The Viceroy of Ouidah Read Free Page B

sacrificed a goat to Gu, the God of War. Mama Benz hiccoughed. Adelina sneezed and sprayed pineapple juice over the table. Uncle Procopio offered to play Dvořák’s Humoresque ; and the twin brothers, Euclides and Policarpo, squabbled about whether the family motto should read, ‘Flies are not visible in society!’ or ‘Flies are not acceptable in society!’
    But as usual, the favourite topic was the loss of Dom Francisco’s fortune; and as usual, the family’s ‘German’, Karl-Heinrich (Gazozo) da Silva, set his fists on the table and began his annual dissertation:
    â€˜I have it on the authority of my late father, Anton Wilhelm, that Our Illustrious Ancestor deposited thirty-six million U.S. dollars in a Swiss bank . . . ’
    â€˜It wasn’t a Swiss bank,’ Agostinho interrupted. ‘It was the Banco Coutinho in Bahia.’
    â€˜Petrification,’ shrieked the President, ’ . . . Paralysation! . . . Mystification! . . . Mummification!’
    â€˜And that your Uncle Antonio ...’
    â€˜They weren’t dollars. They were cruzeiros . . .’
    â€˜ . . . lost the paper . . . ’
    â€˜He didn’t lose it. He drank it.’
    â€˜ . . . to sensibilize . . . to organize . to mobilize . . .’
    â€˜I tell you, he burned the paper from the bank. He put it in a glass. Then he poured in a bottle of champagne and drank the lot.’
    â€˜I don’t believe you.’
    â€˜It was a big glass.’
    â€˜And the fleet?’ asked Yaya Adelina. ‘What happened to the fleet?’
    â€˜Sunk by the British.’
    â€˜ . . . to defeat this macabre plot to massacre our people . . .’
    â€˜Stlen by the Brazilian Government.’
    â€˜They should give it back.’
    â€˜They won’t give it back.’
    â€˜We should start a process.’
    â€˜ . . . to steal the incredible riches of our country . . .’
    â€˜Peanuts,’ said Uncle Procopio.
    â€˜Peanuts?’
    â€˜We’d starve without peanuts.’
    â€˜ . . . and the thunderous riposte of our Armed Forces . . .’
    â€˜And palm-oil . . . ’
    â€˜ . . . and our scientific and operational regime . . .’
    â€˜But peanuts give you cancer.’
    â€˜But they’re all we’ve got.’
    Africo da Silva said the President was giving him a headache. Gustave said you got headaches from the harmattan. Someone else said you got them from fruit bats, and Papa Agostinho wound up wearily by saying that Dom Francisco was ruined the year the United States stopped using cowrie-shells for money.
    Mama Benz asked what a cowrie really was.
    â€˜Cowrie is a snail,’ he said. ‘It lives in a river called Mississippi. In the old days, the Americans would throw a slave in the river, the cowries would feed on the body, and then they’d haul it up and that’s how they got money to buy more slaves.’
    â€˜Revolution or Death!’
    â€˜So when they passed the law, there were no more cowries ...’
    â€˜Marxist-Leninism is our only philosophical guide!’
    â€˜ ... and that’s how Dom Francisco was ruined!’
    â€˜Ah! Cette chinoiserie de la Révolution! ’ Gustave da Silva shook his lovely head.
    â€˜And the fleet?’ wailed Yaya Adelina. ‘Whatever became of the fleet?’

TWO
    AT TWENTY-FIVE minutes past eight, a woman’s wail rose up from the belly of the compound.
    â€˜Ey . . . yeo . . . yo . . . yo . . . o . . . o . . . o . . . wo . . . wo . . . we . . . !’
    The diners widened their arms and went silent. A girl, all arms and legs, rushed in.
    â€˜It’s Mama Wéwé,’ she shouted. ‘She won’t eat.’
    Shooing Muscovy ducks before them, the Da Silvas followed the girl down an alley to the house with purple shutters.
    They peered in. Moths whirled around a glutinous patch of lamplight.
    Dom Francisco’s own daughter, Wéwé the White