Moonlight Sleeping on a Midnight Lake

by
Savoy Truffle

Part Five

Alibi II blows its cover when a scattering of structures in the standard yellow-painted concrete appear on either side of the road. The long ones surrounding a soccer field are the middle school. The big square one is the medical dispensary. The smaller ones are all shops of some sort. In between the buildings stand lean-tos made of wood poles and palm fronds, which serve as carpenters’ and mechanics’ workshops and roadside eateries.

The taxi rolls through the center of town, marked by a market space on one side of the road and a mosque on the other—the ubiquitous yellow and concrete, but with the addition of blue trim and the minaret to break the square monotony.

The two-to-three-hour midday sièste that Xander has come to love is just ending. Long lines of boys and girls in white and khaki make their way along the road back to the schools.

The taxi passes a primary school on the left, then lurches to a stop at Lucien’s word. The apprentice throws their bags off the roof and Lucien leads Xander away from the main road on a narrow dirt path that wanders its way around leafy trees and bare corn fields.

As they near a concrete compound, children spring from nowhere, giggling behind their hands and clamoring to take the visitor’s backpacks. It seems ridiculous to hand his bag to a child half his size, but when Lucien hands his over without a fight, Xander follows suit. The kids lift the bags onto their heads carry them off easily, giggling all the way.

The entire family is ready and waiting by the time they reach the compound and they’re swept through the gate on a wave of laughter and chatter—swept up, in, around and down into the best chairs that can be mustered on short notice.

They try to offer him water, but Lucien explains that Xander can only drink bottled water, isn’t habitué. But Lucien’s mother can’t stand the thought of not giving Xander something to drink, so slips some coins into a young girl’s fist and before Xander knows it, the girl is back and a warm bottle of Coca-cola is being pressed into his hand. It’s one of the least refreshing things imaginable, but he drinks it with a smile on his face.

Xander just sits in his chair while the conversation runs circles around him and every once in a while Lucien offers a translation or an explanation, but mostly it doesn’t matter. The family vibe is strong and undiscriminating and Xander feels at home.

Like in Sokodé, the women of the compound wear thin, brightly covered scarves with beading or embroidery over their heads, covering their hair and shoulders, but not their faces or even their necks. West Africa seems to espouse a kinder, gentler, more rainbow-colored form of Islam.

It’s all women and children for the moment—the man of the compound, Lucien’s uncle, is out somewhere and Lucien’s father has been dead for years. It’s maman and the aunts and the cousins and an older girl sitting apart—perched on a low stool by the fire, tending the contents of a large cauldron—Lucien’s sister.

For a moment, Xander watches her, wonders, but then he gets distracted again.

Part Six

By his second night in the village, Xander is convinced you can be fed to death and that there’s no escape. When he doesn’t finish everything on his plate, Maman stares and frets. When he does clear his plate, Maman smiles… then gives him more. It’s a no-win situation.

On his first night, Xander worked hard to consume not one, but two full-size servings of fufu with peanut sauce… only to find that was just the first course.

The second course was chicken and rice and he managed to finish three-quarters of the plate, which he considered a major accomplishment.

The—surprise!—third course was pasta and he managed not to throw up on his plate, which was nothing short of a miracle.

He fell into a starch coma about an hour after dinner and didn’t wake up until morning.

The meals since have been single course, thank Allah, but that just means more servings. When he’s not eating—if such times really exist—he hangs out in the shade of a baobab and lets the entertainment come to him.

Or maybe he is the entertainment.

In the morning, the old men gather around him and talk, not to him, but to each other, as they chew on large pieces of wood Lucien has tried to convince him are toothpicks. At midday, before and after lunch, a group of school boys teach him a card game that’s basically Uno using regular cards. In the afternoon, the children who aren’t in school gather round to giggle and stare and Xander teaches them how to do the hand jive.

His cell phone is with him and actually seems to have reception, but it doesn’t ring. Giles knows he needs the break and there must not be anything urgent. Lucien pops in and out between business with his uncle and visits to friends and it’s all good.

Though they sleep in the same room, whose other inhabitants have been banished, Lucien isn’t exactly in the mood, but Xander respects that. Sex in his parents basement was always hard enough and this is closer, the walls are uninsulated and the action is more taboo.

It’s nice just to have Lucien there beside him the first night, but the second, Lucien doesn’t slip into the room until well past midnight. He slides under Xander’s arm and Xander smiles and starts to drift back off to sleep, but then the words come.

The words shuffle and creep, full of euphemisms and half sentences, and expect the listener to know what can’t be said.

It’s his sister, Amina. Nineteen years old and the man she was arranged to marry died of snakebite six months ago. They’ve been looking for someone suitable—it’s best to be a first wife—but the search is about to get a whole lot harder.

She’s been hiding it and she won’t tell him who but he doesn’t like the look in her eyes and when she can’t hide anymore she’ll be lucky to be a third wife or even a fourth and never a favored one.

