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my lucky little friend there. Of course I’m willing to bargain,” he added, seeing my stunned expression.
    The cries of the infants made Otto shriek louder.
    â€œSophie, go back inside,” my mom said one last time.
    Despite myself, I thought about my bank account in the States. It had over two hundred dollars in it. If I convinced the man to give me enough time to get into town, and if by chance one of the Kinshasa ATMs was actually working today, I could get the money out and then come back here … but no. It was my buying Otto that encouraged the man to come here with these two more bonobos. I sat down, right where I was. My legs refused to hold me up.
    I hadn’t fainted, but nonetheless I couldn’t get my body to move. I’d pinned Otto’s arm under me as I fell, and I sensed from somewhere remote as he pulled his arm away and crawled onto my chest, staring worriedly into my eyes. Screeching softly, he stroked my face, pulled my lips with his fingers to get them to talk. Somehow I marshaled the concentration to lift an arm and pull him close. I turned my head to the side and watched my mom.
    She stopped being a person and became something like weather, lifting her body to all its formidable height and, with one blow, knocking the man to the ground. She stood over him.
    â€œThese creatures are nearly human, and to kill them is murder! Do you want to spend your life in prison? I have friends very high up, and they will take you away and you will simply disappear from the world. I called them the moment I saw you coming up the walk. Maybe you will not be lucky enough to make it to prison. Maybe I will have them slit your throat and feed you to the zoo crocodiles.”
    Believe it or not, those weren’t the big guns. She didn’t believe in witchcraft, but she knew her audience.
    â€œI am a sorceress, do you know that as well? I have touched you now, and my curse is already running through your blood. If you ever harm a bonobo again, my spirit will come at night and cut off your toes. Then it will feed them to you, one by one.”
    The man scrambled to his feet and jumped for his bike.
    â€œTake them, Mom!” I gasped. “Get those bonobos before he’s gone.”
    But the man heard me and freed a knife he’d lashed to the side of the bike.
    Undeterred, my mom stepped closer. “Do you think I’m scared of you because you have that little knife? I —”
    But she stopped, because the man swung the knife, not toward her, but toward the two screeching babies in the cage. Mom held up her hands.
    â€œIf you don’t take your curse off me, witch, I will kill them both right now,” the man said.
    â€œOkay,” Mom said quietly. She mumbled some nonsense words. “I take it off you.”
    The man waved the knife at her threateningly. “They are my property, and you cannot take them away. Do you want me to starve, madame? You will call your powerful friends and tell them to turn back. If you try to follow me, I will kill one. If you continue, I will kill the other.”
    He got on the bike, the knife pinned precariously between his palm and the handlebars.
    Patrice tried to pull me up from the ground as he went inside to get help. But I resisted, and he disappeared through the front door without me.
    I sat up on the ground and pointed wildly at the man. “Mom! You have to stop him!”
    But she was frozen still. “We cannot be the ones to take them. That is what caused this in the first place. And I believe him that he would kill them if we tried.”
    â€œBut, Mom —”
    â€œI already told you to take Otto away. Go inside!” she said, whirling on me furiously. I got to my feet.
    The bike was almost all the way down the driveway. The trafficker hadn’t had time to put the cover back on the cage, and I would forever remember the image of the two little bonobos in back. They clutched each other as the bike