The Pirate's Daughter by Robert Girardi Read Free Book Online Page A

poor Bupus,” he said to Wilson. “But we are all of us from the village of Lifdawa, and it was upon that place one Saturday, when everyone was at the markets, that the Andas first came down from the mountains with the guns and the machetes and the killing. They killed everyone, men, women, children. They killed all day long till the dry ground was muddy with Bupu blood. All here were wounded and left for dead in the piles of butchered bodies, but at night we crawled away to the jungle. Many months later, we got on the boats to come to America. Your country is good to us, but it is also not too good. In Bupanda I went to the mission school, and before the Time of Killing I was a student at the university in Rigala. I studied engineering. Now”—he gestured with his mutilated hand—“I drive a truck.”
    Wilson nodded respectfully. The whole world remembered the horrible Bupandan massacres of five years before. The Bupus and the Andas, two tribes that had shared that part of West Africa for a thousand years suddenly rose up and began slaughtering each other, with all the force of a natural disaster. The causes were inscrutable, beyond rational understanding—what is the motivation of a tidal wave or an erupting volcano?—but the effects were immediate. Amillion dead on both sides, a million refugees already, and more coming.
    The last of the food was consumed a little after midnight, and the women came and cleared the table. A last bottle of tejiyaa was poured and drunk. This potent stuff tasted like kerosene. Wilson had a hard time choking it down, but choke it down he did, in the final round of toasts to N’fumi, the birthday boy. The stars glittered brilliantly overhead, the crowds passed along the streets, and there was a warm, comfortable feeling in his chest. These Bupus were all fine fellows. He felt he was among friends. The tragedies they had witnessed did not prevent them from enjoying life. Let that be a lesson to his dread! He looked from the stars into his oiled leather cup, and when he looked up again, he was alone at the table with Tulj and N’fumi.
    â€œWhere is everyone?” Wilson said.
    Tulj laughed. “They went to the dancing at the Nkifta Discotheque, but us, we do not go to the dancing.”
    â€œWhere do you go?” Wilson said.
    â€œWe go to the fights,” Tulj said. “Very big fights tonight.”
    â€œYou’re kidding,” Wilson said, excited. “I was supposed to go to the fights, but”—he looked down at his watch—“isn’t it a little late?”
    â€œOh, no, they have not yet started,” Tulj said.
    â€œWould you mind if I come along?” Wilson said.
    The African leaned back and smiled. “How much money do you have?”

12
    Tulj drove an old Fiat three-wheel cycle truck with a four-and-a-half-foot open bed and a single wavering headlight. The brothers sat pressed knee to knee in the small cab up front; Wilson took the back and held on as best he could. Through rust holes in the bed, he could see the pavement passing beneath, and when they slowed down, he caught the gassy stink of exhaust. The air and the stars did him good. He leaned back, sobering, against the curve of the cab as they pulled over the Lacey Memorial Bridge onto the interstate.
    Tonight, Wilson’s dread manifested itself as a dull pulse of pain in his gut like a toothache. He had lived so much of his life by schedules and routine; he took the same bus at the same time, went to the same office, and did mostly the same things. Until recently there had been few surprises. It was through this sad and careful voodoo that he had sought to keep the dread at bay. But since the discovery of the tarot cards his routines had failed him. He knew something terrible was on its way, closing in; a clinching in his gut told him so: Even the blandest of foods, the egg salad sandwich he ate for lunch every day, gave him indigestion. He