ears still sported steel rings, now grotesquely large in comparison. The head stared back in silent disapproval of this intimate scrutiny.
“The locals took hold of us and wrestled my father to his knees. Then they – oh, sir, it is still painful to remember – they cut off his head.”
Rob, though he had been expecting it, was shocked. The head almost slipped from his grasp and as he caught hold of it, the mouth fell open. He looked at the yellow teeth and the blackened tongue for a moment before snapping the jaws shut. The shopkeeper went on, without so much as a glance at his customer.
“Before I could move, my brother and my friend followed my poor father. The fiends tried to force me to the ground as well. During the struggle, my lucky talisman fell at the chief’s feet. He picked it up.” The shopkeeper fumbled around his neck and produced a roughly polished piece of glittering jade. It had been carved into the shape of a praying mantis. “The chief fell to his knees, recognizing that I was protected. When the others saw this, they too fell to the ground. I picked up my talisman and waved it around. They covered their heads.” The shopkeeper put the charm back around his neck. “I told them to get up. They did so. I asked them what they had intended to do with my companions’ heads. They told me they embalmed them and placed them on an altar to their ancestors. I told them to carry on. When the heads were ready, I took them and returned to civilization.”
Rob chuckled to relieve the tension that had built up during the story. The natural story-teller had held his audience spellbound. But now, looking around the dusty premises... civilization? Rob didn’t think so. The bright lights and cracked pavements of Johannesburg, that was where civilized people lived. That was the real jungle.
“How did they do it?” This seemed to be the obvious question for Rob to ask.
“Sir? With an axe, I think?”
Rob turned in frustration. “No, after that. How did they shrink them?”
The shopkeeper pondered for a long moment. “You know, sir, I never actually saw the process. Probably a tribal mystery, passed down from father to son. You know how these things are. Sap from a sacred tree, blood of a tokoloshe, special berries picked at the height of the full moon, all mixed together over a blazing fire while someone mutters a magical incantation.” He moved to bump Rob with his elbow, but Rob moved away. “They’re not sophisticated like us, eh?”
“Right.” Rob’s mind was made up. This was it. He had to have it. Nicole would flip. She would be the envy of her colleagues at the museum. It might even be worth something to people who specialized in these matters. Headologists. Shrunkenicians.
The witch doctor reached around and took the head from Rob. He held it at arm’s length and squinted at it.
“I put them in the window this morning so they could get some air. It seems to have worked wonders.”
“It does,” Rob replied. “In fact, they look so good that I’m prepared to offer you two hundred bucks for one of them. Do you have a card machine?”
The shopkeeper stared at him. “Sir, these are my friends! And no, we are a cash-only business, I’m afraid.”
“Three hundred.” Rob made a show of checking the pockets in his jeans. He knew exactly how much cash he had on him, and exactly where it was. But this was the art of negotiation, as practiced and perfected in many a big-city boardroom. Although the current situation was more like buying land with a handful of coloured beads.
“Sir, that is the most immoral, unscrupulous, mercenary-”
“Four hundred. But that’s my final offer. Without a card machine, I can’t go higher than that.”
The shopkeeper lowered himself onto a wooden stool of indeterminate colour. He put his hand over his heart and shook his head.
“Sir. Really. They are not for sale. They shouldn’t even have been out here in the open. I need to put them back where they belong, before it gets dark and their spirits are tempted to wander.”
Rob held up his hand. This was taking too long. “Five hundred bucks is as high as I can go.” Rob took the notes from a back pocket and ran his thumb along the top of the bundle. “Come on. You’ll never see money like this again, not in this place. I bet you don’t make that much in a month.” He glanced around the store, trying to penetrate the shadows that lurked in every corner. Dozens of glassy eyes stared back at him from the walls, the floor, even the ceiling. “Not with this junk.”
“Sir,” the shopkeeper sighed, “I can see that you are determined. I also realize that I must put a stop to this morbid attachment. After all, my father has taken his place with our ancestors. This,” he held up the head, “is merely the vessel that contained him during his time on this earthly plain. I will therefore sell it to you for five hundred and fifty bucks.”
“Done!” Rob counted the notes onto the counter while the witch doctor wrapped his newest possession in an old rag.
“Father would have wanted it this way,” the shopkeeper sighed as he handed the package to its new owner. “Please take good care of him.”
Rob nodded and left the shop. He couldn’t help the smile of satisfaction that flickered across his face as he closed the door behind him and the bells and wind-chimes jangled one last time.
The final result had never been in doubt.
*
THE UBER DRIVER APOLOGIZED for being late. But hey, dude, this place is in the middle of nowhere. The red tint to his eyes told Rob that at least it had been a relaxing ride. It wasn’t illegal to smoke and drive. And it’s not as if there was any traffic to worry about.
Stretching himself out in the Jeep’s spacious back seat, Rob unwrapped the object in his lap. He lifted it till he could look straight into its eyes.
“Alas, poor Yorkie,” he muttered, “I knew his smell.”
The driver took a long slow look in the rear-view mirror. Rob noticed and met his gaze. “Let’s just keep our eyes on the road, sunshine, alright?” The driver shrugged. No doubt he had seen stranger things in this job.
The Jeep hit a bump in what passed for the road, and Rob slid across the polished leather seat. He used his shoulders to catch himself, not losing his grip on the head in his hands.
As he was about to bless the driver with some choice tips on how to drive as if he wasn’t the only person whose life was at stake, the shrunken head’s mouth fell open again. Fascinated, Rob ran his fingers over the perfectly-preserved teeth. He could feel the cracks and cavities of the head as well as he could his own. Each tooth was a miniature masterpiece, showing the wear and tear associated with a long life and regular meals, but still securely in place. Healthy country living, Rob assumed. No fizzy drinks. His finger slipped and poked under the blackened tongue, which flopped to one side. There was a slip of paper where the tongue had been. Intrigued, Rob drew it out. He looked at it for a long moment, reading it three times to compensate for the bouncing of the vehicle and to make sure he’d read it correctly. Then he fell back against the seat, laughing uncontrollably.
He laughed till tears ran down his face. He laughed so hard he dropped the shrunken head. The driver made a huge effort to keep his eyes away from the rear-view mirror. These Joburg tourists...
The piece of paper drifted slowly to the carpeted floor, spinning lazily through beams of dust. It landed next to the open mouth it had occupied only moments before. Tiny letters ran across the paper, small but easy to read in the late afternoon sun.
“Made in Japan.”