"Of course we have the mad in America, Henri, only not so . . . ."

       Henri laughed. "Not so blatant, those mad people of America, Cher Jacques. Is that it? You keep them out of sight."

       "Perhaps. Some of the homeless . . . ." I shrugged, stared at the woman across the street from us.

       She was small, though her back was humped after the fashioning of osteoporosis, and I couldn’t be sure her height wasn’t illusion. She looked small. Until she started her cursing.

       "Is it just us foreigners?"

       Henri threw back his head and laughed in that larger-than-life way I came to envy. "We are touchy, aren’t we, Dear Boy. Why, I’m foreign, too, even if we Froggies were here toads’ years, and I’ve come a toad stool long since. But, yes, Madame does not like the foreigners the most. Say tourists, rather. You are a vazaha. A tourist. I must spit to say it. Vazaha. I spit again, but then, I like to spit."

       "Is she . . . cursing us? Putting a curse, I mean."

       "Mais oui, Mon petit Jack. Madame would not waste her time on revilement alone. Oh, no, it’s the real thing, as you Americans are fond of saying."

       She stood to one side of the courtyard of Andoany’s nineteenth-century jail, canting her body so she could alternately curse it and passers-by. It was the best-looking building I’d seen so far on Nosy-Be, the "Big Island" north of Madagascar proper. Beige stone with a continuous, matching wall about three feet high. The gates were frothing wrought-iron, ajar, opening in, inviting.

       "What does she have against the jail?"

       "Not a pretty story for a pretty boy like you."

       "Tell me, Henri."

       Henri shrugged. "Sometime. When you’re better . . . acclimated. As I say, it’s . . . ."

       The old woman started up again, her body propelled upward, I thought, by the very power of her vituperation. Her hands high in the air, palms out. Palms turned in our direction. Toward Henri and me. I looked at my companion to see if he was aware, cared, but she shifted at that moment as if swinging on an anchor, hurled her words, different words, I thought, at the jail, and now the hands were turned so that their backs faced their target, if that was what the jail was.

       "Wait here." Henri darted between a motorcycle and an old, old bicycle and was across the street almost before I realized what was happening. The woman must have seen him from the corner of her eye, for she abruptly turned from the jail to face him, though she left her hands suspended in the air. Henri said something to her and threw something, money probably, down in front of her. The old woman faced him then and abruptly dropped her hands. She stood straight, was tall, taller than Henri’s six feet, and there was no widow’s hump. As Henri waited, she bent suddenly, from the waist, and with one long sweep, took up what had been thrown at her feet. She and Henri bowed to each other, and Henri’s merry laughter ran ahead of him across the street.

       "How did you do that?"

       Henri was suddenly serious. "Tante Laga is all right, Boy. She’s not been treated well. That’s all."

       The "Tell me" was rising, but Henri waved me off.

       "Later, mon cher. Later."

       I might have taken it up, but just then a dark blue Peugeot passed "Tante Laga" and parked at the curb just in front of the jail. She advanced toward it, starting up again, fiercer than ever. I thought I could see the saliva flying from her mouth. But the woman was matched by the explosion of barking that emerged as a front door of the car opened. I shook my head to clear it. I’d swear I could see the force of air expelled by the giant dog that seemed to take up the whole back seat. By the time I’d fully recovered, a tall, slim woman was gliding through the gates of the jail. She did not look back or seem to notice Tante Laga.

       "Who—?"

       "My . . . cousin. Veronique."

       All the playfulness had left Henri’s voice. I looked, but he merely did his Gallic shrug.

. . .

       I was a Duke graduate student in Biological Anthropology (Primatology) in Madagascar to do my dissertation research. The plan was to review the existing lemur work in situ. Most of it had come, anyway, out of Duke’s Primate Center, which had a long-standing relationship with the Madagascan government. I’d start with the nearby island of Nosy Komba, where most of the remaining species of lemurs are represented. Twelve of the forty are already on the endangered list, but all lemurs are at risk because of the loss of their habitat, the forests of Madagascar. Then I’d move to the wet areas of the southeastern and northwestern mainland to concentrate on the woolly lemur, the avahi, the smallest of the indriids and the only one that’s nocturnal.

       Nobody at Duke had been able to tell me quite what Henri Secours did in Madagascar, other than his being vaguely connected to the central government. Which didn’t make much sense to me. My reading about the place made it sound as if the French were no longer in high cotton. But, as he was fond of saying, c’est la vie. Before Henri, it hadn’t occurred to me that real Frenchmen use that phrase. In any case, he assisted everyone who came out from Duke, which was frequently since Madagascar was the one lemur place in the world (except for some that were introduced into the Comoros Islands nearby and those in zoos or other labs). I’d flown into Antananarivo, capital of the whole country, then taken an Air Madagascar "lagoon jumper" to Fascène on Nosy Be. From there, I came by "ferry," an old-fashioned packet boat, to Andoany.