He’s afraid she’ll try to take care of it and Xander knows what’s coming, but there’s no way to stop it.

“You can help her. You can give her a better life.”

Part Seven

“We can help her. We can give her a better life,” Xander says and her father looks suspicious but the village chief looks interested and the interpreter nods and Xander keeps talking. “You have all sensed that the spirits are strong in this girl, and maybe you have also been afraid. Maybe she seems restless and does not seem to know her own power, but we know and we can teach her to control it. When you need her to return, she will and she will protect you if necessary, but where she is going now she will be fed and clothed and cared for… and she will have a little something extra to send home.”

Xander steals a glance at Lucien who offers a slight smile and a subtle nod. Xander’s perfected the spiel by now, knows just the right balance to strike, appealing to love, compassion, fear and greed in perfect measure. He studies his audience and moves to close the deal.

“We know that her departure will be a loss, but that cannot be helped and we can give you a little something today to ease that loss.” He starts to pull an envelope from his pocket—slow and subtle, but by no means unnoticed. “She will be cared for and the greatness of your sacrifice does not go unappreciated.”

A few calabashes of millet-brew are shared and the deal is done. They give Espoir the afternoon to pack and say goodbye to her friends and family. All her possessions fit in a small, second-hand gym bag, but the goodbyes could go on forever. Xander would love to give her forever, or at least another day, but time is time for second thoughts and second thoughts are dangerous.

The important thing is to get her to England in the first place and if she changes her mind a month or two later, no one and nothing will force her to stay. The Council will even pay for her return ticket and send her off with a tidy sum. If Xander didn’t know these things for a fact, he couldn’t, wouldn’t be doing this job. This job that separates strong, frightened girls from their families and homes.

But he does know and he believes what he says in the spiel about a better life—except when he doesn’t.

There’s no phone in the village and no cell reception for miles, so they stop at the nearest town and Xander makes his call to the Council. The papers are waiting for them by the time they reach the capital and Espoir is on a plane the next morning—off to her better life.


The words and their echo hang in the air and Xander wants to say he can’t, but he can’t. He can only say he won’t, but those words won’t come. There’s so much he hasn’t done here, so many lives of suffering to which he’s turned his blind eye.

It’s too close now.

And he’s tired.

He can’t see Lucien’s face, but he can feel bare skin beneath his palm

“Okay.” The word is barely audible, but the promise fills the darkened room.

Part Eight

Xander stares out the front windshield. The driver curses a blue streak as the van swerves to avoid a goat, forcing a teenage boy to dive into a ditch to preserve his own life.

Xander doesn’t blink.

He sees nothing and all he hears are the plans he’s running over again and again in his head, convincing himself that it has to be done and reminding himself how.

The Council has a world-saving mission—not a person-saving mission, not a girl-saving mission. It has friends in high places, low places and distant places, but it doesn’t call in favors lightly.

And even if it did, what then? Send this girl to England to train with the slayers? Ask Andrew to call an ambulance when her water breaks?

No.

He can’t send her away, he has to take her away. Has to take her home, and home is what it says on your passport. Home is America.

He can’t remember how many days have passed since he made his promise, but he’s spent the time concocting an elaborate love story. The story of a chance meeting in a crowded marketplace, of a scarred and weary development worker and humble village girl, of a connection of souls that transcends both language and culture.

The tale is touching, timeless… and totally unnecessary.

He’ll take her for a medical exam, fill out the forms for a fiancé visa and tell one four-word lie…

“I knocked her up.”

Or, if he wants to be classy about it, “I got her pregnant.”

… and they’ll be on their way.

That’s the easy part, but he doesn’t stop running through it because it’s that or the hard part and there’s no backing out now.

His cell phone rings and its Andrew and of course he knows that Xander is taking a break, but there’s supposed to be this slayer up near Dapaong and that’s Togo, isn’t it, and would Xander mind retrieving her before he leaves for Nigeria?

Xander waits out the babble and then: “Sorry, Andrew, you’re gonna have to find someone else for Dapaong. And for Nigeria, too. I’m going home.”

The call cuts out in the middle of Andrew’s stammered demand for the explanation Xander doesn’t feel like giving and that’s the moment when he realizes it’s over. He’s going home. He’s leaving Africa—maybe for a few years, maybe forever.

He starts looking out the windshield—really looking.

At three women walking down the road in flip-flops with babies wrapped on their backs and bundles of wood balanced on their heads, arms swinging by their sides.

At a kid on a bike, dressed in a school uniform and peddling his heart out while two of his friends balance on the back rack, laughing, legs splayed in every direction.

At skies that look bluer, fields that look greener, and trees that never looked so majestic as at this moment.

At a man walking down the road in a hot pink snowsuit.

He turns to share the joke with Lucien, but Lucien’s not up here. Xander is in the seat of privilege and comfort and Lucien is in the back somewhere, next to his sister, telling her everything is going to be okay.

Xander wishes someone were telling him that.

He thinks he’s gonna miss this place.

The End

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