I was struggling to open a can of powdered milk with a pocketknife when Kombate clapped his hands outside the window of my house and called, “Mademoiselle! Mademoiselle!”
I’d tried repeatedly to convince him to use my name, Gina. Mademoiselle was a holdover from the days when Togo was a French colony. I went to the window and pushed open the tin shutter. It banged against the cement-block wall.
“Come with me to see the judgment,” Kombate said. “A villager has eaten the crocodile.”
“The crocodile?” I asked. “The one that lives in the pond — the sacred crocodile?”
