(12 of 18)
Joseph borrowed the American's Swiss army knife. The moon came up, and Joseph, with an easy precision, relishing the job, began smooth surgery on the goat. He peeled away the hide from the clean inner sack. Halfway through that part of the operation, he and Olentwala leaned down and captured a pool of blood in a pocket of the hide, and drank deeply and loudly, slurping. After a draft, Joseph remembered his manners. He looked up from his drinking and offered the visitor some fresh blood, which was declined.
The sky was now full of brilliant stars. Joseph was happy with his work. He squatted by the rich bag of goat and sliced it with the Swiss knife, working like a surgeon toward the animal's inner pleasures. After five minutes, he came to an item that looked like an enormous cold-remedy capsule. Joseph with great precision peeled away the skin of the capsule, and then took the bright red little salami of it and popped it in his mouth. He made a sound of relish. "Kidney," he explained. He gave the second kidney to Olentwala.
At last the goat was butchered up neatly in the flashlight beam and deposited on its own still wet inner hide. Joseph festively carried the meat into the boma. A good fire burned there, and he skewered the thighs and shoulder pieces, hanging them over the flames, and dumped the innards into boiling pots of water. Joseph and Moses took relish in the feast. Among the Masai, the goat was profoundly appreciated. It was a holiday. For the Masai the goat had died well.
Two mornings later, Moses came to the campfire just after breakfast. He looked grave. He led the visitor to the hut where the Masai kept the baby goats at night, out of reach of leopards. Moses went inside and emerged with a baby goat in his arms. The goat was no more than a week old. It was thin and shaking, and its fur was wet and slick. The animal was clearly almost dead.
"What happened?" the visitor asked.
Moses shook his head, wearing a look of elegant forbearance.
"The driver Davis did it," said Moses.
"Did what?"
"I don't know why. He said the goat had too many flies. He sprayed the goat with insect spray from the can, all over, and now the goat is poisoned and is going to die."
The cook kept a bug bomb near the kitchen hut to drive off flies. Davis seems to have been seized by a purifying impulse.
The flies that attend the Masai are sometimes overpowering. They come with the cattle and are a fact of life, Masai and flies living in symbiosis. Walking among the Masai, one keeps a forearm waving in front of the face like an irregular windshield wiper chasing off the densities of flies.