       The first shocker—make that the first major shocker—was that nobody seemed to know where Andoany was. I pulled out my map, and a mate on the boat laughed when he saw where I pointed. "You go Hell-Ville." I smiled back, probably weakly, and wished that my laptop and modem were up and running. Clearly, I needed to do some more research.

       When the boat finally arrived at "Hell-Ville," the landing was crowded. A big cruise liner had arrived shortly before us, and most of the Rue Passot, the main drag, was filled with barefooted locals dressed in bright hues of red, green, yellow, and the most extraordinary purple. They energetically peddled their wares, mainly embroidered tablecloths; lambas, as I came to know them, woven cotton or silk used for shawls; engraved silver or would-be silver bracelets; a few mohair carpets from the mainland; the ubiquitous wooden items, zafimaniry . . . .

       Henri was under an awning set up by the cruise ship to provide refreshments to the passengers returning from walking tours of the town. He was obviously known to everyone around and appeared to enjoy the attention focused on him. I was still getting my bearings and trying to fend off the vendors when he came for me. From the first, I was the naïve young American to be enjoyed, laughed at, taught. My immediate reaction was to bristle, but Henri had such, I don’t know, such charm, I guess, and lemurs weren’t the only subject I wanted to pursue. I was still in love with learning for its own sake at that point.

       He arranged to have my luggage delivered and walked me to the Hôtel de la Mer, offering a running commentary as we strolled. The previous summer, I had been in Djibouti as research assistant to my major professor, who had been called in to identify a new strain of infection related to "mad cow disease." I didn’t say so to Henri, but Madagascar and Djibouti had a lot in common. The French sure knew when if not how to leave a place. At least the flies weren’t that bad here. But all the buildings were run down, looked unoccupied but weren’t. As if Sherman had marched on the place. De Hell first, then Sherman. One of my first questions, naturally, was why everybody called Andoany "Hell-Ville." The good admiral had been governor of Réunion, where there was a "Hell-Bourg," and had signed a treaty with Queen Somebody in 1841 turning Nosy Be over to French control, though the French (and the Secourses) had dipped in and out of Madagascan history since 1642. And, yes, the Secourses were related to Admiral de Hell.

       I met Henri that evening at the "Moulin Rouge." He was drinking a martini when I arrived but insisted I try one "litchel." This was the local specialty. Lychee-flavored rum. One was enough. I began to trust Henri at that point, aware that he could have had his fun with me and hadn’t. I was fascinated with his own drinking, though. Not just the quantity. He was served iced doubles in a silver shaker with a silver strainer, both engraved with his name. He poured his own drink through the strainer into the martini glass while the bar girl placed beside him a silver salver with two toothpicks, each with four olives, and a linen napkin. She gave him a clean glass and replaced the paraphernalia each time, seeming to know precisely when to arrive with the next round.

       Henri increased his drinking pace once his cousin and her husband arrived. They were led to the largest table in the place, and, once they were seated, others of obvious importance appeared and were permitted to join and enjoy them. Henri did not look in their direction, but I was fascinated.

       I’d immediately recognized the tall woman who had left the car with the dog, though I had seen only her back. She had to be six feet tall, stopped just short of anorexic, was dressed, even I could tell, in French Chic. A cross between the Grace Kelly of The Country Girl and the Catherine Deneuve of Belle de Jour. I was instantly drunk. But not from the litchel I was still nursing. Veronique was the most exquisite creature I’d ever seen, alternately virgin-innocent and insinuating temptress. Henri did deign to tell me that she was "the wife of Wily Jacob, alias Erik, Tanana, the richest man on the island of Nosy Be, which isn’t saying much, and in Madagascar, which is."

       I looked at the unworthy man beside Veronique Tanana and hoped my distaste didn’t hail from prejudice alone. My reading had prepared me for Madagascans expected (dark skin, curly hair) and unexpected (light skin, straight hair). Tanana was tall, though a good two inches shorter than his wife, and very dark-skinned. His hair was straight and sandy like mine. He didn’t compute. He would also, I’d guess, be considered handsome by most women. Hawkish. Superior. The Stewart Granger of King Solomon’s Mines. But who wouldn’t be superior with Veronique on his arm? I thought to myself right then and there that, if I’d been lucky enough to have had Veronique and had her first, I’d already rule the world. Then blushed. I was thinking of her animal side, her sensuality. And I thought better of myself than that when I arrived in Madagascar.

       I left Henri some time after midnight. The Tananas and their retinue had exited around 11:30. Unless something had occurred while I was in the bathroom, no acknowledgement had passed between Henri and anyone in their party. He sat drinking and staring off when I took my leave and did not respond. But he appeared the next morning on the patio of my hotel at 8:00 and sat down, as if prearranged, to have breakfast with me. Not that Andoany was all that large, but it was still odd to me that Henri Secours knew where I was and when. He was like a shadow, except when I went among the lemurs. We did not speak of the Tananas.

. . .

