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said perhaps he was faking blindness, he could see everything, the village headman gave him a distinguished welcome, he admitted that for the first time his knowledge of the dark arts had failed him, he proved that Papa Kibandi was a threat to the entire village, he revealed the old man’s tricks, said most of the deaths in Mossaka were his doing, announced that to date Papa Kibandi had eaten more than ninety-nine people, ‘I have come here for you, I am here to deliver you from this evil, for this man is the most dangerous man in all this region, let him not eat his hundredth victim’, he said, and to back up his claim, he quoted, from memory, in alphabetical order, the names of his ninety-nine victims, only one of them lived outside of Mossaka, young Niangui-Boussina, Tembé-Essouka explained her death, a swap between Papa Kibandi and an initiate in the village of Siaki, none other than the Aunt Etalie’s husband, Papa Kibandi had set it all up, he had eaten his own niece, ‘I am here today to deliver you from this devil, Papa Kibandi, this is the first time I have left my own shack, and my masks, of course it’s not for me to put an end to him, Tembé-Essouka never kills, he liberates, you must decide, you just need to catch his harmful double who is hiding out in the forest now, he knows his time is almost up, I have used my special powers to immobilise him, if you lay hands on this animal you’ll be able to do what you want with his master, his death won’t be on your conscience, because you’ll only have attacked an animal, he told us exactly where the old rat was hiding, they thanked him, gave him a white mule, a red cockerel and a sack of cowries, the sorcerer refused to spend the night
in the village, he would return to Lekana by night, the village headman tried to persuade him, ‘sleep here tonight, Venerable Tembé-Essouka, it’s dark now, we value your great wisdom’, the sorcerer answered, ‘Honourable Leader, your words warm my heart, but the blind man has no need of the light of day, I must now return to my hut, my masks await me, don’t worry about me, thank you for these gifts’, he grabbed the red cockerel by its feet , tied his sack of cowries to the mule’s back, and set off home
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    the next day, the chief citizen of Mossaka called an extraordinary meeting of the elders, an urgent decision was taken, to catch Papa Kibandi unawares, so twelve strong men were appointed to go out into the forest and track down the rat, the twelve strong men armed themselves with 12-bore rifles, poisoned arrows, they circled the part of the bush where Tembé-Essouka had said the rat was, wiped out all the rats they could find, at the foot of a paradise flower they discovered a rat hole, covered over with dead leaves, they dug and they dug for a full half hour till they’d cornered the old beast, who could scarcely move, perhaps he knew his time was up, he couldn’t escape this time, he bared his teeth, flashed his incisors threateningly, for once it didn’t work, he inspired pity now, not fear, an amber coloured liquid dribbled from his mouth, at this one of the twelve strong men aimed his arrow, let it fly at the beast, he squealed as a liquid as white as palm wine spurted from him, a second arrow shot his brains to pieces, then they took up their rifles, these twelve strong men, and peppered the creature with bullets, just to make sure
on returning to the village, the twelve strong men heard, to their surprise, of the death of Papa Kibandi, no one went to the dead man’s house, the old man’s corpse was laid out in the living room, its staring eyes flipped back in its head, the tongue, a dark indigo blue, lolling towards the right ear, the corpse already rotting, a pestilential smell filled the air, and towards the end of the day as darkness began to fall, Mama Kibandi and my young master rolled the corpse in palm leaves and