Shave the vine and roots, pour water on the shavings, drain into a calabash. Smash the vines stalks and crush the root flesh, squeeze the juice out. Bruise the snake fangs and mash the ants. Throw them in, all together, everything mixed and then into a clay pot. Cook over a low fire, slow, slow, ladle away the scum, cook and cook until thick and dark, dark brown, like burnt sugar.

Whisper the name of thy enemy or friend, whisper and sing their dreams.

‘It is not a woman’s work,’ Mr Hendrik said, when she’d first asked him for the secret. ‘Not for you.’

She begged and pestered, knew he wouldn’t deny her.

‘It will call the evil down and curse you!’ he said.

‘He is here already!’ she said. ‘Look, brother, look! It is the captain!’

‘No!’

But he showed Josephine how to make it, what to do.

‘Do not eat for a day and the morning before, then not for another day and the morning after. The pot must be new, never used, and never after, and always the red clay pot. Do not breathe its boiling breath.’ He gathered the ingredients, spoke over them, bashed them with the handle of a machete, and showed her the order and the time everything took. ‘Be exact,’ he said. ‘You will be sick for three days after. Do not fear. Leave and be alone, do not speak to women, and never the young women and never none weighed with child. The breath will be in you for these three days but then it will leave and you will recover.’

It had taken her some days to gather all that was necessary. And yes, she had been sick. She painted more wourali paste across Krüger’s cut cheek.

‘Better this way,’ she said. ‘You dream all there to see. And my brother too, Mr Hendrik be free. He dream some place, you see it.’

Outside, rain began to pummel the ground. It fell in a great roar and within seconds everything was mud and spreading pools of water.

Josephine took red and yellow parrot feathers out from her sleeve, wove them into the obia around Krüger’s neck. It was to aid the spirit flying and to give strength. There were enough feathers for Mr Hendrik, too (they were joined by the obia and must fly together). They were brothers in death.

Krüger’s limbs became heavy, and then he couldn’t feel them anymore, only vaguely, and then he forgot about them. His neck stiffened and his heart slowed, slowed, he heard it as though from far away. And then the heartbeat was a voice, calling him, come, and then it was singing, singing.

Josephine stayed beside the white man, sang softly and listened to the rain as it washed the world clean.

Book VIII

BOOK VIII

THE PENULTIMATE DEFEAT; OR, A MOMENTARY DIVERSION