       Two others besides Henri seemed to be aware of my comings and goings. No matter when I left or returned to the hotel, the old mad woman, as I thought of her, Tante Laga, sat on a bench between it and the beach and watched me. She did not rave or take notice of my arrival except by staring at or through me. I slinked by on the first occasion, embarrassed. No response. I tried acknowledging her. No response. So, coming or going, I took to smiling and saying, "Bonjour, Tante Laga" or "Bonsoir, Tante Laga." Never a response. Indeed, her eyes only stared, never seeming to blink.

       The other observer was Veronique Tanana. After that first night in the Moulin Rouge, I was up at six, at breakfast by 6:30. There was a food regimen, by the way. Always plain white rice, unsalted, with a choice of three sauces that varied every third day. I was a grits-eater. The rice was similar. Besides, I was not driven by food. My hotel was not the place to be driven by food in any case. My room was what I imagined a nun’s cell to be like. Clean, Spartan, unfrilled.

       Lunch was always "in the field." Bread, cheese, fruit, mineral water, whatever I could pick up. There were no KFC’s and golden arches in Andoany, and I wasn’t tempted by the many stands selling various kinds of kabobs, baked fish, and spring rolls. I did purchase koba, a gooey paste of banana, rice, and peanuts, as an energizer, the local granola bar. Doubtless my system would adjust, but it would take time. I couldn’t afford to be courted by bilharzia or any other flukes.

       If I were back for dinner, I had three choices of entrée in the hotel dining room: romazava, a beef or omby stew from a humped-back ox, the zebu, with tomatoes, palm hearts (brèdes), and a heap of garlic; ravitoto, a pork dish with tomatoes, sweet peppers, and manioc leaves; or akoho sy voanio, chicken with rice and coconut. But there was an abundance of side dishes, like wonderful pickled onions, potatoes, sweet potatoes, cassava casseroles (which Tato, the only waiter, kept warning me not to eat too much of), peanuts, beans, fruits laced with vanilla sauce, sweet-smelling cloved dishes . . . . The coffee, once a major export crop, was wonderful, as good as Kona, Henri maintained. He explained later that Tato’s cassava reference was a constipation joke, but I couldn’t understand Creole initially, much less the Merina dialect of Malagasy that’s the official tongue.

       Strangely, despite the abundant crabs, fish, and tiny, krill-like shrimp I saw piled waist-high in the local open-air market, I was never offered seafood at the hotel. At first, when Tato explained about the palm hearts, I stuck, as long as I could stand it, to the pork and chicken. I mean, hearts of palm? Millionaire’s Salad? Give me a break! One giant palm gone from the world for three nibbles of its heart. My conscience grew less tender as the dinners came, and I also lost most of my guilt in returning early from Nosy Komba to dine out with Henri or in with the Tananas. Both ran to meals that would have warmed the stomach of Julia Child herself, or so it seemed to me. My favorite was a local salad with lobster and crab in a spicy ginger-lime marinade.

       I determined to find a way to treat all the people who were treating me, before I left Nosy Be, to a southern barbecue. The pepper sauces were plentiful, and Tato promised to help me find "The Mr. Pig" and rig a pit for coals. But how to have Henri and the Tananas at the same party? Not to mention Tante Laga. Tante Laga was a shadow who had been with me, it now seemed, always. I was having no party without Tante Laga, Tato, Henri, and Veronique.

       I had dreamed about Veronique that first night (and every night afterwards) and was not sure that the Veronique waiting for me at the dock by the driver’s door of the Peugeot-with-Giant-Dog the next morning was real or dream-fabricated.

       She walked to meet me, hand extended. "Henri should have brought you to our table last evening. I am Veronique Tanana. Welcome to Andoany."

       She laughed at my confusion.

       "We have so few visitors on the island who stay more than a day or two, you see. Besides, my husband and I always entertain Professor Eglin."

       I might have known. My dissertation director was a ladies’ man. Still fearless in the glare of three separate sexual harassment charges. How strange he’d not mentioned Veronique Tanana.

       Veronique was there that morning to offer me the loan of a boat to go back and forth to Nosy Komba, but I declined. I don’t know why. My fellowship resources were meager, and I was determined to take nothing more from my widowed mother. Still, I didn’t want to be beholden to this woman either. I thought she gave me a re-appraising look but didn’t appear to feel rebuffed. It was unlikely that this one had ever been rebuffed. I did agree to come for drinks at her home that evening to meet her husband and some friends.

       I admit it. I not only dreamed about Veronique every night, but thought about her constantly all day unless I forced myself to become absorbed in my work. The most persistent image, first in dreamtime, then awake, was Veronique in a black lace bikini on a chaise lounge facing the pool in the Tananas’ huge walled-in back yard. She was reading a paperback—always a paperback—her long black hair down, her left hand behind her head so that her elbow jutted akimbo. Her head faced toward the book in her right hand. The left strap of her bra was undone, floated down below her waist to rest its tip in her exposed navel, the tiny flap of silky material that formed the left cup turned back, leaving the breast presented as if it were an exquisite silk scarf in a pocket. She seemed oblivious; this thing had happened; that was all. But it was not all, for, as I stared, the nipple went erect . . . . Some archaeologists refer to Madagascar as the "navel of the world," but to me, it was, overwhelmingly, the "breast." The breast of Veronique Tanana.

