Courtesy of Elitsa Penkova

APRIL 12, 2015 |  ALEX MEETS WORLD

        “You do not know who is really Django,” Django always tells me.

        He likes to speak sideways to give himself an enigmatic aura. He references spirits and powers and a “big story” about Nosy Komba that, when I pry, he tells me “ah big story. You can never understand my friend. You do not know who is really me”.

        Django is a cryptic man, but it always was my opinion that Django believed himself to be more mysterious than he actually was.

         Today though, he quite unexpectedly allowed me access to a bit of the secret world he hints at, and now, I don’t know what to think about Django because I can offer no natural explanation for what I have just been through.

        I was where I often am with Django, sat on one of the two cement steps that lead out from his blue apartment door, and Dodo was there with Ariana in her arms, their faces reflecting no reaction to what Django and I said because neither could understand a single word.

         Django was talking again about the spirits, these things from the forest that speak to him, he says. As I shooed the flies away from the new open ulcers on my feet, I mmhmm-ed along, listening with an equal amount of interest and skepticism to his stories. I had many times heard him tell me all about the peril and the power and the privacy of what to me sounded like a simple case of voices in his head, but then suddenly, I perked up as he said something he hadn’t before.

          “Do you want to meet them?” he asked me.

          In life and in particular on this trip, I have tried to give a quick yes to all offers of adventure, but I was for a moment wavering, unsure of what I should respond to this specific request.

          Truth is, I was scared. Of course, I had no faith in Django’s spirits. I am as superstitious as I am religious, meaning not at all but questioning. With this offer though, Django had made them immediately a lot more real. The spirits were not just words anymore. They were a thing with which I presumably could have interaction.

          It’s the same as if the church man were to ask the atheist if he wants to meet God. Well, wouldn’t that put all but the most obstinate atheist in an odd ideological conundrum?

          This conundrum, I decided, must be put to rest. I was tired of Django telling me about these things I had no personal knowledge of, so I settled on an uncertain “yeah” as response to Django’s invitation.

          I was to meet them now. Django ordered Dodo bring out the cook stove, and he started a fire with a lighter, a piece of wood, and a winnowing basket which he flapped to kindle the orange flame among the coals.

          When the fire had finished, Django requested that I wait for just a moment outside as he brought the stove back indoors.

          In his brief absence, I looked over at Dodo and her baby searching for answers in their eyes. Django had done such consultations with others before. I know. I had seen a Malagasy man walking into one on the day I ran off to join the Bacsos soccer parade, but I wondered did Dodo even have knowledge herself of what went on in their house. From her face, I could not tell. She just stared back and smiled bashfully at my expression of worry in disguise.

          Before I could search for more meaning, Django popped his frizzy head out from around the door’s corner and bid me entrance into his home.

          I would meet the spirits in the back room, the bedroom whose door Django always has shut and locked, but before I was allowed inside, Django gave me a speech to make sure that I was ready.

          The spirits, he explained, spoke a language like Greek but could also speak Malagasy, so through Django, they would communicate with me. He would play translator just as he does with my interviews.

          Aside from that, there wasn’t much more preparation he could give me.

          “Please be serious, my friend,” he warned.

          “Okay,” I said.

          “No. Please. Be serious.”

          “Okay. I will,” I promised. I tried to sound earnest. I didn’t want him to say it again because it gave me the creeps. It only made me wonder what would happen if I didn’t do as he said. It wasn’t Django I was scared of. It was those things he was taking me to meet. Django’s my friend, but I had never met these spirits.

          Django pulled a red scarf from out of his pocket and instructed that I wrap it around my eyes. I dared not ask why. I left my curious, journalist personality outside on the steps. I did not want to sound rude or stubborn by asking too many questions.

          When the scarf had been tied up tight over my vision, the fear factor increased tenfold. Like many people, I am, naturally, at an unease with my eyes all covered up.

          I had heard that, without vision, the other senses heighten, so I tried perking up my ears and twitching my nose to stay as aware as possible even without my sight.

          Django took my right hand, and slowly, he helped me up to a standing position, and carefully, he led me into the back room.

          No light passed through my blindfold. Django’s house has neither electricity nor windows, and the door had been shut to seal the darkness.

          There was only the light of the stove, which I could not see through the scarf but could feel warm and pulsing nearby me.

