A Dancer In the Dust by Thomas H. Cook Read Free Book Online

return to your country, you will speak well of Lubanda… as it is.”
    She did not elaborate on the meaning she so obviously attached to those last three words, but simply returned to arranging the things in her basket, though now it appeared more like an inventory.
    She was still going through the basket when a tall man in orange robes approached her. Martine stopped what she was doing and turned to him. For a moment they spoke in what I presumed to be the local dialect, then Martine reached into her basket, brought out a bag, and gave it to the man. He nodded, turned, and walked away.
    “What was that all about?” I asked.
    “We have made an exchange,” Martine said in that same slow, deliberate way, as if she had to think of the words before she said them. “I give him something he needs and he gives me something I need. To me, he is giving wood. It is a wood that is from the north. It is good for carving.”
    “I didn’t see him give you any wood.”
    “This is because it is valuable,” Martine explained. “He is a Lutusi, and if something is of great value, he does not show it until he knows what I will give him in return.”
    “Where’s the wood then?”
    “It is hidden,” Martine said, then went back to sorting things out in her bag. “He will bring it to me in time.” She stopped and looked at me. “That is the way of the Lutusi.”
    She said this with neither admiration nor distain for this custom, an attitude I would come to know well in the coming months. Nor did I ever hear her romanticize Lubanda itself nor declare special powers for its people. She gave them no higher moral authority than anyone else, nor did she make any claim that their view of life was superior. Lubanda was what it was, a place she neither demeaned nor glorified.
    I glanced about the market. Most of that day’s customers were dressed in the same orange robes as the man who’d just walked away. They moved slowly among the sheds and stalls, eyeing the goods.
    “The Lutusi live by herding,” Martine said matter-of-factly, when she noticed me watching them. “They are nomads. They bring things here that they gather in their travels.” Her smile was delicate, but there was a strange force in her eyes. “When they are in this part of Lubanda, Tumasi is where they come to trade.”
    I glanced back toward the road that led out of the village.
    “Where does the road go?” I asked.
    “Into what you call ‘the bush,’” Martine answered.
    She returned to her basket and was still rifling through it when a young man approached us. He was dressed in brown slacks and a white, short-sleeve shirt. His gait was slow, but arrow-straight, and his stride was long.
    “Fareem,” Martine said without looking at either of us, “this is Ray Campbell. He is from the United States.”
    Fareem nodded softly, but said nothing. He was very tall and very thin, and I instantly thought of him in terms of Hollywood myth, one of the Zulu warriors who’d attacked the English forces at Isandlwana, slashed their way through the sort of men later portrayed by Stanley Baker and Michael Caine, and delivered a defeat that had stunned Imperial England.
    Martine finished arranging her goods inside the basket. “It is for balance,” she told me without my asking. “That is why I must put things in the basket just so.” She smiled again, this time quite warmly. “Welcome to Lubanda.”
    “Thank you.”
    She placed the basket on her head, where it seemed immediately to find purchase, then turned and headed toward the road. Once there, she stopped and looked back at me. “May I pose the question, who sent you here?”
    “I am working for Hope for Lubanda,” I said.
    She nodded toward my Land Cruiser. “Is it true that Rupala now has many cars like that one?”
    “Quite a few, yes.”
    “So many like you are coming?”
    I nodded. “Lots of people are trying to help, yes,” I said. “Lubandans are the last people to get their independence and