       I rented a small motorboat, actually not much more than a canoe, what the Madagascans call a lakana, with a two-HP motor, and spent every day on Nosy Komba, leaving early, coming back as late as possible, sometimes staying over until three in the morning. No matter how late it was, I could usually hear cheerful music and imagine the happy, dancing feet in the area of the public market. I was trying to observe as many nocturnal and diurnal species of lemurs as I could and also their complex and varied nesting techniques. Fortunately, I knew from the research that most fed in a particular garden in the village of Arnpangorinana. I didn’t know what I’d do about the hibernating dwarf lemur that could live off the fat stored in its tail, but I was hopeful. Why, God forgive me for my impudence, I fully intended to watch a sportive lemur eat its feces to extract the nutrients from the recalcitrant bamboo leaves it had already passed through its stomach several times!

       Frequently, when I returned to the hotel, I would find an invitation waiting. Always formal, always on the beautiful handmade Antaimoro paper whose technique, Henri told me, the Madagascans had learned from the Arabs. It was made from a local bark and looked like parchment, but with flower petals in it. Not woven or printed. Part of it somehow. The Honorable Jacob E. Tanana (who had a lot of initials behind his name I didn’t recognize, never recognized) and Mrs. Tanana would be requesting the honor of my presence at this or that. But my encounters with Veronique were more frequent. She almost always saw me off in the morning, met me at the dock if I returned at a reasonable hour. I would strain to spot the Peugeot on the dock, was disappointed when it did not appear.

. . .

       By religion, the Madagascans were almost as mixed as their origins. Many were Christian, a few Muslim, but primarily they practiced "traditionalism," a euphemism for ancestor worship. The houses on Nosy Be looked as if no one had touched them since at least the nineteenth century, but the family tombs were elaborate and fastidiously maintained. I had discovered that on my own, for even the Tananas, at least the husband, had them.

       The façade of their home looked no better than the others, but the place as a whole was a walled garden with great palms and more ylang-ylang than the rest of Madagascar put together, and it’s the ylang-ylang that gets it referred to as "The Scented Island" or "Perfume Island." As his status had increased, Henri told me, Erik purchased the houses on each side of them, even though it’s fady or taboo to sell land because its ancestral tombs link the generations. Obviously, Erik Tanana could get away with breaking the rules of fady. He’d kept buying, each time razing and walling off so that the Tanana home was now like a series of walled compounds within a mother walled compound. It was the center, and three walled sections radiated out from it. It seemed to me like the Indian fort-cities I’d read about: bastions of lines of encircling, high, battlemented walls, each with huge gateways and approached only through heavily fortified defiles. Across the front of the whole of the Tanana preserve was a gigantic wrought-iron fence with thick foliage just inside. You had to know the walled sections were there; you couldn’t see them. The Tanana tombs filled the first walled section, pierced by an internal gateway, beyond the house, patios, pool, and encircling garden. I had never seen beyond it.

       Henri insisted that I attend the annual famadihana with him. The Turning of the Dead. I hadn’t the heart to tell him I was invited to the Tananas’ "after-party" because he was so sure that what he was doing for me was special.

       As Henri explained, the Madagascans believe that death is just passing to a higher level of existence in which one is wiser and helps those left behind, who communicate with the gods only through these dead ancestors. In Kenya, carved wooden posts not only honor the dead but permit the male elders of the village to consult with them. In Madagascar, these had become post-shaped sculptures on the graves of those important to the nation and the family. Although the spirit leaves the body, it maintains contact with it. In recognition, the relatives, once a year, exhume the body, pass around the bones to the gathered family, and whisper to them what has been happening. Women place pieces from the old shrouds underneath their pillows to make them fertile. A cow is sacrificed, and the relatives march seven times around the tombs. At sunset, the body is dressed in a new shroud and placed again in its tomb, and the family feasts upon the cow.

       But there is more. The Madagascans believe that the worms they release with the bodies grow into the great boa constrictors that are indigenous only to this island nation. Thus these creatures are sacred, too, and it is fady to kill them.

       I was pleased to discover that it was the home of Tato, my hotel waiter, Henri had brought me to. A fine house of French colonial vintage. More surprising, I leaned that Tato owned the hotel and served food cooked by his wife Anya. He led us through their house, proudly, and seated us on the back verandah. As a "foreigner," I must remain some distance from the ceremony. I risked a look at Henri, who merely shrugged.

       After Tato left us, Henri responded while we waited for the rites to open.

       "I’m not a foreigner. My ancestors were among the first French here. Later, King Ratsimilaho let his daughter, ‘Bety,’ marry one of them, a French army officer. When The Great Rat died, territories came under French rule. That was 1750. We are not permitted to have the tombs, however. You’ll find a number of Secourses in the Montagne des Français on the mainland. The French legionnaires buried their dead there. We Secourses have a special cave among the cliffs. Not all of us were military."