          Django sat me down onto a cool, cement floor, where Indian-style, I crossed my legs and waited nervously for the correspondence to begin.

          As Django did some last minute arrangements of the room, I focused on my posture. I didn’t want to be looking weak in front of the forest spirits.

          I heard Django place two things in front of me. They sounded like palm-sized stones, but that could be totally off.

          I felt Django’s loud exhale warm the back of my neck. He paused, and then, it began.

          Django muttered quickly under his breath, too fast for me to make out any words though I assume he was speaking Malagasy.

          When I heard this, I was at ease. It was just Django being Django I thought, and I tried to keep a serious face, but what I didn’t realize then was that the conversation still hadn’t started. Django’s words were a secret code that, like the ring of a telephone, let the spirits know that Django was ready to talk.

          There was another pause, and I relaxed into the quiet and darkness. Then, a loud banging from up above that sounded like heavy footfalls on metal overpowered the tiny room.

          ‘Wow. This is really elaborate,’ I thought. ‘Django has paid somebody to walk on the roof.’ I tried to reassure myself that this was the reason why there was noise, but my old uncertainty was coming back strong.

          And with a couple more aggressive bang bangs, the doubt was that these spirits were anything but real. I was lost, unable to keep up with the progression of events.

          Everything got very noisy. Abruptly and all at once, wild sounds, whose source and location I could not identify, exploded in my ears as if sent out from a movie theater’s shattering speakers.

          First, there was the sound of crashing, breaking. It was as if glass was being thrown angrily across the room. I flinched, afraid of getting hit, but I felt nothing. The entire experience was auditory.

          The smashing was a precursor to the frantic whir of what sounded like a pot that kept spinning wackily, intensely but that never toppled, halted, or fell to the ground. It was a constant locomotion over which the voice came out from all over in the room, humbling me nearly to goosebumps.

          The words were not in any Malagasy that I could comprehend. The spirit — there was only one — was a man’s voice, high-pitched almost to the point of helium and fast-moving, frenetic, and umbrageous. The voice gave the impression of belonging to someone old, short, and irascible. It was terrifying to hear, but the meaning of the spirit’s words were simple.

          “Wackity jackity wickity frick frackity flooavy mititcheeky spppppipitty bippity badooavy dipity deep.”

          “He say ‘mbola tsara,’” Django said.

          “Mbola tsara,” I responded.

          “Flookity slockity stippity whatico misinaja flockity jafoojoozabia moostucka milootootoo macadoo gesh.”

          Before every spirit sentence, the crashing came back as the pot kept on whirring and spinning.

          “He say ‘ino vaovao,’” Django said.

          “Tsitsy vaovao,” I responded.

          The conversation continued like this the whole time. It was short, slow-moving, small talk, and some of the things the spirit said made me think that it was just Django himself talking. They certainly did seem to share a lot of the same opinions, but if it was Django, I don’t know how he did it because there wasn’t a hint of his deep tone of slanted wisdom in this feral forest voice.

          It ended in a clang of silence. The voice stopped speaking and the pot stopped whirring with a dead, prompt halt.

          I remained still, shell-shocked so to speak though it wasn’t something terrible I’d just heard. It was… what was it? I guess I still don’t know.

          “Give me your hand,” Django ordered, and I held my right arm up towards his voice.

          He clasped it, led me back out, and told me I could take the blindfold off. Then, we both went back to the steps where Dodo and Ariana were as before — smiling, quiet, and apparently clueless.

          Django warned me not to tell anyone what had just happened. The spirits wouldn’t like that, he said. He continued talking, but his words became a background buzz behind my thoughts and shaken beliefs.

          Then, a moment of mental clarity came.

          “Oh,” I told Django. “Let me get my things from inside.” I had forgotten my bag on the floor of the front room.

          I have good memories in this room (eating fried fish, talking with Django, letting Ariana hold my finger), but now, its simple adornment of clothes and cooking supplies and the easy light and heat that filled the vacant spaces felt menacing. I thought of all the times I had been there and never known what was locked just behind it.

          I absorbed the space in its empty inscrutability and swiped my bag up off the ground before I could spook myself some more and before Django became suspicious.

          I stopped as I walked out the door and took one last look at the room. The door to the back had been left unlocked, and it wavered freely between closed and slightly ajar.

          I considered peeking around it, but I didn’t. I left the house and its mystery behind me.