       "But if I weren’t here, you could participate with Tato and the rest?"

       He nodded, but we were interrupted at that point by a drum. Twelve musicians came from around the far side of the house from us; walked slowly to the left-hand corner of the family tombs, which were enclosed by a white-washed rectangular wall about a foot high; and took up positions in a cluster. They were dressed Malagasy: barefooted, bareheaded, and in wraparound "skirts." Each carried a valiha, which, Henri explained, was the national instrument.

       "A twenty-two-string tube zither?"

       He nodded, grinned, then went serious. "Technically, it’s fady to play them except for special occasions. The famadihana. A circumcision party. Possession ceremonies."

       "Possession ceremonies?"

       "Right. The young Jack thinks there is still much he does not know, that is hidden here. Do not forget that. There is much you do not understand."

       The whiny music, slow and mournful to me, pulled at our attention just then. When it stopped, from around the other side of the house came figures, many of them children. They sat on the grass in front of Henri and me on the patio. None of the women and girls had their faces decorated with the elaborate flower-lace designs that had been so striking the day I arrived.

       Sudden quiet. Anticipation.

       The procession entered from the same area. The figure in front rocked me. It was Tante Laga. Tall, clean, her face chiseled with, I don’t know, determination and—beautiful wisdom. Beautiful woman. She was impressive. I suddenly thought of Veronique, shook my head to clear it.

       Behind Tante Laga, men bore huge round wooden trays with white cheese-cloth-looking material, bones, I assumed, among it. Towards the end of the line came the still intact bodies on stretcher-like rigs carried between two marchers. I could see skulls protruding from their cerements.

       A line of women followed at some distance from the men. They took from their trays a mixture of flower petals and spices and blew them gently off their hands. The air transformed into suspended blessings of flower petals and spices.

       Tante Laga took a position between the tombs and the musicians such that she was partially blocked from Henri’s and my view. But we could see her head, which towered above the men’s, and hear the voice. I couldn’t understand what she said. She spoke Malagasy, I assumed. But I could feel the import as if I breathed it in through my pores. That voice was calm and quiet but carried. It promised, honored, protected, soothed, finally rose in total happiness. I felt my own spirits lift, felt wonderful, euphoric. Henri placed a restraining hand on my arm. Had I made as if to rise and go to Tante Laga?

       Suddenly, a hush. I held my breath, as all else seemed to. An exquisite young boy materialized. Tante Laga came forth to the center of the area before the tombs to meet him. He carried a red-silk cushion. On it sat a solemn, stilled, white lemur with a black face. We all waited. When the sun suddenly dropped, the lemur, atypically, shrilled, and the men stepped with their burdens over the foot-high wall to return them to their tombs.

       When the reinterment was completed, the lemur shrilled again, and the boy took it away. At a signal from Tante Laga, all stood and began to chatter happily, embracing one another. Then we feasted and danced and were happy.

       The lemur. "Explain, Henri. I thought lemurs are ‘spirits who walk in the forests’ because their eyes frightened Diaz and his men when they sat around their first campfire the night after they found the island. Are lemurs connected with the Turning of the Dead like boa constrictors?"

       "Your version is widely told. We have our own. Among us, to kill the lemur is fady, for he is an ancestor, too. Others kill him, claiming he brings bad luck. In fact, they kill because they like to kill and because the lemur is innocent and good. Welcome to Malagasy Good and Evil. You are a lemur man. The Malagasy call you ‘The Lemur Boy.’ Beware lest you taste evil because you are innocent and good."

       I thought he must be having me on again, but he did not smile. I shivered in the warm ylang-ylang-scented air.

       The evening advanced rapidly. I did not see Tante Laga again and asked after her.

       "She has gone to the island of Pain de Sucre. A place holy to the Malagasy. She will perform secret rites to cure the illness of our souls. To protect your soul, young Jack."

       Henri’s voice was rich in nuance, but the image of Veronique leapt forth, and I felt compelled to go. Whenever I tried to take my leave, though, someone would want to dance with me or for me or tell a story that Henri or Tato must translate. When, as if by magic, everyone was suddenly gone but Henri, Tato, and me, I was astonished to find my watch saying four A.M. Clearly, I could not go to the Tananas’ at such an hour, and their party was surely over anyhow. We said our thanks to Tato, who insisted that we retire to separate rooms in his house "to be ready from here to greet Sun again."

       I woke, fresh and rested at nine, breakfasted with Tato and Anya, and left directly for Nosy Komba after returning to the hotel for a shower and shave. I had not dreamed of Veronique.

. . .

       Nor was Veronique waiting at the pier that morning. Perhaps she’d had a late night, too. Perhaps she was piqued that I’d failed to show. Somehow, I didn’t care one way or the other. The sense of well-being persisted. Animals had pheromones. Humans had . . . what? Endorphins? Had the Madagascans learned how to make euphoriants or to release endorphins at will?

       That was the most wonderful day I ever spent among the lemurs. Surprisingly, I did not feel drowsy, though I "power-napped" after eating the lunch Tato’s Anya had thrust in my arms as I was leaving their house. I stayed late.

       It was cool in the bamboo thicket I found myself in and quiet. Suddenly, I heard it. The tiniest tapping. Without walking farther, I rotated my torso to look, my eyes, I imagined, turning amber-colored, growing round and large, glowing in the dark.

       I eventually saw it. The rare aye-aye. It was tapping gently on the trunk of a tree with its sensitive, tool-like middle finger. Its other hand cupped a large hairless ear to listen, listen, listen as I listened. I, too, heard the larvae as they stirred in the hollow trunk. With my sharp front teeth, I stripped away the barky layers. My long middle finger scooped out grubs to eat. Oh, it was a wonder. A reaching back through layers of time to when man was not, animal was, and this creature was announcing our hands-and-eyes-and-senses-to-be. This wonderful, wondrous, John-the-Baptist creature was preparing the way for us. To us. And was still here to tell us our journey and possibilities. I would not have cared if Henri were there to laugh at the tears that glistened for this sight I was privy to. The wonder of it.

       The Malagasy say the aye-aye has tail of fox, hair of boar, ears of bat, teeth of rabbit. A rainbow of animals. A rich and blessed and enchanting creation. With its brother and sister lemurs, it has opposable thumbs and big toes and other specialized parts. And there is more to the aye-aye, for it must self-regulate. Those sharp incisors grow continuously. To control their size, the little animal has to gnaw often.

       I went home feeling even more blessed than the evening before. Veronique waited. I wanted to share my encounter with the aye-aye, but she was angry.

       "We had planned something special for you, and you did not come."

       Her cold voice carried across the water the instant I killed the motor.

       "I am sorry, Veronique. It was 4 A.M. before Tato’s—." I stopped. She was hardly likely to be impressed by such as Tato. "It was far too late to visit. I apologize, but there it is." I shrugged without thinking.

       I thought she started to react, decided not to.

       "I want to take you some place tomorrow. A special place."

       "Sorry. You know I have to observe the lemurs. That my time is limited."

       "Take a day off. Get some perspective."

       "No!" I hadn’t intended the sharpness. "Thank you very much, Veronique. You and Erik have been most kind to me when I know you don’t have to be, but my work . . . ."

       "You greatly disappointed us last evening. Besides, I promise you’ll see lemurs. As never before."

       Her tone seemed odd, but I could never read her. "Can we make it half a day?" I tried for a joke to lighten things: "And could you throw in the pirates?" An item in the newspaper had caught my eye just prior to leaving Duke. The remnants of Captain Kidd’s flagship, the Adventure, had been found just off Madagascar. Unusually, it was a galley and had both sails and oars. They’d found a metal oarlock. Duke was inland in North Carolina but still close enough to "the Graveyard of the Atlantic" to let me break away occasionally to pursue my love of Black Beard and Stede Bonnet and such. I’d known that Wild John Avery and William Kidd, the privateer turned pirate, had plied these waters and had hoped for a closer look at their haunts.

       She nodded. "We’ll have to leave early. There’s a drive involved."

       When I reached the hotel, Tante Laga was waiting. She went excited when she saw me. Arms waving, gibberish flying in the spit. I was so shocked at her reversion to mad woman that I hardly noticed when she snapped a slender silver bracelet shut above my watch. She rattled something more and left. As I watched her retreat, Henri startled me.

       "Tante Laga has given you protection. She supplies us with ody, sacred objects with magic powers." He reached out to tap the bracelet. "Don’t take it off. Je ne veux pas de mais. She had it blessed on Pain de Sucre. She’s special because she’s mad. We feel about the insane the way your Indians used to."

       "What does the writing say?" He had made me note the engraving.

       "It’s not for the likes of us to know. Just don’t take it off while you remain in Madagascar. You’d do well to stay away from the Tananas, but you’ll write that off as resentment. Just don’t take off the bracelet."

       "Oh, come on, Henri. Surely you—"

       "Don’t take it off, Jack." Every word was emphasized. He turned and left, and I let him go.

. . .

       Veronique let me see that day why green, golden-beached, lagooned Madagascar is called the "Pearl of the Indian Ocean" and Nosy Be the "Tahiti of Madagascar." We went by Erik’s private plane and in rented, waiting cars. We flew to the mainland, itself the fourth largest island in the world and the largest in Africa, and put down in Antsiranana, still called Diégo-Suarez or "Diégo" by the locals, for two Portuguese explorers, and the northernmost and most "European" town. As I’d requested, we looked down on Île Sainte Marie, where the privateers and pirates lived and intermarried with the locals, and I wondered if Veronique had wild pirate blood in her veins. Back on Nosy Be, we flew over the ruins of an old Indian village at Ambanoro. Veronique shrugged when I asked what had become of them. Over Mont Passot, she said that, when I could take off more time, we would swim in its crater lakes.

       I suddenly remembered, as if Henri and Tato were both there shaking their heads at me: "We couldn’t do that. Aren’t they sacred? I’m sure Henri told me the crater lakes of Mont Passot are fady. In fact, he said that Tato’s so into fady he won’t serve seafood in his hotel. And the Montagne d’Ambre’s fady, too, even if—or is it because—the French Foreign Legion built an R&R place near it?"

       She was staring at me.

       "Maybe they’re not taboo for you and me, but I wouldn’t like to offend the Malagasy. Anyway, wouldn’t Erik object? He’s—"

       "Erik may be Malagasy, but he’s not superstitious like other fools I could name. Besides, we have a quite modern marriage. We share and share alike. Whereas you, Dear Jack, seem to be quite stuffy." She laughed at what was probably the hurt on my face. "Don’t worry, my pet, we’ll correct that one tiny problem. Perhaps this very day. This very lovely, exotic day in this very lovely, exotic place."

       I felt heady. I was on a magic carpet ride, with always, always the creeping, crawling thought that Veronique, in her tight, silky, purple jumpsuit, had kidnapped me for her harem. I knew nothing would come of it, should come of it, but Veronique did seem to brush against me often . . . . Even if nothing happened, I would never be rid of her scent, which I did not just smell but felt, heard, and, when I closed my eyes, could taste, could see like a green aura standing out from the purple. Still.

       We lunched at a luxury hotel back on Nosy Be but not near Andoany. Veronique was obviously well-known, and, after several glasses of wine, I was feeling as if I were well known, too. While we were having coffee, the maître d’hôtel, "Cher Armand," came over to ask Veronique if we wished to see the "entertainment" today. Before I could even think to protest on behalf of my time constraints, she had said yes, and our coffee was being loaded on a tray and carried after us. Armand led the way.

       The room he ushered us into was mostly round bed with silky sheeting and piles of silk pillows in different, brilliant colors. There was another door next to the one by which we’d entered. A bathroom, I remember thinking. Veronique’s locking the door and beginning to undress registered, but my attention was drawn to the window ports, probably of one-way glass, midway the rectangular wall and extending almost completely around the room. Through them I saw little rooms, stall-like, with different animals. From the bed, only a foot from the wall in any direction, you could choose what to watch.

       Some kind of Noah’s Ark? The animals were in pairs—God, a defiled Noah’s Ark. Tenrecs, the little hedgehogs. I remembered, remember remembering, that Madagascar had twenty-three kinds, that I could move on to them after I’d studied the lemurs. Scorpions. Geckos. Chameleons. Dwarf hippos. Frogs. Hognose snakes. Giant tortoises. What must be the famous hissing cockroaches Henri had told me about. And the jumping rats. Most of the animals were frenzied. Mating. Some cowered, torn and bleeding, tried to escape the maddened creatures that kept bearing down upon them.

       "You know that we are famous for our animals. Every vazaha would pay to see this. Even some from your own country. Even some from your own département pay to see this."

       I knew why Dr. Eglin had not spoken of Veronique Tanana.

       "Oh, look there. Just for you, my lémurien boy."

       I couldn’t not look where she pointed. They were different species. The male a dwarf breed. The female much larger. She was the one who had been dosed. She worked at his fetal curl with her human-like fingers. Her human-like face was feral. I saw the giant front teeth growing, thought crazily to myself that it was fady to sing while eating lest one’s front teeth become fangs. I knew, at that moment, what it meant to have one’s gorge rise. I turned—

       Veronique was writhing on the bed. Naked, arms outstretched.

       "We give them katafry in a special mix. Sometimes to both. Sometimes to one. Katafry is a most lovely aphrodisiac. A most loving aphrodisiac." She laughed. "If we tire, we can take some. But you won’t require it, will you, my sweet young man?"

       I believe—must believe—I was heading for the door before someone outside started banging on it. I had trouble with the chain lock she had fastened, and it tore from its mooring as Henri’s thrusting shoulder gained entry.

       "This way, Jack. Vite!"

       I ran after him down the hall. I could hear Veronique shouting like a mad woman in a mix of French and Malagasy. But over my shoulder, all I saw coming after us was Armand and some men with guns. When we reached the lobby, I stopped long enough to turn over two huge potted palms in the path of our pursuers. We were out of the door and into the car, its doors open for us and Tato behind the wheel, racing the motor.

       "Will they come after us?"

       "No. They’ll destroy the evidence."

       "You mean kill the animals? No! Oh, God, even cockroaches are important to the food web! We’ve got to—"

       "They always kill them after one showing. They black-market tortoise shell, crocodile and lemur items . . . . That’s probably how it got started. Then Veronique decided to expand the experiments at their little parties. You can’t help the animals back there in any case. The ones who were fed the drug are never normal again. The ones who didn’t get it are so shell-shocked by the experience that they’re the animal version of psychotic from then on. In addition to its popper effect, the lab guys say katafry is a ‘psychotropic.’ Your DEA is interested."

       "How did you know where to find me?"

       "Veronique always takes her prey there sooner or later. We watched. Waited."

       "Why didn’t you—?"

       "We are the land of the great elephant bird appropriated as the roc and absorbed into Arabian Nights. Arab merchants told old Marco Polo they flew with elephants in their talons. He believed it. Do you? We’re the land where the baobab tree grows upside down, where the worms of the dead become boa constrictors, remember. You wouldn’t have believed me. You may not believe the rest of it even now."

       As we made our way back to Hell-Ville, Henri kept talking, but I did notice that Tato kept checking the side and rear-view mirrors.

       "In 1810," Henri said, "King Radama died and was succeeded by Queen Ranavalon I. She made all Madagascar ‘Hell-Ville.’ Compared to her, the Inquisition and the Elizabethan torture chamber were d’amateur. Most of her attention was directed to ‘foreigners,’ but she killed thousands of her own people, too. She boiled alive, minced, threw over cliffs, put heads on stakes, had people drawn and quartered. Finally, French and British troops were sent in, but there was no fighting. The killings suddenly stopped, but the Queen continued to rule and was never punished. What transpired remained a mystery to all but the members of my family. We made a pact with Queen Ranavalon and have ruled or intermarried with those ruling since that time. France officially left when independence came. Not my family. The evil that it cost us is most often vested in the female of the line. Whenever the locusts come or the cyclone hits, the locals know that Queen Ranavalon has come again. Queen Ranavalon in her evil and evil beauty. Queen Ranavalon, thy name is—"

       "Veronique Tanana." It came to me as a simple statement of fact.

       Henri turned to look back at me from the front seat. "Perhaps you will believe. Can believe. The full name is Veronique Secours Tanana. Veronique is my sister."

       That stunned me, for I had thought them ex-lovers. Some manner of lovers, at least. He continued without seeming to notice.

       "I tried to restrain her, but, leagued with Tanana, she became more brazen. We broke over Laga."

       "Tante Laga, you mean?" I had never heard him refer to her as plain "Laga" before.

       "Laga. Our half-sister."

       I must have started at least, made some noise, but he went on.

       "Laga trained herself in fanafody, the art of herbal medicines. She is the antithesis of Veronique. They had to corrupt her. She was the first human they practiced upon. Force-fed her the drug. There must have been a dozen men, Erik Tanana among them. Laga had loved him, but Veronique took him from her. There were animals, too, involved. Some of it came out in her nightmares. She is as you see her. Sometimes good. Good when the medicine is strong, as when the dead are turned. Mostly a mad woman of the streets. I knew when we found Laga after that night that I would end the Tananas. For what they did to Laga. For what they do to our people. To our and your animals. The toll on the animals is not only from burning off our forests. Veronique and Erik crucify the Garden of the World daily."

       "Can you stop them?"

       "I have gathered evidence. You must have guessed that I am ‘connected.’ Laga could not testify. She is counted mad. But you can offer to say what you know. That will be enough, the offer, for the government cannot afford to have such . . . perversity made public. Erik will survive, unfortunately, for he has embroidered himself into our fabric and is a power in the chromite and emerging ilmenite industries. You must remember that we are one of the world’s poorest countries. Yes, Erik will survive, but he will see that Veronique is a liability . . . . Accommodation will be reached. I will see that you are protected, that Erik’s situation attends upon yours. I will see that the animals of Madagascar are protected, too."

       Two days later, a subdued Henri read me the front-page story of both the Nouveau Journal de Madagascar and the Iomega Vivo. The accompanying picture was of a sorrowful Erik. "The Honorable Jacob E. Tanana" had lost his "beautiful and talented wife Veronique," who had "accidentally fallen prey to a boa constricteur." Erik? I preferred to think it was an ancestor of Tante Laga. "The beautiful Mrs. Tanana," because of her "special relationship with the people of Madagascar," would be "interred in the Tanana family tomb in Andoany."

       "Make that Hell-Ville," I thought. In olden times, Madagascans had been sold as slaves. A modern enslaver was gone. That was what I tried to make myself remember. What I saw was Veronique slowly suffocating in the coils of a gigantic boa constrictor, her face going purple.

       I left a few days later to continue my research among the indriids on the mainland. When I said good-bye to Henri and embraced him, he thrust a small package in my hand. "Open this later."

       It was an exquisite crystal bottle. The accompanying note read:

       I still dream of Veronique and smell her perfume. I have nightmares of crazed animals chasing one another and running from Veronique. Of me condemned to turn her bones every night for the rest of my life. But when I wake up, sweat and horror and panic dripping, I force myself to listen for the tapping finger of the aye-aye. And when I hear it, I am free again.

Please post a message on our community bulletin board, or send email to editor@serpentinia.com to let us know what you think about this story, and we'll pass your message along to the author.